This is going to be a long author's note. If you're interested in my rambling, grab yourself a cuppa and buckle in. Otherwise, skip to the line below and begin your journey.
I've realised, over the course of rereading some of my stuff in hopes of finding some kind of inspiration, that I've basically cut Pettigrew out of my Marauders fic. I've always realised I was excluding him in the particular fics as I wrote them, but the trend stands out, now that I'm looking at it, as a more systemic one. I think this has happened for two reasons (at least, two immediately come to mind): 1) I fucking hate him for what he did - to James, to Lily, to Harry, to Sirius, to Remus, to their friendship that was just (at the risk of sounding like a complete twat) GOALS and, 2) I genuinely cannot understand his choice. At all.
Brief, but related, aside: my IRLBFF (professorriddikulus on FF, AM I ALLOWED TO PLUG YOU MOONY? TOO LATE I DID. ALSO PLEASE POST AGAIN ASAP SO I CAN THROW ALL THE COMPLIMENTS AT YOU - also, thank you so much for reading this and leaving me SO MANY FUCKING COMPLIMENTS. I'm Siriusly (not sorry) glad that you enjoyed it. Stop rolling your eyes.) and I have this running… not joke. Narrative? Narrative. that they're basically Remus (YES) and I'm basically Sirius (SO MUCH) and this is kind of helping me understand why I don't understand (does that make sense? No, but we're going with it). I would never, ever, for any reason, under any threat give up my friends. I would, in complete honesty, die before I betrayed them. And I find it hard to empathise with Pettigrew, to understand his position, his choice, his actions because it is so the opposite of what I would do.
And, while we're here anyway (assuming you're still reading - I know you're not, it's fine), there's a bone I'd like to pick with some of the Pettigrew-containing fic I have come across. A lot of what I've read (admittedly not a lot, like I said, I hate him) makes him either a passive, terrified actor or this like, always secretly evil bloke (or a complete idiot, which I think we all know he wasn't and that's a different kind of tangent anyway). And I don't think he's either of those, but the passive one bothers me most. Pettigrew wasn't forced to do what he did - scared or not, he made a choice, he actively gave up his friends, he consented and actively participated in what was going to be the murder of a fucking baby and let's not forget that. Making him passive takes away his agency and it makes it… less horrible, less disgusting than it was. It makes it a "he didn't want to, but Voldemort made him!" and I'm just not going to accept that as an answer.
My writing, and don't get it twisted, I know I'm not some class A writer, flows most easily, and is at its best, when I feel like I know the characters I'm writing about. And for me that's more than just "what would James say in this situation" or "how would Lily respond here" - it's in the way that I try to shape the world in their vision. As such, I've never even tried to think as Pettigrew - I've hated him, sat firmly and comfortably in my hatred, and moved on to writing mushy Jily fluff. But.
Now that I've noticed this absence (I won't call it a lack, I quite like my Pettigrew free world), I feel like I have to at least attempt to understand, to get into his head. That's what this fic is.
This was painful to write and took forever, but I'm genuinely invested in growing as a fiction writer and this, I think, is what you have to do. You have to push yourself if you want to improve and in this one I feel like I jumped right off a bloody cliff with no parachute or safety system or whatever. So, at the risk of sounding whiny and annoying, feedback is much appreciated. If you love it, great, but constructive criticism is wonderful. Please god criticise me. Help me get better, guys.
If you stuck with me through that LONG AF AUTHOR'S NOTE, A MILLION KUDOS. Again, because they deserve so much credit, thank you professorriddikulus for all your fucking comments.
Disclaimer: not mine (and thank god because I hate him - have I said that enough?)
He supposed he's not surprised that he's in this position - his animagus form is a rat after all. If he's honest, he's more surprised that they haven't figured it out yet.
Though they did always underestimate him.
It was terror that drove him here, but he wasn't quite sure what was keeping him there outside of the usual things. He was overwhelmed by the immensity of what he'd done, what he was doing, and he knew, logically, that there was no way to go back now. He couldn't make the Death Eaters forget all the information he'd passed along, couldn't make the Order forget that there was a spy in their midst. But no one suspected little, unassuming Peter Pettigrew, so he sat back and watched as his friends - well, his old friends - became consumed by their suspicion of one another.
It had been a simple plan at the start, just a way to protect himself no matter which way the coin landed when the war was over. He, like the other Marauders, like Lily, like Marlene, had joined the Order right after they'd graduated. James and Sirius, and even Remus and Lily, had been practically vibrating with excitement, with a determination to fight that Peter just… didn't feel. He was terrified, utterly terrified, and the tide was against them all the time and he didn't see why they weren't scared. The fight, the difficulty of it all seemed to thrill them. Though acting like utter fools had always excited them.
Peter was more realistic, he'd always been the more realistic one, though he never had that reputation among… well, anyone. James and Sirius, quite obviously, lived with their heads in the clouds, but Remus had always looked like the grounded one, the steady one. And he was, but, Peter ground his teeth thinking about it, people still… liked him. Admired him. Respected him. Only Peter knew, really knew, what it was like to live on the outskirts, to live in a world where everyone bloody hated you. Or didn't care about you, which was almost worse. The Order had made him feel valued at first, but watching Voldemort gain more and more ground, watching the people in the Order drop one by one set him ablaze with terror, had him frantically searching for a way out. He couldn't fall back into this life of complete obscurity, he couldn't die, but he also wasn't sure what to do, especially now that he was neck deep in the fight against Voldemort. The answer came to him, strangely enough, while he was out patrolling for the Order.
Early on in their time with the Order, Dumbledore had them all working simple patrols, apparently trying to keep them as far out of harm's way as he possibly could for as long as he could manage. One night, Peter was working his favourite patrol in Diagon Alley (it involved sitting at Fortescue's for hours on end and eating all the ice cream he could possibly manage without throwing up) when he saw Avery from across the way. His heart flew into his throat and his stomach clenched with nerves - in all his time working this patrol he'd never seen anyone come into Diagon Alley, never had to do so much as draw his wand, and now here he was, alone with one (and likely many) Death Eaters just metres from him. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do - he'd been trained for this, kind of, but he wasn't about to raise his wand, alone, on what was likely to be a bunch of Death Eaters and get himself killed. So he sat there, moving the spoon nervously around his long empty bowl, thinking, desperately about what in the hell he was supposed to do when it hit him. He could get out of something much bigger than just this temporary patrol debacle. This was his chance to do something so much bigger. His only fucking chance to save himself from this whole damn thing, to ensure his safety no matter what. He had to play both sides.
It was all too humiliating to remember - he'd walked swiftly across the square and approached Avery in the shadows of Knockturn bloody Alley like it was some kind of spy thriller. He'd wanted to seem calm and cool, but thinking back on it now, his desperate position and the terror in his chest leached through into his voice and he's still a bit surprised Avery didn't laugh him out of the alley altogether. But Avery remembered that he was friends with the Marauders in school and he knew that they, the three of them at least, (he'd eyed Peter suspiciously then) had joined the Order. Peter nodded his head and sealed his fate, "We're all in the Order, actually. But I'm starting to think that it might be time for me to move to the other side."
It had been simple stuff at first - information about where Order members were going to be, what missions they were planning… he never gave anything too detailed, anything that could have easily been traced back to him. Being outed as the spy would have completely defeated the purpose of this dual life, so he kept his head down, kept quiet, and acted normal.
It took them a few months before they started getting suspicious. Peter was almost offended that it took them that long and it was really only after he brought it up at post-meeting drinks one night in November that they really started talking about it.
"Don't you guys think," he'd said, taking another pull of his butterbeer before moving the bottle nervously between his hands, "that it's weird that the Death Eaters always seem to know what we're up to? How do they always know?"
He felt a little sick at the thrill that ran through him as he watched their reactions. James, true to form, laughed it off, but Sirius and Remus played right into his hand. Sirius took a long drag of his firewhiskey and made some weird comment about his cousins perhaps being cleverer than they first thought. Remus avoided all eye contact and downed his scotch in one go.
Lily was the only one who he thought might be looking at him suspiciously, and the adrenaline coursing through his veins as she considered him made him want to pass out. But she just nodded and leaned closer into James' side, "No, Pete's right, it is weird."
They spent the rest of the evening talking about it and Peter was sure, now, that they'd never suspect him. He'd been the one to bring it up and, from the way they were talking about this alleged spy, it was like he was some kind of genius. And as they'd never once thought he was more than their dopey little sidekick, Peter knew he was in the clear.
A few months after that night, it became so intense that Peter wished he'd never signed up in the first place. Lily had the baby - they were all, fucking all of them, deliriously happy as though they'd all had the baby together - and the Dark Lord himself had requested a meeting with him. He'd never been more nervous in his life - not going to Order meetings, bringing the spy up periodically in conversation to ensure he deflected any sort of attention, running his intel to the Death Eaters. Nothing, nothing had ever made him feel the way he felt before he met Voldemort that sticky August evening. His heart was hammering in his chest, he had a thick sheen of sweat across his brow, and his hands were shaking, had been shaking for hours, as he sat down across from the Dark Lord at the table in some house he'd never seen before or since.
He'd set out very few details, given Peter very little actual information - he said that he knew the Potters had been, for nearly a month now, under the strongest protection the Order could provide, that he knew Peter was their friend… that he wanted Peter to get him the Potters. All of the Potters.
Peter couldn't remember what he'd actually said, the meeting was wiped almost entirely from his memory and what was left existed as some kind of panic-induced fever dream, but the end of that meeting stood out. He would probably never be able to forget it.
"Can you get me the Potters, Wormtail?"
He hesitated for as long as he dared, his heart racing so fast he thought it might explode or simply tire itself out and stop at any moment.
"Y-yes, my Lord. I… I'll get you the P-Potters."
How, exactly, he was supposed to do that he didn't know. He wasn't… he wasn't even sure he wanted to do that. Though of course he didn't want his friends dead, right?, but if he didn't hand them to Voldemort, then he would be dead and he didn't want that either. This, this panic, this feeling of being backed into a wall was exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid and now here he was in the exact position he was when this whole thing had started. Except this was worse. This was so much worse.
He'd never expected that this would be something that he would have to do, that he would get actual blood on his hands. Okay, you might be able to trace back a few of the failed Order missions to some information that he'd passed along to the Death Eaters, but this was different. They'd still had a chance, they were going into the mission knowing that there was a real possibility that they were found out, that there'd be a fight anyway, but this was… this was handing a family over to the Dark Lord himself and…
This was just different.
Luckily, Sirius was the secret keeper and there was no way in hell, Peter thought, that he'd give that up. Sirius valued his position as supreme best mate too much to dare give up any of that limelight, let alone hand it over to their stupid friend Peter.
This worked well… for a while. He told the Death Eaters assigned to check in with him that he was working on it, Black is still the secret keeper, but he's working on it and they left him alone for a while.
After a year of that same excuse, though, the Dark Lord wasn't in the mood to be forgiving. To be patient.
When someone raised a wand in his direction now, he still cowered. Occasionally, he still felt like his nerve endings were burning inside his skin and his muscles would go taut, the scream would work its way to his throat before he realised that it was just muscle memory. That none of it was real.
He wasn't sure what else to do, he didn't know what to say to the Potters, to the Order, to Sirius to convince them to make him secret keeper or to give him something that he could use to give the Potters to the Dark Lord. He still, really, didn't want to give them over to him, didn't want to have their deaths tied to him, didn't want them to have to die, but he never, ever wanted to feel that again and what else was he supposed to do at this point? He was too far in, too deep in it - he had no way back to the surface, or out of this thing altogether. It was death or the Potters. And death… death wasn't an option.
But it seemed he wouldn't have to worry about it, in the end. Sirius, fucking Sirius, had cleared the path for him without even knowing it.
When James told him they were changing secret keepers, that James wanted him to protect them… Peter thought his heart might explode in his chest. He was flooded with guilt and terror and panic and a million other emotions that he couldn't quite parse out, but most prominent by far, and it sickened him just to think it, was relief. He would be able to give the Dark Lord what he wanted, to finally, finally give himself an out from all of this. After he gave the Potters over to the Dark Lord, he would be able to renounce the Order and join the Death Eaters, get back that sense of security that he'd now been missing for so long. He would finally be safe, wouldn't have to worry about being found out, wouldn't have to go see James, Lily, the baby, Remus, Sirius and pretend like it was all okay, like he was okay, like he wasn't getting ready to turn the Potters over and watch the Order crash and burn.
They made it official late that October - the air was crisp and cool when he walked through the garden gate in Godric's Hollow, the trees in their yard were flushed a vibrant red that, he realised when she opened up the door to greet him, matched Lily's hair. The baby was walking now, tottering along after James and trying to grab the wand out of James' pocket. He'd finally succeeded, screaming with laughter as he whirled the wand in the air and sending a shower of sparks across the room. Lily had laughed her bright, full laugh and snatched the wand out of the baby's hand before placing James' wand up on top of the refrigerator next to her own. "I don't know why we carry these things around anyway, it's not like we need them!"
The wands were still up there when he left.
He was their secret keeper now.
He'd told the Death Eaters he was going, had told them that he was going to be made their secret keeper, and he knew he didn't have any time to delay the actual handing over but he wanted the time to stretch, to expand to accommodate him, because he wasn't ready, not at all, for what he was about to do.
They were his friends. No matter what he sometimes thought of them, no matter how little they actually valued him… though, he reasoned, that was just it, wasn't it. That was why he was standing here, a newly minted secret keeper, getting ready to turn them over to the Dark Lord. They hadn't valued him enough, they hadn't trusted him enough, liked him enough, believed in him enough. They hadn't given him enough, but was that any reason to do what he was about to do? To give James and Lily and… the baby over to the Dark Lord? To have, no, to let them be killed?
James and Lily, they'd signed up for this, they knew what they were getting into back when they'd left Hogwarts a few short years ago. James had been all bravado in the last few months at school, but the reality of the war, and being with Lily while they actively pursued her, had set in quickly. It was much tougher than they ever actually thought it would be, but he knew that James, or any of them, had never actually considered changing sides and this moment, this choice he was making right now was just further proof of the fact that Peter was never made to be the resilient one, the brave one. James had spoken with disgust about the few times that the Death Eaters, and even once the Dark Lord himself, had approached him and asked him to join them. He was a brilliant, talented pureblood, exactly the kind of wizard they were looking for, but James had turned them down, forcefully, and the Death Eaters ended up with Peter instead. He was sure that they, too, were disappointed in the trade.
But the baby? No. The baby wouldn't know any better. It would be quick. Painless. Easy. The baby wouldn't know any difference anyway and maybe, his stomach churned thinking it, maybe the baby would be first so at least he wouldn't have to be afraid.
He fought tears as he climbed the stairs, swallowed his terror and guilt and shame as he opened the door into the large, cavernous house where the Death Eaters had set up base. He thought, walking down the dark tiled corridor, that it was Malfloy Manor, but he wasn't sure. This was his last chance to turn back, his last chance to turn tail and run, to convince James to make Sirius the secret keeper again and to leave, to hide for as long as he had to. His entire body was trembling with the urge to run but he knew that he would never be able to run far enough, never be able to hide well enough to actually escape.
He rounded the corner and opened the door at the end of the corridor.
The Dark Lord was sitting in an arm chair across from the fire.
And Peter told him everything.