Author's Note: My first stab at Potter-Fiction in months. Hopefully it really is like riding a bike. It helps that writing Sirius and Remus is like writing old friends, but Peter is still making himself known. -- Dec. 2004

Secret Keeper - Chapter Six

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. . . never want to see you again . . .

. . . how could you? . . .

. . . just like your father, always running away . . .

. . . how COULD you? . . .

. . . please stop . . .

. . . I'll never forgive you.

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He awoke as if he was coming up for air.

Thrashing breathlessly, Peter clawed at the air in front of his face before he managed to flip himself over onto his stomach, worming his way blindly along the floor, head snapping from side to side. An instant later, his eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring at the wall, sucking in great breaths of air so quickly he felt dizzy. The floor seemed to kilt left and right unpredictably beneath him, and he hugged his body to it, almost whimpering.

Gradually, however, his racing heart began to falter, and his mind began to clear. Instead of a dull mesh of shapes and colours, the room came clearly into focus, and he remembered where he was even before he made sense of the dusty floor, the overturned furniture, and the gouges on the walls, revealing crumbling plaster and splintered timbers beneath. Still, he was reluctant to get up; his body seemed to balk at the thought, and he actually cringed at the brush of cold air across the back of his neck before he realised what it was.

But what had him so frightened?

Even before his confusion could take shape, he remembered.

The apparition at the window.

The voice, like something from a grave, spitting cobwebs and chill into his ear.

With a gasp, Peter sat up and looked wildly around. His heart leaped into his throat again and seemed to force aside any attempts at breathing, and for a moment, he swayed uneasily. After a moment, however, he realised the room was empty, save himself, although his view was somewhat obscured given his vantage point.

He was still beneath the couch.

Confused, Peter twisted around now. Hadn't he scrambled out from beneath it at the first words, frightened and sprawling on the floor? Even as he wondered, his mind registered the thick, coarse fur on his body, bristling at attention with his unease, almost painfully so.

With the realisation, Peter felt an abrupt wash of both relief and embarassment. It had been a dream. Of course. Stupid not to have realised it at first rather than getting spooked like a babe in a cradle from the shadows of trees on the walls. As a rat, his thoughts were sometimes unusual, disjointed, especially when he remained in it for long periods of time. Once, one night when Remus had worn himself out early -- no doubt both from rampaging in the Shack and from an onslaught of homework earlier that week -- Peter had found himself dozing off while the others had romped through the rooms below, and his dreams had been a confusing blur of colours and meaningless sounds, and he'd woken to find he'd chewed a hole in a faded velvet armchair and burrowed inside, much to the amusement of his friends.

Considering how stressful these past few weeks had been, it was no wonder he'd had the nightmare, although he'd never had one so vivid. If Sirius and James knew he'd first skipped class, fallen asleep by way of chosen deviant activity, and then woken squeaking and twitching in alarm, he'd never hear the end of it. And the more he thought of it, the more childish it seemed; not just having a nightmare, which was embarassing enough given his age, but the quality of it itself. Some looming ghost outside a window in the dark moaning his name? Please.

Peter slunk guiltily out from under the couch, head down and ears flat, glancing from side to side as though he expected to find the room suddenly full of snickering Slytherin. It was dark now in the room, and he knew he'd probably slept through several classes, which would require some difficult talking to explain, although detention from at least one teacher was probably inevitable. Shadows loomed around him, and for a moment a twinge of fear nagged at him, but he shook his head vigorously, casting off both his rodent form and the last vestiges of the dream with it. Standing, he shook off the thick clumps of dust and debris from his robes, trying his best to seem casual and unconcerned. Already, he was thinking with trepidation of the very real pile of homework waiting for him back in the common room. He turned to begin the long crawl back down the cold tunnel to the school grounds . . .

. . . and paused.

Another gust of wind tugged at him again, and he turned towards it's source, frowning.

The large window stood open, moth-eaten curtains too thick for the winter wind to do more than shuffle weakly, snow spiralling in from outside.

His wand lay at his feet.

Slowly, Peter bent and picked it up. He must have dropped it when he'd first come in, had to have. And the window must have swung open of it's own accord; the Shrieking Shack was barely standing at all from the countless times Remus Lupin had vented his lyncanthropic energies on it over the years.

Regardless, Peter did not linger overlong on his way back to the school, and his footsteps were a little too hurried for his liking as he stumbled blindly down the dark tunnel.

However strange and unsettling this day had been, at least he had the comfort and safety of the Gryffindor common room to look forward to. And whatever may happen outside, nothing ever happened within the schools long halls these days.

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In the days following Professor Fensworthy's unfortunate death, even an official announcement by Professor Dumbledore couldn't completely quell the rumours that flew amidst the students that something darker had been responsible. Over the course of a few days, the rumours and stories became wilder and wilder until passing through the crowded corridors between classes one day, Sirius heard one of the Ravenclaw girls who had been there for the grisly discovery swearing up and down to a friend that she had seen Voldemort himself stampeding out of the classroom on the back of a raging, fire-breathing Thestral mere moments after they had heard the thundred words, Avada Kedavra.

She claimed the reason none of the other Ravenclaws supported or remembered this was because, like Lily Evans who had sunk into a most unbecoming and unusual swoon, they were simply struck dumb with horror at the sight.

Even if these claims hadn't been as outlandish as they were, Sirius would have paid little attention to them anyway. He put no stock in rumours (even the ones he had spread occasionally himself with vicious glee when he was younger, typically unflattering ones involving Lucius Malfoy and the giant squid) in the best of times, especially not now when he had the word of Remus Lupin to rely upon.

Remus had been called upon by students of every house in the past few days to recount the discovery over and over, and although he had delivered it flatly and without variation countless times, most people still seemed to think he was hiding something. He was slumped in one of the comfortably lopsided armchairs in front of one of the library's few lit fireplaces currently, looking even more weary than usual. The dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced then Sirius had ever seen them. "I just don't understand," he said with a sigh, "you'd think they wanted me to say she was murdered, you'd think they wanted to have a reason to panic and be afraid."

"People can be stupid, mate," Sirius said sympathetically as he inspected a Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean critically before cautiously popping it in his mouth and swallowing with a vaguely relieved expression, "some just aren't happy unless they've got something to go mad over." He stretched out his feet in the direction of the fire and sank down further into his own chair. "Don't let it bother you."

"But it does." Remus replied crossly. "It does bother me. What happened to Professor Fensworthy was a . . . a . . . a tragedy."

"Been talking to Dumbledore, have you?" Sirius smiled slightly. "Look, I'm not saying I knew her, but I guess she must have been an alright sort if you and Evans liked her. So what does it matter what a hundred stupid gits think when the people who matter know the truth and care?"

Remus fell silent for a moment, before looking up with a smile. "When did you get so sensitive, Padfoot?"

"Hanging around you so much, something was bound to rub off. Just don't spread it around, yeah? I've got a reputation."

They grinned at each other before lapsing into a comfortable silence, Remus lost in his own thoughts, and Sirius gazing lazily into the flames. It was, he thought, the perfect way to spend a late Saturday night; except for a few quietly murmuring students a few isles over, everyone else was doubtless already wrapped in their beds or around the fireplaces in their own common rooms. Remus had originally intended to use the silence of the library to study, urging Sirius to do the same; the books they'd taken from the shelves were now piled forgotten on a low table in front of them. Personally, Sirius didn't see what all the tremendous fuss was about. NEWTS, honestly; he had always done very well at his lessons with little or no effort, and he expected this one to be no different.

Mostly, he was glad for the feeling of comfort and easy camraderie in the room. Even as much as he had hated living at home under the thumb and scowling eye of his mother, at least there he had been around other people, even if he'd been mostly despised. While the new apartment he'd purchased just this past summer was his own -- blissfully his own -- it was also ringingly quiet at times. Although he would never come right out and say it, Sirius needed to be around people, especially people like James, Remus, and . . .

Sirius's head came up off his chest. "Peter never took Divination, did he?"

Remus stirred slightly, as though coming out of a light doze. His normally neat hair stood up in odd clumps. "What? . . . ah . . . no. Why?"

Instead of responding, however, Sirius only drummed his long fingers on the arm of the chair. "Did he know Professor Fensworthy?" he finally asked.

Making a visible effort, Remus pushed himself upright in his chair. He frowned thoughtfully for a moment before responding. "Don't think so. No more than you did, anyway. Why?" he asked again.

Sirius shrugged easily, dropping the bag of Every Flavour Beans out of sight into a pocket as the librarian glided quietly by. "Dunno. He's just been acting really off ever since she died. I thought maybe . . . " he trailed off and shrugged again, unconcerned.

"You think the Slytherins have been bothering him again?" There was a bit more alertness this time around in Remus's tone, and the set of his jaw was firmer. Sirius bit back a smile; of all of them, Remus had always been the quickest to make peace, or try to.

"Not as I know of. And we'd see the signs. Slytherins chanting more than usual in the corridor, Peter running to have counter-jinxes performed . . . " Sirius grinned, for a moment recalling a particularily nasty jinx Peter had been placed under by an ambitious Slytherin, one that had seen him vomitting up slugs for a week. Somehow, Sirius doubted the world would ever see the likes of that again, as, despite trying over and over as James and Sirius had advanced upon him, the Slytherin had been unable to reproduce the jinx again. "I think it's just nerves. You know, NEWTS and all."

Looking both disapproving and a touch envious, Remus said, "You don't sound particularily worried."

Sirius lofted his eyebrows. "Honestly? Even if I were to fail them all, what does it matter? I don't have any scowling parents at home waiting to scold me."

"Still," Remus said doubtfully, "what about work? Even the simplest of jobs these days usually require at least one NEWT."

Looking offended, Sirius laid a hand over his heart. "You think I can't get by on my good looks and charm?"

"Like I said," Remus said, grinning, "you'll need at least one NEWT in potions if you plan to get yourself those. And they're only temporary."