Chapter 108

Lucrative

Peter had known James for a very long time. He knew how persistent James was when he wanted something and wasn't given it. That's why Peter thought Lily Evans' refusal to give into his proposals was hilarious. Peter didn't doubt for a moment that she would give in, then James would get bored with her and it would all be over, just as James did with everything else.

Peter thought that it would be smarter for Evans just to give in and get it over with. But she didn't know that clearly.

"G'morning, Evans," James called across the Gryffindor table at breakfast a cold, sleepy January morning. This particular cold, sleepy Monday morning, no one wanted to put up with James and Evan s stubbornness, especially Evans.

"Goodbye, Potter." Evans abandoned her breakfast half-eaten, which Peter honestly thought was a crime, and walked right out the door. Alice followed not even attempting to hide her giggles.

Peter was glad he wasn't the only one who thought the whole thing was a joke.

"She just doesn't know what she wants," James said loud enough to be heard two house tables over. A number of girls were chattering angrily to each other and Peter couldn't help but wonder when one of them would finally do what they were plotting to do on a regular basis. He hoped Evan s was a good witch because if James kept this up his entire fan club was going to come after her.

Peter had neglected to tell James he had a fan club, why would he when the girls gave him stuff for information? If James knew they d just be able to ask him.

Sirius fan club gave him nicer things since there were more of them, but he didn't t see any reason to end their little... agreement.

One of the girls in question, far down on the other end of the Gryffindor table, gave him a wink. He could already guess what she wanted to know, even though he'd already told half the fan club exactly the same thing. He didn't care really if everyone asked him the same question he'd just get lots of stuff for repeating himself. That required much less thought and effort than actually having to find the answer for them. Peter already knew what they wanted to know about James, he prefers blondes Evan's is just a strange exception, he likes long straight hair better than short or curly, he couldn't care less about eye color (again Evans was a strange exception.) Remus, Peter could just ask, though few cared what he liked, most just wanted to know his grades: E all around with the exception of Defence against the Dark Arts where he regularly has an O and Potions where he has a very low A.

Sirius was, naturally, the hard one. Usually, Peter could ask James but if he asked Sirius, Sirius was likely to get suspicious. Most questions Peter could just guess at the answer of: Sirius didn't seem to have any preferences in hair or eye color, shape, or style. They'd never met a girl Sirius openly admitted was pretty though Peter thought he played with Marline's hair in Defence a little more than mere boredom could explain. Even, however, if he did fancy Marline it had nothing to do with her hair since it was auburn and short, both of which he made fun of on other girls.

Usually, Peter just made stuff up when he was being asked about Sirius. They didn't know the difference and he got rewarded either way so it didn't matter if the stuff he said was true or not. It was better than Sirius finding out he was spilling information to the enemy.

Peter avoided her eye. She'd find him later when he was alone, he knew that, but while they were around he didn't want to associate with any of them, just in case someone noticed. He peeked at her when they moved to leave but only when he was behind them.

They were reviewing summoning again in Charms class, which Peter was grateful for as he was still only able to do it correctly half of the time. Remus was trying to help him, since Remus had perfected it almost as quickly as James (Sirius had been doing summoning charms since he was six,) but it wasn't helping much. Remus showed him the correct way to do the wand movement over and over while James and Sirius whispered amongst themselves. Likely something to do with the standstill they d hit in animagi training. They hadn't told him that there was a problem, didn't want to worry him he thought, but Peter knew anyway. They weren't as sneaky as they thought.

"Peter, concentrate." Remus snapped in his face, "you're going to hurt someone if you keep getting distracted."

"Sorry," Peter answered, concentrating on Remus' hand movements.

"You're going too fast, making it more of a straight line than an arc. And you're still pronouncing it wrong, it's AK-eee-oh not AS-eee-oh." Remus reminded as patiently as he could manage, even he was becoming frustrated.

Peter tried again, concentrating this time, it still didn't work.

"You've got the pillow in your mind as you're casting the spell, right?" Remus tried again.

Once again, Peter tried the spell... nothing, still.

"I can't concentrate on the spell and the pillow at the same time!" Peter pouted, and Remus sighed.

"You practiced the wand movement and the words enough times that you shouldn't have to concentrate on it, Peter." Remus showed him how it was done again.

"But I forget." Peter watched as Remus perfectly summoned the pillow right into the face of the person sitting in front of him. The Slytherin girl turned and gave him an angry look that frightened Peter, but Remus just apologized for. The moment she turned away Remus chuckled under his breath and winked at Peter. Peter tried to hold in his laughter but failed causing the Slytherin to glare at him instead.

He shut up real quick.

They were released from class not long after that when some unknown person (that everyone knew was James but had no proof) managed to transfigure the pile of pillows into a pile of black widow spiders and amidst the screaming and panic Peter realized that once again he had not been able to successfully perform a spell they d learned at the beginning of the year.

"I'm hopeless," he pouted calmly climbing out of the spider-infested classroom, when you live with Sirius and James you have more important things to be terrified of than spiders.

"No, you aren't, Wormtail, you just need more practice. C'mon we'll practice some more in the common room." Remus offered, nodding in the vague direction of the common room.

"Oh... um, I need to stop somewhere, I'll... ah, meet you there." Peter pointed in a random direction and ran off feeling like a master at stealth, regardless of how conspicuous he'd actually been.

The fangirl from breakfast found him shortly after, asking questions he already had answered just as he knew she would.

It was the easiest job on the planet.

A/N) And here's Peter, being... well, Peter. Hope y'all had a great Easter. ^_^

Edit 4/12/15: messed this chapter up sooo bad. All of the apostrophes and quotation marks were completely gone (why did no one tell me?!) So I went through and fixed it, please let me know if I missed something.