Chapter 9. Peter Pettigrew

The boys didn't mention their plan to the girls. The girls (except Lily, perhaps) didn't find anything suspicious. It was almost end of term. Summer holidays were coming. But....
"Ar~~~ End term Exams!!! Who in the world is crazy enough to invented Exams?" howled Sirius, dying to go out of the room and play pranks on Snape.
"Relax, ok?" said Felicity, who was feeling dizzy. Not because the heat, it was just the books in front of her.
"James, try to make this cushion fly. " said Lily, ignoring Sirius and Felicity.
"Wingardium Leviosa!!" said James, flicking his wand. The cushion hovered above their heads. Remus groaned.
"I can't understand you guys. You two still have the mood to study? Talk about lunatics...." murmured Remus.
"Lily's always that way before the exams. Before, she forced Feli and me to study. Now, James will do it for us! Thank heavens..." laughed Clarissa.
"Well, I only know is that if you don't study now you won't be able to pass the exams. Last term exams are the worst you know." said Lily, looking slightly annoyed.
"We know, we know. Thanks for helping us for all these years then, Lily." said Felicity. Lily went red.
"What are friends for? Really, I think I really need a rest too.... why don't we borrow some brooms from Madam Hooch and go have some rounds??" asked Lily.
"Hooray!!" yelled Clarissa, throwing her books into the air.

Gryffindor was having the History of Magic exams with Slytherin. They were given special quills. Lily looked at the questions and thought they were easier than she expected. But it was hard to keep clear minded when it was sweltering hot. Then, she saw one of the Slytherin girls raising up her hand and Lily couldn't help looking up and see what the girl wanted.
"What is the matter, Miss. Bulstrode." asked Professor Binns, yawning.
"Er... my quill wouldn't move, Sir." said the girl.
"Hmm..." said Professor Binns, looking at the girl, not the quill. The girl looked back nervously.
"Well, Miss Bulstrode, did you or did you not looked at other's paper, or simply cheat?" asked Professor Binns, now looking at her sharply.
"No! Of course not!" exclaimed the girl, but her face betrayed her completely.
"This quill, " he pointed at it. " is bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell. If you cheat, your quill stop automatically and stay still until the examination is done. You shall need to sit here and wait for the bell ring." finished the Professor and took no notice of the girl's pretended sobs.
When the girl knew that the professor was not going to help her she stopped sobbing and scowled hard at Professor Binns. Lily went on with her paper, feeling extremely hot.

"That was easy." said Lily to her friends as they took their half an hour break just before the next exam. "If only the room was cooler, I'm sure I'll do it much better..."
"Easy?" howled Sirius. "I have at least five questions wrong and you're saying that paper was easy?" he said, sarcastically and ended his speech with a loud scream of "Help!!!"
"Come on Sirius, don't over react." whispered Felicity as she saw other people staring at them.
Then, a mouse-like boy called Peter Pettigrew came up to them and smiled nervously.
"Er... hi James, hi Lily. I bet that test was easy for both of you? " said Peter in a timid voice.
"It's ok." said James, causally. "I think I only got one mistake..." Sirius and Felicity moaned loudly.
"Oh great. Let's go Feli. I can't stand another minute listening how easy the test was.." murmured Sirius and they walked off.
"James, Lily, I think you both need to cut it off or I will walk out with Sirius." grinned Remus. Outside was far to hot and he know Sirius will never go out in his right mind.
"Well, as you're going to stop this topic..." said Sirius as he walked in again. Clarissa couldn't help giggling.
"The next test is Defense Against the Dark Arts." said Lily, reading her timetable.
"I bet Remus is top at that!" said Clarissa, looking at Remus. Remus went a bit red.
"'Course not. Not will Snape about, anyway." said Remus, modestly.
"But Professor Morina likes you way more than Snape! Maybe Professor will give you a few extra marks!" said James, hopefully.
"Let's not put too much hope on it." said Remus, eyeing at James.

They've all done pretty well in the test, except Peter dropped his wand when he saw Professor Sneddon walking around. Professor Morina deduct some of his marks.
"If you drop your wand when you're in front of some beast, I can only say that is you have only 1 second or less to pray that the beast changes it's mind and doesn't want to kill you!" said Professor Morina, writing something on her notepad.
"Professor Sneddon always gives Peter a hard time in Potions that Peter freaks when he saw her." said James. Lily only nodded as she saw Professor Morina looking at her direction.
"I bet Professor walked around here by purpose." replied Lily. "The staff room and the dungeons are nowhere near here." Then she stopped when the Professor frowned at them.

Pretty soon they've finished all the exams and was waiting forward for the summer holidays. And pretty soon they found Peter always following them around, willing to do jobs for them. He was especially attached with James and Sirius.
Sirius welcomed Peter warmly, asking him to do jobs or homework for him. But James was annoyed. He didn't like Peter tagging around him without any reason.
"Look Peter, it is really kind of you to help us in some kind of way." said James patiently when Peter offered to do his homework for him. "But surely you have better things to do? You don't need to waste your time on us!"
"I... li..like doing jobs for you guys..." stammered Peter, his legs actually shaking. "I.. just wanted to be... friends."
"Why don't you say so?" asked Sirius.
"Yeah, we'll be friends of course." said Remus.
"Just tell us." said James and the others girls added their agreement.
Only Lily didn't say anything. She didn't like Peter for some kind of reason that she didn't know why. But she said nothing. So, Peter followed James and his gang everywhere. They didn't mind him at all. Sometimes James even forgot Peter was there. Peter was a loyal little dog, willing to do anything for them.
Some Slytherin tease James and Siruis, saying "Where's your little doggie?" and the others would bark and woof around them. However, no one dare to say anything the next day when they saw every one who had tease them grew dog ears and tail in the night. That made Peter even loyal to the six.