Peter Pettigrew wasn't the strongest or the bravest or smartest. He knew this. And he was relatively okay with it. He knew he would never be a star. But he had his mother and some good friends and he was okay.

What he was not okay with, was when one of those friends were hurt.

"Look at Potter over there. Arrogant piece of work, isn't he?" Danielle Macmillan said to her friend Elise. They were sitting at the Gryffindor table having lunch when they spotted James and Peter a little ways down, bent over a bit of parchment.

"Yeah. Perfect little Pureblood, with perfect parents, perfect hair, and perfect popularity. The boy has probably never worked a day in his perfect life." Elise grumbled over her eggs. They barely knew James Potter. But knowing someone has never stopped a bully. In fact, it's usually a requirement. Because when you actually get to know someone, you find out that they too are a complex individual. But that defeats the purpose, yeah? How can you bully someone when you know they have feelings just like you?

"Privileged little boy." Danielle scoffed.

And that was that. No yelling. No confrontation. No fighting. Why would they need to? Words are the best (and worst) arsenal a person has. Proof of humanity, and of its shortcoming.

"Prongs-"

"Leave it, Wormtail. It's not important. We need to figure out a way to add a search ability to the map." James muttered, writing down some complex arithmancy string.

But Peter knew it was important. He knew James tended to put the weight of the world on his shoulders, even with things he had no control over. Especially with things he had no control over. James would do anything so that Sirius didn't hate himself and his family. He would do anything to keep Moony from changing into a werewolf once a month. He would do anything to make Peter into a somebody. But the fact, he couldn't. James Potter did have a perfect life. And he hated it.

Those girls didn't know that. But Peter knew. And he knew how much James thought they were right. How much he thought worse of himself because of it.

Now, while the Marauders in general were not against pranking girls (Oi, that's discrimination), they didn't use violence on girls unless a girl started it. Peter wasn't strong anyway. He wasn't a good dueler. What he was good at, was stealth.

Midnight that night.

"Danielle, pass me my brush, would you?" Elise said standing in front of the long mirror in the girl's dormitory. It was when she looked in that mirror that she saw it.

"A RAT!" The girl screamed, before jumping on top of a nearby trunk. The rat scurried around the room before disappearing. The girls in the room screamed for nearly thirty minutes, thinking every shadow, every slight movement was a rat. And as soon as they calmed down, thinking it was gone... A rat ran out from underneath the bed.

This happened once a week for three months. Peter wasn't the strongest or the smartest, but he was pretty quick.

….

Remus hadn't been having the best of days. He couldn't find any of his jumpers so he had to wear just his school uniform shirt. One that showed off too much skin in his opinion. Remus knew what people thought of him. His arms were covered in scars and he had a fresh one that started at his collarbone and disappear down into his shirt. That wasn't mentioning the one on his cheek. But most people were used to that one. They looked at his face all the time. Remus rarely went anywhere without a jumper on.

"I'm heading to the library to do some studying up on runes. You idiots go do whatever it is your plotting to do. I want to tell McGonagall honestly that I have no idea what you're up to." Remus said as he, James, and Sirius walked down the moving staircase towards the fourth floor. They had just come from charms. Peter (lucky him) had been sick and in the hospital wing, so he wasn't in class.

"Moony, you wound us. What makes you think we're up to something?" Sirius said, throwing an arm around Remus.

"Inevitability." Remus deadpanned and James grinned.

"Look at his arms, bloody hell." Someone whispered behind them.

Remus tensed.

"Awful, right? Didn't know they matched his face…" The other one said not to softly. Neither of them were being quiet and were only walking about fifteen paces behind the three boys.

"Well, library." Remus said quickly, pulling out from Sirius's arm. He quickly made his way down the stairs, in the direction of the library. Sirius's jaw clenched.

"And remember to stop and give Peter the charms notes." Remus threw over his shoulder. And he was gone. James stood impeccably straight with an unbending spine.

Which left James, Sirius, and the two boys in an empty part of the castle, nearing dinnertime, when nobody would be coming back up that way. All alone.

James and Sirius looked at each other, and smiled. This was no happy smile. No. This was a smile that suggested it might be the last thing you ever see.

"I think I'll send Professor McGonagall a patronus message." James said calmly and cheerfully, as if discussing the weather.

"What for Potter, you can't prove anything, it's our word against yours." One said.

James waved his wand and his Stag appeared in all it's bright light.

"Professor McGonagall, Sirius and I were attacked on the fifth floor of the west wing, near the charms room. These two boys attacked us and now they're hurt. They seem to have a lot of injuries, while trying to attack us they fell down the moving staircase. Please get here as soon as you can."

"We didn't fall down the staircase?"

"Not yet." Sirius smirked.

…

"Tell me again, what happened here?" McGonagall asked, surveying the scene with her sharp eyes. There were two boys, a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff sixth year, who were lying on the floor while Madam Pomphrey checked out their injuries. McGonagall took a moment before she could actually recognize who they were because they had been changed to every color imaginable. They were also battered and bruised in more place than they weren't.

"Well, you see Professor." James started with his most respectful voice. "After charms, Sirius and I wanted to try out some new charms that we had found in a book in the library. Yes, some prank ones, but nothing harmful. We didn't want to try them out on just anybody so we were going to try them on each other."

"We were bored." Sirius surmised. "But we thought, with Peter sick, we'd wait for him to get better before some of our other pranks…"

James shot Sirius a 'shut up right now' look. Sirius grinned and shrugged.

"We thought we'd try them out up here since we were already here and since no one really comes up here at this time of the day. Didn't want anyone to get hit accidently." James continued, not even once glancing at the groaning boys bleeding on the floor near them.

"Get to the point, Mr. Potter." McGonagall said.

"Of course, Professor. We thought we were alone, but these two must have been the last ones out of charms. They saw us throwing spells at each other and… well, I don't know if they were trying to stop us from fighting or if they just wanted a go at us, but they started attacking us. They surprised us, I threw a color spell that I was trying on Sirius at them because I panicked."

"I was practicing the wind charm, because mainly, and I can't stress this enough, I was trying to ruin pretty boy's hair." Sirius said, gesturing towards James.

"Oi!"

"Sorry, mate. I couldn't resist." Sirius laughed. "But I never got to use it on you because of those two. I didn't think it was that strong, but they must have tripped on each other and went flying down the stairs."

"Really?" Professor McGonagall asked. The boys nodded. She stood there, staring down these two boys, who were the perfect mixture of innocence and mischievous. She might have bought it too. If the portraits hadn't told her exactly what happened.

"Tell me," McGonagall said suddenly. "How many times did they fall down the stairs?"

James and Sirius looked at each other, the perfect mixture of mischievous and triumphant.

"I dunno, Professor." James said, not taking his eyes of Sirius. "It's all such a blur. I lost count."