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Peter’s Emotional Crisis


Severus Snape sat alone in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express, nipping at the end of his quill as he read his Potions book. He scratched out an instruction in the book, writing a new one in it’s place, and dog eared the page. He was reading far more advanced chapters than they were working on in class - making notes of questions he had for Slughorn. They were about an hour away from the castle still when the door to his compartment pushed open and Regulus Black stood in the frame of the doorway. He was small, even for a first year student, and Severus couldn’t help but find the expression on his face amusing - it was clear Regulus intended to look intimidating, but he was too tiny for it. “What do you want?” he asked lowly, turning his eyes back to his book, not really caring what it was Regulus was after.

“I want my letters back.”

Your letters?” Severus drawled. “I don’t have any of your letters.”

“You bloody well know what I mean.”

Severus looked up, keeping his face perfectly stoic. He blinked calmly at Regulus.

“Give them back, Snape.” Regulus aimed his wand.

Severus looked back down, ignoring Regulus. “I should think we would’ve learned our lesson last time… you’re too much of a coward to actually hex me, so raising your wand is utterly useless unless you’re going to accio your darling mummy to fight your battles.”

Regulus kept his wand up a moment, his hand shaking, trying to convince himself that Snape wasn’t right, but he was and finally Regulus lowered the wand and glowered at Severus. “They’re mine.”

“Actually, I believe the letters to which you refer belong to your brother,” Severus said, “Which, luckily for you, I loathe and despise your brother nearly as much as you seem to, so I won’t return them to him. However, Lily Evans -- her, I like. So no. You cannot have your bloody letters back.”

Regulus stomped his foot like a petulant child.

Severus slid his quill into the page he was reading and closed the book, setting it on his lap. “You know, the Dark Lord asked me to see to it that you worked on being a bit more mature in order to become a true Death Eater one day.” Severus looked at Regulus’s cross-armed stance, “You’re making my job quite a challenge.”

Regulus pouted, “I’m just as good a Death Eater as you are!” he snapped.

“Not if you’re going to pout and whine all over the place - the Dark Lord has enough cry babies in his ranks, he doesn’t need another one.”

Regulus sneered, then turned to leave.

“Regulus.”

He paused in the door.

“You should sit in this compartment.”

Regulus turned around, “Why would I want to sit with you?” His nose was turned up in disgust.

“Because it’s the Dark Lord’s wish.”

Regulus shook his head, “Whatever,” he said and he started to leave again.

Severus shrugged, “Go, then. But the Dark Lord will know and don’t think contempt against his orders will go unnoticed.”

Regulus’s jaw set and he stood there, contemplating, wanting to walk out. But, as much as he begrudged it, he knew Severus was right. So he grit his teeth and took a seat on the bench opposite of Severus, his arms folded across his chest, glaring at the greasy haired compartment mate.

Severus looked back down at his potions book without saying another word as Regulus stared out the window despondently.




James was laying on his bed in the dormitory playing catch and release with the a snitch when Peter hauled his trunk in hours later. He sat up. “Veigler’s gone again,” he reported. The map was open on Sirius’s bed.

Peter looked warily at James, “I’m not going back out in that forest. Uh-uh. You saw those bloody spiders - Merlin knows what else is out there.”

James tossed the snitch back into the drawer on the night stand. “I wasn’t suggesting we do. But I think it rather confirms the werewolf theory - two months in a row, Veigler goes missing on the night of the full moon. Don’t you think?”

Peter shoved his trunk against the foot of his bed and threw his robe down over it carelessly. “Probably,” he said, shrugging, “I guess so. Or else some other moon related activity. Maybe he fancies moon calves and goes to watch them dance or something. I don’t bloody know.”

James eyed Peter. “What’s got your knickers in a bunch?”

“Just a bad day is all, a bad life.”

“What?” James’s voice carried concern, “What do you mean a bad life? What’s wrong?”

Peter shook his head, “Nothing. Nevermind.” He opened his trunk up and put his textbooks and a new stationary set he’d been given for Christmas up on the desk. “So how long has Veigler been gone?”

“About three this afternoon was when I first looked,” James replied, forgetting about the remark already. He got up and went over and sat down on Sirius’s bed, looking the map over with a sigh of frustration. He felt very much as though they needed to do something about Veigler, but he didn’t have any idea what or how. The centaurs Sirius had overheard had prophesied blood, but even knowing Veigler was a werewolf didn’t fill in the pieces of what Sirius had heard. They had to figure it out. Before it was too late.

Peter sat down on his own bed and untied his shoes, staring at James’s turned back, shaking his head and swallowing back all of the things that he wanted to say. Things like why am I the invisible one? and don’t you bloody care that about what I said? He felt a lump rise up in his throat as he numbly worked at changing into pyjamas and turning down his duvet. The realization struck him that he was a tag along - an extra - only along out of necessity. Whatever they said to the contrary when he brought it up to them didn’t matter. He really was only one of the four Marauders out of obligation. Nobody - not a soul - gave a damn about the things that were happening in his life at home. Nobody knew the struggle he was going through there. Frankly, nobody cared enough to even tell it to, did they?

Peter’s hands trembled as he buttoned his pyjama top.

James looked up from the map. “Wait, you’re going to bed? What about dinner?”

“I’m not hungry,” Peter replied.

“Shall I mark the calendar then?” James laughed, “To mark the historical date of when Peter Pettigrew wasn’t hungry?”

“Do whatever you want,” Peter answered sourly, and he crawled into bed and turned over, closing his eyes before James could say anything else.

“Peter?” James inquired, his voice concerned and apologetic. “Pete? What’s the matter?”

But the concern had come too late and Peter stiffly refused to answer.

After a few minutes, James sighed and Peter heard him fold up the map and leave.

He had cried himself to sleep long before James returned.




James went down to the Great Hall for dinner. He felt really weird eating alone, but everyone had their own dinner cliques and seeing as Peter was having an emotional crisis of some sort and the two dogs were gone for the full moon, James sat isolated at the end of the table, staring down at his food.

Annalee McKinnon sat down beside him. Closer than she ought have done. She looked up at him. “Hey James,” she said gooily.

“Hey,” he replied, uncomfortable with how close she was,

“How was your holiday?” she asked, staring up at him. Her eyes were misty with excitement.

“It was alright,” James answered, mouth full. “Yours?”

“Marvelous,” Annalee replied dreamily - but not at the memories of holiday. She reached up bravely and pushed back some of James’s hair that had fallen over his forehead, “You have another game coming up soon, yeah?”

James took a sip of pumpkin juice, mainly to move the arm between him and Annalee to knock her off touching him. “Yeah, soon.” He held the cup to his mouth, tilting his head back, gulping all of the juice down in one go.

“You’ll be brilliant,” Annalee breathed.

Suddenly, they were joined by McKenna Alliston, a fifth year girl with thick black curls and deep coloured skin. She smiled, “Hey Potter.”

“Hey McKenna,” James said.

Annalee stared at McKenna. “I was talking to James already, McKenna.”

“He has more than one ear,” McKenna said in a challenging sort of voice.

Annalee looked peeved.

James glanced between them and used his fist to thump his chest until a loud pumpkin-juice flavored belch vibrated it’s way up from his throat. He glanced at Annalee, then at McKenna - neither looked enthused by the belch. He grinned, “Sirius would’ve given me a ten pointer for that one!” he complained.

“Ugh,” Annalee groaned, “Gross.”

“Where is Sirius at?” asked McKenna. But even as she said it, she leaned closer to James, which made Annalee’s face redden and Annalee scootched closer on the other side, too, so that James was stuck in a rather uncomfortable girl sandwich that he was the filling for.

James shrugged. “He fell asleep early. Same as Peter and Rey. They were tired.”

“Peter Pettigrew, not hungry?” laughed McKenna, “That’s a first isn’t it?”

“We marked the calendar,” James nodded.

Suddenly Lily appeared before them, “Potter, can I talk to you? ….Alone?” she added, glancing at McKenna and Annalee.

Both glowered up at her as James leaped up from the table, abandoning the last of his dinner and grabbing a couple handfuls of chocolate chip biscuits from the table, shoving them into his pockets. “Of course, Love,” he announced, “See you girls.” He hurried away from McKenna and Annalee, eager to see what Lily had to say to him as she walked quickly away from the table in the Great Hall and out to a corner of the entrance hall by the giant hourglasses that tracked the house points. “Bloody hell, thank you for getting me away from them!” James exclaimed. “I dunno what they were doing, but it was getting really odd.”

“They both like you, obviously,” Lily answered with a shrug.

“Like me? What? Why?”

“I have no idea,” Lily answered flatly. “Have you seen Sirius?”

“He went to bed,” James lied.

Lily sighed, frustrated. “And Rey’s out to the Shrieking Shack already, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if Rey saw Sirius?”

Seeing him currently, actually, James thought. He shook his head though, “I don’t think so. I didn’t really see him much myself. He didn’t come up to the dorm before going outside.”

Lily looked concerned. “Oh.”

“Why?”

“No reason.” Lily turned and started to walk away.

“Oi. Evans?”

She looked back.

“Did you have a Happy Christmas?” James asked.

Lily forced a smile. “Yeah,” she answered, “A marvelous one.”

James smiled encouragingly, “So you and your sister got on alright then?”

Lily nodded, “Brilliantly.”

“I’m glad,” James answered. “I’m really glad.”

“Yeah. So am I,” Lily said, wishing she wasn’t lying. “Good luck with those girls.”

“I’ll need it,” James answered.




Far in the highest tower of the castle, in his office, Dumbledore woke with a start from a nap he’d accidentally taken in his desk chair. He blinked about the office, momentarily disoriented. As he came to completely, the funniest feeling lurked in his chest… He looked over the desk, at the work he’d been doing, but none of it was what was making him uneasy. He stood, walked to the window and looked out it, across the grounds, over the forest, toward the village. He could see the peaks of the buildings of Hogsmeade, the backdrop of the mountains beyond… fields, and streams in between… and he felt uneasy.

He backed away from the window, and a thought occurred to him - a thought to go to the seer Cassandra Vablatsky in her tower classroom-slash-office - though he did not know why. Sure many a person would instinctively visit a seer upon getting a funny feeling about the future, but that wasn’t the sort of person that Albus Dumbledore usually was.

Tonight, he decided to listen to the instinct.

He got up and went for a walk through the castle.




Cassandra Vablatsky was polishing the last of the crystal balls. Her sixth years would be using them later in the week, when classes resumed, and she wanted to be sure they were ready for them. She put the orb down in it’s place on the shelf, smiling to herself at the shininess of them all, gleaming in the streaks of full moonlight that stretched across the length of the Divination classroom from the high skylights in the ceiling. She turned, stepping into one of the beams, and suddenly - as powerfully as if a surge of electricity had been passed through her body - her every muscle went stiff and she trembled, falling to the ground, quaking, as though gripped by a seizure.

“Ohhhhhh!” she wailed, her eyes wide and glassy, focused some place else.

Suddenly, Dumbledore appeared in her line of sight, leaning over her, his white beard stretching down and his hands moved to cup her head gently, keeping it from knocking against the wooden floor. She curled into herself, tears coming from her eyes. “Stop him, Dumbledore, stop him from coming!” she gurgled.

Albus stared into her eyes, “Stop who, Madam?” he asked.

Vablatsky’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and she spoke suddenly with a raspy voice that sounded nothing like her own. “THE HUNTER’S TIME COMES SOON; THE BOY WILL LEAVE HIS SAFETY AND VENTURE WHERE HE OUGHT NOT BE. THE OMEGA SHALL OVERTHROW THE ALPHA AT THE HUNTER’S COMMAND. BETA WILL RISE AND OMEGA WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH. THE HUNTER’S TIME COMES SOON!!” When the words had exited her mouth, her stiff body went lax… falling against Dumbledore, unconscious and still.