Snakes and Rats
“What did you do to them?” Remus hisses in her air slipping out of the invisibility cloak
“And what was that bullshit with Nott, babe?” Sirius lacks the same basic level of common sense his boyfriend had to keep his voice low, but of course Ursa already has it handled with a silencing spell
"Deep sleep, you can still wake them up if you keep being obnoxiously loud"
"You still didn't answer my question!" Sirius hisses but at least this time it's a whisper, apparently his tiny brain can't comprehend that this is not the time for that.
"And I won't" She heads over to Snape's dresser because she needs to check. She opens the drawer with his Lily Evans wank shrine and sure enough, no pictures join the lotion.
"What are you doing?"
"Think you two can get them out of here without anyone seeing you or do I have to do everything myself?" She shuts the drawer back up
"You think you're sooo cool—"
"Let's just get this over with" Remus sighs. Won't you look at that? Ursa actually agrees with him on something. This needs to be done but she's very much looking forward to going back to sleep, so they better make this quick. Quick and efficient.
Remus makes his way over to Snape, it's enough for his boyfriend to stand at attention. Remus hovers their sleeping bodies with an easy spell as Sirius charms them into disillusionment and Ursa casts a notice me not spell on them just in case. She reminds them one last time Snape is meant to go to the woods while Avery must wake up in the middle of the great lake. She doesn't mention Avery's near drowning in his childhood or his deadly fear of water.
She gives them a minute before she gestures for Peter to resume his position by the bedroom door "shut the door" She doesn't bother with another silencing spell, if the rat wants to listen in then she's not about to start caring. He's not even being subtle about listening in, he stayed on her same side of the door. She points the wand at Mulciber's gentle snoring "petrificus partis" the boy still doesn't wake, he sleeps like a log, even when she sits next to him on the bed. She's already smiling before she gets to slap him awake, across his stupid ugly face, with all her might "wakey, wakey, bald head" he startles awake with wide frantic eyes
"What the—?!" she smirks the second she sees it dawn on him that he can't more his body "what did you do?! Snape! Avery!"
"Aw, that's adorable" she bops his nose and he can do nothing but let her do it "your prince charmings can't hear you. No one can, just me and you baby”
“I'm not your baby” he snarls
“Of course not, you're far too ugly for that” she lets her finger wonder loosely around his face. She's pretty sure she hears the rat equivalent of a laugh, or something along those lines. Enough small talk, let's get down to business “do you know what my mother taught me about threats?” She lets her finger dip lower, to his shoulder, where he won't be able to see it, just feel it “Threats are promises, Only use them when you know for certain you'll be able to carry them out if they don't follow through,” lower, across his collarbone with a scrap of a nail “I always keep that rule in mind when I threaten someone” she digs her nails into the flesh of his neck and stares straight into his wide, wild eyes “you should keep that in mind when I tell you that if you, or your roommates, ever mess with my brother again, I will kill you and frame them for it” she lets him take a look at her face, just so he knows she means it, there's not a hint of humor in her eyes. She watches him swallow and grins because he's scared. She yanks the pillow from under him and slams it into his face, smothering him. He mumbles in desperate ache for breath and she points her wand at him with a satisfied grin as he panics. His body goes limp and she puts the pillow back under his egg shaped head.
“Did you murder him?” Peter shifts and squeals at the same time
“I wouldn't have wasted time threatening him if I was just going to kill him, now, would I?”
“I don't know, maybe you just like threatening people! You were smiling while you choked him with a pillow!”
“And you were meant to be keeping an eye out for anyone who might want to come in, not me”
“I—” the words die in his mouth and a blush splatters across his face “you distracted me” he mumbles
“Really?” she delays her exit and turns to look at him with a smirk “People threatening to off someone does it for you?” he gives a sulky pout and scratches at his wrist
“Hot people defending hot people distracts me” he pointedly refuses to say it turns him on because then it'd be some messed up part of his personality that would need working on.
“You're a little more messed up than your little friends give you credit for, aren't you?” She leans against the doorframe with a little smirk as she looks him up and down
“What can I say? You make me feel sane, safe to show all my little mind cracks when you've put the bar so high, everything seems mild in comparison”
“You're starting to sound like a broken record” she rolls her eyes as she makes her way out the room, easy as day
“A broken clock is right twice a day” he hums
“Are you purposely trying to piss me off? Is that another one of your kinks you've recently discovered?”
“I don't know, James goes on so much about how much he loves when Regulus is mean to him, I thought I'd give it a try”
“How did that turn out for you?” She quirks a brow at him
“I'm guessing it works better when you're certainly they won't kick you in the balls, you look like you want to hit me in the balls”
“Don't be ridiculous,” she waves him off as she walks down the hallway “that's far too plain, I was only thinking about hexing you so you couldn't get it up for a couple of days”
“You can do that?” He halts his steps with half confusion and half utter horror
“Eh, probably?” she says off handedly as she obviously thinks it through on the spot “can't be too hard. Alter the spell for when you get a head rushes– sanguiexahurisat, though you want the blood to go up, so it'd probably have to be sanguiexahurinat, and you'd have to combine it with a permanence spell and to make sure it only affects his boners you'd also need to add a trigger and a time limit, so it'd probably end up looking like urg—”
“Don't!” He squeals and she chuckles “did you just figure all that out on the spot? We're only now supposed to be learning how to combine two spells together and you just went through the whole process of linking three spells, altering another in the span of what? One minute? Two?”
“Watch it, you sound impressed pettigrew”
“I am.” Wicked or not her brain is perfect to research, he wishes they made studies about it “and a little turned on if I'm being honest”
“I'd rather you weren't honest, I'm a big fan of lying and deception”
“Alright,” he leans against the end of the boy’s hall “I'll make you a deal, I promise to lie if you promise not to”
“Alright, deal” they shake on it and his eyes narrow on hers
“You're lying, aren't you?”
“Won't you look at that? You're not as stupid as you look” She beams and he doesn’t like the glimmer in the eyes of someone who almost smothered someone a second ago, and he swears he didn’t like that same glimmer when she promised to kill someone. He didn’t.
“Alright, have good dreams I guess”
“Such a romantic” she teases and he smiles.
“Have sweet dreams my angel, I know mine will whisper your name” he says in his version of a Shakespearean accent and she wrinkles her nose in distaste
“Now I want to wish nightmares on you” his laugh is too loud for the dead of night but he doesn’t care
“Goodnight Ursa” when he looks at her it’s easy to pretend there’s not a man knocked out and thoroughly threatened just down the hall and there’s just that smile and those lovely eyes
“Goodnight Peter” She doesn’t head back to their dorm, instead she heads for her own bed and he doesn’t bother redirecting her.
He has a good fitful sleep after a long, non-flacid wank. He doesn't think of magnets when he cums. He doesn't.
Peter doesn’t squeal a very unmanly squeal when a hand yanks him inside an empty classroom. He doesn’t. He swears he doesn’t. There’s no proof if he did.
“I thought I told you to do something” Barty snarls far too close to his face
“Fuck off Junior,” he shoves him but Barty doesn’t back down “Do I need to tell Ursa to vanish your junk for another week?” the memory strikes him, she had bruises from Barty’s hands, he’d choked her. Even without any physical harm, all Peter’s bravado is faked, he wants to run and hide. Crouch can be… passionate. His eyes have a wild, lost edge to them Ursa’s lacks. He scares him more than she does, the fear that comes from madness. He can’t imagine what Ursa felt, Peter’s broader than the brunet but even Barty is bigger sized than Ursa. A thought strikes soaring past his racing mind, a passing thought but one that feels right, he wishes it’d been his idea to vanish his dick.
“You were supposed to stop this from happening, now Evan is blaming himself for Avery— who had nothing to do with any of this”
“How is your boyfriend okay with you treating the people he cares about so carelessly?”
“He doesn’t care about you” Barty chuckles
“But he loves Ursa. How can anyone be okay with a person they love being treated the way you treated her? Unless he doesn't know the specifics, you left bruises on her neck, did you tell him that part?”
“Holy shit,” Barty pulls back with a laugh but Peter can’t find the humor in the situation “If I didn't’ know better I’d think you two are actually dating, you sound just like her.”
“Maybe I’m finally starting to understand why she’s so messed up in the head. How can you claim to love her best friend and brother and treat her like that? How can they love you when you treat her that way?” what was it she once told him? Manipulation and truth shaking hands? Of course all she knows nothing about normal and civil human relations. Someone claims to love you while they brush off your abuse? Is that why she’s always ready to pounce for the throat? Self defence? Habit?
Fuck, how has she gotten in his head again?
Or maybe she didn’t.
She stirred the water into so many whirlpools and muddied the water with her manipulation that he can’t see the bottom. He can’t hear his own mind, can’t trust his own thoughts because he knows she put them there, she planted the seed
“She’ll poke the bear ‘til the claws come out and find something to wrap her noose around” he spits back
“Did you just quote taylor swift?” he’s too startled by that turn of events to do anything but blink “Also, that song is about female rage. You’d be the poker, not the bear in this scenario”
Barty opens his mouth to say something but just in time Wolfstar snogs their way into the room as Sirius tugs at Remus’ clothes, they clearly knew this room was meant to be empty and didn’t bother checking “Don’t get naked!” are the words that squeal out of Peter before he can even think about it. The two men jolt in surprise and Sirius’ forehead smacks Remus’ chin in the process.
“Are you okay Moons?” Sirius rubs Remus’ sore spot gently
“Yeah,” he moves his jaw around and Sirius pecks his boo-boo
“Pete, what the fuck?!” Sirius rounds on him and the gentle tone he wore only a second ago is obliterated
“The cockroach yanked me into the room to complain about our unsatisfactory babysitting services last night”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve even mentioning my little sister”
“Ooh, I’m so scared” Barty says in an entirely unafraid voice “both your siblings are a thousand times scarier than you are”
“Are not!” his righteous anger over his little sister’s attack is overturned by the mere implication that he might not be scary.
“I saw your sister promise to kill a man and frame his best friends for it if he stepped out of line and I’m pretty sure she meant it. And that she could probably do it and get away with it”
“Alright, maybe Ursa because she’s deranged, but I’m definitely scarier than Regulus!”
“You clearly don’t know your brother well enough” Barty scoffs
“Moony! Tell him I’m scarier than Regulus!” Sirius demands and silence follows “Remus!”
“I’m sorry! I feel safe when I’m with you, I’m in love with you for fucks sakes, and your brother sent out your sister to beat me up with a knife” Remus defends himself
“She beat me with the knife”
“Which was worse, but you’d never set her off on someone”
“Having a guard dog doesn’t count. Pete! You think I’m scary, right”
“He thinks his own shadow is scary” Barty chuckles and remus bites down on a laugh
“Shadows are creepy” Peter refuses to be ashamed, he’s heard that works, James swears by it. Turns out James is simply shameless, it doesn’t work for Peter. Barty laughs as he walks away and Peter is left scratching his head. Remus waits ten whole seconds before he sends him off so he can suck Sirius off before they need to get to class, Remus’ words.
Peter takes the map from Sirius’ back pocket so no one else will startle him on his way back. He notices Ursa alone with Avery in her room and debates whether he should check on her. He’d probably be more of a nuisance than an aid. He heads back to the crowds of people and keeps an eye on the two sets of footsteps. It isn’t long before Avery’s rush away from her.
He wonders if she’s healing bruises on her neck, he’ll never know. He falls on his bed that night listening to mad woman and listening to mad woman on repeat. Is she the poker or the bear? Can she be both? Should he care if she is?
It’s just as his eyes close that he realizes why that song’s stuck in his head. He just wants an excuse to like Ursa, to be allowed to enjoy her company. He isn’t quite sure what that means about him. He asks James in the morning, after a beg not to judge
“Is it wrong that I… kind of… like her?” he grimaces and rushes hurries to correct himself “Not like like, but like, uhm, laugh when she says something funny even if it’s mean?”
“I like her. Think of her as a bigger sized toddler who doesn’t know how to emote in a healthy way because no one’s taught her yet. And add in piles and loads of trauma.” he tells him they’re meant to teach her how to love and feel
“No offence to your lovely theory James, it sounds lovely and all, but I’m not interested in raising a child, I’m not as desperate to become a father as you are” Peter teases
“It’s just— she grew up with her dark side being praised and encouraged, she didn’t have us or my parents as role models as Sirius had, she had Bellatrix. Her brighter side has only been punished, darkness is all she knows, even now, any time she does something remotely good instead of praising and encouraging it we smother it by questioning her intentions and often times accusing her of being a psycho. I don’t want to keep punishing her for not knowing better, judging her for the person she had to become in order to survive, we’re still only kids, we’re just kids. She’s just a kid”
“James, most serial killers have a tagic sob story. Doesn’t make them any less serial killers”
“She’s not a killer”
“That we know of”
“We don’t know what it’s like to not have been loved”
“Sirius and Regulus loved her— they love her”
“And as much as I love Sirius, he tortured her, something he said his parents never did to her and she’s just supposed to understand why he’s better than them?”
“Don’t compare Sirius to them!”
“I’m not! Of course he’s nothing like that! But she can’t know that”
“Merlin, James, I really only meant, I don’t know, maybe asking her over for a picnic or something, not redeeming her, I still think she’s wack, I just thought we might enjoy the wack”
“What is wack an euphemism for?” James frowns at him and Peter chuckles
“Wack as in psycho, crazy, messed up, missing a few screws, not as an euphemism, merlin James, your child bride has corrupted your innocent pure mind”
“And I thoroughly enjoyed it” he beams proudly
The sun comes out after a terrible week of storms and this time it's Peter that suggests a picnic to Ursa. Alright fine, he suggests a snog session out in the gardens. He offers to take care of things but she insists on doing it herself. She seems a bit of a control freak and Regulus has literally explicitly mentioned the fact that she is, in fact, a control freak, so he lets her handle it.
She's already sitting on the lilac blanket when he sees her a few meters a way. An owl that looks a lot like a hunched lemur flies over to her with a letter. Peter watches her pet the bird and offer it a treat with one hand while she burns the unread letter with the other. The lemur-owl soars away shortly after and Peter makes his way over to her “whose owl was that?”
“Peter darling, we’re not friends” she reminds him with a soft smile. He might argue, or continue that conversation in some type of way, but then her necklace in the shape of a snape starts moving. When the flimsy sunlight shines on it, it shimmers and looks like living flames.
“That’s so cool,” he leans closer for a better look “It looks so real”
“That’s cause it is, her name is Nina” she says casually and Peter jumps a kilometer away. She scratches Nina’s chin without a bother in the world “Hellfire for long” He’s too caught on it being a real live snake to question her on how on earth Nina is short for hellfire
“Put that down! In the forest! Far away from me!”
“Hmmm, I don’t think I will. I think I’m going to keep her” she smiles fondly at the snake curled around her neck and it coils tighter around her very delicate, very breakable neck
“What?! Have you lost your bloody mind?! Where did you even get it from?!”
“She was a gift and I like her, she’s very friendly and I’ve been missing having a pet”
“Someone gifted you a snake? What the hell kind of friends do you have? What the bloody hell is wrong with Slytherins? This is taking the snake pride to an extreme”
“So you’re saying it’s a no on a lion cub? Damn, I’ll have to come up with another gift for christmas” he huffs at her and smiles despite himself.
“Fine. She’s cool I guess”
“The coolest” she corrects him with the pride of a mother. Probably not her mother, but a mother
“Can you set her aside so we can make out now?” she rolls her eyes and lets her slide into her hand. She holds her arm out to the side, exploring snake still in hand and gestures for him to get closer. He sighs and settles in closer.
He soon forgets about the snake. Until Nina licks him. He jolts all the way away out of the big blanket while Ursa, the asshat, laughs her cute little ass off. “Won’t you look at the two little love birds!” James hollers down the hill and Regulus rolls his eyes but follows him as he makes his way over to them
“Her snake licked me!” Peter tattle-tales with no shame
“You have a snake?!” James gasps like it’s the coolest thing ever and okay maybe a little bit it is but Peter’s not about to admit it. James rushes over to pet the scales because he is a golden retriever at heart but Regulus stops him
“I thought we agreed you were going to get rid of it”
“You did” she lays back with Nina cuddled into her chest and shrugs easily “I just didn’t care”
“Did you at least investigate? Do you even know if she’s venomous?”
“You’re cuddling a pet you don’t even know if it’s venomous? You brought it lick-distance away from me! Are you utterly insane?!”
“Stop being dramatic Pettigrew, of course I know” she rolls her eyes “Besides, she’s a sweetheart” Peter breathes out with a hand to his chest
“Ursa.” Regulus sets his jaw and the muscle on it twitches, so does his eye “Are you cuddling a venomous snake right now?”
“She just said she knew it wasn’t” James soothes him but Peter groans
“No. She said she knew if it was venomous. I could’ve died. You almost murdered me. You are aware of that, right?” she shrugs she doesn’t particularly care about that “Also, what kind of friend gives you a poisonous snake as a present?”
“She’s not poisonous, just venomous”
“Oh, if it’s just venomous then it’s alright then” Peter snarks back
“It wasn’t a gift. Someone left it in her bed — probably to kill her and now you’ve decided to adopt her. Great. Just make sure they finish the job”
“It was kind of a gift. And she hasn’t tried to bit me yet, she’s very friendly”
“Yes. We can tell she didn't bite you. You know how? BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL ALIVE!” Peter cries out because she almost casually murdered him
“Ursa, it’s dangerous” James tells her far more gentler than the other two boys “she could bite you”
“So?”
“So it’s venomous. You would die”
“So?”
“So…” James frowns like he’s not entirely on the loop “you’d be dead”
“So?”
“Salazar, Ursa, stop it!” Regulus hisses “just get rid of the stupid snake— for fuck’s sakes, stop covering its ears! Snakes don’t even have ears!”
“I’m not getting rid of her. You can stay away from her if you want, but quit bugging me, I can do what I want”
“Ursa, she could kill you” James tries to reason
“So? Everybody dies eventually” yet again, she shrugs
“Not during their pubescent years”
“Eh, already made it longer than I thought I would”
“Ursa get rid of the fucking snake!” Regulus glares
“Nope”
“Please”
“Still a no”
“We’ll tell Dumbledore. It isn’t safe”
“If you do that then they’ll put her down” something fierce sparkles in her eyes and Peter is equal measures both afraid and turned on. He doesn’t mention that
“I’d rather she die than you” Regulus holds her stare and she rolls her eyes. Did Regulus just win the staring contest?
“Look, I’ll get a dose of the antidote and keep it in hand whenever I handle her. Good enough for you?”
“Fine.”
“Great. Now lets get you a rat to eat”
“Really?” it’s peter’s turn to glare “you can’t feed her a rabbit or a sodding mouse?”
“No. Those two are far cuter than rats”
He storms off with indignation that doesn’t achieve its purpose since she doesn’t care in the slightest.