Title: A Boy and His Rat
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating/Warnings: PG for pet death.
Summary: Peter Pettigrew had a rat.
A/N: Nobody really delves into how Peter's Animagus form got to be a
rat in the first place. Owning a rat myself, I've given it a lot of
thought.
Remus Lupin hadn't ever had a pet, for what he felt
were obvious reasons. He claimed he was allergic, even though he'd
never sneezed once in collective Marauder memory.
James Potter showed up for his first day of Hogwarts
with a brand new, glossy brown owl. The owl, whose name was
unfortunately Claw, brought James dead mice at breakfast sometimes and
would detonate Howlers outside before bringing in the mail. Claw lasted
longer than any of the other boys' pets, lasted the whole way into
James' marriage, and when he finally keeled over after bringing in the
paper one last time, James buried him in the backyard and refused to
buy another owl. Since it wasn't safe to use the Owl Post by then
anyway, no on argued with him.
Sirius Black had a long and illustrious line of pets
during his Hogwarts career, all varying amounts of poisonous and legal.
Some of them blew fire, some of them glowed in the dark, many of them
escaped, more than one found its untimely demise in Snape's potions
cauldron. The best pet, by general consensus, had been the tiny pink
squid he'd brought back from a beach holiday, which had gotten so large
that by spring it was residing permanently in one of the Gryffindor
shower stalls. When McGonagall had found out, all four boys had snuck
out in the dead of night to release the squid into his new habitat,
Remus humming 'Anchors Aweigh' as it waved a slick tentacle in farewell
and slipped beneath the lake water.
Peter Pettigrew had a rat.
When they'd shown him the rat in the pet store, he'd
been skeptical, but when his sister had skipped up to twist his ear as
usual and discovered the rat on his shoulder, she'd screamed loud
enough to make wizards drop to the floor in fear of attack, and Peter'd
been sold.
During his first trip on the Hogwarts express, when
three Fifth Years cornered Peter and bloodied his nose for his trolley
money, the rat waited until a dark-haired boy in thick glasses was
helping Peter up before trotting back out of the corner he'd been
lurking in.
"Your pet's just as useless as you are," another
dark-haired First Year sneered, but Peter scooped up his rat quickly
and put him back on his shoulder.
"Is not," he snuffled, voice thick because of the
nosebleed, "he's smart. I would've gone and hid until they were gone if
I could."
Peter Pettigrew lacked imagination, so his rat was
simply named Rat, but Rat could pick out which Bertie Botts you should
avoid, and their room never had mosquitoes because Rat would hunt them,
and if Rat scurried off the potion's desk suddenly you knew to get the
hell back from the cauldron because an explosion was nigh.
Sure, other people had flashier pets, or more
dangerous pets, or pets that were good for spells (and Peter could've
used all the help available), but James' owl didn't share Chocolate
Frogs with him in the middle of the night after a nightmare, and
Sirius' Miniature Spitting Snorfler didn't sidle up next to him on the
couch and roll over to have his belly scratched.
Rat knew that you should always stash away some of
the Cockroach Clusters somewhere safe, because you might not be able to
get to the kitchens next time you were hungry. Rat knew that leaving a
warm bed before 8 am was completely unreasonable. Rat knew that when
people who were bigger and meaner than you were shouting, the best
thing to do was to hide until it was quiet again.
But Rats don't live forever, and Rat seemed to know
that too. During the winter of their Fourth Year, Rat spent most of his
time taking naps on Peter's lap, waking only to nibble on bits of food
that Peter offered him and lick the back of Peter's hand before going
back to sleep.
And early on a morning that smelled like spring
wasn't far off, Peter woke to find Rat curled up in his usual place on
the pillow, paws held close to his chest in tiny fists and stone cold.
Sirius, who had been merciless when Peter cried because his elbow'd
been snapped the wrong way during a broom-riding accident, didn't say a
word when Peter wiped his sleeve across his eyes the entire time James
and Remus were burying the pencil box in the half-frozen dirt directly
below their dorm window.
When James and Sirius were whispering behind Remus'
back about becoming hippogriffs and dragons and basilisks and every
other creature with teeth and claws, Peter remained practical and
recalled that being big and scary meant that other big and scary things
tried to eat you, and that running and hiding was much safer.
He was the last of the three to manage the change,
and the least sure of what he'd turn out to be. He stood in the center
of their room with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, hands clenched into
fists with concentration, and just when he thought he should give up,
he felt something start to give and his muscles twist under his skin in
ways that made him a bit queasy.
When he opened his eyes, everything was in shades of
grey, but Peter could see the delicate paws on either side of his nose
well enough, and he felt the long tail trailing on the stones behind
him twitch happily.
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