Three Animagi and a Werewolf

Three Animagi and a Werewolf, Chapter 2: Wormtail

An Almost Ordinary Household

There are many professions among the wizarding community that, at first mention, would not strike a Muggle as peculiar. A wizard may be a landlord, for instance, or a ministry official, or even a bus driver. So long as the Muggle never hears that the pub his neighbour is the landlord of sells butterbeer, or that the ministry in question is the Ministry of Magic, or the bus bears the name Knight Bus, he will detect nothing out of the ordinary. So it was with the profession of Norman Pettigrew.

Norman Pettigrew was an apothecary. He owned a comfortable house in a quiet side street of a small town up North, and was envied by the townsmen for having not only a good-looking wife, Anthea, who engaged locally in good works and went to church every Sunday, but also two charming twin daughters, Philippa and Paula, aged nine. 'Pippa' and 'Polly', as they were familiarly known, went to the local primary school, where they achieved good marks, always did their homework and never gave the teachers cause to scold or reproach them.

Yet behind the façade of their whitewashed and pebble-dashed house with its glass-fronted porch, behin the lace curtains and porcelain figurines in the bay window out front, the Pettigrews concealed a life that was very different from that of a Muggle family. It was true, as Norman told his neighbours, that he commuted to work. What he did not tell them, however, was that his idea of commuting was to disappear from his living room and almost instantly reappear in his apothecary in York, which could only be seen by members of the wizarding community, and sold such essentials as boomslang skin, frog spawn and bezoars.

His wife, meanwhile, did not mention that her failure to attend the long-anticipated car boot antiques sale last Easter had been due not to a bad cold, but to her having a prior engagement with the Yorkshire branch of the Miniature Cauldron Collectors' Club - a venue not to be missed, for attendees were promised the gift of a beautiful gold-plated cauldron (self-stirring) about the size of a large egg cup.

And as for their daughters ... Polly was learning to teach her fountain pen to write, while Pippa had long laid it aside completely, and sat with her tongue between her lips and her brow furrowed, poring over a Maths book whose pages turned by itself, a long eagle-feather quill clasped tightly in her left hand.

Such was the life into which, one wet and windy morning in late April, Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew's third child was born.

Little Brother

Peter Pettigrew kicked off his shoes and dropped back onto his bed in mingled relief and sadness. Relief, because the school year had begun at Hogwarts, and that meant a Polly-free house all the way through till Christmas. Sadness, because with Polly, Pippa had gone too. He would miss Pippa.

Peter got up and walked over to the window. He looked down into the small back garden. There stood a swing with a wooden seat that had orange paint peeling off it, and a slide that had once been red but by now showed little evidence of the fact. Muggle toys. The sort of toys Muggle people in a Muggle town like this expected a family like the Pettigrews to have in their back garden. If they only knew!

At least once a day, every day when there was a bit of sunshine, his mother chased him out there for appearance's sake. Not that he minded, really. He quite liked the slide. What he wasn't keen on, however, was the swing. Ever since that time when, while he was seeing how high his short stocky legs could make it go, his sister Paula had stood behind the kitchen door with her wand and made it go higher, higher, higher ... so high he had been seriously afraid he would fall off. Polly was always pulling tricks like that on him, and Pippa was forever having to defend their brother. For Pippa had greeted the arrival of her parents' youngest child with joy, happy to have a little brother to play with and look after, even though he was many years her junior. Polly, on the other hand, had not seen the point of having another child so late, had resented his presence, the noise he made - and the mess - and hated having to look after him when their parents went out.

Peter's mixed mood in his sisters' absence was therefore not surprising. He was glad to see the back of Polly, but Pippa ... He wished sincerely that Polly could have gone to Hogwarts alone, and that Pippa could have stayed here with him. All through his young life, Pippa had been his protector. And even at the age of six, when he knew he should be learning to stand up for himself, he still needed Pippa to defend him - which, without fail, she always did.

With a sigh, Peter dragged himself away from the window and walked towards the door. He supposed he had better go downstairs. Mum would be wondering where he had got to.

Letters

"Mother! Mother!" Pippa Pettigrew cried, waving a thick sheet of parchment in the air.

She burst into the kitchen, a broad grin on her pale face. Now aged twenty, Philippa had become a kindly young woman with a friendly rather than a pretty face. She stood now, her small watery-blue eyes sparkling like two bright beads and a strand of straw-coloured hair detaching itself from her ponytail. Anthea Pettigrew turned away from her flower arranging to look at her daughter. Peter poked his head around the garden door and began to sidle in.

"Guess what!" Pippa gasped.

"Well, what?" Polly enquired as a matter of form, swallowing a mouthful of apple pie and looking up from a thick book propped up against the salad bowl in front of her.

"I've been accepted!" Pippa declared excitedly, squeezing her sister's shoulder before coming around the table and holding the letter up for her mother to see. Anthea took her glasses from the pocket of her apron and put them on.

"We are happy to inform you that your application for a position as a student teacher at Beauxbatons school has been accepted. We expect your arrival some time before the beginning of the next term, that is in August of this year. Yours sincerely, Olympe Maxime, Deputy Headmistress," Anthea Pettigrew read.

She returned the letter to her daughter and removed her glasses.

"Congratulations, my dear," she said, receiving a kiss on the cheek from Pippa.

Pippa glowed.

"It's so exciting," she exclaimed. "I'm going to Beauxbatons! I'm going to be a teacher! Isn't it wonderful, Peter?"

She looked around to discover that her brother had sneaked back out into the garden.

Peter was sitting in bed with his covers pulled up under his chin. He had turned off his light so that the room was dark but for the faint glimmer of the moon that showed through a gap in the curtains. His eyes were burning. He heard the knock on the door and recognised it at once. It was Pippa. Sliding down quickly under the covers, he pulled them tight about him and turned his face to the wall, shutting his eyes and pretending to be asleep. The door opened and light poured in from the hallway. Pippa came in and stopped for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then she came over to the bed.

"Peter?" she called softly.

He held his breath.

"I know you're awake, Peter," she said, coming over to sit on the side of his bed.

Reluctantly, he turned around to look at her.

"Why are you sad, Peter?" she asked. "I thought you'd be pleased for me that I'm getting what I've always wanted."

"I am," he answered quietly. "But I - I don't want you to go away. I d-d-don't know what I'll do without you."

"You'll still have Mum and Dad and Polly."

The boy pulled a face.

"I wish Polly were going away instead of you," he said.

Pippa smiled. She whispered,

"Well, if you're lucky, she'll hurry up and marry that most disagreeable boyfriend of hers and you'll be rid of both of us. Anyway," she added, "you won't have to put up with her for too much longer. It's almost July already, and you'll be getting your letter for Hogwarts soon, I expect."

Peter pulled a face.

"If they'll have me at Hogwarts. I don't know, Pippa. I don't know if I'm clever enough."

"Of course they'll have you. As for cleverness - they took Barry Beacher, and I'm sure you're ten times as clever as he is."

The reference to an old school fellow of Pippa's, of whom he had heard many tales so ridiculous he seriously doubted if all of them were true, made Peter smile.

"Come," his sister said, smoothing his covers, "shut your eyes now, and get some sleep. And remember, however far away I am, I'll still always be there when you need me, okay?"

Peter nodded and, shutting his eyes, he fell asleep almost immediately.

The letter came on a Monday. Anthea Pettigrew peered anxiously out of the window when a large barn owl came soaring in through the kitchen door. But it appeared no one in the street had seen it, so she drew her head back in and returned to the breakfast table. Peter sat with the parchment in his hand, reading the address that was written in green ink. Yes, it was definitely addressed to him.

"Ah, and about time too," said his father, waiting while the milk jug emptied itself over his cereal.

Polly lowered her copy of the Daily Prophet and peered at her brother over the top of a glass of orange juice. Anthea sat down beside her husband, and whisked her wand at the tea pot, which obligingly flew over and filled her cup. Peter looked around at their expectant faces.

"Go on, open it," Pippa urged.

With a trembling hand, her brother broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. Sure enough, there it was in plain green and white. Mr. Peter Pettigrew was invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Pippa squeezed his arm and kissed his cheek happily, Anthea and Norman Pettigrew congratulated their son, and Polly studied him doubtfully. Peter, passing the letter across the table to his father, gave a nervous laugh - and knocked the milk jug out of balance.