Wow, when I said I had writer's block, I really didn't mean to start a new story and to forget about this one completely. I just hope that people read this and that I actually continue it this time. I really mean to. I think I'm going to try and finish it soon. I'm going to bring this story through seventh year, then skip around to the important events.
Anyway, information in this chapter was on occasion obtained from Harry Potter Lexicon at this URL: It's a great informational webpage.
Disclaimer: I don't the Harry Potter world or any of it's inhabitants. Peter's mother, step-father (Andrew), and half-sister (Amelia) are all products of my imagination.
A Rat's Tale
Finals
I don't know why, but after that, things started to change. Sirius was in awe that I, Peter, had a broom that the staff hadn't found and that he hadn't thought of such a simplistic way of hiding a broom of his own here. Of course, he didn't cease to remind me that his model was better then a Shooting Star but Remus kindly reminded him time after time that I had a broom and he didn't and that maybe he shouldn't talk until his broom somehow ended up under his bed. Sirius usually stopped talking after that.
James came back to school with a tan and an extra inch added to his height. He began to constantly trip over himself, taking my place as Gryffindor with two left feet. When he came back, Sirius' teasing came to a sudden halt and my confidence began to grow. Little by little, whenever somebody bothered me, I just remembered how I ignored my mother when she yelled. Blocking people out wasn't as hard as it had been.
The year went on like that. James and Sirius got into enough trouble for the teachers to come up with a numbered list of punishments and then randomly pick from it when one of them scored a detention. Remus began to disappear once a month. Whenever somebody in his family got sick, he was gone. Sirius and Remus assumed that his family had a very weak immune system, but I kept on remembering the Christmas incident. Every time he left again, I'd shrug it off and try to be as carefree as James and Sirius. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
Things remained the same until the end of the year. Finals were in a month. Remus and Lily had begun to study for what started as fifteen minutes and grew to two hours a night. After a week, Arabella joined their study sessions and after two more, I joined them as well. James and Sirius were content to retain what they'd learned through the year, each convinced that they didn't need to study, which left the four of us at a table in the library without distractions.
One night, I left earlier then the other three. Herbology had been my strong point throughout the year and they had decided to memorize each herb and its uses, a task I'd already completed. I made my way through the halls and up several staircases. It wasn't late, but for some reason I was tired. I slipped and got my leg stuck in the trick stair. I yelled several times, but there wasn't anybody in the halls to hear me. I tried to settle myself as best I could. Remus, Lily, and Arabella would be coming from the Library this way within an hour and I could wait. My books hadn't landed too far away and I wasn't falling any deeper into the stair. For some reason instead of panicking like I usually would have, I tried to make the best of what had happened. I opened my transfiguration book and hoped that it wouldn't slip through the stairs. I couldn't afford to buy another one.
"Do you need any help?" I heard a good fifteen to twenty minutes later. I hadn't been paying attention to what was going on around me. Thousands of people could have climbed up and down the stairs and I wouldn't have asked a single one for help.
"That'd be great," I said, carefully placing the book on a stair that I knew was safe. A dark haired boy I didn't know grabbed my arm and helped me pry myself from the stair. Once I was standing on solid stairs again, I grabbed my book and stuffed it into my bag. "Thanks."
"Not a problem," the boy said. He turned and walked up the stairs. I followed, several steps behind him. At the top of the stairs, he turned in the direction that I often saw Slytherins walk in to get to their common room. I turned the other direction, towards the Gryffindor room and walked away.
The next day in Potions class, I ran into him again. Sirius and James had partnered up and Remus had left to visit his sick aunt, leaving me partnerless. It had happened before, I was used to making the potions by myself. However, this time the boy walked over to me. "Do you have a partner?"
"No," I answered. Slytherins and Gryffindors never worked together. It was breaking the sacred rule of house rivalry.
"It might be in our mutual best interest that we work together. I don't quite understand this potion," he extended his hand to me. "I'm Severus Snape. It's nice to meet you." He started to gather up the potion ingredients, then set his cauldron on the table. Before I knew it, he had started to add ingredients. After a few moments, I began to slice the caterpillars that he handed me. I didn't really think anything of the whole incident until I got back to the common room that night. I had gone to another study session with Lily and Arabella. This time, thankfully, I hadn't gotten stuck on my way back.
"Why were you working with Snape?" Sirius asked me the moment I got back to the room. I dumped my books next to my bed and turned around to face him.
"Because I didn't have a partner. I don't understand what we're doing." I said. "Is Remus back yet?"
"No. Don't work with Snape anymore. If you don't have a partner, work with the girls. Or us. Triple up."
"If I had thought of that before, I would have. But like I said, I didn't understand what we were doing. And now I do. Why do you have a problem with Snape anyway? He's really actually nice."
"He follows us around. Every time I see him we get into trouble. Anyway, do you know his family's reputation?"
"No." He was forgetting that my childhood had left me conveniently out of the loop of the goings-on of the Wizarding world. "Do I need to know? Look, next time if you don't want me working with somebody random, invite me to join your group. It isn't that hard." I pulled the curtains around my bed shut.
The year ended with Sirius and I not speaking to one another. Remus returned in low spirits and his mood spread to all of us. By finals, we were snapping at each other daily. When finals were over, we were all glad to be going home.
That summer, things around the house only slightly changed. Mom was still mad that I hadn't managed to find a way to spend the summer at Hogwarts. She still didn't quite believe that I had been capable of passing the first year with decent marks in all my classes but Herbology, where I received high marks. Andrew had started to treat me better then he had before, especially when Mom wasn't around. He took me over to a meadow nearby our house and taught me how to fly the Shooting Star he had sent me for Christmas. I wasn't very good, but I could work my way around the field without falling off. He blamed the broom and said that I needed something better, but I was just happy to be out of the house.
By the time September came around, I was ready to return to Hogwarts. Amelia had decided that it was funny to tell Mom stories about me, often resulting in punishment of some kind. The owl that I had somehow inherited was taken away on a regular basis, usually right after James or Remus sent me a letter, resulting in my not replying for several days. They stopped writing after awhile and I wasn't sure how friendly they were going to be towards me when I met them back on the train.
Once again this year I was pushed through the barrier. This time, my mom didn't even bother to follow and just shoved my trunk through after me. I pulled it along behind me, grasping the Shooting Star in one hand. Second Years were allowed to have brooms. I knew I wasn't going to make the team, but I figured that I'd try just for the experience and maybe I'd actually get to use it sometimes. I pulled my trunk into a compartment and pulled out one of my books. Before I knew it, the room had three more passengers in it.
"Why didn't you ever write back?" James asked, annoyed. He had grown over the summer, at least three inches taller then he'd been. He'd also somehow managed to acquire glasses, even though he had claimed he could see the board just fine and that the headaches were nothing.
"I did write back. I just couldn't do it very promptly." I answered. James shrugged and started talking about his summer holiday. I listened, but his adventures seemed to revolve around how much he hated his glasses. After awhile, I began to drift off. I didn't wake up until we had reached Hogwarts.
The feast was the same that year as it had been the year before. Several new Gryffindors were sorted into the house; however this year a more even amount of boys and girls. Lily and Arabella were both back, each with a tan and an interesting story about how they'd spent their summer. Lily's older sister had apparently been shipped off to a sleep-away camp, leaving her parents alone with her the entire summer. Lily had been thrilled about the attention, but something was wrong with the way she had spoken about her sister. She obviously hadn't gotten along with her for the few days that she'd seen her before she had left.
Once the feast was over and Sirius had managed to obtain his first detention of the year, we all trooped back to the room. As we all returned to our respective beds I had the feeling that this year was going to seem a lot longer then the last. I don't really know why.