Author: Demeter
Warnings: Peter sympathetic and POV. Angst, post James-Lily death.
Disclaimer: All rights and privileges to Harry Potter are trademarks and property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury Books, Raincoast Books and associated parties. The author claims no legal responsibility for problems associated with using this work. No money is being made and copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The original story and characters and relationships within the fic are copyright of Demeter.
~*~*~*~*~*~
They were dead
Good riddance, I thought I would say.
Thank heavens, I reflected would be my feelings.
But just this gnawing hole, the endless specters of pain that haunts me, that circles me endlessly as I try to forget that I, their Judas, betrayed them for my own power, my own wealth.
My own life.
I am a coward.
A coward who is alive.
But a coward nevertheless.
Tis strange, isn't it? When we were in school, I had thought foolishly, the way only young schoolboys can dream, that we would be together for all eternity. That James would marry Lily, while the three of us, the ones who seemed to be destined toward bachelorhood, would live in flats or houses around them, our doors connected by invisible hallways, no doors ever closed, no lights ever darkened.
So that we would always be able to find the way home.
And no.
It didn't happen.
Things changed.
I changed.
I had sworn to myself, up and down, side-to-side, that I would never let myself be tainted by the dark, that I would never allow my petty jealousies to ruin anything the four of us have… had.
I agreed that James was better than me in Quidditch, that Sirius was infinitely more popular then me with the girls, and that Remus was smarter than I could ever hope to be. I allowed myself to acknowledge and even accept all these unlikable nuances of myself.
I had admitted to all that and beyond. I was never jealous; at least, I felt I was never so.
What a liar I am.
I was.
Jealous, I mean.
Every time I saw James and Lily exchange a gooey glance, a lance of rage sprinted through me. Each occasion I cheered Sirius on in a Quidditch match, I cursed in my mind the unjustness of our positions. Whenever I saw Remus gain another stunning accolade for one accomplishment or another, I gritted my teeth even as I grinned my wide and 'innocent' beam.
It's hard to remember when I first started consciously realizing that I was deathly jealous.
The cold, terrifying truths started leaking out, seeping from my carefully guarded inner demons. I did not think that I was conscious until James smoothed out a little furrow in my brow and jokingly asked if I was green-eyed. Asked me what made my face wrinkle up so?
At that moment, I knew.
I despised them and their accomplishments. There was rarely a moment when I didn't seethe in the broiling pettiness. (A pun I would have liked to ignore) I avoided them for several days after finding out that a Gryffindor like me, sweet, naïve little Peter Pettigrew actually could suffer one of the seven cardinal sins; envy.
That transgression had been solely reserved for those we thought to be envious of the solid relationship the four of us had.
Shell-shocked.
Despicable.
I loathed myself for being so weak… but I loathed them also for being so blind.
They *should* have been there to help me. They *should* have prevented the dark taint to wrap its arms around me. They *should* have known that the other side always started with the weakest and worked their way up the corporate ladder, so to speak.
But they didn't.
They figured me as an innocent, a small, ineffectual character who would have no relevance in the future, in the war, in their lives. I was just another friend, perhaps a bit closer because I shared secrets no one else knew. That I kept secrets that no one else could guess.
Animagi. I was the last of the three of us to change. It was hard. Very, very hard. But anything for them.
Anything.
Envy changed all that. I was marked, soiled, annexed. No longer could I plead purity and virtue. I was a dirty little whore who sold out his friends for power and money.
Judas sold Jesus for thirty silver pieces.
What an idiot. He should have asked for more. I did and look where it almost got me. A right-hand position in Voldemort's court. Wealth beyond my dreams. Power always at my grasp. The ability to satisfy anything and everything I fancied or craved.
I didn't turn merely because I hated them. If it were only that, I could have controlled the rage, the sickening lurches in my stomach. I was strong in that way. No matter what life tossed me, I could endure for the most part.
But no… I wanted more. I wanted a life, the life, their lives.
I should have demanded immunity.
Where betraying James and Lily to Voldemort *really* got me was the prospect of living out the rest of my life as a rat. A stinking, lowly rat that has no possibility of a future because that damned Sirius Black insisted on using ME as the secret keeper.
And I had thought *I* was the dumb, naïve one here.
Sirius of all of us was the biggest fool. He didn't trust Remus enough to tell him about the switching of roles. He was sure that Remus was the one who would turn, the one who was traitor.
Bullocks to that.
Remus was the only one of us who wouldn't ever turn.
Why would he turn?
When so easily I could?
But then again, I was their Judas. I was their traitor. I was their dead hero.
While James and Lily were dead.
~*~ FINIS ~*~
I don't particularly care for Peter… but there has to be something about him that put him Gryffindor. There had to be some sort of quality about him that allowed Sirius and James to become such good friends with him. It's unlikely that they would have allowed just anyone to hang onto their group.
They wouldn't have befriended Peter just because they pitied him. They're smarter and wiser than that. (Well, maybe James; Sirius is very debatable) There had to be *something* honorable about the boy.
And in the end, I felt a tad bit of sympathy. Everyone starts out innocent, including Voldemort. No baby or child wishes to kill; they do not have the knowledge of what death and mayhem cause. They are innocent. It is through circumstances, experiences, grudges, relations, etcetera. I believe that there had to be a spark of bravery, goodness, chivalry that landed him in Gryffindor.
The line, "I, their Judas" actually came from another fic that utilized Ron in an AU HP fic where he betrayed Harry and Hermione. I can't quite remember what fic it was, but I loved that line, and therefore incorporated it into this fic, because I thought it fit very well with Peter's character.
