There are times during Peter Pettigrew's life in which he dreams.
In his glorious Hogwarts years, Peter was more than just a boy wizard. He was part of a group whose legends were certain to roam the castle corridors for generations afterwards, and Peter believed that the glowing light shed from his friends could maybe, perhaps, be a part of him as well.
But then he turns coats, and Volde- no, the Dark Lord kills James and Lily. Hidden as a rat, Peter watches Sirius being dragged away by Aurors and ruthlessly smothers the guilt he feels. It should not matter what happens to his previous friends, for Peter Pettigrew is finally destined to be the winner. But Peter does not grieve when he hears that the Dark Lord has fallen. Instead, he goes to the rubble that is Godric's Hollow and just sits and thinks. He does not cry, and he does not grieve. But when Peter leaves the ruined home, he casts, perhaps, the last good bit of magic he will ever carry out—on a Muggle obelisk of a Muggle war, Peter carves the last image he saw of the Potters. Little Harry had looked so especially content.
Years later, he is on the run, and searching for the Dark Lord. The Lord is angry when Peter finally arrives in Albania-very angry-and as Peter cringes away his curses once more, he longingly thinks back to the times when he was just a fat rat sleeping in Ron Weasley's bed, ignorant to all the noises of mankind. Even later, as he is chopping off his hand to resurrect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Peter is thinking of better times, times when he dreamed and had dreams.
It is a strange feeling, Peter muses, to dream about people who are dead; to go to sleep and luxuriate in the golden glory of friends, only to wake up, shivering in the dark, completely alone save for the moaning and whispers that accompany the Death Eaters wherever they go. He wonders if Sirius had felt like this in Azkaban, or if his time in the prison had been even worse. Peter finds it hard to imagine a place darker than where he is now.
The screaming of tortured victims does not faze Peter anymore. In fact, instead of horror or disgust, the screaming brings up old memories and dredged-up thoughts. Sometimes, Peter wonders if Lily and James screamed and yelled when they died. It was true, what Sirius said, Peter muses. Friends should die for one another. He wonders what makes him so different; what is so wrong with him, the taint on the brave Gryffindor House, that he can let his friends die so that he can live. He is the height of cowardice, and he does not know why the Sorting Hat ever placed him in the House of the Brave and Loyal.
Everyone always said that it was Hufflepuff that was for leftovers, but sometimes Peter wonders whether it is Gryffindor instead. He wonders whether Gryffindor is the home for the insecure and the lonely and the afraid, all gathered underneath the scarlet and golden banners so that they could search for other souls that were perhaps as dark and as bitter and as cowardly as their own so that those poor, shattered Lions could try to piece each other back together. To try and find the light in others. Never alone, always united.
Peter had been part of the taped-together picture, for a while. Too bad it hadn't lasted. Perhaps, Peter thinks, the Hat Sorted the children underneath him not through existing traits, but but through potential. And that thought inexplicably makes him feel terrified and eleven again, eyes covered by the Hat, because Peter feels as if he has let the Hat down. Because didn't that mean that the Hat had had hopes for him in the beginning?
And Peter never thinks about this too deeply (for fear of the Dark Lord reading his mind) but sometimes he regretted. Sometimes regretted the loss of Lily's wit and Remus' soothing words and Sirius' big bark of a laugh. Sometimes regretted losing golden boy James, who had scooped up the lug called Peter Pettigrew, and had stood by him till the end. Had made Peter his Secret Keeper. Had trusted him. Peter Pettigrew.
It does no good to think of the impossible, but Peter sometimes wonders what could have happened if he had not brought the Dark Lord to his friends' home that fateful Halloween. He wonders if he could have been one of little Harry's favorite uncles, one who always brought him sweets and showed him the potential beauty in the small, forgettable creatures of the world. He wonders if Lily and James would have had another child, and would have named him, old Wormtail, the godfather of that tiny little boy or girl. He wonders if he could have lived in that warm, warm house full of the love and light and laughter that came with friends instead of shivering alone in the dark.
Peter sometimes imagines, and dreams, and wonders if he could have been happy.