Chapter 158

Mispronunciation

"Imperio!" James called again, his wand moving through the air so forcefully he could have stabbed someone with it. Peter was glad he was on the other side of the room.

Sirius' eyes went foggy for a moment before he blinked it off, "close,"

"The imperious curse isn't supposed to have any physical signs right?" Peter turned to Remus as he was glaring at the marble sitting innocently on his bed.

"Not if it's done properly."

"Oh," Peter watched both James and Remus re-attempt a spell on their targets the reactions to the failure were identical: frustration and impatience.

"You're thinking about it too much," Sirius told James again.

"I'm not thinking at all."

"That's a problem too," Sirius heaved a bored sigh and James growled in a way that sounded more like Sirius than James himself. "You're getting better though. I started feeling happy for a minute there."

"Brill," the word came through his teeth as he waved his wand again, "imperio."

Peter looked back at Remus, "What are you doing?"

Remus didn't look up, he had a book at his side and was looking through it, no doubt for the reason he was messing up.

"I'm trying to make this marble shoot away from me," he flipped another page, only looking at it a second before flipping back.

"Like a banishing charm?" They'd learned banishing charms a long time ago.

"Faster, like a bullet," he corrected turning back to the marble, his glare on the marble intensified. He must not have found what he was looking for. "This stupid book doesn't have anything on the pronunciation of the spell."

A cheer came from across the room. James had his arms in the air and his wand went flying across the room in his excitement. Sirius, on the other hand, was pacing around like a zombie.

"It won't fool anyone, but it works. Not bad, James," Remus clapped.

"It doesn't need to fool anyone. I did it, finally!"

James didn't take it well when he found something he couldn't do but seeing him accomplish something he'd worked hard for was nice.

"Cool, James." Peter praised, and James' grin widened.

"You should probably let him go through."

"Why? He's supposed to be learning to fight it." James walked over and picked up his wand, checking for marks on it.

"It's easier to resist when you know it's coming. I highly doubt he was prepared."

"He should have been. It was obvious I was going to do it eventually."

"Eventually could mean next week."

James pouted and waved his wand at Sirius. Sirius blinked rapidly several times. "You did it."

"Of course I did."

"Thank Merlin, it's about time." Sirius threw himself on the bed in relief.

"Shut up, if you weren't constantly distracting me I would have gotten it faster."

"Like hell, you would have. Don't blame me for you being an idiot."

They continued arguing but Peter ignored them. A box of chocolate on Sirius' bed looked tasty, but any chocolate Sirius owned that's sender wasn't one of their friends, was automatically suspicious, even James' presents could backfire. Remus wouldn't have touched them.

But he wanted it.

"Okay, I'm just going to have you walk around the room, Padfoot, that's all," James said but Peter thought he sounded like it was himself he was trying to convince.

"Don't walk around the room. Got it." Sirius nodded at him.

"Can I eat your chocolate?" Peter asked before James could turn Sirius into a zombie.

"Eat at your own risk."

Peter snatched the box as James attempted to curse Sirius again. It took him three tries as he was more hesitant now that he knew he could use the spell.

"You're not really going to eat those, are you?" Remus asked, his hand so tight on the pages of the book that Peter thought he might rip it.

Peter examined the outside closely, "it would be such a waste..."

"Well yeah, but... I wonder if there's a way to get love potion off of chocolate."

"We'd be rolling in it if there was." Peter laughed, sniffing the chocolate.

"Now that I think about it, we should probably have an antidote on hand regularly now that those two tarts hit puberty." He nodded towards James and Sirius, his tight lips were the only suggestion that he wasn't just teasing.

"Then we could eat all the candy!"

"That wasn't exactly why... but whatever floats your boat, Wormtail." He turned back to the book, trying the spell one more time, "waddiwasi."

The marble did go flying this time, though not where Remus had intended for it to go. Instead, it shot into Peter's nose as he'd been about to take a bite of the candy.

Remus swore loud enough to snap Sirius out of his zombie trance as he ran over to where Peter sat choking in surprise.

"That doesn't count," James said giving Sirius a sideways glare and wiping away the hound's triumphant grin.

"Stop panicking, Wormtail, breathe through your mouth," Remus said to him as he choked. Peter tried, his eyes wide and feeling faint.

He did as he was told, and could breathe again. His first instinct was to change into a rat. What that would accomplish, he wasn't sure, but he wanted to.

"I am so sorry, the spell wasn't supposed to do that," he looked over at James and Sirius, now back to doing their own thing as though Peter wasn't dying a slow death via nostril marble.

"It did go fast," Peter tried, he was trying to blow it out by plugging his other nostril, but it wasn't working.

"How do we get it out?" Remus retracted a step, his hand on his chin as he hummed in thought.

"I'm gonna have to have my nose cut off, now aren't I."

"Don't be so dramatic, Wormtail. We don't need two drama queens in this group.

As if on cue, Sirius gave a loud yelp and there was a crash behind them. As they looked at the scene they say James wince as Sirius swore at him. Sirius was holding his foot in a way that implied a stubbed toe.

"You did that on purpose."

"I did not!"

Remus rolled his eyes and turned away from the escalating argument. "See what I mean?"

"Sorry."

"Now the marble…" Remus' hand moved to his hip while the other one was still on his chin. "We could go to Madam Pomfrey, but that's really far away."

Peter raised an eyebrow, "far away?" If it meant not suffocating on a marble he was fine with 'far away.'

"Maybe a vanishing charm? But that might make your nose disappear if I miss."

Peter squeaked, it sounded weird with his nose plugged.

"What if we enlarge your nose so it'll fall out?"

"I don't want a big nose!" he panicked inching away from Remus.

"I'll put it back, obviously."

"What if it goes the other way and gets lodged in my throat instead?"

"Good point."

"Can't you just levitate it out?" James asked from across the room. Sirius was still glaring at him.

Remus blinked several times and facepalmed. He gave a loud, "duh," causing both James and Sirius to chuckle at him.

Remus silently used a levitate spell, the marble resisted a bit and Peter whined, but it came out without too much fuss. Choking more on the feeling than anything, Peter thanked Remus as the latter threw the marble in the rubbish bin.

"Why on earth did the spell do that?" Remus returned to his book glaring as he flipped pages back and forth.

Peter turned back to James and Sirius. Now that their little cat fight was over Sirius had allowed James to try again, this time performing the much more simple task of raising an arm in the air. There was some resistance in the movement now, but Peter thought that was more to spite James than because of the simpler commands.

They'd have to keep working on it, but the progress was good to see.

Peter heard a loud swear and looked back at Remus.

"What?" he said joining Remus by his bed in the hopes that he could somehow help.

"The pronunciations are in the back." Remus growled his wolf-like growl, "I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time." He closed the book and threw it on the floor before pulling out a completely different book, giving up on the first one entirely.

"Well, you did learn a new spell, at least," Peter tried. "If anyone needs something stuffed up their nose you're the person to do it."

James burst out laughing from across the room, even Remus gave a giggle.

"Good to know I've got such a valuable skill set, Wormtail. I'm sure that'll come in handy all the time," Remus replied and Peter returned to his bed, glad he'd managed to help out after all.

Then he saw the chocolates he'd been hoping to eat spilled out on the floor like a sad bit of confetti. He'd upset the container while panicking over having a marble in his nose and threw them all over the dirty floor. He mourned their loss for a moment, before deciding it was a good time to take a break and go get snacks for everyone from the kitchens, they were starting to get irritable.

"Oh well, it was probably spiked anyway."

A/N) Sorry for the delay, I chose to focus on my original work for the last few months. Thankfully the first draft of that is done, I've got a whole month till I have to work on editing it. Updates to this fiction should be a lot more regular now that that's done. Thanks so much for being patient wit me.