To Choose By Fear

By sissy hobbit

PG (its equivalent)

A/N: Yes, there are bloody well spoilers for DH! Thoughts? …set after the altercation at Grimmauld. I rather wondered if anything in Peter had snapped before the night with the Malfoys in the manor.

Stumbling. Cobbles on narrow London streets and where? It didn't matter.

The flats, crouching lower, lower and away from dusky Grimmauld Place, leaned drunkenly and he thought, he almost thought they might fall on him.

They couldn't be heavier than what he held inside.

Incoherent, neither sobbing nor cursing, the ragged man in traveller's cloak came swaying, to halt and crumpled against the alley wall. Twilight lay like a robemaker's dress gauze, pale and fading into dim; but the stars above clung feebly in the city's flush of luminance. The Dog Star glinted, brittle in Canis Major. But in Orion, Bellatrix seared savagely – the stars named for people, or people named for stars?

Remus Lupin dragged his hands through his hair, shaking. No, I think he'd want you to stick with your kid.

His memories seemed to blur with the dusk, as choked as his breath and the stinging tears. Sirius, finally realising what once-a-month illnesses and disappearances meant. James laughing, laughing 'til tears ran down his cheeks.

Bloody Hell! …only that, Remus?

Oh yes – only that. What a joke to those who didn't see it; a furry little problem.

…Tonks. He swallowed. An outcast – why did I ever? An outcast. But she was looking up at him, wan but grinning, her hair a vivid green; and then bubblegum pink.

It's a boy, she'd said, winking. I know it.

And then the shadows in the alley changed and he realised he had been kneeling, hands over his face behind a pile of rubbish, carboard, someone's cast-off furniture. Shadows stood at the alley end. They struck his eyes sharply, all definition and the memories drained like chill veritaserum down his throat. Only Harry's voice remained. Coward, Remus. Professor Lupin. …Coward.

"…If you're wrong—" hissed a voice, rising despite its panicked whisper. "—We're to watch for Potter!"

"Hsh!"

Remus slid to his feet, lucidity growing. Madness to Disapparate a few numbers down and stagger off who-knew-where—like Sirius. But he hadn't done it to be a daredevil, not to show-off, to lure impossible odds into a duel –

"—other end—" a gasped, squeaking voice snapped suddenly, and dropped, "Do you think I don't know him?"

A mutinous mutter.

But Remus heard the rustle of robes now, behind him and ahead; now voice too low. His hand jerked to his wand; too late for thoughts; regrets.

"Stupefy!" cried the cracked squeak, just as his own wand came up. The silent shield Charm faltered. His breath short, head swimming, Remus dropped behind the gutted chair. Its curious lemon and green pinstripe was stained, broken by a suspiciously dark spattering, reddish by the rims.

Glancing up, he stared, stunned. Peter stood above him, mouth half open, wand half-raised in a silver hand.

"Well?" hissed the man at the alley's mouth, "Is it? Did you get him?"

"Peter."

The look in the small man's watery eyes was childish, fury strained against a pleading, hopeless uncertainty.

"Well? Pettigrew, if we miss something because—"

"Shut up, Macnair! Shut up," snapped Peter. "I—you go. Mulciber can help me finish this."

Remus raised his wand; but his mouth, dry, formed no spell, instead as if another man spoke, he heard a hoarse voice, "We're the last," he whispered, "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs."

"Drop it," said Peter, silver hand flexed and taut as grew taut over his wand.

Remus went on, quietly as if he had heard nothing. "Just he two of us, Peter; or what's left of you and I. A traitor, slave; and a werewolf."

"Drop it," hissed Peter, voice breaking, but still he waited. And his first spell had been no more than a stunner.

"You could have killed me."

"Drop it, Remus," Peter's voice became desperate, a little boy's speaking up towards panic. "Now, now. I will kill you."

Remus's grey eyes met Peter's pale blue, stony and unwavering. "Do," he said, "It will do the world a favour; and one can't worry over a little more blood on hands already stained."

"Drop it," repeated Peter, strained, "No wait, don't move! I said—" he broke off. "Tell me something, Remus. I won't kill you but you have to tell me."

But in the brief pause, Peter's gaze pleading again, his wandhand shaking, Remus shifted. Peter's wand arced out of his hand; he staggered. And Remus stumbled to his feet, wand steady.

"Sirius should have had you seventeen years ago."

"No!" gasped Peter, "No, Remus, I wasn't going to make you say anything – I was. I'm scared Remus. Help me, please. You always – the Dark Lord won't let go, let go—" his small eyes flicked, a terrified moment to his silver hand, "—You don't understand."

"I understand," said Remus, feeling the hoarseness in his voice, "Too much and too well. Harry showed you mercy and all you could manage in return was a second double-cross that night."

"I—I couldn't help it. Believe me, Remus, He's—"

"—a madman."

With a sudden impulsive gesture, desperate, Peter reached for the other's robe, his arm—with silver. Remus recoiled with a gasp. But seeing the wand waver, Peter grasped for the wrist—and it fell as Remus jerked back. His skin burned, prickles running up his arm, burned like hot steel wound round his arm.

"Tell me," Peter was whispering, urgent, "Tell me it's not too late – no! I won't let go, tell me!" As though demented, he pled, "Tell me, it's not too late. It's not too late—"

"Will they forgive me?"

Remus fell against the rotted-out overstuffed chair, hand still trapped as if in vise in Peter's silver hand and the alleyway wavered, shadows and mirror images, faces and the memories again lapping like waves against tenuous consciousness. "Let go, Peter," he heard his own voice, terribly calm and from a great distance.

The pain dulled in an instant. Pressure gone. In weaving vision, he saw his wrist, slick and red as if scorched.

"It's too late," came Peter's weak whisper. Feeling ill, Remus tried to focus.

Was it Peter, standing there, thirty-seven and stained by death and lies? Or was it the little boy, too round and shaking beside the Sorting Hat, damp face shining in candles' light?

He stood just like that boy, waiting panicked for sentence of certain death. What if, what if I'm thrown out? Maybe they won't want me. Peter, peering uncertainly across at James on the Express. Sirius had laughed, while Remus hesitated in the corridor, feeling shabby and outcast.

"It's too late," Peter said.

And it was a grown man, balding and scarred, colourless features drenched in sweat, standing there like the boy, shaking.

"You chose." Remus tried to straighten; felt as leaden as James's pitiable first potion, melted with the cauldron. It was only grief now coursing through him, blurring his head and thoughts with the pain and how? He asked himself, how had this man once been little Peter Pettigrew? "You chose, Peter."

"…too late."

"For most of it," said Remus, "Yes."

Peter raised his wand; and then stepped back with a stuttering step. The man was gone and a moment later the skittering shadow of a rat darted across the wall.