He had returned the cloak and was doing his best to look like he'd been busy and faithful all along when he heard the noise. He knew immediately what it was.

The sound of dueling.

He knew he should walk away, just keep going and pretend he never heard anything at all. That would be the smart thing to do. It was the sort of thing that anyone with any sense of self-preservation would do.

But Peter also knew that if he had heard those tell-tale sounds, others would have as well. He saw again the face of the boy in his mind, the child of James Potter and Lily Evans. He thought of what they had sacrificed for their child and what they would have done. What James or Sirius or Remus would have done. But he was not James or Sirius or Remus. He was Peter. Peter Pettigrew, the weak, the rat, the betrayer, the Death Eater.

He went up the stairs and saw his fellows rushing toward the battle, determined to come to their lord's aid and interrupt the fight. Peter knew what would happen then. Harry Potter would be overwhelmed.

Peter made his unhurried way to a secret panel he knew and pushed it, letting the rock wall slide away. It was a hallway only he knew of, having ferreted it out only through his animagus form.

When he stepped out the other end of the short hallway, he stood before the open doorway to Voldemort's chambers. He could see blasts of curses and spells being exchanged but he was more concerned about the converging Death Eaters that he could see coming in a storm of thundering feet and swirling black robes.

"Pettigrew! Stop that boy!" Bellatrix shrieked her Amazon cry.

Avery Knott saw the expression on Peter's face, guessed at its meaning, but was too late. He fell to Peter's wand. Then Goyle and Crabbe and Nix and Pierce.

Bellatrix' face was a seething furious thing as she ducked the curse intended for her. It was an expression that brought Peter great satisfaction.

Behind him he could still hear Harry Potter's strong young voice shouting out. He still lived. Peter would do his part to ensure that.

Those Death Eaters who had once thought Peter to be a weak coward and no threat, pushed on, coming at him. There were a lot more of them than of him. And he knew the outcome of this battle as he could never predict the outcome of the one being fought behind him.

He wasn't surprised when they pushed him back through the doorway into the room with his former master and the one he had sworn to himself to protect. I make my stand here, he thought. I cannot retreat. They cannot pass me.

He killed Morris and Barron and Connolly, Heatherton, Dodge, and Tyers. Their bodies fell in crumpled heaps to the floor, a mess of limbs and robes and hair.

But where was Bellatrix?

He'd gotten so caught up in the fight that somehow he hadn't noticed what had become of her except that he knew he hadn't killed her.

So where was she?

He ducked curses and dodged several Avada Kedavras, all the while trying to look for her. Trying to spot her unbound midnight hair, hear her wild gleefully shrieked curses.

He mopped futilely at the blood that kept pouring into his eyes from the cut on his forehead. He couldn't dodge every curse and he knew he was beginning to weaken, beginning to slow down. He knew it would be fatal.

And that was when he spotted her, wand raised and pointed at Harry Potter's back.

Triumphantly she shouted the spell that would tear the boy limb from limb.

"NO!"

And Peter threw himself into the way of the spell, seeing Harry's wide shocked green eyes, seeing the spark there that said he would not loose, seeing a promise about to be fulfilled.

He accepted the pain gratefully, felt his labored breathing and his heart trembling in his chest like a frightened rat. He felt his body go numb around him and the sounds start swimming in his head until they didn't make sense anymore. But he didn't regret it. He wasn't afraid. His heart gave one final breathy sigh and fell quiet. He had been brave and loyal and finally roared.

He was, after all, a Gryffindor.

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