Peter Pettigrew ran, dodging through the fight that lived and breathed and died around him. His mind and heart were full of doubts; was Voldemort's side or Harry's side winning? To which should he turn? Would it have been better to have not joined Lord Voldemort?

Of course it would have been better if he had not joined and done what he had done, Peter now reflected. But it was funny how all these matters were only in his mind when he was running for his life away from a battle, and he was too late to stop the terrible things he had set in motion and pushed along.

First he had betrayed his best friends, Lily and James, to Voldemort, their worst enemy. What made it worse—if possible—was that they had trusted Peter with their secret. It seemed to be even more of a betrayal.

Then he had destroyed the life of Sirius Black by putting him in Azkaban.

Three friends down, one to go.

And just now in this battle, Peter had just made sure that Remus would never be able to talk again, by nearly strangling him—with his silver hand.

Silver.

So precious and beautiful, yet deadly to a select group of people. Rather like Lord Voldemort, or maybe…maybe Voldemort was just deadly to everyone.

But then, as Peter reached the perimeter of the battle in rat form, unnoticed, he felt a sharp and painful yank at his guts. It told him, with his instincts and his heart, to go to Harry Potter, to go to Harry Potter and protect him. Well, Peter knew what this was. It was a Life-Dept, his chance to repay it. When Harry had stopped Sirius and Remus from killing Peter, there was a bond tied between them. When the Life-Dept saw that the time was ripe for repayment, it would call on Peter. Now was the time.

Why now? Peter groaned to himself. He had to haul his atrophied body back around into the thick of the monster-battle again. But, he then thought, maybe I could redeem myself. If I don't, then I might not be here anyway…

In the back of his mind, Peter could nearly hear his mother crying and yelling at him for his stupidity in contemplating suicide. But it wasn't contemplating suicide, Peter thought. It was acceptance of his possible fate and maybe—just maybe—a willingness to see it happen.

As Peter turned back toward the battle, led by the insistent yanking of his guts, his long-forgotten Gryffindor bravery snapped into place and roared defiantly at the task he had been set. One step. Peter's resolve hardened, to protect Lily and James' son. To possibly redeem himself. Two steps. Disgusted now, Peter recalled how he had supported the senseless evil of Voldemort. Three steps. Peter remembered why he had joined: to make his father proud and to stay alive. Four steps. Peter realized that if his father was proud by Peter's servitude to Voldemort, then his father could take that sought-after pride and stuff it where the sun don't shine. Also…Peter didn't give Wormtail's ass whether he stayed alive or not at this point.

So, Peter broke into a full run. His muscles were complaining out of malnutrition and misuse but he ran on through the crowds of killing, dying, grieving, and fighting soldiers of both sides.

And there, in the center of the battlefield, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort were about to duel as Peter arrived. The yanking and tearing in Peter's gut lessened slightly since he had gotten there. Not much, but enough.

"Ah, Harry," Voldemort hissed. He drew out his use of Harry's first name as long as possible.

"Tom," Harry replied levelly. Seeing Voldemort's flat features twist in anger led Harry to raise his wand. It looked different from his normal one, which was the brother of Voldemort's wand.

"Crucio," Voldemort said. His wand had appeared faster than the blink of an eye, and now Harry writhed in pain. But Harry overpowered the curse through a visible effort before Voldemort himself lifted it. He must have been taking lessons, Peter thought.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted. An interesting move. Was he merely buying time? For what?

Now the whole battlefield had stilled and was watching this duel. Even the Slytherin Death Eaters did not take advantage of their enemies' immobility, and just held their breaths and watched.

"Avada Kedavra," Voldemort intoned, obviously eager to end this final battle with his nemesis for once and for all.

A split second later, Harry sent his own Killing Curse towards Voldemort. It was a perfect move, catching Voldemort in his only moment of true weakness right after he cast a spell. But it left Harry open, and Harry had a longer period of weakness since he was using an unfamiliar wand to prevent the effects of Priori Incantem. In that split second, everyone on the battlefield knew what Harry had done.

He was sacrificing his life to save them all.

A young red-haired girl—no, woman—watched in absolute horror as her love was about to be killed, and screamed and screamed in the silent safety of her mind.

A red-haired young man watched his best friend stand before the green light of the spell for them all, and his face turned paper-white.

A matronly red-haired lady deliberately didn't watch as her surrogate son was about to be killed.

A young woman with brown hair matted with blood watched as her best friend was about to be killed and she had faith that he would be sent to heaven.

An old-looking werewolf watched in forced, injured silence, as the last trace of his best—and loyal—friends would die.

A red-haired man knelt by the dead body of his twin, grieving his loss, and did not know that his surrogate brother and savior was about to be killed.

A rat with darting, human eyes moved faster than it ever had before.

The Life-Debt was pulling, pulling so hard that he felt about to burst.

Peter ran towards the duel, transforming back to a human as he did so.

The curse was almost at Harry.

But Peter was there.

He leapt in front of Harry, taking the green light of the curse himself, protecting Harry.

Peter was engulfed by the evil spell.

And finally, Peter fell down on the ground, just as Voldemort did.

Harry Potter lived, and he had killed Voldemort.

The world had been saved. Now it was frozen, as if it could not believe what had happened.

A movement brought attention slightly away from their shock as the remaining Death Eaters fell down to the ground, dead. The Dark Marks on their arms were utterly white, as Voldemort had tried to take all their life force in one last effort to stay alive. He had failed.

Gradually, Harry moved himself to the top of a hill.

"I hit him dead," he said. Then, at the two-year-old-esque words of their savior, there was such a cheer and outpouring of joy as had never been seen before. Even the twin-less twin rejoiced, yet with tears of sorrow running down his face.

Sparks of green and yellow and red and blue and white shot up into the night sky, so that all of England could see. They saw, and they realized, and they began to cheer as well.

Noise rang in the air and no one cared how big a clean-up job it would be to take care of the muggles next morning. For they were free of the war!

-------------

Much later, corpse-crews looked upon the faces of Lord Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew. On Voldemort's face was an expression of pure terror, but Peter's face held only peace.

Peter was not redeemed of everything he had done, but he was given the gift of rest and oblivion. Also, Harry forgave Peter for some of his crimes, standing over Peter's body with Ginny in his arms.

Everything was all right again.

FIN