Hook
It was always there—the not quite, the little bit off, the Sorting Hat squeaking are you sure that's where you fit, the gone. Not that Peter was a coward (even if he is), or that he didn't measure up to what they wanted (even if he doesn't); just the wind had always rankled empty branches somewhere inside him, the bark scraping against itself like chalkboards screeching, nothing in there to tell him how much was enough. Peter is not enough, but perhaps he never could have been and it isn't his fault and he's strong and he did everything he could and he swears he's better than anybody can see past the bark and and and and.
When he gave Sirius his Azkaban cell and scurried into Percy Weasley's lap, traded one cage for another, he used to shake at night as the boys were snoring and shake and shake and sniffle for James, for everything, and it was all his fault and his friends have no mercy and it is all his fault. Back then, back before, he had always felt less gone when he was with them, imagining himself as equal instead of slack-jawed, and he dreamed a happy reunion he wasn't going to get and he still dreams it sometimes, wakes up mopping sweat off his body with a silver hand, picks up the quill and puts down the quill and picks up the quill and writes Remus's name and puts it down again and crumples the parchment into a small small ball, crumples himself too. What do you do when not even the drugs want you?
Only he used to feel so old, even at twelve, Remus you're a werewolf aren't you and he pieced it together and stitched it up like needle on skin because he knew what it was like, to carry weight, to swim. His robes have always been waterlogged and the droplets splattered across the lunar calendars, the charts, Peter only wanted somewhere to feel safe instead of drowning but still it had to be Sirius and James to work out the Transfiguration of the thing and save the years, roughhouse with Moony on the grounds as Peter scampered always behind, out of breath, so small and thick and sad. Malfoy offered a good deal and Peter isn't proud, he's not proud.
They have done nothing except perhaps widen the droplets, the water or the blood or the what have you, and Peter's not proud, don't you see, but he'll shoot you umpteen excuses on request because how do you turn that down, the chance to get out? All he wanted was out. All he wants is out of the clutches of his hand and Malfoy's manor and the snake twisting around his neck every night, squeezing until his head is hot and he can feel the throbbing of his carotid as everything goes stiff and bloated and blue. But the silver is in his hand now, he thought he would want it but it coils into his wrists and his spine and metal can't mop, it doesn't dry the sweat just moves it around, relocates his regrets to other organs for a while but doesn't stop them, never stops them.
It was a good deal and nobody so sopping wet could dream to turn it down but that doesn't mean he doesn't fall into their arms in the nights to wandwave it out, wake up screaming so loudly that the Malfoys can't hear him. Peter never wanted to hurt anybody, you see, not even kill, but sometimes you have to kill your lovers to survive them and even then it's worse, you can never get back a dead thing and they're just dead things now, James and love and mattering, the lost things, the missing, his addictions. He kills Remus and he kills Sirius and he kills them over and over and over over hoping it'll help and kills himself too when every time it doesn't and he just regrets, resents it all, them, himself, whichever is easiest to blame that day. He kills what he cradles and he is too afraid to go where belongs to him and he's sorry, sorry—sorry, so.