The book lay open in my hands, ignored. I've read this same passage twelve times over, and still I come to the same conclusion; we were losing him. We were losing Peter.

I wish I could just say that it's a paranoia instinct racing through my veins, but I know it's not. And neither is it an uproar of spite aimed toward my mate. For, as everyone in this school knows, I'd be the first to give Peter a break and the last to pinpoint something at him. Yet, here I am, saying I believe he is falling away from us.

I look to where my three best mates sit and study them.

James is sitting next to Lily, his fingers twirling in her hair. Although he's smart, his love for Lily is clouding his senses. So many times I have watched Peter slip away, unnoticed, to disappear into the night. A moment later the small, pudgy boy will have returned, leaving James none-the-wiser.

I smile and a small chuckle escapes me as I look at Sirius. There he sits in one of the velvet Gryffindor chairs, an ornate mirror in his hands. He gazes intently at himself, smoothing back a strand of hair here, releasing one there. To tell the truth, Sirius is too in love with himself to watch our friend melt away into the scenery (or to get Arabella to enjoy his company, for that matter).

And, last but not least, there sits Peter. His shoulders have collapsed inward as he pours over the night's homework assignment. The poor posture alone states his feelings at that very moment; the lines around his eyes and the frown on his face are unnecessary indications of the very turmoil he must be going through. His face becomes even more contorted as he stares down his next problem, his mind working slowly to revive the information he has tried to cram into there for so long.

For a moment I feel for him.

He's never been the star quidditch player, like James, or the ladies man and chief prankster, like Sirius. Nor does he even seem to have anything remarkably interesting about him, like me. (Although I'd hardly relay the fact that I'm a werewolf as something interesting, remarkable or something to brag about.)

But then, I remember. In that little mind of his, the one we all underestimate, the wheels are churning at a rapid pace. Moving so swiftly that James and Sirius are clueless to it, and I hopeless to catch up. If he chooses to betray us, if he chooses to throw away the friendship we have granted to him for these past seven years, he does not deserve any compassion or remorse we may have otherwise felt for him.

No, all he will receive is pity. Pity for being so weak that he couldn't come to us but instead chose to take the fools way out.