November 4th, 1977: Peter Pettigrew
Sirius has been hanging around Peter and Emmeline like a lost puppy for the last few days, and Peter is already holding his breath like the situation is going to boil over any moment. It's not that Peter doesn't understand why he's doing it. Marlene has staked her claim in Mary and Lily, which naturally means James as well, and Alice and Remus have been doing a lot together when Alice isn't off spending time with Dirk Cresswell. That just leaves Peter and Emmeline out of all of the Gryffindor seventh years, and Sirius has rather obviously been starved for companionship avoiding them for the last month. Peter's seen him around with Eddie Bones and Meghan McCormack from the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and with Frank Longbottom and Dana Madley from Ravenclaw, and even with Benjy Fenwick, who without Elisabeth looks even more lost than Sirius does. But Peter can tell from Sirius's body language when he watches him that Sirius doesn't feel he clicks with any of them the way he does, or at least used to do, with the Gryffindor seventh years.
As the days pass, Peter's finding himself feeling more and more bitter that he and Emmeline are obviously Sirius's last-place choice of companions now that he's on the outs with others. It's unlike him to resent the other Marauders for leaving him out—when it does happen, he's usually pretty understanding—and he wonders if he's subconsciously trying to twist himself away from his friends to feel less guilty about this business between himself and Alecto Carrow. If he stops being mates with all of them, focuses on all the ways they've wronged him, he'll feel less guilty for inevitably betraying all of them to Death Eaters, won't he? Because that's where this is heading, isn't it?—to Peter giving away all of their names and their doings, too, once they're in the Order for real?
Peter knows from Emmeline that Sirius sat her down the other day and tried to support her and that it didn't go over great. "What's wrong with me?" she bemoaned to Peter afterward. "Why can't I just let people be nice to me without second-guessing everything?"
But it can't have gone too badly, because Sirius has been making a point of sitting with the two of them at mealtimes and studying with them in the common room. Peter can see the tension in Emmeline's shoulders and the jumpy looks Sirius keeps pointing toward Marlene, but nothing has blown up yet, so maybe it won't.
Will it?
It gets particularly bad on Friday night, when Emmeline bows out of the library to use the restroom and then, twenty minutes later, still hasn't returned. "It's because of me, isn't it?" Sirius remarks with a sigh as he sets his quill in his ink pot and flexes his wand hand.
"You don't know that. Things aren't going well for Em in general lately," says Peter fairly.
"I should at least go and check on her."
"No, I'll go," Peter says. "She'll react better to me. Sorry, mate."
He sets down his parchment and stands up, but Sirius stops him with a quick, "What did you do to make her trust you? What do I have to do to…?"
"You just have to be persistent—make sure she knows that you're not going to let her get away with hiding."
"Then at least let me go with you."
Peter sighs. "Why are you suddenly so invested in fixing things with Em, anyway? Is this some kind of rebound because things are bad with Marlene and Moony right now?"
"Do I have to have some underhanded reason?"
"So that's a yes, then."
Sirius glares at him, but it looks like his heart isn't in it. "Come on, let's go, then."
They pack up their stuff and Emmeline's and head to the girls' bathroom that's kitty-corner to the library. Peter knocks on the door and says Emmeline's name, but there's no answer, so with a furtive look at Sirius, he says, "Sirius and I are coming in, okay?" and pushes open the door.
Sirius follows him in. There's an underclassman girl rinsing her hands at one of the sinks, but at the scowl that Sirius gives her, she dries her hands quick as she can and practically lunges out of there. Peter checks the stalls for feet and finds one that's occupied—bingo. "I'm coming in. Are you decent?"
"Go away," says Emmeline in a muffled voice.
"Afraid I can't do that," says Peter patiently while Sirius casts Colloportus on the door and then leans precariously against the wall. "You didn't really think we weren't going to notice you disappearing, did you?"
"I just needed a minute."
"Well, it's been twenty, and you're still in here," Peter says gently.
And then Sirius completely surprises Peter by saying, "If it's me, I don't have to hang around you anymore. I just want you to be okay."
"No, it's fine, I know you're on the outs with—everybody."
"Well, not everybody," Sirius says, laughing. "Two people, maybe."
"Enough that you're stuck with me and Peter."
"Nobody's stuck with anybody," says Peter. "And he wants to help you as much as I do."
Sirius breaks in, "Do you know what I think about when I think about you, Emmeline?" Silence. "I think about that time in third year that we accidentally blew up our cauldron and covered Slughorn in enough Shrinking Solution that he was barely two centimeters tall by the time it was through with him. I think about passing notes back and forth in History of Magic and getting in trouble with McGonagall for getting caught in the kitchens at two in the morning sneaking pastries. Do you remember that?"
"Yeah," says Em quietly through the stall door.
"That's what I remember. Not the bad times. And I don't want that girl that I cared about so much to disappear."
Emmeline snorts. "Too late. I'm not that person anymore."
"Maybe, but we still have a history, and that still means something to me."
There's a rustling sound, and then Emmeline pulls the stall door open and emerges. Her face looks blotchy and red like she's been crying.
"I don't want to talk about it," she says, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her robe.
Peter reaches for her and gives her a big hug. She doesn't really hug back very hard, but he can feel her shaking through his grip on her.
"There's my best friend," says Sirius earnestly, and Em laughs a little.
"I thought that was James."
"Yeah, but it's you, too," he insists.
"Not for a long time."
"That doesn't mean I ever stopped caring about you," says Sirius.
"Stop being so nice to me. It's entirely unbecoming of you."
Sirius snickers. "Ask me that again later."
After they depart from the restroom, they split up: Em wants to go back to the library to get some more work done, and Sirius insists on accompanying her, so Peter (after a questioning look toward Emmeline that she answers with a nod) decides to head back to the common room and teach himself more guitar. He knows he's terrible at it still, but he likes to think he's making progress and that he'll start getting better sooner rather than later.
"Hey, traitor."
Peter looks up and around to find Alecto Carrow smirking at him from across the hall. He folds his arms over his chest, feeling suddenly naked. "What more do you want from me?"
"Give me another one."
"You already got your name from me."
"Well, now I want another one."
"And who are you going to threaten this time, huh?" Peter demands, sounding much braver than he feels. "How do you know I'm not going to turn around and report this to Dumbledore?"
"Please. If you were going to run and tattle to Dumbledore, you would have done so already. You definitely won't now that you've given—" she gasps theatrically "—valuable information to the enemy. You won't have the stomach to admit what you've done, and you won't have the heart to risk any of your friends' safety."
"You know, that's one thing that I don't get," says Peter. "Why me? How did you even know that I would have any information to give?"
"After those pranks you boys pulled last year? It was obvious who did it and even more obvious that whoever did it must also be responsible for the ambush. Between the four of you, I guess we just pegged you as the weakest link."
So they don't know that the girls are involved, too, or any of Peter's other classmates who were there that night. Good. "Get away from me," he tells Carrow. "This conversation is over."
"You'll regret this tomorrow," she calls at his retreating back, but he doesn't turn back around, not for anything.
xx
He sleeps fitfully. Unable to stop picturing his friends' faces up in flames, he can't stop telling himself that he should have just given Carrow what she wanted and handed over another name of somebody in the Order. It's not like anything bad happened to Gideon when Peter gave Carrow his name, did it? Whereas when Peter initially withheld Gideon's name, Mary's whole house burned down…
He's totally engrossed in his own thoughts through the next morning when he grabs a seat by Em, who remarks, "Everything okay? You look like somebody died."
"I'm fine, thanks," Peter mutters.
Sirius eventually joins them, and Peter is just wrapping up the last of his pancakes when he hears choking a ways down the table. Oh, no, it's happening again—it's—
It's Remus, who's clutching his throat and seems to be unable to breathe. Remus sees Lily get up from further down the table, whip out her wand, and start casting countercharms at random, but nothing seems to be working. Peter feels like a piece of shit. He could have prevented this. This was preventable.
Is he in over his head? Should he take the risk and tell someone? Will his friends survive if he does?
"We've got to get him to Madam Pomfrey," says Sirius, looking pale. "Quickly! Come on!"
Sirius and James end up levitating Remus into the air, positively running toward the Hospital Wing with the body trailing behind them. Peter, the girls, and Eddie Bones and Benjy Fenwick follow. Pomfrey looks totally startled when they burst into the wing, all talking over each other trying to explain what's happened, until she snaps, "Enough!" and they all fall quiet.
"My first guess is that this is a poisoning. It would be hard to tell what poison without further testing, but fortunately, I have…"
She darts into the back room; Peter can hear her rummaging around in there before she emerges with what looks like a fist-sized stone. Pomfrey rams it into Remus's mouth and starts pumping his chest, pausing every thirty pumps or so to pinch his nose and breathe into his mouth.
The next two minutes drag on and on and on. Remus was unconscious for a few minutes before they were able to get him to Pomfrey, and it took another minute at least for her to locate the bezoar. Will Remus make it? Will Peter have Remus's blood on his hands?
And then—Remus gives a great cough and starts hacking up blood.
Peter isn't sure whether he can relax or not. Surely it's not normal for the patient to spit blood after the bezoar has worked. Is it?
"All of you need to wait outside," says Pomfrey. "I'll call you back in if he stabilizes."
If he stabilizes? But that makes it sound like Remus…
It's a Saturday, so none of them have to get to class, not that Peter thinks he could manage to go if it were a school day. Eddie and Benjy duck out after the first hour, and Mary, Marlene, and Emmeline follow, making those who remain promise to let them know as soon as there's an update. And then it's just the Marauders, Lily, and Alice left. Peter's got his wristwatch on, and he watches the minute hand go around… and around…
Finally, after nearly three hours of waiting, Pomfrey pokes her head out into the corridor and says, "He's going to be all right. He's awake, if you want to come in and be with him."
They all traipse inside. Given that Remus and Sirius have been on the outs lately, what Peter isn't expecting is for Sirius to run up to Remus's bedside, kiss his head firmly a couple of times, and then press his forehead to Remus's, muttering, "Don't you ever give me a scare like that ever again. Don't you dare."
"Hello to you too," says Remus hoarsely. He twists away from Sirius to cough into his shoulder. "Thought you said you needed space."
"That was before you nearly got yourself poisoned to death. You think I would miss this? You think that was even an option?"
"Whoever poisoned him was smart about it," says Pomfrey, sounding disapproving. "It wouldn't have been in anything he ate, not that it would have been easy for his attacker to manage to poison only the food that would reach Remus and no one else this morning. It was slow-acting, and it diffused in through his skin, so it could have been in anything he touched in the last twelve hours or so."
"But he's going to be okay?" says James.
"He's going to make a full recovery," confirms Pomfrey, "but I'm keeping him on bedrest and observation for the next few days. I'll give you a few minutes to all see him, but then it's two guests per patient for the rest of his stay, you hear me?"
They all look at each other, with the exception of Sirius, who is now sitting on the edge of Remus's bed looking totally floored. It's understood that Lily and Alice will want to leave before any of the boys do, but there are three Marauders and only two spots in the room, so—
"I'll go," Peter offers. "I have some stuff I need to take care of, anyway."
By "stuff," he means he needs to go to the Owlery and send a message to Alecto Carrow. He doesn't think he's ever hated himself more.