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Like always, he wakes with a wince to the frigid press of stone against his back.
His body hurts, everywhere, from his chafed throat that still constricts with every swallow, to the doughy skin of his arm and legs that must have caught on every rock and crack of the floor during the night.
It isn’t the first time that Peter Pettigrew has awoken in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, shivering through his aches, but it is the first time in a while that he isn’t alone.
“Hello,” she whispers.
The girl sits in the corner, in a dress that she’s tucked under the backs of her knees as she clings to herself, watching him warily through a curtain of long, dirty blonde hair.
She can’t be any older than sixteen or seventeen, but as he doesn’t recognize her as any of Harry’s friends, Peter wonders what the girl did to get herself thrown down here. He’s heard that most Muggleborns are still held at Hogwarts, under the watchful instruction of the Carrows and Delores Umbridge. There hasn’t been any more need to keep children up at Malfoy Manor.
Not since the Dark Lord’s triumph over Harry Potter.
Peter stares back at the girl through the cellar’s minimal trickle of daylight, wondering if he ought to say something. It’s been so fucking long, he’s not sure he still remembers how to talk anymore.
He’s saved the trouble, however, when she speaks again, her voice ringing off the stone.
“What did you do?” she asks, her wide eyes landing on his right side without a trace of subtlety.
He follows her gaze to the stump that ends just above where his elbow once was. “I failed to kill Harry Potter,” he says, cringing at his own croaky timbre.
The girl raises an eyebrow, lifting her head so that her hair falls away from her face. “So they took your arm? Took the Dark Lord how many tries, and you lost an arm for one?”
“I took it. It was trying to kill me.”
“Oh.”
“It was this silver hand,” Peter tries to explain, but providing all the needed context is exhausting to even think about, so he doesn’t bother with a detailed retelling. “Dark object. It was strangling me.”
She nods slowly. “So you er—gave it a good slice, to not die.”
“Right.”
“Shit.”
Peter doesn’t know what to say to “shit,” so he says nothing, shuffling backwards until he can rest against the cellar wall. It’s damp, because the walls down here always seem to leak, but he can’t be bothered to move.
He hasn’t had to think about his arm in a long time; with no one around to stare, it’s been easy to ignore. And anyway, he remembers so little about it now—just searing pain, Harry and Ron’s horrified cries, and then waking up in an agony that probably saved his life. Had it been any less torturous, he doubts the Dark Lord would have let him live.
Other than a couple of deliriously gleeful Death Eaters rushing down the stairs to gloat about Potter’s death about a year ago—just a couple weeks after Peter nearly died—and occasional visits from Narcissa when she’s feeling charitable enough to deliver updates on the war, this girl is the first human he’s seen in months.
He still feels her eyes on him, and it makes him squirm.
“It’s rude to stare, you know,” he points out.
The girl snorts. “I’m sorry. I must have dropped my propriety somewhere along the way down here—it was hard to hold onto while being dragged down the stairs.”
He ducks his head, though not because he feels admonished. It’s just that her words nearly made him smile, and no one has intentionally amused him in two decades.
“Why did you get thrown in here?” he finally asks.
“I’m supposed to be married,” she explains, gesturing to the white day dress that hasn’t yet been soiled by the draughty cellar. “But there seem to have been some issues with that—not that I’ll bore you with the details of the politics, it’s all rubbish—so they tossed me here to wait, while they figure out what to do with me.”
He wants to ask what sort of issues, but it feels strange to press some child he’s just met for details about her wedding.
“I’m Peter,” he says instead.
She smiles tightly and says, “Astoria.” And then, after glancing behind her toward the stairs, she lowers her voice to a whisper. “You should know, my sister left me with a parting gift before they could haul me down here.”
Peter watches in disbelief as Astoria pulls from her dress an unmistakable miracle. She brandishes a wand before his eyes with a wicked grin.
“Want to get out of here?”
***
They can’t Apparate out of the cellar, they quickly discover, but that doesn’t stop them from blowing out the side of the wall, running outside, and Disapparating from there.
Peter blinks rapidly, dizzy from both the trip and the abundance of light scattered through the clouds overhead. It’s overwhelming, after a year in the dark, to find himself somewhere so bright. But he forces himself to squint, to reacquaint himself with the world outside that damned cellar, and finds that they’ve landed on a beach.
“It’s called Pepper Beach,” Astoria explains. “We used to come here when I was little.”
“Aptly named,” Peter says, peering down the coastline and all the tiny black pebbles bestrown into the sand. He turns back to Astoria and nearly asks her what’s next, only to find her watching him expectantly. He can’t remember the last time—or maybe any time, really—that someone looked to him for a plan or direction, but he reminds himself that she’s only a teenager.
Peter takes a deep breath, straining to orient himself. Behind them, the sand trails off into a grove of trees, but other than that, the area seems to be barren.
“We shouldn’t go looking for a town,” he says at last. “Would they think to come looking for you here?”
Astoria’s eyebrows knit as she considers it. “Not right away,” she says. “Daph might, but she wouldn’t give me up. My parents probably don’t remember this place at all—our governess was usually the one to bring us.”
“Then we can probably stay out here a couple of days,” Peter decides. “No longer, to be safe. We can build a fire, camp for a night or two, and use that time to figure out what’s next.”
Astoria eyes the scarred mass of skin at the end of his right bicep. “I guess I’ll be gathering the firewood?”
Peter snorts his first laugh since 1981.
***
The first day passes slowly, neither of them really knowing what to make of the other.
For his part, Peter hasn’t a clue how to talk to a young girl, let alone one in Astoria’s particular position. What’s he supposed to ask her about, boys? Girls? She was about to be married, before she was tossed aside as a Wormtail-level prisoner, so he doubts she wants to get into that.
What else do teenage girls care about? He thinks about those he knew in another life—about Lily, Marlene, Mary. What would he say to them?
“You’re good at that,” he notes, as she finishes with the fire. It’s probably what he would say to Lily; she was good at everything. “Have you been camping before?”
Astoria nods proudly. “Yeah, I used to go with my sister. You?”
Peter inhales deeply, and the smoky air wraps around him until he’s somewhere else entirely, on a scouting mission for the Order. He can hear Remus’s scoff at whatever Sirius said that made Mary fall to the ground in stitches, her smile so warm under the fire’s glow that the flames were really just for show.
He swallows, which always hurts a little, but especially now.
“Yes,” he whispers.
***
On the second day, they grow a little more used to each other, and Peter finds himself entertaining Astoria with stories that anyone else would surely find deplorable.
“You’ve faked your death twice?” she questions that afternoon, as they roast a fish over the fire.
So far, his rat stories seem to be her favourites.
“I’m alive, aren’t I?” he protests. It’s mostly good-natured, but maybe a tad defensive. “I’d say it’s an effective strategy.”
Astoria tilts her head in thought. “What’s that creepy-looking animal that plays dead?”
“Opossum?”
She snaps her fingers. “That’s the one. That should’ve been your Animagus form, forget the rat.”
“It is ugly enough,” he concedes, making her laugh.
“I’d have liked to be an Animagus,” she says with a wistful sigh. “I wonder what I would have turned into. Something badass, don’t you think?”
“Definitely. Like a bunny maybe, or a ladybird.”
Astoria throws a twig his way. “I was thinking maybe a tiger. Or a shark!”
Peter frowns. “A shark wouldn’t be very helpful unless you’re near water often.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I’d make a place like this my home. Anyway, you saw me catch this fish! I’m a natural.”
Admittedly, she’s right. Peter had been plenty impressed at her fishing ability, even if she was using a wand. But then she went and bragged about it for twenty minutes, and it reminded him so much of Sirius that his chest hasn’t stopped aching since.
***
The next morning, they decide it’s unsafe to stick around any longer, so they head off to find a town.
Peter recalls some small villages he passed through during the First War, so he borrows Astoria’s wand to Apparate them to the ones that come to mind. The first two are deserted, which makes them viable places to stay, but not particularly helpful in earning them any warm meals or baths. The third village, however, proves fruitful.
“You’ve been here before?” Astoria asks, as they head down the main road.
“I have,” Peter says, though he doesn’t elaborate. There’s really no point: Remus dragged me out of here half-conscious after an ambush once, is hardly going to inspire confidence.
They find an inn, though without money, Peter isn’t sure how they’re going to convince the innkeeper to let them stay.
Astoria, however, saves them yet again.
“Please, miss,” she pleads with the old woman at the front counter. “My father and I are desperate—our home’s been taken from us, and we have nowhere to go, nothing to offer. I can work, but he—” She breaks off to take a shaky breath, letting her gaze drift to Peter’s arm. “Well, things have been harder for him, since the war.”
That’s not a lie, actually, Peter thinks.
The woman softens immediately. “Oh, of course, you poor dears. Let’s get you each a room and some hot tea, alright?”
“You’re so very kind,” Astoria says, squeezing the woman’s clasped hands graciously. “Thank you.”
Once they’ve each had a shower, they meet back up on the main floor of the inn, seated across from one another at one of the tables as they clutch their steaming mugs.
“That was brilliant,” Peter tells her. “Very Slytherin.”
She grins, tossing her hair. “Not much of a bunny or ladybird, am I?”
“No,” he says. “I think a shark was a fair guess.”
“Kind of you to say, Opossum.”
***
Of course, everything was always inevitably going to go to shit.
Peter’s known this all along, because everything in his life goes to shit soon enough.
He’s not sure if it was the innkeeper, or some other villager who happened to spot them walking through the small town, but someone must have known them.
Because just as they finish dinner that evening, sharp cracks sound from all around them, four Death Eaters on them at once.
Peter curses, wandless and one-armed and so fucking helpless as Yaxley fixes him with a sneer.
“Pettigrew,” he hisses, his wand out and focused right on Peter’s face. “The Dark Lord would like a word.”
“Would he?” Peter asks weakly, eyeing Yaxley’s wand.
But then Astoria’s hand lands on his shoulder, and he’s Disapparated away just as a stream of light jets out toward them.
They land in the woods this time, Peter’s heart racing and his stomach rolling as he stumbles toward a tree to lean on for support. He slumps against it, clutching his ribs as he struggles to breathe, each gulp of air an endeavour under his damaged throat, and it’s too familiar. It’s too fucking similar to the first war, and he absolutely bloody hates it.
He’s never been cut out for a life like this one. It’s why he did what he did, isn’t it? Why he chose a permanently guilty and lonely existence over daily fights for survival?
He can’t do this.
He couldn’t deal with his own inadequacy then, and he can’t deal with it now.
There’s a short cough from nearby, and Peter remembers he isn’t out here alone.
Astoria stands a few steps away, wavering on the spot.
“Astoria?” Peter manages, dragging himself away from the tree to get closer. “What—what happened?”
Her reply comes several seconds later, sluggish and murmured. “I dunno. Just… just tired, now.”
With that, she crumples sideways into a scatter of leaves on the dirt ground, and Peter curses before rushing forward to sit her up. She’s not entirely unconscious as she groans and struggles to keep her fluttering eyes open, but her attempts at speech come incoherent.
Peter panics, balancing her on his shoulder as he reaches for her wand, now dropped atop the leaves. He doesn’t know much about healing spells, only having learned a limited handful from Remus many years prior, but anything is better than nothing.
He suspects that this is some sort of sleep-inducing curse from which she managed to escape the full effects thanks to her quick Disapparition. This bloody teenager—a literal child—saving the both of them, again and again, while he continuously proves to be as useless as his stubby right arm, makes him feel sick.
Finally, after several attempts at some desperate counter-curses, Astoria’s drained face regains some colour, and her eyes open.
“Hey there, Opossum,” she mumbles.
Peter sighs in relief, handing over her wand as she balances herself.
“Fucking hell,” he says before standing, finally surveying the forest around them.
“Thanks for that,” Astoria says, pushing herself to her feet. “I’m—I’m not sure what happened there.”
It’s a lie. He can always tell, if not because he’s a liar himself, then because he’s spent a lifetime around them. But he doesn’t press it, not when they still have to figure out what to do next.
“Sure,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. Thanks for what? he wants to ask. Nearly getting the both of us killed, as you once again got us out of trouble? Instead, he asks, “Where are we?”
“Some forest,” she replies, brushing some twigs off of her dress. “I don’t actually know what it’s called. This is where Daph and I used to camp. And we never told our parents about it, because it’s not far from a little Muggle town.”
Peter’s eyebrows raise. “Oh?”
She nods, her mouth twisting into a secretive smile. “Yeah, we used to sneak into a thrift store there to buy Muggle things.”
He ponders that for a moment, trying to land on their best course of action. “I think we should sneak into the store then,” he says slowly. “Make a short supply run when it’s late enough. We can bring things back here to camp, and then we won’t risk getting recognized.”
“Well, I did grow up rich. No one loves free things like us.”
Peter snorts. “I wouldn’t know.”
***
“If you could be a chess piece, which would you be?” Astoria asks, twirling the little black knight around her fingers.
Peter doesn’t need to think about it. “A rook.”
During their thrift store raid, they found a bag that Astoria charmed with an extension and filled with a few changes of clothes and some small bowls and eating utensils, just to feel a little more human. But on their way out, a used, beat up chess board caught Peter’s eye long enough for Astoria to notice, reach for the game, and add it to their haul.
It’s missing a few pieces, but they’ve substituted in some small rocks for pawns, an acorn for a bishop, and a miniature wreath made of leaves for a queen.
“Why?”
“It’s straightforward,” he says, poking at the little castle in the corner. “Deliberate. Not as fancy as the others, and kind of blocked in at the start—but they thrive in the endgame.”
“Hmmm,” Astoria says, pondering his words. She gives the rook a small tap with her knight. “Well, we aren’t all built for the endgame I guess. I’m fond of my horse.”
“It’s a knight,” Peter corrects.
“Agree to disagree, Opossum.”
He just shakes his head and resumes setting up the remaining pieces.
They play a few games, Peter winning all of them. He feels a little mean about it, but it’s been so many bloody years since he got to play a game of chess himself, rather than enviously watching the Weasleys play during his years as a rat. It’s like having your first sip of water after a long night of dry-mouth, and he can’t get enough.
Astoria doesn’t seem to mind. She asks him about the moves he makes, about strategies and gambits and other things that Peter is more than happy to explain. It’s satisfying, to be good enough at something to teach it. He wonders if Remus felt the same, teaching Defense at Hogwarts.
He probably didn’t. Remus taught to help others, not to make himself feel capable.
Peter scowls a little, and lost in his own self-loathing, he loses a pawn.
“Getting sloppy, old man,” Astoria says, grinning in triumph. “This is going to be one of those students-becomes-the-master moments.”
He rolls his eyes. “Sure. You just better thank me at all the future tournaments you sweep.”
Her smile falters. “Right,” she says quietly, looking back down at the board.
Peter frowns, unsure of what he said wrong. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I know chess tournaments aren’t er—aren’t very likely, with things being the way they are now.”
Astoria shrugs, and her next move is a little clumsy. “It’s not that. I mean, you’re right, but… even if they were, I wouldn’t be participating.”
“Because of your parents?” he guesses, moving a knight to take her bishop.
“Because I’m dying.”
Peter drops the piece he’d been clearing from the board. It lands with a thud against the wood.
“Oh.”
“It’s fine,” she says quickly. “I’ve known a little while. Blood malediction, an ancestral curse, nothing to be done but accept it and wait. The Malfoys found out though, and they um—they weren’t keen on me marrying their son after that.”
Peter doesn’t—can’t—speak. He just stares at her in shock and discomfort, because he doesn’t know what else to do. What is anyone supposed to say to that? Should he offer her some sort of comfort? Even he knows that “Sorry you’re dying” hardly seems like the appropriate response.
Astoria groans. “Would you relax? I’ve got years before it’s supposed to kill me. You’ll probably be free of me by then anyway.”
Again, he doesn’t have a reply. She’s right, of course. There’s no reason why they should still be travelling together years down the line, not when she has family and probably friends, and could do a lot better than a one-armed rat for a survival companion.
But thinking about that future, the one where he carries on alone and broken, makes his stomach churn the same way it did in the first war every time he found himself talking about post-war dreams with the Marauders, or with Lily and Mary, or with the Longbottoms.
“We should keep moving tomorrow,” he says instead, finally forcing himself to meet her eyes. “Shouldn’t stay anywhere too long—who knows where the Death Eaters might think to look for us.”
Astoria smiles, nodding in thanks, and they return to their game.
***
The next day, they keep to the trees, but follow alongside a road that stretches away from the nearby town as they head off across the country. Neither knows what to look for, but they’ve agreed that any major cities or towns, and anything showing even the slightest sign of magic, need to remain off limits for now.
They continue to camp in the woods, to play chess, and to talk about innocuous things that keep them away from topics of the Dark Lord, and the war, and Astoria’s curse.
Finally, after about two days of travel, they come across another small Muggle community. Unlike the last, however, this is hardly a town. There are maybe a dozen houses at the most, scattered across farmland.
“Hello—” is all Astoria manages before one of the kind women they’d found hanging laundry practically jumps at offering them tea and a room for the night after taking in their dirty, exhausted forms.
Her name is Eleanor. She and her husband, she explains, have lived and worked on the farm here for decades, alongside a few other families.
“You two aren’t the first travellers we’ve hosted,” she says, dropping in front of them plates of buttered toast. “Feel free to stay here as long as you’d like!”
“You’re very kind,” Astoria tells her. “My father and I have no farming experience, but we’re fast learners. So feel free to put us to work while we’re here.”
Peter looks up and only nods, his mouth full of toast. He’s not particularly excited about farming, but what’s a few nights?
***
Four Months Later
Peter grunts, hoisting a sack further up his shoulder as seeds spill out across the dirt.
“Shoot,” he mutters, as a horde of chickens gather at his ankles to greedily attack the fallen feed. “Hang on, you lot, not here!”
The sack continues to dribble out seeds as he carries it across the yard, away from the small hen house and toward the long, wooden troughs.
He dumps the rest of their food and tosses the sack aside, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. He’s grateful for the breeze of early Autumn rolling across the countryside, or he knows he’d be a mess.
At the beginning, Peter hated working on the farm. He missed his wand and his arm, and on more than one occasion he considered going back to the Death Eaters, to beg the Dark Lord for mercy.
These days, it’s not so bad. He still misses magic all the time, but it’s nice to be useful again. Helping out on the farm, playing chess with Astoria and some of the other community members, chatting with the chickens: it’s not the life he had ever imagined for himself, but it beats war.
His favourite part is baking with Eleanor. In a lot of ways, she reminds him of his own mother. Their afternoons in the kitchen leave him aching with nostalgic sorrow, but it always proves worth it when they deliver biscuits, muffins, or other goods to the other houses. It’s difficult, of course, because he would fucking love two hands when stirring batter, but he’s learning to adjust.
Their baking sessions started when Eleanor’s daughter, a five-months-pregnant young woman named Prudence, burst into her mother’s house to announce a craving, and Peter had jumped at the opportunity.
She loves anything apple, in particular, so Peter tends to bake her the same apple turnovers he used to make for Lily, when she was pregnant with Harry.
“I think the mini pumpkin pies are my favourites,” Astoria tells Peter one day, all but inhaling one the moment they’re out of the oven. She piles two more onto a plate and takes them back to the kitchen table, where she sits beside Prudence as they work on a puzzle.
“You should probably eat dinner first,” Peter blurts out, immediately regretting it when they both erupt into giggles.
“Spoken like a dad,” Prudence teases.
Peter flinches. As used to their cover as he’s grown over the months, it doesn’t make it any stranger. Like he could ever be a bloody father to anyone. A Death Eater and a traitor—really great role model.
“God, next thing you know he’s going to tell me to eat a vegetable,” Astoria mutters.
Prudence laughs again, while Peter just rolls his eyes.
“That’d make me a hypocrite,” he admits.
Astoria grins. “Too right.”
During their first month on the farm, her struggle to acclimate to their new lives had been even harder than Peter’s. While he had spent over a decade as a rat, and then his subsequent years as the Dark Lord’s servant, she had only ever been a rich pureblood.
But she adjusted in time, and most days she seems content. Peter often spies her sitting alone in the sheep field, reading books or practising some of the Muggle hobbies the other community members have been teaching her.
She’s taken to crochet in particular. Just a week ago, she presented Peter with a little crocheted opossum that he now keeps at his bedside.
“I’m going to deliver some pies to the Wrights and the Tuckers,” Peter says, gathering a few into a basket. “And then I just need to finish helping the Bennets with the east fence. But chess after?”
“Chess after,” Astoria agrees, beaming.
***
Peter doesn’t immediately head home after he helps fix the fence.
He takes the long way back, following a dirt path that winds through the fields and cuts through some colourful trees, stopping beneath a large beech.
As sunset approaches, the air grows chilly, but Peter finds this to be his favourite time of day, during the last bit of daylight. He sits beneath the beech tree and rests his head back against the bark.
On days like this, he can admit that their accommodations might be a little more than tolerable. They haven’t been found, and he wonders if it’s been long enough that the Death Eaters have given up looking for them—maybe they’ve been assumed dead by now.
If Peter was superstitious, he would hesitate to say that things are going shockingly well, not wanting to jinx them. But if he’s to go off history, then they’re definitely well past the point where catastrophe should have struck, so in quiet moments like this, he secretly lets himself hope that this is it.
Maybe this is where he’s meant to live out his remaining years: baking with Eleanor, teaching kids chess, feeding chickens.
It’s not a bad life.
“Peter!” someone calls.
Peter peers down the dirt path to find one of the Wright sons running toward him, dirt kicking up behind his feet in dusty clouds.
He heaves himself to his feet and goes to meet the boy. He’s an eight-year-old named Graham, and a big fan of Peter’s blueberry tarts. But judging by his frantic expression and red rimmed eyes, it’s not dessert that has him in such a rush.
“What is it, Graham?” Peter demands.
Through his pants, Graham manages to wheeze out, “Astoria.”
And then Peter is running.
***
It’s not just that she’s pale.
It’s that she’s pale green.
By the time Peter barged into the cottage, they’d moved Astoria to her bed, where she now lies with a compress against her forehead. Across the room, Eleanor speaks with Prudence in hushed voices, sneaking wary glances toward the bed.
Eleanor’s husband, Andrew, has taken the community’s only car to fetch a doctor from the closest town—two hours away.
Peter didn’t bother to tell them that a doctor won’t be able to help, and he could tell by the grim yet wry smile Astoria sent him that she had the same thought.
She still smiles now, though it sags beneath a sad tinge, as she watches Peter and awaits his reaction. He still hasn’t found anything to say, too confused and nauseous to think of anything worth saying.
Peter, admittedly, knows very little about Astoria’s blood malediction other than that it started with one of her ancestors, and that it’s been slowly killing her over time, predicted to culminate years from now.
And yet, here she is, in what looks an awful lot like a culmination.
He doesn’t understand.
“We had time,” he states when he finally finds his voice, because didn’t they? Time has never been his most consistent friend, always so bloody capricious in the way it chooses to pass, but all the same he is certain that he would have noticed if years had flown by since the day Astoria disclosed to him her illness.
Her smile turns pitying, and already he’s shaking his head in protest before she says, “I guess the chaos of the last few months sped things up.” She lets out a short, dry cough.
Peter fumbles around for something to say. “We had time,” he blurts out again, like repeating his objection might make it stop—like he can somehow convince her not to die.
But Astoria just sighs and shrugs. “I know,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”
Bloody hell, she’s sorry?
Sorry for what?
Peter shakes his head and backs away from the bed, from this room, from the stench of looming death. He spins on his heel and runs for the front door, throwing himself outside, into the brisk evening chill.
What is wrong with him? How many people has he killed by now, his best friends included? He should be able to handle the death of some insignificant teenager he’s only known for a few months.
He ought to grab her wand and Disapparate now, to find somewhere more respectable to hide for the rest of his pathetic life.
They had time.
They had time, but now she’s in there, brittle and laurel-green.
Peter stumbles off toward the bushes, where he’s promptly sick into the leaves. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and pulls it away to find it trembling.
This is his fault, isn’t it? Maybe she was always destined to die, but it only figures that the arrival of Peter Pettigrew in her life hastened her inevitable end.
He thinks back on a conversation they shared one night, when it was only them, the stars, and the crackle of their campfire.
“I didn’t just fake my death,” he finally confessed. “I didn’t just get two of my best friends killed. I brought him back—I brought the Dark Lord back. Everything that’s happened since is my fault.”
Astoria scoffed. “He’s an all powerful wielder of dark magic. I’m sure he would have come back with or without you.”
“But it was me. It was me, and now we’re out here on the run, and you’re away from your sister, and James and Lily’s boy is dead. That was me,” he replied hoarsely.
“You give yourself way too much credit, Opossum.”
No one had told him that before. Remus had mentioned numerous times that he didn’t give himself enough credit, and Marlene once said that his worst habit was selling himself short.
Even James one night, after they polished off a bottle of Odgens and watched Remus knock Sirius into the pond behind the Potters’ home only to be dragged in after him a moment later, told Peter, “You’re smarter than anyone realises, Pete. Smarter than you realise, I think.”
Peter squints through the dim light of dusk and wonders who had it more right, between his old friends and Astoria Greengrass.
But in the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter anymore.
An answer won’t change the fact that she’s dying.
Once again, he’ll be alone.
***
When he returns inside, Astoria has fallen asleep.
She isn’t dead—yet.
Eleanor stays up to wait at her bedside, letting Prudence retire to sleep.
Peter, for his part, knows that sleep is going to be impossible tonight; he’s far too restless. So instead, he does the only thing he can think of.
He bakes.
The doctor arrives about two hours before midnight, but as Peter already expected, he can come up with little more than, “Something’s wrong with her blood.” He also ventures that there doesn’t seem to be anything that can be done, which again comes as little surprise to Peter.
Astoria wakes up the next morning in even worse of a state than before, her pallor inhuman and her coughing more frequent.
Eleanor softly touches Peter’s cheek on her way out.
When Astoria spots Peter in the doorway, she says nothing about his retreat the night before. Instead, she points at the plate of mini pumpkin pies in his hand. “Are those for me?”
He’d actually forgotten about the pies the moment he saw her.
“Yeah,” he mumbles, coming to take Eleanor’s place in the chair beside Astoria and depositing the plate on the edge of the bed.
“Brilliant,” Astoria says, a ghost of her usual grin breaking through the tension in her jaw and cheeks. A short wince escapes her, but she smothers it with her smile. “I’ve got a gift for you too.”
Peter blinks at her.
“A gift?”
God, when was the last time anyone gave him a gift that wasn’t a silver murder-hand? His twenty-first birthday, maybe?
His mum had sent him Gryffindor-coloured oven mitts.
“Don’t make this so depressing,” Astoria snorts, pointing at the tiny box on the table beside her head. “Just take the damned thing.”
So he does, carefully placing it on his lap and pulling at some blue ribbon tied on top. He picks at the edge of the box, starting to open it, when he pauses.
“Did you want to eat some of that?” he asks, gesturing down at the treats. “I should have waited to open this, I didn’t think—”
“I’ll eat one when you’re done, so you can have one too,” she interrupts, eyes flashing with amusement. “Open it up, old man.”
Peter returns to the gift, peeling back the top of the box. He pulls out a piece of wood carved in the shape of a rook, that’s been painted red and gold. Across the surface of the wood sit tiny black letters.
For the endgame.
Peter’s throat tightens. He glances down at Astoria, whose smile widens.
“There’s something else,” she whispers. “I already hid it in one of your jackets, but I want you to take my wand.”
“Astoria.”
“I mean I obviously don’t need it, and I think you make a bloody good farmer—”
“Astoria—”
“—but I suspect it’d be nice for you to have magic as an option again, wouldn’t it?”
He stares down at her, wide-eyed and terrified. “I don’t know.”
She presses her lips together, looking torn for a moment.
“What is it?”
“I wanted to ask a favour,” she admits quietly.
“Name it,” he says, clutching the rook tightly.
Astoria sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “Could you er—could you maybe try to get a message to my sister?” When he doesn’t immediately answer, she snaps her gaze back to him and quickly adds, “Not in any way that might get you caught, of course. But you’re clever. I reckon you could find a way to tell her.”
Peter swallows with some difficulty. “I will.”
Her smile returns. “Thanks, Opossum.” And then, maybe sensing he doesn’t know what else to say, she helps herself to a pie. “Merlin, these are fantastic. Have one, would you?”
He forces himself to return her smile and takes a pie.
“To opossums and rats,” she says, holding hers out toward him.
“To tigers and sharks,” he replies, giving it a small tap.
They spend the rest of the evening feasting on mini pies and toasting various things.
To chickens.
To campfires.
To kind Muggles.
And before her last bite, Astoria adds, “And to the endgame.”
Peter silently thinks, But mostly, to the only friend I’ve had in nearly two decades.
She’s gone before he can say it.
***
Peter doesn’t know what to do next.
He feeds the chickens first, because it’s become habitual now, and it buys him some time to think.
For two days straight, Peter has felt the Muggles’ eyes on him, no doubt wondering what he plans to do next. As far as they know, he just lost his daughter.
Now, things don’t really seem much different than when he sat rotting in the cellars below Malfoy Manor.
Once again, he has no one and nothing.
On the third day, Peter can’t take it anymore. He leaves the farm with Astoria’s wand in one pocket and her gift to him in the other, starting down the road without an answer for Eleanor when she inquires as to his destination.
He has none in mind.
Peter walks until he can’t physically go any further, but to his relief, there’s a village just up ahead. So he summons the last of his strength and continues until he reaches a strip of buildings.
Astonishingly, the place exudes magic.
It’s a wizarding village, Peter realises, and immediately he contemplates running. But the allure of magic, the first magic he’s been around in so bloody long, is too tempting to resist.
So the next thing he knows, Peter finds himself slowly meandering through the town, the magic around him a relief and an alarm at once. But he knows he can’t risk spending long here, so Peter quickly gets to business.
He pops into the first shop he can reach, a small stationary place, where he sends an owl to Daphne Greengrass.
Before leaving, he obliviates the kind witch at the shop and heads back outside, figuring he ought to head back to the farm and help Eleanor with the cake they’d promised some of the neighbours.
But just before he can Apparate away—something he has longed to do for months now—Peter stops.
Glancing back at the village behind him, he takes in every trace of magic he can: a broom dusting the porch of the apothecary, a sign hanging itself up outside the cafe, and the flash of green fire in the window of the inn.
Peter tightens his grip on Astoria’s wand; the rook carving in his pocket weighs a little heavier.
He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes, considering his options.
This world belongs to the Dark Lord now, and he would have Peter killed. And the Order, if it still exists, has no reason to accept him alive either.
Peter pictures Astoria back at the farm, pale green and motionless; there’s death there, too.
Surrounded by three fatal options, and his cowardice and guilt, Peter contemplates where he ought to die.
Astoria was young. Innocent. If anyone deserved to die somewhere peaceful, away from the war, surrounded by kind smiles and the smell of pie, it was her.
Peter sighs and starts back toward the small wizarding town.
He doesn’t know which side will find him first, but either way, his fate will be decided by those he’s wronged.
If this is to be his final move, it’ll be that of a rook: straightforward, deliberate, nothing fancy.
Just one sure step into the endgame.