The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Hokum and Codswallop

Peter was still laying in bed when James got back to the dormitory after breakfast. He shucked off his rucksack in the doorway, tossing it onto his trunk, and pulled off his jumper, laying it over the end of his four-poster. He glanced at Peter's bed - at the lump beneath the blankets. James picked up his school tie and looked it over before waving his wand to steam it, and he folded it nicely and tucked it into his drawer.

"Peter?" James called, "Mate, you awake?"

Peter didn't move. He couldn't.

"Pete? You alright, mate?" James tossed his wand, in it's scabbard, onto his bed and went over to where Peter lay, curled up beneath his cover. "Pete, you missed breakfast..." James put his hand on Peter's back but the moment he touched his friend, Peter squealed and jumped up out of the blankets, scrambling away and standing, his back against Remus's bed, staring back at James on the other side, who'd stood up the moment Peter had reacted so badly.

"No, don't touch me, don't touch me, I'm bad," Peter begged, looking terrified at James. He looked at his own hands, then back at James, "I'm bad, Prongs, I'm bad!"

"Bad?" James looked confused. "Pete, I dunno what you've been dreamin', but it's alright, you're awake now." His voice was gentle.

Peter was near tears, "No, no. It wasn't a dream, James. Look." And Peter bent down and scooped up the fallen tarot cards he'd been using the night before, all the different pictures splayed across the floor this way and that. He flapped the Death card at James. "Look. It wasn't a dream."

James took the card and squinted at it, moved his glasses down his nose, and said, "Well blimey, no wonder you're having nightmares! Look at that bugger." He frowned and chucked the card onto Peter's bed. "Are they all that dismal?"

"No," Peter said. He grabbed the one card from the bed and hurriedly shoved it back into the deck without looking at it. "It's an omen, James. It says death is coming. Death is coming for the Marauders - for you and Sirius and Remus - and it's my fault." Peter struggled to get the deck into the silk and velvet sack that protected them. "I'm bad."

James shook his head and took the deck away from Peter. "Mate, I dunno what goes on up in that Divination classroom, but I don't pretend not to think it' all hokum. If something's telling you that you're bad, then that is most definitely hokum. Alright?" James tossed the deck onto Sirius's unused bed across the room, but Peter still stood there, trembling, staring down at his feet. 

"Wasn't hokum when the stones told me where we could find you," Peter stammered, "It wasn't hokum that they led me right to you."

James had to admit that was a rather irrefutable point in Divination's corner. He said, "Well it's hokum now if it says you're anything but good, Pete."

"How do you know?" Peter asked, and his eyes were misty, "How do you know what'll happen tomorrow? The stones said it once, too, you know. The very stones that led me to you. And now they're predicting death, and---" Peter gulped. "It's best, perhaps, if I wasn't -- if you didn't --"

James raised an eyebrow.

"It's best if I'm not included," Peter said. He looked down at his toes.

"Codswallop!" James said emphatically. "Utter codswallop."

"It's for your own good!" Peter begged. "And I'm also pretty sure Sirius doesn't want me in the gang now any longer anyway. He all but said it before."

"And why's that?" James asked.

Peter flushed, "I - I said something I oughtn't have done to him."