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Disney, C7. Heihei - Write about someone unintentionally being dragged into a situation they weren't expecting.
Word Count - 451
Coward
It wasn't meant to be this way. Peter had never intended for this to happen. He'd only wanted to be recognised for something more than the weak link of the group. He hadn't meant for anyone to die.
When Lucius had approached him, full of charm and compliments, Peter had been flattered. Finally, someone that looked at him like he wasn't a the tag a long to a group of more talented wizards.
Finally someone that saw some worth in him.
He didn't question it, which, looking back, was probably the first warning sign that this wasn't actually a situation Peter wanted any part of. Lucius Malfoy was a toff, a snob, an asshole with a superiority complex.
Why would he actually want anything from Peter?
Still, Peter had gone with it, because he'd long craved someone to look at him with something other than pity and disinterest.
…
Meeting the Dark Lord had been terrifying. Peter was somewhat impressed with himself that he hadn't messed his pants to be honest.
That had been the moment that he'd realised his mistake, but by then it was already too late. Lucius had lured him in, and he couldn't get out of the situation with his life. He knew that.
No matter what people thought, Peter wasn't stupid.
He was given a mark without being asked if he wanted one. It had been etched, burned into his skin, without his approval. Not that it mattered in the end.
The moment Peter succumbed to Lucius compliments, he was done for.
So perhaps… perhaps in the end, Peter really was the weak link. Perhaps he really was stupid.
Maybe everyone had been correct that James and Sirius and Remus should have ditched him when they had the chance.
…
They didn't suspect him. Peter spied, and he snuck, and he gathered information, and not for a second did any of them suspect he could be the leak.
He saw it as them seeing him as weak. Uninteresting to the Dark Lord. It was until years later that he realised it could have been because they trusted him to be their friend. That they trusted him because they valued friendship over anything else.
When Sirius suggested Peter as the secret keeper, Peter had genuinely begged them to not do it. They thought he was being a coward. Really, he just didn't want to be directly responsible for their deaths.
Passing information on was one thing, but this?
This was something else entirely.
…
He cried.
Before he took the secret to the Dark Lord, Peter wept.
He sobbed for the friendship he was betraying.
But he still gave the secret up.
Because he was a coward.