The Last Piece Of Fried Chicken
A/N: The idea for this story came from a news article that said rats are becoming more aggressive due to food shortages caused by COVID-19. One can only imagine how Peter Pettigrew is coping with this change.
Maybe he was paranoid. Maybe he just wanted to stay safe. That's what all the Muggles were saying, repeating the same mantra everywhere he went, as though it were some kind of incantation for a protection charm. And although he was fairly certain he couldn't catch this strange new disease, little Peter Pettigrew wasn't taking any chances.
Quickly he changed into his rat form, thinking it would protect him from the virus. After all, this illness only affected nonmagical humans. So the combination of wizard and rodent was bound to be enough.
There was only one problem: all the restaurants he visited were closed. He didn't mind staying as a rat for a prolonged period of time. But being a rat during a food shortage was a serious issue.
Peter scurried along a row of cardboard boxes stacked beside the dumpster, carefully climbing each one until he reached the top. He moved towards the rim of the dumpster and caught a whiff of some greasy old fries.
The aroma made his mouth water. Licking his lips, Peter prepared to launch himself into the dumpster, when suddenly the wind picked up and blew a discarded wrapper in his face.
His little paws swiped at the crumbled mass, batting it aside. He then moved a bit closer and peered into the dumpster, but all he saw were a couple of empty milk cartons, a few crushed eggshells and the sleeping form of Professor Snape, whose hair had been giving off the aroma of old grease.
The rat sighed. He was tired of always being hungry.
He hopped off box, down onto the one beneath it, then made a short leap onto the next box. He kept going until his feet touched the ground, then he scurried across the street towards the old KFC building on the corner.
He repeated the process of checking dumpsters, until finally he found one that had recently been filled with an assortment of garbage. Apparently this business was still up and running, thanks to the Muggles' desire for curb side pickup. However, he soon discovered that he was not alone in his quest for food.
Yaxley had also decided to go dumpster diving, and was literally diving and leaping from one rubbish bin to the next in search of fried chicken.
Peter Pettigrew's jaw dropped as he watched the breathtaking spectacle. It was like seeing whales jumping out of the water and spraying nine miles into the air. Only it wasn't water coming from Yaxley's blowhole. It was saliva, dribbling down the front of his shirt and forming puddles on the asphalt.
This created a challenge for poor little Peter Pettigrew who had to battle the raging torrents in order to reach the nearest dumpster. He was halfway across the street when a sudden tidal wave nearly washed him into the gutter, his paws flailing, desperately reaching for anything that might keep him from drowning.
He snagged a passing styrofoam cup and climbed inside, gasping and spluttering. Never in his entire life did he imagine he'd have to swim the Yaxley river in order to find food, and by now he was thoroughly annoyed.
His black, beady little eyes narrowed, glinting maliciously in the noon day sun. It had been days since he had a decent meal, and he'd be damned if he let that chicken fingering creep swipe the last morsel of food.
The starving rat fluffed up his fur, screeching and dripping with saliva as he launched himself from the cup like a cannonball. He shot through the air just as Yaxley was lifting a piece of fried chicken to his mouth, the rumble in his belly driving him to new levels of aggression.
His aim was true and Peter Pettigrew glomped the fried chicken, nibbling away at the seasoned crust. All was well for about five seconds. Then Yaxley let out a scream and tried flicking the rat off his food.
Delirious from hunger, Peter turned on him and sunk his teeth into Yaxley's finger. Blood spurted from the wound, the rat abandoning his meal and pouncing on the Death Eater's face.
Nobody noticed the caterpillar tongue as it crept across the alley, slithered up the side of the dumpster and curled around the bucket of fried chicken.
.oOo.
Miles away, Amycus sat on the couch at Maisie Manor, waiting for his tongue to return with the food. His sister sat beside him in her rice filled sandbox, happily shoveling cookies in her face. And while the Muggles were content to get in their cars and drive to the restaurants for food, Amycus had his own version of curb side pickup.
Which was fine with Maisie so long as he washed his tongue for at least twenty seconds before licking anything in the house.