Rat's Eye View

Rat's Eye View

He closes the dormitory door behind him and transforms on the stairs, so he can go down to the common room in his Animagus form: it's late, two in the morning, and he would hate to stumble into any stray house-elves. He just wants to get his book, because he can't sleep, and he figures he might as well be reading.

Above all, he is trying to avoid Sirius seeing him, because he doesn't fancy hearing any of Sirius's sarcastic comments. He knows Remus and Sirius are still down here, as their beds are empty. They're the only two marauders doing Muggle Studies NEWT - Sirius's final rebellion against the House of Black - and they're working on a project together. It isn't like Remus to leave homework till the last minute, but he's been sort of distracted recently. Distant. And he's been answering questions wrong in Defence, which is so unusual that the professor has actually sent him to the hospital wing twice, in case he has some unidentified wizarding flu.

Peter's two dorm-mates are sitting at a table near the fire, books open in front of them, rolls of parchment littering the floor.

Remus leans his head on one arm, and looks tiredly at Sirius. 'Are we going to include all the laws? Because there are an awful lot of them.'

'Lily and Zoe will. So we'd better too. Don't want them to get higher marks.'

'No.'

The room is lit only by the fire and the circle of light from the lamp in the middle of the table. How Remus and Sirius can see to work properly is beyond Peter. In the halo of orange lamplight, his two familiar friends look strange. Remus's light brown hair is highlighted with gold, and his pupils are dilated as he glances at Sirius. He looks like a painting, for a moment, a symphony of autumnal colours and soft, blurred lines. Sirius, who is more chiselled, more shadowed, looks paler, somehow, even in the tawny light, and his pupils too are so large that his eyes look black.

Peter edges closer; he hasn't thought, of course. He left his book on a sofa by the window, and in his anxiety not to be seen he's forgotten that a rat can't pick up a wizarding comic annual and get it back to the dorm. Stupid of him. He hadn't thought about the closed door either. Unless he transforms, which would startle his friends too much, he rationalises, he will have to wait until Remus and Sirius pack up and go to bed, so he can nip through the door with them.

It looks like they're aiming for an all-nighter, unfortunately. 'I can draw the Muggle Parliament,' Remus suggests. 'It's quite difficult, 'cause you have to be accurate.'

'And I'm not?'

Remus smiles, almost tentatively at first. Then the smile reaches his eyes, radiating towards Sirius. 'You don't have the patience.'

Under the table, their feet are touching, Peter notices. They must be exhausted. So exhausted that boundaries are blurring. It's a small table, too. He knows that Sirius is careless about contact, thumping backs, arms flung round shoulders, but Remus does not like being touched.

Sirius looks straight at his friend across the table, first glancing round the room as if he's sensed another presence though he can't see it. 'Remus,' he murmurs.

Peter can't decipher his tone. It's just one word, a name, but it sounds - weird. Intimate, almost caressing. Not like Sirius's usual loud, casual tone, anyway. He wonders why Sirius would say Moony's name like that. Maybe he's actually falling asleep. Or something. For some reason, it makes the rat feel strange too, and if he weren't in his Animagus form he thinks he would be going red, but doesn't quite know why. As it is, he feels uncomfortably hot now - surely just the fire - those two syllables stretching away into the silence, and the silence full of a sort of tension that he doesn't understand.

He looks at Remus to see how he's reacting, and he's still looking at Sirius but not smiling any more. Sirius reaches across the table and takes Remus's hand in his. To Peter's surprise and concern, Remus doesn't shake it away. Instead, he strokes it with his thumb, not absent-mindedly, but with an expression of intense concentration on his face.

'Shall we go upstairs?' Remus whispers, still caressing Sirius's hand.

'It's probably more private down here,' Sirius mutters in reply.

They both sound odd, husky and a bit hoarse, as if they'd woken in the middle of the night and needed water. Of course, that may just be the rat's hypersensitive hearing, which often unnerves Peter. And those clasped hands may just be an illusion, the rat's eyes blurring images that are too distant to see clearly. But Peter understands that he's not imagining this, that for some reason Sirius and Remus have become frighteningly unfamiliar.

Sirius raises his wand, which is resting with his quill at the side of the table, and Peter feels something tingly, like a little shock. He doesn't know what spell this could be, but it must be some kind of force-field, because the table and the hearth are now surrounded by a sort of dull, peach-coloured haze, like a spring sunrise, Peter thinks in an unwontedly poetic moment.

He isn't the best student, but he is pretty sure that magical force-fields aren't flawless. They may repel humans, but they can't keep animals out; there is about a twenty centimetre gap between the floor and the start of the barrier, and without another thought the rat pushes under it and scurries to the sofa by the hearth, his heart thumping pitifully.

The two boys are now leaning towards each other across the table, and as Peter watches from his ringside seat, their lips brush together, barely grazing. They both have their eyes closed, and Sirius presses his forehead against Remus's, like a dog marking its territory; like Padfoot would probably not quite dare do to the wolf.

But oh my God, they touched each other's lips... The rat shudders, and, overcome by a very human discomfort and shock, retreats under the sofa for a moment. It is a dream. Not the sort of dream he would normally have, of course. Why would he dream anything so, well, perverted? Two of his best mates, kissing. Unless the rat really is seeing everything skewed.

His ears pick up the noises that follow: chairs scraping back, two people trying hard to be as quiet as possible, and then silence, filled with tiny, unrecognisable sounds.

Peter's curiosity overcomes him, and he emerges from his hiding place. Remus and Sirius are now half sitting, half lying on the floor by the fire, and they are kissing again, but this time deeply and fiercely, their arms locked round each other, completely oblivious to the scrabbling of the rat as it scrambles back to the haven of the sofa, suddenly terrified of being seen. Peter knows that both boys would hex him incurably if either of them even suspected he were anywhere but in the dorm, tucked up in bed asleep. And he wishes he were, because he doesn't want to watch them, but for a few minutes he can't tear his eyes away.

He's heard about things like this, of course. One of the worst insults is to call another boy a poof: it's the sort of invective that's flung about quite idly, though, without any thought as to its deeper meaning. Peter has never considered what being a poof, or queer, would actually entail. He has never begun to imagine anything like this, his two friends looking as if they're trying to devour each other, not just kissing now but pressing against each other with a sort of desperation, hands tangled in each other's hair, occasionally murmuring inarticulately or moaning, a sound that makes all the hairs on the rat's tail stand on end, though whether in terror or arousal Peter would be unable to tell.

The human part of him is in a state of shock. He can't believe that one of those moaning, clutching boys is Sirius Black, the Gryffindor stud; the first one of them to lose his virginity, only last summer, when he was staying with James. He gave full details to his avidly curious friends, as soon as they got back to Hogwarts after the holidays. James, who had heard it all already, rolled his eyes and kept unpacking his trunk, but there was a sort of admiration, pride even, in his expression as he pretended he wasn't listening to the story yet again.

'Well, Muggle girls!' Sirius smirked then, looking round at his audience. 'They're pretty easy. If we all go to stay with Prongs at Christmas, I bet I could get Vanessa to introduce you to a couple of friends. And if Prongs will just get over Evans, I can fix him up too.'

Only, at Christmas Sirius stayed at school, with Remus. It was about three weeks after the prank, Peter recalls, and the pair of them made it up remarkably fast, considering that Sirius could have caused irreparable damage.

He's astounded at Remus as well, obviously. Well, nobody expects to see his best mates having it off on the common room floor. Remus may not have lost his virginity to a Muggle girl, as far as Peter knows - Remus is more reticent than Sirius, though, so anything is possible - but he's always seemed perfectly normal. Lily's best friend fancies him, which is a sort of running joke, because Remus often seems oblivious to anything but work. And there are quite a few other girls who seem to find his waiflike looks attractive.

In the common room, there is a sudden cessation of sound, and Peter heaves a rat sigh of relief. The two boys have pulled apart now. They are both robeless, shirtless, their trousers undone, their hair dishevelled. Peter hopes fervently that they've finished and will go upstairs.

'Haven't got anything,' Sirius is murmuring, his voice shaky. 'It's up in the bloody dorm. Not going to Accio it.'

'It's okay, we can just -' and then their mouths are pressed together again, and they have somehow shed the rest of their clothes, and both Peter and the rat are seized by an intense embarrassment.

'Couldn't they have cast a silencing charm?' he wonders, then realises that they probably have, outside their force-field, but as he's right in the middle of it the charm doesn't affect him. He's wishing more fervently than ever that he'd stayed upstairs and put up with his insomnia, because they are very loud now, crying out each other's names, and when he looks, trying resolutely to focus only on their faces, he sees their hair is tangled, their foreheads covered in sweat, their eyes closed, as if they were concentrating so hard that the world had narrowed to a pinpoint of bright sensation.

He squeezes his own eyes shut as their voices gradually die down, wandering whether rats can put their paws into their ears. When he opens his eyes again, he can see the peach edges of the force-field paling and receding, and he hears the rush of noise into the room that means a silencing charm is dying: the birds are starting to sing in the grounds outside. The first grey dawn light is just beginning to filter through the window.

'We haven't finished the project yet,' Remus murmurs. Peter risks a peek at his two friends, now that the worst bit is obviously over. They are lying on the hearth with their arms round each other, Remus's head on Sirius's shoulder, their faces somehow astoundingly young, childlike even. They certainly don't look old enough to be doing - whatever they did.

Their nudity is now mercifully covered by their robes, which they are using as makeshift blankets; not surprising, as the fire has died down and it's very cold. The house-elves will be along soon to rekindle it. For a silly moment, Peter considers transforming so he can warn his friends, make sure they get dressed at least, perhaps get them up to the dorm, but of course that would be a big mistake.

The boys seem to have dozed off, and Peter, the rat, feels his eyelids drooping too. He struggles to stay awake, not wanting to risk transforming unless he is absolutely sure they are both asleep. But eventually he scuttles up the stairs, takes a deep breath, for a rat, and Peter Pettigrew is back, standing outside the door. The boys in the common room below don't even stir.

Peter tiptoes into the dorm, takes off his dressing gown, snuggles down into bed, but once again he can't sleep, this time because he's filled with absolute glee. He knows someone else's secret.

He can't wait to tell James.

End