Title: The Dog and The Rat

Characters: Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, James Potter and Remus Lupin.

Pairing: Sirius x Peter

Prompts: Write about one of the following pairings: Sirius x Peter, Sirius x Minerva, Sirius x Teddy or Sirius x Katie. I chose Sirius x Peter and [emotion] fear, [dialogue] "Oh, please cry me a river", [random prompt] a character must hit another in some way and [word] cloak. Minimum 750 words and maximum 3, 000 words.

Warning: AU in so many ways. Peter is always extremely AU when I write him. Violence and some swearing.

Word Count: 2, 416

Very few people realised that Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black had a lot in common. Their backgrounds for one. They could not be compared to James' whom had the fortune of growing up with supportive and loving parents. Even Remus, in spite of the trauma that would permanently damage his family, had a better childhood than those two. No, both Sirius and Peter had horrible childhoods. The events that made their childhoods traumatic however differed.

Peter, very early on, came face to face with the realisation that nothing was certain. The outside world was cruel and while other children were taught the importance of kindness; Peter quickly learned that what mattered was being stronger than others or, if nothing else, being connected to the strongest. Sadly, that made him changeable. Before he went to Hogwarts Peter became known for being a turncoat. He didn't mind. He was protecting himself and so far, he hadn't really cared about anyone; they hadn't cared about him either.

Sirius on the other hand became strong from the constant abuse his parents threw his way. He learned that people who genuinely cared and would protect him were very few so he became resilient, impossible to crack because he learned how to be strong alone. Sirius became fiercely loyal once he found someone who was worth it, his trust wasn't easily broken. But once it was Sirius didn't hesitate about leaving whoever he determined wasn't a good person. So far, no one had been the exception to the rule. For either of the two boys.

It came as no shock that the boys were weary of each other at first. It didn't last long. But then again, how could it consider everything they experienced in just the first month of going to Hogwarts. As it turns out, fewer things brought people together like having to see Madame Pomfrey and lie about why they were blue. Sirius was a good liar. Peter was a better liar. Sirius could still remember perfectly the way he looked at Madame Pomfrey and told her some idiotic story about practicing his magic and accidentally making some ink explode. Somehow, she bought it; when Sirius and Peter left that same day both boys were sure that they would be back many times in the future six years.

But neither knew where they would find themselves in 1981. Not even Peter in spite of his ability of always being a few steps before everyone else. Sirius didn't know what would happen when he approached his childhood best friend. The years had not been kind to Peter Pettigrew, Sirius thought, as his grip around his wand hardened. But he couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for the man. Not after what he had done to James. To Lily. To Harry.

"Peter." Sirius didn't know what was going to happen. His strength had been acting in the moment. Taking whatever life threw at him. Thinking ahead had always been Peter's strong side. Sirius had never hated that about him before now.

Peter was terrified. There was no other way of describing him. He turned around at the sound of his name being spoken. His brown hair had been shaved and were only a few inches tall. He had lost weight. His cheekbones weren't normally that visible against his skin. Sirius would know better than anyone. He used to think that he knew all parts of Peter better than anyone. A shaky breath escaped his lips. He had been wrong. Sirius didn't know Peter better than anyone. Not all parts of him anyway. Fear was written all over Peter's face in the way wrinkles appeared on his forehead, the way he struggled to look Sirius in the eyes and how he made himself smaller.

He had been hurt and permanently changed by the war. Sirius had too but not as much as Peter. Sirius still had dark flowy hair, he had pushed it back in a bun but strands had escaped on the way there. His grey eyes were red and puffy from crying and there was an aura of hurt that radiated from him. Peter could feel it. He knew Sirius well enough to see the things he tried to hide.

"Sirius," a snarl appeared on his face. He felt like he was being split in two. One part of him hated Peter for what he had done. Sirius hated him more than he had ever hated a living person before. The other part reminded Sirius of that first kiss. It reminded him of the times when Peter would act against his natural instincts because Sirius needed him to. "I'm so sorry."

Sirius scoffed. Peter was still beautiful even if he looked like he had gone to hell and back. The fact that he was saying the most stupid things Sirius had ever heard didn't do anything to change that.

"Oh, cry me a river." The man answered in a mocking and angry tone hoping that Peter would only hear the anger.

Peter looked like he had been hit across the face or in the stomach judging by the way pain flashed across his face. He took several deep breaths. Sirius couldn't tell if he was silent for long or if everything happened quickly. Images from when they went to school flashed before his eyes.

He remembered noticing that he felt differently about Peter. It hadn't always been like that. One day it just happened. One day, just like any other day, Sirius looked up from where he was lying on his bed and glanced over at the other side of the room. Peter, scrawny and skinny, with way too long brown hair was looking around for a shirt. Sirius felt his heart beat quicker. He wondered if Peter felt as skinny as he looked…

"What are you thinking about?" James asked as he sat down in front of Sirius and blocked his view.

The raven-haired boy pushed his glasses further up his nose to stop them from falling off and ran his hand through his hair while his hazel-coloured eyes glimmered in a way that made Sirius sure of the fact that James knew exactly what he had been looking at and thinking about.

"You Prongs," Sirius replied with a wink. "There's only you."

James hummed and moved out of the side so that Peter once more came into sight. The small boy, who always looked younger than he was, appeared to be amused by their antics; as usual. Sirius hadn't told him but he loved Peter's smile. He rarely looked genuinely happy so when he did Sirius felt butterflies in his stomach.

He remembered the first kiss.

It wasn't completely out of the blue. For a few months they had been acting weird around each other. Small comments here and there had let the other person know that both felt differently now. Something had changed even if no one could pinpoint exactly what that was. They didn't hide it. Remus and James saw it happen right in front of their very eyes but had nothing to say. Sirius was bolder than Peter. That came as no surprise to any of them. But what led to their first kiss did surprise them. Sirius most of all.

"Are you kidding me?" Peter paced back and forth in their dormitory.

Sirius and James were seated on Remus bed while he was doing the best he could to patch them up. Both were sporting bruises, blood had dried on various places on their bodies, Sirius eye was swollen and James lower lip had split. Remus looked as unhappy with the situation as Peter was acting like.

Sirius glanced at James whom shrugged as if telling him that dealing with Peter was Sirius job.

"Look Peter…"

The small boy stopped dead in his tracks. He raised one hand and Sirius stopped talking. He didn't know if it was the look in Peter's eyes, the lack of emotion on his face or if the hand movement reminded him of how his mother would make him stop arguing with her. But he stopped.

"There is nothing you – either of you – can say to make me less angry," he stated. Although Sirius preferred it when they weren't fighting he had to admit that he liked the sixteen-year-old Peter who could finally tell him and James when they had been idiots. He sighed and sat down on his bed on the opposite side. "You do realise that you could have gotten yourselves killed?"

His voice cracked. It hadn't done that in a very long time and Sirius hated that he was the reason for it. Nowadays it only did that when something had seriously distressed him.

"Yeah," James was the one to answer. He could hardly look at Peter. His hand twitched as Remus put some sort of ointment on his lip which would make it mend itself. "We know. But we had to do something because…"

"We weren't going to tell him."

James ignored Sirius attempts at interrupting him. "Because we heard them talking about you and bragging about being the reason behind your" – James gestured towards his eyes – "blackeye and Sirius came up with an idea so that we could…"

"Sirius?" James became quiet at the sound of Peter's voice. He glanced at his best friend of almost six years. He had never seen Sirius lips so thin, was that a pearl of sweat making its way down his forehead or were James imagining things? "You did it for me?"

Sirius shrugged. He tried to look nonchalant but failed. And he knew that he had failed. "Yeah, I mean why wouldn't I? I love you."

No one guessed that Peter would laugh or call Sirius a bloody moron before sitting down on his knees in front of the bed and kissing him.

Sirius could still feel the warmth that spread through his chest. He remembered thinking that he did not suspect Peter to be that good at kissing. He was both gentle and pushy at the same time. Sirius had kissed many times at the age of sixteen but this was the first time that someone kissed him the way he wanted them to. Desire, ease, tenderness and heat all rolled up in that one kiss. He would never forget it.

Then the images changed. The images of everything that had been good turned dark. They were slowly replaced with dark images, of James looking at him with dead eyes from where he laid unmoving on the floor, his cloak lying shredded next to him; the agonising screaming from Harry and Lily with tears that had not yet dried on her cheeks.

"So, this is how it's going to end." Peter's comment made him even more angry and Sirius didn't think that was even possible.

He wanted to throw up, he wanted to cry bust most of all he wanted to cross the street and punch that traitor in his face. And since Sirius was never a man to deny himself the simple pleasures provided by life, he did just that. He crossed the street and swung his arm backwards. Peter didn't dodge him the first time that Sirius fist hit his face. Not the second time either. Or the third. Sirius fist became sore quickly and the pain inside of him didn't subside no matter how many times he punched Peter's face. After a moment Sirius stopped. Peter was lying on the ground and Sirius had one leg on each side of him while pointing his wand at Peter's throat.

"How could you do this?" he brokenly whispered in between deep breaths. "How could you do this to James, to Lily, to Harry?"

Sirius wanted to ask how Peter could have done it to him. He didn't, he couldn't, but that didn't mean that Peter didn't hear it. The question was so obviously hanging in the air between them. Why did you do this to me? Peter's face was bleeding. His nose was bleeding and one eye were starting to swell up.

He made no effort to get away instead he looked Sirius dead in the eye. "I did it for you."

"Wh - What?"

"The Dark Lord thought you knew where they were. He thought you were the secret keeper. So, I told him that I was but he didn't believe me," Peter closed his eyes and almost looked as if he was going to drift out of consciousness. "I had to tell them where James and Lily was to save you. So, I did, because I knew that you would never betray James no matter what they threatened to do to you and I couldn't bear the thought of them getting to you… I did it because I love you."

Sirius pushed himself away from Peter. He had the start of so many sentences, so many questions, inside his mind but nothing came out. Peter pushed himself up in a sitting position. He was unsteady, even when seated, and when his upper body fell forward it took every ounce of strength for Sirius to not catch him. In the last moment Peter caught himself and then leaned back onto the palm of his hands. He had always been good at seeing the consequences of his actions, of guessing what would come from certain events in the future. He assumed something like this would happen.

"I can never forgive you for this." Sirius leaned his head into the palm of his hands so that he couldn't see Peter.

He knew he had to do something. Sirius knew he had to move but he couldn't. He looked at Peter against his own will. The man he hated while simultaneously also loving. He could feel his strength crumbling as he slowly realised that he didn't know what to do.

"I know," Peter replied. Although there were no emotions on his face Sirius could hear Peter's heart breaking by the sound of his voice.

Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black had something in common in that moment. They had, in fact, many things in common. They were both heartbroken. Neither knew what to say to each other. And for the first time their strengths failed them. Sirius, who was normally good at acting in the moment, had no idea what he was supposed to do and Peter, who was normally good at guessing what things could lead to in the future, had no idea what would happen next.

The end