Hi, so here we are the PENULTIMATE chapter! I apologise for the lateness but here we are with one more to go! Hope you enjoy and see you soon for the final one.

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The End Of The Beginning

Chapter 19-Here's To Old Friends

The Penultimate Chapter!-Sirius, Lily, James, Peter and a secret about a secret keeper. The end is at hand.


"Absolutely not"

"Lily"

"Absolutely not James. No offence Peter darling you know it's not you"

"None taken" Peter said from where he was sat on her armchair dunking his cookie into his tea. "I happen to agree with you my dear"

"My dear?" Sirius said turning. "Seriously you are turning into your mother"

James laughed, Lily was going through Harry's clothes the baby with Sirius and so only the cat noticed Peter's dark look at Sirius. Maybe if they had noticed a lot more things might have been different.

Maybe.

What a word and so many meanings that came with it.

But nobody noticed and so the conversation carried on.

"I didn't even want it to be Sirius" Lily pointed out when James turned to look at her again. "No offence Sirius but I want it to be Dumbledore. There's a much bigger chance of all of us coming out of this alive if it's Dumbledore and you know it James. Dumbledore is the only person Voldemort—Peter will you get a grip and stop flinching!—is afraid off, with Dumbledore around until the end we are guaranteed safety"

"Unless Dumbledore is defeated"

"Peter if Dumbledore is defeated the priority is not going to be who is going to be Secret Keeper. If Dumbledore is defeated we are all pretty much dead already and you know it."

Peter did know it.

He didn't know why he liked that idea so much.

He had never claimed to be a perfect man that had to be said.

"I can do it James" he said quietly. "I can do it. I am more than happy if Sirius doesn't want too—"

A part of him desperately wanted Sirius to listen to Lily. He had backstabbed his way through all of this and now here he was at the crux of the matter. He had never actually seen the man that he served, he never wore the mark, he never did anything other than pass on what paltry information that he had and he didn't know honestly if it was going to work in the long run. He didn't know how sucessful it had been, he didn't know if he had ever been sucessful.

But this…to hand over James and Lily and their baby…this would be a step forwards into something that was totally unknown. This would be choosing a side instead of the middle line that had had hoped to walk, this would be joinging the Dark Lord and—

Sirius was talking and Peter paused pretending to listen in but the truth was he had shocked himself somwhat. He had never considered that he had called You-Know-Who by that name ever before even in his own head.

He had never thought of himself before now as a Death Eater.

But now as he listened to Sirius's grandplan unravelling he thought that it was the death of three of his friends and his friends son that he was listening too and he did not feel an inch of regret. Perhaps with James and Lily, the Dark Lord would be satisfied, perhaps with James and Lily there would be an endgame to all of this, perhaps there would be a way that the war could end peacefully. The Dark Lord would win but victory was assured, he was making large and long sweeps up and down the country and Dumbledore was doing nothing—the Order was doing nothing, the Order of the Phoenix was doing…nothing. The death toll was astronomical and the Order…hell half of it's members were in hiding! And the ones that Dumbledore were finding to join he was recruiting before they even had their NEWT exam results and they were dying just as fast and if it really was Lily, James and baby Harry that brought an end to this war and an end to all the death and destrcution and bring peace then shoudlnt he, little Peter Pettigrew be the one that brought peace by making sure that could happen?

And really when you sat and really looked at it through fresh and unbiased eyes was what the Dark Lord predicting really that bad? Was it really that…evil? So he didn't want an expansion of the muggle borns that Peter coud agree with. Lily was one of the good ones but Lily had come from nothing and so had he and yet it was he that had always been passed over while Lily got everything. So the Dark Lord didn't want them at Hogwarts…well…was that so bad? If he wanted to control who went to school and who didn't…didn't every good government have a right to say that this was the line that we won't cross?

Sirius didn't think the way he did and Peter could respect that, the Blacks were an awful family and Peter agreed with his friend on that but he also did not subscribe to the believe that all pure bloods were evil. Pure bloods had ensured their survivial for a long, long time.

Besides…with every pure blood there had been a squib in each generation so that was that, and no harm done.

And Mooney…well…Mooney could be free under the new regime could he not? Mooney could be the teacher that he always wanted to be. He would make a good teacher Peter knew but so many things prevented him from doing the good that he needed to do. With the Dark Lord openly promising amnesty for the werewolves then perhaps it was time for Mooney to be the man that he had always been even with his little…problem.

Yes Peter thought to himself with an almost naïve fanatism. Perhaps James and Lily and baby Harry had to die.

He had never like babies anyway.

Always dripping with some kind of goo.

"Peter" James snapped and he pulled himself out this little fantasy and blinked at the sudden intrusion. He had proven himself far skilled than his friends dared believe and the small part of him that had always felt out of place for being mocked by them suddenly felt smug and warm like a rat burrowing beneath warm, dark covers.

"Yes?" he asked as sweet as the Hogwarts chcocolate pie.

"You okay?" Lily asked her face creased with concern and though he had made his choice a long time ago, though he remained constant and steadfast to it for a long time he suddnely felt a flicker of unease at the gentle look of concern on her face. Lily would be a blow that he would need to get over for a long time. Even with her unforntunate bloodline she was uncommonly kind and exceptionally warm and his mother liked her.

And she made pretty good fudge.

Peter liked fudge.

"Sorry" he said shaking his head. "I just…I understand why Sirius is asking this of you and I am more than preppared to do it James but…but why don't you sleep on it tonight and—"

"Tonight!" Sirius snapped startling them all. "We don't have TONIGHT Peter, we have to get this done here and now—"

"I was planning" he said evenly interupting Sirius's tirade. "To see my mother and send her into hiding or at the very least indicate I would do the same thing. You three know her and you know how she is going to react if I drop off the face of the Earth, unlike you Padfoot I still have family I care about and who cares about me—"

So take that you twit, you looking down at me as if I am sub-human because I don't want to run into the fire and burn. Because I want peace at any cost and you want it at one cost, because I believe that the world the Dark Lord is proposing might not be as dark and dangerous and broken as you want to believe.

Sirius tiurned an ugly shade of red. He was ugly Peter Pettigrew thought scornfully, ugly from the inside out. He knew that deep down Sirius would bare the brunt of his actions this day and he couldn't help but feel a flicker of pleasure from it. Sirius was not a friend, not a true friend, not really.

Peter was a good friend.

He knew he was a good friend.

He knew he was a good man.

And he knew he would be rewarded for this.

"Of course" Lily said soflty. "Of course Peter, let me box you up some cupcakes to bring to her as well and…and if she doesn't want this then you tell her that that is alright, we understand don't we James?"

She nudged her husband and James who had been having one of those sideway conversations with Sirius in which they communicated without words suddenly sprang to life.

Peter had always hated them too.

James smiled though it didn't meet his eyes. Peter got the impression that he didn't care for him taking a day one iota and that pissed him off. Here he was doing…well…not his best but he was damn near close and there they were mocking him.

He smiled and he drank the tea and then he went home not to his mothers but to his own house and he thought about what he was going to do. He didn't think of the last seven years with James, the constant friend at his side. He didn't think of the last seven years with Lily who was kind and lovely and who he had been granted access to her History of Magic notes when he had been struggling.

It would have been easier if it had been two total strangers he thought. But it was James and it was Lily and it was the baby and so Peter was resolute but almost conflicted.

Maybe hard to explain but that was all he had.

That night, the last good night that any of them had he spent staring at the fire willing it to tell him that things could be different.

But they never were.

They never were.


Staring into the fire that night Peter Pettigrew made a decision that would have an affect on the generations of the wizarding world to come. Nobody knew it, nobody dared know it. He kissed his mother goodbye on the cheek as he did all those mornings when he left his house and she patted him on the arm absent mindedly. Sometimes he thought as he shut the door, she didn't even know that he was there. He wondered not for the first time either, what would have happened had his father not died young.

He left the house resolute.


He met James and Lily at lunchtime.

By one he was their secret keeper.

By nine that night he had told his superiors.

And it was over.

Of course it wasn't…not really. There was still time, a week or so if the story holds true. A week for Remus to come home and finally see with his own eyes why Sirius was treating him at arms length, a week for Dumbledore to realise with complete truth that there was a spy amongst his handpicked soldiers and the reality was it was one of the five children he had brought into the Order around that summer. Then the Head of Magical Law Enforcement was found dead in her house, the Head of International Co-Operation under an imperious curse. The Prophet didn't report on the slaughtering of a load of muggles who were on a bridge that suddenly fell into the Manchester canal nor did they report on the slaughtering of muggles at the local London Darby (whatever that meant). All of that happened in a week.

And Alice Longbottom rang up Lily Potter on the day that they went into hiding and told her that Neville had just started to take his tottering steps holding onto Frank's fingers with his chubby hands and that had sent James off trying to get Harry to walk so much so that the charm was passed in quick succession no problems.

So perhaps it was fortune that saw that some of the signs were missed.

But that is the story for the final chapter.


And there you are. Next Chapter is the final one.

Next Chapter-The FINAL CHAPTER!-James and Lily enjoy a quiet night in on Halloween. Neither of them know what is going to happen. It's the Beginning of the End and the End of the Beginning and this duo of stories is about to come to an end.