"No, James, Siri, you don't know what you're asking…"
"You have to do it, Pete!" James begged. "There's no one else."
"It's true, mate – I can't do it," Sirius admitted, hanging his head in shame. "I thought I could, but… it's driving me mad, Pete. I can feel myself losing my fucking grip."
"So you want me, your last choice, to take it over?" He tried acting offended. Maybe, just maybe, they would buy it, just leave.
"Please, Pete, I'm begging you, here. I'm useless, sitting around in the safehouses waiting to hear who else has died. I'm a fighter – I've got nothing else going for me, mate. You – you'd still be able to do your work, with the enchanting and the potions, and take care of your mum. No one would have to know we changed it – it's just – if I die, I can't risk it that one of the people we've already told is the spy. Mary, she'd be dead before anyone even knew what happened, like Camp Seven."
But I'm the spy! Peter thought, trying to muster up the courage to admit it – to keep his friends from forcing him into the worst possible position, directly between them and the Dark Lord.
"Peter, we need you. And it's not because you're our last choice. We told Lily you're the only one for the job. She suggested Alice, and Remus, but we trust you. If anyone can keep us safe, you can," James wheedled.
He couldn't do it. Telling them would only get him killed – like Regulus – by his own side. He had managed to tell the Death Eaters only the most trivial information so far – he was sure he hadn't given away anything that could be used too badly against them, only enough that the Dark Lord and that crazy bitch Lestrange believed he was fully (albeit reluctantly) on their side. Sooner or later, he would gather enough information on the Death Eaters to bring back to Dumbledore, to admit the hole he'd managed to dig himself into, to beg for help, to escape. But not yet. Now – he had nothing. Less than nothing. He looked like a dirty traitor – the Spy they had labeled him. Throwing himself on his friends' mercy… he would never make it to Dumbledore. He would be lucky if James and Sirius just killed him. If they told Lily, he was sure her mother's instincts would see him fed to an acromantula before he could explain himself.
"All you'd have to do is write out a couple of notes with the secret, we'll show them to anyone who needs to know – just tell them we had to renew the Charm, or we wanted to tighten up security or something – no one would have to know you were the Keeper. It'll look like nothing's changed – everyone who'd care will still be coming after me, not you, like… like a decoy. It's perfect, really. Just say you'll do it." Sirius turned begging eyes on him, in the way that invariably reminded Peter of Reggie – vulnerable and desperate for… affection? Approval? Some indefinable thing that only Peter could give him, anyway, but so very reluctant to admit it.
"Siri…"
"You can do this, Peter. We wouldn't ask if we didn't think you could," James attempted to bolster his confidence.
On the one hand, this was very irritating, since James had no idea how difficult this decision actually was – he must think Peter a yellow little prat, even hesitating to leap to his friends' aid. On the other, even the empty words of encouragement (James didn't even know the half of it, and what if Peter couldn't do it?) were slightly encouraging. When James Potter believed in you, it was easier to believe in yourself – a strange but undeniable fact Peter had come to realize over the course of seven years' living together.
Peter took a deep and steadying breath. Maybe he could. The Dark Lord wanted the Potters, but if Peter did like Sirius suggested, never mentioned to anyone, for any reason, that anything had changed, just kept doing what he had been, walking that line he'd once wished he'd never have to, then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be impossible. He knew better, now, than to underestimate the Death Eaters – he had been young and stupid, thinking he could outwit them, in the beginning, letting them drag him in and trying to salvage the situation as he could, and only getting pulled in deeper – but James and Sirius were right, despite their ignorance. It was nothing more than he had already been doing for months and months.
In for a sickle, in for a galleon. He could do it. He could keep them safe. He would do it.
It wasn't like he really had any other choice.
"Alright, I'm in."