Son of Scabbers

Son of Scabbers

There wasn’t any one reason that they’d all stayed at school for their last Hogwarts Easter, but they had. Lily had wanted to avoid Petunia. James had stayed to keep her company, and of course where James was, there Peter would be. Remus wanted to be ahead on his homework because full moon would be the day after the start of term. Sirius… well, Sirius could always find more adventure at Hogwarts than anywhere else.

He was missing right now, and the other four sat in peaceful silence by the fire of the Gryffindor common room. Peter was sucking on sherbet balls and occasionally tried to engage the others in conversation, but they were preoccupied—Remus with a roll of parchment that he’d nearly filled with his small, careful handwriting, and James and Lily with gazing into each other’s eyes and smiling.

As the portrait hole opened with a loud thump, one look told them their tranquillity wouldn’t last. Sirius was grinning like a retriever with a tennis ball and wearing the most outlandish outfit any of them had ever seen. His long hair was tied back with a piece of leather cord. His shirt was a dazzling array of splotchy, mismatched colors, and strings of beads hung around his neck. On his feet were open-toed sandals, with thick wool socks in concession to the slushy spring, and just above them his orange pants flared in foot-wide bells.

Lily gave a small snicker, but the purebloods were nonplussed.

"Oh," Peter breathed after a minute, "I get it! You’re trying to look like a Muggle."

Sirius grinned and pulled something out of his pocket: five small cards of thick parchment. "There’s a Rolling Stones concert at a bar in town tonight. We can go drinking, dancing, pick up girls (sorry, Lily)… You’re supposed to be twenty-one-years old, but do you know how Muggles prove that?"

They shook their heads, except for Lily who had started to laugh.

Sirius held up the cards. "With pictures! All you need is a photo, it doesn’t have to move or anything—really! I made one for each of us. I changed our names a little, so we don’t get in any trouble if we end up in the Muggle news or something, and since our names are kind of unusual for Muggles…" He handed a card each to Lily and James. "I just made you guys Lilly and Larry Potter. Remus, I named you after your favorite Muggle author."

Remus rolled his eyes in embarrassment as he took an ID card labeled "Jack London."

"…I’m Cyrus Brown, and Peter—I called you Nevil, just cause I liked how it sounded. It has `evil’ in it, see? Nevil Longbottom: Longbottom is an old Gryffindor family, right, James?"

"He just enjoys watching you and me make fools of ourselves trying to act like Muggles," James muttered to Remus. "Like the time I thought the kitty litter was Floo Powder…"

"That’s right," Remus agreed. "I’ll go with you, Cyrus, just to keep you out of trouble—but I’m bringing my homework."

"You can’t bring spellbooks!" Sirius exclaimed, throwing up his hands and laughing. "Or parchment, or quills!" he added, as Remus stuffed some things into his bookbag. "And take my bag, it’s leather, I don’t know about those dragon scales…"

The only one of his textbooks that would even begin to pass was Advanced Latin. Fortunately, he’d tried to work through some of it years ago, and so there were a few sheets of Muggle paper stuck inside. Remus put this into Sirius’ bag. "Does anyone have a Muggle quill, then—I mean, a pen?"

"I do," said Peter importantly. "Muggle Studies is my best subject. If you guys don’t know how to dress, just watch me." He stood and headed towards the dormitory, wiping candy off his face.

Sirius was practically rolling on the floor. "Oh my God, just wait till he tries to flirt with girls! This is killing me! Do you guys have Muggle clothes? I have another tie-dye shirt, it’s green—it would look great on you, Lily."

"Um, no thanks, Sirius—I’m sure I can find something back in my dorm. Let’s meet in half an hour, shall we?" She shook her head, still laughing. "I was actually thinking of going to the Rolling Stones with some Muggle friends back home, but this will be much more fun." She looked at her ID card carefully, twisting it and holding it up to the light. "It looks a lot better than the fake IDs Petunia had to use when she was our age, too. You know, she got caught once, drunk and disorderly, and got 30 days in jail."

"Thirty days?" This wasn’t Remus’ favorite unit of time.

"Relax, you two, relax—nothing’s going to happen." Sirius couldn’t stop laughing, and started anew when Peter came down the stairs.

His mousy brown hair was plastered down to his head with oil. His fat face was scrubbed to a rosy pink, and a little bowtie sat over a checkered vest. The pinstriped trousers were too short in the leg and too tight in the belly, making him waddle like a stuffed penguin.

"Oh…" gasped Sirius. "Oh… You’re a Muggle, Peter, but I think you’re about twenty years out of date!" His voice was lost in peals of mirth.

James and Remus, biting their lips so as not to hurt Peter’s feelings, went upstairs to change. "I don’t suppose there’s any harm in going," James said, smiling as he dug through his trunk for his single pair of jeans. "It could be fun."

"Just stay out of trouble, OK, Prongs?"

"When’s the last time you saw an herbivore stir up trouble? Really, I’m going for the same reason you are—to watch out for Sirius. He had an awfully close call last time with the Muggle police."

 

They were ready to go at last. Lily was the most respectable of the lot; while waiting for the others, Sirius had spent his time drawing peace symbols on himself with squid ink, and now he looked positively ridiculous. He’d convinced James to wear tie-dye and beads, and done something to Remus’ hair that made him look rather unfortunately like a sheepdog.

The worst, though, was Peter. None of the others could even glance in his direction without beginning to splutter and almost falling off their brooms. He’d put on a pair of suspenders to hold up the trousers that wouldn’t button, and Sirius kept snapping them, cackling, and calling him "Nevil."

He might not have laughed so hard had he known what was going to happen.

They landed in the park across the street from the bar, stashed their broomsticks under a picnic table—Lily and Remus remembered to put an Invisibility Charm on them so Muggles wouldn’t steal them—and stuck their heads into the noisy, crowded room. The bouncer let them all in immediately: all except for Nevil.

"This really you, Longbottom?" he wondered in a low, threatening voice, taking in Peter’s costume and trembling form with an insolent glance. "You don’t look twenty-one to me."

"Oooh…" drawled a voice at the bar suddenly, making them all jump. "Oh… he’s soooo cuuuutee…."

The others edged away as a girl, stumbling a bit from alcohol, left her seat at the bar and swayed over to Peter. She put her arm around him, peeked at his ID, and smiled in a drunken way at the bouncer. "Thish here Nevil Longbottom’sh my friend," she slurred. "I’m an ‘merican, so’s he. Right, Nevil?" The bouncer gave up, handed Peter back his ID, and shrugged as the girl dragged him over to the bar. "C’mon, buy yuh drink. Ooooh," she moaned again. "You’re sooo cute. Can I jusht draw yuh?" She collapsed back into her seat. "Gonna be a famoush author one day," she cooed, pinching his cheek. "An’ you’re gonna help me, right, Nevil?"

This scene was too much even for Sirius. He didn’t stay to tease but got away as quickly as possible, soon dancing with a girl in the middle of the floor, forgetting Peter entirely.

The others watched worriedly for a few minutes but then, deciding the girl was harmless, drifted away. James and Lily started dancing, too, and were soon swallowed up by the crowd.

Remus searched for a quiet table near the back where he could do his homework. He thought he’d spotted one, but as soon as he went to sit down, a girl appeared in front of him. She was about his same age, with just about as much bushy hair, bell-bottoms like Sirius’, and a sweatshirt that read "Cal."

He jumped back.

She smiled, and spoke in a clear American accent. "It’s OK, you can sit here, too—I don’t bite."

He raised his eyebrows at her choice of words but sat down. Not looking at her, he opened Sirius’ bookbag and took out his stuff.

The girl laughed. "You come here to do your homework?"

"Well, I’m with my friends, see--"

"Yeah, me too." She pointed towards a group of dancing girls. "They think I have no social life, so they make me come to these things, but I can’t stand it. I’m a classics major at UC Berkeley; I’m here in the UK for a year on a scholarship. What are you studying?" She peeked at his book.

"History," Remus replied with very little hesitation. "…University of Glasgow."

"That must be fascinating," she said. "I’m at Cambridge, but I’m up here with my friend’s parents for the holidays. This is my first time in the Old World and it really is, you know, old. I look at all these buildings and I just imagine things like plagues and witch-burnings, so horrible…"

"Witch burning is, of course, completely pointless," he told her seriously. "The witch can perform a simple Flame Freezing Charm and pretend to shriek in agony while enjoying a gentle tickling sensation."

"Oh, that’s great!" She slapped the table. "I just love British humor! My name’s Starlight, by the way." She offered him her hand.

He shook it gingerly. She had a bunch of rings and beads and, on her forehead, one of those symbols that Sirius had been drawing all over himself--though hers was probably not made with ink from a giant squid. "I’m, er, Moony," he said, deciding this was better than either his real name or the one Sirius had chosen for him.

"Hi, Moony," said Starlight. "Say, why don’t you quiz me on irregular verbs, and we’ll let all of them act like idiots out there."

Remus smiled at last and opened the book. "OK, how about the pluperfect subjunctive…"

______________

The girl at the bar had managed to scrawl a rather warped likeness of Peter into a sketchbook with her pastels. She had also gotten two or three shots of apricot Schnapps into him, so he sat placidly while she arranged his hair, pinched his cheeks, and made him hold a glass in front of his face so she could get a different perspective.

"We have a mirrored lake," Peter burbled. "And a huge, old, oak door, with stone steps. A fleet of boats takes the new students across the lake…"

"Ver’ good, Nevil, but hold shtill," muttered the girl, still sketching with a rather drunken hand.

"A giant is the Keeper of the Keys… his name’s Hagrid…"

She stared at her drawing. "You’re too fat, Nevil, ‘s what it is. Gonna make you skinny, like you been sick, huh? Keep the chubby cheeks, though. And those adorable suspenders. You’re cute, Nevil." She gave a tremendous burp. "Need ‘nother drink. Wanna buy me a drink, Nevil? Make you famoush one day."

Peter searched eagerly in his pockets, but he had forgotten where he put his Muggle money. The drinks were starting to affect him, too, and when he didn’t see any of his friends nearby, he started to sniffle. "James…" he bawled. "Lily… where are you? Where are you, dammit, don’t leave me here…"

They were only two tables away, cuddled up in a way that was making others either point and giggle or avert their eyes quickly. They disentangled themselves and came running up.

"What’s wrong, Nevil?" James asked politely, fiddling self-consciously with his beads.

"My Mug—I mean my money—I lost it!"

James fished in his pocket for a small leather pouch. "Here you go, Nevil. You dropped it off your Nimbus 1976 and I caught it, remember?" He looked at Peter and the girl. "Are you about ready to go home, Nevil?"

Peter shook his head emphatically.

"Nevil’sh my friend," said the girl. "He’sh stayin’ wid me. Gonna make him famoush. I’m Nancy, gonna be a famoush writer."

"I’m Larry Potter," said James, "and this is Lilly… we’re just watching out for Nevil, here, so we’ll be right over there if something’s wrong…"

With odd looks on their faces, Lily and James returned to their table—but were soon too engrossed in each other to notice Peter drinking more Schnapps and Nancy moving closer and closer to him.

_____________

"…So my brother went AWOL and lives in Canada, and I’ve been active in the anti-war movement ever since." Starlight finished her life history, showing Remus something metal around her neck that she called "dog tags."

It reminded him of the time Sirius had let James walk him through Hogsmeade on a leash.

The word "war" startled him, too—but of course she didn’t know, couldn’t know about Lord Voldemort. There must be a Muggle war going on somewhere; it had just ended, from what she was saying… A Muggle war, with Americans? Certainly he’d heard about this!

"Oh, yes," he remembered, "a terrible curse… wiped out all the foliage…"

"A curse is exactly what it was," she smiled wryly. "Can you believe that the government of a so-called free country would permit something like Agent Orange? They tried to cover it up, too—claimed it was aphid dung, the filthy imperialists." She waved a hand in front of her face, coughing. "It’s so noisy and smoky in here; do you want something to drink?"

"A cup of tea, maybe," said Remus, thinking he’d learned more in an hour than from four years of Muggle Studies.

"Don’t like to drink?" she asked, amused.

He shook his head. "I don’t like to lose control."

"I just can’t afford it, at this time of the month," she said lightly. "I could barely come to the concert."

Remus managed to mostly control his expression, but his eyes got very big. He couldn’t say a single word.

She must have noticed his surprise, because she explained easily, "Payday’s not till Monday, I don’t have a dime—or a pence. It’s so much easier to spend foreign money, too, don’t you think? It never seems real…"

"Payday," he echoed weakly, thinking Pox on Sirius, this is the last time I try acting like a Muggle.

"Hey," she said suddenly. "I know a cheap curry place not too far from here that’s pretty good. Interested?"

"Um, sure," he stammered, nervous but curious at the same time. She really was fascinating to talk to. "Agent Orange"? "But let me check on my friends…"

What Lily and James were doing in the corner made him look away in embarrassment. Peter said he was fine, and Sirius was all the way in up by the band, leaping in synch with the crowd and apparently throwing something onto the stage.

"That’s my friend up there, but I doubt I’ll be able to reach him," he told Starlight, and smiled. "Not without magic."

"Well, let’s go then."

They stepped out of the bar into the April night; a light drizzle was falling, and the park where they’d hidden their brooms was shrouded in fog. Both took deep breaths of the clean, damp air, and almost casually reached for each other’s hands.

"You know, Moony, I’d love to visit you at school," she said. "I’ve never met someone who knew so much ancient history; it’s really not the same to study classics in the States."

Remus thought fast. He had an idea, and was suddenly grateful for the two weeks every month that he preferred Balzac to Jack London. "I have a bit of a confession to make, Starlight," he said. "…I’m actually, er, studying to be a priest…and if I got caught sneaking out like this…"

She jumped back, but with such a faint shadow of the shock people usually had around him that all he could do was smile. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "…Oh, that explains so much. Geez, I can just see you in a long black robe! Sorry," she added, though it wasn’t clear for what. "Can I still hold your hand, then?"

"I don’t think that’s a—a mortal sin." He’d told some stupid lies before, but this one should win awards.

"So tell me, then…" She shivered in the night, and they hurried as they saw the lights of the restaurant up ahead. "Since you’re a spiritual sort of person…Do you believe in ghosts?"

Finally, he thought, a topic that makes sense! "I suppose that in the States, with your shorter history, you’d have fewer of them," he said thoughtfully. "And with a tradition of democracy and justice, fewer still. It’s the oppressed, the persecuted, the executed who become ghosts… happy people never do…"

"Oooh…" She shivered deliciously, pushing open the door to the curry house. "And this is the part in the vampire movie when aieeeeee, you go for my neck--"

He smiled, wondering how they could get from ghosts to vampires. "Ghosts we have, but there are very few vampires in all of Britain. Less than five, I would think."

"Oh, that’s too bad." She sounded disappointed. "What good is a trip to Europe if you don’t meet witches and goblins and mythical monsters? …The chicken curry here is pretty good, I’ve tried it."

"You’ve got two out of three," he said with an odd grin. "And I think I’ll try the lamb—I’m rather fond of it."

________________

Lily’s long, flowered skirt hid them somewhat, but there was no mistaking that she and James were young, in love, and out of control.

"We need to be alone," she whispered. "Do you think we could find a room somewhere… or the roof…?"

James pushed himself away from her a little. He’d suddenly remembered something, and his entire face turned beet red all the way to the tops of his ears. "Lily, I think we should, er… not tonight… I mean… I don’t know what Muggles do for, um, protection," he blurted suddenly.

She snickered. "Oh, James, you are just too naïve." She leaned over and whispered something into his ear.

If it’s possible for a beet to blush, he did. "You’re kidding! But I mean, that’s… well, it’s almost—yucky. Why don’t we just wait till we’re back…?"

But she was rustling in her purse and came out with a coin. "Here you go, James—you wanted to be a Muggle for a day. Hasn’t Sirius ever told you--? Oh, never mind."

He took the money and hesitated. "You don’t want to do it --?"

She sighed impatiently. "They don’t sell them in the women’s toilets, James, honestly."

Looking over his shoulder as if everyone could tell what he had on his mind, James went into the restroom. When he came out a few minutes later, his blush unfaded, he and Lily told Peter they’d be gone for just a little while.

Peter’s head was down on the table, and Nancy was cooing to him. "Ickle muggle wuggle pie," she garbled.

"Muggle…" Peter mumbled, his breath coming slowly in his intoxication. "Larry… Lilly… Muggle…"

"He’s not going anywhere in that state," Lily snapped. "Come on, Larry."

_______________

Although Starlight’s stories were getting more and more interesting, Remus suddenly stopped paying attention. Something was bothering him.

"What’s wrong?" asked his companion, as he stood up.

"I, er, really only came tonight to watch out for my friends… they get in an awful lot of trouble, and I shouldn’t have left them like this…" He went to the door and stuck his head out. The roar of noise from the bar was louder than ever, and above this he could hear shouting. "Oh, no," he groaned, "I knew it," and started running.

Starlight ran after. "What’s wrong?" she panted.

"It’s my friend Sir—Cyrus," he replied in a tense voice, suddenly wanting to be away from this Muggle so he could get their broomsticks if he had to. How stupid could they be, to come into the city without their wands?

"What about Cyrus?"

"I can hear him yelling… he probably got into some kind of brawl… he’s a nice guy, but when he’s drunk--" he shuddered.

"I can’t hear anything," she replied. "It’s just bar noises. Anyway, I can’t believe a guy like you would be friends with someone who acts like an animal."

He didn’t have to respond to that, since they were at the bar. Sure enough, a circle of people had gathered to watch the 350-pound biker with a broken bottle go after the tall scrawny hippy.

Remus pushed through the crowd and prepared to do one of the few spells he could without a wand—shoot fire—but it was too late. The biker had slashed at Sirius, who now lay bleeding on the ground.

Disgusted by the way the Muggles oohed and ahhed at the scene, Remus shoved them out of the way and went to grab his friend. The biker confronted him menacingly for a moment, but quickly backed off at Remus’ obvious lack of fear and the way he hoisted the six-foot-two Sirius easily with one arm. He no longer cared what the Muggles thought; he was going to take Sirius into the park and fly him home to Madam Pomfrey.

But Starlight was waiting at the edge of the crowd. "I called an ambulance!" she yelled. "Here it is, get him in, quick!"

Remus hesitated for just a second, but it was a long flight to Hogwarts and he could feel himself becoming soaked with blood from the wounds on Sirius’ neck and arms. He didn’t know much about Muggle doctors, but certainly they could heal cuts and scrapes—and at least they wouldn’t try to have him "fixed" like that time at the dog pound. He handed his friend to the ambulance crew, who tied him down to some kind of bed and started sticking tubes in him.

"Come on," Starlight urged, pushing him into the ambulance. "You’re acting like you’ve never seen a doctor before."

__________________

Peter was left alone, to be sketched and pinched and pickled in liquor by Nancy. When the bar finally closed, she had to pull him to his feet, where he stood swaying in his penguin costume.

"Wanna come home with me, Nevil?" Nancy chortled.

Peter looked frantically around the room. "But Muggle… you’re a Muggle…" he slurred.

"Muggle pie," she grinned. "Doesh my ickle Muggle wanna come with Nancy?"

The bar was completely empty. Peter slumped down in his chair and started to cry. "Lily," he sniffled. "My Nimbus… where’s my Nimbus… I lost it!"

"Aww… Nevil losesh thingsh and criesh," Nancy sighed, pinching his cheeks once more and dissolving into drunken tears. "You’re sooooo cuuuuute, Nevil… sooo cuuute…"

The bartender thought about saying something as she pulled him out of the now-quiet room and into the gray light of dawn, but he didn’t. After all, Nevil was twenty-one—he could take care of himself.

_____________________

Sirius had been to Muggle doctors before, so it didn’t horrify him too much to wake up and find them sewing his arm as if he were an old couch. It didn’t put him in the best of moods, however, and he became even grumpier when his complaints of a splitting headache were met with "Serves you right, you drunken hippy."

So the last thing he wanted to see when he finally staggered out into the waiting room in the wee hours of the morning was Remus sitting in a corner smooching some Muggle chick.

"Hey!" Sirius bellowed.

They leapt apart, both turning pink.

"I can’t believe that you--" Sirius shook his head as he approached his friend in what must have looked like a threatening manner.

Starlight stood up. "He hasn’t done anything wrong!" she scolded. "You’re disgracing your calling much more, with your drunken brawls, going for people’s throats—is that what religion means to you?"

Sirius hadn’t the slightest idea what she was talking about, and ignored Remus’ gestures to shush. "Religion? I’m a wizard, lady, a wizard, you know? And I need my broomstick so I can fly out of here."

"Heh heh," said Remus. "He’s still pretty drunk. Gets this way for days sometimes…"

"I’ll call a taxi," Starlight declared. "Where do you guys live?"

"Er… why don’t you just drop us in the park. We, um, promised to meet our friends there and I want to make sure they’re not still waiting."

"A wizard!" Starlight snorted as she came back after calling for a cab. "I didn’t see you using any magic on that biker…"

"Oh, he’s no more a wizard than I am a mythical monster," said Remus casually. "Alcohol just gets to him."

"But you, Moony, you were so brave." She gave him another kiss, and Remus turned very red as Sirius made a variety of rude noises.

Fortunately Lily and James were at the park, sitting on a bench looking highly respectable, if a little worried. Remus dug through his pockets for the rest of his Muggle money so Starlight could make it home in the cab, and was just a little disappointed at barely having a chance to say goodbye.

_________________

Peter woke up late that morning, face to face with a puddle of his own drool on a pink lacy pillow. Next to him, mouth open and snoring, was Nancy.

He leapt out of bed, horrified. His friends were going to kill him. He found himself dressed in fluffy teddy-bear pajamas with rubber feet and a little pointed nightcap, and couldn’t find his Muggle clothes anywhere.

As he began to cry, Nancy sat straight up in bed and cried, "MUGGLE!"

"Aaaaaaah!" shrieked Peter, and ran from the room.

He dashed down the stairs and out onto the street, still in those pajamas. People gave him stares, and it took him all morning to find the park. It took him even longer to find his broom, which was the only one of the five left—apparently they’d all abandoned him and gone back to Hogwarts. Sniffling, he got on and began the trip back, hoping he could sneak in without Sirius seeing him like this.

_____________

Months passed. They all graduated, Lily and James got married, Remus moved to a small village in South Wales to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.

But Peter never forgot Nancy. As MWPP outings became rarer, he took to frequenting the bar where they’d met, moping over a glass of apricot Schnapps.

One day, as he sat there feeling sorry for himself, there was a familiar cry of "MUGGLE!"

"Nancy!" he sobbed, leaping to his feet and into her arms.

"Oh Nevil…" she cried. "You’re still sooo cuuute… gonna buy me a drink, Nevil?"

He went home with her again that night, remembering all his lonely nights since they’d first met, telling himself he had to be brave and ask her to marry him. Nancy Pettigrew, he thought wistfully.

But the next morning there was a pounding on the door. A small, fat, balding man with an extremely red face burst through the door, flanked by two Hit Wizards.

"There he is!" he roared. "My son—with a MUGGLE!"

They dragged Peter out by his armpits, taking him back to the Pettigrew mansion where they wiped his memory of everything he’d ever learned in Muggle studies. They didn’t let him out of their sight for weeks, and when he went to visit Lily and James a month later, he’d completely forgotten ever having left the wizarding world for any reason whatsoever.

"Guess what, Wormtail?" James announced, slapping him roughly on the shoulder. "I’m going to be a dad."

Peter presented his sincere congratulations, not knowing that across town there was a Muggle girl who was also discovering she was going to be a mother.

She was unmarried and a struggling artist, so after many tears decided she would give the child to her parents to raise. They were eccentric—some said the old lady was mad—but when she described the father, they became very interested.

It was a boy, and when the nurse came around to ask what she wanted to name him, Nancy thought about the one true love of her life. "Neville Longbottom," said the birth certificate.

_____________________

The children of the two unions grew up: the son of Lily and James tragically lost both parents to Voldemort and was raised by the Dursleys. Neville Longbottom, on the other hand, grew up with his witch grandmother--who knew the instant she heard the name that this was the son of a proud Gryffindor family. Although he was nearly Hogwarts age by the time he showed any magical abilities, he was eventually accepted into the famous wizarding school and, as grandma and Uncle Algie hoped, sorted into Gryffindor.

He never saw his mother again. Nancy's memories of "Nevil" lost their charm over the years, and she gradually grew to resent the man who had left her to bear his child alone. She kept the drawings, however… and many years later, this old flame of Peter's sat down to write a book.

The Legend of Rah and the Muggles,

it was called, adorned by likenesses of the 17-year-old suspendered Pettigrew. As much as she resented Peter now, Nancy still had to admit that he was very, very cute. The lake, the boats, the Keeper of the Keys… all of these memories came back to her as she contemplated the chubby cheeks, feeling a tear form in the corner of her eye.

Then she sued J. K. Rowling.