The Bug Collector | marauders

Lost Flowers

tw: mentions of recreational drug use

Rose remained against her worktable, a small bag of chocolates sat atop it. A leather jacket hung gingerly over her shoulders.

"That Sirius' or your dad's?" Peter asked, eyes trained on her.

She looked down to her feet and Peter had his answer.

"It got cold." She explained a bit guilty.

"What a gentleman." Peter said, a snide pause between each word.

"But, I'm actually not here to discuss your incessant need for Sirius' approval." He continued, walking over to the object shrouded in a velvet cloth and unveiling a crystal ball.

"Do you remember the last time we used one of these together with the lads?" Peter asked, Rose nodded.

"I don't remember what exactly it was I saw, but yeah I remember doing it." She said while picking at the wood of the table behind her.

"I remember precisely what I saw. Hard thing to forget really." He said, Rose shifted uncomfortably, glancing up at the moon filling the sky through the glass ceiling.

"Isn't it the time you'd join the lads?" She asked, Peter took his eyes off the crystal to look into Rose's, like two emeralds glistening with concern.

"Padfoot and Prongs manage just fine without us. Once again, I'm here to talk to you." He said, taking a breath to sooth his own anxiety.

"What I saw." He continued.

"What I saw was you, Rose. I saw you raise your wand, thorns and all, and use the Killing Curse on me, and it when you were done I saw nothing else at all. I've held that burden." He said, finally letting go of the negative attitude, and allowing her to hear the genuine fear he felt.

"I've wondered what I could do. I've pulled away from the lads. I've obsessed over it. I've done all I know to do other than tell you the truth and try again." He explained, voice stretched thin with worry.

"You want us to look again? Together?" She asked, and the boy nodded meekly.

Rose put a hand on the crystal ball.

"Then we will. I could never hurt you, Pete. There must be a reason. We'll find it together. Even if you were a bit of a git earlier." She said, he placed his hand atop of her's.

"Then, we'll go help the boys and Moony." She said, sending Peter a supportive smile, her discomfort from earlier all but forgotten.

Rose had only joined the Marauders during full moons a handful of times after her very first experience with it. A mixture of her own underlying fear and Remus' refusal to have her help kept her from it, but she remembered each time she'd seen him that way.

Even with the Wolfsbane potion, Remus would scream and bloody his hands against the walls. It was like he wanted to enclose in on himself. His body stretched and contorted, nails grew long. The wolf looked so different from Remus, it looked so different from any human form at all that Rose had to question how it had ever been a human.

But it had been. It was still Remus.

"You ready, Thorns?" Pete asked, taking their hands off the crystal ball preparing to look into it.

"I have to be." She said, and the pair peered into the crystal together, their intention focused on seeing a better future.

Within the smoky orb Rose saw herself, her hair was even shorter and jaggedly cut, she leaned against a stone wall, water dripped down into the dungeon where she sat. Rats scuttled in the distance.