Chapter 11 - Wormtail Returns

Of course it didn't take long before Sirius confided what Dumbledore had told him in Remus.

"Don't tell Harry." He insisted on divulging the news that James' son's life would involve killing or being killed by Voldemort. "At least not until I've figured out an alternative. There must be another way to take down that mouldy bastard."

Remus didn't contradict his friend but the fact that Dumbledore had categorically said there wasn't did make him somewhat doubtful.

"Do you think it has something to do with the prophecy?" He asked Sirius one evening. "Is that why we need to keep Voldemort from getting it? So he doesn't know…" he felt a cold shudder run through him as he stopped himself saying what he'd been thinking: how important Harry is…

"I expect so." Sirius said, looking more concerned than Remus thought he'd ever seen him. "He already tried to kill him once in the graveyard for no reason, or presumably just because he's a sadistic bastard... If he knew Harry was the only one who could kill him…" he looked suddenly fierce now. "I swear if he goes wandering off by himself one more time…"

"We can't protect him at Hogwarts." Remus said, watching Sirius' anguish helplessly. "Do you think he's really safe there?"

They'd been debating whether they withdraw him from school completely not too long ago. Harry was like James in that he was far too likely to go wandering off without thought for his safety, and how much could Dumbledore really watch over him when he had an entire school to look after?

"He's not safe anywhere." Sirius said, shaking his head and looking miserable again. "And he's much better off at Hogwarts than this grim old place." He grimaced at Remus as he made the familiar joke. "Why? What do you reckon we should do?"

Remus sighed and shook his head. He was all out of ideas too.

"I quite understand you are worried."

It was Dumbledore of course. Sirius had held the headmaster back after an Order meeting and had dragged him into the study with Remus for a private word.

"I'm doing all I can to maintain Harry's safety and, when the time is ready, he will be too."

"Dumbledore, you know I have a lot of respect for you, but must you really talk in bloody riddles all the time?!"

Which was of course Sirius.

"We all care about Harry." Remus interjected quickly as Dumbledore gave Sirius a disapproving look. "But I think what Sirius means to say is can we do anything more… practical to help?"

That was where he realised there was the biggest personality clash between Sirius and Dumbledore. They were both brave and clever wizards, but while Sirius preferred to take quick action in the moment, Dumbledore tended towards careful reflection.

"I'm just sick of us being so damn cautious." Sirius said, running his hands through his hair in agitation. "If I want to risk being captured by death eaters, why can't that be something I do for myself?"

"You know why." Dumbledore said tiredly.

"I swear I won't blab under the cruciatus curse."

"What if they force veritaserum on you?"

"I'll just spit it out."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not the one being ridiculous!"

While Remus could see both men's perspectives, he had to admit he agreed more with Dumbledore. Sirius acting rashly would be of no use to anyone, least of all Harry.

The headmaster looked suddenly stern. "If I hear you've been to Malfoy Manor without clearing it first with me…"

"You'll what?" Sirius challenged. "Kick me out of the Order? Good luck with that while I still own the headquarters."

Remus thought he might have seen the corner of Dumbledore's lip twitch. He turned instead to himself. "What do you think we should do, Remus?"

"Oh." Remus, who hadn't been expecting the question, said. "Er…"

He considered the facts. Sirius was frustrated Dumbledore wasn't letting them take more direct action with the death eaters, as to his mind attempting to kill Voldemort himself was the only way to prove Dumbledore wrong about Harry needing to do it. Dumbledore seemed to think it must be Harry. And then Remus considered something else. Was this why the headmaster was stalling on taking direct action?

He looked at the man he had so admired since his childhood. Surely Dumbledore wouldn't be as callous and uncaring as to potentially let others die simply so things could go the way he planned them to would he?

"I think we have a lot to think about." He said, which was, in all truth, the most truthful thing he could think of to say.

"He's got a sodding Merlin complex." Sirius said, stabbing his roast beef ferociously with his knife that night at dinner.

Remus assumed he was talking about Dumbledore.

"Well some people say he's the second best thing." He said fairly.

"Some people…" Sirius said, scowling darkly. "Which people?! And furthermore, people saying someone's great doesn't actually make them great. What the hell's he actually done?"

"Well, he set up the Order of the Phoenix. And he's been headmaster of Hogwarts for twenty odd years. He was chief Warlock of the Wizengamot for a few decades. And didn't he have that famous fight against Grindelwald?"

He'd done some work in alchemy with his friend and partner Nicholas Flamel in his youth as well as coming up with the twelve uses of dragons blood, but he was pretty sure Sirius got the point.

"Yeah well…" he muttered grudgingly.

Some time in early March, just before Remus' birthday, he received a letter.

His heart missed a beat as he instantly recognised the scrawled handwriting on the front and, though part of him wanted to shout for Sirius, he quickly unfurled the parchment and read.

Dear Remus

I'm probably the last person you want to hear from. I know you and Sirius tried to kill me last time we met, but I had to write.

Remus, you have to believe me, I never wanted any of this to happen. If you give me a chance, I'll explain everything to you.

I know I was a coward. I was a rat. And I don't expect you to forgive me, but please, Remus, we have to talk.

Things were hard in Azkaban. I didn't think I'd ever get out. Those I was inside with didn't want to help me, but I've been doing my best to pretend I'm on their side.

I know you think I'm a death eater but I promise I don't believe the things they do.

I know I don't deserve a second chance, but you deserve an explanation.

I'll be at the pub we went to together the summer after graduation this Wednesday at noon. I hope you will come.

In friendship,

Peter

Remus stared at the letter, his heart beating fast in his chest. He was shocked that the man who'd sold out James and Sirius had written to him in the way he had, but he couldn't deny there was also a small flicker of hope and nostalgia at reading the letter from his old school friend which he couldn't explain even to himself.

He and Peter had always communicated more frequently than with any of the others in their youth. Sirius and James were inseparable at Hogwarts and sent owls to one another over the holidays like serving tennis balls. Peter (though he never admitted it) was always too intimidated to write to Sirius, and Sirius never bothered to write to anyone unless they wrote to him first. James had always tolerated Peter much more than Sirius had, but Remus knew Peter still felt most comfortable with him. Unlike the others Remus was never impatient or unkind towards the blond boy. He'd been nothing but a good friend.

He wondered if Peter would have done what he had if he, Remus, had been James and Lily's secret keeper. Would the boy who had been so open and trusting with Remus have really committed him to a life sentence in Azkaban?

"Why are you so kind to me?" Peter had asked him one day.

They were in the dormitory. Sirius and James had been teasing him and to avoid breaking down in tears in front of them, Peter had run upstairs. Remus had of course gone after him.

Remus put a gentle hand on his friend's back and met his eyes steadily. "Because you're my friend." He said simply.

Peter blinked, causing two more fat tears to leak out from under his eyelids. "People say that. The kids at my primary school said that. James and Sirius say that. But they're all horrible to me."

Remus couldn't argue with him there. Though James wasn't so bad, perhaps just a little thoughtless at times, Sirius could be particularly cruel to the slower boy.

"They're only teasing you." Remus said gently. "I'm sure they'd feel terrible if they knew how much they'd upset you." Well, James would perhaps.

Peter turned a red and blotchy face to Remus. "Will you tell them?"

"Er…" At eleven years old Remus hadn't quite grasped the ability to speak out against his two more domineering friends (if indeed he ever got there). The thought of telling James and Sirius they couldn't do something scared him slightly. But Peter was his friend too. And so he'd do it for him.

"Yes. I'll tell them." He promised.

"Wormtail?!" The Sirius Black of the present said, holding the letter out in front of him, an expression of extreme disgust on his face. "Why the bloody buggering hell would Wormtail write to you?!"

He frowned at the letter and then turned it over as though looking for a return address. "Well you know what we're going to do, don't you?" He said, looking back at Remus.

Remus had been expecting this. Of course Sirius would suggest they stage an ambush. It would be the perfect chance to get Peter thrown back in Azkaban.

"I mean how thick can he get?" Sirius continued. "Does he really think you won't tell someone about this? That you'll go to the pub, have a nice cosy catch up about the old days and go on your merry ways?"

Remus considered this. He thought that was probably exactly what Wormtail had been planning.

"He's always been an idiot." Sirius went on, pacing up and down the kitchen now. "I've had a chance to think about it in Azkaban. It's all I bloody could think about truth be told, and my conclusion is this: I didn't think Peter could be the spy because he's just such a colossal moron. It wasn't my fault I underestimated him. The evidence against him was overwhelming. Do you know he got a T in his transfiguration OWL? I nicked the paper out of his bag when he wouldn't show us. He's as thick as dragon dung."

Remus let Sirius rant but his words did nothing at all to lift his mood.

They'd all been friends with Peter. They'd all trusted him. So what if he was a little slower with his schoolwork? He'd still been loyal, one of them, a 'marauder'…

"Go on, Pettigrew, your turn." Sirius had said, handing him the map of the castle they'd just finished transfiguring.

It had been James' idea, back in their first year. He'd been sick of getting caught out of bounds by Filch and McGonagall (hadn't they all…) and reasoned that if they knew where all the secret passageways and hideouts were they could quickly find the closest one when they heard the teachers coming.

"What do I do?" Peter had stammered, taking the map from Sirius and looking up bewildered.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Just insult a few people. It's not hard."

Peter turned to Remus.

"It's so the map gets an idea of your personality." He'd explained gently. "James and Sirius think it would be, er, amusing to have it automatically insult anyone who tries to read it.

"Apart from us of course." James added.

"Nah, we do that to each other enough already." Sirius said, grinning and ruffling Peter's hair in what he presumably assumed was an affectionate sort of way.

Peter looked from James to Sirius to Remus. "I need some inspiration."

"Think of Snivellus. What would you say to him if he tried to read the map?"

"Er, bugger off?"

"Way too nice! The map's going to think you want to wish him a good day or something at this rate." Sirius said impatiently. Go on, call the idiot something really rude."

"Ugly git?" James suggested.

"He does have an abnormally large nose…" Remus had to admit.

Peter looked at his friends who were all grinning at him. "Slimeball?" He suggested, grinning sheepishly back.

"Perfect!" Sirius said, tapping his wand to the map. "We'll make a marauder out of you yet, Pettigrew."

"He's already a marauder." James said loyally.

"Yes, he helped write the map." Remus added.

Sirius considered Peter. He'd always been taller than the blond boy and so usually this resulted in him looking down at him, in more ways than one, but this time he smiled warmly and clapped his friend on the back. "He sure did." He conceded at last. "You're one of us, mate."

Remus looked back again at the adult Sirius. He wondered if his friend ever regretted the way he'd sometimes treated Peter in their youth. He wasn't as unkind to him as he had been to Snape, but he could certainly be impatient and callous with his remarks at times.

Sirius frowned at him. "What are you thinking?"

Remus sighed. "Nothing. Just old times."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at him. "Don't you dare."

"What?!"

"Reminisce. Don't you start thinking about the past like there was ever a time Wormtail wasn't a useless -"

"Can't you stop?" Remus said tiredly as Sirius continued to rant rather rudely. "We all know what he did was wrong. What good does hating him do?"

Apparently nothing, for Sirius' furious tirades seemed to just make him more angry and Remus was thoroughly sick of it all.

"I'm writing back." He said, taking a roll of parchment and quill. "I'm going to go and meet him."

"Great." Sirius said. "Can't wait to take him down."

Remus fixed him with a cool look. "No. I'm going to go and hear him out."

Sirius stared at him. "What?! You can't be serious…"

Remus was. He wrote back to Peter, saying yes he would meet him, and turned to face Sirius who now resembled a dark haired codfish.

"Don't look at me like I've got two heads." He said crossly. "There's nothing wrong with giving people second chances."

Sirius shook his head slowly. "I don't believe you, Moony. That… idiot… you've just agreed to meet with is the reason…" he shook his head again, apparently unable to say out loud exactly what Peter had done. "Sorry, but I can't be part of that."

Remus knew Sirius didn't agree with what he was doing, and quite honestly he himself was plagued with guilt about it from time to time. Was he really doing the right thing in going to meet Peter?

He knew what the man had done, but then he also knew nothing could bring Lily and James back. What was the use of hating the person who had brought about their deaths? Wouldn't it be worth hearing what he had to say? Might it even help him understand and get some closure? Perhaps they might at last be able to put this whole chapter behind them. A lot of time has gone by after all.

"I'm not talking to you." Sirius told him.

"I thought I was the only one in this place you could bear to talk to." Remus replied, smiling slightly. "Cutting off your nose to spite your face, isn't that what they say?"

"At least my mum doesn't go off meeting known killers for fun."

"I'm sure she would if she could." Remus replied, thinking of the portrait in the hallway.

"How can you do it?" Sirius said for the thousandth time.

"Let's not talk about it."

Sirius considered him. "OK. We'll talk about something else. Tell me… did Peter ever end up meeting that hideous troll from Hufflepuff after graduation?"

Remus, indignant at Sirius' lack of respect for Peter's one love interest from Hogwarts, began to quickly defend Martha Midgen.

"I was there at Peter's place when she came to visit! She was actually quite nice. We used to visit the town together. You never came to Peter's mum's house, did you?"

Sirius listened as Remus continued to share stories from the past. There hadn't been much down time between graduating Hogwarts and working for the Order of the Phoenix, but Remus and Peter at least had enjoyed the brief respite.

On Wednesday, he left the house without saying goodbye to Sirius. He didn't want to give his friend a chance to follow him or talk him out of what he was doing.

He knew where Peter had intended the two of them to meet. It was a pub called The Duke of Marlborough in the Midlands town where Peter's mother had lived.

Remus wondered if that's where Peter was staying - back at his mother's old place. He wondered whether she still lived there. And what had happened to Peter's sisters? He recalled the summer holidays he'd spent at the Pettigrews' small but cosy home. They'd had so much fun there. How could a boy like the one he'd been turn into the man he'd become?

He arrived at the pub. It was very quiet and dark, with a few old men sitting at the bar nursing pints and chatting to the landlord.

"Ey up!" The landlord greeted Remus. "And what can I get for ye lad?"

Remus had never been one for day drinking, but it seemed impossible to order anything else in the pub, so asked for a pint of the house ale, then ordered one for Peter too.

The men at the bar eyed him suspiciously as the landlord pulled the pints. Remus smiled at them. "Lovely day." He said and they turned back to their drinks.

"'Ere ye go, lad." The landlord said. Remus wasn't sure why the man was calling him 'lad' when he was turning thirty six in a few days time, but he supposed everyone must look young to people of a certain age.

Thanking the barman, he took the drinks over to a quiet table by the window to wait.

Now he was here, he was starting to wonder if it wasn't such a good idea after all. Yes they'd come here as teenagers. They'd sat in this exact same spot in fact, but was there really anything of the Peter he'd known back then left anymore? Was he being a stupid, sentimental fool to do this?

He turned his head as the door opened, sending a beam of sunlight across the dark wooden floor.

And there was Peter.

Their eyes met, and it was the strangest feeling. He had wondered if the last twenty years might wash away from memory in the moment they reunited. If the two of them could start afresh and rebuild on what they'd once had.

But that wasn't what happened. On seeing the man Remus felt nothing but loathing towards him. He recalled cornering him in the shrieking shack two summers ago. His desperate bid for freedom. His final admission to what he'd done. This was the man who'd betrayed Lily and James Potter, Harry's parents, to Voldemort. What on earth had Remus been thinking, agreeing to this?!

Seeing he had drinks, Peter made his way over to the table. "R-Remus!" He said in his squeaky little voice. "So kind of you to come. I wasn't at all sure you would… oh, thank you." He took the drink Remus pushed towards him.

"No, I wasn't at all sure I would either." Remus said, suddenly wanting nothing but to get as far away from this man as possible.

Azkaban had changed Peter, as Remus knew it would. He was thinner and more rat like than ever. He was nothing like the Peter Remus had known at school. And Remus suddenly realised why. That boy didn't exist anymore.

"Why did you want to meet me?" He asked. He wanted to get this conversation over with as quickly as possible so he could go home and pretend it hadn't happened. He didn't want to look at or think of this man ever again.

Peter looked at Remus. Remus looked back into his small blue eyes. Who are you? He thought, still scanning his face for signs of the boy he'd known. Who had that been?

"I know you probably hate me."

Remus nodded. "I'm afraid I do, rather."

It wasn't a pleasant feeling. He believed what he'd said to Sirius. There was really no point in hating anyone as all it did was cause you hurt, but in Peter's case he couldn't help himself.

"I know you think I betrayed Lily and James."

"Didn't you?"

Peter glanced quickly around the pub.

"Remus. You don't understand what it's like." He said, leaning in closely now. His voice was quiet. Pleading, almost. "When you're involved… when they've got you… Remus... I want to get out. I need to get out. But I can't…"

"What do you mean?" Remus said, an odd chill suddenly running through him. "Peter… what are you involved with?"

His heart was beating very fast now. Peter wasn't a death eater was he? Surely he wouldn't be involved with them still after everything that had happened?

Peter glanced again over Remus' shoulder. He turned back to him, his face etched with regret. "I'm so sorry, Remus." He whispered.

And then several things happened at once.

There was a shout and a flash of green light. Remus felt someone push him to the ground and he fell hard.

There was another shout, this time from a different direction and a flash of red light. There was a loud thump as someone else fell beside him.

"Remus? Are you alright?"

Who was that? Who had their hand on his shoulder? He tried to open his eyes but his vision was blurry. There were shapes. People's legs. It was so loud. There were flashes of light everywhere.

What was going on? Who were these people?

And then he realised.

Oh Remus, you silly fool.

But he didn't have a chance to think any more. There was another yell, another flash of light, and Remus Lupin knew no more.