You don't know anything, Sirius Black.
I sneak Remus chocolate frogs all day, with much more success than the levitating of my feather. Sirius keeps looking at Remus like he wants to touch him, but he doesn’t. I don’t blame him. It looks like Remus might tip over if a butterfly landed on his shoulder.
In Transfiguration I get distracted by James levitating tiny balls of crunched up parchment on his desk. Professor McGonagall doesn’t notice because the four of us are taking up the back row of desks. I’d rather sit closer to the front, but I want to sit with my friends.
I’m drawn back into her lecture when I hear her say “. . . for a two foot essay.”
“Two feet!” I say in alarm before I realize the words were spoken aloud.
“Yes, Mister Pettigrew, two feet. I daresay you will be writing by the scroll by the time you graduate.”
I can think of nothing worse.
“Handwriting—while not formally assessed—will impact your grades. If we, and I speak for my fellow colleagues here, cannot read your writing and thus cannot gauge your mastery of the subject, you will be assessed accordingly.”
Thankfully I have decent handwriting. Nothing close to Sirius, to be sure, but good enough. I never went to school. Mum taught me and she never had me write an essay on anything. She did make me practice my handwriting in the form of long letters to my grandparents.
Professor McGonagall tells us there will be writing workshops offered later in the year and to talk to her if we feel we need support in essay writing now. At the end of the lesson, I think about hanging back to tell her I’ve never written an essay but no one else does, so I leave with the group.
I regret my decision when Remus and Sirius start bickering before we make it to the great hall.
“It’s just not all of us had the head start you did, Black,” Remus says.
“Well, that isn’t my fault is it?,” Sirius replies. “Don’t you think I would’ve rather been playing, or zooming around on a broomstick—or I don’t know—having a normal childhood instead of being trapped in that god forsaken bleak house, shut off from the world, with my nose to the grindstone?”
Remus rallies out of his exhausted state and steps close to Sirius, almost nose to nose. They are close to the same height. “What makes you think any of us had a normal childhood?” he asks fiercely.
Sirius leans back and looks at the floor. “Don’t know. I just figured . . .”
Remus holds his ground. “You don’t know anything, Sirius Black.”
He glances at me and James before walking away toward the marble staircase at a quick pace. I think about following him and giving him another frog, but James grabs Sirius to hold him back. Maybe Remus will take one from my stash anyway. I wouldn’t mind.
Even though we’re at lunch in the great hall, Sirius puts his sunnies on and is fake laughing at anything James says. I wonder if he actually likes any of us. Maybe he wishes he could transfer to Slytherin.
Remus looks healthier after a solid night of sleep. He and Sirius are cordial to each other all Tuesday. But I’m completely out of chocolate frogs. I start asking other first years if they have any. I pass every one to Remus.
In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Hillburn tells us he will award five points to every person who successfully ends the blue-flame enchantment on the jars in front of us by the end of the lesson. I try so hard my eyes go crossed and I develop a raging headache, but it doesn’t matter. My flame stubbornly doesn’t extinguish. Neither does Franny’s. We are the only two who don’t earn the points.
When the bell sounds, I can tell Franny is close to tears because she’s looking at the floor and keeps rubbing the tip of her tiny nose with the back of her hand. She lets the rest of the class leave before her, except me because I’m still behind her.
“Hey,” I say when we get out into the corridor. “Hard lesson, huh?”
“It was fine,” she says with a hitch in her voice.
“School is so much harder than I thought it would be. My parents make magic look as easy as breathing.”
We are way behind the rest of the group, and walking really slow.
“I think it’s my wand,” Franny begins.
“Do you want to try mine?” I ask, drawing my wand from my pocket and holding it out.
I think she’s going to refuse. Instead she stops and turns to me, slowly picking up my wand. She holds it tenderly, rubbing the smooth wood with her thumb.
She laughs. “This one feels all wrong. Mine feels much better. But it’s a nice wand, Peter.”
I look into her big brown eyes, which are slightly bloodshot. She blinks a few times before holding the wand back out to me. I take it and it feels so good in my hand I almost sigh.
“Maybe it isn’t the wand,” Franny says, crestfallen.
“It takes practice. We’ll get it eventually.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Franny gives me a small smile, putting her large front teeth on display. I smile back. Her hair is plaited today, which makes her head seem smaller and more normal sized. I like it better.
She invites me to sit with her and the other girls at dinner. I refuse, then spend the whole meal covertly glancing at them laughing and looking happy down the table from where we sit.
Next to me, Remus is eating in silence. James and Sirius are making fun of the Slytherin they don’t like. Tomorrow is our first lesson with the Slytherins and they plan to enact what they are calling “Project Spitball.” It’s a Potions lesson. I wonder if I’ll be as bad at potions as I am at all other magic.
Remus and I end up brushing our teeth at the same time before bed.
He spits into the sink, then looks around before whispering, “Thank you.”
I nod and hurry to finish brushing, but he’s already out of the bathroom before my mouth is free to reply. When I get into bed, I find a stack of chocolate frog cards between my sheets.
The next morning a huge box tied with twine arrives for me at breakfast. I’m not there when the owl delivers it but Remus has it tucked next to him on the bench.
Suddenly I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to open the box in front of the others and reveal what I hope is inside. It’s as if Remus can read my mind. When breakfast ends, we have time to drop the box off in the dormitory. Remus carries it, and Sirius looks annoyed when he tells him to stay back but let’s me accompany him. Sirius probably doesn’t know it’s my package.
In the room, we open the box together. Sure enough, there are more chocolate frogs than I’ve seen in my life.
“Wow,” Remus says, his eyes wide.
“Do you collect?” I say.
Remus shakes his head. “Should I start?”
“Definitely!”
I gather the pile of cards Remus left in my bed yesterday and pass them to him. “To start your collection.”
We smile at each other.