Loko: Because I love/hate the pathetic weakling evil-overlord's underling-type characters.

Summary: Peter is afraid of everything. It's easier to be a rat. JamesLily, one-sided PeterLily, stream-of-consciousness.

Disclaimer: I'd take Draco in exchange for Peter, any day. Sadly, I am one in several million fangirls, and JKR, Bloomsbury, Raincoast, Scholastic, Warner Bros., etc. etc. still lay claim to Harry Potter and all associated paraphernalia. Alas.

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wasn't

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(I hate death.)

He didn't know why he was there or how he came to be there, but he was there and so were all those ghosts of the past. He was terrified, he was always terrified – didn't James say, or Sirius was it, didn't his mother always say you aren't brave like them, like James and Sirius or smart like Remus, Peter my son, stay back, stay away, stay safe, be careful – and so he was terrified and he was there.

He was just a man. He should have been in the prime of his life, he was maybe thirty-five not-forty, but he looked like an ageless ghoul who had lived so long no-one remembered exactly how old he was.

All he'd wanted to do was to be alive, to stay living, all he'd done was choose the way he'd thought best – wasn't it them who'd said that Fate is stupid, Wormtail, it all comes down to yourself and your choices, wasn't it them?

And so now almost all his best friends were dead and he was terrified.

It was somehow all his fault. Wasn't it.

(But they weren't dead, none of them, not James not Lily not Sirius, because they were young soveryyoung no-one could die at that age, they were Immortal.)

He hadn't believed in Voldemort's power, not fully or completely, until he'd seen Voldemort kill James and Lily and Immortality, and Bella killed Sirius, and now there were two of them left. Two of them. Remus had always been the kindest beside Lily. And really Peter was just a frightened too-old thirty-something who missed his friends.

(I love life or)

He hated them, all of them, who called themselves Death Eaters and met in secret around fires like some childish game where people really died, hated Malfoys and Lestranges and Crabbes and Goyles and Parkinsons, the entire lot. The way they looked at him you'd think he was the only Gryffindor there. But there were pureblood families who were proud to be Gryffindors.

He shouldn't have been a Gryffindor. The Sorting Hat was fucking stupid to put a coward like him in Gryffindor.

He was a better rat than a man, didn't someone say that, was it Sirius or Remus who'd said that and then tried to kill him, or both? Was it both?

And Harry looked so much like his father -- had his father's hair and his father's jaw and his father's nose and cheekbones, and Lily's eyes, pretty Lily, they'd all been in love with her to some degree. But James got her in the end. It would have been James or it would have been Sirius, of course. Of course. And Remus hadn't cared but she'd been nice to Peter and he'd loved her.

Harry who stopped his father's friends from killing, saying whatwasit I don't reckon my dad would've wanted his best friends to be killers or somethinglikethat, wasn't it. Except Harry was too Lily and not enough James. James would have killed Peter, he would have made Sirius and Remus step aside so he could personally kill Peter, because a traitor was the worst thing possible in anyone's book.

Isn't that right, Peter?

Isn't that right, Wormtail?

Harry was too Lily for real battle. He should have killed Peter.

(He'd cried when Voldemort killed them, because they'd been his friends even if they were cruel and Lily'd been nice, so he'd cried when they were killed, and when Harry who looked like James turned up living he was almost happy.)

If only Harry had had red hair and been a girl James and Lily might have lived. If only Harry. If Harry.

(All we want to save)

Sometimes he dreamed and they were all alive, standing there in the Shrieking Shack he'd let them into. It made him angry sometimes to think that without him, without PeterWormtail, they'd never have got past the Whomping Willow, but they never thanked him. But in the soft gold light of his dream nothing really mattered except that Sirius and Remus had put down their wands and Harry was James and his Ron Weasley and that Hermione Granger had melted together into Lily.

James said, Well you're a bloody idiot Wormtail, only he said it like the Irish boy in the second year, eejit, so really he said Well you're a bloody eejit Wormtail, and then he laughed at Peter and everything was normal and good.

Peter liked dreaming, the sometimes dreams where James said bloody eejit and Wormtail and Sirius joined in laughing and Remus put on his disapproving face at the slang and Lily yelled at James for being mean and they all went back, wrinkles smoothing and skin colouring and Remus oh Remus, Remus's grey hair coming to fire into the autumnal red of his youth.

Sometimes he dreamed and they were all alive, standing there in the Shrieking Shack he'd let them into. He was terrified again, trembling, afraid of everything and the world and Voldemort but how could any of that matter when Sirius and Remus and Harry-who-became-James and the melded-together-Lily all had their wands pointed at him, oh even Lily.

James said, You're a bloody idiot Pettigrew, and he pronounced every word of it, You're a bloody idiot Pettigrew, and added You betraying bastard and that was where everything went wrong.

Peter was afraid of dreaming like he was afraid of everything else, the dreams where James said bloody idiot and Pettigrew and Sirius and Remus cast the spells with him or sometimes cast down binds so James could cast the Avada Kedavra, and Lily didn't say anything, tight-lipped and green-eyed. And Harry wasn't even there to save him, even though Harry was James was Harry was. Was.

(Sometimes Peter dreamed that he was forgiven and they all sat on the roof of James and Lily's house, baby Harry bundled up and resting in someone's lap, and Sirius and James would make jokes about the Dark Mark above their heads misty and green and deathly, and Remus would pretend not to be laughing, and Lily would smile into James's shoulder. Those times he liked dreaming.)

He'd seen the Dark Mark over James and Lily's house, and he hadn't believed it but he'd watched them die. He'd watched James die and Lily die, Lily and her red hair streaming free as she fell, and he'd watched baby Harry's eyes greener than the Avada Kedavra death-curse and heard Voldemort's shriek of pain, and even though that was the moment the Dark Lord fell it was when he knew the Dark Lord would win, irrevocably, because only a God could kill Immortals.

(Sometimes our love alone simply cannot save)

He'd heard Sirius was dead. Bella had come back happy, happylaughingmadhappy, had waved her arms and re-enacted the moment and laughed her wretched wicked laugh and tossed that black Sirius hair of hers all over the place, showing off to her sister and her sister's husband and their boy, their despicable pale boy who watched as if too disgusted to look away.

He didn't believe Sirius was dead. Not Sirius, handsome Sirius James's absolute best friend oh they couldn't be separated until Lily came along and Sirius was angry until he realized girls liked him too. Sirius was one of the Immortals. Sirius and James and Lily were going to live forever and Remus maybe too, Remus quiet and Peter scared would be pulled along in that flow, Peter had believed it until they'd died. So he told Bella that Sirius couldn't be dead and she'd shut up.

That despicable pale boy had looked at him with a sort of sickening triumph, he'd said, whatisit, You know in third year Potter still thought you were a hero, hahahahaha, Peter had wanted to strangle that boy but Lucius Malfoy was there standing guard and oohh, Lucius Malfoy petrified Peter. And Cissy when she thought her boy was in danger – hahahahaha.

So then he'd gone to his room almost, almost because Bella caught him in the corridor and held him against the door, her heavy perfume and death-scent making him nauseous. What did she say. She'd hated Sirius oh she had.

She said So I hear you and my cousin were friends in school, hahahahaha, all Blacks laughed that way, hahahahaha, was he as arrogant and pompous a little blood traitor there as he was at home, or was he Potter's lapdog completely.

Except she had Peter by the throat so he couldn't respond, couldn't breathe speak gasp, couldn't tell her Sirius is a dog a great black monstrous thing especially to a tiny rat-sized thing and that Sirius never betrays anyone but those he hates, that Sirius is alive living out there because Sirius is forever, Regulus may die so simpleeasy but Sirius lives forever.

Except he couldn't breathe really and all he could manage was Bella, please, Bella, Bella.

Wormtail, please, Wormtail, she mocked him, a cruel little joke of Voldemort's to call him what his best friends call – called they hate you now Peter-my-son I hate you now Peter-my-son-who-lied – Wormtail, weak little Wormtail.

(He'd been sorry about making his mother cry, because he'd loved his mother. She'd been good to him. She'd gotten his finger, his missing finger, and an Order of Merlin, and all wizarding families want those, the Order of Merlin he meant, not the finger. Although he guessed he'd made her happy because she'd had something to bury, not like some who had to bury an empty box because the bits were too small. And maybe a finger was better than a body, he'd gone to James and Lily's funerals and he'd cried again, because they could have been sleeping in their boxes, could have been sleeping alive in the black dead earth. And Sirius couldn't even go to their funerals. Sirius couldn't even go to James's funeral. And Remus oh Remus his face. His anger. World's gone wrong when Sirius can't make James's funeral and Remus actually looks angry. Remus had been deluded all that time and still Sirius had died, still, they barely had two years to catch up and maybe less than that, Sirius had been hiding hadn't he so maybe less than that, and still Sirius died. Except Immortal Sirius wasn't dead.)

Bella, Bella, he said and turned into a rat and escaped again, again.

(I hate you.)

Peter turned into a trembling pasty-white mass of fear whenever he heard of Dementors, let alone touched one, but here where he was Dementors came and went all the time. Voldemort's thin slender spider-hands caressed shapes no-one knew of like a lover's stroke, like a sensuous thing, like he was making love, oh the way he touched that snake too, Nagini gave Peter the creeps but at least she couldn't steal his soul, at least she couldn't breed a white floating fog of horror.

They had all been children when that first war started, and Harry and those children were children now. James and Sirius and Remus and Lily and Peter had been teen-agers not-quite-grown, had been what twenty? Twenty-somethings! wasn't it, when that war started, when Voldemort began his crusade.

And now that he thought about it, all those Death Eaters had been children, oh sure there were older ones too but most of them were the same age as they, Lucius Malfoy back then and his despicable pale boy now looking almost. Oh almost. Identical like Harry to James to Harry. To. They were children.

They had been children. They are children.

Voldemort had a thing for this, this child's crusade, boys with voices still breaking and sounding ridiculous screaming in those cracking voices the Avada Kedavra, the Crucio, the Imperio, Peter could still remember Zabini what-was-her-first-name's seventh boyfriend down deep on Avada Keda- and then suddenly high geesehonking -vra. Voldemort had laughed. Had laughed.

All of them had laughed, children killing children, Voldemort's emaciated face still tracing a handsome structure, Peter remembered Voldemort had actually been jealous of James and Sirius and Remus and Lily and their lot. Their youth and strength and beauty. Jealous.

(Peter had never been able to cast a successful Avada Kedavra until that day in the street with Sirius raging grieving facing him screaming at him and then Peter had found his words and his plan and maybe he should have been in Slytherin. Maybe. The Sorting Hat was wrong, wasn't it? Wasn't it. Maybe he'd been able to cast the Avada Kedavra because oh god, he had been afraid, he'd always been most afraid of Sirius, Sirius Black, angry furious murderous Sirius.)

Except now it hadn't been long enough and it was children and children fighting children and parents, the Death Eater families against Harry-who-was-an-orphan and Hermione Granger-who-had-Muggles and even Peter's own Weasleys weren't enough to family all those children, and Dumbledore, Peter had heard Dumbledore was dead too, oh those poor children Voldemort put into his war with his long willowy almost sexually dangerous hands, white spidery puppeteer.

(I love you or)

It's cold and dank in Peter's room, because it is the worst room in that rabbit-hole of rooms, Voldemort's Death Eater Warren, but he has the worst room because he is the worst Death Eater, because although no-one knows anything about anyone else, everyone knows he wept like a child when James and Lily died, and he bawled again when he found out that Sirius died, and he still cries, he still cries against the future when Remus will die.

Remus was good to him compared to James and Sirius, Peter had worshipped James and yet James and Sirius took turns in mocking him, making him the butt of their cruel jokes, poking fun, hurting him so much he had to hide it all. Remus hadn't ever actively bothered him, and that was good enough for Peter, he didn't need people to defend him against the people who were to defend him.

And they would have, James and Sirius and Remus, they would have given their lives to save him, they'd been right that night in the Shrieking Shack. He'd betrayed the people who would have died for him, but it was too late by then to go back and put the hope and possibility back into 'would have.' They are empty words now, 'would have,' because no-one will, only would have, Peter has no friends, he misses his friends. Remus is still alive and will die.

Everyone will die who opposes Voldemort, even Dumbledore, look Dumbledore's already dead, because Voldemort can kill Immortality.

(And Peter shudders to think, to think of oh he doesn't want to remember but his mind doesn't obey his frightened commands, the way Harry-who-is-Lily's-child's blood ran red on Voldemort's silver blade and the way his own hand splashed into that potion, Harry's horrified properly unafraid Gryffindor face, Peter had never been as brave as any Potter, never been good enough to kiss the shoes of Sirius Black, should never have dreamed of matching intellect with Remus Lupin, and Lily Evans, Lily Evans, Peter had loved her and wasn't good enough to think of her. And because Immortality is dead Harry and his friends and all those children are so vulnerable, so killable, so human, too human to win against Voldemort.)

In the end, everyone he's ever loved will be dead, all of them, his best friends are already being knocked off one-by-one, because Voldemort is all-powerful and will stop at nothing not the murder of innocents or children or defenceless Muggles or anything, anything, everyone will die because of their frail loving hearts and all that will be left of them is Peter, weeping, and Peter's memories growing dusty and cobwebbed and then they will be gone, blown away by time.

(All we want to say)

Peter still cries at night, alone and afraid and terrified and scared and frightened and there are so many limits on his language he was never smart like Remus never had those big words and smooth speaking power of Sirius and the sheer power of leadership of James, never anything like them, never Gryffindor. And Lily never spared him more than a pitying glance, and there aren't enough adjectives for fear and pain for Peter, if he had his way he'd make a great huge book of them, words meaning fear.

Peterpettigrew will be a word meaning fear.

He's afraid of the ghosts that haunt him where he is now, that follow him and whisper threats and accusations and he just wanted to live, why is that so bad, what is wrong with wanting to live and finding a way to live and You told me, he screams at his shadows, you told me to choose my own way and now I've done it so why do you hate me why do you why. Why do you hate me so. I loved you. Why.

He can't remember his whys or his whens or his wheres or anything, anything, anything and oh, that was why, he'd hated them, he'd wanted them to see that Peter didn't have to be anything like JamesSiriusRemus or even have to be noticed by anyoneorLily, and no and yes, he'd oh don't think of them oh, oh, loved them. And he feels too much and thought too much and didn't shouldn't couldn't want or need all these emotions.

(He loves them.)

He turns into a rat and curls up on his dirty damp mouldy blankets waiting for the stretching and popping of bones to end because a rat is easier, simpler, so much less complex. All he has is Run in fear or Hide in fear or Hunger and that's enough for him, enough for Peter, enough for Wormtail, and he doesn't have to think. Because it was because he loved them wasn't it. Wasn't it. Because he just could. Just couldn't. He just.

(Sometimes words alone simply cannot say)

-fin-

words: 2993

paragraphs: 67

sentences: 133

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Er. Please review. Feedback would be very much appreciated, whether it be positive, negative, or absolute flaming death-pits of hate. Thank you.

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REVIEW, FOR THE LOVE OF … er … VOLDEMORT.

lokogato enterprises inc.

31-08-05

9:44 PM