misery loves company ~RHIAN

[PETER MICHAEL PETTIGREW]

Peter was sulking around the ministry. They had kept telling him over and over that Sirius had betrayed James (who ended up with Lily somehow), which made James die at the hand of Voldemort. But they did say that if James and Lily didn't die, Voldemort would have survived. He tried to tell them that Sirius would never betray James, that Sirius would rather die than betray his friends. But they wouldn't listen. Peter tried suggesting that if James never died then Voldemort never would have died himself. They did see some logic in that, but they maintained the fact that he couldn't see Sirius, even though he was here with them, displaced from time.

In his avid concentration on his thoughts, trying to understand how he could be in a different time when he only had contact with ministry people so far, he did not realize that his feet were carrying him away from the area that the people said he could go. The instant he realized this, he looked around him and did not recognize anything around him. Where was he? He must have been in some other part of the Ministry, but this wasn't near his quarters! There were places that he didn't recognize, and if he was caught here he would surely get in trouble. He didn't want that, especially right now when he was all alone.

Peter began panicking slightly, and ran back the direction that he had come, trying to find his quarters again. However, as he ran, he heard a voice coming. He didn't have time to know what the voice was saying, but he knew it would get him in trouble. Peter was not a fast person, and they forced him to not have the yummy food he preferred (they said they wouldn't allow him to make himself unhealthy, and so they gave him health foods, bleh), and so the two mixed together made him getting away even harder. He spotted a door not to far, and it reminded him of his door. If he had time to sigh, he would, thinking he had found his way back to his quarters. He yanked the door open and hurried inside, standing against the door.

Peter looked around, and it took him a second before it dawned on him; this wasn't his quarters. Who's was it? Peter didn't want to stay to find out (even though whomever lived here could be there, he just didn't observe the room enough to see), but he was frozen when he heard the footsteps pass the door. He couldn't leave now, or he would be caught. He didn't want to be caught.

[RHIANNON MNEMOSYNE HEATHCOTE]

This was a royal mess. This whole situation was a rotten mess and no one was telling the people in the middle of it a damned thing. Rhiannon wasn't half as assertive as she'd like to be be even she was giving serious thought to demanding some information. As of the current moment she had three ideas of how to go about that and didn't really like any of them. Pressing her lips into a flat line, she frowned out the window. She'd sent off another owl to Iasa and Lily. Merlin, that was a mess in and of itself. Her jaw clenched tight, her teeth squeaking in protest. If this hadn't happened, if they hadn't been ripped out of their present to their future, Rhian would have lived to see her parents dead and outlive her two dearest friends. If the Ministry people were to believed she had done just that before getting reverted to her current self.

She stifled a groan and pressed the heels of her hand against her eyes. The thought made her absolutely sick. Physically sick. Blindly, she stumbled back until her legs hit the edge of her bed where she sat down a little too quickly to be entirely intentional. This was too damn much for a sixteen year old to handle alone. "Le Fay's tits," she hissed, pressing her hands into her eyes until she saw dancing lights. How the hell she was supposed to handle this?

She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. Information. She needed information. If she was going to be stuck in the Ministry she'd may as well put her location to good use. Getting to her feet, Rhian smoothed the wrinkles from her robes and collected her thoughts. She would have to take a risk, which she hated doing, but without doing so she'd never get anywhere.

"Right." She squared her shoulders and tried to ignore the twisty feeling in her gut and the fuzzy, buzzing feeling in her ears. As she turned to the door, to her surprise, it swung open. The person who opened it couldn't have surprised her more with his presence. True, she had just read he was here with them, in this time, but she hadn't expected him to barge into her room. "Peter!" she yelped, hurtling herself at him to hug him tight. A friendly, familiar face. She didn't even know what to say to him. She wanted to ask a million questions, wanted to say a million things. But all she did was remind herself to breathe.

[PETER MICHAEL PETTIGREW]

Peter spotted Rhian just before she yelled his name. He knew her! She was Iasa's friend, and Lily's friend, and a Slytherin, right? If she was here, then how could it be the future? Or maybe she was caught up in this too? Either way it was just amazing to see someone who wasn't those weird ministry people. He was sure that the next person he would meet would be an old person who he saw the day before he arrived here as a young person. But no, it was Rhian!

Oh, but wait. He just barged into her quarters. For all he knew she could've been changing, and he would've been in trouble and saw her not fully dressed. He couldn't be mean and do that, though Sirius and James would be happy with him and praise him for see Rhian not full dressed. Luckily, for the innocent 16 year old's mind, she was fully dressed and yelled out his name.

Peter yelped, first fearfully because he thought she was going to hit him as she charged up to him, but when she had hugged him, Peter blushed, his whole face turning as red as a tomato. Nearly falling over, if it weren't for the door behind him supporting him, but he still stumbled and nearly crumpled to the ground from the charge hug. It was really nice to see a familiar face that wasn't a grumpy old Ministry worker.

"Rhiannon!" Peter replied fairly loudly, as she hugged him, "How're you?" He was always the gentleman, and stuck with a nice introduction, wanting to know how she was doing. He was smiling, but also worried whoever passed had heard her, and would walk in and get the wrong impression since she was hugging him.

[RHIANNON MNEMOSYNE HEATHCOTE]

It didn't matter that it wasn't someone near and dear to her heart. Peter was good people and he was safe and he was here. She would have to send Lily and Iasa an owl soon; let them know he was alright. It was only fair, after all, he was more their friend than hers. But right now that was a background thought. The thoughts in the forefront of her mind poured out of her mouth in a rapid babble that was more stream of consciousness than anything else. "Lily said she thought she saw you but I was afraid to hope it'd be so easy to find you. Oh, Merlin, I'm so glad to see a familiar face. Are you ok? Have they told you anything? Anything useful, I mean. All I know is that my parents are dead and I had a cat and a owl." Then she realized she was babbling and shut her mouth with an audible click.

Rhiannon Heathcote was not known for being clingy, or even chatty, much less babbly. Flushing in embarrassment, she took a deep breath and unlocked her arms from around Peter. She shifted awkwardly and, ears burning, gave Peter a sheepish look. "I- Sorry, Peter," she rasped and stepped back further. "Sorry, I just.. I haven't seen a familiar face since all this happened."

Rhian ran a hand through her hair, mussing it, and flatly ignored the nervous twisting in her gut. She blew out a break and laughed uneasily, but not quite hysterically. "Didn't mean to go all wobbly at you. You're okay though?" She gestured at the room, vaguely. "Want to sit down?" There was a chair at the desk and a softer chair by the window. Then she looked from the door to his face and back again, her look turning appraising. "Are you running away from someone or...?" Her eyebrows quirked up and she looked more amused than worried. She knew well the kind of trouble Peter and his friends could get up to but she never saw Peter as the instigating type.

[PETER MICHAEL PETTIGREW]

Rhian suddenly burst forth with a bunch of questions at once that Peter had trouble keeping up with, but he managed it, luckily. But he wasn't quite sure what he would answer to her. She wouldn't believe him if he told her what they told him about Sirius, even if she didn't particularly like Sirius. They all knew that Sirius would never do what they said that he did. He was afraid that Rhian wouldn't believe him. He didn't want to be known as a liar, but not telling her about it would be mean. Peter was planning on telling them eventually anyways.

"It's ok, Rhian, I know what you mean... Er, ok," Peter replied trying to remember everything that she had asked him, "I'm doing fine, though they don't have very good food here..." Peter answered her first question, and then he thought about how he would tell her what they had told him. "The Ministry People say that I can't room with Sirius. They say that he betrayed James, and..." Peter trailed off, before he sighed and added, "They said that Sirius killed me, but I don't believe them. Sirius wouldn't do that to me, or James, or anyone besides maybe Sniv- Snape." He had grown used to calling Snape Snivellus, but when he was talking to others about him, he did try not to use the name, because it was mean. His friends liked to call Snape that, but that didn't mean that he would use the name when not around them.

"I-I'm fine, I wasn't expecting you to hug me like that," Peter responded, "Thank you." He took the seat by the desk that she had indicated, and sat down. He was tired from running and getting an attack hug that had surprised him; he would regain his balance soon anyways. "Oh well... I got lost, and I was trying to get back to my quarters, but I heard someone coming, and I was worried I'd get in trouble. I-I thought your room was my room, and I came in."

[RHIANNON MNEMOSYNE HEATHCOTE]

It was eminently clear that Rhian was feeling horribly embarrassed about her little outburst. But while she was embarrassed, she wasn’t ashamed of it. For all she knew Peter had died just like Iasa and Lily and she hated to even consider such a thing. Did everyone she know end up dead!? She never put much belief in things like foul weather jacks but if this pattern kept up she might start having to take another look at the idea. At the moment though, just being able to confirm someone she knew with her own senses was going a long way to reassure and ground her.

She cracked a smile at Peter’s quip about the crap food the Ministry was serving. He did have a perfectly valid point, there. As he continued, however, her smile flickered out and blood drained from her face, leaving her once flushed cheeks pallid. Her jaw clenched and her fingers twitched. Rhian opened her mouth to say something but what was there to say? The expression on her pale face; shocked, but unsurprised, disbelief; probably said all that needed to be said. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and took a deep breath before muttering something about leashes and protective bubble charms, not even seeming to notice the almost-slur of Severus’s name.

When Peter took the desk chair, Rhian perched on the edge of her bed and took a moment to collect herself. She looked back to Peter when he spoke and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” she reiterated, shifting slightly where she sat. The explanation Peter gave for barging in like he did made her smile wider than she had since she had woken up in the wrong time. Apparently some things never changed. “Well, I’m glad you got lost,” she told him frankly. “And besides, some rules are made to be broken. What were they going to do to a Gryffindor out of his room in circumstances like this? It’s practically expected of you, I’d think.”

[PETER MICHAEL PETTIGREW]

It was all so terrible. He hadn't heard of anything happening to Rhian, but who knew what would've happened to her if all of them seemed to die anyways. Maybe she was tortured, left by someone she loved, living in the worst conditions ever, or something like that. Some sort of life living without them, if she was alive. But she looked like this aging thing had happened to her. Peter had thought that perhaps only dead people were brought to life, and that maybe Sirius had died as well when he was on the run as the ministry people said, or something. So did that mean Rhian was dead too?!? Did everyone die that he knew? Next he knew he was going to find out that the McKinnons died, or the Longbottoms had gone insane or died, or something like that. So much pain had been brought upon those from the 70's, including himself, betrayed by his own friends.

"I-I didn't mean to upset you," Peter said seeing her face seem upset as he told her what he had learned, even though the Ministry People wouldn't explain anything much further than that. It wasn't like was going to tell her how they said that Remus Lupin wouldn't be able to take him because he was discovered to be a werewolf a couple years ago. He was a good secret keeper when it came to that at least. "Do you know why all of this had to turn out like it did? Why so many bad things happened to us?" It was something he had been wanting to know ever since the ministry people told him what had happened.

"I suppose. I haven't gotten lost except for once, and apparently I was very close to my room, so they weren't mad at me... If they caught me who knows where, I bet they would be mad and lock me up in my room with protective spells," Peter explained. It was somewhat embarrassing, because he was literally right next to his door, and he didn't think that it was his door, but a door to someone's office, thinking he had walked a long distance. Apparently he was wrong, and they had been fairly nice to him about it.

[RHIANNON MNEMOSYNE HEATHCOTE]

This whole mess of a situation was enough to give Rhian a headache. Scratch that. It had given her one, and more than once. Not that anyone was telling her anything useful, but she couldn't make heads or tails of any suggestion of a possible rational explanation for any of it. So far it looked like all the people she had known at all who had been pulled forward in time like this all ended up dead in the timeline the rest of the world knew; but not her. So that put a gaping hole in the idea that it was some weird second chance at life thing and that someone at the Ministry felt like playing God. Someone might still be playing God, but it wasn't for an easy to fathom reason; not that anyone with a God complex would likely be easy to fathom.

Of course, while Rhian might desperately want to fit some rhyme and reason to all of this, she wasn't about to do anything that might make it all go back to what the rest of the world would consider "normal". It was bad enough that her parents were dead. She was flat out not going to put up with anyone else being or ending up prematurely dead. Now if only those puffed up, stiff-necked, know-it-alls from the Ministry would deign to tell her something worth half a knut she might be able to start thinking up relevant ways to keep Lily and Iasa and Peter from ending up with a bad case of the dead again. The Ministry officials might tell her not to worry about it, that they had much more experianced and wiser people in charge of that. But they'd done such a good job the first time around that Rhian wasn't too likely to sit back and twiddle her thumbs like a good little girl. She wasn't really the type to go stepping on toes to get what she wanted but she was getting dangerously close to the end of her rope and she might start taking a few frighteningly Gryffindorish risks soon.

She gave Peter a reassuring flash of smile and shook her head at his apology. It wasn't his fault everyone had ended up dead. Besides, she wasn't about to turn down any shred of information that might help her keep people alive. "Not your fault, Peter. I was hopping-- I'm just so bloody sick of finding out everyone I know would be dead if all of this," she made a vague gesture to encompass the two of them and more, "hadn't happened." Shaking her head, Rhian pulled her legs up onto the bed to sit cross-legged. "I haven't a clue. I mean, it's not likely that we've all pissed off the same person enough for some kind of completely mental, impossible curse to be a reason." She rubbed the bridge of her nose and slouched. "It might just be phenomenally catastrophic luck, but I can't just accept that at face value." She flashed a rather weak grin. "Too Slytherin to accept that there aren't plots within plots wrapped in plans. The fact that no one is telling us anything is only making me less likely to assume it's all just chance."

But whether or not they were all stuck in some madman's plots, Peter was Peter and that was a good thing right now. It was a little bit a familiarity in a world that seemed to be turned on its head and Rhian truly appreciated it. "You're not who knows where, though," she replied with a slight glimmer of trouble in her eyes. "You're with me and this is theoretically my room." She gave the room a very dirty look but then shrugged philosophically. "Anyway, I'm sure I could keep them from locking you in your room like a recalcitrant toddler." Just because she didn't have a reputation for manipulation didn't mean Rhian couldn't play the game. It was almost a rite of passage in Slytherin, learning how to deftly manipulate events or people. Not everyone had a knack or need for it but it was a useful skill to learn.