So. You all know what this is supposed to say. I don't own anything that J.K. Rowling does. I bet it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I left this off, but then…we are living in a Big Brother society. So, drop that hammer, and the sickle too, and parade around your nearest downtown street singing patrioticly. Right. Well, enjoy!

J.S.

Peter Pettigrew burst through the door to his apartment cackling madly.

He shed his worn coat slowly, savoring the feeling of absolute elatedness. It had been too long since he had felt completely and utterly happy. With a slight bounce in his step, he sauntered over to a hat stand behind the door and tossed his coat over the rungs. He stood taller, puffing his chest out the way he remembered James Potter doing as he paraded about Hogwarts. Peter licked his lips with satisfaction and strutted into a small living room.

Everything he saw made him happy. The bills he hadn't paid for two months, the pictures of his mum and dad before they passed away, the heaps and heaps of unread scrolls, the absolute wreck his house was in. It all filled him with wonderful heat, as if it were a cup of hot chocolate on a winter's night. He grinned to himself, shoved a few piles of paper off a sinking couch, and sat down, putting his feet up on a submerged table. He wouldn't turn on a light just yet. Savor the happiness in darkness.

Soon, Peter wasn't sure if he would be able to contain his joy. It was eating away at him from the inside. He wanted to burst out, yell, and tell the world that he was the happiest man alive, but something held him back. The insane smile that covered the bottom of his face slowly faded away. The feeling of happiness started to feel more sickening. He didn't realize that he had begun to shine with sweat.

He took his feet off the coffee table, sat a little less straight, and mopped his suddenly feverish brow with the back of his hand. His eyes danced around the room fleetingly, never hovering in one place for too long. His hand twitched compulsively. A creak in the worn floorboards in another room made him jump and glance around as though he was cornered.

"Peter."

Peter jumped to his feet as the cold voice cut through the cold serenity of his flat. He pawed at his throat, as if coaxing it to speak, his hand fumbled to where he kept his wand. His eyes never ceased their dizzy waltz around the room. The silence pounded his ears; the only sound he could hear was the fast pant of his own breath.

"Where..." he began, stuttering violently. "Who are you?"

Nothing.

Peter shook where he stood, too frightened to take a step for fear he might run into whoever was in his flat. He felt the unpleasant rush of adrenaline spread through his body, slightly numbing the feeling of absolute terror that washed over him when he heard another creak in the entrance hall. His breath grew hot, almost sticking to the air in front of it.

He couldn't move, not for anything. He tried to take a step away from the door to the entrance hall, tried to inch his way into a corner. Maybe he wouldn't be seen when whoever it was came in. Maybe they would overlook him. He attempted to slide his foot across the floor again, it wouldn't make as much noise if he didn't pick it up, but it was firmly attached to the floor. Frozen. Peter heard a pair of shoes scuff across discarded papers and he bolted.

He wasn't quite sure if he only heard himself as he lumbered around his cramped flat, trying to escape from his unseen attacker. He only heard the heavy tread of his own clumsy feet and the hammering of his overtaxed heart. He couldn't distinguish between the other noises. The darkness of his flat, the street lamps, the roll of a garbage truck lumbering down a back alleyway...it was all the same to Peter.

Peter was being chased by his own imagination. It drove him to a new sense of paralysis as he ran. His mind slowed, instincts taking over his rational thinking. He didn't remember what had scared him, but he knew whatever it had been was right on his heels, following him like a dog, like a shadow. He wanted to scream, to call for help as he ran, maybe a neighbor would hear him.

He hit a solid object in the middle of dashing through his living room again. A solid object where there wasn't anything to hit. He had been traveling through the air, through space only occupied by himself and the surrounding fumes in his flat. Nothing was supposed to be there. Peter glanced off the air and crumpled to a shivering ball on the floor. He sobbed uncontrollably.

The air above him rippled as someone emerged from an invisibility cloak. Peter, from his huddled position on the floor, watched the materializing black boots in fear. They shifted slightly, moving so they faced him.

"Peter, get up," he heard the same cold voice demand. "Stop being a thick idiot, you fool." Peter's eyes nervously climbed the distance from his attacker's shoes to his face. The gaunt face, surrounded by disheveled black hair, surprised him. He slowly rolled from his huddled position to his knees, inching his was up from there.

"B...Black," Peter mumbled, half relieved, half petrified. He hadn't seen his old school friend for years now. "I...I didn't expect you." Sirius's appearance was almost worse than the one Peter had been expecting. He would have died if it hadn't been Sirius. Peter looked around the room for a possible escape route. Sirius might be here to kill him anyway.

Sirius pursed his lips and sank into Peter's couch, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Peter. "I didn't expect to find you so jumpy, Wormtail." Black sighed, face dark with worry. He glanced up to where Peter remained unmoved. "I don't want to have to tell you to sit down in your own house, Worm." Peter unearthed a chair and hesitantly dropped into it. Sirius watched him all the while.

"I thought you were someone else, Black," Peter stuttered. "Was expecting..." He trailed off. Sirius didn't need to know who he was expecting. Peter would die if Sirius knew, either by Sirius's hand, or by...

"Never mind that," Sirius cut in, unwilling to wait for the rest of Peter's sentence. He leaned forward, canine qualities suddenly becoming more prominent. "Peter, ill work is afoot." Peter stared at Sirius as though he'd only just realized he was there. Sirius saw the newfound concentration. "You-Know-Who, Peter. He's trying to kill the Potters."

Peter's brow furrowed for the slightest moment. "K...Kill the Potters?" Peter stammered, eyes involuntarily dancing around the room. "Wha'd you mean, Black?" He licked his lips, feverish sweat returning. His clothes were already damp.

Sirius was afraid. "I fucking mean the bastard's trying to blow up James and Lily," Sirius hissed, no longer calm. His face turned a deathly shade of gray as he and Peter stared at each other, both trying to guess what was on the other's mind. The silence was deafening. "They're going to die."

Peter panicked again. "Why...why come to me, Black?" he exclaimed, eyes wild again. "We've been...out of t-touch for so long!" He leapt from his chair, beginning to exit into the entranceway.

"Listen to me," Sirius croaked, jumping to his feet and leading Peter back to his chair before the latter had made it more than two feet. "Just hear me out." Peter appeared to appal the idea--he squirmed uncomfortably under Sirius's grasp. "He knows how to find them, who to talk to..." He knelt before Peter, one hand buried in his untidy hair. "And if he...captures the person who knows where they are...he'll..."

Though Peter may have been the slowest of the Mauraders, the one whose sole position was to be in the end, he was not stupid. His mind was as crafty and devious as it was warped. "Are you saying," he whispered, unnatural calm washing over his features, "they have a Secret-Keeper?"

Sirius blinked, and through the haze that was his fear, he had the presence of mind to furrow his brow in confusion. Had he just said that? Sirius peered up at Peter, rattled by the all-too-quick conclusion. It was true, he hadn't seen Peter for five years, and the time was present on Peter's face. It was drawn, no longer the timid, round face he remembered hating. It wasn't innocent anymore. There was something behind Peter's flickering eyes, something. "Yes," he murmured, brain momentarily disconnecting with reality as it wandered into an increasingly graphic imagination. "You-Know-Who knows, Worm. He knows who it is."

Peter's eyes were fixed on Sirius's, unblinking.

"Merlin, Peter," Sirius snarled, slamming his fist into the splintering floorboards. It 'thudded' dully. "God damn, I've considered everything, everything, but every option is too dangerous. Moony, I'd give it to Moony but he wouldn't last long since he's in Greyback's ranks--too close to You-Know-Who already. There was Dumbledore, but he's a prime target and they'd not stay safe as long as his life was on the line, and there was Moody, but he lost his nose last week--close enough call as it is. I even thought about Snivellus, Merlin's beard, and he's nearly guaranteed to be one of You-Know-Who's filth."

A smile, undetectable by Sirius, flashed along the corners of Peter's worn face.

"He's coming for me, Wormtail, and I know I won't be strong enough to stop him. I've got to put it...put the secret some place where he'll never look, where they'll be safe..."

Peter's face remained impassive.

Sirius shivered, spine tingling. "I know I won't willingly let him know," Sirius whispered, voice almost so soft now it was impossible to hear. "But he'll get it out of me. I don't want to be the cause of James and Lily's deaths."

Peter sat still, still enough to give a gargoyle competition.

"But he doesn't know about you," Sirius gulped, laying a hand on Peter's knee. It jerked Peter out of the trance he had been in. "He'd never expect it if you were the secret-keeper, Worm." Sirius was breathing hard now, as if he were the one being chased. "The Potters would be safe if you were the secret-keeper, Peter. " He hesitated, taking a deep, quavering breath. "We're still Mauraders, right, Pete?" he asked rhetorically. "The years that kept us apart...they don't matter..."

"That's right, Black," was the answer. Peter stared down to where Sirius kneeled before him. The feeling of happiness briefly washed over him again. He bowed his head slightly. "If it will save James and Lily," Peter mumbled. "I'll keep their secret." Sirius smiled with relief.

Peter stumbled into a misty clearing. The darkness was all encompassing, the cold penetrated the winter cloak he wore and dug at his bone. The pale light of the moon was the only thing he could see by, that and the red glow.

"Why are you here," a chilling voice snapped impatiently. "I told you I would kill you the next time you came before me without an Order member." Voldemort raised his wand, claw-like hand engulfing the thin blade of wood. His red cat-eyes burned with loathing. "Wormtail, you are not even worthy enough to feed the worms. Crucio!"

Pain, unbelievable pain, erupted through every vein in Peter's body. Fire chorused through his blood, his flesh recoiled. Acids dripped through his mouth, eating his throat, his mouth, nose, everything. He felt a thousand knives all driving themselves into him at once, and the force of several tons spread him out in all directions.

It suddenly disappeared. Voldemort held his wand lightly above Peter's crumpled body, watching his servant quiver with the lasting feeling of torture. "You are a failure, Wormtail," Voldemort whispered, lips barely parting. "Tell me you aren't."

"My lord," Peter began, coughing, wheezing from the pain.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed as he directed his wand at Peter again. His eyes grew eager as he watched Peter convulse on the ground again, twitching, writhing with indescribable torment.

"Please," Peter strained, voice raspy, as he tried to find a kneeling position after Voldemort eased off again. He lolled in a circle for a moment, balance not quite coming to him. "Please, my lord." He saw the wand lowering again and cried out cowardly. "My lord! I have...information, my lord!"

Voldemort drew his wand away from the groveling man. "I doubt it will be of any consequence, Wormtail," he hissed, voice snake-like.

"My lord," Peter muttered, relieved to see his master sheath his wand. He stood shakily, careful to keep his head bowed and his eyes averted from his master's terrible ones. "Sirius Black came to me tonight." Peter paused to take a much-needed gasp. Air returned to his lungs. "He told me where to find the Potters."

Voldemort's face twisted into a terrible smile. "And? Where are they?"

Peter crumpled to a groveling bow and began to speak.

Three realizations hit three different people simultaneously:

Sirius Black, riding on his motorbike back to the house he had been hiding James and Lily in, abruptly pulled the enormous bike over to the side of the road, tires screeching. The look in Peter's eyes that had troubled him ever since he'd left the wretch's house. That look of triumph. It hit Sirius in an instant and he turned his bike around. With fury fuming off him, Sirius ripped out of the Muggle subdivision where he'd pulled over and back to Peter's flat. He might still have time.

Time to save his best friend from another Maurader.

Voldemort laughed and stepped over Peter's unconscious body, pulling the back hood of his cloak over his head as he did so. He drew his wand and surveyed the wintry Albanian woods with contempt. He was about to knock off another pawn on Dumbledore's chessboard. He was that much closer to killing the old man.

James Potter stared out the window he, his wife, and their year-old son sat huddled beneath. He could see the full moon clearly in a cloudless night sky. He slid his glasses up his nose and hugged Lily closer to him.

"I love you, Lily," he whispered, discretely locating his wand.

She looked back at him, eyes confused. "James?" she asked timidly. "Why are you saying..."

The door downstairs crashed to the floor loudly, surprising both James and Lily. They jumped to their feet as they heard the hollow footsteps on the stairs.

"Run, Lily," James ordered, drawing his wand and throwing his robe to the floor. He faced the stairs. When Lily hesitated, James panicked. "Run! Get out of here!"

"James," Lily cried, holding her son protectively against her shoulder. "James..."

Voldemort appeared at the top of the stairs. His red eyes bore into the darkness. There was a flash of green light, a brief interruption from the fiery red light of his eyes, and James Potter collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.

Lily stood still, the only thing between Voldemort and her son.

Review, yeah? Go on…

Oh, and many thanks to Siriute for inspiring me to rework what was, if I may say so, one of my least congruous plots ever. That's just was you get, apparently, when you renew a story you wrote two years prior.