Inability to Act by ghostofbambi

Disclaimer: I did not create Harry Potter. I merely use his parents for my own enjoyment. Also, I'm sorry that I didn't include Sirius, but look at how much I wrote! It killed me to get this finished! This is the last chapter, anyway. Enjoy!

Inability to Act – Chapter five

Peter

“If that fucking twat doesn’t come back this minute, I’m going to smack him around the common room.”

Peter knows, of course, that Sirius is making yet another empty threat. Privately, he thinks that Sirius shouldn’t be so impatient. James never lets anybody down, he will come back and they will get to Remus, even if they are a little late. Remus won’t get angry with them, as a werewolf he has no understanding of time and even if he did, he is just happy that his friends are coming to him, no matter how long they take. There’s no point in trying to explain this to Sirius when he is in a mood, however.

“Stupid, fucking, bloody-”

“Sirius, don’t you think you should be a little quieter?” Not that it’s odd for Sirius to be loud, but if someone were to come down the stairs and hear voices coming from nowhere in particular, they might worry a little. Or they would tell McGonagall, who would definitely come to investigate. Especially if that someone was someone like Lily Evans, she would immediately suspect the Marauders of anything unusual she happened to come across. She has gotten James and Sirius into more detentions than Peter can possibly count, but it has to be said, she always manages to forget to include Peter and Remus when she reports her findings to McGonagall or Dumbledore. He thinks that this is very nice of her, because Remus and Peter are often just as guilty of messing about as Sirius and James are. Maybe she just bears a grudge because Sirius and James used to pick on everybody. Before the whole Snape incident, of course.

Peter doesn’t like Snape very much, he doesn’t wash himself.

He also doesn’t like being under the invisibility cloak without James, otherwise he is always afraid that he will get caught. Sirius can make such a racket and James is the only person who can keep him under control.

“Don’t you think that Prongs should bother to fucking show up!? I swear, he better have a good reason to-”

“Why don’t we just go without him?”

“Because he has the fucking map, idiot.”

“Oh.”

He shuts up. It’s best just to leave Sirius alone when he gets angry, lest he find himself on the receiving end of a well placed hex. Sirius is a really, really nice person, but when he gets into a temper he can be so unreasonable, and because he’d never dream of picking a fight with his beloved James, and the eternally composed Remus insists upon not being fought with, it is always Peter who is forced to bear the brunt of his annoyance. It’s not particularly fair, but Sirius is always apologetic afterwards and Peter supposes that he can be really annoying at times. And it could always be worse.

“Fucking, bloody wanker of a supposed best mate he is!”

“Ssh!”

His second attempt to silence Sirius earns him a dead arm, but it was necessary, the portrait hole is opening. So Sirius hushes, just in case somebody besides James might have been talking a walk tonight. As it turns out, it’s Lily Evans. So she could have caught them!

She brushes something away from her cheek. Was she crying? That’s impossible, Peter has never seen Lily cry before, and he has seen even Sirius cry. Not that he’d ever tell anybody that.

“I didn’t forget the sodding password, Potter, I just didn’t want to wake up the Fat Lady.”

“Oh right, and you figured that because she already hates me, you’d wait until I came to do it? That’s really considerate of you.”

Sure enough, the voice is followed by the man himself. Peter is actually about to step forward and greet him when he feels a hand on his arm. Sirius. Oh yeah, invisibility cloak.

James steps into the common room looking, Peter notes, rather pissed off. His hands are balled into fists, a sure sign that he really wants to hit something (luckily for Peter, James prefers to take his anger out on inanimate objects). Lily either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. Or maybe she does, and she’s trying to anger him further. Peter has never been able to fathom why James is so mean to her when it is obvious that he adores her so much. Lily is sweet and pretty and she and James are well suited, she would surely like James if he was nicer to her, but he isn’t. He just carries on being mean. This makes no sense to Peter, and Peter is considered to be the stupid one!

“Well, yes Potter! Why should she bear a grudge against me when you’re the one who annoys her?”

“I never do anything to annoy her! She’s just pissed off all the time. It’s the menopause, or whatever they call it. She’s insane!”

“Can you really blame her? How would you feel if everyone went around calling you the, the, the Fat Gryffindor, all the time?” she argues triumphantly.

James’ expression changes from irritation to mirth, and he is spluttering with laughter.

“Oh Evans,” he says, in between gasps. “You are one in a fucking million.”

“Laughing at my stutter again, are you?” Lily has turned red with the anger. James stops laughing. Why, Peter thinks, do women always take things the wrong way? James was merely complimenting her humor, even Peter can see that.

“What? No!”

“You are such a bollox, Potter.”

“I’m not laughing at your stutter!” James cries exasperatedly.

“He’s not laughing at your stutter, you dozy cow!” Sirius hisses.

“Right. Whatever,” she says, marching over to her favorite old armchair. James lets out a sigh and runs a hand through his hair, looking miserable.

“Lily-”

“Save it, and don’t call me Lily!” She shouts at him before he can finish.

“I give up, I’m going to bed.”

“Good, it’ll save me having to look at you.”

“Fine. I’ll not sicken you any longer,” says James, shoving a chair that he can’t be bothered to walk around.

“Thank you.”

“You’re fucking welcome!”

Peter doesn’t watch James as he crosses the room; he is busy watching Lily, who has assumed a kneeling position on her chair to watch James over the back of it. She looks like she is going to say something, but she thinks the better of it and, curling both arms around a cushion, buries her head in it instead. As the sound of James’ pounding footsteps fade away, she lets out a low, muffled moan.

“Peter!” Sirius whispers urgently.

“What?”

“Turn into a rat.”

“Why?”

“Turn into a rat, I’m going upstairs to get Prongs.”

“Why do I have to transform?”

“You can scare Evans and she’ll go upstairs, or just-” he stops talking abruptly as Lily lets out a small sniff. Is she crying? “Just watch her until she leaves, and then come up when she’s gone. I want to talk to Prongs alone.”

Not seeing the point in arguing, he nods mutely.

“Go!” Sirius pushes him a little.

So he transforms, feeling the familiar sensation of being pushed into a very small, tight hole, followed by a wave of relief. From the ground, he can see Sirius’s feet as he tiptoes towards the stairs. He hesitates for a moment; he would rather follow Sirius upstairs than to stay down here with a girl who, for all he knows, could be sobbing hysterically, but Sirius will send him down again. He scurries across the well trodden carpet until he is right in front of Lily, who during the course of his conversation with Sirius, reassumed her seated position. Her head is still buried in the depths of the poor old cushion, who probably never did anything in his cushiony life to deserve being soaked by frenzied-girl tears.

He lets out a squeak and scratches around a bit, trying to get her attention. The sooner she notices him, the sooner the common room will be empty and the sooner he can go upstairs to his friends. She doesn’t respond, and the more impatient he gets, the louder he becomes. Finally, after what seems an age, he hears a small gasp.

“Hello?”

Her seat creaks as she leans forward. Peter freezes, gazing up at her with his beady little eyes, trying to make himself look as intimidating as possible, a hard task when one is squaring up against Lily Evans, even if he is a rat.

She blinks. As Peter suspected, she is crying, or was. There are no tears now, just puffy red eyes and tearstained cheeks.

“Oh,” she says. “Hello.”

Shit, Peter thinks, she’s not frightened. He’ll have to stay down and wait until Lily either leaves or falls asleep. And what if she doesn’t? What if she stays awake, crying all night? Will Sirius and James leave without him? Will they go at all? What will Remus think tomorrow?

“Did I startle you?” says Lily, still looking at him. That does startle him. Not only is Lily completely unafraid of him, she’s talking to him too. He wonders if there’s any chance that she knows that Peter is Peter, and not a rodent.

“I don’t think I did, or you would have run away,” she continues softly. “What are you doing out here, and all alone too?”

She has a point, Peter thinks, why is he out here all alone?

“Hunting for food, are you? Or are you out here to think about things?”

He scratches at the carpet, because looking into her huge, emerald eyes is kind of unnerving. Lily has those probing, searching eyes. Peter doesn’t think that he could ever look into them and lie.

“I’m going to go with thinking, because that’s what I’m doing. So now I’m not alone in my musings!” She smiles, and shifts a bit in her seat. “Now, what’s your name, hmm? I don’t know if you’re a girl or boy rat.”

That would just sum up Peter’s life, if he couldn’t even be masculine as a rat. He scratches furiously at the ruby carpet.

“I’m going to go with boy.”

He stops.

“Yes, yes, you’re a boy- no, a man rat. You’re name is Claude, you’re a French rat, a heartbreaker, who has all of the lady rats at his claws.”

Peter nods fervently, or as fervently as he can, being a rat. This is the most he has been complimented in a long time. He pushes away his mild irritation at this thought.

“But I wonder, are you a heartbreaker or not? Maybe there’s only one special rat for you. A Marie or a Brigette, perhaps?”

He squeaks again.

“Yes, I’m going to go with monogamous,” she sniffs. “You know, if that’s true, you’re a lucky rat, to have someone whom you love and who loves you. It’s a nice thing to have.”

Her lower lip wobbles and Peter is sure that she is going to cry again.

“Can I ask you a question, Claude?” She laughs to herself and rolls her eyes. “Disregarding the fact that I’m a human and you have no idea what I’m saying, and the fact that you’re probably not a French rat, you may be female, and you probably don’t love anyone. Come to think of it, that actually makes my question quite pointless. Unless you consider it from a ratty point of view, I suppose.”

She pauses, looking down at her fingernails. Curious, Peter stares and stares at her, wondering what on earth she is going to ask him. In all his life, he has never seen Lily like this, she always came across as somebody who didn’t need any help, and now she is seeking advice from a rat! Wait until he tells James… although maybe he shouldn’t. If he tells James that Lily is upset, James will inevitably try to discover the root of her problem. Or he’ll get all wounded and morose. Maybe he shouldn’t tell anyone at all.

“What would you do if,” she sighs. Rubbing her eyes, she continues. “I’m sorry, I’ve never said this out loud before, it makes it kind of final.” She takes a deep breath.

So does Peter.

“You see, I know this- rat,” she begins tentatively. “Her name is, well, it’s Lily. And she’s dating this other rat, named Stephen. And she really does love Stephen, she does, don’t think for a second that she doesn’t, but she,” her shoulders sag. “She doesn’t love him like, like, like a rat, or a person, should love her boyfriend. She thinks of him as a, as a friend, really.”

Peter is not surprised, not even for a second. He never thought that Stephen Collins and Lily Evans looked right together, and he always thought that Lily was too good for him, too. Of course, Peter is a bit biased, because James is one of his best friends and he really adores Lily, so in Peter’s opinion, James is who she should be dating. If anybody on earth deserves Lily, that person is James, he thinks.

“Well, you know, she was thinking that she could just stay with Stephen, because he’s a lovely boyfriend and she would be happy, enough, with him. But erm, the thing is, I’m, she’s kind of, she thinks, maybe, definitely in love with another rat.”

Now, this is news to Peter! Lily Evans is in love with some other bloke? As much as he doesn’t see her with Collins, he never thought that she had feeling for anyone else. Certainly not anyone Peter has ever witnessed her talking to. Actually, Peter doesn’t remember Lily dating anybody before Stephen Collins, she always said that she couldn’t be bothered, even though she has had and still does have a fair amount of willing suitors.

“I mean, she’s not sure. Well, she is. She doesn’t love him, you know, the, the kind of love that, well, you know, when you’ve been with somebody for a long time and you know everything about that person, that kind of love? She doesn’t love him like that, but she has this feeling that she could. It’s more of a,” She wrings her hands. “Not passionate, but kind of like that, it’s just…odd. It’s the strongest feeling she has ever had for somebody, and the matter is made entirely worse by the fact that she pretends to hate him. And that he used to really like her and now she’s not sure if he does. So, so, she’s just torn. She doesn’t know whether to stay with Stephen, because if she leaves him he’ll be hurt and he really does represent stability, or, well, you know.”

Peter, having never been in that situation, doesn’t know, but he can see her problem. It’s not a nice one, but it’s also one that Peter doesn’t think he’d mind being in the middle of. No girl has ever shown any interest in him, at all. If they have, he hasn’t noticed. A lot of them, most of them are into Sirius, probably because he’s so handsome. The only problem is, Sirius finds it hysterical every time some poor girl fancies him or any of his friends.

He remembers Belinda Burgess, a girl whom he had a huge crush on for more than a year before he found out from a laughing, snickering Sirius, that she was completely enamoured with Remus.

Girls like Remus too, he thinks. Not the same type of girls who are hell bent on Sirius, but Remus still has his fair share of admirers, Peter would imagine. So does James, actually. James attracts attention because he’s such an exhibitionist, and he’s very charming and friendly too. Not that he cares about dating.

It’s ironic, Peter thinks, none of his friends want to date anybody, and they’re the ones who get all the attention. Nobody likes Peter because everybody thinks that he’s the silly, plodding bloke in the corner. Sometimes, when he’s in a really bad mood, he wonders why his friends attract so much interest from girls, they’re the ones with all of the fucked up problems, not him. His friends comprise of a werewolf, a narcissistic loner and Lily Evans’s personal stalker. Where does the appeal lie? What’s so wrong with Peter?

He feels immediately guilty, and forces himself to think of something else. Lily, he was talking to Lily. Speaking of the girl, she hasn’t talked in a few minutes. Peter gives another small squeak to startle her.

“Oh, I got lost for a moment there.”

She wipes her eyes.

“I was thinking, maybe she should break up with Stephen and just leave it at that? Maybe she needs a break? But that would be stupid, because once she’s free, I don’t think that I’ll, she’ll be able to prevent herself from acting on impulse. I mean, I always think that I’m perfectly in control of myself, but whenever I see Potter it’s like, all of my control is gone and the only thing that stops me is the thought of my boyfriend, because I could never bear to hurt him. And I just don’t know. I can’t even verbalise everything. It’s all really messed up.”

She sniffs again, wiping ferociously at her tears as if they are offensive.

“And of course, I was talking about myself the entire time. I think even you knew that, and you’re a rat, who can’t make sense of anything I say.”

To say that Peter is shocked would not even be scratching the surface of how he’s feeling. James? Lily is in love with James? There’s no way, she must have been talking about someone else.

Even as he thinks that, his mind dismisses it. There are no other Potters in the school, Lily said that she pretends to hate him, and everybody in Hogwarts is certain that Lily hates James. Peter was, and he’s sure that Remus and Sirius were too. James was definitely under the impression that she despised him.

James, what will James make of all this?

“Lily?”

Both Lily and Peter jump out of their skins at the sound of the voice. Peter doesn’t waste a second in running for the boys’ staircase. As he reaches it, he sees that Lily’s friend Miranda has come downstairs, probably worried when she woke up and saw that Lily hadn’t come up to bed. Squealing and slipping, he clambers up the staircase until he’s nearly at the top, transforming as he does so. The sound of voices reaches his rapidly expanding ears. James and Sirius obviously haven’t left the room under the cloak’s cover. He stops for a moment, waiting until the bursting sensation of becoming human again has subsided, then shoves the door open.

“I need to talk to-”

He doesn’t get any further. Sirius catches the door before he can open it and holds it half-closed.

“I heard you come up, has she left?”

“I need to talk to James,” Peter wheezes, pushing on the door, but Sirius is holding it fast. There is a creaking sound from behind him and Peter tries to see, but Sirius just moves his head.

“He’ll be out in a minute. Has she left yet?”

“No, she hasn’t, I need to talk to-”

“Why are you up here if she hasn’t left!? I told you to stay and watch her,” he hisses, as though he doesn’t want James to hear.

“I’m up here,” Peter replies, gathering his breath back. “Because I need to tell James what I heard. About Lily, I think he needs to know, know-” he stops, clutching the stitch in his side. Sirius’s eyes narrow and he slips out of the door.

“What do you mean, what you’ve heard?” He shuts the door fully behind him as he steps out onto the staircase.

“Lily was talking to, to,” he pauses, he doesn’t want to say that she was talking to Wormtail. “Miranda Binkley. And she said,” he wheezes again. “She said that she loves James.”

Instead of the happy reaction he expected, Sirius looks angry. Really angry. In fact, he appears somewhat terrifying. He lowers his voice so much that Peter has to lean in to hear him.

“Don’t tell him,” he says.

“What?!”

“Don’t tell him,” Sirius growls, very, very urgently. “I’ve just spent the past half hour talking to him about her. He’s finally getting over her, if you tell him this now, it’ll fuck everything up. I’m tired of that stupid girl making him miserable, ok? If they start going out she’ll screw him over, like she always does.”

“But-”

“I mean it, Wormtail. I want you to go in there and pretend like nothing happened. Go in and tell him that she was badmouthing him to Miranda.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if-” he begins, growing weary of being interrupted, but Sirius cuts him off again.

“You didn’t hear him talking to me about her, she’s really hurt him and he’s had it. He wants nothing to do with her and you’ll fuck things up if you tell him.”

Why, Peter wonders, if James told Sirius all of this, is he talking so very quietly? The only person in danger of hearing them is James.

“I thought that-”

“You thought nothing. Don’t tell him, ok?” At the dubious look on Peter’s face, Sirius’s expression softens. “I know you want what’s best for James, well so do I, and it will only make him miserable. Promise you won’t tell.”

He deliberates this for a while. Sirius, James’s best friend, knows James inside and out, and knows what’s best for him. It was probably a bit silly of Peter to consider telling James before consulting with Sirius first. He doesn’t want to cause Prongs any stress, who is he to assume that James would want to be with Lily? He never talks about her with Peter.

After several seconds, Peter nods. “I won’t.”

“Thank Merlin,” Sirius breathes, a smirk appearing upon his face, one which he doesn’t bother trying to hide. “Right, we’ll do this properly. You go in to James and tell him what I’ve told you to say. I’ll go down and check that Lily is gone. If she isn’t, I’ll try to get rid of her and we’ll leave then, ok?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, not wanting to upset Sirius.

“James will thank you for this, Peter.”

“I hope so.”

“He will, I promise. You’re a real mate.” He squeezes past Peter and starts down the stairs. “See you in a minute.”

Feeling completely stupid, Peter opens the door to find James sitting at the window, staring at his reflection and ruffling his hair feverishly. His trunk is overturned on the floor, clothes and books and empty sweet wrappers spilling out of it. There’s an open bottle of Butterbeer beside it. Peter guesses that the trunk might have been kicked over in a fit of anger.

“It looks wrong,” says James.

“Yeah, it- What?”

“My hair, it looks wrong.” He flicks his fringe so that it falls behind his glasses, over his hazel eyes. “Don’t you think?”

“Erm, no, no not really. It looks the same as it always does.”

“No, there’s something off,” he starts examining random clumps of hair and trying to make them stand out more. He still hasn’t turned around to greet Peter and Peter can’t see his face properly in the window, just the reflection of his glasses.

“Has she gone yet?” he asks casually.

“What, Lily?”

“Yeah, Evans.”

“Not yet.”

“Merlin, she’s taking her time, isn’t she? Bloody woman, always pissing me off,” he mutters. “There, got it.”

“Well I suppose she wouldn’t have taken so long, except she was talking to her friend Miranda,” Peter continues, in monotone.

“Oh yeah?” James stops messing about with his hair and turns his seat around. He leans his chair back on two legs and Peter notices that his eyes are, in spite of their barrier of hair, plainly very red. “Complaining about me again, was she?”

“She mentioned you quite a lot, yeah,” says Peter, feeling guilty even as the words leave his lips.

“What did she say, then?” he asks, the smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes. His voice is lacking all of its usual bounce and zing, he just sounds hollow. He doesn’t sound like, as Sirius said, he’s over her; he doesn’t look like he’s over her. He looks depressed.

It would be better not to upset him any longer, Sirius is right.

Peter opens his mouth, ready to tell James what Sirius told him to.

He thinks of Lily, of her tearstained cheeks and her big, penetrating eyes. He thinks of the countless times that James has valiantly tried to disguise his hurt and his sadness every time Lily turns him down or insults him. He thinks of how James’ eyes light up whenever she walks into the room. He thinks of just how well suited he has always thought they would be.

He thinks of Sirius’s smirk before he descended the stairs. He looks at James now, his eyes as hopeful as they always are whenever anybody brings up the subject of Lily Evans, and it occurs to him that Sirius never wants to talk about Lily. He thinks back to sixth year, when Sirius had nearly been responsible for the death of Severus Snape, when James and Sirius were fighting. He remembers Sirius’s tears, crying as he told Peter how James was his only family, how he couldn’t get by without him, how he could never bear to lose him.

It suddenly all makes sense to Peter.

He wonders what he was so frightened of.

He wonders if it is worth losing the trust of one friend if it makes another happy.

“Well, did she say anything?”

Peter takes a deep breath. Glancing behind him, he takes a step back and gently shuts the door.

“Yes, she did.”

Sirius is going to kill him for this, Peter knows, but it’s about time that he stood up for himself, did something brave, for a change. One look at his friend’s dismal face, and he knows that he is doing the right thing. If Peter doesn’t interfere, who else will?

He has to say something.