Disclaimer: I own nothing.
::Inkling scribbles around on a piece of parchment, says a very complicated
spell, and a weird-looking demon thing pops up from between the
floorboards::
"Who am I?"
"You are the anthropomorphic manifestation of the disclaimer." ::Inkling then beats the anthropomorphic manifestation of the disclaimer to death with a copy of OOTP. She then gets sent to jail, upon which the judge decides that murder of a non-living idea is not actually murder, and she goes home to write more fanfic::
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Peter's mind worked quickly, as it always did. If classes had just let out, then the halls would be filled to the brim with students. The likelihood of him running into exactly the wrong ones was minimal, but still there. It was not a risk he was keen on taking, so he looked for other solutions. He did not know where he was beyond "somewhere on the fourth floor." He had never bothered with learning precisely where the Charms classroom, for example, was. There was no point; *he* wasn't taking any classes.
He did know, however, how to get to 1) Dumbledore's office, 2) the library, and 3) the Great Hall from virtually any point in the school. Unfortunately, none of the above were anywhere close...
He tried to remember the Marauder's Map. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had shown it to Peter a few days before. The crooked lines and moving points danced across his memory. He automatically erased the people. They were distracting him, and no one would be in the same positions now. The map stood out as clearly behind his closed eyes as it would have if he had been holding it. Peter's superbly photographic memory was not inherent; it was derived from years of half-spying on the still-free Death-Eaters.
The fourth floor, he recalled suddenly, had a passageway on it. True, Harry had said that it was caved in, but maybe there would be enough room for him to squeeze through and wait for the bustle in the corridors to die down. He made his way hurriedly to the mirror. It opened easily at his touch, almost as if it had been waiting for someone to come along. Indeed, there was about three or four feet of floor before an abrupt pile of stones halted any further progress.
The darkness inside was almost complete. Someone else might have lit his wand, but Peter was entirely unused to being able to perform magic. Instinct told him he could do nothing, and he did not bother to think otherwise. Instead, he sat, his back against the mirror, listening to the sounds of students about their lives.
He had nearly drifted off to sleep when raised voices brought him to full consciousness. He kneeled and pressed his ear against the back of the mirror as hard as he dared. Whoever was arguing was just outside the passageway. He wasn't worried they would find him, but he was interested in what was going on.
"Shut up about my parents!" a would-be calm, but angry voice yelled.
Peter backed straight against the stones at the answer. He had heard that drawling voice a few too many times. Draco. But with the wall between Peter and Malfoy, he soon returned to the mirror.
"Would you like me to show it to you?" a wheezy voice asked curiously.
He spun around a few times. "Who's there?" he called quietly.
"No one, dear, except for me. I'm the mirror. We can talk, you know."
"Oh," Peter said, relieved, "right. You can show me what's going on?"
"Of course, isn't that why you came? To spy?" the mirror said without any indication that spying was not an approved-of pastime.
"No, actually, but now that I'm here..."
The mirror became gradually clearer until he could see through it as clearly as a window. He ducked, hoping that no one had noticed his head peaking over the frame.
"They can't see you, dear. I'm only a one-way," the mirror assured him hurriedly.
Tentatively, he poked his head up. He saw, not really to his surprise, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle surrounding another boy who looked only faintly familiar. His robes sported the Gryffindor badge, but beyond that he knew not.
"Who is that boy? Do you know?" Peter asked the mirror, feeling stupid.
"Well, naturally, with no one here to talk to you ever since the Marauders left I've had to keep busy somehow. He's a Longbottom, a Neville Longbottom."
Something very strange happened in the pit of Peter's stomach. Neville...that was Neville Longbottom. Suddenly, he was more afraid of being seen by the Gryffindor than by any of the Death-Eater's children. He felt the intense need to open the mirror and apologize endlessly to Neville. Why?
Then he realized that it was quite obvious. The reason that Draco was drawling those awful insults was because of Peter's mother. If Peter's mother hadn't...hadn't ruined Frank and Alice Longbottom, then Neville would have had a normal life. Peter's mother, though loathed be the term by both in question, was responsible for the misery Neville felt. Peter felt that guilt in behalf of his mother, who still laughed at the thought of the Longbottoms.
Transfixed, Peter watched the scene unfold, barely taking in what was being said. Eventually, (and who could blame him?) Neville snapped. He shot one very effective curse at Draco, sending him spinning nearly twenty feet down the hall to land with an at once sickening and satisfying crunch, but when Draco got up there was murder in his eyes. Literally.
He began a sentence, (probably it would have been around the lines of, "Why don't you try that again, you bastard!") but halfway through it, he disarmed Neville. Before Neville could even begin to react, Crabbe and Goyle both pinned his arms behind his back.
If Peter had though about it logically, he would have realized that the chances of Draco actually committing murder in the middle of the fourth floor corridor of Hogwarts were virtually nil, but logic had nothing to do with it. The fact was that Peter could not get that ghastly image of Lucy, dead in a pool of blood, from his mind. More to the point, who could have?
As Draco advanced on Neville, Peter made up his mind. He was not going to sit here and watch Malfoy perpetrate another murder. Or for that matter, be even indirectly responsible for any more misery on the part of the Longbottoms.
He opened the mirror in what he hoped was a dramatic way. It slammed loudly against the wall, causing all four boys to stare at him. He remembered his wand at that moment and pulled it out.
He heard the mirror mutter, "Some thanks I get."
"Isn't it a little early to start you career as a Death-Eater, Draco?" Peter said loudly. "Or are you just filling in for your father?"
What Draco thought about this statement the world may never know. He was, however, so surprised to see *Peter* of all people materialize in front of him.
Peter could see his thoughts as clearly as if they were written on his face. Draco would have dearly loved to have said, "How the hell did you get here?" and probably about a dozen other questions, but he was smart enough to realize that actually *knowing* Peter was probably not the best game plan for innocence.
So, the question turned into, "Who the hell are you?"
Peter didn't bother to answer. "Don't play dumb with me," he hissed, liking the dramatics of it a bit, even if the situation was not entirely to his taste. "The world isn't exactly fooled by your, how shall I put it, 'purebloodedness.' I'm sure your father could attest to that fact. You might as well admit to knowing me. It's not as if we're in front of the Wizengamot, and I don't feel like going through introductions again."
The fact that Peter could stand there and point his wand at Draco without cursing him into oblivion was somewhat of a miracle. With the possible exception of Voldemort, there was no one that Peter hated more, but years of stoicism had extended benefits. Peter doubted that Dumbledore would be overly pleased if Filch had to wipe Draco's remains from the ceilings and walls. He tried to be calm.
Draco was far from it, and Peter couldn't quite blame him. Although he couldn't imagine that Draco did not know about Peter's rescue/escape by now, he probably wasn't expecting the boy to pop up from behind a mirror. He did, at least, recognize the futility "playing dumb."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Draco amended.
"Exacting revenge," Peter replied coolly. "Please, please go for the wand. It is taking all of my self-control not to kill you at the moment. There isn't a jury in the world that would dare to convict me if you mysteriously disappeared."
Draco's face turned a little bit paler.
Peter looked at Crabbe and Goyle, trying to avoid Neville's desperately inquisitive gaze. "Let him go," Peter said softly, his wand wavering just a little bit.
They did so, and Neville backed a little ways down the corridor. He looked as if he was trying to decide whether a teacher needed to intervene. Peter didn't particularly care whether he did or not. He could handle himself, but he was neither afraid nor annoyed at the thought of a professor.
Peter couldn't help himself any longer. He knew it was the cliché of villainhood, but he absolutely had to say it.
"My, how the tables have turned!"
This was the first time in the history of the world that Peter had the advantage against one of his enemies. The temptation to use it, to win once and for all, was overpowering.
But he didn't; he didn't because he remembered Lucy. Lucy and Mary both swam before his eyes, begging him not to be vengeful, begging him to be good.
He never thought that he was.
That is, until he walked away with Neville, leaving Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle staring bewilderedly after them.
****
The next morning, Peter and Mary ate in the Great Hall without the Invisibility Cloak on. They ate at the Gryffindor table, though they had yet to convince Dumbledore to let them stay in the Tower.
"Who are you?" everyone wanted to know, but neither Mary nor Peter were keen on giving history lessons.
They said the bare minimum, but that, far from calming the crowd, served to stir up the beehive. The questions poured through like a broken dam. Peter would have found a way not to answer most of them even under Veritaserum.
But the worst was Neville. Harry, Hermione, and Ron certainly had reason to hate Bellatrix, but the hate was canceled out because they had known and loved Sirius. That was not the case for Neville. All he knew was the Peter was the son of the woman who had ruined his life.
He sat very still, very silently, like either a hawk watching his prey or a mouse trying not to be it (Peter did not know which) throughout breakfast. Peter could feel his gaze as if they were gimlets. Under the table, Neville's hands repeatedly folded and unfolded a wrapper. Peter wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. Bellatrix was his mother by birth, not by choice.
Finally, when the remains of the biscuits disappeared down into the kitchens below, Neville whispered hoarsely, "Thank you for...yesterday."
Peter nodded mutely. The barrier of parents soon passed. It didn't take Neville that long to realize that Peter was nothing like his mother, and Neville, luckily, was not stupid enough to hate on parentage alone.
"I'm a different sort of mudblood," Peter said.
Neville grinned ruefully. "Only on one half of the family," he said.
"All right, then I am a different sort of half-blood."
And that was the last mention of Bellatrix Lestrange for quite a long while. The conversation fell to other things.
"Why aren't you a student here?" Dean Thomas asked. "I mean, surely Dumbledore would let you take first year courses."
"We're both about on level for our ages as far as theory goes, and we're beginning to put it in to practice," Mary said. "But, it's just simpler for the moment to stay out of classes. We'd probably start riots."
"Come to our History of Magic class, please," begged Seamus, "we need a good riot. It might make Binns shut up."
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, then shrugged in agreement.
"That bad, eh?" Peter said, laughing.
The group of Gryffindors launched into explanations of exactly how boring History of Magic was.
"That's a shame," Peter said. "The actual history is really quite fascinating, you know. Well, come to think of it, you probably don't. It's too bad the subject has to be a sedative in class. Do you study it often on your own?"
Harry, Ron, Dean, Neville, and Seamus stared at him as if he were insane, but Hermione nodded eagerly.
"Oh, I try to get them to read," Hermione said with an exasperated sigh, "but they shy from books like a cat from water. It's a lost cause. Would you believe I am the only Gryffindor who has read Hogwarts, A History? There is one Ravenclaw seventh year."
"Really. I would think that it would be a required reading!" Mary exclaimed, having pilfered and read the book about three times (if Peter's knowledge served him correctly.
The two girls launched into a discussion of the finer points of the book. The boys moved subconsciously away from them and turned the conversation to more practical things.
"So, Peter," Ron said, "do you play a lot of Quidditch?"
Everyone stared at him.
"Oh yeah, all the time," Peter said sarcastically, "Me and Voldemort against the rest of the Death-Eaters."
"Oh, right, sorry." Ron turned a vibrant shade of scarlet.
"Don't worry about it. I hear Quidditch is pretty interesting?" Peter said.
The boys' faces dropped into looks of utmost horror.
"Pretty interesting?" Harry gulped.
"You mean you've never seen a game of Quidditch!" the others cried.
"Well, it was on my to-do list," Peter said.
"A situation that needs to be rectified immediately," Seamus announced.
The next thing he knew, peter was being propelled through the hall out to the Quidditch pitch. As he passed the Slytherin table, he heard quite a bit of mutterings, but he paid them no need.
Ten minutes later, the Gryffindor boys were trying to teach Peter how to fly on a broom, en mass. He couldn't hear a single instruction for the commotion.
"One at a time, please!" Peter cried.
The others fell back to let Harry attempt to teach Peter exactly how to fly a broom. Three hours later, Peter could sort of, kind of fly around a little bit. He was quite reluctant to fly any higher than ten feet. It would be just too ironic to slip and die in a freak broomstick accident after surviving Voldemort for nearly sixteen years. He wasn't about to try to throw that Quaffle thing through the ring.
Harry and the others laughed, but good-naturedly.
"Tell you what," Peter finally said, "I'll play Quidditch with you on March 23rd, the day after my sixteenth birthday."
The boys agreed. Peter wondered if Mary had told Harry or Ron that there would be no March 23rd (hopefully). He didn't think so. If he knew Mary, she would not even acknowledge the fact that it was going to happen until it already had. She would just suffer in silence. It was better that way. He didn't need to give Voldemort any more incentive for catching up with him prior to that time.
Soon, he got off the broom to watch the others play. It looked so easy and effortless. They started showing off after a while, making simple catches into breath-taking dives. Ron was doing superbly as Keeper, and, of course, Harry was just plain good at Quidditch.
Nothing in Peter's life had ever been that easy. Every moment had been a fight against something. He tried, briefly, to imagine having an uncomplicated life or even an uncomplicated day. It didn't work.
But that's what the fight was for, right? Making sure that people could actually have a carefree afternoon on broomsticks.
It's just, and Peter felt ashamed even at admitting it, he wished that he could have that life someday.
"But," he muttered to himself, "I was never meant to be, so I can't wish for anything."
He had long since decided that, if there was a God, He had turned his face from Peter. [A/N: Forgive my angst!]
"Good save, Ron!" he called automatically.
****
That night, Dumbledore was waiting for Peter when he came into the office.
"I've finally figured out what to do with you," Dumbledore said with a small smile. "Now, of course, that you've decided to stop hiding."
"Oh, and what is that?" Peter asked.
"Forgive me for this, but I must admit that I attempted to look into your mind when you first came here, one night when you were asleep. I-"
"No need to explain any further," Peter interrupted. "I was surprised that you believed me at all. If you wanted to try and verify it, I have no qualms, but I suspect that you didn't get much of a result."
Dumbledore smiled again. "In fact, I have never come across so closed a mind, except, I believe, for one case."
"Professor Severus Snape," Peter finished.
"Well deduced," Dumbledore said, "but he, unfortunately, has absolutely no idea how to go about showing someone else how to close his mind. He learned to be an Occlumens under rather odd circumstances, and so his mind is closed in a far different manner than yours."
"I still don't understand where this is going," Peter said.
"If you're not going to be a student, Peter, and I already have a gamekeeper, then there is only one thing to do with you."
Peter waited expectantly.
"You're going to be our professor of Occlumency, a class that will be only offered to a select few."
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A/N: All right, all right, really angsty I know, but bear with me. Something's going to happen to Neville, and I had to plant the seed for it here. Oh, and the Occlumency lessons should be fun!
See that blue button, press it and say, "That was good" or "That was the worst waste of internet space I have ever heard of."
"Who am I?"
"You are the anthropomorphic manifestation of the disclaimer." ::Inkling then beats the anthropomorphic manifestation of the disclaimer to death with a copy of OOTP. She then gets sent to jail, upon which the judge decides that murder of a non-living idea is not actually murder, and she goes home to write more fanfic::
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Peter's mind worked quickly, as it always did. If classes had just let out, then the halls would be filled to the brim with students. The likelihood of him running into exactly the wrong ones was minimal, but still there. It was not a risk he was keen on taking, so he looked for other solutions. He did not know where he was beyond "somewhere on the fourth floor." He had never bothered with learning precisely where the Charms classroom, for example, was. There was no point; *he* wasn't taking any classes.
He did know, however, how to get to 1) Dumbledore's office, 2) the library, and 3) the Great Hall from virtually any point in the school. Unfortunately, none of the above were anywhere close...
He tried to remember the Marauder's Map. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had shown it to Peter a few days before. The crooked lines and moving points danced across his memory. He automatically erased the people. They were distracting him, and no one would be in the same positions now. The map stood out as clearly behind his closed eyes as it would have if he had been holding it. Peter's superbly photographic memory was not inherent; it was derived from years of half-spying on the still-free Death-Eaters.
The fourth floor, he recalled suddenly, had a passageway on it. True, Harry had said that it was caved in, but maybe there would be enough room for him to squeeze through and wait for the bustle in the corridors to die down. He made his way hurriedly to the mirror. It opened easily at his touch, almost as if it had been waiting for someone to come along. Indeed, there was about three or four feet of floor before an abrupt pile of stones halted any further progress.
The darkness inside was almost complete. Someone else might have lit his wand, but Peter was entirely unused to being able to perform magic. Instinct told him he could do nothing, and he did not bother to think otherwise. Instead, he sat, his back against the mirror, listening to the sounds of students about their lives.
He had nearly drifted off to sleep when raised voices brought him to full consciousness. He kneeled and pressed his ear against the back of the mirror as hard as he dared. Whoever was arguing was just outside the passageway. He wasn't worried they would find him, but he was interested in what was going on.
"Shut up about my parents!" a would-be calm, but angry voice yelled.
Peter backed straight against the stones at the answer. He had heard that drawling voice a few too many times. Draco. But with the wall between Peter and Malfoy, he soon returned to the mirror.
"Would you like me to show it to you?" a wheezy voice asked curiously.
He spun around a few times. "Who's there?" he called quietly.
"No one, dear, except for me. I'm the mirror. We can talk, you know."
"Oh," Peter said, relieved, "right. You can show me what's going on?"
"Of course, isn't that why you came? To spy?" the mirror said without any indication that spying was not an approved-of pastime.
"No, actually, but now that I'm here..."
The mirror became gradually clearer until he could see through it as clearly as a window. He ducked, hoping that no one had noticed his head peaking over the frame.
"They can't see you, dear. I'm only a one-way," the mirror assured him hurriedly.
Tentatively, he poked his head up. He saw, not really to his surprise, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle surrounding another boy who looked only faintly familiar. His robes sported the Gryffindor badge, but beyond that he knew not.
"Who is that boy? Do you know?" Peter asked the mirror, feeling stupid.
"Well, naturally, with no one here to talk to you ever since the Marauders left I've had to keep busy somehow. He's a Longbottom, a Neville Longbottom."
Something very strange happened in the pit of Peter's stomach. Neville...that was Neville Longbottom. Suddenly, he was more afraid of being seen by the Gryffindor than by any of the Death-Eater's children. He felt the intense need to open the mirror and apologize endlessly to Neville. Why?
Then he realized that it was quite obvious. The reason that Draco was drawling those awful insults was because of Peter's mother. If Peter's mother hadn't...hadn't ruined Frank and Alice Longbottom, then Neville would have had a normal life. Peter's mother, though loathed be the term by both in question, was responsible for the misery Neville felt. Peter felt that guilt in behalf of his mother, who still laughed at the thought of the Longbottoms.
Transfixed, Peter watched the scene unfold, barely taking in what was being said. Eventually, (and who could blame him?) Neville snapped. He shot one very effective curse at Draco, sending him spinning nearly twenty feet down the hall to land with an at once sickening and satisfying crunch, but when Draco got up there was murder in his eyes. Literally.
He began a sentence, (probably it would have been around the lines of, "Why don't you try that again, you bastard!") but halfway through it, he disarmed Neville. Before Neville could even begin to react, Crabbe and Goyle both pinned his arms behind his back.
If Peter had though about it logically, he would have realized that the chances of Draco actually committing murder in the middle of the fourth floor corridor of Hogwarts were virtually nil, but logic had nothing to do with it. The fact was that Peter could not get that ghastly image of Lucy, dead in a pool of blood, from his mind. More to the point, who could have?
As Draco advanced on Neville, Peter made up his mind. He was not going to sit here and watch Malfoy perpetrate another murder. Or for that matter, be even indirectly responsible for any more misery on the part of the Longbottoms.
He opened the mirror in what he hoped was a dramatic way. It slammed loudly against the wall, causing all four boys to stare at him. He remembered his wand at that moment and pulled it out.
He heard the mirror mutter, "Some thanks I get."
"Isn't it a little early to start you career as a Death-Eater, Draco?" Peter said loudly. "Or are you just filling in for your father?"
What Draco thought about this statement the world may never know. He was, however, so surprised to see *Peter* of all people materialize in front of him.
Peter could see his thoughts as clearly as if they were written on his face. Draco would have dearly loved to have said, "How the hell did you get here?" and probably about a dozen other questions, but he was smart enough to realize that actually *knowing* Peter was probably not the best game plan for innocence.
So, the question turned into, "Who the hell are you?"
Peter didn't bother to answer. "Don't play dumb with me," he hissed, liking the dramatics of it a bit, even if the situation was not entirely to his taste. "The world isn't exactly fooled by your, how shall I put it, 'purebloodedness.' I'm sure your father could attest to that fact. You might as well admit to knowing me. It's not as if we're in front of the Wizengamot, and I don't feel like going through introductions again."
The fact that Peter could stand there and point his wand at Draco without cursing him into oblivion was somewhat of a miracle. With the possible exception of Voldemort, there was no one that Peter hated more, but years of stoicism had extended benefits. Peter doubted that Dumbledore would be overly pleased if Filch had to wipe Draco's remains from the ceilings and walls. He tried to be calm.
Draco was far from it, and Peter couldn't quite blame him. Although he couldn't imagine that Draco did not know about Peter's rescue/escape by now, he probably wasn't expecting the boy to pop up from behind a mirror. He did, at least, recognize the futility "playing dumb."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Draco amended.
"Exacting revenge," Peter replied coolly. "Please, please go for the wand. It is taking all of my self-control not to kill you at the moment. There isn't a jury in the world that would dare to convict me if you mysteriously disappeared."
Draco's face turned a little bit paler.
Peter looked at Crabbe and Goyle, trying to avoid Neville's desperately inquisitive gaze. "Let him go," Peter said softly, his wand wavering just a little bit.
They did so, and Neville backed a little ways down the corridor. He looked as if he was trying to decide whether a teacher needed to intervene. Peter didn't particularly care whether he did or not. He could handle himself, but he was neither afraid nor annoyed at the thought of a professor.
Peter couldn't help himself any longer. He knew it was the cliché of villainhood, but he absolutely had to say it.
"My, how the tables have turned!"
This was the first time in the history of the world that Peter had the advantage against one of his enemies. The temptation to use it, to win once and for all, was overpowering.
But he didn't; he didn't because he remembered Lucy. Lucy and Mary both swam before his eyes, begging him not to be vengeful, begging him to be good.
He never thought that he was.
That is, until he walked away with Neville, leaving Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle staring bewilderedly after them.
****
The next morning, Peter and Mary ate in the Great Hall without the Invisibility Cloak on. They ate at the Gryffindor table, though they had yet to convince Dumbledore to let them stay in the Tower.
"Who are you?" everyone wanted to know, but neither Mary nor Peter were keen on giving history lessons.
They said the bare minimum, but that, far from calming the crowd, served to stir up the beehive. The questions poured through like a broken dam. Peter would have found a way not to answer most of them even under Veritaserum.
But the worst was Neville. Harry, Hermione, and Ron certainly had reason to hate Bellatrix, but the hate was canceled out because they had known and loved Sirius. That was not the case for Neville. All he knew was the Peter was the son of the woman who had ruined his life.
He sat very still, very silently, like either a hawk watching his prey or a mouse trying not to be it (Peter did not know which) throughout breakfast. Peter could feel his gaze as if they were gimlets. Under the table, Neville's hands repeatedly folded and unfolded a wrapper. Peter wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. Bellatrix was his mother by birth, not by choice.
Finally, when the remains of the biscuits disappeared down into the kitchens below, Neville whispered hoarsely, "Thank you for...yesterday."
Peter nodded mutely. The barrier of parents soon passed. It didn't take Neville that long to realize that Peter was nothing like his mother, and Neville, luckily, was not stupid enough to hate on parentage alone.
"I'm a different sort of mudblood," Peter said.
Neville grinned ruefully. "Only on one half of the family," he said.
"All right, then I am a different sort of half-blood."
And that was the last mention of Bellatrix Lestrange for quite a long while. The conversation fell to other things.
"Why aren't you a student here?" Dean Thomas asked. "I mean, surely Dumbledore would let you take first year courses."
"We're both about on level for our ages as far as theory goes, and we're beginning to put it in to practice," Mary said. "But, it's just simpler for the moment to stay out of classes. We'd probably start riots."
"Come to our History of Magic class, please," begged Seamus, "we need a good riot. It might make Binns shut up."
Hermione opened her mouth to argue, then shrugged in agreement.
"That bad, eh?" Peter said, laughing.
The group of Gryffindors launched into explanations of exactly how boring History of Magic was.
"That's a shame," Peter said. "The actual history is really quite fascinating, you know. Well, come to think of it, you probably don't. It's too bad the subject has to be a sedative in class. Do you study it often on your own?"
Harry, Ron, Dean, Neville, and Seamus stared at him as if he were insane, but Hermione nodded eagerly.
"Oh, I try to get them to read," Hermione said with an exasperated sigh, "but they shy from books like a cat from water. It's a lost cause. Would you believe I am the only Gryffindor who has read Hogwarts, A History? There is one Ravenclaw seventh year."
"Really. I would think that it would be a required reading!" Mary exclaimed, having pilfered and read the book about three times (if Peter's knowledge served him correctly.
The two girls launched into a discussion of the finer points of the book. The boys moved subconsciously away from them and turned the conversation to more practical things.
"So, Peter," Ron said, "do you play a lot of Quidditch?"
Everyone stared at him.
"Oh yeah, all the time," Peter said sarcastically, "Me and Voldemort against the rest of the Death-Eaters."
"Oh, right, sorry." Ron turned a vibrant shade of scarlet.
"Don't worry about it. I hear Quidditch is pretty interesting?" Peter said.
The boys' faces dropped into looks of utmost horror.
"Pretty interesting?" Harry gulped.
"You mean you've never seen a game of Quidditch!" the others cried.
"Well, it was on my to-do list," Peter said.
"A situation that needs to be rectified immediately," Seamus announced.
The next thing he knew, peter was being propelled through the hall out to the Quidditch pitch. As he passed the Slytherin table, he heard quite a bit of mutterings, but he paid them no need.
Ten minutes later, the Gryffindor boys were trying to teach Peter how to fly on a broom, en mass. He couldn't hear a single instruction for the commotion.
"One at a time, please!" Peter cried.
The others fell back to let Harry attempt to teach Peter exactly how to fly a broom. Three hours later, Peter could sort of, kind of fly around a little bit. He was quite reluctant to fly any higher than ten feet. It would be just too ironic to slip and die in a freak broomstick accident after surviving Voldemort for nearly sixteen years. He wasn't about to try to throw that Quaffle thing through the ring.
Harry and the others laughed, but good-naturedly.
"Tell you what," Peter finally said, "I'll play Quidditch with you on March 23rd, the day after my sixteenth birthday."
The boys agreed. Peter wondered if Mary had told Harry or Ron that there would be no March 23rd (hopefully). He didn't think so. If he knew Mary, she would not even acknowledge the fact that it was going to happen until it already had. She would just suffer in silence. It was better that way. He didn't need to give Voldemort any more incentive for catching up with him prior to that time.
Soon, he got off the broom to watch the others play. It looked so easy and effortless. They started showing off after a while, making simple catches into breath-taking dives. Ron was doing superbly as Keeper, and, of course, Harry was just plain good at Quidditch.
Nothing in Peter's life had ever been that easy. Every moment had been a fight against something. He tried, briefly, to imagine having an uncomplicated life or even an uncomplicated day. It didn't work.
But that's what the fight was for, right? Making sure that people could actually have a carefree afternoon on broomsticks.
It's just, and Peter felt ashamed even at admitting it, he wished that he could have that life someday.
"But," he muttered to himself, "I was never meant to be, so I can't wish for anything."
He had long since decided that, if there was a God, He had turned his face from Peter. [A/N: Forgive my angst!]
"Good save, Ron!" he called automatically.
****
That night, Dumbledore was waiting for Peter when he came into the office.
"I've finally figured out what to do with you," Dumbledore said with a small smile. "Now, of course, that you've decided to stop hiding."
"Oh, and what is that?" Peter asked.
"Forgive me for this, but I must admit that I attempted to look into your mind when you first came here, one night when you were asleep. I-"
"No need to explain any further," Peter interrupted. "I was surprised that you believed me at all. If you wanted to try and verify it, I have no qualms, but I suspect that you didn't get much of a result."
Dumbledore smiled again. "In fact, I have never come across so closed a mind, except, I believe, for one case."
"Professor Severus Snape," Peter finished.
"Well deduced," Dumbledore said, "but he, unfortunately, has absolutely no idea how to go about showing someone else how to close his mind. He learned to be an Occlumens under rather odd circumstances, and so his mind is closed in a far different manner than yours."
"I still don't understand where this is going," Peter said.
"If you're not going to be a student, Peter, and I already have a gamekeeper, then there is only one thing to do with you."
Peter waited expectantly.
"You're going to be our professor of Occlumency, a class that will be only offered to a select few."
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A/N: All right, all right, really angsty I know, but bear with me. Something's going to happen to Neville, and I had to plant the seed for it here. Oh, and the Occlumency lessons should be fun!
See that blue button, press it and say, "That was good" or "That was the worst waste of internet space I have ever heard of."