Mrs. Pettigrew

Needless to say, it was a terrible weekend for Peter Pettigrew. Every time Pettigrew tried or attempted to be nice to James, he would be coldly rebuffed. He finally just gave up and quietly sat down to read in a corner of the Potter home. Pettigrew was never quite so grateful when the weekend ended, and it was time to go home and see his mother.

His mother was a mousy looking woman with mousy brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. Mrs. Pettigrew happily greeted her son with open arms in her ample bosom. She was quite plump, but not overly plumb. It was like hugging a warm marshmallow that smelled of perpetual sweetness. For Mrs. Pettigrew did indeed have a rather vigorous sweet tooth.

Mrs. Pettigrew instantly noticed her son's downtrodden face and said, "What's wrong, my little bon-bon?"

"Mum," Pettigrew whined at being still called that pet name.

"Come inside and tell mum all about it," Mrs. Pettigrew said as she pulled her son inside their rickety old home. Her husband, Mr. Pettigrew had been a muggleborn wizard. He had been a good man, but he had died rather young from the dragon pox. He had left her and their three-year-old son all alone in the world.

A single mother all by herself, Mrs. Pettigrew took all the small odd jobs that she could in order to provide for herself and her son. She finally had her own little business of preparing herbal remedies and selling them to the public. Some of them were for muggle use and other's for magical folks. Either way, her tiny herbal shop catered two both sides of the general masses.

Mrs. Pettigrew instantly serves her son a cup of lemonade and pulls out a tray of freshly baked sweets out of the oven. Pulling out her wand, she instantly cools one of the tarts and places it before her son. "Now, my little bon-bon, tell me, what is ever the matter?"

"James doesn't remember me," Pettigrew croaked.

"Bonbon, you'll have to be clearer than that," Mrs. Pettigrew murmured.

"James hit his head during the summer, and it cracked his brains," Pettigrew huffed. "And now, he remembers everyone else except me!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bonbon," Mrs. Pettigrew softly said. "But surely, you can still be friends?"

"Well, James doesn't like me!" Pettigrew sniffed. "He coldly looks at me like he hates me!" Ironically, that was not far from the truth.

Mrs. Pettigrew slowly nods her head and says, "Well, bon-bon, I don't know what to say. But even if James does not want to be your friend anymore, you still have plenty of friends. And sometimes that happens, my bon-bon. As we grow older for one reason or another, we lose friends.

Either we change or they change. Some friends will move away or simply the fact that our lives get so much more complicated and busier that we lose all contact. It is bound to happen in your lifetime, Bonbon, but for you it just started a bit earlier rather than later."

"But I don't want things to change," Pettigrew whined.

"Oh, Bonbon, don't we all wish that?" Mrs. Pettigrew lamented. "I too wish your father were still here with us, but he is not. And we cannot change that which is out of our control. We must simply live on and move on to better things in life."

"Better?"

"Why yes, Bonbon. I could not exactly sit in a pool of my own tears with you at my side, now could I? You will always be the brightest ray of sunshine in my life. And though the ache of your father will never completely leave me. I find that I am so happy with you at my side, my bon-bon."

"For true?"

"Truely."

Pettigrew quietly begins to eat the warm, delicious tart placed in front of him. "Does it ever stop hurting?" Pettigrew mumbled through a mouthful of a sweet, tangy tart.

"It will eventually," Mrs. Pettigrew replied. "And besides, you still have your girlfriend to cheer you up. And when exactly, were you planning on telling me about her?"

Pettigrew chokes and through watery eyes gasped, "Who told you?!"

"Why the neighbors, did! Apparently, they saw you canoodling with her in public!" Mrs. Pettigrew crossed her arms over her ample chest. "Now bring the girl over next time, I'd like to properly meet her."

"Yes, mum," Pettigrew sheepishly said as he nervously rubbed his chin with his hand. He was not sure what his mother would think of his Quyen. She was a Slytherin, after all. And his own mother and father had both been Hufflepuff's.

"So, who is she and what house is she in?" Mrs. Pettigrew eagerly prodded. This was the first girl his son had ever shown interest in and she aimed to have him keep her. She wanted cute grandbabies some years further down the road. Ones, she could spoil with all her love and care.

"Er, her name is Quyen Crowley," Pettigrew gulped. "And she's a Slytherin."

Mrs. Pettigrew slowly nods her head and says, "Well, you've been friends with the two Prince children and they're not bad sorts. I would think that if you chose a Slytherin girl, she would be good as well. But remember, Bonbon, Slytherins tend to be petty. If you ever decide to marry the girl, please try to remember to wisely keep your mouth shut and not make any sort of rude comments."

"Yes, mum," Pettigrew blushed. "I'll bring her over before the start of the start of the school term. I'll send her a letter right now!" Pettigrew scrambled to his feet and went to write a letter to his girlfriend and mail it off with their old family owl.

Mrs. Pettigrew happily hummed to herself as she watched her beloved son scramble up the stairs. Turning away with a determined swoosh of her skirts, she got to work. She had plenty of things which to clean in order to prepare for the visit of Miss Crowley.

She might not be wealthy or very well off, but she still had her pride. And she would show her best foot forward to her potential future daughter-in-law. Because if her son is anything like his father, he'd marry the first girl he fell in love with which in this case was the present Mrs. Pettigrew.

Even back when, she had been Miss Rowle, before marrying her husband, she had never truly been wealthy. The Rowle's were an old pureblood family with a cruel, vindictive nature. She had been lucky she belonged to one of the minor branches and had been an only daughter. Despite being disinherited by her parents for marrying a muggleborn wizard, she had been permitted to take her tiny marriage dowry with her. It had been enough to allow them the newlywed couple to buy their cottage and allow her to pay for her husband's funeral.

Still, Mrs. Pettigrew had a hint of worry on her face. Miss Crowley most certainly was the only daughter to a main pureblood family. Would her parents even allow her son's courtship much less a marriage between them?

Shaking such troubling thoughts from her mind, Mrs. Pettigrew resolutely began to pull items out of the attic to be cleaned. Whether or not the two children would marry was a distant future away. She would instead concentrate on what was directly in front of her, and with a loud sneeze, she got to work. Hufflepuff's were steady like that.