kat_scratches (kat_scratches) wrote in ficbits, @ 2007-08-03 23:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | hp, peter, pg |
HP fic "These Friends Of Mine" (PG?)
Title: These Friends of Mine
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all the characters. I only borrow them for nefarious purposes.
Summary: A rat reflects.
Rating: Um, PG, I suppose, at best.
A/N: Millions & trillions of thankyous to sheafrotherdon for the wonderful beta!
These Friends Of Mine
Of all of them, I think I hated Sirius Black the most.
Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but it is the only word I can think of that really encompasses what I felt every time we crossed paths. One glimpse of that grinning, arrogant face was enough to make me want to smash in his teeth. Too handsome and bright by half, he burned with so fierce a radiance that the rest of us could only pale in comparison. I suppose he thought simply being born a Black made him better somehow, made him more. He certainly behaved like he believed it, taking charge, making decisions that weren’t solely his to make.
I could almost – almost – begin to sympathize with Snape.
What in the world possessed the Sorting Hat to place me in Gryffindor? Sometimes I think it has a rather sick sense of humour – especially for a hat. Gryffindors are supposed to be brave; I’m not brave. Mind you, it did at first think of Sorting me into Slytherin, but I was so terrified at the idea! Slytherin! What would people think? I silently begged for anything else, anything at all, even Hufflepuff would have been better.
And it heard me. And it put me in the most unSlytherinish house possible.
What a joke... But see how I laugh now?
In Slytherin, I would not have been forced to join their little band of brothers. Potter. Black. Lupin. I’m sure they only chose me by default, simply because we shared a dorm. They were as stuck with me as I with them.
Lupin, always the most impartial of us, was the one I hated least. At first, he was nearly as much of an introvert as I was. Shy and bookish, I wondered how he’d escaped being Sorted into Ravenclaw. Then there were the constant bruises, and the bleeding... In some ways it was rather a shock when Potter and Black figured out Lupin was a werewolf, but not really. It certainly explained a lot of things.
But Black... Never content to let things alone, it was his bright idea to become Animagi, and no one got a choice in the matter. I knew they thought I couldn’t do it. Perhaps it might have been better had I not tried. It isn’t like I wanted any part of it in the first place. Run with a werewolf once a month? I could think of better ways to spend an evening. And, after all, a rat isn’t very impressive, is it?
It’s said a person doesn’t choose the Animagus form, that the animal bases itself on true inner nature. Potter’s, unsurprisingly, was a stag, a majestic forest beast that lesser animals look up to and admire. It suited Potter. It galled me, but I did look up to him, and not just because he was so much taller than myself. He always tried to treat me kindly, to include me in their misadventures, and I hated him for it, though not as much as I hated Black
I was very careful not to let on, though. Very careful.
Black’s Animagus was a dog, a huge, scruffy, black dog, arguably a Grim. Fiercely loyal, yet playful and mischievous – it suited him too.
And mine? A rat. A common, garden-variety rat. What does that say about my true nature, I wonder?
We did it, ostensibly, to help Lupin with his monthly transformations. That may have been why Potter did it; I don’t know. I’m sure Black was infinitely more excited by the lure of the forbidden – Animagi are required to register with the Ministry of Magic, and we certainly never did. And I’m sure he had other motivations, such as testing firsthand the popular theory that a werewolf only attacks human prey. That can’t be true, can it? Wouldn’t a hungry one eat a rabbit... or something smaller, like a rat?
It was Black, too, who decided on the idiotic nicknames. Prongs, for James’ stag, was an obvious choice, but not nearly so obvious as Moony for Lupin’s werewolf. Black’s own Padfoot showed a glimmer of imagination; even I had to grudgingly concede him that.
But Wormtail? An insult, no less than an insult. I suppose there aren’t many complimentary things one can say about a rat, though, are there? But he didn’t stop there. I loathed, utterly loathed how Black always shortened it to Wormy, like an apple gone bad.
Perhaps Black knew something I didn’t back then, but he didn’t know everything. He never knew I served a higher purpose.
I met this girl, an ordinary witch, just after leaving school. Not a bad sort, not really, smart and funny and curvaceous where a girl ought to be. I didn’t love her. I had neither the time nor the patience for that, but it was convenient to have a girlfriend. I kept up the pretense of dating long after we’d broken it off. The other Marauders never suspected we were no longer together, and I never saw fit to correct them.
Many, many nights I spent as a rat, spying for He Who Must Not Be Named, though I reported my findings only to his minions and never to him. Potter, Black and Lupin still thought I spent those evenings with Christine, and I let them think it. As I said, a girlfriend can be very convenient.
Black needled me for details, as did Potter to a lesser extent, but I would smile through clenched teeth and let them think I was too gentlemanly to kiss and tell.
It was almost too easy.
“Make Wormy the Secret-Keeper,” Black told Potter. “No one would suspect him.”
And no one did, did they?
And down, down into the sewers I went, down among the rats, leaving naught but rubble and death and destruction in my wake. And a finger. I did also leave a finger. Framed Black quite neatly for that, didn’t I?
He was packed off to Azkaban for my crimes, without so much as a by-your-leave, and I laughed, laughed, laughed...
Being a rat has its advantages, you know. No one sees us as we slip through the shadows, through the streets, through the sewers. No one ever thinks to keep secrets close to the vest, for fear a mere rat may overhear.
The Dark Lord will return. I feel it in my whiskers.
And I will bide my time.