@wolfstarmicrofic Prompt 21: Rats | Word Count: ~543
CW: Rat eating (discussed/implied), killing of an animal/rat (no, not that rat)
Summary: Sometimes living in a cave eating rats changes a man.
Remus hadn’t thought much of Grimmauld Place’s rodent problem beyond putting down some Spellworthy Rat-B-Gone and calling it a day. At least, not until one particular afternoon. He and Sirius were lying in bed, Remus half asleep, when Sirius sat up abruptly, yanking his arm out from under Remus.
“Did you hear that?” Sirius said, body tense.
Remus sat up beside him, trying to shake off the dregs of sleep as he around looked for a potential threat.
Then, from under the bed, Remus heard it.
“It’s just one of the rats,” Remus sighed. “I’ll put down some more Spellworthy later.”
But Sirius kept staring out at the room, as if he thought the rat might be moments away from launching an ambush.
“Sirius —” Remus started, but then there was another squeak, and a furry blur shot across the room.
Sirius sprung from the bed with surprising athleticism, procuring a long knife as he went — from where Remus wasn’t sure, considering Sirius was wearing little more than his pants — and pounced onto the ground with all the grace of an animal in one of those nature documentaries Arthur had showed them. (“Would you believe the muggle library has hundreds of these thing? They call them ‘DVDs’”).
There was a thunk of blade into wood. Another louder squeak.
Then Sirius said, triumphantly, “Got it.”
He wrenched the knife from the floorboards, and stood, holding it up, rat skewered on the end like a rather grisly shish-kabob. It’s tongue lolled out in a cartoon imitation of death. If not for the blood, Remus might think the rat was faking.
Remus stared, eyebrows raised. “Are you planning on spearing all of the rats in the house that way?”
“I got pretty good at it in the last year,” Sirius turned the knife-rat-skewer in his hand, as if considering it. “Magic ruins the flavor, anyway. No one ever mentions it but the brown ones taste the best.”
The dead rat was, in fact, brown.
“Yes, I wonder why it is we don’t sit around talking about which rats to eat,” Remus said.
“It’d be a shame to put all this to waste. What do you think, fancy dinner? I worked up something of an appetite.” Something possessed Sirius to actually wink at Remus, dead rat still in hand, as if being a provider of the choicest rodents was something anyone would look for in a man.
“Sirius, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather starve.”
Sirius shrugged, unbothered. “Suit yourself,” He grabbed his trousers from the ground, and tugged them on one-handed. “But I’d better go cook this. They taste best fresh.”
Remus stared after Sirius as he left, wondering if it was all up to Remus to save Sirius from himself. But as it was, the moon was in two days, all of his muscles ached, and a quick nap before the Order meeting would do him some good. If the man wanted to keep on eating rats, who was Remus to stop him.
In the distance, just as Remus was drifting off, he heard a shriek from somewhere downstairs, “Sirius, is that a RAT?!”
And he fell asleep confident that the matter was someone else’s problem.
