Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter. This fic is slightly AU and for now it is complete, but I am contemplating turning it into a longer fic at some point down the road. I should also note as this is my first fic for a while (since 08) It has been beta'd by ASiriuslyGleekyTimeLord, So all remaining mistakes are my own. I hope you enjoy it.
Peter Pettigrew stared down at the body of James Potter with a dazed expression, almost as if he didn't realize he was standing in his friend's destroyed living room at all. James lay pale and still, his glasses askew, eyes empty with his wand laying mere inches away from the hand that must have dropped it when Voldemort's final curse hit.
The sounds from upstairs sounded to Peter as far away as another planet. He recognized the voices but the words seemed distorted in a way that he didn't understand. He was still standing over James' body when he heard two words that broke through the fog in his mind, the words of the killing curse. He pulled himself away from his friend's corpse and shuffled forward and up the stairs. Even in this dazed state he knew his way around the house as surely as he knew the secret passages in Hogwarts.
He stumbled into the hallway and saw the room his master was in. Saw Lily as still and pale as her husband the floor below. Heard Harry crying and felt nothing for it, he was numb from all feeling physically and emotionally.
Harry's cries became louder and Peter found himself emotionlessly watching as the man who was one of, if not the most, notorious dark wizards in history raise his wand arm making what Peter knew was the wand movement for the killing curse and seconds later an eerie green light filled the room.
The rat like man expected to hear the Dark Lord's triumphant laughter ring out in the night. Instead after seconds of silence the house erupted in the sounds of a child's cries. Harry's cries. Peter blinked shaking his head clearing some of the haze from his thoughts.
The first thing Peter noticed after hearing the boy he'd been an uncle to cry was that he was cold and his cheeks were wet. He lifted a hand and brushed his face, his hand shaking the whole way, pulling it back down he saw it wasn't blood and he was inside. Tears. He was crying and the rest of the daze he was in lifted.
What had he done? He turned and ran thundering down the Potter's stairs more like a one man stampede than a small meek creature. He stopped in front of James' body this time falling to the ground beside it. He couldn't, he didn't, want to believe what he was seeing. One of the first things Sirius had explained to him when they decided to make the switch was he'd have to give the information up willingly. Peter had assured him that would never happen.
Peter had told himself he wouldn't let it happen. He had the mark but that was out of fear not any sense of he knew it was impossible to have been placed under the Imperius curse and forced to give up his friend's location, so why then did he feel his hand had been forced? He didn't want this, never this.
A thought snaked its way into his head then, 'But maybe you did. A small dark part of you wanted this and you stopped suppressing it long enough to act on it.' He trembled at the thought, had he a moment of weakness? And during the moment had he decided that saving his own life was worth this destruction?
He looked around at the house, it was in shambles. Peter had had so many good memories here but all of the good feelings seemed to be seeping out of the house, as the seconds ticked by and the house felt colder and emptier.
Harry's continued wails brought him back to present and he pulled himself to his feet. No. He hadn't wanted this. So why had it happened? He forced himself to climb the stairs again and go into the room with Lily and Harry. He noticed there was no trace of the Dark Lord. He stepped softly over Lily to check on Harry.
The first thing he noticed was the new scar on his forehead. The second was the deafening sound of Sirius' flying motorbike. He shook with fear and not a small amount of guilt. Sirius would kill him, he would deserve it he knew that but would Sirius even give him the chance to explain? Then again what was there to explain, he thought there was a chance he had somehow been forced into giving up the information he'd sworn to protect.
Peter could hear it now, Sirius would laugh at him it would have that ring of bitterness that Sirius seemed to reserve for Snape or when someone asked a stupid question. And then he would punch him and he would keep hitting him until there was no part of him left to hit. No there would be no explanations not for this, not when he couldn't explain it to himself.
He heard Sirius enter the house downstairs, heard the strangled cry he let out upon seeing James and shrunk into the shadows. He knew he should leave but couldn't force himself to go. Then as he heard feet sprinting up the steps, running towards the room he was in he heard a voice, a familiar lulling voice. The one that had relieved him of his senses long enough to hand Voldemort the information he needed to kill the Potter's to kill his friends.
It whispered to him, 'Go now. It's not time for this confrontation, The scales still need balancing my puppet and balanced they shall be but you have work to do.'
Peter obeyed the voice without question shifting quickly into his animagus form and hiding in the shadows just in time. He watched Sirius burst into the room give a whimper when he saw Lily but step over her gently and grab Harry. He watched his old friend carry his Godson out of the ruined house. Heard voices outside but it was the same as earlier in the night they sounded stretched and distorted and he could make none of them out.
Only when it was safe to come out did he feel free to move. The Voice at his ear soothed him, guided him. He turned back into a man and walked numbly out of the house in Godric's Hollow leaving his emotions and two dead friends behind him. All at the behest of the calming but controlling voice whispering instructions in his ear.