Chapter 16 - The Pettigrews
Peter couldn't wait to have James and Remus over to stay at the end of August. He was a little disappointed they hadn't been around for his birthday (James' parents were taking him to Spain), but as the date of their arrival drew nearer, he begun to feel excited, making long lists of things they could do together, and thinking how he could possibly stop his nosey sisters interfering.
None of them had heard from Sirius since his abrupt departure from the Lupins the month before, but Peter had to admit he didn't feel too sorry that the fourth member of their group couldn't make it. James was worse when Sirius was around, laughing more at Peter and more likely to get them all in trouble. On the rare occasions Peter got him alone, he was far more pleasant. He hoped he would be kind to him on this trip, especially as it was Peter's house they were visiting.
Peter's mother had been baking for days. She'd made cookies (in the shape of broomsticks and cauldrons), cupcakes (topped with orange and black icing) and an enormous loaf of bread for their lunch. "I know what it's like feeding one adolescent boy, let alone three!" She laughed.
Clara and Annabelle, Peter's sisters, were beside themselves with excitement. "What do they sound like? Do they look different? Have you got a photograph?"
"They're normal." Peter told them, trying to think what he could possibly say to describe James and Sirius. "James is… James and Remus is… Remus."
"Oh you're no fun!" Teased Annabelle, but she didn't have to wait too long, for James and Remus apparated with their parents that very evening.
Peter rushed into the garden at the sound of voices. It seemed Fleamont Potter and Lyall Lupin had arrived on the lane outside the Pettigrew's house at the same time, as they were walking up together and chatting.
"Hello Peter!" Both men said as James and Remus rushed forwards to greet their friend.
Mrs Pettigrew, looking terribly flustered (and embarrassing Peter enormously) came rushing out of the kitchen still in her cooking apron.
"Mr Potter, Mr Lupin!" She gushed, shaking both men's hands. "Please will you come in for some tea?"
As Peter turned back to the house with the others, he thought he saw two faces looking out of the window of the front room, before they quickly ducked out of sight. Clara and Annabelle… He thought irritably.
His sisters quickly found their voices over dinner however. They asked a thousand questions of James and Remus, and appeared to be so enchanted they barely touched their plates.
"Let the boys eat!" Mrs Pettigrew said to them. "They're ever so excited to meet you." She told James and Remus.
"So what's it like going to muggle school then?" James asked, accepting Mrs Pettigrew's offer of more mashed potato. "What do you learn there?"
"Oh it's desperately dull." Annabelle said. "We're reading Jane Eyre in English and conjugating verbs in French."
"Do you boys learn any French at Hogwarts?" Mrs Pettigrew asked. "Or is it more just spells and potions?"
To her credit, she never seemed to mind that her son wasn't having a 'normal' education. She often wondered out loud what Peter would do without any 'A-Levels', but she seemed generally to trust that he would be OK.
"No." James said. "But a lot of the pureblood families teach it before their kids go to Hogwarts. I think Sirius is quite fluent, and I'm not too bad."
"Tres bien." Mrs Pettigrew said in a terrible French accent.
"What does pureblood mean?" Clara asked.
"It means a witch and wizard family." James explained. "But most of us have at least one muggle relative down the line. There's some poncy thing called the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' which is basically all the wizard families that haven't interbred with muggles. The Blacks are on there." He told the others. "But no one who's normal really cares about any of that stuff."
"How do muggles meet wizards?" Clara asked with great enthusiasm.
"Well, like this I suppose." James said, grinning at her.
"You don't have a brother do you?"
"Clara!" Peter said, completely embarrassed.
But James didn't seem to mind. He and Remus chatted happily with his sisters for the rest of the evening, even consenting to join in a game of Monopoly with them after dinner.
"There should be a flying broom!" Annabelle said, offering Remus the selection of pieces to choose from.
"Sorry about them." Peter told his friends when he'd finally got them alone in his bedroom.
"Why are you sorry?" James asked. "They're great. They said they'd take us to the pictures tomorrow. The muggle pictures! Think how jealous Sirius would be if he knew?"
"Have you heard from him?" Remus asked James.
James shook his head. "My dad bumped into his in London the other week and asked after him, but his dad said he was fine. But he would, wouldn't he?"
Peter didn't understand what the others were so worried about. He was sure Sirius was fine. He clearly came from money and it wasn't as though his mother was unreasonable to have been angry with him. Hadn't he told them he'd stolen money from his dad and ran out of the house without telling them? He didn't think being grounded was too much of a price to pay for that…
He got out his chocolate frog card collection and showed the others the new ones he'd acquired over the summer. James traded him Nobby Leach for Eugenia Jenkins ("just like real life, eh?") and got on his knees and begged when he saw that Peter had Dumbledore in his collection (a rare new addition), but Peter wouldn't budge.
Mrs Pettigrew brought them hot chocolate and sat on the edge of Peter's bed, checking everyone had everything they needed, and no one was feeling too homesick were they?
"Mum, we're fine." Peter said, rolling his eyes as his mother left the room.
"It's sweet that she worries." James said.
James said sweet, Peter said annoying.
The next morning, they were woken to the sound of giggling from outside his room. He groaned and got out of bed, opening his door to find, as he'd suspected, Annabelle and Clara, still in their pyjamas, holding a tea tray.
"Breakfast in bed for our favourite wizarding folk!" Annabelle said, bringing the tray (which even had a red rose on it) into the room.
"Blimey, that's good service!" James said, sitting up in his sleeping bag and rubbing his eyes.
The girls closed the door behind them and came to join them in Peter's room, which was suddenly feeling very cramped with all five of them in it.
"Did I say you could join us?" Peter asked crossly, but his sisters ignored him.
"Thanks." Remus said, accepting a cup of tea from Annabelle.
"We thought we'd go to the shops first." Clara was saying, as if Peter wasn't there and these were her friends. "Then we'll get some lunch, then go to the cinema. They're showing Alice in Wonderland, and I can't wait to see how they do the Cheshire cat!"
Clara and Annabelle were grinning like Cheshire cats as they finally left the boys to get dressed ("we promise we won't look!" Annabelle had cried, but Peter insisted they go), then they set off up the Pettigrew's garden path and into the local town.
Peter cheered up a little as they walked. He was sincerely hoping they'd see Richard Davidson on their way into town, or maybe a member of his gang (who would be sure to tell Richard Davidson they'd seen Peter with his own gang). True, his sisters were there, which was irritating, but James and Remus were his friends. He had his own gang now. He didn't need any of the children he'd been so badly teased by at primary school, and hoped he would have the chance to show them that. But unfortunately it didn't come.
The girls showed them some of the little shops on the high street - trying on new outfits and applying makeup from the counters. There was a scream of delight as they met a couple of girls from Clara's year in one of the boutiques. Peter could scarcely understand a word they said as they chatted to each other at a hundred miles an hour.
"Sandra, you must meet Peter's friends. This is James and Remus," Clara said, pulling the boys forward and into the other girls' sight.
"Ooh, Remus, that's an unusual name." The girl called Sandra said. "Like Romulus and Remus? The boy raised by wolves?"
Remus said nothing, but James, as usual, covered his silence. "Are you at school with Clara?" He asked the girls, quite as interested in them as they were in him. "Are you learning Jane Eyre too?"
They told him they were and then asked what school they went to. "Oh, they're from the Highlands." Annabelle said quickly, using the excuse their mother had told them to give if anyone asked about Peter's school. "They're at boarding school there."
"Not Gordonstoun?" One of the girls asked.
"The school Prince Charles went to?"
"Er…" Annabelle was looking helplessly at Peter who moved forwards and extracted his friends from the spotlight.
"We should go." He told them, and they left the shop.
"Sorry." Annabelle said as they left. "It's so hard having to pretend you're normal! Sorry, I didn't mean normal, I meant muggle."
"Well, magic is normal for us." James told her. "You're the ones who are interesting!"
"Are you sure you don't have a brother?" Clara asked him again.
They grabbed a sandwich in the local café, then went to the cinema for the film. Peter felt he could quite relate to Alice, following the white rabbit (James and Sirius) off on an adventure. The queen of hearts was Professor McGonagall and the March Hare was Remus.
"We're late, we're late!" Clara and Annabelle cried, dancing around imitating the scene in the film as they made their way home for dinner. "Is that what it's like at Hogwarts" Annabelle asked Remus. "Do they have magic potions like the one Alice drank there?"
Peter was unsuccessful at extracting his friends from the attention of his sisters throughout the rest of the visit. This was, in part, because his friends seemed genuinely quite happy to be in their company.
On the day of their departure, his sisters hugged them both and told them to stay in touch. Annabelle was even crying. Mrs Pettigrew looked a little tearful too as she pressed boxes of homemade treats into each of their hands. "For your parents." She told them. "I have so many, I'll be glad to know they're going somewhere they'll be eaten."
"Thank you for having us." Remus said politely.
"See you on September 1st." James said.
"Bye." Peter said, waving them off. "See you in second year!"
His sisters talked of little else besides James and Remus in the days that followed and tried to beg their mother to take them to King's Cross with her the next week, but they were not allowed.
"Bye Peter." They said, hugging him and waving him off as he left with his school trunk. "See you at Christmas!"
"Have a good term!"
Finally extracting himself from their irritating attention, he settled back into his mother's little car and watched as the roads became wider and the traffic became heavier.
The Pettigrews lived a two and a half hour drive from London, but life there was so different it felt like another world.
Peter knew he didn't really belong in the muggle world which was why he found it so irritating when his sisters insisted on spending so much time with him. But he didn't have long to wait now. He was going back to Hogwarts.
...
A/N: Another short but fun one :) As someone who also has two sisters, I do adore the Pettigrew girls. Would someone please be so kind as to tell me what they think though? I nearly have 1k viewers now, so someone surely has something to say. I'd also like to apologise to my American readers (who make up the majority apparently!) for surely having to strain to understand some of the references in my story. If anyone needs a British-American translation, please let me know! Back to school next. Poor Remus isn't in for a good few months I'm afraid...