Ulterior Motives

Summary: Peter Pettigrew is always painted as a villain in the Harry Potter world: the man who sold out his best friends to the Dark Lord for no reason other than self-interest. But it's worth remembering there are two sides to every story.

A/N: This is a sort of spin-off from my other story In Too Far. Writing that one made me think more about the reasons behind why Peter did what he did. I don't want to give away too much before I've wrapped up a few plot points in my other story, but here's just a taster of what's to come. If you also read my other story In Too Far, this may give you more of a clue as to what's going to happen. I don't think there are enough fics out there that are sympathetic towards Peter, so I decided to write this. Even if you are normally a Peter-hater, I hope you can appreciate that there may be a different story if told from his point of view.

Disclaimer: I think you can work out what's mine and what's Ms Rowling's.

Prologue

If he'd known back then how loving her was going to destroy his life completely he would have told himself to stay well away. He never would have allowed himself to feel guilty; never gone back and apologised for that horrible joke he and the others had played on her; never allowed himself to fall for the kind Hufflepuff girl with the blue eyes.

But it wasn't that simple. There was no way he could have known back then how things were going to turn out. All he knew was that day by day he was falling ever more in love with her. As much as he loved to tease James about his inability to get Lily to agree to go out with him, Peter knew he was only doing it to hide the fact he felt the exact same frustration. He had his own equivalent of Lily Evans.

Emily.

She'd started out as just another Hogwarts student who was unlucky enough to fall victim to one of their pranks, but she'd grown to be so much more than that. She wasn't one of those girls who'd fall at Sirius or James' feet just because they were 'bad boys' with good looks and a notorious reputation; or one of the ones who'd go off sulking for days if Remus politely turned down one of their propositions of a date; or, like almost every other girl in the school, viewed Peter as nothing more than a minor annoyance who didn't belong among the other three and therefore ignored him completely. Instead, Emily held them all in equal disdain, and that was what made him notice her.

She may have been quiet and unassuming for the most part, and that was why they'd thought she'd make an easy target, but, bloody hell, when it came to it she knew how to stand up for herself. Her vicious put down of James and subsequent slapping of Sirius round the face had definitely managed to get their attention, but while the others had condemned her as a sour cow with no sense of humour for it, she'd prompted Peter to think. There were jokes that were amusing, and jokes that were degrading, and maybe she was right: they had overstepped the line.

Even though he'd joined in with the others laughing at her at the time, later on he'd felt rather bad about it. That was why he'd decided to go and apologise to her. It was the most nerve-wracking thing he'd ever done - including becoming an illegal underage animagus and running around with a werewolf once a month – but she'd been very gracious about it. She accepted his apology. In fact, she'd done much more than that. She offered to help him carry his potted fanged geranium to Herbology. She even agreed to sit next to him in the library so they could work on their homework together. One simple apology had turned into a fully fledged friendship. Not one that James, Sirius and Remus would approve of in the slightest, given that none of them liked her, but one that Peter valued immensely.

However, the longer it went on, the stronger his feelings got. She wasn't just a friend to him; she was much more important than that. He had the marauders for friends, but really they just didn't understand him like Emily did. She was kind, clever, funny in ways that would be lost on James and Sirius, and very attuned to people's feelings. He could talk to her about things he'd never dream of mentioning with the others.

By his fifth year, Peter realised he was completely and utterly in love with her. Even if she didn't seem to return the sentiment yet, even if she still thought they were 'just friends', he knew he wasn't going to give up. No matter how long it took.

He didn't know back then what was going to happen or what the future held, but he did know he would give up everything for her, if he had to.

And, as it turned out, everything was exactly what he had to give.