The Houses Competition, Year 2, Round 1. Writing for Hufflepuff, Year 3, Themed.

Prompt: [Speech] "He/She/They was unconscious when I found him/her/them."

Word count: 2338

Beta: Aya, Jetta, Magi. (You three are the best!)

Summary: Mildly AU.

Peter would tell them no. He refused to help them! They weren't his friends.

"Oi, Pettigrew!"

Shivers went down the twelve-year-old's spine as he froze, not even daring to look behind him to confirm what he already knew. Rosier had found him.

"You owe us some information."

Rosier, Malfoy, and Avery came into his view, all towering over him. "I-I don't kn-know."

Malfoy scoffed. "You don't know?" His tone was patronising.

Rosier was the meanest out of all of them; everybody knew that… right? "You better tell us Gryffindor's Quidditch plays now, or else."

It didn't take much imagination for Peter to know what 'or else' meant. From experience, and the wand slowly being drawn from Avery's robes, he knew very well what the punishment would be.

"I'm… I really don't know! I pr-promise!" He wasn't lying. He really didn't know.

That didn't make a difference. The Slytherin trio wanted to know, and who better to terrorize than a Gryffindor to get the answers?

"You best tell us tomorrow," Malfoy said, his voice menacing, but it was a chance for him to agree and get out.

All the chubby young boy could think was 'what would his friends do?'. And for the first time, he stood up for himself. "No. I won't tell you!"

Within seconds he felt his limbs being pulled out of their sockets and his throat closing in.

It wasn't long until he hit the ground with a thud, his vision blackening from the pain and the previous lack of oxygen.

Peter vaguely heard James' voice calling his name as he drifted off into unconsciousness.

The sound of voices were getting louder was giving Peter a headache, not to mention the blaring light piercing through his eyelids. He didn't want to wake up. He just wanted to stay here forever and not have to worry about anything.

The voices were becoming more clear and Peter started to recognise them. They were coming from Professor McGonagall and James Potter.

"The truth, Potter."

"He was unconscious when I found him," James stated with a determined tone. "And I saw Malfoy, Rosier, and Avery leaving the scene of the crime! I know it was their doing!"

Peter opened one eye in time to see the professor's disbelieving look. It was as if she didn't consider all Slytherins were evil scum, especially those three. Should he let them know he was awake? And if he did, should he tell McGonagall the truth? What if they hurt him again?

James' groan of annoyance pulled him from his thoughts. "I'm telling you the truth! Do you think Peter just beat himself up?"

"I did not suggest that, Mr. Potter. However, seeing students near him is not concrete evidence that they did this."

"So you're not going to do anything? Just get somebody to read one of their minds!"

Oh, James was obviously getting angry now. It was never a good idea to get angry at a professor. Especially if nothing came from him.

"Professor," Peter said, almost coughing due to his dry throat. "James is right. Rosier, Malfoy, and Avery were the ones who pulled their wands out on me."

James had jumped and was by his side with a glass of water in under a second. How he got there so fast and picked up the glass without spilling it was something Peter could never manage to do. "Take it easy, Pete."

Peter looked at his friend with mild surprise. He didn't want him to come to his defence with the truth? He accepted the glass and took a few sips. He was thankful that he was a wizard, because he barely felt any pain, and he knew that soon, there'd be none. "You weren't lying, James."

"I know. But you don't have to worry about that right now," James insisted with a smile. "Just focus on getting better."

With a genuine smile, and the sight of Professor McGonagall walking off, the twelve-year-old nodded. "Thanks, Jamie."

"Anytime, Pete." And then without missing a beat, he continued. "Okay, so, Sirius confirmed that Remus' secret isn't anything to do with a girl. I was thinking it could be something muggle related?"

Peter thought about the new knowledge. If he wasn't meeting a family member or a girl when he snuck out, who was he meeting? Unless…

"What about a boy?"

James' eyebrows raised in shock and then realisation. "Of course! Do you think it's Sirius?"

Peter pulled a face. "Ew. That would be way too weird."

The two of them began to laugh at the thought of their two friends liking each other. Though, Sirius did flirt with everybody.

Peter leant forward to listen to James' current plan about getting Lily to like him. This one involved sneaking into the girl's dorms - which they've never managed - and putting rose petals everywhere. That was probably Peter's favourite so far. It was mild and actually romantic… well, the rose petals were, that is.

Peter was tasked with keeping Lily out of her dorm and the Gryffindor common room for as long as possible. Seeing as it was nearly curfew, it seemed rather impossible to him. Either way, he'd at least try.

He watched the first few attempts of James and Sirius scrambling to get into the girl's dorms before walking out to the stairs. Perhaps he could just start a conversation with the ginger.

Luck had it, that he almost bumped into her at the portrait. "Lily!"

"Peter…" she started suspiciously. "What is he planning this time?"

"Nothing."

"That is very hard to believe. Let me past."

It was only then that Peter realised he was blocking the way. "Oh… uhm… well… can I just distract… I mean… talk to you for a moment?"

Lily sighed but agreed. "You have one minute."

"Perfect!" Peter almost cheered. He could occupy her time for a whole minute! That was awesome! Remus would be proud! Though, he did now wonder why Remus wasn't the one out here tending to this difficult task. He was much more charismatic and friendlier toward Lily than he was. He didn't think there was a full moon coming up, and their sixth year wasn't due to end for another three weeks so he couldn't be doing last minute homework.

"Peter?"

"Oh! Right! Hi."

Lily's expression softened. "Hi. What did you want to talk about?"

Right, he was supposed to be talking. "Can you give James a chance? Wait, hear me out!"

Lily, who had started to turn away, stopped and looked at him. "Go on, then."

"He is a really great friend. You know that right? He's always defending us?" he started, knowing he had to specify what he meant. "A lot of the Slytherins pick on me… mainly the seventh years now. James picks on them for me. Sure, he used to be a jerk to Snivellus, but he was young and stupid. We all were! I lost my pet cat! Seriously, I haven't seen her since our third year. If you find her give me a call. I still have hope that she's out there somewhere!"

"So… you want me to what? Forgive him? Date him? Find your cat?" She looked slightly confused with his rambling.

Peter shook his head. "No. I'm not a matchmaker. Just… I don't know. Give him a chance? Actually, use your eyes and see that he is, at least, a good friend."

Lily looked very skeptical. There was a long silence before she sighed. "Fine. But I'm not ever going to date him."

"That's fine with me!"

Peter nearly cheered as he followed Lily into the common room. He might have just helped James out even more than he was asked. His huge smile faded as Lily was suddenly hit with a thousand rose petals straight to her face and body.

He guessed they couldn't get up to the girl's dorms.

Peter nervously walked into the Potters' cottage. He would tell them the truth. They needed to know. His friends needed to know what was going on.

"Peter! Take Harry, would you? He's being needy today, and I need to check on dinner."

Without a choice but to catch the one-year-old who practically threw himself at his 'Uncle Wormy', he smiled at the boy. "Hi, Harry."

"Wormy! Fly!"

He chuckled at the boy's excitement and looked for his friends. Though, he was curious as to why Lily didn't just hand her son to one of them instead. Then again, girls never made sense to him.

Peter would have been able to walk into the room unnoticed if it hadn't been for Harry's excited chattering. What the boy was saying made no sense to anybody apart from himself.

"There you are!" James greeted first with a broad smile. "I see Lily dumped Harry on you," he commented with a chuckle.

Yep. Peter has definitely missed something. Oh well, that wasn't completely uncommon.

"Wormtail, we wanted to talk to you about something," Sirius stated, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

Oh gosh. Did they know? Were they going to kill him? No, they wouldn't do that. Would they?

James' hand on his shoulder made him jump out of his skin. "Woah, calm down, Wormy."

"Hey! Only Harry can call me Wormy," Peter said jokingly, with as much strength behind his voice as he could - which wasn't much under these circumstances.

After the other two chuckled, he felt a bit better. "What's going on?"

"Well-"

"Wait!" James halted them and took Harry. "I don't want him to hear," he explained and walked out.

Ah, so that's why Lily had him. Though, the young boy didn't seem needy. Whilst he waited, Peter decided to sit down - he looked less nervous sitting down, at least, that's what Marlene told him once.

Sirius came and joined him on the newly purchased couch. "He's been very jumpy lately. Restless too."

"That makes sense with everything going on…" Peter drifted off and looked down. "Heard a girl younger than us was found murdered yesterday."

By the look on Sirius' face, he already knew that. "Yeah. She was a Hufflepuff in the year below."

It was worse when people added names.

"Right!" James announced as he walked in, completely interrupting the atmosphere and sitting down. "You know Sirius is my secret keeper?"

Peter waited for his friend to continue, that was a very obvious question. "Yeah, of course."

"Exactly! Everybody knows that he's my secret keeper! Do you know how stupid that was of me? To make him my secret keeper?!"

"I'm sitting right here."

James waves his hand dismissively. Any other time, that would have had consequences, but Sirius remained in his spot. "I want you to be my secret keeper, instead."

Peter felt his heart stop. No. He couldn't be. He couldn't keep a secret! That was impossible! The number of times he told Slytherin the Gryffindor's plays was enough proof of that! "No, no, no! Not me! I-I can't!"

"Of course you can, Wormtail!"

He shook his head. "Seriously, I'm flattered, but no. You can't trust me!" He looked at his friends' faces. "I'm not joking. You can't trust me!"

James placed a hand on Peter's shoulder. "I will always trust you, Pete."

Peter's mouth opened in surprise at the shortened nickname - James hadn't called him 'Pete' since they decided on the name Wormtail. That gave him the strength to nod. He would not betray his friends. He would protect them. Just like they would for him.

How did he end up here? How did he let himself get captured by the same Slytherins who had tortured and picked on him for years? He should have known better. But Peter never learnt.

"Pettigrew."

Peter breath stopped as he turned to see The Dark Lord. This was the second time he ever saw him, and the first time didn't end well. The Dark Lord didn't like it when his 'subjects' didn't give him the answers he wanted. But, Peter wasn't a willing subject. That made things worse.

"You got some information I want."

"No."

He stumbled back as Voldemort swept forward, crossing the room towards him effortlessly. "Where are the Potters?"

Could he say no twice? His eyes fixated on the wand slowly being raised towards him. He could already feel the pain, yet no curse had been uttered. "I-I… they're…"

Voldemort's gaze intensified as he started to talk. The smirk was evident, though small.

"In hiding."

"Where?"

"Uhm…"

"Tell me!" he demanded.

Peter noticed several wands were now being pointed at him. All ready to fire a variety of curses or hexes at him. He was sure some of them would be deadly or unforgivable. He closed his eyes, ready to tell them everything, just to protect himself, when a hex jolted him back.

Landing on his butt was humiliating, but nobody paid any attention as The Dark Lord instantly killed the 'subject' who fired.

"Now. You were saying," Voldemort prompted darkly, his patience was wearing very thin now.

Everybody looked so scary from where he was standing. But how many of them were as scared as him? Well… not nearly wetting his pants, scared, but still terrified in one way or another. This wasn't the group he wanted to be associated with.

He had a choice, right? He could choose. Peter wasn't going to choose Voldemort and his gang of followers. Peter would choose his friends. Now all he had to do was tell the most powerful dark wizard of his time.

Closing his eyes, the Gryffindor pulled every ounce of courage he had and uttered one small word. "No."

It was the quiet before the storm. The silence before the shouts. The peace before the war.

A sudden scream of pain left Peter as the first round of the Cruciatus Curse was inflicted on him.

And even after the eighth time, he still refused to say anything.

Because friendship was the most important thing to this fat rat. And nothing, not even going crazy from being under the curse for too long, would change that.