Chapter 124

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Peter woke to a very quiet dorm. Usually, Sunday mornings in their dorm consisted of Sirius waking them up, James throwing something at him, and the two of them arguing until Remus reacted to being woken up. How Remus reacted depended on how well he slept which in turn depended on the phase of the moon. Today, however, all he heard was the light scratching of a quill on parchment.

When he opened his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position he saw that James was the only one in the room.

"You too?" James gave a chuckle. The future-stag was laying on his four-poster with what Peter assumed was his essay in front of him. The potion's textbook was floating off to the side.

"Wha?" Peter rubbed his eyes his brain wasn't able to comprehend his out of routine awakening.

"Look at us. We're so used to Sirius waking us at ungodly hours of the morning that we can't sleep past seven anymore."

"Oh yeah," Peter agreed passively and sat there for a few minutes as his brain loaded. "Where's Padfoot?"

James nodded towards the window his focus was back on his essay. Peter looked but was still confused.

"Quidditch pitch." James elaborated and Peter readjusted himself to an angle that he could see the field from. He could just barely make out a figure running back and forth along it.

"Why?" Peter turned back to James who shrugged.

"To clear his thoughts, let out his frustration, avoid me... who knows. He was putting on his trainers when I woke up and didn't tell me anything beyond where he was going."

"Oh," Peter replied saying nothing else he prepared himself for the lazy day he wished he could have.

"Where's Remus?" He asked as he thought about what he had to do before Monday and what James answered would determine whether or not he actually got it done.

"Medical wing." James said after a moment of hesitation, "the game yesterday was too much for him, he's in rough shape, but he'll be fine."

Peter hid a groan. Remus gone meant the whole day would be spent on the animagi thing. Sure James would help him with most of his homework but that wasn't the point.

When Peter had agreed to learn how to transform into animals with them it had sounded cool. The running around with a werewolf not so much, but who didn't want to become an animagus? What they neglected to tell him was how hard it was and how easily it could kill him. Now it was too late and he couldn't stop. Failure to perform the next step at any point would definitely kill him while messing up just might kill him.

So he was stuck. Unable to stop but too scared to continue. Thus, James and Sirius were doing all the work, he probably could have helped more but that was likely to increase his chance of blowing himself up or losing limbs.

He was just fine, thanks.

"Are you going to breakfast?" He asked though he knew the answer. James was not only still in his pajamas but it was obvious he was waiting for Sirius to come back.

"Nah, Sirius will have to come back, he won't be able to go through the day all sweaty and stuff. He can't avoid me all day." James chuckled, which was silly since they had to do animagi stuff later in the day anyway. Peter chose to put that aside for now.

"Sirius can sweat?" He asked smiling at his own joke, and James enjoyed the humor also.

When Peter left it wasn't the Great Hall he headed for. Without James or Sirius, or even Remus when the werewolf wasn't sick as a dog, Peter tried to avoid any part of the castle with a lot of people. A number of the people James and Sirius tormented seemed to think bullying the least talented member of their group was good revenge. And that would be Peter. Sure, James and Sirius always paid them back twice-over., but he wasn't stupid enough to walk into it. So instead he used uninhabited shortcuts to go down into the basement to visit the house elves, or more accurately their cooking since the house elves themselves creeped him out.

It was why the Potter family didn't have a house elf, actually, when they were young James convinced him that the old house elf they'd had wanted to kill and eat Peter, so the rat refused to come over until James convinced Euphemia and Fleamont to get rid of it. That fear had never really left him. When he thought about it most of his major fears were a result of James messing with him at some point.

Or at least blaming James made Peter feel better as he hid from a group of Hufflepuffs heading for breakfast in the great hall, and in his mind, he needed something to make himself feel better if he was hiding from Hufflepuffs of all people. He chose to not acknowledge that those Hufflepuffs were more skilled than he was though he was two years their senior.

Retrieving his food from the kitchen he retreated to the privacy of a secret room down the hall to eat it, like a rodent hiding in the wall like in the cartoons he watched at Remus' house. He didn't acknowledge the similarities but he did see it as a perfect time to get ahold of one of Sirius' fan club. They'd asked what the pup's favorite band was and Peter had finally made it up. Sunday was the day they met up and if he hurried he'd catch his contact before they did.

Even when avoiding contact as he was he couldn't avoid the rumors about Sirius and James row last night. From what he heard, it had been a fight to behold, threats of violence and the lot. Girls were worried the two had 'broken up,' their words, and first years worried that one of the two would take their frustration out on them. He was a little insulted that James hadn't thought it important to tell him about it. However, it did explain a lot, why Sirius was avoiding James, why James hesitated when asked about Remus' whereabouts, and why the girls in Sirius' fan club looked so hopeful.

He avoided all the fangirls and dodged all his contacts' questions by claiming it was just a rumor.

After running from that he begrudgingly made his way up to the room of requirement to meet up with his friends. They were already there and they didn't look like they'd had a fight at first, however, he could see the small details that made it painfully obvious. Sirius' carefree smile, for instance, was fake. James was also talking in a tone that he used when Peter freaked out about something, and it wasn't directed at the rat. The two were also a lot quieter than usual.

The spell they had to remove really hadn't been hard, Peter could have done it himself but James was more reliable.

The transfiguration spells they were replacing it with weren't so easy, though. They didn't have to remove the spells later, which was nice, but when Peter looked at the textbook his brain shut down entirely, prompting Sirius to laugh at him. The spells mad them more malleable; more susceptible to change, and it was complicated. Even James took awhile to figure it out. He then had to explain it to Sirius who grasped the concept pretty quickly but looked worried.

"You get it?" James asked him in that patient tone of voice Peter had heard so many times.

"I think." Sirius pulled the book towards himself.

"Okay, I'll do Peter's first and then myself and you can watch. If you're still not sure I can do it for you."

"I'll be fine," Sirius reassured him a hint of irritation in his voice. James didn't believe him but turned to Peter anyway.

"Why do I have to be first?" Peter asked as an unwilling squeak came out.

"Because it's easier to do magic on someone else," James said waving off his question as unimportant.

James cast a series of spells with silly incantations at him and he had the strangest sensation. He felt like he was melting, but it didn't hurt at all. It went away the moment James finished.

"Still with us?" He asked grinning a cocky smile.

"That was weird," Peter complained and shivered. "Felt like I was melting or something."

"That sounds about right." James nodded Peter could almost see his head inflating after his success. It really was a complicated spell. "My turn."

James began muttering to himself, he had his eyes closed in concentration. Peter watched in awe, he couldn't even begin to fathom the magic the future-stag seemed to be performing with ease. It had to be NEWT level at least, maybe even higher!

There was a yelp of pain from the Marauder Peter had forgotten about and James' eyes opened instantly, only halfway done with the spells.

Sirius had attempted the spell on his own instead of waiting for James to at least be able to check him. Even if he could do it on his own the spell was complicated enough that the tiniest mistake could be devastating so usually they made sure to only perform anything more complicated then OWL level magic one at a time that way the others could help out quickly there was a problem. But Sirius had ignored that and James was furious.

"What was that?!" The patient tone in James' voice was gone, replaced with frustration and exasperation.

"I'm fine." Sirius insisted though he avoided James' eyes.

"Fine? Does this look fine to you?!" James lifted Sirius' arm causing their brother to give a light whimper of pain.

It didn't look fine. There were large blisters all over the appendage and it was bleeding. Peter felt like he'd be sick just looking at it.

"It isn't that bad." Sirius protested but James wasn't in the mood.

James let out a frustrated groan. "You're lucky you didn't kill yourself. Why didn't you wait for me?"

"I don't need your help." Peter was surprised to see a hint of fear in the younger boy's eyes as his brother told him off. "I am perfectly capable of doing magic on my own, James. In case you've forgotten, I've been using it for longer than you have."

James responded with a long-suffering sigh and shook his head, likely realizing Sirius thought he was insulting the pup. "I'm not saying you can't, Padfoot."

"Oh really, coulda fooled me." Sirius pouted.

"I know you can do these spells, Pads. I've seen you do harder. I know you could do it just fine on a normal day. But today isn't a normal day. You're distracted. You're worried about Remus, scared too."

"I'm not scared." Sirius defended but James just shook his head.

"Regardless, you're distracted and these spells are hard enough without everything else competing for your attention." James returned to his patient tone. This time, Sirius responded with half a smile, it looked more like a wince, though Peter got a feeling that he was trying to appease the future-stag more than anything else and James knew it too. "I need to finish myself before I can heal you because I feel awful at the moment."

"I can do it," Sirius said a joking smirk on his face.

"Do I need to take your wand away?" James accepted Sirius' attempt to apologize with a laugh and returned to casting spells on himself.

"Does it hurt?" Peter asked trying to not look at his arm.

"What do you think?" Sirius rolled his eyes and moved his gaze back to the textbook, possibly trying to figure out where he went wrong, but more likely just an excuse to not talk to Wormtail.

James wasn't able to heal it completely, but he got it to the point where it would heal on its own in a week or two. It still looked awful, forcing Sirius to wear long sleeves but the spring weather was still on the cool side so it wouldn't be noticeable.

At least for most people. Snape was instantly suspicious and made sure everyone knew it.

Peter thought he was already walking on thin ice where the pup was concerned. Between his habit of stalking them and how many times they found him bugging Regulus, he was just asking for trouble.

Sirius kept telling himself the snake was just doing it to annoy him and that Regulus was just too soft to tell Snape to shove off, but it wasn't working. It took every effort Sirius could muster to not go over there and knock the stuffing out of him when Padfoot saw him at dinner that night annoying they younger Black brother.

Peter wasn't too keen on sticking around when Sirius finally flipped out on someone so he left early to the common room.

The rest of the day was going to be spent on homework, there was so much he had to get done. Transfig, Potions, charms, even Care of Magical Creatures. And he had none of it done. James would help with most, and Peter could even copy the History of Magic homework because Binns never noticed, but Transfiguration and CoMC he'd have to do on his own. James insisted he do Transfig on his own since it was well below the level they needed to be at.

Peter's grades dropped significantly after that.

Half-way through McGonnagall's essay, he heard a racket on the stairs and, unfortunately, it was coming closer.

"I'm fine, James," Sirius' voice came through the door just before it slammed open.

"No, you're not, she was your friend." James was following behind a mix of anger and regret on his face and body language.

"Friends? We hardly even talked, I abandoned her for almost every quidditch game we had. I wouldn't call that a healthy friendship." Sirius laughed plopping down on his four-poster.

"You danced with her." James crossed his arms and leaned on one of the posts on Sirius' bed, Peter knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate on his essay with them going on as they were.

"Only because everyone was watching me."

"Sirius!"

"What happened?" Peter asked his curiosity winning out over his need to at least finish something today.

"Andrea is apparently a git," Sirius grumbled flopping back and laying on his bed.

"Andrea's mother was murdered." James turned to face Peter as though he'd only just realized the rat was there. "It's not her fault."

"What's that got to do with Padfoot?"

"Nothing she's just a..." Sirius began to answer but James cut him off of the foul-mouthed rant he was threatening to go on.

"She'd taking it out on Sirius because it was Bellatrix Black that killed her." James shook his head and sat down on the bed beside his brother. Sirius pushed himself up and rolled his eyes at the concern plainly written on the future-stag's face.

"But that's not his fault."

"No, it's not," James gave a meaningful glance at Sirius as he spoke. "But she's upset and angry and she needs someone to take it out on."

"You guys are making way too big of a deal out of this. I do not care what Andrea Heifer thinks of me."

All three of them knew he was lying.