The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

XLI: 27 January, 1994

It had worked before and it would have to do now as well.

He hated the idea of it.

The Weasleys had been his family for twelve years. The best family he ever could have ended up with. If his real family had been as thoughtful and kind as the Weasleys, maybe things would be different.

All Wormtail had ever wanted was acceptance.

How his heart had broken when Percy so easily gave him up to Ron without a second thought. After being his rat for years, too. Percy's carelessness had hurt Wormtail's feelings at first, but Ron had been the best friend that anyone could ask for. Ron was kind and gentle and although he complained about Scabbers, he always petted him and made little tracks out of stacked books and other things - agility courses, sort of, for Scabbers to run through for treats. Ron only got so much pocket money for allowance - just a few knuts, really, hardly enough to buy even a snack for himself - yet Ron had never failed to use it for rat treats.

Once, they'd stood outside Florean Fortescues parlor in Diagon Alley, and Ron had watched wistfully as Florean Fortescue (the fifth or fifteenth) has served dishes to a bunch of kids Ron knew, who had waved for him to come join them... "No, no," Ron had answered, "I - er - don't care much for ice cream."

But he'd bought rat treats at Eeyelops instead that cost exactly the same as the ice cream dishes, even as he muttered to Scabbers about how much he hated him for messing up his opportunity to try the brand new kiwi-orange flavor everyone was so keen on.

Which is why it was breaking Scabber's heart even as he stood on Ron's bed in the empty dormitory and but his own tail hard enough to draw blood.

But he could smell the dog. The dog was hanging around the portrait hole almost every night now, and it was time alone that stood between now and the moment when the dog had figured out how to get in.

The vendetta wouldn't be forgotten.

If Wormtail was to escape, he had to do it now.

So he dragged his bleeding tail around the crisp white bed sheets, pausing and biting again and again when the blood didn't seem convincing enough. He rolled about and threw himself about the sheets, mussing them up to make it look like there had been a horrible struggle.

The fact that he found some of Roger's hairs on Harry's discarded robes made the job of framing the cat that much easier.

He hoped Hermione chucked that cat out once she saw what he had done.

Wormtail had always loathed that cat. Even when it had belonged to James and Lily he had despised it.

He wished it only illwill.

The scene set, Wormtail ran for the vent in the wall.

He'd been lost in the walls of Hogwarts once, the night he first turned. But he had gotten real familiar with them after that. Especially the last three years when he'd used them to do all sorts of things all over Hogwarts.

And the best part was the dog could not get him there. There was no way he could. And even if the dog was bold enough to turn human - well, even as a human Sirius Black couldn't get him in the air vents.

How the tables would turn - for once he made his escape it would be only a matter of time before the dog would be caught by the dementors... and then Scabbers would go back to Ron, back to the Weasleys.

Ron would probably give him twice as many treats as usual when he found his prodigal rat.

So Wormtail squeezed his way through the vent... and only just in time, too, as the dormitory door banged open and Ron himself came running in.

Wormtail felt bad when he heard Ron's panicked breathing, heard him scrambling with the bloodied sheets. "Scabbers??? Scabbers!!! Scabbers?!!!!?! No.. no... no! NO!!!!" He let out a strangled cry that was positively gut wrenching. "No! Please, Scabbers! No!" And Wormtail heard him tear the sheets from the bed...

He couldn't listen anymore.

He ran away, tiny feet scrambling over the metal of the air ducts, heart racing, escaping, disappearing yet again from the dark intent of Sirius Black's anger.

He had vowed once, long ago - laying in the very dormitory from where Wormtail ran now - to kill Peter Pettigrew if he had ever betrayed any one of their friends... if he ever went into the Dark Lord's service.

And Peter Pettigrew knew Sirius Black never forgave his grievances.

No matter what the reason might be.