Chapter Seven

The Spring Blood Demon

Peter's point of view

Peter clenched his fist over the handle of his wand, locked in a moral dilemma over wether he should Obliviate Severus's memory. He didn't really want to, but what choice did he have? The world of the Shinobi was kept a complete secret from wizards and muggles alike, in fear of some shinobis taking sides in their wars and hurting practically defenseless people. Before he could make his decision, however, Severus's eyes widened and he stepped back into the wall of the school, trembling slightly.

"W-what is that?" He stuttered. Peter turned, he nearly fell backward himself. Towering above him at at least seven feet tall was the figure of a slim man, with long, ratted and tangled hair. The stench of blood filled his nostrils. He backed up slightly, coughing, his sensitive nose being effected by the smell even worse than that of the average human's. Meli Sensei was gone.

"Into the castle, now!" Peter called, unsheathing his katana, his eyes watering. He saw shock steal over Severus's face. "Now!" He repeated, more forcefully. Snape turned and ran into the doors of the castle. Scorpion had followed him. "Thanks for the help, Flametail!" Peter called over his shoulder.

"You're welcome." She called back annoyingly. The creature made to pick Peter up off the ground, but, mimicking a snake, he slithered out of its grip, executed a back handspring, and slipped in through the doors of the castle, slamming them shut with a satisfying bang. Severus was gaping at him, and even Scorpion looked wary. Peter heard the sharp clicks of high heels coming toward them.

"Bye." Scorpion said quietly.

"So you're just going to throw us to the wolves?" Peter asked.

"No, the cats." Scorpion corrected him, slipping into the shadows and disappearing from view. Peter couldn't help but notice how strong the smell of blood still was.

Severus's point of view

came around the corner. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"What happened here?" She asked, her eyes growing wide. "Why are you covered in blood, Pettigrew?"

"Blood?" Peter repeated stupidly. He looked down at himself and an expression of pure horror crossed his face. "Hidoi! Kuso tawagoto." He said, obviously annoyed. Severus had no idea what that was supposed to mean and neither, evidently, did , who looked at him strangely. "Erm... I speak Japanese." Peter suddenly looked awkward.

"Where did all this blood come from?" She asked.

"Probably from the Chinodobutsu, if I had to guess, it did grab me... oh, hang on, you probably don't know what that is." He frowned and looked down at his robes which, for the past few days, had always been kept spotless. He extracted his wand and pointed at himself. With a flick of his wrist he siphoned off every spot of the dark blood. He smiled in a satisfied sort of way. Severus felt his jaw drop.

"What do you call that?" Potter's voice called from behind them. The whole gang was here now, just wonderful.

"Non verbal spell casting." Pettigrew said matter-of-factly.

"But how..." Black had an expression of utter shock on his face. Petter suddenly seemed slightly embarrassed. He mumbled something at his feet that sounded a bit like like;

"Picked it up."

"You don't just pick that up, it takes months of practice." Lupin said in a shocked fashion.

"I er..." Peter began.

"Why are you covered in blood?" Black demanded.

"Professor Slughorn, huh?" Potter said crossly, folding his arms over his chest.

"What's going on with you?" Lupin's voice became accusatory.

"Is Flametail in on this?" Potter asked.

"Why is snape here?" Black eyed Severus suspiciously.

"Pettigrew, I think we should speak with the Headmaster about your whereabouts during your disappearance, this time using veritaserum. If you learned magic from demons..." Potter cut across .

"Peter wouldn't do anything that stupid." He said indignantly.

"We can't be sure about anything at the moment..." Severus lost track of what was being said, as Black, Lupin, and Potter immediately started shouting down, who also began yelling. Pettigrew seemed to be greatly annoyed by this, and was covering his ears. He scowled, and then:

"Damare!" He bellowed. Everyone stopped talking immediately, and looked at him, blinking. "It means 'shut it'." He added angrily. "You're not going to get anywhere by yelling at someone who can put you all in detention." He narrowed his eyes at Potter, Black, and Lupin again, the way he had done when Potter and Black had been picking on Severus. All three of them looked toward the ground. "She deserves a bit of respect, don't you agree."

"Sorry, Professor ." The chorused together.

Then, he addressed .

"I do not wish to be rude professor, but I do believe I already told you that I cannot recall my whereabouts while I was missing from school, and I cannot possibly think of a reason that I would take to learning anything from a demon." Pettigrew put somewhat of a stress on the word "demon".

"Of course, I would like to believe you but in this situation we cannot take any chances. Mr. Pettigrew, I need you to come to the Headmaster's office... now." Peter made a funny motion, that somewhat looked like the beginnings of a bow. There was a great crash, someone, or something, was banging on the front doors of Hogwarts.

"We might want to take care of the Chinodobutsu first, though." Peter said.

"The what?" Black and Potter asked together. Lupin scowled.

"I've never heard of something by that name." Pettigrew frowned at the door, ignoring them. "That won't hold up for long... we need a more permanent solution."

"C'mon Peter, mate, nothing can break into Hogwarts, it's the most secure place in England, if not, the world, we're fine." Potter said.

"Counterfactual." He replied calmly. "The most secure place in the world is the Kiniro Giniro palace in Japan, and a demon easily broke in to Hogwarts to kidnap me, so you can construe that this demon, larger and more powerful than the last, though admittedly less intelligent, could also penetrate Hogwarts's defenses." Everyone blinked at Pettigrew, including Severus who was shocked to hear those words come out of Peter's mouth.

Pettigrew seemed not to notice he said something out of the ordinary. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up toward the ceiling as though this would help him find the answer. Not even half a second later his head snapped back down and his eyes flew open. He snapped his fingers.

"Akiraka ni." He said, in a tone that suggested he thought the answer was clear. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of golden powder. The label was written in either Japanese or Chinese characters, but translated into english underneath. It was called Cauterization Dust. "I suggest you stand back, I'm opening the doors. Severus immediately stumbled backward, wanting to be as far away from the creature as possible, but also wanting to see what Pettigrew's plan was. Peter stepped toward the doors.

"Peter," Lupin hissed, "don't be stupid."

"Yeah, mate, opening the door is a bad idea." Potter agreed. For once, Severus felt the same way.

"Mr. Pettigrew, do not open the door, the Headmaster will deal with this, I want all of you to go to your dormitories, now." said, sternly.

"Sorry, Professor, I'm going to have to refuse that request." Peter said gently. He swung the doors open, then; he moved so quickly, Severus barely saw it. He'd made a movement somewhat a cross between a backflip and a cartwheel, and landed, crouching, on his feet. He twirled the small bottle in his fingers, and popped the cork out with his thumb.

With a bellowing growl, the creature appeared in the doorway. It was a massive mound of dark, dripping liquid, that smelled like copper. Was it actually made out of blood? Now Pettigrew's plan made sense. Pettigrew threw the open bottle with deadly speed and accuracy, straight between the eyes of the creature. The bottle didn't shatter, it appeared to be absorbed into the mass of blood. At first, Severus had thought something had gone wrong, but a few seconds latter, it seemed to be shrinking, no... it was clotting together, congealing into a compressed blob of dried blood. Potter gasped, Black made a gagging sound, Lupin let out an, "oh", of understanding, and 's eyes widened.

"I suppose you just picked that up as well?" Potter wrinkled his nose and crossed his arms.

"Ask no questions, and I shall tell no lies." He answered, annoyingly.

"And what's that supposed to mean exactly?" Black demanded. Pettigrew extracted a large, glass mason jar from his cloak. Severus had no idea why he would have that on him, or why he needed it now. Peter stooped down and scooped the congealed blood monster into the jar.

His eyes widened and turned completely gold, and writing in the same color appeared on the surface of the jar as though being written by an invisible hand, reading; "Congealed Chinodobutsu". Severus felt his eyes widen and he stumbled back into the wall. Everyone looked at him, including Peter, who appeared perfectly normal again.

"How, how di-did you do th-that?" He managed to stutter.

"What?" Peter raised an eyebrow, sounding concerned.

"You just cast a spell, without speaking, or even raising a wand... I, I just saw you do it." Pettigrew frowned.

"Perhaps, you only imagined it." He said kindly. Potter rolled his eyes.

"Snape, do us a favor and shut it." He said crossly.

"You only didn't see him do that, because his back was turned to you." Severus pressed on. He was sure of what he saw.

"I assure you, I do not know how to do wandless magic, let alone how to do so silently. It might possibly have been a hallucination..."

"I'm not mad!" Severus bellowed. "I know what I saw, you did learn demon magic!" His eyes took on the gold color again.

"I'm not saying, you're mad." His voice was just as soft and gentle as usual. "Stress does strange things to the human body, it's a possibility the hallucination was brought about by the fear, being attacked by a demon caused."

"I'm not..." Severus trailed of. Even though he couldn't see Pettigrew's irises or pupils, he felt like his eyes were seeing into his soul. Peter's eyes returned to normal. Suddenly, he wasn't so sure he had actually seen that happen, maybe Pettigrew was right.

"When you say attacked, do you mean you encountered this... creature... before?" asked. Peter nodded.

"Snape and I ran into it not too long ago, we happened to be out on the grounds at the same time, that's what covered me in blood, incidentally, when it grabbed at me." He turned to Severus again.

"I've been having horrible nightmares ever since I've returned to school, about the demon, sometimes I'm even sure I see her, standing in a corner, but she's not there. It's perfectly normal to imagine things after a traumatic experience." nodded.

"Perhaps you should go to Madame Pompherey, Mr. Snape."

"Yeah, okay." He muttered, feeling stupid. He started off toward the hospital wing.

"Should I accompany him, Professor, incase something is to happen?" Peter asked.

"I believe that's a good idea." She replied. Severus heard footsteps behind him, something that sounded oddly like a squeaking rat, then saw Peter come up next to him on his left, but that didn't make sense; the footsteps behind him he'd heard were off far to the right, and he could only hear his own footsteps now. Maybe, he reasoned with himself, I'm still imagining things, yes, that would make sense. About halfway down the hall, Peter stepped in front of Severus, facing him, with no trace of expression on his face. His usual bright smile was missing, so was the kind, mischievous glint in his eyes, that was almost always present, since he got back.

"I wasn't imagining things, was I?" Severus asked, suddenly wary.

"No, you weren't." His voice had become steely an dangerous. "Now that you know, I'm going to have to kill you."

"What?" Severus gasped. "No, please, I- I won't say anything about it again, I promise, I-I'll pretend that I imagined it, I'll keep your secret, please don't kill me." He felt completely weak and powerless. He'd always thought that he was dangerous, but no, now Pettigrew was the dangerous one.

"Lighten up, yeah? I'm only joking... but if you tell a soul about this, I will wipe the memories from your brain on everything you've ever done at Hogwarts, and you'll have to start all over again, and I won't stop James and Sirius from tormenting you." There was something off about him. Something wasn't right. Even when Severus was witnessing Pettigrew doing what he was sure was demon magic, he wasn't like this. He still seemed like Pettigrew. This wasn't the person that had stood up for him.