Peter could see Remus talking to Sirius Black, one of the boys from the boat. He hoped he wouldn't choose to make friends with Sirius instead of him, he didn't want to be left alone. Remus had seemed nice. He wanted to get into Gryffindor more than ever now, but with even passing minute it was seeming less and less likely. His cousins and the children from his village had always teased him for being a 'scaredy cat', he'd never get sorted into the House of the brave. He knew Ravenclaw wasn't an option, and he doubted Slytherin would take him either, even if he wanted to go there. He would be dumped in Hufflepuff for sure. "There's nothing wrong with Hufflepuff," his mother had said to him as he said goodbye to her on Platform nine and three quarters, but he knew that both his parents were hoping that he would follow in the footsteps of most of his family and get Sorted into Gryffindor.

Quite aside from what his parents wanted though, Peter himself wanted nothing more than to be courageous and daring and everything else a Gryffindor was meant to be. In fact, what Peter wanted to be, more than anything else in the world, was a hero. Ever since he was little and he first started playing mock duels with the other Wizarding children in his village he had been totally infatuated by the notion of riding in on a dragon and saving a town from an evil wizard. Perhaps the reason why he always got into these games much more than the other children was that Peter didn't show any signs of magic until much later than most of the others. Some of the children used to tease him that he was a squib, and his parents, though they asserted confidently that he was just a late bloomer, even sent him to a muggle primary school to provide him with the skills he would need to function in the muggle world, just as a precaution obviously. Of course they knew that Peter would be a wizard, they weren't surprised at all when he finally, at the age of eight and a half, managed to make his big cousin Ben's toad explode, covering Ben with blood and tiny intestines. The memory brought a smile to Peter's face, he felt bad for the toad, but Ben's face had been priceless.

"Pettigrew, Peter"

Peter's smile fell away in an instant, how had they got to him so quickly? His hands felt clammy and his stomach suddenly unsettled as he walked up to the stool. He wiped his hands on his robes but there was nothing he could do about the horrible sensation in his stomach.

As the Hat was placed over his head he tried once again to think of his cousin's toad, but somehow all the humour seemed to have drained out of the memory. Instead all he could think of was his mother crying and hugging him, and saying she knew he'd do magic some day... not shocked or relieved at all.

"Hmm, difficult, not Ravenclaw, you do possess your own breed of intelligence, but you're not really an academic. I suppose Hufflepuff would be the obvious choice, but that rarely means it's the right one... no, there's something else here."

"Please Mr Hat, let me be in Gryffindor, please."

"Gryffindor? Ah I see, pushy parents. No, I don't think so, there's potential of course but... hmm... I suppose Slytherin could be an option..."

"No, please, not Slytherin, I'd rather Hufflepuff than Slytherin."

"Are you sure? You have a certain quiet cunningness, an ability to read people, assess social situations quickly, I see your mind has already turned to the forming of new allegiances."

"I want friends not... allegiences, whatever that means."

"Hmm, maybe you're right, you don't lack ambition but you lack the right type of ambition to succeed in Slytherin House. As for Hufflepuff? The more I try to make it fit the more it seems to resist. So often the way with the obvious choice."

"Rejected by Hufflepuff, that's got to be a first."

"You would be surprised Peter Pettigrew, how many people are not the right fit for Hufflepuff House. Helga was always the most accepting yes, there were always some students who she would see as far better off in one of the other Houses."

"Then please let me be in Gryffindor! I can be brave! I promise! If you Sort me into Gryffindor I'll prove it!"

"You want to be a hero Peter Pettigrew, some would say such an ambition was childish, naive."

"I don't care, I'm not going to tell anyone, I know it sounds stupid but no one needs to know that. I can just keep it to myself."

"Others would say it was chivalrous and brave, or at least displays a desire to be so. I often find Peter, that when a student is such a mixture of different House qualities it is best to let them follow their desires."

"What? You're letting me decide?"

"Choices are important Peter, they reveal not only the present self, which I can see, but also a myriad of potential future selves you may become. Do you choose to be brave, chivalrous, daring, loyal, strong?"

"Yes!"

"Then make that choice, make it every day, and I wish you good luck with your every endeavour, in GRYFFINDOR!"

Peter hopped of the stool so fast he almost headbutted Professor McGonagall as she bent down to retrieve the Sorting Hat. He practically ran to the Gryffindor table, beaming with such a pride as he had never felt before. He sat down next to Remus, who offered him a congratulations which could never hope to match Peter's own sense of accomplishment. He was here, he had done it. And this was only the beginning.

Reply to Fanfictionaddict's review:

Hey! Thanks for the feedback. I know I didn't include much pranking in Completely Loopy (in fact that's an understatement), the honest reason is that I am crap at writing pranks. I will try to get a good few pranking chapter in this time round but I'm not going to attempt them too often as I don't think I'll be able to keep up a high standard of ideas and writing if I do too many. However it is something I want to work on so I'll do my best :) I personally really like Remus's mischievous side (as well as Peter's but I'll come onto him in a minute) the sole reason that might have been underplayed in Completely Loopy was my own lack of ability to write good pranks. I did always try to include lots of all four of the marauders laughing and joking, and alluding to funny pranks they had done but which I didn't write about because I couldn't think of how to go about it. But like I say, I'm going to work harder on my prank writing this time around and when I do Remus and Peter will both have big roles to play.

As for your point about Peter. I'm really glad you brought him up, he's the hardest Marauder to characterise for me, so feedback on him is especially appreciated. I know that sometimes I make it seem like James and Sirius in particular push him aside. I swear this is not because I don't like him but because I'm trying to rationalise his treachery. While I'm sure his friends (especially Remus who as we know from canon felt extremely grateful to anyone who was friends with him) valued him, I imagine James and Sirius as the kind of people who would ridicule their friends a lot, thinking that it was harmless banter, but sometimes causing offense. And because of Peter comparative lack of intelligence I imagine he would have born the brunt of their teasing more than Remus (I base this off their interaction after the DADA exam in Snape's Worst Memory). I also think that after discovery Remus's Lycanthropy they would have felt protective of Remus in a way that anyone would feel protective of a friend with a serious medical condition, and therefore maybe feel more need to protect him than to protect Peter. I also think that since it's made clear in canon that James and Sirius were best friends they would sometimes, by accident, leave Peter and Remus out a bit. However I do agree with you that at the end of the day, the other marauders enjoy Peter's company and trust him like a close friend, but that sometimes they might not be very good at showing it. I think I should be able to remedy this by including more of Peter's point of view so that you'll be able to see how I imagine Peter rather than how I think the other Marauders would think of Peter.

So in short, I don't think that Peter's 'too stupid for words' I think that he's less academically capable than the others, but I think that he's the best out of all four of them at reading people. I base that on this. Peter was good enough at reading people to always know who were the right people to get in with (in terms of who was cool or powerful), whereas James, I imagine, had quite a sheltered upbringing and so was a little too self centred to be able to observe other people in this analytical way. Sirius I think would have been good at reading people, but have been tripped up, like James, on his own ego, and also on the fact that he was brought up surrounded by prejudice, and though the adult Sirius is not prejudiced at all I can't believe that the child Sirius would have been able to get over the issues his unbringing left him with over night. So that even though he's not prejudiced, he has a bit of a superiority complex, and therefore his view of others is distorted. Remus I think would have been quite hit and miss in terms of reading people, because while we see in the book series that his character is very insightful into Harry's and others' mood, he can be easily blinded by his own low self esteem, and therefore manages to miss things that are staring him in the face (ehem-Tonks). Also his isolation from other children as a child must have left him to some degree socially disadvantaged, at first at least. So yeah, I don't think Peter's completely dense, I just think he's people-smart rather than academic.

(As a side note I also want to say that I don't think Remus would have been as academically successful as I often see him portrayed in fan fiction, so it's not just Peter I'm 'dumbing down'. Obviously he is very intelligent, but I find it hard to believe that someone who must miss at a guess at least two days of school every month for their entire school career, could excel in every subject. I know from my experience of GCSEs which would be equivilant to OWLs and A Levels, which would be equivilant to NEWTs, that missing two days of school because you're sick normally means you're catching up on work for up to a week, that's a week out of every month, so a quarter of his time as school, that he's behind on his work, on top of his Maraudering antics I think his grades would have suffered, if only slightly, as a result, obviously in the lower years this is less of a problem as the work load is less, but also his transformations were worse in those years because his friends had not yet become animagi)

Anyway, I try to improve on my characterisation of Peter, though I think I should warn you that at first you might not notice much difference. This is because I think that it would have taken some time for James and Sirius to begin to value Peter, first and foremost, because they're eleven year old boys, and also because they both have a bit on an ego issue. I think that Peter would have grown close to Remus first, and then grown close to James and Sirius through him. I then think that they would have grown closer still through trying to find out what was wrong with their mutual friend, and of course, through pranking and joking.

So yes, if I was guilty of Peter bashing in Completely Loopy it was only because I felt the need to set him up as someone who was often pushed aside and ridiculed by his friends and therefore, on some level, held resentments and insecurities as a result. Of course the Marauders had a wonderful friendship but no friendship is free from internal strain and I think what the war did was bring all those strains to the foreground, but they had to be there in the first place.

As for the issue of trust. We must remember that in Deathly Hallows Remus says James would have regarded it as a great dishonour to suspect his friends, so we can't take his trust in Peter as absolute proof that Peter was trustworthy (by that time we know he no longer was). As for Sirius's trust in him. I've always got the impression from the canon that Sirius's trust in Peter came from his underestimation of him. Sirius thought, mistakenly, that Peter was too thick to be the traitor, never realising that Peter was more intelligent than any of them when it came to making tactical allegiances. He was blinded also by his suspicion of Remus. I am really looking forward to writing the post Hogwarts chapter of this story as I'm really fascinated by how such a strong friendship fell apart, and then of course, Peter will be much more prevalent in the storyline.

I'm sorry if that didn't really make sense. I have a lot of opinions and I often find them hard to explain like this, that's basically why I'm writing fan fiction. Your English is excellent by the way, I only hope you can understand mine (I often can't).

Thanks again for the review and please keep it up to tell me how you think I'm doing.