as curtains close on us
chapter 6: peter
If Severus is ultimately good then you, Peter Pettigrew, are an angel.
It's not what you are about to do - no, no human being could ever forgive you for that - but what you will do later to repay for it.
You can't help but be touched - they have made you the Secret-Keeper, the capsule of their existence, the very shoulders on which the burden of three lives now rests. For the first, but not the last time in your life, you are completely necessary.
Except at the moment that scares the shit out of you.
"Where are they?" the man screams. "Where are they, you flea-bitten mongrel? You fat hulk -"
You are dangling quite helplessly by your ankle, your face hot as blood rushes to your head. As they always have, the insults cut straight to the quick (though - perhaps - the lighter side of you may've once argued Sirius is the one with fleas, and in any case I've lost a great deal of weight thanks to this anxiety).
But right now you can't possible think this. Right now you are quite really being tortured to death.
"Crucio!" he yells again as the Death Eater beside him starts to laugh. "Bloody rat! We know Black isn't the Secret-Keeper, why don't you just tell us?!"
You scream. You contort. You're begging, pleading, please, I'll do anything, stop! You are literally blinded with the pain: hundreds of knives being thrust coldly into your body and ripped across your skin. Please... I'll tell you...
"Alright, let him talk," the masked man growls. You drop heavily to the floor, panting and shuddering. "Don't let him change, though. He's an Animagus."
As if you hadn't already thought of that. As if you hadn't thought of every possible way, every possible safeguard against letting it get to this point: hiding? How could that be explained to the oblivious Dumbledore, or anyone else for that matter? Forcing Sirius to take it back, be the Keeper - and practically admit that you'd been giving away information all along, torn out of you by a few threats and spells...
Fake your own death? It's an idea you'd been toying with, but now it's far too late. James and Lily bequeathed this information unto you, and you can't protect it any longer...
"Godric's Hollow," you gasp as the cold tip of a wand presses against your neck. Iit comes tumbling out now. The town, the address, a description of the house, even the room in which baby Harry sleeps -
You have become...
A monster. Consumed by fear.
And soon you will be his servant. Come time for the Dark Lord's return, you will be the first on a list of new recruits. You will be the one needed once again - the Animagus, the ex-member of the Order, the man with no place left to go.
But Peter, you are an angel.
Not for what you have just done - a foolish, cowardly, and selfish act - but for what you will do.
For sixteen years from now, you will have to make a decision -
do what the Dark Lord needs you to do? or
give your life for the Potters the way you should have done a long time ago?