Title: Grateful in Twenty Years
Author Name: Aisa
Era: Marauder's Era
Main Characters: Peter Pettigrew, Marauders
Summary: Peter Pettigrew has better things to do than enjoying his graduation ball. He wants to achieve at least one thing he can be proud of.
Disclaimer: All the characters in this story, except for Rita Creevey, belong to JK Rowling, and I don't earn money with this little story.
Author's Notes: God, I haven't written fanfiction in ages… I really wouldn't have guessed that I'd do it ever again, least of all about Peter Pettigrew :)
Click. Click. Click.
"Wormtail, put that camera down and enjoy your graduation ball! You have taken more pictures than you can ever put into that darn yearbook!" Sirius rolls his eyes.
"I am enjoying myself," Peter retorts. "And it's a magical yearbook for a reason. The photos will fit in there. Shut up, Padfoot!"
Click. James and Lily try to tango and it looks awful. They just can't dance.
Click. Bellatrix Black and Evan Rosier headbang somewhere near the teacher's table.
Click. Alice McKinnon and Frank Longbottom play air guitar – it's the 70s after all and the Rolling Stones even rule Hogwarts.
"You know, I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure Snivellus will kill you for that picture," Sirius comments, nodding towards the small bar where Severus Snape is getting drunk in the company of Rodolphus Lestrange.
"Come on, Peter, it's our graduation night!" Remus is a bit more patient, a bit more reasonable, as usual. The fact that he finally found himself a girlfriend didn't change that.
"Yes, it is my graduation night, Moony," Peter mutters while picturing Rita Creevey on the other side of the Great Hall – Rita Creevey who is doing the very same thing he does: Taking pictures of everyone. "It's my graduation night, and in a couple of years I want to have decent souvenirs of it. Let me do this, guys! In twenty years you'll be grateful!"
In twenty years you'll be grateful. That's their standard defence – the sentence that he and Rita Creevey have uttered at least twice a week since they started their ambitious project at the beginning of their 6th year at Hogwarts. They want a proper yearbook, a cool yearbook – not one of these boring things that list a couple of statements underneath a bad picture of each student. No. They want a great yearbook, a fantastic yearbook, worthy of the beautiful time they had at Hogwarts. And the yearbook will be gigantic! People like Dorcas Meadowes, Hestia Jones and Adrienne Wilkes have written beautiful articles about classes and projects. Groups of friends have written lovely texts about each and every member of their class. James and Alice have listed the results of each and every Quiddich match of the last three years. With a small spell you can listen to the performances of Flitwick's and Sloghorn's orchestra and choir projects or gigs of Sirius' band. It is a great yearbook. An nothing in the world will keep Peter from taking as many pictures as possible while drinking cups and cups of black tea and black coffee respectively. When the ball is done, he and Rita will do the last piece of work: Printing the books, which will probably turn out as thick as Lord of the Rings, that novel that Remus and Lily obsess about all the time.
"I can't believe you refuse to have a good time and spend your last night at Hogwarts printing year books!" James shakes his head as he and Lily join them at the Gryffindor table.
"Ah, come on!" Peter smirks. "You want to have something in your hands to show your kids, right?"
"Well… now that you mention it…" James tilts his head with a grin. "You're probably right!" He smiles at Lily, who immediately slaps his arm.
"Whoa, slow down, mister!" she growls. "We've been dating for barely eight months and you're thinking of kids already?"
Sirius shrugs. "You'll be the first ones to have kids anyway. And then comes Moony."
"I really doubt that I'll ever have kids," Remus dryly replies and shots a quick glance at his girlfriend who is dancing on her own. "I'll just appreciate the memory."
His words sting in Peter's heart. Peter also doubts that he'll ever have kids, he does all this work so he can appreciate the memory one day. But Remus at least managed to have a girlfriend. Even shy, quiet Remus managed to get together with Mimi, who is calm but blessed with a fierce feministic idealism, with which she calls out James on some of his more biased exclamations.
And Peter is still alone. Peter, who has closely collaborated with Rita Creevey for two bloody years, Peter, who is secretly infatuated with Rita Creevey, is still alone. Deep inside, he knows that his time at Hogwarts will be the best time in his entire life, and he wants to keep as many souvenirs as possible. He wants memories to look back to when the present becomes unbearable.
His friends will go their own way. James and Sirius have been accepted for the Auror Training Academy. Lily has received a place at the London Alchemy Laboratory. Remus will study in London. And Peter has no idea what he will do with the rest of his life. He is not a genius, like James, neither daring nor good-looking, like Sirius, and not a good learner, like Remus. He is average at best, and nobody wants average. Hell, even his animal form is unimpressive. A rat. He has no special talent, except for his drawing and photography skills. Maybe he will apply for a photographer's job at the Daily Prophet. He has gotten so used to looking at life through the lens of a camera… it gives him a voyeuristic kick. He will have these memories forever. Without the camera in hands, he would just stand around awkwardly.
Merlin, he wants to do at least one thing he can be proud of in his life! He helped making the Marauder's Map, but that thing catches dust in Filch's office now. He tried to retrieve it on his own, but all he earned was detention. He became an unregistered animagus, but… damnit, he transforms into a rat!
"Sure you don't want to dance at least?" Lily asks.
Peter raises his eyebrows. "I'm even a worse dancer than you and Prongs – and that's nearly impossible!"
"Oh, at least stop drinking that stuff!" James wrinkles his nose at the empty coffee cup. "You won't be able to sleep!"
"Can't sleep, have to print the papers with Rita."
His friends look at him as if he hadn't told them that twenty times already.
"All night?" asks James.
"That's a date, huh?" Sirius smirks.
"It isn't!" It really isn't, and Peter hates every bit of this truth.
"Hey!" Rita Creevey approaches them, but she ignores the other marauders and looks straight at Peter. "Got some nice pictures?"
"I guess." Peter shrugs.
"Maybe we should go now. It's gonna be a long night until we have printed copies for everyone…"
Peter sighs. "McGonagall came to me an hour ago," he says. "She wants a copy, too. The whole staff wants one."
"Merlin!" Rita shakes his head. "I thought they'd be happy to get rid of us!"
For a moment she looks lost. For a moment Peter wonders if she manically takes pictures for the same reason he does. But he can't imagine. She seems so bubbly.
"I got us coffee," he says awkwardly and points at the large pot next to him. "Or… do you want tea?"
"I'd like a beer," she says. "And you get one, too. No, not butterbear! Come on!" She puts a bottle of Broomsby's Brew into his hands and wraps her arm around his shoulder. "Let's get to work!"
"Good luck!" James, Remus and Peter call after them. Peter wants to slap Sirius for the kissing noises he makes.
They work all night. Magical copies are a pain in the ass. In the first few copies the pictures are upside down, the next attempts have mirror-inverted texts, then half of the articles are missing, then the page numbers are messed up, but as he finally looks at the first proper copy at three in the morning, he is more than satisfied.
"Beautiful!" His head feels light and dizzy. The beer was a bad idea. He goes back to coffee. But now they are done. Now they only need to watch how the spell produces copy after copy. There's nothing more to do.
"Good work, partner!" Rita slides down on the floor, right next to him. She smells of beer and ink. There is ink on her cheek. Her warmth spreads through her gown, and suddenly Peter is very aware of the fact that he has never been so close to a girl. The very shock sobers him at once.
Rita playfully salutes. "It was a pleasure to work with you, Mr Pettigrew!"
"Ditto!"
She leans towards him and kisses him on the cheek. He holds his breath. She is so close. She smells good underneath the beer and ink. She smells of the things he'll never have. Wife and kids. Or even one goddamn relationship. He isn't relationship material. Apparently, he isn't even kiss-on-the-mouth material, while Sirius flirts with this girl or that and James and Remus plan their futures with their girlfriends.
And suddenly the future looks like a yawning hole that will swallow everything. Everything! All the good times he had in Hogwarts. If he doesn't seize the chance tonight, he never will, and he will stay alone for the rest of his life! So he takes a deep breath and gathers all his courage. He is a marauder after all, and a Gryffindor, for Godric's sake! So he leans forwards and kisses her on the lips. And to his utter surprise, she doesn't shy away. To his utter surprise, she pulls him closer.
The yearbooks are a huge success. He and Rita distribute them the next morning, during their very last breakfast in the Great Hall. Both of them have dark shadows beneath their eyes, they have slept for merely two hours, but Peter can't stop smiling.
"That's awesome!" Lily's smile is radiant. "Really, that's amazing, Peter!" She happily skims over the article about her potion class.
Rita proudly smiles at Peter over the heads of the Ravenclaws. Peter smiles back. He would have blushed under normal circumstances, but now he doesn't blush anymore. His head is full of memories and pictures for which he didn't need a lens. Her smell is still in his nose. But what makes him even happier is the glow of admiration he perceives. His classmates love the yearbook, and they are well aware that he has worked very hard to make it perfect. At least in this respect nobody will think him lazy anymore!
"Impressive." Frank Longbottom nods approvingly. "But did you really have to stalk us two years for this?"
Peter grins. "In twenty years you'll be grateful!"
He doesn't know yet that he will spend a considerable amount of these twenty years in the form of a rat. He doesn't know yet that James and Lily will be dead for seventeen of these twenty years, and that Sirius will spend most of this time in Azkaban. He doesn't know yet that Remus will want to kill him in approximately seventeen years. He doesn't know yet that he himself will betray his friends whom he caught on magical paper to never forget them. He doesn't know yet that he will strangle himself with his own hand.
Right now, as he watches his classmates leaf through his paper, he is proud of himself for the very first time. He has never known this feeling before, and it is amazing. And for this feeling, for this short time in the spotlight, he will be grateful for the next twenty years – on the days when the present becomes too unbearable.