A/N: Love to my reviewers
And to Countess Black, as always.
Grass means 'submission and utility'.
The ending paragraph is a reference to Katheryn Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, whom he executed for adultery. Her dying words were allegedly "I die the wife of a king, but would rather die the wife of Tom Culpepper". Henry VIII called her 'rose without a thorn.'
Wormtail is dreaming. He lies on his back, sprawled on a pile of filthy burlap sacks in some muggle's shed. The muggle is likely dead; Greyback would have wanted to feed. That is not Wormtail's purview, and he if he once cared about such things, that time is past. Now all he cares about is finding something to eat, staying out of Bellatrix and Greyback's way, and what he's doing now.
Rats have no morality. No sense of pity, or propriety, or good or evil. They just Are. He knows he did something Bad as a Man, but in rat form he doesn't have to remember anything about it. He sees faces, sometimes—a man with eyes like pits. Another man. This one is kinder. A woman with hair(rats, being colour blind, have no sense of shade and tone) like a rustling curtain and a smile. A baby.
"Oh, you poor thing, did Percy forget you again?"
If he focuses very, very hard, he can sometimes use the part of him which is still human to feel. The Rat can feel things, but they are great slashes of emotion: Happy or Sad or Scared or Threatened. The Human feels other things, abstractions and wonderings and memories.
The Woman is stroking his back. No woman, in his human form, ever touched him of their own volition. He recalls once paid a whore in Knockturn Alley for three minutes of mechanical, blank faced fucking, but that was all, and then it is gone. This woman is touching him because She likes him.
She is carrying the Rat up the stairs and into his den. Well, the boy's den, but really it's his. Just as the Boy is his in every way that counts. He is fond of the Woman, but the Rat loves the Boy as much as he can.
The Boy leaps up. "Scabbers! I was coming to get you, but George wanted me to show him how to fix his dragon first."
The Rat bounces with joy in Her arms. His Boy, his Boy is here! The Woman hands him over, and the Boy cuddles the Rat under his chin.
The Woman gives the Boy a kiss, and Scabbers a scratch on the ears. His legs twitch with pleasure, and in his human sleep Peter Pettigrew smiled. The Boy is chattering excitedly, holding him the whole time.
"Hogwarts tomorrow, Scabbers. Are you afraid?"
That name is familiar. His tiny heart gives a painful squeeze but the Rat pushes it away. His human mind whispers that it might be best for him to escape tonight. Find a new family. Muggles, perhaps.
His Boy holds him tighter. "I'm scared. But you'll be there, and we can Owl Mum and Dad any time we like. It won't be so bad." The rat cannot detect much nuance, but he smells the acrid fear on the Boy's skin.
Most animagi retain their human minds in animal form, as much as possible. With training, it is not difficult to do. But he was never trained, and he would ignore the training if he'd had it. In this one thing is Pettigrew like Greyback; he has embraced the beast completely, sloughed off his human skin like a snake's. This is a safe place; he has the luxury of forgetting and he takes it. He will never be this lucky again.
The Human tries to whisper again and Scabbers ignores him. The Human did the Bad Thing. The Rat can sense the poison in the Human's mind and it wishes to sling it forth from itself. It cannot. The Rat snuggles into the Boy's hands.
The Human has given up. Curled in on himself, he waits for the right time. He can't be a rat forever. Hogwarts is a good starting point. Perhaps try to contact Lucius Malfoy. Not Snape. Never Snape.
The Rat is blissfully indifferent to all the plotting going on a few neurons away. For him, there is Now, and Now is his Boy and his bed and a moonlight prowl for crumbs as soon as his Boy is safely nested and the house is still.
"Good night, Scabbers." The Rat has their shared body lie down on the boy's pillow, and the Human doesn't protest. He is still plotting, but for a moment, wonders if he shouldn't let it all go and be the Rat.
"Love you."
He'll worry about it later. Now, he curls into his Boy and sleeps.
A boot in his side. Wormtail sits and stares into the deranged face of Bellatrix Lestange. "I said get up, idiot!" He stands, dusting himself off, and leaves the illusory safety of the little outbuilding. The moon is high above them, and Greyback has given over to the animal within. He is leagues from here, likely, but will return at dawn bloody faced and grinning.
She's ranting at them again, the few who are left. Perhaps she learnt from the Dark Lord. "We'll live as kings! Kings! But first we must cleanse the impure and bring the rest back to the fold!"
"Impure? Like your blood traitor nephew?" Macnair sounded amused and a little defiant both, as though he is thinking to articulate the question they're all thinking about who left her in charge.
Wormtail thinks on his warm box at the Burrow, the tattered old scarf and the crumbs of biscuit Arthur Weasley used to feed him whenever Molly wasn't looking. It's cold here, and they've been eating whatever they could find.
"You have no faith! No faith in the Dark Lord's plans! You're unwilling to work! Lazy whoresons!"Bellatrix's shrieks could rouse the dead. Wormtail steps forwards and says "I'm going to change and take a look around."
"Running away, are you? Just like the rest of these stupid, useless--"
"Actually, I thought I'd see whether there was food enough for all of us somewhere near by."
Bellatrix calms slightly. "Be back by midnight."
He nods and makes for the rose bushes he saw on the side of the house.
"Wormtail?"
"Yes, Bellatrix?"
"I've been under stress lately." She looks away and he understands he is both dismissed and apologized to, a little. "I understand, dear lady."
"We must all make sacrifices. Your hard work now will permit us to make things over in His vision. Be assured it has been noticed and your reward will be great." Wormtail slips away and makes the change.
There is an irony of which he takes note as he melts and reforms in rodent shape; he could, if the plan goes well, die as nearly a king, but he would rather die a humble rat, for as a rat he was loved.