Peter grew up the third boy of four, in a family that idolized rugby. His mother was quiet and sweet, but she was almost always overruled and shouted down by everybody else in the family, who were not only louder, but physically seemed to take up even more space. Their dad had played rugby in university, and he seemed determined to raise a litter of boys who would do the same. Nearly all of them inherited his size and strength, except for Peter, who'd ended up a couple inches shorter, and never quite with the confidence to play.
However, Peter was smarter than the others. He still managed to run with the boys who were good at rugby, making himself a friend to them, always on the team, and still close enough to matter. If his dad didn't look too closely, he wouldn't see a problem, and his dad took care not to look too closely. They never talked about the fact that Peter wasn't very good, and Peter certainly wasn't going to bring it up.
At Hogwarts, Peter was worried he'd be out of his depth. He didn't have two older brothers who were rugby stars to give him some credibility to work with, some preexisting recognition at the school. But he'd somehow ended up roommates with James and Sirius, and he was surely going to take advantage of that. Peter tried making himself useful to them at first, but still, they made fun of him quite a bit. It didn't deter Peter, though. It was nothing like the jokes he heard at him, and he'd heard it all already. Mostly, they tolerated his presence.
But magic was different. With all the prep work that James and Sirius had done before school, Peter wasn't particularly helpful to them at school the way he helped his teammates in Muggle schools. There was unlimited food at Hogwarts, but Peter did still manage to always smuggle in snacks for late night adventures. But he really found his niche the first time he ran around with them, and Filch caught them sneaking around. Peter easily lied their way out of it, and it was one of the first times James and Sirius got out of an adventure unscathed.
"That's it, we're taking you everywhere from now on," James had announced. But even as a joke, it helped Peter realize what the group really needed: someone to keep them out of trouble, to keep them in line a little, but not too much. And so, somehow, he became the group mom, the source of snacks, and the one person who always had a lie ready when they were caught. The lies faded over the years as the professors began to finally see him as a unit operating alongside James and Sirius, but James and Sirius never forgot the first year or so.
Peter liked existing alongside greatness. It made his life easier, even if he felt like he'd suffered a little bit of humiliation to get where he was. But the thing was, he had suffered a little to make his life easier in the long run. He could've chosen to be invisible, for people to carelessly treat him cruelly the way James and Sirius had at the beginning, or something in between. But now, people went out of their way to be kinder to him, much more than they ever had during Peter's first year. He was friends with Quidditch stars, with pretty girls who were hoping to get a little closer to Sirius, with people who'd be making a lot of money after school ended. This was exactly where Peter had planned on being.
With Remus's secret and his idea for Animagi, the friendship was sealed. Peter knew that when they started the process in their third year, he was in for good. Breaking international magical law will do that for a friendship, and that was exactly why he had suggested it. Even James and Sirius weren't enough of daredevils to put together Remus's secret and the Animagi lesson they'd had a couple weeks later, but the idea hatched in Peter's mind, and he'd just run with it, never thinking it would actually come to fruition.
He felt like he was set. He'd admit, all this talk about the Order made him a little bit nervous. He'd signed up to be popular at school, not to enlist in a war once they graduated. Peter was sure that James was just doing this to get close to Lily, Sirius just to be as subversive as he could, and Remus, he wasn't quite sure why Remus was doing it. Peter just felt convinced they couldn't be doing it for the sake of doing it – why would anybody willingly put their lives at risk like that?
Peter even felt reluctant to get involved with the tasks at school, but he told himself it was just school. If he wanted to disappear into the Muggle world after graduation, he didn't think he was a big enough fish to fry that the Slytherins would still come after him. He tried to keep his head down as much as possible with this war in the Slytherins, happy to scheme with his friends behind closed doors, but certainly not eager to be the one caught red-handed in their common rooms.
"Being forced into Potions by McGonagall," Sirius muttered, throwing his bag down onto a table in the back. James sympathetically set his own things down next to him.
"She knows it'll come in useful if you decide to apply to the Auror academy," James said helpfully. Peter stayed quiet. He had begged Slughorn to let him into the class, so he didn't feel as though he had much of a right to complain about being here the way Sirius had. But Remus, ever a good sport, sat down next to Peter. They'd worked together last year, and certainly Remus had done more than the lion's share of the work, but he never complained. To Remus, Peter was family, and Remus simply didn't mind.
"Oh, lighten up," James said. "I like Potions. We can mess around and make our own sidepot of something. Plus, we get to talk for most of class. Sluggy loves us."
"Alright," Slughorn said, right on cue, gathering at the front of a growing class. "Alright, settle down. Settle down now. I have a couple announcements. As the class quieted, Slughorn pulled out a sheet of paper out of his robes, looking more and more uncomfortable by the second. "In the spirit of creating more harmony between the houses, especially in one of the few classes that Slytherin and Gryffindor have together, Dumbledore and I have decided to mandate assigned partners for this N.E.W.T. level class."
Complaints immediately ensued. This seventh year N.E.W.T. level class of Gryffindors and Slytherins was packed with talent, and packed with members of the Slug Club – students that were arguably a little too clever for their own good, students who had long since realized that Slughorn wasn't too difficult to sway. Slughorn liked being liked, and so he had always made an effort to keep his favorite students happy. After a minute or two, it was clear that Slughorn was waiting for the noise to die down, and respectfully, the complaints ceased. They knew they wouldn't convince Slughorn of anything by yelling over one another.
Once it was quiet again, Slughorn cleared his throat, looking like he would rather be anywhere but his own classroom. "I'm sorry," he said apologetically. "Believe me. I did try and talk Dumbledore out of it, but he did convince me that it might be good for building relationships. This decision is absolutely final, and I have no more control. You'll have to go straight to Dumbledore to appeal the decision."
Someone could've dropped a quill in the classroom. Nobody was going to go to Dumbledore about this.
Slughorn continued. "I used final grades from your sixth year to pair you up with a student in another house so that you would be working with someone at a similar skill level. Please stand up and empty the seats so that the pairs I call out can find their seats." Students were exchanging looks with one another, and it seemed to take hours for everybody to vacate their seats next to their friends. Some of the students were already glaring at one another, as if their equally reluctant peers were responsible for this. Finally, everyone settled into the perimeter of the room with bated breath, awaiting the verdicts.
"Snape, Evans," Slughorn began. Snape's eyes widened hopefully, but the rest of his face was unreadable. Marlene glared at him as his eyebrows shot up.
"I'm not working with him, he called me the m-word," Lily said flatly.
"I apologized for that," Snape said, his voice quieter than usual. "And I'll apologize again now."
Slughorn looked at Evans like he was asking a favor. "That felt like a genuine apology to me, Lily. I would really appreciate it if you gave this a shot." Lily held his gaze, steely-eyed for a couple seconds. Then, she sighed audibly and took a seat at the front of the room. Snape followed her.
"These pairings are final," Slughorn said, as a reminder. "Lupin, Meadowes." Remus met Dorcas Meadowes' gaze across the room, and figured it could be worse. Meadowes definitely hung out with the whole crowd of Slytherins, but she was rarely seen with the blokes: Avery, Mulciber, Rosier. She was more friends with Michelle Wilkes, who was by default associated with the group because of her long standing boyfriend in Avery. However, she was quite clearly more reserved than the others. She always seemed to be the last one to pull her wand out, and never initiated any of the fights. She seemed to get involved only as a last resort, or out of loyalty to her house. Without a word, both of them took a seat.
"Mulciber, Macdonald." Mulciber smirked in Macdonald's direction, taunting her.
"Absolutely not," Mary said, without skipping a beat. "Mary, please," Slughorn said tiredly. Mary took a couple steps forward so that she was closer to the center of the room, and the energy in the room seemed to shift as she took center stage.
"You know, I never went to a professor about this incident," Mary said, and she was speaking not only to Slughorn, but to the entire class. However, it was Slughorn's gaze she was holding. "So I guess you don't have to take my word for it."
Lily and Marlene exchanged anxious glances. Avery and Mulciber did the same, for different reasons. After Lily looked at Marlene, she met Snape's gaze, remembering back to a conversation they had two years ago. Snape dropped her gaze, suddenly feeling guilty. He hadn't forgotten the details of the story that Lily had recounted to Snape about his own friends. It had made his stomach turn, and he didn't even like Macdonald.
"I was out after hours," Mary continued. Although she was speaking quietly, she had the entire class's attention. "And I ran into Mulciber and Avery. They caught me off guard, and with it being two against one, they disarmed me." She kept her eyes fixed on Slughorn as she spoke, although Slughorn looked away every couple of seconds. "They decided to practice some spells on me," Mary said. "Some spells that they had read about in one of their family's books about Dark magic. They - "
"Mary," Slughorn interrupted. "Will you work with Rosier?"
Mary looked at Slughorn and visibly seemed to weigh her options. She was not Lily, and she was not afraid of landing on professors' bad sides, and she was indifferent to setting a good example. She was exactly the kind of person who was comfortable at the center of attention, comfortable causing a scene just because she felt like it, and Slughorn already regretted letting her begin the story. She hated Rosier, but he had never done anything to her quite like what Mulciber and Avery had that night. The downside was, she was 100% sure that he would've happily participated, had he been there that night. It was really just a stroke of luck that he wasn't there, and she hadn't said his name in the story.
"Fine," Mary said coolly. "Guess you didn't want to hear how the story ends." She set her stuff down right behind Lily, quite literally there to watch her friend's back. She didn't make eye contact with Rosier, although it seemed like he was trying to catch her gaze. The rest of the pairings seemed to go off rather uneventfully after that rocky start. Slughorn seemed to know which students were the ones most likely to begin fights, and he paired them with rather quieter students who simply wouldn't engage. Marlene, James, and Sirius, easily the most fiery tempered Gryffindors, were paired with quiet Slytherins who had never seen a day of detention in their lives. Still, by the end of class, the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. When the bell rang, the seats were vacated within seconds, and the hushed conversations took off in the hallway.
"I'm dropping Potions," Sirius muttered. "Fuck Auror training."
"Oh, poor you," Mary shot back in passing, and there was hate in her eyes, even if it wasn't for Sirius. She was walking briskly to catch up to Lily and Marlene at the end of the hallway, but Sirius stepped right in front of her, cutting her off.
"Mary," Sirius said, ever the untactful one, "What is the ending to that story?"
"I made it up," Mary said. She sounded annoyed, but Sirius couldn't tell if it was from Potions, or being asked the question. "Just trying to get Slughorn off my back."
Peter exchanged a look with Remus and James. Peter was positive she was lying, and from his friends' gazes, they were on the same page.
"Didn't seem like you made it up," Sirius said, but there was some hesitation in his voice. Even he didn't know if this was something he should be pushing. It was clear she was lying, but perhaps it wasn't the situation for him to call her out on it.
"You have a lot of nerve asking me that," Mary said coolly.
"You seemed ready to share it with the class," Sirius pointed out.
"Don't push me, Black," Mary said, her voice rising sharply. "Me weaponizing my own story to avoid continued trauma, even in the public eye, is my own decision to make. You do not get to ask me about it on your own terms and use that decision as leverage."
"Okay, I'm sorry," Sirius said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I really am. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I guess I was just looking for a little fuel for a revenge plan we have cooking."
"Leave me out of it," Mary said, almost body checking Sirius as she walked past him, and towards where her friends were waiting down the hall.
"Bloody hell," Sirius muttered. "She's a little scary."
"I think if you're as pretty as Macdonald is, you pretty much get away with being whoever you want to be," Peter said, shrugging.
"Someone have a crush?" James asked, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
"No, just eyes," Peter answered. "Come on. I know you think she's strictly off limits because she's such good friends with Evans, but even you can't tell me you don't think she's hot."
James shrugged. "She's not my type. Like you said, kind of scary."
Sirius snorted. "And Evans isn't, in her own way?"
"Hm," James said thoughtfully.
"How are things going with Greta?" Remus asked, turning to Peter.
"Oh, they're good," Peter said. Greta was a sixth year in Hufflepuff that Peter had started casually dating last year. They'd taken a break over the summer, but things were picking up now that they were both at school again. She was the first girl that Peter had really been involved with on a more serious level. He'd met her through Daisy, the group's dealer.
"Where are we headed next?" Sirius asked absently.
"Transfiguration," Remus answered. "At least we don't have this class with the Slytherins."
"That's because Potions is the one class we don't already have our wands out," Sirius said bitterly. "If I only had to move my hand five centimeters to 'accidentally' lop off Avery's hand, I would do it every day."