Chapter Text
“Wormy,” someone whispers in the rat’s ear. It gives a twitch, but the rat continues to sleep on. He’s had a long day- no one can blame him for wanting to get some shut-eye. (Alright, so the day was also spent sleeping- but it felt long, in any case.)
Besides- to the outside observer, it would look very much like no one is around at all.
“Wormy, wake up,” says the voice. The tone is sing-song, and very quiet. The rat sleeps on.
“PETER WAKE UP,” the voice yells.
The rat squeaks in alarm and shoots up, fur sticking straight up and eyes wide and roving. He’s braced to run- but he feels frozen, and for very good reason.
“Ah! Awake,” says the voice. “Grand.”
The invisible person sounds like they’re smiling. This does nothing at all to assuage the rat’s fear.
The rat wonders if he might be able to make a break for it- then decides against it. After all, he’s clearly gone completely insane, and it’s difficult to run from one’s own mind.
And he must be insane, because that voice sounds a hell of a lot like James Potter.
…Who has been dead for three years.
“Nice digs,” James remarks. Wormtail can imagine him looking around, nodding appreciatively at the homey and cluttered living room- toys and assorted knick-knacks strewn around the place, embers glowing dimly in the otherwise dark room.
Wormtail doesn’t dare move. Hardly dares to breathe, even. Maybe if he ignores it, it’ll go away?
“I’m not going to go away,” James says, displaying the uncanny ability he’s always had in being able to read people (and rats, as it turns out) like an open book. “So you might as well acknowledge me.”
Yeah. That sounds like a trap. Wormtail elects to stay frozen.
“I don’t think I can pick you up, but I could try,” James muses. “Although I don’t think you want me to find out if I can touch you.” He laughs lightly.
A chill runs down Wormtail’s spine. That laugh- he’s heard that laugh from James before. Right before the first time he’d seen James kill a man. A random Death Eater lackey had gotten a lucky shot in on Lily- and James had transfigured his lungs to glass without a second thought. Wormtail will never forget the sound of him choking to death on the shards.
It had been somewhat impressive at the time. Now, Wormtail just feels sick.
“That would be bad,” James continues. “For you, I mean. Seeing as you orphaned my child and killed my wife.”
Wormtail does not want to be transfigured into glass. Unfortunately, it sounds a bit like he’s going to be transfigured into glass.
“And me too, for that matter. So- bad for you. Yes? Yes. Anyways. Let’s go!”
That does it. Wormtail levels the stoniest glare he can in the direction of James’s voice, and then hops off the couch.
If James wants to talk, fine. They can talk. But not here- there’s too much of a chance of Peter getting caught. The Weasleys are nice enough, but something tells Wormtail he wouldn’t survive a run-in with Molly Weasley as Peter Pettigrew. Not when she has the home field advantage.
He assumes the James-ghost-thing follows him out the cracked window and into the backyard. His assumption is proven correct when James says, “far enough for you, bud? I think so.”
Wormtail levels another glare at where he hopes James is floating, and transforms. It takes him a millisecond longer than he’d thought it would- not long in the grand scheme of things but definitely long enough for him to be filled with fear at the idea of being stuck as a rat.
Peter has a second to feel relieved as he becomes a human for the first time in three years. And then he sits down on the ground, relief being replaced with a bout of sudden nausea.
“Too tall?” James asks, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “Take a minute, there’s no rush.”
Peter would glare at his disembodied voice again, but he feels like he might be pushing it as it is. That, and he’s not sure he remembers how to glare as a person. He’s not sure he remembers much of anything when it comes to being a person. So even though he’s pretty sure (despite the tone) James is being condescending, he does take a minute.
As he lets muscle memory take over, he thinks about the predicament he’s landed himself in.
Assuming Peter hasn’t gone crazy (and he can’t think of any reason as to why he would have), James is back. He seems to be a ghost with little-to-no way to physically interact with the world, but- well, he doesn’t need to be able to touch anything to ruin Peter’s life. He just needs to manifest to Arthur or Molly or anyone and let them know what exactly happened vis a vis the secret keeper situation.
Peter should maybe, on some level, have anticipated something like this. It’s not like he thought he could get away with it forever- hell, he hadn’t thought he’d get away with it for a week, much less three years. The Dark Lord had been defeated by Lily and Peter had thought he’d picked the wrong side after all.
Either way, it was finally over- and that in and of itself was a relief. He was just so tired. All of the time. That’s why he’d done what he’d done in the first place. They’d been fighting a losing battle for years, and no one else was going to pull the plug. So Peter had. He’d always been the one who’d cross the lines the others wouldn’t- the one they’d turn to when things got too sticky for them. (Morally, anyways. Peter doesn’t hold with real stickiness.)
Relief or not, Peter still hadn’t wanted to die. He’d expected it, expected Sirius or Remus to get him, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. And fight he did- even though he’d known it was fruitless, known that the second Sirius was put under veritaserum that everything would come to light.
Peter had waited in fear for weeks. But nothing happened, no one came after him- and day by day, he started to relax. Found himself a place to lay low. Decided that Sirius must not have been given a trial at all.
And- it’s been nice. Being a rat. He’d thought to maybe just… live the rest of his days out at the Burrow, or something- besides his once-or-twice-a-month forays out into the world, of course.
Except now James is back. Because he’s James fucking Potter, so of course he’s back. Peter should have known better than to think that he’d stay down. In fact, he’s surprised Lily isn’t floating around somewhere.
God- Peter shouldn’t even joke about that. If Lily had been here instead of James, he would already be dead. Or, more likely than not, be wishing he were dead. Really, Peter should be counting his lucky stars.
“It’s been more than a minute, Pete,” James says, still sounding as cheery as ever.
Yeah. Peter doesn’t feel like counting any stars right now, lucky or otherwise.
“Fine then,” Peter says, going to stand up. His vocal chords feel like they should be rusty from disuse- but his voice doesn’t sound raw at all. “Get on with it.”
(He does manage to stand without throwing up or immediately falling over again- but it is going to take much much longer than a minute to get used to being this big again. At least he doesn’t need to get used to having only four fingers on one hand- rat hands are similar enough to people hands that he’s already pretty much cleared that hurdle.)
“Why, Pete,” James says. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Whatever would I be getting on with?”
There it is again. That tone that makes Peter think that he may be in genuine, life-threatening danger- but ghosts can’t hurt people.
The only problem is that he’s not entirely sure James is a ghost. He’s never heard of an invisible ghost, or one that waits so long to come back.
Regardless of what this is- Peter knows one thing. And that thing is that this is James, no doubt about it. That doesn’t necessarily make him feel safer, but he’s not going to be putting on a show for his old friend- he’s not going to grovel, or apologize, or any of that. James would see right through that anyways.
Peter is, in short, going to be himself.
“James, I’m not playing this game with you,” Peter says, folding his arms. (It takes him longer than he’d like to puzzle out how to do that.)
“Hm,” James says. “You don’t get a choice in the matter.”
His tone has gone ice cold, and Peter finds himself shivering despite the fact that the night air is actually rather warm for late October.
Ah. Now that he’s thinking about it, and assuming it’s after midnight… it is Halloween today. Hm. That explains… nothing. But it is at least a hint as to what might be happening. Anniversaries, rule of three, that sort of thing.
“You see,” James continues, “there is very, very little stopping me from floating on over to where Remus is at and telling him everything. Which means you either play my game- or I watch as you get torn apart by an angry werewolf. And, depending on how fast he can get Sirius out of prison, possibly also an angry Lord Black.”
Peter narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t have a response to that. He’d already figured all of that anyway. Of course, worse comes to worse… he may be able to run.
“And I found you once with no trouble at all, so running isn’t an option either,” James says.
Fucking James.
“Fine,” Peter spits. “Fine. What do you want.”
There’s a long pause, and Peter tries not to shift as he waits for a response.
“Uh, like, a lot of things,” James finally says. Then- “wait, you can’t see me still. Whoops. Um, I might-”
Peter unfolds his arm and stares as the air in front of him shimmers, then seems to solidify into a form.
“Ah ha! Got it,” James says, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. “I wasn’t sure that was going to work.”
Peter can’t help but stare. There, standing in front of him, is a ghost. A literal, ‘white sheet with little holes for the eyes cut out’ ghost. It’s not even floating.
James gives a little twirl, the sheet flaring out a bit as he does. “Like it? Picked it myself. I thought it was funny.”
“It is funny,” Peter agrees, because it is. “It’s also completely ridiculous. Can we get this over with?”
Instead of saying anything, the James-Ghost just cocks its head, staring straight at him.
Peter feels a chill run up his spine- he’d never thought of the muggle ghost-caricature as scary, but. Well. Something about the pristine-ness of the crisp white sheet contrasting with the soulless pitch-dark eyes, the way the fabric folds just so to hint at a memory of a memory of James’s smile- the complete lack of movement in the sheet despite the breeze that’s rustling the long grass of the field they’re standing in-
It makes Peter realize all at once that between the two of them, there’s only one dead man walking- and it’s not the ghost.
“Or,” Peter says, licking his suddenly dry lips, “we could just go at your pace.”
“Works for me!” James says, sounding very cheery. Then, he claps his hands. The sound it makes is muffled because of the sheet, but it still makes Peter flinch. “Alright, let’s go get my son!”
Oh. Oh, this is going to be miserable.