"You're a Cute Girl"
Christopher did not want to be here.
There was a feeling of general unease that had ached in his bones from the moment he stepped onto the platform at King's Cross and found himself overwhelmed by the bodies around him. That unease had quieted when he quickly slipped into a lone compartment.
It had returned when James and Sirius barged in. Admittedly, he had left them not only to avoid being recruited into their friend group, but because of the increasing heart rate thudding in his chest. Being in a small compartment with other people, no matter how he rationalized (they're kids, they're Potter and Black, when did they ever hurt someone in the books, oh wait Snape, agh fuck Snape! Calm down, calm down) his body wouldn't cooperate.
In fact, the tension between his thoughts and his body only seemed to worsen the anxiety, and thus he slipped outside the last compartment and climbed onto the roof of the train. Apparently, there were no charms to stop it, and no Prefects around to see it.
That had momentarily calmed him. That respite, of course, ended when he was herded onto a boat. The sight of Hagrid had, embarrassingly, petrified him. Hagrid had came out of the trees with stomping steps and his shadow had loomed over Christopher who had frozen in place. His booming voice went straight into him.
Christopher couldn't even enjoy the sight of the castle, because his eleven-years-psychologically-conditioned (cough damaged), illogical, irrational, already fucking PTSDed (thanks "Dad") child-brain was too busy conjuring ways that Hagrid could become enraged with Christopher, and Christopher would get beaten to a pulp.
Then, in the Great Hall after the sorting, Christopher hadn't touched the food. James had spent half the meal trying to squirt pumpkin juice from his nose with Sirius, and the other half James spent looking around like a wild puppy until he found Christopher (ears perking) and wouldn't stop trying to get his attention.
This included throwing food at Christopher which landed in other unsuspecting kids' hair, making faces, yelling, and other ridiculousness that Christopher steadfastly ignored as he poked the mass of meat on his plate. His stomach was cramping and all the sweaty bodies around him made him feel sick. He hadn't eaten anything since, well, what was it three days, four days? Whatever. It didn't matter. He had gone longer, but he should have been ravenous, but he only felt repulsed.
Peter had been a chubby kid. Or, well, he'd been a fat adult, Christopher thought, and it somehow seemed like he'd always been chubby. Christopher had for a second wondered how that could be possible when he himself had gotten next to no food at the Pettigrew home for eleven years. Was it merely Peter's genetics? Could be.
Then he realized what he'd just thought, which was that he'd gotten next to no food at the Pettigrew home, and realized, well, of course Peter would get chubby at school. He probably ate himself sick of all the food on the table. Ah, Peter Pettigrew's trusty, never-rusty, oh so reliable Survival instinct. Indeed, a true rat he was. Eat and Eat and Eat and store it all away, because Peter knew he'd need it later, to survive the summer.
That would be the smart thing to do, Christopher thought, staring at the food. He should eat it. But that very thought made his throat clench.
He could just imagine all the sweat and all the saliva and all the germs getting all over the table. All these dirty first years crowding around after having walked through a forest and then riding a boat and probably sticking all their hands in the black water which had Squid poop and Mermaid piss in it, and now they were sticking their hands all over the table.
And then came to mind who had made the food. Ah right, the House Elves. He imagined the kitchen that had been described in the books, the Hogwarts Kitchen with hundreds of House Elves all brushing against each other, dirty little things sad and skinny with rags as clothes and knobby knees, making his food. Making this food.
He hid a gag. Did House Elves even clean their hands, after all they spent all day cleaning the floors and beds and toilets? Or did they use those same hands to make this food...Either way, slavery put this food on the table.
Gross.
(but mostly he couldn't escape the idea that it was poisoned. Or rotted. Or there was something in it. Potions? Grubs? His stomach rolled.)
He pushed away his plate and tried to breathe through his mouth. Even the smell made him nauseous. The fact that Sirius Black was burning holes into him with unreadable grey eyes only made the twitching of his leg under the table even more spastic.
But all of that had been a buzz of anxiety compared to the growing haze of panic that began to consume him now, as the Prefect lead the group of first years toward the Gryffindor Common Room. James and Sirius were somewhere at the head of the pack. Christopher had purposely hung back, taking advantage of his head of ordinary chestnut hair to blend in with the other majority-European children.
Throughout the hallways, all Christopher could do was focus on breathing steadily. Or at least appearing to breath steadily, and not bursting into hyperventilation like a goldfish out of water. Yes, haha, funny. Not really.
It was too many people, too much magic, too unfamiliar scenery, and way too much darkness and shadows and strangers with hands that could punch and feet that could kick and wands that could cast who knew what kind of torture spell at his back. In the dark. In the castle.
And no, Christopher did not trust anyone to protect him. Hogwarts, safest place in Britain? Ha, what a joke. The safest place in Britain was dead in the fucking ocean, drowning at the bottom of the English sea. Dumbledore sure as fuck wouldn't protect him; he'd never stopped Sirius and James from tormenting Severus Snape, and he'd never actually stopped Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter from hexing each other, so why on earth would Christopher ever think Dumbledore would save his (insignificant Peter Pettigrew's) back? . He would never. Just never.
No wonder Peter had always been described as flighty, jumpy, and overly timid, Christopher thought to himself. Fuck, if Christopher wasn't Seventy Lives Old, he figured he would have been reduced to the same stuttering mess-or worse, considering how shitty he was doing now.
Hell, if many-lives Christopher was barely holding onto his composure, then poor eleven-year-old Peter had probably pissed himself, ran around for the bathroom and cried like a toddler.
Christopher's admiration for Peter grew exponentially with every second. How the hell had Peter NOT cracked and drowned himself in the Black Lake the second he had the chance? Or thrown himself off the top of the Tower? The temptation was bloody infuriati- Oh, wait. Right. Christopher was the one with the death wish-not survive-at-all-costs Peter. Ha. Haha.
Still not funny.
(His chest felt like it was collapsing).
Despite all his lives, Christopher wasn't invulnerable. Mentally. He quickly shoved it down, but he couldn't deny feeling the twinges of anxiety that this lifetime had beaten into his brain after years and years of….unpleasant experiences.
It was a fact of psychology, a fact of biology, of the brain. Yes, he did, in fact, have a physical brain, even though somehow what he believed was a "soul" kept his memories and his mind functioning high above that of a regular developing infant, toddler, child, whatever he was in the reincarnated body. And that physical brain had an effect on his thoughts and large control over his body.
Yeah, he would fucking know, seeing that years of being hit around by Daddy dearest in this life's childhood years had definitely screwed up his developing brain's wiring, so now he was a well-conditioned puppy jumping at sudden noises and loud voices. His brain had a fucking marathon sending hormones and adrenaline and fear signals and pain signals all over his dumbass prepubescent body.
Well, to be fair, his "soul" was pretty fucked up as it was, without the help of his physical body. Past lives of poor memories didn't help either, showing up not only in his nightmares but randomly in his day to day life.
"Welcome to the Gryffindor Common Room," said the Prefect, interrupting his thoughts. The Prefect then went on a long speech and said the password, which Christopher vaguely cocked a head to listen to. Then they went inside.
It was red and gold. It was large, and it was warm, because there was a fire burning in the hearth in the Common Room. There were soft, well-worn couches where some older students were already strewn across talking with hands flying around. The fire crackled.
The second he stepped inside, he felt the wards open around him like an egg yolk and close as he stepped through. And once he emerged from the wards, another wave of magic washed over him so suddenly he had to stop for fear of losing his balance and falling over.
He had to close his eyes as it felt like sand in his face. It itched. The room itself felt okay, like a warm cup of hot chocolate, mittens, and a burnt marshmallow. But the people...their magic itched like sandpaper scraping across his face and the grains of sand getting all over him and his skin.
Why he was so oversensitive to magic, he didn't know. Harry Potter didn't seem to be like this in the books, and he was raised in a cupboard. Let out to be yelled at by his Aunt and Uncle and beat up at school by his cousin. How's that for isolation? If Christopher had to suffer this shit, why the hell didn't Harry fucking Potter have to?
Maybe he had, Christopher considered. But J.K Rowling never described it like this, he thought. But then again, it was a kid's book. Maybe she censored shit out of this crappy universe. Otherwise people wouldn't fucking like it, he thought.
He opened his eyes. It had only been mere seconds. The Common Room was just the same, older kids talking, and laughing. The fire crackling. The Prefect still blabbing on and on and on about blah blah blah.
He stuck his hands in his pockets, because they were sweaty and a little shaky.
The red head girl next to him looked at him. "Um, hi. I'm Lily. Lily Evans." She said it in a very hushed voice, presumably, to not be heard by the Prefect.
Oh. Harry's Mom. Her magic felt okay, he thought. Kind of like leaves, soothing leaves on his raw oversensitive skin. She should've been named Aloe Vera, or something. She should bottle her magic and sell it to people with Problems. Like Christopher.
Christopher was feeling to heavy to say anything clever. He raised an eyebrow and said, "...Are you?"
She blushed, from nerves, he assumed.
He observed her. It was a girl. Not his "mother" he told himself, yet couldn't stop from checking her hands from pieces of glass or weird weapons/dangerous items. Nothing. Okay. "Christopher," he said and fake-smiled at her. "Pleasure."
She blushed again, and looked down. Shy, he tagged her. She was okay.
The Prefect was now saying something about rules; Christopher ignored it. Then the Prefect seemed to be done, because the Prefect was now showing them which staircase to go up. Boys on one side, girls on the other. The second the Prefect stopped talking, the kids ran off. Christopher stood still, at the back of the crowd. There were too many people trying to race and bumble up the narrow staircase.
"Oh," Lily said, face falling into a sad pout. "I guess we have to go different ways."
Christopher had to hand it to her. The kid was cute. No wonder James and Snape would fight over her. And she was distracting him from the anxiety. "Don't worry," he said, letting a small smile on his face. She was looking at the floor really hard.
He figured she had had a hard day, no doubt with coming into a brand new world (that wanted her dead) and Severus being sorted into a different House(that also wanted her dead, not that she knew that, hopefully).
"I don't know any of the girls here," Lily mumbled. "And...I've never been friends with a girl before."
"Really?" Christopher said, blinking. He actually had to walk backwards and face her, because he had been mid-process walking away when she decided to get all heartfelt on him. "I didn't know that…" he mumbled to himself. Then again, that made sense. No wonder Lily was so attached to Severus. She had probably had the same problem most muggleborn or muggle-raised kids had, like Harry and Hermione, where none of the school kids liked them because they were weird. Of course she didn't have any girl friends. She'd only had Severus.
"Is that weird?" Lily asked. "I'm sorry…"
"Nah," he said nonchalantly when she looked at him with watery eyes. "What? Don't cry," he shrugged. "I was just surprised." He rubbed his chin. "You just seem like a girl with a lot of girl friends. Real friendly and s-" he almost said shit "-tuff."
"Do you think…?" She looked at him, trailing off. Her green eyes were goddamn fucking traps.
"You're a cute girl," Christopher said honestly. He smiled at her, seeing her eyes widen, and he put a hand on her head. Christopher wasn't tall himself but Lily was a little shorter. Her red hair was poofy and he discovered that it bounced right back once he removed his hand. Funny. "You'll be fine. Smile."
"Okay," she said, perking up slightly. Her red hair bounced a little. "See you...later?" She grinned but it was still nervous.
"Yeah," he said, "later." And seeing the boys staircase had emptied out, he offered her a backwards hand wave and with hands in his pockets made his way up.