Note: This chapter is largely from Peter's perspective. In 1981, he's in full on traitor mode. He knows his friends' weaknesses, he knows their shortcomings, and he's not kind or forgiving about them. Hence, chapter-specific warnings for past child abuse, maladaptive coping, and disturbing revenge fantasies (all non-graphic). No offense meant to bicyclists or Arsenal fans – the author loves cycling and is fairly indifferent about football.
Thank you for your comments, as always, I'm very happy about feedback :)
The Age of Lies 2/4
Regulus, December 1979
But Regulus wakes, like the cursed cuckoo in the downstairs clock, he snaps open like a knife, and dawn is bleeding through the windows.
His hand, in his sleep, has grasped the locket, a sliver of the Dark Lord's soul, old and twisted and exquisitely crafted, and the locket grasps back, black tendrils creeping in the non-space between them, sniffing out the worst in him, to rouse and anger and inflame.
He feels it, knows Dark Magic like the back of his eyelids. This is the darkest of all, raw, expanding, a sinister mushroom cloud rising from blood and centuries, and he knows what it wants – him - and he laughs in the face of it.
Because the Dark Lord himself had him for almost a year, and look how that one played out.
He's walked willingly into the Dark Lord's deadliest trap, and come out the other end, where it all began: His childhood bedroom, naked toes on soft carpet, steely grey of a late December dawn.
The thing in his hand knows that he'd crush it if he only knew how, and its black heart is fluttering between his fingers like it wants to flee. The Dark Lord only ever fled from death. And death is what Regulus is, what else could there be at the bottom of an underground lake: Death, and an impossible flight.
The irony is beautiful, and he is still fucked.
And that's before he even fucking acknowledges that the Mark is burning again, and he's being Summoned.
Peter, January 1981
Peter Pettigrew is not a psychopath, not like Sirius is.
He's never woken up one morning and decided he's going to break the Marauders. He's never gone and thought, let's take this secret, this deadly truth, and turn it into something worse than a lie - a weapon, no, a joke, no, a wild card in a silly school boy feud, all because it's a Tuesday and his family hates him.
And who can blame them? thinks Peter. Sirius Black is a bloody menace, a bipolar arsehole, an overbred lunatic. He's lucky that everyone who's ever met him bloody loves him, even his hateful family wanted him back after he ran away, and yet he seems intent to die before he's twenty-two, as a hero or by his own hand, one day he's going to kamikaze bomb himself into a Death Eater camp, then he can have both and fuck those who love him. Sirius Black will always have both, because he'll always have everything.
Everyone who's ever met Peter has been sort of indifferent about him. Well. Not long now.
It has taken Peter some time to understand this, outside the incestuous echo chamber of Gryffindor house, but Sirius Black had it coming, every bruise, every curse, every tirade his family has ever thrown at him, every choking nightmare, every red-eyed hangover, every miserable cigarette lit before dawn, every Boggart shaped like his Death Eater brother. He never deserved to run from his family, he deserved to be abandoned, left on the street, ignored, erased, forgotten. Or maybe hated, vilified, despised, yes, maybe that's better, thinks Peter, though Sirius'd probably enjoy the attention.
Maybe there's a way to achieve both.
Maybe Peter should just go back to fucking Yorkshire. He hasn't spent more than a month there since he left for Hogwarts, but he remembers his primary school years as soothingly trivial. Nothing that happened in Yorkshire – whether he had the brains for Maths, the patience for English, the coordination for P.E., whether he had direction, drive, or even friends - none of that mattered once the Hogwarts letter arrived. Even his accent has softened, or rather, aligned itself with his friends' – Berkshire, Welsh, fucking RP - though he still slips into it when he's stressed, like he can just return to Yorkshire, live like nothing is of consequence.
- And that is exactly how Sirius Black operates all the time, and that's why Peter will not go back to fucking Yorkshire. The Marauders were the best thing that has happened to Peter Pettigrew in his entire life, hands down, no competition, and Sirius went and tore it down on a whim, the entire intricate construction, the secrets they shared, the camaraderie, the
five-year-plus-three-months friendship, and even if they're all pretending it's still there, Peter can see nothing but fault lines. It'll take nothing, a wrong word, a splinter in their flesh, a strong gust of wind, and it'll crash down around them, and they'll be what they've always been: Alone. All because Sirius Black is one thing today and another tomorrow. Nothing he's part of will ever withstand time.
Peter Pettigrew is not a psychopath, and he's not a traitor. He's just cleaning up.
He pities Moony and James sometimes, who are as much victims of this as he is. But they've ignored it, no, they've neglected it, no, they've let it fester, no, they've excised it and then they missed it and then implanted it back. He doesn't know what's worse:
That Moony'd gone and bought whatever excuses Sirius had dished up at the time, whispered in his ear during late nights away on the Astronomy Tower and everywhere else they went, two dots moving together on the Map, that Moony's fallen hard for the whole I'm-a-poor-rich-kid-and-my-parents-used-Unforgivables-on-me act, that he's not only forgiven Sirius to stave off the excuses, but is now actually sharing a flat with him, no, sharing a bedroom, no, sharing a bed, aligned with him skin to skin and head to toe, inside and out. Sirius will always have everything, and now he has Moony, too, like it's a dare to him, another cliff to jump off of. It's making Peter queasy just to think about it, because their fit is so horribly seamless. That monstrous fool, that careless monster.
Frankly, as far as Peter is concerned, anyone who is that soft-hearted to the point of idiocy deserves to be put down.
Or maybe it's James, who is his best friend, but Peter his not his. There'd been those glorious six months after The Prank when Peter'd thought he could step up into that void Sirius had left, that mythical space where Peter suddenly had a voice and an impact. He'd thrived in that space. No wonder Sirius was going to want it back eventually, was going to snap right out of his half-year sulk and they'd push Peter aside without a thought for him, and of course James managed to twist even that bit of weak-hearted foolery into magnanimousness and bloody Gryffindor fairness, because he's suffered enough, but has Peter?
He's never going to be at the wrong end of a one-sided friendship again.
Peter's perfectly aware that even that wretched wrong end has been his by James's graces, and he's paying it back now, morsel by pitiful morsel, day by fretful day that James gets to spend with his perfect little family, if you could call it that, schoolboy crush and a failed condom, a tragedy waiting to happen. And wait it will, patiently, until the Order is toppled, until Dumbledore stands there without allies, until they can strike. And Peter is the only one who knows how to get there: It's not the Order, and it's not Dumbledore, it's the Marauders that need to be picked clean, erased off the Map, because together, they could always achieve anything.
Peter is not a psychopath, and he's not a traitor, but he refuses to be a bystander, either. The Marauders are history, and they have been since Sixth Year.
Shame about the baby, though.
Peter has spent the last eight days in unwilling symbiosis with Caradoc Dearborn, and he is about to turn violent.
Caradoc isn't all bad – the man is smart, but not gifted, and he has, thankfully, absolutely no sense of humour. He's the type of person that makes Peter wonder if he should ever have bothered finding some different friends at Hogwarts, friends that didn't play stupid Quidditch, didn't give a hoot for pranks, and couldn't care less why their dorm-mate looked like he picked a fight with a mid-sized pub full of Arsenal fans every month. But keeping secrets in the paranoid, triple-checking environment that is the Order nowadays is a pain in the arse, even without even a moderately smart person all up in his personal space.
Besides, Caradoc is the sort of fucking weirdo who makes a point of drinking a gallon of water a day. He brings in raw vegetables and crunch-chews them for lunch, and not only that, he is pushy about sharing his wrinkly radishes and cubed parsnips, and his record for talking about his bicycle, no, bicycles, plural, which include a fucking recumbent bike, is two hours, six minutes.
Could be worse, probably. Could be busy. Of course, things up here in the Order's communication room are never busy when Remus is out on one of his secret missions, that's the point. Vance's Patronus came in the other day, informing them the Death Eaters were spray-painting Westminster Bridge with steel-eating poison; they'd sent on the Prewetts to check it out. That was been by far the most original incident, the rest has been safe notes, sick notes, unconfirmed Death Eater sightings. Bread and butter of vigilante life.
"Lupin's overdue," says Caradoc at one point between his second turnip and fourth carrot, and that's exactly what's ticking Peter off about him, this constant effortless stating the obvious thing he has going on.
"No news yet," says Peter. "I'm sure he was just held up." That last part is not even a lie.
The first of Remus's messages came over a week ago. Fortunately, Caradoc had stepped out at the time – gallon of water a day, remember – and Peter had been able to incinerate it right away. The second message came on Christmas day, looking a tad more urgent. Remus's handwriting always deteriorated when he was stressed. Caradoc had almost wet himself with excitement.
Peter had read it and thought, Werewolves. No national insurance, no gas bills, no graves, no traces. A year from now, no-one will even remember them. A second later, neither did Caradoc.
"He's a week late," says Caradoc now. "Could have sent an update, at least. I thought you said he was such a stickler at school."
"Deep cover," says Peter, with a shrug. "I'm sure there's a good reason for all the secrecy. Besides, Dumbledore trusts him."
And thus, with a twist of his tongue, he turns a matter of carelessness into a question of trust. Words, Peter thinks, the original wandless magic. Caradoc won't even know where he got it from.
Inwardly, Peter is sweating. He hasn't really worried about Moony – after all, he's the one who arranged for Moony to be the sole survivor of this thing -, but he's starting to. Peter has a whole, intricate plan for Remus Lupin, but now the moon has come and gone, and the idiot still isn't back. If he has managed to get himself killed despite their best efforts to spare him -
Oh no. Caradoc is wearing his stating-the-obvious face again. "Christmas was quiet," he remarks cheerfully. "If today's the same, we'll have gone an entire week without losing someone."
Is it any wonder Peter has half a mind to poison the man with a mince pie?
Not that Caradoc would eat it. It'd probably interfere with his macros.
After that sorry attempt at a conversation starter, he carefully runs out of platitudes. Instead, Caradoc digs out some sort of magazine about Marathon running – he has got to be doing this on purpose, no-one is that consistently annoying - and Peter distracts himself from strangling the man by doing the thing he does best.
Scheming. Thinking. Turning thoughts.
This is how Peter Pettigrew agglutinates wants and needs into actual plans: By turning them over and over until he can see the sticky strands that tie them together. And then he turns them again until he knows all his plans from heart. Keeps him from panicking: He always knows what comes next.
Moony is his most complex plan yet. He needs to take the fall, the crucial first fall, but he'll need to fall slowly. Peter had thought Remus being a Werewolf would help. Turns out he's such a natural goal for mistrust Peter occasionally has to steer things the other way. His repertoire is whispers, words, jokes, the rearranged truth. Let the Order clutch their pearls around him, as long as they pity him, too. Then maybe he'll last for as long as he's needed.
Actually, Peter will never fucking work with Werewolves again. They are far too vulnerable. The present-day Ministry isn't squeamish when it comes to Dark Creatures, and the slightest oversteer could make this intricate plan go up in premature smoke: They'll behead him with a silver axe, or just shoot him at dawn, hands tied behind his back and his heart marked with an X. Yet Moony insists on operating on the very fringe of the Order's already dubious legality. Peter can't wait until all that is dealt with.
Of course, the Dark Lord provides his own deaths for those who will not join him. Poison if there's time, turns all the iron in their blood to silver. Hanging if there's none, silver wire and willow trees. Poetry. Or just leave them at Greyback's mercy.
Peter has no bone to pick with Moony. But a plan as inescapable as this would be a shame not to implement.
Peter looks up when he hears the air crackle. Above their heads, a small fiery sphere flashes into existence, and a note flutters down on Caradoc's desk. A smile erupts on his stupid face.
"It's Lupin," he says, passing the note over. "Says he's home safe."
Peter breathes an audible sigh of relief. "Now it feels like Christmas," he says, and manages not to cringe too visibly.
Caradoc files the note away by tucking it into their multidimensional cabinet. Then he says, casually, "Of course, he should have reported to Headquarters in person before going home."
Peter stills, lets the silence stretch on just long enough to allow for that thought to solidify in Caradoc's mind.
"Can't you cut him a little slack?" he says finally. "He's probably just exhausted. You know his missions, they go on forever."
"Sorry, Pete," says Caradoc, now sounding decided. "I know he's your mate, but I'll have to write him up."
Peter admittedly has an uneasy feeling about all of this himself. Because Remus, yes, has always been a stickler. Returning late without notifying anyone, and then going straight home without reporting… Granted, the former is probably because Remus is too injured to Apparate far and, as usual, too skint to take a train. The latter - well, he supposes Remus has reason to be ticked off with the Order. But if Moony's going to be bend the rules now, then Peter will have to know how far.
Because Moony has always been the clever one.
"You know what," says Peter, "you're right, he's my mate. He's been gone for over a month, who knows what shape he's in."
"He did say he's safe," Caradoc points out, who, bless him, is sporting a somewhat apologetic expression.
"Yeah, but you know him, he's not very open with these things," says Peter. Another one in the bag. "Tell you what, I'm off in an hour or so, let me just go and talk to him first. See if he has his reason. You can always write him up tomorrow, yeah?"
It's not like writing up is a serious affair, it's just that Remus will get a talking to from Mad-Eye Moody, who sometimes thinks he runs the Order. Unfortunately, Moody is very clever, too.
Caradoc shrugs, obviously relieved, but then, his portrait is in the dictionary next to 'conflict avoidance'. "Sounds reasonable," he says, and Peter gives him a watery smile.
An hour later, Peter Apparates to the fire escape just outside Remus's flat.
He peers in from the landing. The kitchen light is on, but a quick Homenum Revelio tells him the flat is deserted, so he lets himself in. Peter knows that flat like the back of his hand – he's helped carrying that effing sofa up the stairs, and boxes upon boxes full of books, he's had about a hundred takeaway pizzas here and he doesn't even want to count how many gin and tonics, and last November, he's spent six hours drawing sinister-looking runes into the margins of Remus's books. A glance into Remus's dusty bedroom, where the stacks of books lie undisturbed, tells him that his handiwork has so far not been appreciated.
But Remus has been here, and he hasn't been alone. His ratty backpack is on the hallway floor, the bathroom is damp like he's taken a bath, and there's mugs of cold tea and half-finished curry for three on the kitchen table.
Everything is odd, and Peter can't seem to put a finger on it until he can – the flat is unlived-in, the fridge is empty except for a carton of milk that went off a month ago, the bed is made, but with a thin layer of dust on it, things are missing that he remembers carrying up the stairs, no record player, no motorbike gear, and there's a suspicious absence of chaos...
Sirius has moved out.
Or in other words, a major player in their plans has changed residence, and they haven't noticed. Oh, fuck. He's going to be crucified. Worse, he's going to need a new plan, one that doesn't depend on Sirius making a critical mistake after Moony goes down, because clearly their love is not as blind as he'd hoped.
Since Peter's here anyway, he checks the Muggle telephone – a quick Diffindo removes the bottom part, and a small square recording device falls out. Zero per cent magic, a hundred per cent Cold War. At least until he taps it with his wand to start the playback.
The tinny voice coming out of the device is Lily's. Remus? Is that you?
Of course it is - I live here, for fuck's sake, comes Remus's reply – it's hard to tell with the audio quality, or lack thereof, but his tone is full of undercurrents. Impatience. No, annoyance. No, pain.
Is Sirius with you? Lily sounds like she has picked up on the same thing, but decides to plough onwards regardless. It sounds urgent.
He's here. James is with him. And if that doesn't prove Remus would be an absolutely shit spy, Peter doesn't know what would. No code names, no evasive manoeuvres, nothing. Amateur.
Boy, do I have a surprise for him. Guess who's sitting in my kitchen.
Peter listens to the rest of the conversation, and in the span of not even a minute, he can see all his plans - so many houses of cards, finely balanced and sky-high – crumbling, no, collapsing, no, burning the fuck down, incinerated by Regulus fucking Black, of all people, that soft-spoken, blank-faced aristocrat with a Cruciatus like a tickling charm, that sickly clever cellar child hiding behind a mask and a fake public death. Figures that Sirius's antithesis would turn out equally insufferable.
There's no plan, but there's urgency. Can't blame silly old Peter if he panics after all.
He Apparates on the cobbled street in front of James's and Lily's safe house in quaint fucking Cornwall, turns rat mid-run to sneak past their many clever wards, slips in through the cat flap, turns back immediately while swearing to himself he will poison the bloody cat next chance he gets, thunders on to the kitchen with more noise than he'd have cared for, and fires the Killing Curse at the nearest Black he can see.
To be continued.
Next chapter: James!