Chapter 7: Machiavellian Prince

One morning Remus Lupin woke up to see his blankets in his blurred vision. He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Indeed, there was a lump in front of him, hidden under his blankets. The lump was breathing, slowly.

He laid stiff still. "U-uh."

"Hi," said Christopher, who rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his elbow.

"W-why," Remus said.

Christopher yawned. He curled up and turned away from Remus, stole all the blankets back from Remus and pulled them over his head. "Good night," he said.

"Wait but it's-" Remus looked at the clock in a panic. "Class-" He panicked and fretted. He clutched his hair. He didn't know why Christopher was in his bed and he didn't know why Christopher was not getting out of his bed and what if they were late for classes and didn't they have to go to class-

"もう。。。やめてよー," Christopher grumbled, curling up further. "うるせえな。。。"

Remus held his breath. He stared with wide eyes and his heartbeat thumped.

"Dios mio…もう。。。何してんだよーくそ。。。tranquilo! tranquilo...早く。。。"Christopher groaned and Remus watched the caterpillar of blankets shift around. "You were so fluffy before..." Christopher whined, burrowing into the blankets.

Remus actually felt sorry, sorry because Christopher's whinny was quite a sad sounding thing, and also sorry because he really didn't understand the reason for it, or anything, in the first place.

Remus held stick still, held his breath. It was silent.

"I can feel that you know," Christopher said flatly, turning over and staring Remus right in the eye.

Remus stared completely baffled. He hadn't even done anything!

"What?" He blinked. "Wait! Class you have to-we have to-clas-" he reached out, unsure whether to touch or not-

"God, can a person sleep anywhere without being bothered," Christopher grumbled, swung out of bed, grabbed a pillow and stalked off. Remus peeked out of the curtain.

James stood in his pajamas, one foot hanging out, gaping.

Christopher stumbled right past a frozen James. He grabbed all the blankets off of his own bed and promptly stuffed himself and his blankets and his pillows under his bed.

Then he crawled underneath, curled up in the corner and stayed there balled up in the tiniest ball Remus had ever seen a person roll himself into.

"Why does he sleep with you!" James yelled all of a sudden.

"I-I don't know," Remus squeaked.

"YOUU…" James hopped forwards threateningly- tripped over his pajama pants. "GAH!" Remus felt his eyes bug open.

"What is happening," Sirius mumbled as he brushed his teeth and foam came out.

"Chrisssss," James whined, running around the dorm and sticking his head under Christopher's bed. "Chrisss."

Remus felt that James probably was annoying Christopher. He felt like Christopher was a cat trying to sleep unbothered in random places. And that right now James was the annoying child trying to pet the cat.

"Merlin," Sirius grumbled, shook his head and shuffled back into the bathroom.

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"Sleep with me," James demanded.

A passing seventh year student choked on her spit, shot the group of first-year boys a strange look, and walked away coughing.

"No," Christopher said flatly.

"Why," James pouted. "Sleep with meeee."

Christopher sighed.

"Why are you sleeping with the loser," James complained.

Christopher put his head down on the desk. He couldn't explain it actually, or more like he could, but it would sound weird. It appeared that closer to the moon Remus's magic was bristly and provocative, but further from the moon, it became normal, and when Remus was sound asleep, it actually became the softest and fluffiest cloud of fluff, like a bunny tail. But, Christopher thought moodily, as soon as Remus woke up, Christopher could feel Remus's anxiety making spikes all over the ball of fur, making it once again impossible to sleep.

"Is your bed uncomfy? Sleep with me instead," James said. "We're mates right? So sleep with me! Oh. Oh, or, sleep with Sirius. Sleep with me and Sirius!"

"Morning," Lily said as she sat down on the opposite side of Christopher. James, on Christopher's left, started to growl.

Christopher instantly perked up. "Hey, there," he said, and rested his head on his elbow, turning his head away from James. Lily sent James a nasty look, then pulled out a giant stack of books, and papers, and started to chatter about things James didn't understand at all.

Something to do with numbers and something like arithmancy but not arithmancy and equations and Christopher seemed to understand it, but all of it made James' head hurt, so he turned to Sirius who was snoring on the table and poked him until Sirius woke up and punched James in the face, resulting in James spending the day in the hospital wing feeling sorry for himself.

"What happened, poor dear," Madame Pomfrey said.

"He wouldn't sleep with me," James pouted.

Pomfrey gaped.

"He slept with a loser instead," James huffed. "I saw it with my own eyes. Can you believe that."

Pomfrey gasped, long and slow.

And that is how James Potter became the youngest student in the history of Hogwarts to receive a full speech about "Wands" and "Dueling" from an appalled and shocked Madame Pomfrey.

"She just kept telling me that I was too young to be doing that sort of stuff," James complained in the dorm that day. "She told me I was young so I ought to keep my wand to myself. Can you believe that? I told her she's wrong, that I'm already eleven, and my wand is long and strong and I'm going to use it as much as I can. It was so weird, she just kept talking about wands and dueling and how wizards have got to protect themselves. I told her I already knew all that stuff but she wouldn't listen and kept saying I didn't understand."

Christopher started to laugh. He fell onto the floor and rolled himself into sausages he was laughing so hard.

It was the first time James and Sirius and Remus had seen Christopher Pettigrew laugh like that. James stared, and Sirius also started to laugh. Remus didn't know what was happening, and felt left out, so he climbed into bed and pretended not to be there.

Needless to say, it was a very strange dynamic in the first-year Gryffindor boys' dorm.

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Christopher was quite looking forward to...well, nothing.

He yawned and didn't bother to cover his mouth. Beside him, James yawned. A few minutes of silence. Sirius yawned.

Christopher yawned again-

"Stop it!" Sirius growled. "These things are contagious."

Christopher continued to yawn slow and long as though swallowing a balloon. His mouth seemed to stretch impossibly wide and then slowly close. It was rather like watching a sloth, everything in slow-motion.

Christopher picked up the fork and missed the plate, stabbing James' hand right as James began to yawn. "Shite!" James yelled clear across the hallway.

It was quite amusing, thought Amos Diggory as he passed by. In all his years at Hogwarts he had seen many strange things but not a trio of first years sitting on the floor outside the Great Hall eating breakfast.

"Why are you not eating inside," Amos Diggory asked after many days and weeks of watching the same thing.

"Because," James said loudly and proudly.

"It would be rather annoying don't you think," Sirius continued, even more loudly and proudly, "everyone having to eat at the same table, so close together."

"And so loudly talking," James said, "about stupid and irrelevant things."

"We are so very serious," Sirius said.

"Very serious students," said James as he downed a glass of pumpkin juice. "Very serious indeed. Right, Chris?"

The third boy, whose name Amos could not remember was staring at the wall seeming completely unaware. The boy took a deep breath. It seemed to Amos that he was preparing to say something very serious and deep indeed.

Amos leaned in.

The boy opened his mouth. And yawned. Slowly.

Amos could have banged his head against the wall. "What?" he asked again after the boy had finished yawning.

"Oh," the boy said. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes I"

"Were you talking to me?"

"Yes I"

"Oh sorry."

And at the same time Sirius Black and the boy said, simultaneously, "It's not you it's me."Sirius rolled his eyes and dug into a pancake. The other boy said nothing.

"That's what he always says," Sirius explained through mouthful of food. "Ifh nwot you ifh mwe."Amos fought not to grimace. It was really a nasty sight.

Amos frowned and said, "Have a nice day." Then he walked away shaking his head.

"Did you have to do that," James complained when the tall boy went away. "My dad knows his dad. They come to all our parties. He's probably gonna tell on me and I'mma get a Howler."

Christopher started to yawn. Sirius groaned. James blinked and also started to yawn.

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Autumn rolled through Hogwarts with cooler winds and reddening leaves and oh so wonderful-Quidditch games.

James was so pumped about the first Quidditch game that he was decking out the red and gold scarves and wrapped himself so tightly in them he was practically a mummy.

Christopher disappeared completely on the day prior. In reality, he wandered to the 7th floor and sat down on the window ledge, watching the light of the day pass through stages. So when James found Christopher in the dorm the day of the match he pounced.

"Quidditch?" Christopher said slowly. "It doesn't seem very exciting, except for the Seeker's job. There seems to be a logical fallacy. Why should the rest of the players even be there when their points can be so easily negated by the single capture of the snitch? The game is too lopsided, a good Seeker can end a game before the other players can even play. Who came up with this game? Oh right." Then he paused. "Never mind."

"Pleasssse," James begged, red and gold Quidditch blanket curled around him, hazel eyes peering out. He pouted exaggeratedly. "Pweeeeease!"

Christopher groaned.

"Yes!" James exclaimed.

Christopher marveled. It seemed that in the few months James and Sirius had been following him around (cough stalking) James had learned how to interpret Christopher's caveman linguo. Which groans were No's, which were yes's, which shrugs meant what, and even sometimes grunting- James and Sirius were both becoming rather good at interpreting him.

Lily, of course, being his dear Lily, had been ridiculously perceptive and understood him from the very start. Kind of.

So there he was, twenty minutes before the Quidditch game started, in the middle of the grounds on the way to the field, stuck like a dog chew toy between yippy terrier James and raging pitbull Lily.

"He's sitting with me!" James yelled, growling at Lily.

"He's my friend! He's sitting with me!" Lily yelled back.

They were growling at each other like wild dogs.

Christopher watched blankly. Sirius stood next to him.

"Why can't we all sit together…" Christopher said. "Like in a square formation…"

They didn't hear him.

He sighed into his shoulder.

Sirius laughed.

"Let's go get seats while they duel it out," Sirius said, moving along down. He looked back. "Coming?"

Christopher made a noise and followed, slowly. When the stands came into view, a huge gust of magic all mushed together and wild hit him like a blast in the face.

"You okay?"

Christopher blinked. His eyes focused. He realized he had crouched on the ground with his head between his knees. Huh. "Yeah," he said absentmindedly. He felt a little sick, but it was...it was bearable, he thought, running a nervous hand through his hair.

Sirius eyed him. Sirius hmmed, and offered him a hand. Christopher didn't want to take it, because he didn't like to touch people, but Sirius' magic was quite dark and lulling like black waves in the ocean and so Christopher let him pull him up. Sirius stuck close to his side, his arm brushing against Christopher's. He seemed to not want to lose Christopher, and walked a little ahead, ushering them through spots with the less crowds and more open space.

"This way," Sirius said, and picked an area with the least amount of people. Christopher watched him curiously. "Are you coming?" Sirius turned and asked. Christopher realized he had just been standing.

"Oh," Christopher said, and looked at his feet. They really did not want to move, did they.

"Merlin," Sirius exhaled, and walked back. Christopher watched Sirius' shoes bump against the tips of his own rundown sneakers. "Now what are you looking at?" Sirius sighed, and Christopher watched Sirius wrap his hand around Christopher's wrist. Christopher felt very dull at this moment, very buzzed and out of his own body. "You're like a cat," Sirius said, turning and gently pulling Christopher along. "You suck at following people. Whenever I look back you're gone."

"Thanks," Christopher said, when his mouth came back to his body. Wherever it went.

Sirius paused. He turned and looked at him. "Yeah," he said, and Christopher went back to watching Sirius' feet shift uncomfortably. "Come on. James and Lily are gonna be screaming soon." Sirius' left foot kicked at the dirt. His foot looked very embarrassed, Christopher thought.

"We can make them get food," Sirius continued and trailed off. His foot also paused. Then fell hard in the dirt. "Do you want anything?"

"Not hungry," Christopher said. It came out of him very flatly, the words.

Sirius sat down next to him in the stands. A couple minutes later, Sirius stood up, said, "I'm gonna get food." A few minutes later, Sirius feet reappeared in Christopher's vision, black shoes against the metal stands.

"That was quick," Christopher said, and his head felt lighter so he looked up. Sirius had two bags of chocolate frogs and a cup of something steaming.

"Here," he said, and gave it to Christopher.

It was a cup of coffee.

"Where did you get this?" Christopher asked. His face folded into a frown. "I didn't know they had coffee at these events." For whatever reason, wizarding events tending to have most pumpkin juice and orange juice. Coffee, he had read, or at least, coffee that wizarding folk were willing to drink, was quite expensive.

Sirius snorted. "They don't." Sirius grinned. "At least not for commoners. They have it for the rich and noble families in the stands though. And who do you think I am?"

"Oh so you do acknowledge it," Christopher said.

"That I'm rich and noble?" Sirius looked at the field. "I'm not an idiot. And you're not Potter," he said, almost carefully, eyes narrowing. He looked very much like a snake, in that moment, very Slytherin.

"James wouldn't care," Christopher said watching him dully.

Sirius didn't respond.

In the moment Christopher wondered how much of Sirius and James' friendship was real and how much had been started based on Sirius knowing that to survive in Gryffindor he needed a Potter's reputation to boost his own. Sirius' face was not that of a child talking about a trusted friend, it was that of an intelligent Heir irritated by the circumstances of his current existence.

Christopher held the cup in his hand but didn't drink any.

"And for Merlin's sake it wasn't the House Elves, don't look at me like that. I didn't make them make your coffee. I know you hate them and anything they make," Sirius said, looking bored. He put his feet up on the bench in front of them.

"..Hn," Christopher made a noise. The steam wafted in his face, made his tired eyes water. But still he didn't drink.

Sirius noticed. "I made it," Sirius admitted and looked at Christopher carefully, "The stupid squib at the stand wanted to make it but I pushed him out and made it myself. And I know you like it black. It's just coffee, no milk, no sugar, no other stuff." Sirius was watching Christopher like he was an interesting experiment.

"How did you know?" Christopher mused, slowly, turning his head.

"What," Sirius said shortly. "That you have some weird fear of poison?"

The word poison almost made Christopher flinch. Or. Well. He did flinch. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, a churning.

"Sorry. But don't look so surprised. Potter is a little dense at times, probably runs in the family, but Blacks are not as soft," Sirius looked bored and sharp, voice lowered. "I've seen it before."

Christopher, in all his seventy lives, felt his eyebrows lift. Eleven year old Sirius Black, "seen it before"-seen what before? People with a conditioned fear of other people poisoning their food? What on earth did being the Black heir in a family famed for insanity and dark magic entail...

Sirius Black, in that moment, by all means, with his jet black hair and aristocratic, soon-to-be handsome face, looked every bit a Machiavellian Prince.

A little scary, and a little amusing.

Christopher's nose twitched, and his stomach clenched, but he downed the coffee. It was warm and a little thick but it hit his stomach somewhere he'd forgotten where it went and made it warm from the bottom up.

"Alright?" Sirius was watching him.

Christopher nodded.

A couple minutes later and the sound of yelling and squabbling and feet banging on the stands came. It was Lily and James, and they just barely shut up when Sirius shoved the chocolate frogs in their hands. Lily shoved her way to sit on Christopher's left side, and Sirius was sitting on Christopher's right, so James pouted and sat in front of Christopher's legs.

In the end, it was alright, Christopher thought to himself. He was stuffed in between, huddled in a coat, and he was surprised when Sirius wrapped the scarf around both of them. He almost flinched away, but Sirius paused, and Christopher looked at him, and Sirius slowly wrapped it around their necks while he watched. Christopher wasn't quite sure what Sirius was up to with his suddenly-being-generous act, but let him. Sirius' magic was okay, he decided.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets. James'and Lily's and Sirius'-and Remus's for that matter, though he wasn't here at the moment- magic had grown on him over time, all of it familiar and even the agitation of sitting in the midst of a Quidditch audience was alright. It had been a long time, he mused, since he was able to sit in a group of people and not feel like he was going to puke. To be honest, he wasn't paying too much attention to the game.

He was soaking in the presence of the magical presences that had become familiar to him, around him; like a bubble, their presences masked the haywire magics of the crowd around them. He closed his eyes and let his chin dip into the scarf, inhaling the scent of Sirius and cold air and scarf fuzz.

It was a wonderful feeling, he thought to himself.

He could breathe.

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In December, the sign up sheet went up to sign if the students were heading home or staying at Hogwarts for the winter break. Snow was falling outside and collecting on the ground. Sirius was in detention as usual, for calling McGonagall "Minnie."

"Aren't you going home for Yule?" James asked, seeing that Christopher had stopped in front of the sign.

Uh. Memories of his 'father', or more accurately, Pettigrew's horrific household situation popped up in his mind, and he felt like stomach clench. Hell no he was not eager to spend Christmas with that.

'Naaaaah," Christopher drawled with a shrug.

"Really?" James asked, frowning. "You should come to my place then!" He grinned.

Christopher turned his head at this, and seemed to regard James curiously. James reveled in the attention, and Christopher could see the boy perk up. He felt a little bad ignoring the boy half the time, but it wasn't even effort on his part, he just did that to everyone. It was second nature.

"Thanks," he said, and tried to make it sound soft, "but nah."

"Aw," James pouted. "Next time!" he grinned, unhurt. "And you can always change your mind!"

Not for the first time, Christopher wandered the hall with James bouncing up and down beside him, chattering about this or that despite Christopher's non-enthusiastic responses. It was quite incredible, he thought to himself.

"You're a good kid, James," he said, interrupting James.

James stopped and stared.

Christopher also stopped walking. He felt very soft on the inside all of a sudden. He felt a little mellow, a sad sort of appreciation for James' brightness.

"Well," James said after a silence, and his hazel looked dead serious into Christopher's eyes, for a moment startling him with their intensity, their earnest fire, "We're friends," he said.

There was no question in the power of it surprised Christopher, made him stop. Made his eyes widen, a little.

He was so surprised that he answered without thinking,

"Okay."

And then he could have rescinded it, except he couldn't have, because James grinned so brightly that Christopher found himself speechless. There was such emotion in it, and such emotion in James magic, that James's magic was dying itself bright and red like the sun itself, and he was, quite literally, blinded by the light of James' soul.

Well. That was a first, he thought, and rubbed his eyes.

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The castle became very empty.

Christopher forgot that it was Christmas, until there was a barrage of owls at the window, which apparently Sirius and James had ganged up together to create. Chris thought that Sirius must have been the one to send the angry, loud, and pooping owls, and James was probably the one that sent the nice owls that tried to rub against him like cats (a little disturbing, too). Then again, the two were just ridiculous enough that James would mistake anger owls for enthusiastic owls and Sirius just emotionally constipated enough for him to somehow screw up niceness and anger. Chris didn't know. Sirius was a strange boy- he never seemed to know if he was going to be nice to Christopher or not.

Whatever.

They dumped things on his bed, presents-no, not bird poop but actual presents- and flew out in a mess of feathers and squawks.

Christopher realized that no owls had come for the sleeping silent Remus. Christopher crept under Sirius bed and found his chocolate stash, and then dumped some on Remus nightstand. A Christmas gift, he decided, for the kid.

Sirius was a dick to the poor kid anyway and Sirius had all these chocolates that he forgot he even had; and besides they'd get moldy by the time Sirius came back to Hogwarts anyway. Christopher was just being a good roommate and doing some house cleaning...and some recycling.

It kind of amused him, this playing Santa, while Christopher could feel Remus's magic kind of perk up from inside the bed with Remus's curiosity. Remus could probably smell both Christopher and the chocolate, it was getting close to the full moon. And because Remus's aura was so prickly right now, Christopher made efforts to duck around it for the most part. He stole one of James socks and stuffed it with more of Sirius's stashed chocolate. For the kicks he dropped one of James embarrassing pairs of boxers into Remus drawer with a note "if ever blackmailed, get out of jail free card"

Then Christopher had amused himself and called it a good day and felt pretty proud of himself for doing something for once.

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"He's most likely merely having difficulties adjusting," Dumbledore said in the meeting.

McGonagall gnashed her teeth together. She did not want to cause undue stress by bothering the eleven year old boy known as Christopher Pettigrew.

Besides, she supposed, Dumbledore was correct. The most concerning of the first years was Remus Lupin, who always looked ill and sickly-and was, and furthermore was a legal risk for the school, and for himself, by the fact of his mere existence. Then there was the problematic Black heir who had defied all expectations and caused a potential political backlash by joining the Gryffindor house. James Potter whose wealthy family was heavily invested in Hogwarts and therefore needed careful observation and care. Not to mention the mugglenorn Lily Evans brimming with potential to serve as a figurehead of muggleborn rights in the future. And that was only among her Gryffindors. The new first-years were certainly not a dull bunch...

"Now," Dumbledore threaded his hands together, the twinkle in his eyes dulling with seriousness. "Let us discuss…"

Indeed, there were much greater things to worry about, McGonagall acknowledged, than a single perhaps lazy student. The stirrings of political unrest in the wizarding world, the increasing rate of crimes against muggleborns… What a dark world. Indeed, there were many more concerning matters at hand.

And so the file of one Peter not-Peter Pettigrew, small and thin and untouched, was pushed under the pile of thicker files, and laid there for years and years, forgotten.

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A/N: Sorry guys for late updates! I'm studying abroad right now, and writing chapters takes me ridiculously long anyways. Anyway, thanks for reading and please drop a review! Many of you leave wonderful feedback and ideas/suggestions/questions and I read all of them many many times for inspiration and for help and they do indeed influence the way this story goes, so if you like this story please leave a review! would make my day :) thanks guys