Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. I reserve the right to torture the characters - both emotionally and physically - for the duration of the fic. I promise that I will polish them up and put them back where I found them afterwards.
Author's Note: A friend of mine and I have been trying to come up with a way to understand Peter Pettigrew, since we don't understand why he was sorted into Gryffindor if he is such as weak and pathetic character. I had a brainwave, and this fic basically explains what I came up with. Yes, the title comes from a bad romance, and the summary is bad Hollywood, but it fits the nature of this story. The title sums up everything actually.
Thanks go to Maudinrose for telling me to write this once we discussed the idea, and to Rhionae for the beta. Apologies must go to my usual beta's for not giving you the time to look at this, but I wanted to get it up asap.
Enough of my babble. Go read.
By Love Betrayed
Myst
He
watched them as they slept, his family. They were the good ones, the
brave, and the invincible. They were the heroes,
the ones who received all the glory for protecting him and other people. They
were worth more to him than those who were blood related to him. What had
his blood ever done for him, after all, but abandoned him to the cruel mercies
of others his own age that were far more experienced than he. If it were
not for these three he would not have survived the seven years they spent at
that school. Maybe if they'd abandoned him once school was finished, he
would have survived more than comfortably, knowing the lessons that they had
learnt together, but he had chosen to stay with them, even as they had agreed
to have him accompany them.
Peter walked out of Lily and James'
bedroom where they slept soundly, curled up together, passed by the triad's who
should be completely exhausted by now if the noises he had heard earlier were
any indication and wandered downstairs, outside to the porch. They didn't
all live here all the time, of course, just crashed here when they had run a
raid or cleaned up after one that the Death Eaters had made. He had an
apartment in town, and the triad shared Sarainail's Tower. James and Lily
lived here in Godric's Hollow. This place and the Tower got the most use
out of the three homes... his apartment was too small to sleep all of them at
once. It would be worse once Lily had had her baby because there would be
all the paraphanelia, which went with small children and babies, or so he'd
been told.
It would be interesting to see what
Lily would do in the latter stages of her pregnancy and once the child was
born. She and James had decided not to find out what sex the baby would
be until it was born although many ways existed to find out, both magical and
muggle. Lily had insisted on seeing a muggle doctor as well, to reassure
her parents. James had insisted that everyone would know what was
happening at each stage of the pregnancy, much to Lily's embarrassment.
It had finally gotten to the stage where she would leave the room as soon as
the subject had come up, in case she was going to be used as a test subject
again. Peter was glad that he hadn't been around when they made up.
While the walls in this house weren't precisely thin, the same could not be
said for the floor or the ceiling.
He watched the moon glide through the
night sky. This was the time he loved the most, when his friends were
asleep or hurt and depended on him to keep them safe. It was all very
well being the one who kept food warm and beds ready for the exhausted
warriors, but they didn't need that. Remus usually stayed behind
around the time of the full moon, and did some of the work then. Lily
wouldn't be able to go with them in a few months. And it wasn't like it
was vital work. But this, standing guard over them, watching them as they
slept, and knowing that they all trusted him to keep them safe, when they had
been watching over him for so long, this was his... drug, you could call
it. Sacrifice of love. He would have preferred to go with them, but
he knew his liabilities, even if he didn't think they were as bad as Sirius
said.
Peter fingered his wand in his pocket
idly, and turned to go inside. Time to make the rounds again. He
preferred the night; it brought back memories of running wild with the Wolf and
the other two Marauders. But clean up was best done during the day, so
exact movements could be catalogued more easily. He had helped during the
afternoon, but had left earlier than the others so that dinner would be ready
when they got back. He spell-locked the door behind him and went to check
on the
others. They should still be
sleeping. He cautiously opened the door to the triad's room. They
weren't making any noise now, so he presumed they had to be asleep. He
just had to check security. Green eyes opened and a soft voice whispered,
"Hello, Peter."
Sarainail didn't seem at all surprised
to see him, and he would've bet galleons on her not being surprised if it was
Lily or James instead. Working together like this, privacy was virtually
a non-existent commodity. Peter walked in quietly, but not making any
attempt at stealth. Unless they were in the Tower, that was a very bad idea,
since in this time of war, it would just wake them up further. He closed
the window. One of them - he rather thought it was Sirius - insisted on
going to sleep with the window open. They preferred it to be open all
night, but had come to the compromise of Peter closing it once they were
asleep.
The blonde yawned and indicated for
him to pass her the nearest robe. He did so, and she carefully moved out
from between her two lovers, who rolled into each other, curling around themselves
in subconscious protest at her leaving. She patted them each on the
nearest body part, and tossed the sheet more fully over their bodies.
Peter let her follow him down into the kitchen. It wasn't unusual for one
of them to join him at night. It was usually Sarai - she claimed that the
Sidhe required less
sleep, and by virtue of her ancestry,
she therefore needed less sleep than her lovers. Privately, Peter thought
she needed time away from them occasionally.
"Can't sleep?" he asked her sympathetically.
"Peter, they went after children!
We had to go through the entire place, and parents had brought their children
there to be safe! There were so many children..."
He reached over and tugged her gently
into his arms. She clung to him and wept, soaking his robes with salt and
water. There was nothing sexual in this embrace. She needed to cry
on someone, and he was there. The triad, he'd observed, dealt with their
pain in their own ways. But hearing about the children made him understand why
everyone had ignored him this evening and had gone straight to their rooms to
make what sounded like mad, passionate love for hours. He'd gone outside,
and sworn he would make them add permanent dampeners on each of the bedrooms
once they were done. At length, though, she pulled back, and sat on her
own chair once again.
"I wish I could help you, Sarai..."
"Being here is enough, Peter."
The cat green eyes held knowledge older than her years, but he was used to that
by now, and ignored it. "We need to know that you are safe, and
home. Somewhere we can come back to when the day is done to forget."
He nodded. "Feel better now?"
She gave him a watery smile.
"Much. Thank you."
"You'd best go to bed before they come
looking...."
"We're already looking," murmured
Remus from the doorway. Sirius leaned against him sleepily.
"Come to bed, Sarai-love," he
requested tiredly, holding out a hand towards her. Sarainail got up and
moved towards them, ever graceful. Sirius folded her into himself and she
relaxed.
"We'll give you more details
tomorrow," Remus said quietly as they turned as one to go. "Is that all
right?"
"Fine. You guys go get some
rest. I'll be here keeping things safe."
"Thanks, I don't know what we'd do
without you."
He accepted the compliment with a nod
of his head, even as his heart decried the truth of it. He wanted to do
more for them than just wait around and watch them do all the work - get in all
the danger. He had been in Gryffindor for Merlin's sake. He could
do more than this. So he watched them, and he thought.
It had been a day with nothing
on. Lily was trying to knit a cardigan for the baby, and Sirius was
trying to make her to do it with magic, since that was easier or supposed to
be. James, Sarai, Remus and himself were discussing the current situation
in the war.
"I wish we had a decent informer in
the Death Eaters," complained James. "I wouldn't wish the job on anyone,
but..."
"It would make our jobs a hell
of a lot easier," finished Remus.
"That is true," he agreed
thoughtfully, while the beginnings of a plan began to crystallise in his mind.
Three months later, his plans were
complete. This was one of the nights they had all scattered to their
respective homes... he to his apartment, the triad to the Tower, and Lily and
James in Godric's Hollow.
They would not contact him
tonight. They had all told each other, that as much as they loved and
respected the others, they wanted some space and privacy, none of which they
would get at Godric's Hollow. He glanced around his apartment
again. He had made all the preparations he could. Now it was time
to speak to You-Know-Who and see what he could find out.
The note lay tossed carelessly on his
desk, explaining what he was going to do. The ending was simplicity
itself, whereas the body had been hell to write.
Dear everyone,
Don't worry about me. I've gone
to see what information I can get from You-Know-Who. I'm all prepared and
everything like that. I need to do this for you. I feel
useless with what I am doing.
Don't worry. I'll die before betraying you.
I love you all.
Peter.
By love betrayed.
~End~
Okay, that's my character study on Peter. Could you please tell me what you thought of it? Thanks.
