Disclaimer:

Don't own Peter or the Marauders. The idea for Peter having a clean-crazy came from the Shoebox Project (shoeboxproject) at LiveJournal.

Authors Note:

This story… scares me. I find Peter a really interesting character. I'm not saying I like him, I just find him interesting. I think he actually is quite smart. Maybe not the way I have made him out to be here, because this is a really freaky sort of smart, but I think he's smart in his own way. People just don't seem to realize it.

Revenge

They think he is just a weak man. They think that him, with his silver hand, a gift from Lord Voldemort, is weak. They think they can push him around and that he will take it. But he always, always, gets back at them. And they don't realize that. They think it's a joke.

It has always been like that. People take one look at him, with his rat like face, and shorter, stockier build, and automatically put him off as being weak and nearly worthless.

He comes from a regular family. Not regular by Muggle standards, of course, but a regular wizarding family. His mother might be perhaps a tad obsessed with cleanliness, and his father labeled crazy by some, but it was a normal family otherwise.

He hadn't gone to Hogwarts expecting much. He had expected to be sorted into Hufflepuff – maybe Ravenclaw – and go on from there. He would probably get average marks – or maybe be exceptionally smart. Either way, he didn't expect much.

He hadn't expected to be sorted into Gryffindor. He hadn't expected to make friends with the future Marauders, and he certainly hadn't expected to become an Animagus. A rat, maybe, which wasn't exactly what he had hoped for, but an Animagus all the same.

But those things had all happened nevertheless. He had made friends. His life was great. He could ask for no more. Except, possibly, for those good marks.

Then he realized, though, that they, too, his friends, thought him weak. Oh, they didn't show it, or say it, but he could tell. It wasn't hard to do, the way they thought they could boss him around and control him. OK, maybe he let them do it, but he constantly told himself he would get his revenge sooner or later. Except on Remus. Remus wasn't exactly nice to him. He more or less ignored him, in a way. But politely. Yes, Remus was always polite. He didn't need revenge on Remus.

He strived to not be weak. That was his aim in everything: not to be what everyone expected him to be. So he set off to find someone or something that would prove that he was not weak.

And he found it. Oh yes, he found what he had been looking for. It came to him one night, while lying on the floor after having fallen out of bed and startled awake. It was like an epiphany of sorts. It came to him suddenly, as did the headache that resulted from falling off the bed.

He was finally, finally, seen as someone who was not weak. Of course, he wasn't powerful, but he had never wanted power. He just didn't want to be weak. That was all. It wasn't much to ask for, and he had finally found the way.

Now that he was not weak anymore, now that he was different, he needed his revenge. It had always been a terrible thing for him to want all the time. But he always got it. He always got revenge, and nobody ever suspected it from him. No one ever suspected poor, weak him.

Voldemort by that time was looking for Lily and James Potter. They were too strong for the other side, he said. The one problem was that he couldn't find them. And then he found them for Voldemort – he was made Secret Keeper for the very people Lord Voldemort sought out. It was perfect. It would be his revenge for seven years of teasing, and everything else James had put upon him. Lily, of course, was just an innocent bystander who had married the wrong man; a man had made his way onto the revenge list of the wrong person.

He gave Lily and James's position up instantly. He didn't hesitate it, and he only had a slight moment where he felt guilty. It had passed quickly, though, when he remembered that he was finally going to get his revenge. Then he would get it upon Sirius Black somehow. He had yet to plan out that. But they had both hurt him, and he was going to, literally, kill them in return for it. He had been taught to always repay what someone gave him, after all.

And it worked – James and Lily were dead. He had gotten revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge. And it was great. Except for one minor drawback, of course – the fact that Voldemort had disappeared along the way. Sirius would know he had betrayed the Potters, and he would seek revenge himself.

And then it came to him, almost suddenly, after being cornered by Sirius himself – another epiphany. Oh, how he loved those. Such inspiration. He framed it all on Sirius in an instant, and got him thrown in Azkaban for it. He had lost a finger along the way, but it was all worth it. James was dead; Sirius was as good as dead. It was great.

He had finally proved, if to no one but himself, that he was not weak. Oh, he was far from weak.

Peter Pettigrew was strong, and had gotten his revenge. Peter Pettigrew would continue to, also. Because he wasn't weak, and he never would be. He finally knew that.