Written for Harry Potter Chapter Competition on HPFC (Priori Incantatum - write about someone escaping)
Label of Honour
James had always been the cool one, while Sirius had always been the popular one (the one the girls fancied). Remus had been quiet, studious, and the intelligent, grounded one (the one who pulled the other two into line). They were labels that stayed with them even past Hogwarts; natures that would never leave them until their eventual deaths.
Peter never had a label. He was never given much notice outside the three boys who befriended him. He wasn't popular, he wasn't cool, and he certainly wasn't smart. Even the teachers would laugh in his face at his abysmal school marks and fumbling wand work. The others just felt sorry for him; that was why they were friends. It seemed to be the only explanation people could come up with, and in the end, Peter, too.
When the opportunity for him to be something important came, Peter jumped at the chance. No matter how dirty or how disgusting it made him feel, he was of value to someone. Lily Potter was due to give birth at the end of July – the same time the prophecy that predicted the Dark Lord's demise claimed it would happen.
At first it was out of fear that he started feeding information to the most wanted man in the wizarding world. His power and his popularity was enough to frighten anyone into giving him what he wanted. In the end, however, the Dark Lord convinced Peter of his value and his worth as a Death Eater. He was insignificant to his friends; unimportant. He was so invisible no one even suspected it was him who may have been betraying their trust.
Smart would never be a word one would use when describing Peter. Coward, yes. Afraid, definitely. Smart was associated with the werewolf Remus, or James and Sirius who could sleep in class and still get an O on every test.
What they didn't know was on that cold, Halloween night of 1981, Peter Pettigrew – sidekick to more capable wizards; the unwanted friend – performed one of the most believable escape acts in history. Only one man knew the truth and he was rotting away in Azkaban for Peter's murder. Everyone else was none the wiser as to his true identity. The family he escaped to thought him to be just a common garden rat. Fat and useless. He was passed down from brother to brother, mistreated and mishandled, but always considered just a rat. Nothing special.
That night Peter did one of the smartest things a man had ever done; he faked his own death. He, who was nothing but a pawn in Lord Voldemort's power gain, did something brave and spectacular. The very next day his name was plastered over almost every page of The Daily Prophet. He was a hero for standing up to the murderous Sirius Black who had taken the lives of thirteen Muggles as well as an old friend's. People were mourning the loss of an unknown hero. He was going down in the history books.
The escape he made that night made him someone he had never been before; brave. It wasn't a label he had ever considered for himself (or believed he truly deserved) but it would do.
He was Peter Pettigrew and he was brave.
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