Chapter 162

Discovery

Peter climbed into the deserted owlery, the smell of droppings choking him in a familiar way. He wondered who'd been the first person who'd trained an owl to carry post as he tied his letter to the leg of a small brown owl with big yellow eyes. Peter didn't have to tell the bird where to go, it was the same owl he always used when he wrote to his mom, she knew where to send the letter.

He followed her to the window as she flew off, not because he much cared to say goodbye but he liked the view from the owlery. You could almost see Hogsmeade from this high up. Remus could have seen the village.

But even with his normal eyes, Peter could see so much from such a hight. The forest spread under him like a pointy blanket, not a gap between the trees. Sirius and James were talking about exploring it again, they seemed to think that if they brought a transformed werewolf along with them nothing would be bold enough to attack them. Remus had flown into a rage when Sirius had first mentioned letting Moony leave the shack during his time of the month, but he was starting to argue less and less each full moon that they survived. Peter didn't think his argument would hold water for much longer, though he shivered thinking of a werewolf being loose, even if James had finally convinced him the wolf wouldn't eat him.

A noise from behind him shook Peter out of his thoughts, he recognized the voice. The Malfoy twins were climbing up the stairs, loudly chatting about something, Peter thought he heard the word 'mark' and 'lord' used and he didn't need to be a member of Sirius' Order of the Dragon or whatever to know that any conversation with Slytherins using the word 'lord' wasn't a conversation he wanted to join.

He transformed before they had a chance to finish their climb and hid in the straw all over the floor, keeping as quiet as he could. Their conversation was easier to eavesdrop on when they entered the room, a single letter between the two of them.

"Lucius already joined up," the female twin, Annetta, said as they walked in, her voice wasn't so loud now, but Peter's mousy ears didn't have any trouble picking it up. He knew her well enough, she was a secret member of Sirius' fan club. Even her twin didn't know about it. She paid Peter to give her info on both Sirius and Sirius' official fan club and paid enough for him to keep his trap shut about the deal. That and the underlying threat of turning him into a teacup was more than enough for Peter to keep her interest to himself.

Her twin, alike in everything but gender, shrugged at her warning, "sucks to be him," Aro replied back, his voice a growl. "No one tells me what to do. I don't care if he is supposed to be the greatest dark wizard of all time."

"Mum'll be angry."

"Mum's always angry. What's new there?"

"What if he comes after us?" She said, her voice quiet. Peter slowly crept through the straw, hoping to reach the exit before they saw him there. His ears perked at the conversation, it sounded juicy.

"What're you so nervous for? It's not like you." Aro gave her a look, somewhere between exasperation and confusion.

"The Blacks are all following him," she raised her voice as though to argue that she wasn't nervous at all. "They might think we're traitors for not doing the same."

Aro groaned, "I'm so sick of hearing about the Blacks," he grumbled, his voice rising in a mocking imitation of a woman, "Bellatrix did this, Narcissa did that. Regulus' grades are better than yours. I hate the lot of them."

Annetta had nothing to say about this, watching her brother tie a letter onto a snow white owl. It was tiny but had no trouble with its task.

"You'd think that their blood-traitor of an heir would have knocked them down a few pegs, but it seems to have puffed them up even more if anything. Like they've got something to prove. Self-righteous-" he swore several times. His language wasn't as creative or interesting as Sirius'. Just boring old swear words. Peter wondered why Aro brought the subject back up if he didn't want to talk about it.

"Sirius is barely even a Black anymore," she agreed, though Peter had heard her say differently. "I'm surprised they haven't disowned him yet."

"Probably like all the attention," Aro grumbled.

Peter reached the door and snuck around it, sticking around in case they said anything he wanted to hear.

"What do you think of the Prophet's claims that Sirius is a spy?" Annetta asked and Peter froze in place. Remus was still getting the Prophet every morning, but he hadn't mentioned anything about Sirius being in it.

Aro laughed, "yeah, because Walburga's clever enough to hoodwink the sorting hat. It's bogus, the lot of it. Anyone who's been at Grimmauld Place in the last five years would know that."

"But they haven't been to Grimmauld Place in the last five years."

"Right," he overemphasized the agreement. "If he actually gave a toss about what the Prophet said about him it would be more interesting though. As far as I can tell he couldn't care less if everyone in the world thought he was secretly a werewolf, much less a traitor. As long as everyone knows his hair's amazing and his grades are better than yours, he's satisfied."

"His hair is pretty great."

"Pretty sure that Ravenclaw broad's selling pieces of it. You want one for Christmas?"

"Ew,"

Peter climbed his way down the stairs now, having heard enough for now. They'd be leaving the owlery themselves before long, and there was nothing to hide behind in the stairway if they came out before he left. His head buzzed with information as he made his way back to the dorm. He found that the idea that Lucius Malfoy was working with Voldemort was less interesting than knowing that Remus had been hiding things from Sirius. And that's when you know you're priorities are skewed.

The dorm was empty when Peter returned. Sirius and Remus had Arithmancy this hour and Merlin only knew where James was, Peter didn't much care where the newspaper laying halfway under Remus' bed was more interesting anyway. He snatched it up tripping over a shirt in the process. Peter estimated it would take Sirius about three days to snap and start cleaning both Remus and James' sections of the room, Remus would then sulk for a few days (longer than usual since a full moon was coming up) and Sirius would buy him chocolate. Remus would forgive him and mess up his part of the room again repeating the endless cycle.

His friends were so predictable they were almost boring.

Peter skimmed through the newspaper looking for any familiar names. Memphis Membleton was arrested for streaking, Dorcus Natter had a new book out... blah blah blah. He flipped the pages and knew exactly where the article was, or had been.

Someone (Remus) had taken a quill and scribbled out one of the articles until it was entirely illegible. Off in the margin was a few choice swear words and derogatory names for whoever wrote the article. The writing was easily recognizable as Remus' messy scrawl.

Peter could go find an undamaged copy of the Prophet somewhere, but what the article actually said wasn't important.

Remus had seen this, that much was obvious. Yet he had said nothing to any of them. It wasn't like Remus to keep secrets, or at least Peter had never known him to before. For a moment Peter entertained the thought that Remus didn't think it was important enough to share, but he knew better. The Malfoy twins had said the article accused Sirius of being a spy, that wasn't trivial. Sirius should know if something like this was going around.

Not that Peter had any intention of telling Sirius, of course. He just thought that's what most people would have thought. But Remus hadn't agreed apparently.

Sirius wouldn't be happy Remus was sheltering him like this, and Peter had no doubt that Remus was attempting to shelter Sirius from it.

He thought back to Aro and Annetta's conversation, they'd made it sound like this had been going on for a while.

Peter looked around Remus' section of the room for any sign of old newspapers. He could search the area, he'd just tell Remus he was looking for Remus' potions notes to start that wretched essay of Slughorn's. But if Remus knew Peter had been going through his stuff he might notice if anything went missing, even just a newspaper might make Remus suspicious. And Peter didn't want any of his friends to have any reason not to trust him. None of them really even liked him, if he tried anything they'd feed him to the wolves immediately, he was sure. Besides, if Remus noticed Peter taking things, it would be harder to do so in the future.

But it was apparently Peter's lucky day. It had been long enough since Sirius had raided the dorm with a trash bag and broom that plenty of old newspapers were just laying around. One Remus had stuffed in his bookshelf, one sat in a bathroom stall, another James had used as fuel for the levitating fire he'd had been experimenting with, it was still burning though the newspaper should have turned to ash a week ago.

When your dormmates are this predictable, you know where to look.

He ignored the one that was burning steadily over James' desk and flipped through the bathroom one. There was nothing unusual there, but the one that had been in the bookshelf had a similar big block of ink, Remus' comment wasn't as rude, so the paper must have been a week or two old. Remus only swore like that in the week before and after a full moon.

Peter peeked at the door, though he knew no one was coming back anytime soon and checked the paper's print date.

February 29... two weeks ago. Remus had known the Daily Prophet had been slandering Sirius for two weeks at least and he'd said nothing in all that time.

Peter didn't care if it was right or wrong to hide information like that. If he bothered to think about it he'd probably see merits in both hiding it and telling him straight out. Sirius, however, wouldn't and that was what mattered to Wormtail. He smiled unconsciously at the ink caked newspaper articles and carefully folded them again before he climbed his way back to his own pie slice of the room. It wasn't so messy that it would bother Sirius but also wasn't so clean that the other's would tease him about it. Peter's part of the room was as inconsequential as Peter himself, no one bothered his stuff and Peter planned on keeping it that way.

Kneeling down in front of his trunk he undid the locks with a quick alohamora spell. It wouldn't be enough to keep Sirius or James out if they got nosey, but it was easy enough to bore them if they tried to force it open, especially when they opened the trunk and saw nothing inside but old pants and socks. Nothing juicy or fun for them to tease him about in there.

Peter touched the tip of his wand to the bottom of the trunk, looking behind him one more time at the door still sitting closed and desolate. He lifted his wand, the bottom of the trunk lifted with it, temporarily vanishing the undergarments on top. He'd bought this trunk several years ago when he'd started hoarding every dark magic book he could safely steal from obviously stupid Slytherins. There was an extension charm, of course, so he had plenty of room for other things as well.

He placed the newspapers down beside a stack of James' quizzes, all marked with a red letter 'F,' and several pages from Lily Evan's diary back in fourth year, the year she'd had Divination with Sirius. He examined the contents, looking for anything out of place or anything suggesting someone had discovered his stash, but nothing was out of place. It was all as it had been when he'd last opened the compartment.

He nodded at the stash and lowered his wand, shutting the compartment again. The pants returned as though they'd been there the whole time and Peter shut the trunk, locking it again and glancing once more at the lonely door on the other side of the room.

Satisfied that he was still alone he grabbed his potion's textbook and flopped down to start that wretched essay. Maybe he should find those notes, after all, he hadn't a clue what moonstone did when mixed with Mars dust.

Besides, whether he knew it or not, Remus owed him a favor.