"Happy Halloween, Petey!" Sirius said, placing a small jack-o'-lantern on top of Peter's head and scampering away.
Peter shook it off and threw it back at him. The pumpkin's smile turned into an O of surprise as it was chucked across the hall. "Halloween was three days ago, you know."
"Well, it's a holiday worth three days of celebration," Sirius said defensively. He left the jack-o'-lantern on a little shelf in the entrance hall as the boys pushed their way out onto the Hogwarts grounds.
It was a beautiful day, bright and sunny and warm for early November. Peter had hoped it would rain or snow or something; maybe then Mr. Sprucing would've cancelled flying lessons. Peter hated flying lessons.
"Come on!" James called, running ahead. "We're going to be late!" He loved the classes, of course; he was fantastic at flying. Mr. Sprucing had already told him he should try out for the Quidditch team next year, something that James never failed to gloat about. Remus was decent on a broom, too, but he wasn't even at school for the lesson. He'd gone home the day before to visit his ill mother, just as he had a month ago.
Peter trailed behind James and Sirius as they ran up the hill to where flying class was held. Most of the class—first year Gryffindors and Slytherins—was already there, and so was Mr. Sprucing, leading his students through some stretching exercises while he waited for the stragglers to arrive.
"Okay, you all," he said once all of them had gathered, "today we'll be practicing some basic air maneuvers. You should all know by now how to rise, dive, and turn; now you will learn how to flip and roll." Flipping and rolling did not sound like it would be easy, especially for Peter, who had barely been able to accomplish the first things Sprucing mentioned.
The students took their places behind the old broomsticks spread out across the grass, each a few feet away from its nearest neighbor. Peter ended up separated from James and Sirius and instead was placed with Lily Evans and Mary Macdonald on one side of him and three Slytherin boys—Snape, Avery, and Mulciber—on the other. Mulciber looked at him with a sneer twisting his face; Peter thought back to the time last week when he'd charmed a bucket of water to dump itself out on his head. He hadn't been with his roommates at the time, and he'd been too embarrassed to tell them about it later, but now he wondered if maybe he should have. They would've stuck up for him; they always did.
The students called the brooms to their hands with the command "Up!" Peter's broom didn't jump into his hand until his third try; he knew it could sense his nervousness. They all mounted their brooms, Peter's hands wrapped so tightly around his that his knuckles turned white, and pushed off from the ground at Sprucing's command.
Peter eased the head of his broom upward, his confidence decreasing with every foot he rose above the ground. "Scared, Pettigrew?" taunted Avery, laughing at the expression on Peter's face and the sweat forming on his brow.
"Oh, leave him alone," snapped Lily.
The students were directed to hover about twenty feet above the ground. Mr. Sprucing flew in a circle around the group, inspecting their form on the broomsticks. "All right," he said, "now we're going to try a single right broom roll. Watch as I demonstrate." Pressing his knees firmly to the sides of his broom, he leaned hard to the right, and rolled around in a tight, fast circle before finishing perfectly upright. "The trick is to put enough weight into your lean," he explained, "so the momentum gets you all the way around. Otherwise you'll be dangling upside-down from your brooms." Peter shuddered.
"Now, on the count of three, I want you all to try it," said Sprucing. "One, two, three!"
Peter flattened himself against his broom, squeezed shut his eyes, and leaned to the side as if trying to fall out of a chair. The wind whooshed in his ears; when Peter opened his eyes, he saw only sky above him. He was upside-down, just as Sprucing had warned against.
Peter felt his hands, caked in nervous sweat, slipping off the broom; he pressed his knees tightly together until they bit into the broom wood, but even those were losing their grip. And then, out of nowhere, another broom rammed into his—Avery's—and Peter was falling through the sky, the other students' figures growing smaller and smaller until he hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Pain shut up his whole body, the arm that cushioned his fall going quickly numb. Peter cried out, his vision swarming with little black dots.
"Peter." Suddenly Mr. Sprucing was standing over him. His voice sounded muffled, like he was speaking through a layer of cotton. "Peter, say something. Are you all right?" But Peter couldn't say anything; all he could do was whimper and scream and cry. The pain was terrible, like fire spreading through his veins. His body was lifted off the grass by a spell Mr. Sprucing had cast; behind him, Peter could see through watery eyes that the rest of the students were back on the ground. Sirius and James were yelling something at Avery, who was laughing with his head thrown back. Then Peter closed his eyes, the pain so overwhelming it sent him to sleep.
When Peter came to, the pain had dulled greatly, and his still-numb arm was wrapped up in a cast. He was in the hospital wing, tucked into a little twin bed with a stack of pillows propping up his head.
Madam Pomfrey rushed over to him when she noticed he was awake. "Oh, finally," she muttered, adjusting his pillows and shining her wand light in his eyes until they burned. "You broke about twenty different bones, Mr. Pettigrew, most of them in your right arm. I'm afraid you'll have to stay here tonight while they heal. Do you still feel pain?" Peter nodded; it was dull, but still strong enough to bother him.
"Sit tight for a minute," Pomfrey directed. "I'll just whip up some more potion for you." And she left his side and disappeared into another room, leaving Peter alone in the empty hospital wing.
It wasn't completely empty, though; he could make out the shadow of another figure behind a curtain in the back corner of the room. He wondered who it could be, and what could've happened to them. Peter, always curious, wanted to see for himself, but he forced himself to stay in bed as Madam Pomfrey had told him to. Until he heard moaning, that is.
He glanced around for Pomfrey, but she had shut herself in the other room to make his potion. Carefully he lowered himself off the bed and onto aching feet, and hobbled over to the other end of the wing. The moaning grew louder as he approached; whoever it was had just woken up, and they were in a whole lot of pain.
Peter pulled back the curtain with his good arm, and immediately fell back with shock. Lying in the bed before him, heavily bandaged and deathly pale, was his roommate Remus Lupin.
"Oh, my God," Peter squeaked. "Remus?"
Remus's eyes fluttered open. It took a minute for them to focus on Peter, and another for them to narrow with recognition. "Peter," he croaked. "What're you doing here?"
"I—I fell off my broom," Peter stuttered. "I thought you went home to visit your mum, Remus."
"Oh…I was going to," said Remus, his voice still very weak. "But I…I hurt myself before I could leave."
"You look terrible, Re," Peter said; he looked like he was on the verge of death, actually. "What happened to you?"
Remus swallowed. "Please don't tell James and Sirius," he begged. "I don't…I don't want them to worry."
"Yes, but what—?"
The curtain flew back, and Madam Pomfrey jumped between Remus and Peter, glowering down at the latter. "This is a privacy curtain," she snapped. "Get back in your bed, or I'll have to chain you to the sides of it."
"Sorry, Madam Pomfrey," he yelped, and quickly added, "Sorry, Remus." He limped back over towards his bed, Pomfrey eyeing him suspiciously.
Peter's head swirled with questions as he lay back down. Remus hadn't just looked like he'd hurt himself—he'd looked like he was gravely ill. What had happened to him, and why did he not want anyone to know about it?
