10 Things Peter Pettigrew Never Realized
1. He comes home late every day in the summer. His mother yells and occasionally cries, but he brushes her off in annoyance, falling into bed with dreams of the next day of adventure flying through his mind.
He never realizes her worry is tantamount to her love.
2. The fourteenth full moon is possibly the worst- Remus's transformation is more terrible than ever and he is wild in his pain, clawing at his friends with nails harder than diamond.
When Sirius bats his tiny mouse form away with a black paw, Peter thinks he's telling him to get out of the way. He doesn't realize he's trying to save him.
3. He's studying at the library late one evening when he catches sight of a book hidden in the eaves. It reads Love Potions For All.
He picks it up and tucks it away in his book bag, thinking he'll need to slip some to everyone he meets because he never realized that love is the one thing that can't ever be brewed.
4. When Voldemort conjures a silver hand for him, he rejoices, thinking he has finally found someone who appreciates him, wants him.
He never realizes that the hand is a manacle to keep him chained.
5. They are sitting around the dining table in Lily and James's new house and Harry is gurgling in a high chair beside them and Sirius is laughing and Remus is amused and James is chuckling, and Lily is trying to hide a smile and Peter doesn't understand that they are not laughing at him, but with him.
6. Peter is curled up in a ball on Ron's pillow, his tail wrapped tightly around his body, watching as the three children conspire about some potion being brewed in a bathroom. He feels like he sees a bit of himself in Ronald- always overshadowed, always picked last, always taken for granted.
What he doesn't realize is that the boy sees this too but has moved past it, has conquered it, and it has become a better person. What Peter doesn't realize is that this is the difference between the two- Peter cannot forgive, while the boy always lets go.
7. Once, at an Order meeting, Marlene McKinnon smiles tiredly at him and offers him a pot of tea.
He thinks she's gesturing to Gideon so he ignores her.
8. At the moment that he skitters down the sewer with a thousand other filthy rats, Peter is panting hard, thinking he can lose himself in this crowd of fellows and forget- forget everything that he has done and all that he has lost.
He doesn't realize that he is still human and that these rats never were. He will never forget.
9. His first kiss is a Hufflepuff girl with the last name Meadows. It is soft and kind of wet and he's not sure if he enjoys it but he brags about it for weeks to his friends anyway.
He never knows that Sirius secretly dared her to do it, and perhaps, this time, it is better this way.
10. Peter takes the Auror exam with James and Sirius, but unlike them, he doesn't pass. He laughs in the end, hiding his watery eyes, but goes after hours to Moody's office and begs.
When Mad-Eye looks hard at him and gruffly tells him it won't work out, Peter thinks that it's because they all think he isn't brave. He doesn't realize that it's because they believe he is.