While (attempting) to study for my finals, I came across the below quote from 1984 by George Orwell. I thought about it a moment then decided it fit this topic nicely. So, I wrote this (instead of continuing to study).
And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.
-1984, George Orwell.
Peter Pettigrew had had a bad day.
It started with his waking up late. He had rushed from his flat to the current headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately he had arrived late and the meeting had already been in progress for 10 minutes.
Mad-Eye took the liberty to point this out to the gathered crowd. Scowling, Peter had taken his seat beside Sirius.
Himself, along with Dorcas Medowes, Lily Evans (now Potter actually), Caradoc Deerborn and Benjy Fenwick had been assigned to go 'gather information' as Mad-Eye put it. Naturally, things didn't run that smoothly.
He supposed it may have been partly his fault, the charm he had applied to disguise Dorcas didn't hold as long as it should've. So it did make her slightly noticeable to the Death Eaters they were supposed to be watching. After all, they knew her face all too well.
He desciribed it as a slight skirmish, the fight that broke out. Not a huge battle, but still equally as terrifying. He flung curses and spells far and wide but surprisingly, for one of the first times curses weren't all aimed at him. This was a pleasant surprise, though a bit unnerving. They usually went after the weakest link.
The fight ended in a draw.
He had retreated wearily back to his flat, only wanting to have some shut eye. However, that would've made it a good day, now wouldn't have? So when he unlocked his door he first thing that hapened was his body seized up, refusing to move and he fell flat on the welcome mat in front of the door.
"Way to make an entrance kid." A voice drawled, dripping with sarcasm. He attempted to lookup at the voice and undoubtly, the caster of the spell, but found he couldn't. Whoever it was took pity on him and lifted him to a standing position but did not remove the body bind curse. Now standing he found himself looking at a woman he supposed could be considered pretty, with dark grey eyes and a face framed by a mass of long black curls. She was lounging against his sofa, tapping her wand against her hand.
Bellatrix Black. Padfoot's insane death eater cousin. Lovely.
"Now Peter Pettigrew, I'm sure you're wondering what I'm doing, paying you a visit."she said. Obviously, Peter didn't answer.
"Well, let me tell you. You see, I'm here on behalf of the Dark Lord because he sees promise in you. He knows you are close friends with the Potters. I believe its James and Lily? Oh yes, and their new baby boy." Peter's mind was racing. What could You-Know-Who want with the Potters? Bellatrix continued,
"And for reasons only beknownst to himself, he needs information on the darling little family. He has chosen you to be the source of that information. You should be honored.
"Now before you make any ah, rash decisions," she said, vanishing all defiant thoughts from Peter's whirring brain. "Consider the benefits… and the alternatives. Now, the Dark Lord has not specified but he sure has hinted that the benefits will be glorious and the alternative, not so glorious. Not only for your friends and the Order but also for yourself." She said before muttering something that sounded suspiciously like Crutacious and Avada Kedavra under her breath.
All of Peter's thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Only one occupied his mind. He did not want to die. No matter how he survived, he wanted to survive. Even if it meant someone else took the fall. 'Plus' he tried to rationalize, even though it was futile, 'She didn't say the Dark Lord was going to kill them'.
Bellatrix removed the curse an extended her hand. "So," she asked, a sly grin crawling up her face. "Do we have a deal?"
And Peter reached out his own paw and shook on it.
It had been a year since Bellatrix had visited him. A year since he essentially sold his soul. A year that he'd been passing along information.
Now someone else was at his door. A man this time, with cold hard eyes that were red slits on a snake-like face. A man with multiple names. A man who was the most feared person in the wizarding world.
This man had come to pay a visit to Peter Pettigrew, who greeted him graciously into his house, offered him a seat and when the man asked delivered the words that forever altered history.
"They made me their secret keeper! I am the Potter's secret keeper."
"Excellent." Lord Voldemort told his servant, drawing his wand and tapping it conspicuously on the table. "Now if you don't mind, do you care to divulge that secret?"
Peter hesitated for only a moment, thought about the people who had been his friends for years. Thought even momentarily about the consequences of his actions. But one look at the man in front of him, who had ended many lives without so much as a blink of an eye and the answer came spewing forth all in a desperate attempt to save his own skin.
"They're in Godric's Hollow. Thirty-two Andem St."
He was a rat, in all senses of the word. But after this moment, he never really gave it much thought.
And so begins and ends the tale of the infamous Peter Pettigrew.