Chapter Text
“So now that we’ve added the final ingredient”, Slughorn said while stirring a cauldron, “the amortentia should start to work in a matter of seconds.”
Peter looked hesitatingly at his own small cauldron in front of him before he dropped in the last ingredient. He felt like he had made a mistake- he didn’t know where, and he was sure he followed all the instructions, but he just couldn’t phantom actually getting a potion right. Especially not since last weeks veritaserum exploded in his face.
“The easiest way to check if your amortentia works”, Slughorn continued, then he waved his hand over his cauldron, guiding the steam towards his nose, “is to smell. Because as some of you might know, amortentia smells like what?”
A bunch of students raised their hands. Peter didn’t. He never studied for potions so he wouldn’t know.
“Yes, miss Evans?”
“Amortentia smells like the person you love”, Lily answered like the perfect student she was.
“Very good.” Lily and Snape high-fived, sharing the victory as the king and queen of potions class. James scowled at the sight and the other students eagerly sniffed the cauldrons in front of them.
“Smells like you, Moony!”, Sirius called loud enough for the whole class to hear, while obnoxiously making a heart shape with his hands.
Remus rolled his eyes. “Smells like dog”, he scoffed with a cheeky smile.
“Aww, you love me”, Sirius cooed as he pulled Remus in an embrace.
“Oi, Evans!”, James shouted across the table. “Mine smells like flowers. I’m guessing lilies. What do you think that means?” He wiggled his eyebrows and Lily rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please Potter”, Snape huffed, “nearly all the boys’ potions are going to smell like flowers. That’s just what girls’ shampoo smells like.”
“What does yours smell like then, Severus?”, Lily asked in a sweet voice. James was fuming out of his ears.
Snape shied away, not daring to look Lily in the eye. “Also lilies”, he admitted.
James tsked. “Creepy critter…” Then he turned to Peter. “So, Wormtail. What smell makes you swoon?”
Peter looked at the potion. He really must have done something wrong, because this made no sense at all. “I… I don’t know”, he stammered, because it was true.
“Come on…”, James urged. “Don’t be shy.”
“I don’t know!”, Peter said again. “I don’t know what this smell is.”
“There must be something you recognise”, Sirius weighed in. There absolutely was. Peter never said he didn’t recognise the smell, because that would have been a lie. He knew exactly who it belonged to. He only said he didn’t know what that smell was. Peter raised his shoulders.
“Well, is it flowery?”, James asked. “Because apparently, most boys smell something flowery.”
Peter hesitated, smelling the potion again. “I- I don’t think so.”
“Does it smell like food?”, Remus helped. “home-baked cookies? A warm meal?”
“No…”
“Cigarettes?”, Sirius tried.
“No, it doesn’t… It doesn’t smell like anything I know.”
“Like potions textbooks?”, Remus asked without hesitation. Peter just glared before he laughed at himself.
“No.”
“You’re a weird one, Wormtail”, James said while consolingly patting his back. “Let us know when your nose got its memory back.”
It wasn’t a matter of memory. Peter had once heard it was impossible to forget a smell. A little fun fact he decided to keep to himself right now. Forever. The problem was, Peter had no clue what he was smelling even when Gilderoy Lockhart passed right by him in the hallway. His scent was strange, and intriguing, because he smelled like nothing Peter knew. It didn’t even remind him of anything. It was all just… Lockhart. Nothing else.
His friends forgot about it after a few minutes while Slughorn explained the real uses of amortentia. A love potion. It all sounded pretty illegal if you’d ask Peter. Love shouldn’t happen through a potion. Luckily, Slughorn and his classmates seemed to agree.
Every grey hair on Merlin’s beard must have thoroughly hated Peter Pettigrew when the door of the classroom swung open and revealed none other than the obnoxious, flamboyant, attention-attracting Gilderoy Lockhart himself. “I forgot my pen last lesson”, he announced instead of excusing himself for interrupting Slughorns lecture.
“Not a problem”, the professor said. “While you’re here, would you mind telling us what this smells like?” He didn’t say what potion they were making, purposefully messing with his student to get an honest answer out of him. Gilderoy leaned over the cauldron with way too much flair for any Ravenclaw to possess. He whiffed and then he scrunched his nose in disgust. “Ew”, he said deprecatory, “this smells like vermin.”
“That an… interesting answer”, Slughorn commented. “Thank you, mister Lockhart. You may go now.”
While the whole class laughed their asses off, making fun of Gilderoy, Peter felt his cheeks go hot. Vermin. The only reasonable explanation for someone smelling vermin in amortentia, would be if their crush happened to be an animagus. That was why Remus smelled dog in his, after all, because of Padfoot. Gilderoy had smelled Wormtail. He had smelled Peter.
-
When Peter crossed Gilderoy Lockhart again in the hallway, he found himself lingering a bit longer than he was supposed to. He feigned an undone shoelace and crouched to fix it, but the only thing he was really focused on, was Gilderoys smell. The blonde boy let out a boisterous laugh as he boasted about some impressive feat on the quidditch field to his friends, and Peter got distracted. The smell, the laugh and the shoelaces that weren’t at all undone were too much to focus on all at once. He got up, pretending to be done tying his shoelaces, and unintentionally looked Gilderoy straight in the eye. His conversation died down for a second as he stared back. Peter got red at all the attention that was suddenly focussed on him. “Can I help you with something?”, Gilderoy asked, looking down at him.
Peter already stammered before he even got to think of an answer. “I… I- Sorry- I’ll go now”, he panicked.
“Where will you go, Pettigrew?”, Gilderoy asked unreasonably calm as he eyed him up and down.
Peter felt so stared at, it was insane. He opened his mouth to say something, but again, he hadn’t thought of any words yet. “…O-out?”
“Out?”, Gilderoy echoed. “Well, off you go then.” He turned back to his friends and continued to act like Peter didn’t exist.
At first, Peter did head out, but as soon as his feet his the courtyard, he realised something. If Gilderoy Lockhart was here, in the hallway, chatting away with his Ravenclaw friends for what would probably last at least another hour, that also meant Gilderoy Lockhart and his Ravenclaw friends weren’t in the Ravenclaw common room.
Peter smirked. He was a marauder, after all. He should do some marauding if he so pleased. He turned on his heels, got back inside and ran to the Gryffindor tower first. There, in the marauders’ room he took the map and checked, just to be sure. The Ravenclaw tower was indeed completely deserted. Just to be more inconspicuous, Peter morphed into Wormtail and left. Along the beams in the ceiling and through small cracks and holes in the walls, he made his way to the Ravenclaw tower. Once he got to their common room, he morphed back into his human form and got to the bedroom. Rats weren’t exactly known for being good at opening trunks and going through peoples’ stuff.
Peter didn’t know what bed belonged to Gilderoy, so he guessed it would be the one surrounded by the most and the largest suitcases, since Lockhart always seemed to be dressed in impeccable, fashionable, new clothes. He found mountains of those clothes, and make-up, what a diva, and hair products, but nothing that looked remotely like cologne.
Then he froze in shock as the door opened behind him. Peter had never become Wormtail so fast in his life. Gilderoy walked in, still talking and boasting to his friends who followed closely behind, and only shutting up when he noticed his trunks laying open, precious clothes spilled out and a rat right in the middle of it. He squealed and jumped on the bed closest to him. There goes all the bravery he claimed to master.
“Get that beast out of here!”, he yelled at his friends. They didn’t scream and take cover like brave Lockhart, but neither were they very keen on interacting with a rat, so they slowly and silently backed off to the common room again. Wormtail made a run for it and left the scene of the crime. Only when he got far enough into the castle, he hid behind a statue where he turned back into Peter. He was dissatisfied and out of breath, but no-one had seen him. That was a close call.