Here’s to October 31st

Here’s to the girl with the glimmering green eyes and the long red hair. The girl with band-aids across her knees and a wand tucked behind her ear. Here’s to the girl whose laughter both tasted and felt like fire, and who never grew to be much taller than five feet even.

Here’s to Lily Evans: the girl whose green eyes went glassy and red hair stood in for blood as she fell to the nursery floor.

Here’s to the boy with messy hair and a pair of glasses perched crookedly across his nose. The boy whose left hand was always stained with ink and could do transfiguration with his eyes closed. Here’s to the boy who danced with his girlfriend in the candlelit common room, and didn’t notice when his robes caught fire.

Here’s to James Potter: the boy whose glasses broke as the curse hit his chest and his head thudded against the stairs.

Here’s to the boy with round pink cheeks and constantly twitching fingers. The boy who laughed at the wrong time but was always willing to help as best he could. Here’s to the boy who suggested last night kitchen raids and always somehow managed to avoid the prefects.

Here’s to Peter Pettigrew: the boy whose fingers began to tremble as he realized what he had done.

Here’s to the boy clad in leather jackets and the scent of cigarettes and chocolate. The boy who never kept a straight face for much longer than a minute and always managed to sing off key. Here’s to the boy who pushed aside family traditions and prejudices and forged his own path from broken glassware and gasoline.

Here’s to Sirius Black: the boy who lost his leather jacket as he was imprisoned in Azkaban (where the scent of cigarettes and chocolate faded to one of sweat and stone). 

Here’s to the boy with threadbare sweaters and scars that wove themselves among his freckles. The boy who watched the moon with a pounding heart and stayed up late into the night reading. Here’s to the boy who hated wolves but loved a certain fluffy black dog, and would do anything for a cup of tea.

Here’s to Remus Lupin: the boy whose sweater was unable to keep out the cold as he realized that he was all alone.

Here’s to the night where clouds covered the stars and the darkness was lit with porch lights. The night where leaves coated the ground and a slight breeze shook empty branches. Here’s to the night where laughter rang through the air, and no one could hear the screaming.

Here’s to October 31st: the day the Marauders became nothing more than a charred and fading memory.

#that is a human as a rat as a cup

That was a long 12 years for Wormtail.

Can you imagine how differently their lives would’ve gone if Ron, in trying to transfigure Scabbers, had actually transfigured him back into a human? Just take a moment to imagine McGonagall’s reaction if Peter Pettigrew had abruptly appeared in her classroom from Ronald Weasley’s rat. Take a moment.

Or if Ron had fucked it up a little worse and couldn’t get ‘Scabbers’ back and McGonagall had take him to disenchant him and next thing we know there’s a naked Peter Pettigrew sitting on McGonagall’s desk and the kids in that class learn six new swear words, a hex they will never dare to use, and a fear of Minerva McGonagall’s wrath that will be with them until the day they die.

Ten and twenty years later first years are being pulled aside and warned never mess around in Transfiguration seriously the last time a kid mucked something up in that class Professor McGonagall used two semi-legal hexes, took down a Death Eater and sabotaged the rise of the Dark Lord before Potter had time to get his wand out.

What most of Hogwarts learned first on that otherwise-unexceptionable day was that Professor McGonagall could sure scream loud.

Professor Flitwick’s Charms 5th-year Charms class was close enough to catch the full effect, and the door had been left open besides; en masse the students recoiled with shock and a miscast Hiccuping Charm broke one of the windows (out which the entire flock of ravens they were practicing on escaped to the Forbidden Forest where they only had to worry about centaurs, rather than annoying young humans with wands).

Up in the Divination Tower, Sibyl Trelawny preened over her foresight to have warned her students of an unprecedented catastrophe likely to occur before the hour was out.

Out in Greenhouse Five, a NEWT-level Herbology class looked up in puzzlement, and most of them were subsequently bitten by the Venomous Tentaculae they were attempting to propagate. It does not do to ignore a Venomous Tentacula when you’re prodding at its intimate parts with a cotton ball held in tweezers, so the class was cancelled while two-thirds of the students headed for the infirmary and the rest of them headed into the castle because if they stayed with the Venomous Tentaculae they’d be outnumbered, and nobody wants that.

And down in the dungeons, Professor Snape turned away from comparing Lee Jordan’s Pepper-Up Potion to spoiled cream at what sounded like a woman screaming from the entrance hall. At the second scream, he ordered the class to remain where they were and behave, sweeping out of the room just in time to miss Theodore Nott suddenly jumping up and yelping as if someone had put a crocodile heart down the back of his robes.

Fred Weasley stepped back from the unfortunate Slytherin, shared a smirk with his twin, and stuck his head out the door to make sure Snape had rounded the corner before leading the way out of the classroom.

-

Back in the Transfiguration classroom, about four minutes ago, it had started innocently enough. Ron Weasley, possessed of a broken wand and a lurking suspicion that most of the family’s magical talent had been soaked up by his siblings before he was around to get any, had attempted to turn his pet rat, Scabbers, into a teacup.

Scabbers had not become a teacup.

Scabbers, blast his useless furry little backside, had become a furry, vaguely teacup-shaped monstrosity out of which absolutely no one would have been tempted to drink, and to make matters worse, he still had a tail.

It was moving.

Harry was hiding a smile behind his hand. Dean and Seamus weren’t even trying to hide, elbowing each other and laughing. Parvati and Lavender were looking with disgust and horror at either Scabbers or him, and Hermione was opening her mouth, no doubt ready to tell him exactly what he’d done wrong.

Which only made it worse that he really thought he’d done everything right this time.

He snatched Scabbers off the desk (eww, the base of the cup had the same texture as rat feet) and turned away from Hermione. He made the wand movement again, picturing in his mind the way McGonagall had demonstrated it. “Erreverto.”

“Erreverto. Erreverto. Erreverto.”

It didn’t work. It didn’t work when Professor McGonagall stopped by and gave Hermione two points for Gryffindor for getting the spell perfect in both directions. It didn’t work when Harry made his successful transfiguration (Ron looked; the pattern was a little bit furry but it was definitely a teacup). Ron’s lips formed the shape of a word that would’ve made his mother box his ears had she heard it and attempted the reverse transfiguration, which didn’t work either.

Finally, faced not only with the indignity of failure but the threat of Scabbers being stuck like that, he’d gone up to Professor McGonagall’s desk.

“Um, Professor?”

Professor McGonagall looked up from the paper she was grading and looked from him to the squirming teacup. “Problems, Mr. Weasley?”

“Um, yeah, Professor. I can’t get it to work in either direction and it’s not fair to Scabbers to make him stay as a teacup just because I can’t do a spell right and can you maybe … ?”

“I suppose so, Mr. Weasley,” she said, and waved her wand in the exact manner Ron had been doing all along.

Nothing happened.

Professor McGonagall looked very, very puzzled.

“Now that’s odd,” she said softly.

As one, the other students rose from their seats and quietly moved closer.

She did not attempt the transfiguration in the other direction. Instead, she made a complex motion with her wand and murmured an incantation that possibly only Hermione recognized. The teacup squeaked. Professor McGonagall looked more puzzled than ever, and made a sweeping wand movement that ended with a sharp jab and uttered, “Arcanum finite!”

And there was a loud bang, and there was a pale, pudgy, and very naked man sprawled out on her desk, and she jumped back hard enough to knock her chair into the wall and screamed.

-

Having taught a particularly rigorous course of magical study to children and teens for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall had become accustomed to certain things. Students who didn’t listen. Students who did rude things to the mice when they thought she wasn’t looking. Students who accidentally turned a frog or a raven into a flock of starlings or a school of strange slimy South American fish (and tried to solve the immediate problem by filling the classroom with two feet of water, neglecting to consider the gap under the door). Students who tried to transfigure their noses into a more appealing shape and wound up in the hospital wing regrowing their nostrils.

Naked men on her desk was something Minerva McGonagall had never had an occasion to get used to. What made it worse was that she recognized this one, and he’d been dead for more than a decade.

Inferius! was her first thought, followed shortly thereafter by Animagus, which collided with Peter Pettigrew! and produced the utterly horrifying thought of what if all four of them were Animagi? which didn’t bear thinking about at all, so her brain jumped to if he wasn’t killed by a Dark Wizard then why didn’t he say so? and realized there was only one possible explanation why, and about that time her eyes registered that parts of Peter Pettigrew she really doesn’t want to know about were flopping about in front of her face, and she was screaming as she jumped back.

The flow of invective which followed somehow failed to surprise her one bit. Some part of her registered, peripherally, the shocked faces of her students, but most of her attention was directed at Peter Pettigrew, who at very least faked his own death and at worst framed Sirius Black and if Black didn’t betray the Potters then who … did. And the words poured out of her, filthy English and filthier Latin while Pettigrew squirmed on the table, his face rage and guilt and fear and something shifty and contemptible, and he turned to look at the stunned students and lunged for Ron Weasley’s wand.

-

Severus Snape had reached the Entrance Hall by the time the scream died away and the invective replaced it. He almost smirked, amid the alarm; of all the things he’d never expected to hear from Minerva McGonagall … he took the stairs two at a time, still not noticing the students who followed.

He did notice the Herbology class, which had stopped on the way to the Infirmary and were staring transfixed in the direction of the Transfiguration classroom, but pushed his way through them, getting Venomous Tentacula pollen all over his robes in the process.

From the other end of the corridor came Professor Flitwick’s Charms class, with Professor Flitwick bringing up the rear and pushing his way between students.

-

Ron looked stunned as the man who’d been his pet rat snatched the wand from his hand; Professor McGonagal’s expression shifted to one beyond fury and when the entire class recoiled, it wasn’t from the naked man with the wand.

“Laedo!“ Minerva McGonagall roared.

-

Ron Weasley’s wand cast a Splintering Curse many years beyond its rightful owner’s abilities, and it did Peter Pettigrew the poor favor of eliminating the door, which might have slowed him down a bit.

-

Severus Snape flailed and skidded to a halt as the Transfiguration classroom’s door shattered. He stepped back just in time, and stared, jaw dropped in shock, as a naked man he recognized from his school days flew past him and bellyflopped against the wall, bounced, and collapsed to the ground just in time to avoid the “Exitium!” which followed and vaporized an impresive chunk of the castle’s stone wall.

Fred and George and Lee Jordan, determined to stay at the front of the crowd, had been pushed almost against Professor Snape by their fellow Potions classmates and some pollen-coated Hufflepuffs. Fred squirmed aside hastily as Professor McGonagall appeared in the doorway, the look on her face so utterly livid that Professors Snape and Flitwick both reflexively stepped back.

Snape tripped over George’s foot and fell against a knot of Hufflepuffs, releasing another cloud of pollen and knocking them backwards. Pettigrew saw his opportunity and took it, scrambling to his feet, stumbling sideways, and launching himself towards the gap.

And Minerva McGonagall made a thrust with her wand and said, “Perdo.”

In the very loud silence which followed, Filius Flitwick squeaked, “The Splinching Charm, Minerva?”

She might’ve looked embarrassed for a moment, and then she smiled as she looked down at Pettigrew, who lay on his belly, his arms and legs lying akimbo some distance away.

“Unorthodox,” she said, “but useful in a pinch. If someone would inform the Headmaster, and send an owl to the Ministry—-not Fudge, not Crouch, someone competent—-Shacklebolt, perhaps. Students, return to your classrooms, please. Mr. Weasley, I’m very sorry, but I do believe it’s impossible to return you your rat. However, the zero I was going to have to give you for the day’s work is entirely undeserved, as you were not transfiguring a normal rat. You may make the lesson up any time this week.”

-

The story was, of course, much embellished by the time it reached all the students. Versions of it had the intruder peppering Snape with a Glitter Hex or transfiguring Ron’s rat into a pair of boxers, and people had to be disabused of the notion that it had been Voldemort who’d been hiding as a rat all this time.

Snape gave both Weasley twins detention for tripping him, and took forty-seven points total from Gryffindor over the next few weeks for various pretend-subtle pollen references.

Kingsley Shacklebolt showed up with a team of Aurors in time to meet Professor Dumbledore; the Wizengamot launched an investigation into the events surrounding the Potters’ murder; the results turned into a scandal which saw the release of Sirius Black and the forced resignation of both Director Bartemious Crouch and Minister Cornelius Fudge. Director of Magical Law Enforcement Amelia Bones was confirmed as Minister of Magic shortly thereafte, and the Daily Prophet reported that Sirius Black (“Godfather to the Boy-Who-Lived!” “Framed, Abandoned, Condemned to Living Hell!” “Heart-Wrenching: His Release In Pictures, Page 17!”) was considering applying for a teaching position at Hogwarts, “but just for a year, I’ve been cursed enough for one lifetime.” (“The Prophet reminds its readers that the so-called “curse” on a certain Hogwarts teaching position is almost certainly a mere string of coincidences.”)

And, Minerva thought with relish some months later, it was almost three weeks before anyone attempted messing around in her class.

A personal record.

I’ve probably reblogged this before but I’m going to do it again right now

I think this is literally the best au this entire fandom has produced

I’ve only seen this legendary bit of writing in memes and screenshots. I feel so blessed to see it in person.

THIS.

Always reblog

Why did Voldemort force Peter to move in with Snape?

Long ago, I said my next piece would be about why Peter went back to Voldemort. HOWEVER there has been some recent interest from readers regarding the subject of Snape and Peter living together, and I’m grateful for the encouragement and for the reminder! It’s been a while since I’ve added a new essay to the bunch, and I admit that this is one of the periods of Peter’s life (not to mention a plot of Voldemort’s) that I find especially fascinating.

Voldemort’s decision to place Peter at Spinner’s End likely happened immediately after the events at the Little Hangleton graveyard in Goblet of Fire: Voldemort has a body now. He no longer requires full-time care, nor would he want to remind his followers that he ever needed it—it wouldn’t do to have Peter remain by his side. Plus, all this one-on-one time and physical/magical reliance has given Peter an unusual amount of knowledge about Voldemort, and perhaps the knowledge has made Peter…overly familiar. So, Voldemort removes Peter to Spinner’s End, and likely moves back into the Riddle House in Little Hangleton by himself.*

*Between the World Cup and Triwizard Tournament, Voldemort and Peter were living at Barty Crouch Sr’s home, which has now been compromised due to Barty Jr’s arrest. Voldemort doesn’t move into Malfoy Manor until right before Deathly Hallows begins.

Therefore, Peter is out of a job. I expect that Peter—with his fancy silver hand and Voldemort’s apparent gratitude—thought that he would now take his place at the Adult Table with the rest of the still-loyal first-tier Death Eaters that showed up at Little Hangleton when Voldemort called them. But…no.

Instead, Voldemort removes Peter from the Inner Circle, where all the action is happening and the plans are being made, and places him not only in Snape’s company, but in Snape’s own house, and therefore—it could be argued—under Snape’s authority. 

Snape is, admittedly, not in the most secure position among the Death Eaters and Voldemort. He’s only just reemerged after living in essentially Dumbledore’s lap for the last 15 years. But he has over a decade of information that is valuable to Voldemort, and Voldemort isn’t foolish enough to disregard that, even if he doesn’t fully trust Snape (yet).

I suspect Voldemort placed Snape and Peter together for a couple reasons:

Voldemort doesn’t fully trust Snape yet—he needs to hear some of that alleged Dumbledore/Order information first—and he’s never seen Peter operating as a full-time Death Eater**; there’s plenty of reason to believe that Peter might try to make a run for it.

**Unlike some, I don’t believe Peter was a fully Marked Death Eater until after Voldemort regained a body. I don’t think he was involved with/loyal to Voldemort at all during the First War—he spilled the beans to save his own life, not out of loyalty to or love of evil.

It kills two birds with one stone to give these men the task of checking up on each other—it fosters competition, and it doesn’t require any extra manpower. Each takes care of the other.

There’s a sort of apocryphal legend about Pharoahs and their tombs. I’m not sure how true it is, but it illustrates my next point well. When a Pharoah—along with an architect—designed and built his tomb, he wanted to ensure that his was the largest, grandest, and most spectacular tomb that had ever come before or after. So, when the Pharoah died, the architect might be killed and placed in the tomb with the Pharoah. This way, the royal architect would never be able to improve upon that which he had made, and never share the secrets of the Pharoah’s tomb with anyone else.

This is the principle upon which Voldemort is working with regards to removing Peter from his side and his confidence. Peter, frankly, knows too much. He was Voldemort’s sole confident for nearly a year.

It is EXTREMELY likely that Peter is the only Death Eater who is clearly aware that Voldemort has not only one Horcrux, but several.^ Peter likely knows how Horcruxes are made and was almost certainly there when Nagini was made into one. He has seen Voldemort at his most vulnerable as well as at his most evil. Peter has proven himself not only a competent wizard, but an extraordinary one. Not to mention a dogged survivor!

^Snape doesn’t become aware of this until Dumbledore shows up with a rotting hand and the Peverell ring between OotP and HBP.

Peter’s not worth killing, either. A man who is willing to do anything to live is a valuable tool for someone like Lord Voldemort. Peter has proven that he’s willing to do the dirty work. (Bertha Jorkins, for example.)^^

^^In this way, Peter:Voldemort::Snape:Dumbledore. It’s a delicious and compelling parallel that lends itself beautifully to this circumstance.

Besides, Voldemort created his own insurance in the form of the silver hand, which seems to be programmed to kill Peter should he show an inclination to disobey Voldemort. Regarding the circumstances of Peter’s death as a consequence of sparing Harry’s life, there’s some confusion regarding the Life Debt business, but both the text and Pottermore heavily imply (or claim outright) that Peter did indeed show Harry a moment of mercy†, and the hand turned on him and strangled him to death as punishment for that mercy.

†The canon text grants this only grudgingly—Peter himself seems surprised to have done it, which muddies the waters a bit re: the hand and its motives/purpose.

Now, to my third point:

Almost nobody would argue with the idea that Voldemort is a raging drama queen. So when I say Voldemort was absolutely stirring shit by putting Snape and Peter under the same roof, you shouldn’t find it at all surprising.

It’s not just the fact that Peter ran with the two boys that made Snape’s life a living hell for almost a decade (and contributed to that hell, I’m sure, in his own right), not to mention with the werewolf who nearly—through no fault of Remus’s own—killed Snape. By the time Goblet of Fire ends, Snape is well aware that for all of his other awful and infuriating personality traits, Sirius is indeed innocent of betraying the Potters. Which can mean only one thing:

Snape knows that Peter Pettigrew is the one responsible for Lily’s death.

Snape’s feelings for and relationship to Lily were not a secret, especially to Voldemort (since Snape asked him to spare Lily’s life) and to the people Snape went to school with—especially James, who was fixated on and jealous of Snape and Lily’s friendship. Peter would, of course, be aware. I have no doubt that Peter immediately realized the position he was being put in when Voldemort ordered him to live with Snape in Spinner’s End, and I’m sure he was quite rightly nervous.

Isn’t that a delightful little mindfuck move on Voldemort’s part? Putting Snape and Peter together in time-out is a very practical punishment. He puts Snape with his childhood tormentor and the one who got the woman he loved killed, as punishment for perceived abandonment. And naturally Voldemort would be aware that Snape would hate and resent Peter because of their shared childhood and because of Lily; so what a fitting punishment for Peter, who is a man terrified that his past will catch up to him. All because he dared to witness Voldemort at his weakest. (Voldemort is SO petty, you guys.) And it dovetails so nicely with the primary reasons for placing them together: both Snape and Peter will be on edge, each desperate to prove his own loyalties as well as extra sensitive to any flaw in his roommate’s.

But Snape can’t let on that Lily’s death bothers him, nor murder Peter and risk outing himself as disloyal to Voldemort and the Death Eaters. What Snape can do, however, is make Peter’s time in Spinner’s End unpleasant and irritating. And the chapter Spinner’s End establishes exactly that: Snape treats Peter like a servant, and—as he does to Bellatrix—likely lords his own usefulness to Voldemort (and therefore, his arguably larger worth to him) over Peter’s head in the process.

And Peter can’t fight back. He’s not an idiot—he’s the kind of guy who knows when he knows too much. As to why he puts up with Snape treating him like shit, on one hand, I’m sure Peter is aware he deserves it (and besides, it’s only a couple months until Hogwarts is back in session). On the other, it’s not going to help him one whit to go complaining to Voldemort. As Peter’s been excused from the field of duty (and would frankly be too conspicuous‡), he can’t do anything to earn a reward, and unless he has rock-hard evidence that Snape is a traitor to Voldemort, Peter knows he’s stuck where he is. Which is exactly why he puts so much effort into spying on Snape in the hopes of catching him out and taking the opportunity to restore himself in Voldemort’s good graces. (Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Voldemort suggested that was a Very Important Job and the only way for Peter to make his way back to the Adult Table.)

‡Sirius parallel!

Unfortunately, we only get a tiny glimpse into the life that Snape and Peter had made! There’s a massive well of tantalizing possibilities here regarding their interactions in Spinner’s End—how do you think it went? (I have a pet theory that they ended up tolerating each other quite well—they’re both DEEPLY lonely men with a great deal of shared history and references. I think there’s a lot about each other that they understand, which can, of course, be repulsive in this instance, but when it comes to a roommate, sometimes you also have to get on with it and cook a shared dinner and chat about the day’s events.)

I always love hearing your reactions, questions, and observations on these essays—please do keep them coming!

Brilliant as always!

Snape and Wormtail in a flatshare, there’s only one bed

This is a comic strip I made for a Spanish Harry Potter fanzine. Sadly, it couldn’t be published, so I’m uploading here anyway.

It was a lot of work, but it was really fun to draw ^^

Concept: Sirius convinces the Marauders to do a “Family Portrait” in their animagus form.

Peter fingers his wand as he reviews the spell in his mind. It is not one that he has needed before, but it is the only one he can think of that will work in this situation. Besides, it seems somehow appropriate, poetic, to use it now and for this.

Remus was the one who first taught them the spell. His mother had shown it to him so he could hide the worst of the wolf’s scars when he first came to Hogwarts.

Sirius had picked it up quickly. He gained plenty of practice over the next five years, hiding the marks from ‘home’.

James only used the spell a few times. When his dates with Lily turned intimate, it was the first one he thought of to hide the dark hickies on his neck; suddenly shy at having gained what he sought for so long.

Peter waves his wand, magic swirling around him, the carefully pronounced words locking it in place. It hides his secret, and all it means. He relaxes, forgetting how each secret turned out.

They discovered Remus was a werewolf, and became animagi to keep him company.

They discovered Sirius’ home life, and helped him find the courage to leave and move in with the Potters.

They discovered James’ lovebites, and only teased him a little before congratulating him and later planning his wedding. 

Peter looks down at his arm where the Dark Mark is hidden, a mess of emotions swirling through him.

He forgot; or perhaps a part of him remembered. Remembered, and hoped.

When the art of getting-out-of-trouble involved the confidence and grace of doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing at any given moment, James was the talker. He’s stand in front of the other Marauders, cool as you please, and explain to Professor McGonagall, or Slughorn, or Madame Pomfery, or even Filch that they had a perfect right to be where they were. 

When the art of getting-out-of-trouble involved camaraderie and the invocation of the fact that the boys and whoever towered over them with an arched eyebrow were on the same side, and were in fact, friends, Professor, don’t you remember that time?, there was no one better than Sirius at getting them out of tight spots. 

When the art of getting-out-of-trouble involved a subtle challenge of authority, and an iron-clad literal understanding of the rules, it was up to Remus to explain why it wasn’t really after hours, was it, professor?

When the art of getting-out-of-trouble involved seamlessly creating a sob story in which they were the most sympathetic of protagonists, Peter was their man. He knew how to use Remus’s “condition” or Sirius’s “family situation” or the budding war, or even missing supper to their advantage. It worked nearly every time, and saved them from more detentions than it should have. 

After a few years of experience, the boys began to excel at knowing which of their various expertise would be needed at any given moment, and at stepping forward when it was their moment. 

Peter Pettigrew suspects for years that there’s something inside of him that’s not as whole or as good as his friends - or at least, James and Remus - but he never lets on. He plays the role of dutiful friend so well he almost believes it himself, throwing all of his Gryffindor passion into being the person they see when they look at him.

He lets them believe that he’s as good as they are, that he’s whole, even though something bitter inside of him burns and he wonders why.

Every time he makes the right choice, every time he does something kind, every time his friends continue to look at him with pride…he wonders if he’s finally moved on from the burned-out core of him.

The twisted thing inside of him doesn’t show itself until he’s offered more power than he could ever dream, but up until then, he lives as if he doesn’t suspect it at all. He lives the regret, and wishes more than anything that he would have given James some sort of clue before it was too late.

Here’s a thought… 

Remus got to Hogwarts and had no idea how to act like a normal kid. 

He was intelligent… his parents had taught him at home, and learning was a distraction from his mundane every-day life. He ate it up. 

But socially? Remus didn’t have a clue. He found himself watching the other kids interacting and couldn’t even begin to figure out how to hold a conversation… how to relate. 

Remus had never had any friends… his parents were too afraid to let him get close to anyone… and suddenly he was in a school full of kids… and he was absolutely terrified. 

He wasn’t like the other kids. He was strange… awkward… ugly.  

When Remus was young, he used to take the markers that his mother had given him… and instead of scribbling on coloring books, he’d color over his scars. 

He’d make patterns, make something “pretty” out of something hideous and wrong. But after the third time of finding Remus covered in ink, Hope scolded him, not understanding what her son was doing, and he stopped. 

As the transformations got worse, so did Remus’ desire to cover each new scar. They were ugly and painful, and he hated them… he found himself wanting to scrape them off, do something… but that would only make them worse. 

One day, he sat quietly, reading a comic book his mom had given him while she painted her nails, quietly humming “I want to hold your hand”.

Remus glanced up from his book, his eyes fixing on the nail polish. Hope applied it with a skill that left Remus in awe. It was perfect… not a single smudge. Perfectly smooth. 

Remus felt a flutter in his chest. He waited for his mother to leave the room, busying herself with dinner, and then snuck over to open the little chest she kept her polish in. 

Remus felt a thrill rush through him with the first stroke. He applied it well, but the next stroke left a smudge, and it just went downhill from there. Frustrated, Remus stopped after the first hand. 

Hope noticed the nail polish, noticed Remus trying to hide his hand at dinner, but she didn’t say anything. 

The next day, the other hand was painted. Very poorly. 

Hope pulled Remus aside, washing off the polish, and then went about applying it again, tsk-ing. At least it wasn’t markers. 

“You just need a little practice, Rem.”

Remus practiced after every full moon, when he was stuck in bed, too weak to stand. He practiced until he was perfect… it was pretty, and it helped him feel like he was in control. 

So when Sirius entered the dorm one day to find Remus absent-mindedly painting his nails, Remus couldn’t understand why Sirius found it so strange… was this not a normal thing to do? 

“W-want me to paint yours?”

Sirius stared, mouth going dry. “That’s for girls.” 

Remus felt his face growing hot with embarrassment, realizing he must have done something wrong. “It’s not just for girls.” 

Sirius shifted uncomfortably, unsure how to respond. 

“Come here… let me paint them.” 

After a brief hesitation, where Sirius listened to his mother’s harsh voice scold him in his head, Sirius threw caution to the wind and plopped down, holding out his hand. 

The next day… Sirius, James and Peter all had different colored nails… and they wore them with excessive flair.

A week after that… half of the Gryffindor House followed in their footsteps.