Expectations Of a Marauder
When people look at the Marauders, they can never choose between hate and love. They want to love them for their bright smiles and close friendship and the seemingly happy life they lead, but then again, everyone really does dislike them too. Because no one can be that perfect, that beautiful, it's absolutely impossible.
After all, Sirius has problems.
He has problems keeping his hands to himself and his eyes to the chalkboard and, even though he's a smart boy, he isn't smart enough to know that it isn't okay to keep secrets like the ones he carries. But when he raises his hand and his sleeve slides back and the cut marks are clearly visible, no one says a thing. Because no one really, truly wants to believe that one of the Marauders is anything but good and true and wonderful and fun.
And James has a problem too. Everyone knows it. Everyone sees it. He has eyes one for one girl only, but that girl doesn't love him - and he needs that love desperately. He wants a real love, a beautiful love, but that little fiery red head is far from perfect and she doesn't want that responsibility. In the end, no one really does. Because if they were to take up that wish and try and fulfill it, they might all find out how lonely James can be, how clingy, how desperate. And no one wants to believe that a Marauder is anything but loud and joyful and happy.
Remus is a mystery to all who think they know him. He has secrets, that much is clear, but he won't tell and they don't ask. People whisper about him more than anything. They say, 'Do you see that? Do you see the murderous look in his eyes?' and they're all mostly joking, but everyone knows that it's partly true. Because deep down, Remus is a wolf, always waiting and watching and wondering if anyone will ever accept him for that. But no one ever does, not for a long time anyway. When he meets Tonks, they don't talk about the years in school or even the people outside of it. Those people don't understand. They don't want a Marauder who is anything other than open and talkative and not-so-mysterious.
To everyone else, Peter is the best of them all. James and Sirius and even Remus all think so too - and it's funny, really, how he fools everyone. Maybe in the beginning he had liked them all, maybe even loved them, but now all that goodness has withered away into hate and bitterness. Because James and Sirius and Remus, for all their faults, will always be better than poor Peter Pettigrew on the inside. Later, when he is facing the death he deserves, he looks back and wonders if maybe he could have been better.
And he wonders why no one, not even his friends, thought a Marauder could be anything but kind and loyal and dependable.