Chapter 1: First meeting.

Summary: Peter Pettigrew comes across a lonely child while on the run. Can he make a difference in this boys life even when he has already helped to ruin the life of another child he cared for?

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Well two goldfish and a laptop, but what does that have to do with Harry Potter?

Authors note: Well now, look at this, another story from the non-author. My apologies for this attempt at a chapter fic, I have no clue how long this will be or where this is going, but I like it so far. Please review and tell me why you like or hate it. I take criticism well, so if you really hate this and want to tell me why, go ahead. Also, I don't have any clue as to if this timeline is at all right, I don't know when or how Percy got Scabbers and I'm not going to go searching for it. So please ignore the weird timeline. I also don't know how far apart the Weasleys are in age so I just took a guess. Give me feedback please!

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There is a little boy crying all alone in the backyard and no one seems to notice. This boy's name is Percy, he's four years old and has a rather preoccupied family. His mother and father are currently chasing a magical tornado created by two tiny identical boys who's magic is just starting to show in random bouts of the accidental variety. These two little bundles of energy are Percy's baby brothers. Two older brothers are also somewhere around the house playing with one another, too busy to notice that their brother is all alone outside crying over a scraped knee wishing that someone would make it all better.

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Peter Pettigrew has been on the run in his rat animagus form for nearly a year now. He is a very depressed little rat. He knows that he has betrayed his true friends and ruined a child's life. It was too tempting though, the power, the offered acceptance. He was never anyone's actual friend, he was always just the tag along. He wasn't attractive like Sirius, smart like Remus, or brave and popular like James. He had believed these men to be his best friends for so long and along came Voldemort and his followers and persuaded him with offers of a true allegiance and friendships. Promises that people would look up to him and respect him for how he helped save the world from the corrupt ministry. It had all been a set up. He eavesdropped on a group of Death Eaters having a conversation only to find out that every time he had talked to Lucius Malfoy or Voldemort that they were using subtle mind magic on him to make him believe that James, Remus and Sirius were only using him for what little he offered and never actually liked him at all. Not only that, but Voldemort's offers were all false. He learnt that the day the self proclaimed dark lord used crucio on a muggle child to prove his point on muggle weakness. He would never respect this man or trust him again, but it was already too late. He had sold his soul to the devil. Any information he had went directly from his mind to the dark lords. So when the time came that Sirius asked to make the swap with him for secret keeper, the dark lord knew before he could even think to respond. He had been forced to agree to be secret keeper and at that moment he knew he had just helped murder his best friend.

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Peter was scurrying along a row of bushes that he had found to contain blackberries and went to have a nibble when he heard the soft whimpering sobs of someone nearby. He was curious of where the sound had come from because so far nothing exciting had ever happened while he had been on the run. Well except for nearly getting eaten by that snake, but that had been just plain horrifying. Peter stuck his wiggling rat nose out of the bushes towards the sobbing sounds and took a tentative sniff. Smelling no other humans or creatures around but the weeping one, he slowly crawled out but stayed low to the ground in the high grass to avoid being seen immediately.

He peeked up over the grass to get a look at who was crying and was shocked to see a little redheaded boy with tears streaming down his face holding his knee protectively to his chest. He immediately thought about Harry, his best friends child whom he had helped orphan, and wanted to scoop the boy up into his arms and tell him it would be all right. He snapped himself out of those thoughts quickly enough, this wasn't Harry.

He took a look around and saw that they were back behind an odd little house, obviously the boys home. There was an awful lot of noise coming from inside, maybe the child had been forgotten in the commotion. Peter turned back to the little redhead and looked upon him to see if he was injured other than his knee. He looked fine, Scraped knee and dirty clothes, the child clearly had fallen down and was just sitting here wallowing in his pain, waiting for someone to give him the attention he needed.

Peter was never very good around children. As a seventh year the children generally avoided him and went to a prefect if needed. He felt he needed to do something for this tiny boy though, so he crawled over to him slowly and looked towards the boy expectantly. The ear shattering scream the boy emitted was quite a shock and he squeaked in fear as a result. Percy got up and hobbled away from the scary rat but the dirt covered creature cautiously walked towards him again. 'Maybe this rat was someone's pet' thought Percy. That could explain why it wasn't attacking him. He slowly sat back down in the grass awaiting the rats next move.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Please review and tell me what you think!