traduttore; traditore

timeline —

PRIMARY …………… puddlemere ‘78 (graduated) UNIVERSITY …………… hogwarts ‘81 (language degree pending) APPERANCES …………… fiendfire dating gameshow ‘81 (contestant)

biography —

꧁ Chapter 1 - Trailer Park Boys

Before the Statute of Secrecy was broken, Half-The-Gap was a secret stretch of field on the outskirts of Canterbury where a community of wixen formed a trailer park. Some units, like the Pettigrew’s caravan, were permanent fixtures. Others came and went. As a young boy he loved his neighborhood, but that was before the world taught him shame and jealousy. When he began studying at Puddlemere School for Boys, rather than learn to appreciate what his parents had sacrificed for him to go there he began to hate them for the things they hadn’t provided that he now saw others had. Things he did not really need, but wanted now that he knew they existed. Peter spent some time being a very angry and whiny teenager about it, but seeing that it got him nowhere he began to hustle instead. He was quickly pulled into the world of gambling, where you were always one more try away from everything you’ve ever wanted. In part because he had grown up around so many people from so many places coming and going, Peter developed a natural proclivity for language. He used this a lot at first to eavesdrop and, yes, to cheat his way through a few of the foreign gambling rings he’d found. No one expected the spindly hick kid in his holey trainers would know a word of the shit they were talking in their mother tongue. 

꧁ Chapter 2 - If There’s A Place You’ve Got To Get, I Can Get You There I Bet

For as much as he begrudged his parents, Peter exhausted equal energy to hero-worship his uncle. June Pettigrew’s brother, Dec Harmon, was an honest-to-merlin pirate in the wizarding world. He stank always of liquor sweat, his beard was an unnatural golden hue that matched his teeth, and some time ago under circumstances he would not recount to Peter no matter how often the boy begged to hear the tale, Captain Dec had lost the entirety of his left leg which was replaced not by the standard wood or charmed metal, but by the tentacle of a squid so that no matter where the man went a sort of ominous sucking sound did follow until he died tragically, but predictably, at wand point on the high seas. Having no children of his own (or at least none he knew by name), Dec willed all of his belongings to Peter, which would have been exciting if the extent of Dec’s possessions were not, definitively: one stained recliner; thirty-seven fishing rods; one deep freezer; a van with no engine named Black Betty; forty pounds of live bait; a “cabin” that made the Shrieking Shack look like a five star resort; the mess of nonsense maps and papers within; a collection of some of the most expensive and beautiful shoes Peter had ever seen... all size 13 and fitting right feet only. 

꧁ Chapter 3 - Rat Bastard

Peter was a different person when he was with the boys he would learn to call brother. He wasn’t the rambunctious, happy faced boy he’d been born, but nor was he the conniver he turned into at a card table. Alongside them he felt normal, which was ironic only in that not one of the four boys had been nor ever would be normal. They proved that when they broke the law to turn themselves into animals and chase after a werewolf on the full moon. The first night they ran like that together, Peter finally understood it. Why Uncle Dec could have so little wealth to show for all that treasure hunting and pirating, yet still be a king on the sea. The Forbidden Forest was Peter’s sea; the boys beside him crewmates. They even had their own map. Peter had found his treasure, he knew that and he knew how lucky that made him. That’s the trouble with being a pirate at heart though: there’s always another treasure out there. Shiner, bigger, better. And each time you give up the last one for the new one, the price becomes steeper and steeper.

dating history  —

Clem, with expert precision, balanced the cup of cheese in one hand, and used her other one and her teeth to open the bag of tortilla chips. You would have been right to guess she’d had a lot of practice. “You can cash in your points for gold stars, if you want, once you’ve saved some up. You could get a nice collection of them that way.” She walked slowly, dipping crisps into cheese periodically, looking for a place they could hunker down and finish the rest of the joint. 

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“Sounds like you’re trying to short me,” Peter said around the crunch of a chip. “Trading one set of functionally worthless currency for another.” He steered them in the direction he’d just run from, not above sitting on the ground if it came to it. “That’s fine, I’ll take it.” It was all for fun anyway. It always was with Clem. Fun. 

Clem, all alone in the tunnel now, laughed as she listened to Peter’s whoop turn into moans and groans, its echo bouncing back to her, making it seem as though he was whispering into her ear. She felt okay laughing because he was obviously alright, if he was able to speak. Her concern would have been greater if he had landed silently. She waited until the noise had died down completely and added a few more seconds for good measure before setting off. She hardly wanted to land in a heap on top of him, did she? 

It was the first time Clem had felt joy in longer than she could remember. It made her think of the slippery slip in the Enchanted Forest books she had read as a child, something she’d always wished was real. Well, swap tree for Quidditch stadium and it sort of was. She whooped with delight too as she sped up, making no attempt to slow herself down as she approached the bottom, light flooding up the tunnel. She soon regretted that, given the hard landing. 

The first thing out of her mouth was, “Fuck, the house elves who work here must have terribly bruised bottoms.” The second was, as her eyes sparkled, “My nachos.” The third time she spoke, it was to answer all of Peter’s questions. “Yes, they can accrue, if you want to save them up. There’s no tax involved so you can have— I think fifty is fair— you can have fifty points and what they’re good for likely depends on how many you have.” In other words, she didn’t really know. 

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“Fifty,” Peter repeated the sum with a decisive nod. He wasted little time in handing a bag of the chips over, and a obscenely large cup of cheese. “I’m going to start keeping tally,” he promised over the sound of a plastic bag crinkling open. “I fucking love to win points. Doesn’t matter what for. Remember in school when they’d give out gold stars? I was so good at getting gold stars.” Half of this, he said around a fistful of nacho. 

For better or worse, Sturgis found himself thrown back into the ring. “Yeah,” he nodded, attempting to feign confidence but fearing he merely came across as guarded and opaque. “We ought to do that.” He lifted his gaze, hazel eyes meeting Peter’s followed by a reassuring nod. “I’ll be in touch.” And with that, he made his exit, desperate to put space between himself and the emotions that sought to bubble to the surface. 

“It almost got me killed,” Sturgis added a little too sharply. But the fact of the matter was, he should have been dead. It was a fact that now, given his memories of that summer had returned, he wasn’t keen on forgetting. “I have it in a vault at Gringott’s.” He thought, for a moment, that he ought not to share these facts plainly with a stranger. But then another thought came to the surface, that even if someone managed to break into a complex virtually impenetrable, Sturgis didn’t care what happened. The trauma of it all still lingered. Too soon, he thought. It was too soon to fall down this rabbit hole again. 

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“Shit,” Peter breathed. For a boy who knew many words, he said few of them. “I’ve just been keeping my uncle’s in a desk drawer.” He couldn’t hold back the grimace as he considered his own ineptitude. A Gringott’s Vault, that’s where you should keep things of value. Except Peter had never had anything of value in his life, so when he’d come into the few possessions of his uncles that supposedly were how would he know what to do with them? 

Peter could tell the other boy was guarded on the matter, but he showed his hand anyway when he asked, “You want to compare them sometime?” His heart hammered hard in his chest, he felt he was on the precipice of a huge win and it was contingent on the next words out of a mere stranger’s mouth. Without meaning to, he found himself tracing the lines in the stone yet again, drawn to the power of them. This was something. He knew it was. 

Sturgis swallowed hard, banishing the bile in his stomach. He shoved his hands into pockets, praying they would cease shaking. He loathed this feeling, the lack of control, the haunted sensation of the past he could never change—no matter how hard he tried. He blinked, feeling wetness in his eyes but refusing to let any tears spill down his cheeks. It was embarrassing. Sturgis felt embarrassed. 

“I can’t say I’m particularly gifted with cartography,” he managed to choke out. It helped, focussing on the map. Swallowing whatever emotion desperately wanted to crawl out of him. “But—” He cleared his throat. “I found a map similar to this a couple of years ago.” 

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Peter didn’t know exactly what it was he expected his companion to say, but whatever he might have expected it certainly wasn’t that. He ran the odds of this meaning something in his head, it was something Peter wasn’t very good at but which he enjoyed nonetheless because it made him feel more confident in the gambles he made. 

He believed in luck more than odds though, so even when they were unlikely he usually chose to take the risk anyway. After all, maybe it was luck that had merged their paths together today. However against the odds it might have seemed for them to genuinely be on to something. “What did you do with it?”

“Oh, it’s of school. Well you could have led with that. The world is a big, wide place. It could have been a map to anywhere. Hidden treasure, for all I knew. That could have been your announcement you’re about to take up the pirate’s life. Which wouldn’t be bad. Lots of rum. But you might get scurvy.” At least, that’s what she knew from Treasure Island. 

Clem laughed. The sound reverberated off the steel of the tunnel, echoing all around them. “A whoop,” she agreed. “But you’d better get to it before all the air in this place runs out and you haven’t got breath left for one.” She nudged him with her toe. “I’ll see you at the bottom. Bonus points if you have nachos waiting for me.” Unlikely, since it would likely only take her a few seconds longer than Peter to make her way to the bottom, but she said it anyway. 

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“I could have, but June always said ‘keep ‘em guessing’ and maybe something of her shrilling stuck to me after all.” He felt a little grouchy making the joke, and his voice was a hair deeper for it. But it just as easily could have been the echo as the tunnel now came to its walking tour end. His smile still shone in the wandlight. “Maybe I will be a pirate.” His uncle had done it, why not him, too? “And if that’s the case, I’d better leap before I look.” Which was exactly what Peter did. His body was gone, slipping and sliding and careening towards the unknown end, one long whoop following behind him like a tether to the firmer world he’d left behind. 

The shout ended in an audible oof, ow, shit as ass met ground, but as far as Peter could tell he was mostly still all intact. Intact, and alone. Which meant...

In an instant the world grew taller and wider around him. His nose twitched, his tail too, and Peter scurried so quickly through the maze of the House Elves’ hallways straight for the kitchens that he surprised even himself with how quickly his nose led him to the promised land: the 99% plastic nacho cheese. And he hadn’t needed to stand in a queue to get it. No eyes were prying in the kitchens, so Peter morphed back and started grabbing bags of chips and filling containers with cheese. 

It took him longer to get back than it had to get there without the extra set of legs, but he still managed to turn the bend in time to head her off. “How many bonus points, and what are they good for, and do they accrue, and is this before or after tax?”

Clem’s forehead creased in the near darkness. “A map?” she repeated. She could hear the pride in Peter’s voice. And being good at Charms like she was, she knew he had that right— putting a spell onto something powerful to last was tricky. Definitely beyond the usual university level. Some people worked years to be able to do that. Charmed items at Zonko’s wore off quicker than you could use them sometimes. “A map of where? ‘Cause if you need one to find your way out of your own house, you’re smoking to much weed.” Speaking of which, she handed the joint forward. 

Clem nodded her head, not that Peter could see. “Well the screaming isn’t a dealbreaker, but I won’t judge you if you do it. What happens in the tunnel stays in the tunnel. But— yeah. It’s a fucking slide. If I’d known this stadium had a slide running the whole way down the middle of it, I might have come to games for more than the nachos. There’s only one way down this, and logistically, you’re first.”

.

"Hey," Peter protested, taking the joint, "not to get out of the flat, but from the dorms to the dungeons?" He took a deep breath of smoke, and smiled big as it left him. "Tell me you never got lost in Hogwarts and I’ll tell you you’re a liar." Not that directions were even close to the coolest thing about the map, but that was explanation for later.

"What about one long whoop?" He needed to know before he took the plunge, which he was very obviously preparing for, tucking his things into his pockets and laying down the wrung out jacket for extra slip.

Clem let out a hoot of laughter. “Shut up? It’s not possible, not about that. I suspect there has to be some sort of a story, since you don’t strike me as a person who willingly goes around referring to themselves as Chief Man. You’ll have to accept my apologies if I don’t start taking orders from you.” Despite the circumstances that found the pair in this tunnel, she couldn’t help but enjoy it— stuck in a dark tunnel, the easy teasing between them. For a time she could forget about her legal troubles. 

Clem peered over Peter’s shoulder, using the lit end up of his wand to see how the tunnel began to slope downwards, more like a slide than anything else. Which meant— “You do realise there’s only one way down this?” Fun in the moment, she thought, but if the bottom was flooded, there was going to be no preventing the heavy, cloying feel of wet clothes she so hated.

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Because there would be no way for her to see it, Peter didn’t waste the energy trying to hide the war of thoughts cross his face. He wrestled with himself, wondering what of his life and the boys’ was secret, and what of it wasn’t? He couldn’t tell her about turning into a rat at will. He’d known that from the beginning, the thought never so much as crossed his mind. The map wasn’t illegal though. It wasn’t a relic of fable like the cloak. It was just... a tattered piece of paper. A complex stream of spells. A map to a school Clem had already graduated from. 

“It’s a password.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “A spell, kind of. Or, it was supposed to be. Some of the letters’ve rubbed off.” He felt his heart swell and tighten with that pride. “The lad’s and I made a map. Mischief Managed. That’s how you read it. Er, well,” Peter paused to step over a puddle and point it out to her, “how you stop reading it and hide the evidence.”

Peter could think of about six ways down it, so it took him a second to try and guess right which of them she might have meant. “On our arses, hands in the air screaming?” He reached back for the joint. 

Clem clicked her tongue disapprovingly at Peter, as her hand reached out to snatch the lighter in mid air. It was a wonder she managed, given the poor aim. “Well if you didn’t want me to, you shouldn’t have said not to. Now I won’t be able to help myself. It’s like being put in front of a big red button that says don’t press.” She would press it, undoubtedly. Resistance wasn’t her forte. 

Before Clem followed Peter into the tunnel, she pulled a joint out of her tin and lit it, puffing fast on it a few times until it caught. Then, with a duck and an odd little shuffle, she was in the tunnel too. She closed the panelling behind her, sealing their secret, but, unfortunately she also sealed them off from any light. It was pitch black inside, making her wonder if there were some sort of magic the house elves used to light it up. Clem swore loudly, unable to get her wand and hold the joint in the tight space. “Can you get your wand?” she called to Peter, before adding with a snigger, “Chief Man.” 

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Peter burned red in the dark, slapping a big hand over his face. “Shut up,” he warned with a laugh about the lighter. It took some wiggling, most of which was gratuitous, but he managed to pull the wand from its pocket along the seam of his jeans. Lumos revealed the few feet ahead of them, but little more. “I hope it doesn’t end in a sudden drop.” To himself he thought: this would be so much easier as a rat. 

With each step the tunnel seemed to narrow and slant more, but if Peter felt nervous about it he did an excellent job of hiding it. It was people that gave him anxiety more than danger. “If I die in here and you make it out, make sure they spell my name right on the tombstone. C-h-i-e-f-space-m-a-n.”

14. describe the hypothetical best day of your life

It’s a map. 

Sturgis found himself positive of only one thing, that he was moments away from this throat closing. That air would no longer seep into his lungs and he would crumble onto the ground like discarded paper. Because physically he was here, deep inside ruins long discovered and seen by wixen. But mentally, he was trapped within a memory. A memory once lost but found again. Fragmented, yet clear enough. A time that felt like another life, when he, too, found a map. A map that lead him to nothing but his own misery and suffering. 

He wanted to vomit. 

“Can I see it?” His voice was thick, hoarse. He licked his lips, hoping that he would summon the strength to pull his mind back to the present. To be here, not there. Not in a place of pain in suffering. In a memory that visited him only in nightmares bathed in dusty moonlight. 

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Peter considered himself somewhat an expert in language, and body language was no exception to that. He clocked Sturgis’ discomfort the moment he turned around to answer, he just wasn’t sure what to do about it. He only hoped it didn’t meant Sturgis was about to bow down or, worse, snitch. 

He stepped back from the wall, giving Sturgis plenty of space, and then cast a bright light from his wand over the carvings. “There,” he pointed to the one of the deeper grooves, “that’s a lake, I’d bet. Maybe a quarry. The quarry? It was too early to say. The world was made of pockets of water, who knew where this one might be? “And over there, I think that’s a mountain range.” 

Or, maybe it was just a pattern in the stone, worn by water, and Peter was only seeing what he wanted to see. “My uncle had a lot of maps,” he offered, somewhat conversationally. Peter realized technically, what he should have said since his uncle’s passing was that Peter had a lot of maps. He’d just never had use to look through them before. 

“Oh, the embarrassment, definitely,” Clem grinned, unable to even say such a thing to Peter with a straight face. There had never been any embarrassment between them. When you begin your friendship in a paddling pool of bubbles, there’s isn’t anywhere else to go but up. 

Clem did hear it and it was enough for her to smile widely at the notion they’d soon be out of this rain and inside without having to navigate the crush of the crowd, and that was to speak nothing of the nachos that awaited her, she hoped. But it still needed to be opened. She rested on her haunches beside the hollow part, running her hands over it carefully and when that revealed nothing, beside it, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration. 

It seemed futile at first, but then she felt it. Invisible to the eye and almost invisible to to the touch but there if you were looking for it— a small indent, the shape and size of a house elf finger. It wouldn’t need a wand, Clem knew, because house elves weren’t allowed wands, unfair as that was. So she pressed inwards, fingers crossed it didn’t require magic. 

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Click, pop, clank and the paneling opened to them revealing a long, dark passageway that had not been built for comfort and which slanted dramatically downwards as it wound towards the concessions. Peter did reach for his wand, and ignited the tip in a bright magic that would show the way. He took in a deep breath and then ducked down as low as he could to enter. 

“No staring at my arse, I’m very shy,” he warned in jest as he shimmied through the entrance and began the event of their decent. “And maybe you should light the joint before you get in here,” he called back. It was about as spacious as he’d imagined. He fished a lighter out from his back pocket and with poor aim given he couldn’t turn around to look where he was tossing it, threw it to Clem. It was old and some of the letters he’d painted on it once had rubbed off. It now read: CHIEF MAN instead of Mischief Managed as once intended. 

“Oh, true,” Clem said thoughtfully, as she mulled this fact over. Not the rolling up her jeans, the size they’d be if she sat on Peter’s shoulders. I could lie flat on your back whilst you wiggled along like a snake, she suggested with a cheeky look, obviously joking. Asking to go on his shoulders was reasonable. That was not. 

As she started to look around for signs of a hidden tunnel, Clem snorted. “I’d be worried if it was that. Imagine something so easy to guess being all that stands between the safety of the nachos.” She groaned slightly longingly as she remembered her abandoned portion. Her mouth watered. “You know what these tunnels’ll be good for,” she added, looking at Peter wryly as she pulled a familiar, battered tin out of her back pocket and held it up. 

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“If I agreed to it,” Peter was at least willing to entertain as they sought their exit, “which do you reckon would kill me first, the water I’d drown in as I wiggled, or the embarrassment of it?”

He did know, but it didn’t stop the warmth of a smile spreading through him as she confirmed his suspicions. “Fewer anxious people trying to make quick friends,” he agreed with a few nods. 

More to the task, Peter ran his hands along the paneling of the stadium’s skeleton, searching for an indication of a door. A panel that opened, perhaps. A hitch. A gave one a kick, and then the next, and on the third was met with a distinctly different and hollower sound. He grinned back at her. “You hear that?” He’d have whooped if it wouldn’t have attracted attention they didn’t want. 

But it wasn’t nothing, and despite having nothing but his gut to go on, Sturgis sensed something. A feeling roaring to life within him, begging to be considered. A familiar energy that he hadn’t sensed since rushing to a portkey many months before. Eyes wide and scanning, heartbeat quickening, the tour group putting distance between them. Sturgis positioned himself in front of the wall, hands already reaching for his wand as Peter inquired about it. “Stand back.” And then, he pointed the wood to the wall. Revelio. Immediately, mist formed around them, but nothing budged. Sturgis’s brows knitted together in frustration. 

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Peter didn’t notice his companion’s lack of awe, too busy with his own abundance of it. Because there it was revealed to him, that same electric and violent blue piercing through the dark. Sturgis saw nothing, but Peter had to shield his eyes from the glow emanating from the cave wall. It illuminated pathways in the rock, ones that appeared to be formed by a constant drip and trickle of water throughout the years; one that Peter recognized to be something else. A topographical map. 

Eyes still adjusting, he ran his weathered palms over the rock again, understanding this time what he felt. “It’s a map,” he whispered, gaping at the section of cave. “It’s a map.” When he repeated the words they were louder than before. A map to what though? And was it really up to two strangers to find out? 

Hazily, Peter thought of his uncle. He had lived and died hunting treasures Peter could scarcely imagine. Peter knew that he itched to tack that same gamble. In a few short months University would be over for Peter. He knew that and it struck him with dread. What would he do after that? Peter didn’t feel ready to do the things he should be ready to do, like apply at the Ministry for translator positions, or find a place to live, or, or, or... 

This could be the answer to it all, he thought. An adventure. (More like a distraction).

“I’m not swimming in clothes,” Clem stated flatly. There was no worse feeling than water logged clothes. And okay, she had a wand, but she’d still have to put up with it for a while, until they got out of water and she could dry herself. “You’ll have to carry me on your shoulders. There’s no other way.” At last, the crowd was thinned out enough that they could speed up. It was only a few seconds after they hit the stairs. In Clem’s excitement she left the safety of the jacket behind, clambering up them as fast as she could. “I hope there’s no password,” she said, turning back to face Peter.

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“You can’t roll your jeans up?” Peter countered in protest, as if they didn’t both know he’d do whatever she asked of him. “House Elves are, like, two feet. How tall are you expecting these tunnels to be? Combined we’re a good eleven feet, you know.” Because it was easier to avoid getting separated in the crowd, Peter slung an arm over her shoulder. 

“I hope there is,” he replied, “and it’s something stupid like password1234.” He was relieved when they reached awning and his other arm could finally relax at his side, dripping jacket dangling lifelessly from it. 

Clem’s eyes widened as she digested the thought, took it on board, and agreed with it. “Tunnels,” she repeated, confirmation of her agreement. “And they cant be hard to find, not in a stadium full of seats. They can’t be behind any of those, not the way they’re packed in. Which means—” Her eyes turned, to the top of each set of stairs that ran through the aisles. A pointed finger followed. “They have to be there.” Her grin grew larger. 

.

His gaze followed where she instructed it, eyes lighting up with excitement. He did not think about the thousands of people panicked around them, some maybe injured or dead. Peter was just happy to have an adventure. He was taken care of, so the rest wasn’t really his problem. He continued to hold the jacket above as he changed directions. 

It was harder to cut through the crowd at first, going against them, but soon their mass thinned. No one else must have had the thought. “It might be a little flooded towards the end,” he suspected. Concessions were much lower to the ground than the box seats and presumed entrance. “You can swim, right?” Mostly he was joking.