Something

Peter

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19th March 1979

Peter lay back on the floor of the holding cell and slung an arm over his eyes. He’d mainly stuck to beer, save for a couple glasses of firewhisky, so he reckoned he wasn’t feeling nearly as pissed as the rest of them, but he’d worked all day and been up all night after the ‘my wife/our boyfriend’ drama, and those godsdamned fluorescents were making his eyes sting.

He was so fucking restless. 

Not just from the fact that he was lying on a rather cold, stone floor in a muggle jail–which was proving to be a very inconvenient place to sleep–but more in the general sense. He needed something. He wasn’t quite sure what that something was, but the need was there, all the same.

 He supposed, in the general sense, his restlessness could be chalked up to the fact that the last year had just been… a fucking lot.

His father died in February, one of the earliest deaths in the Dragon Pox outbreak that took Monty and Effie Potter near the tail end of the epidemic in May. In June they’d graduated, and he’d moved back home and started full time at the shop. Growing up, he’d learned all the tricks of the trade and found that he liked the actual jewelry making the best, but he had a natural affinity for charmswork that served him well, too. 

The actual business side of things–dealing with Gringotts, all the paperwork and ledgers and lists–he could do without, but it was a necessary evil, and it kept him busy enough.

From there, he’d moved into the flat above the shop when the old tenants had vacated at the end of the summer–because two months at home with Mum and her perfectly fine politeness was perfectly enough. Since then, it had been work and… this, though not usually to the new heights they’d reached last night, which led to his current predicament.

Peter had been anxious near the end of the school year, about everyone going their separate ways after so many years of sharing the same dorm room. If he had to go out on a limb, he’d say that he and his fellow Marauders were all a bit codependent, but really, if it worked, then it worked. 

They were all perfectly content, so as time went on and they moved further into their adult lives, he was happier than ever. Working, partying, hanging out with his friends, being young and dumb. 

It was a good life.

Still, the restlessness persisted. 

He’d felt it building for quite some time now, but it had reached a fever pitch last month, when a certain time traveler had unleashed that whole can of worms. He was still struggling to wrap his head around it all, to try to make sense of how he could have become the person he saw in that penseive, and while some not-insignificant part of him had to admit he was content to never know what sort of hell he may have gone through to put him there, he had to admit that all of this is likely where it would have started.

Impossible, really, to say what they’d all be doing now–certainly not locked up in a cell because Hermione wanted to go to the park in the middle of the night when they were all already pissed, but he was always down for an adventure and it had been a blast–but at the least, he knew things wouldn’t be what they were right now. 

Maybe that worry he’d felt about everyone growing apart hadn’t been unfounded in this other life.

He could see that. The loneliness to desperation to dumbassery pipeline, perhaps. 

But it wouldn’t fucking happen. Not this time. 

He’d turn his wand to himself before he’d harm any of them, especially a fucking baby. Fuck a bunch of that noise. Things were going to be different across the board than they’d been where Hermione came from, and this time around, he’d already decided he was going to be that kid’s favorite uncle. 

The rest of them would just have to get over it, because Uncle Wormy would make it his life’s mission to spoil any future Potter children absolutely rotten.

Or… Black children? Potter-Blacks? Black-Potters? Blotters? Placks? He had no idea how all of that would work, if that worked out. It was all very new and very…unwrapped around, as far as his mind was concerned.

Peter yawned and folded his arms under his head as he looked over to where James was resting with his head against the wall. Regulus was lying along the bench to his left, fast asleep with his head on James’ thigh as James ran a hand through his hair, and to the right, Lily had spread out with her arms over her face and her feet in James’s lap–one tucked between his stomach and the back of Reggie’s head in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable. 

He could see this, for them. Something about it just worked.

Sure, three people having a go at a relationship seemed a bit crowded for his tastes, but if they were happy, then he was happy for them, and it’d all shake out the way it needed to in the end. James and Lily were so good together, but they were almost too perfect. They needed that moody prat to balance things out. Besides, Reggie was a good guy, under all that brooding armor he wore.

He let his eyes drift over to the corner, where Sirius was sort of half-crouched on the bench looking all starry eyed while Brad waved his hands around and explained the concept of American football, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sight. 

Now that was balance. 

That was all Hermione, too. The impact she’d had was immeasurable, but it shone through in all things Sirius these days. They never thought the day they’d see him even be able to come to terms with his sexuality, let alone settle into an actual relationship.

Brad was perfect for Sirius. Sirius was–well, for lack of a better comparison, Padfoot. The scary black dog, too guarded and a bit too quick to nip at the postman, and Brad was all cheer and pep and rationality. Sirius looked at Brad like he hung the moon, and Brad looked at Sirius like he’d learn how to climb up to the sky and bring that moon down to him if Sirius snapped his fingers–which was a whole other thing. 

Subtle, but it was there. 

The snapping of the fingers. Not always in the literal sense, but Sirius was absolutely in charge, but–again–it worked for them, so he was happy for them.

And then there were those two idiots on the back wall, all wrapped around each other, stuck like glue. 

Moony and the Mate. 

Peter couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen them in the same room that they weren’t touching in some way or another, as if they simply had to be in contact.  A few weeks ago when Lily had dragged them all to Godric’s Hollow to play some muggle board games–he’d learned he’s wicked at Monopoly, and James has zero patience past the third round–Remus and Hermione had kept their hands on the floor between them with their pinky fingers intertwined half the night. 

Even if it were the smallest point of contact, it was like they needed it to survive.

Sometimes it didn’t seem real to him that Remus finally had this. 

He’d watched him struggle for years, never dating in school, never even taking the time to flirt a bit like the rest of the lads their age. Hell, the poor bastard even seemed completely oblivious when witches would try to flirt. Save for that Greatling cunt, but Peter was pretty sure if you looked up the word ‘desperate’ in the dictionary it’d just be a picture of her from one of the million times she was bent over the table in the library trying to shove her tits in Remus’ face while he attempted to use whatever book he was reading to hide from them.

Fucker sure didn’t seem to be scared of tits now, handsy as those two were. 

All tits aside, though, he was happy for the lot of them. Moony and the Mate, Pads and his golden retriever, the Blotter-Placks. Admittedly, though, with Reggie all thrupled up, the realization that he was the last man standing had sunk in. 

Which, in turn, heightened the feelings of restlessness.

Peter Phineas Pettigrew was in need of a great Something.

Peter was in need of something at all, rather. He was quite sure the great wasn’t on the horizon for him yet–though, not to be mistaken, this surety was not born of any sort of ‘A Werewolf’s Guide to Self-Flagellation; The Journals of Remus Lupin.’ mindset. 

Things were simply different for Peter than they were for the rest of them.

It was easy enough to trace it all back to the source. He’d had some friends in the neighborhood growing up, got to run and be a kid and had his studies to attend to prior to Hogwarts, but had spent the majority of his early years in the shop, staying far enough out of the way so as to not be in the way, but close enough to pay attention because it would all belong to him some day.

He’d grown up watching his dad’s hands as he drilled and polished and shaped and refined jewelry and gemstones, tracking the movements of his mother’s wand and the curve of her lips as she enunciated the incantations just so when she applied the charms. 

He'd watched the way his parents interacted with customers, and watched the customers themselves enough that he began to learn how to pick up on their tells. An eye lingering half a second too long here, fingers trailing wistfully over the beads of a necklace there, and so on and so forth, and he became a watcher.

He had always watched people, and in his watching, he became fiercely analytical. 

He may not have been the smartest when it came to potions or arithmancy or whatever else, but he liked to believe he could have been. He just simply always knew Charms would be his focus, and hadn’t felt the need to waste his teen years with his nose buried in the texts for a bunch of subjects he wouldn’t need. 

What he lacked in booksmarts, though, he made up for in… people smarts.

Peter tended to exist on the periphery of things, but he was comfortable there. He loved nothing more than to lean back against the wall with a bottle of Guinness in one hand and a smoke or a snack in the other and just watch. Lily and Hermione had recently blamed the development of his habit of people watching on the facts that he wasn’t much of a reader and grew up without a telly, but at least he was an active spectator, never one to miss the opportunity to add commentary or ask a question.

He liked to think there were benefits to his analyticity, as it were. One thing that nobody would ever be able to accuse Peter of was not knowing his people like the back of his hand.

Sirius was boisterous and funny, and a constant flirt, if not a bit of a hothead–but Peter could always see the half-second tension that would roll across his face when one of the many insecurities he tried so hard to bury was touched upon, right before he’d slide on that flirty mask everyone was so used to looking at.

James was a natural born leader. Hilarious and kind, an all-around good man. He’d heard something once, about foxes and holes. A muggle war thing, but the gist he’d gotten was that, when your back was against the wall, there was that one person you’d trust to have by your side. James was that person, infallibly–but Peter knew that James would always be that person for those around him, even if it was at the expense of himself.

Remus was sarcastic as all get out, but studious, wise, and so damn gentle. Peter was nearly positive that gentleness was a concentrated effort, as if he thought showing even the slightest bit of anger would prove him to be nothing more than the beast he’d feared all along.

Lily was dramatic and fun and brilliant and bubbly, but gods, the woman needed to nurture anyone or anything. She was born to fuss and dote and mother, which everyone saw as endearing. Peter knew all too well what it was like to be a child raised by standoffish parents, and saw the way she’d turned her lack of receiving these things into a determination to give them to the world.

Hermione–removing all things time related–was funny and passionate, and so unapologetically herself, but her brilliance more often than not bordered on hyper-fixation. She had a habit of going on a massive tangent, then cutting herself off mid-sentence and switching to the next topic, which often came across as her just having a busy mind. Peter saw right through the outward air of distractibility to the constant fear of being too much that lingered beneath the surface.

Regulus was brooding and sardonic, and locked up so damn tight under the armor he’d built around himself. Peter never missed the way his eyes would soften when he was affected by something someone said, or the small smiles he’d accidentally slip before he replaced them with his trademark scowl, though.

And Brad, well. Brad was just a gas.

Peter Phineas Pettigrew was not a hero, to the degree that all of his friends were capable of being.

Peter wasn’t boisterous, nor was he a leader. 

He was not studious or brilliant. 

He was mildly funny at best, and only a touch sardonic. 

While he was a gas, as well, if he did say so himself, he wasn’t one of the greats. He wasn’t a conversation starter. He was simply a semi-active participant, and he liked to think it suited him rather well, because it meant he got to be the person that his people needed.

When someone veered toward a subject that he knew would make that vein in Sirius’ forehead start to bulge, Peter would jump in and change topics or crack a joke to alleviate the tension.

While James went to bat for everyone else, Peter made sure he had his back.

Any chance he could, he’d react for Remus, so that Remus didn’t have to deal with the struggle of not wanting to be seen as the odd man out or the bad guy. Though, to be fair, on that front, the whole ‘Moony and the Mate’ dynamic was healing all sorts of things for Remus, and Peter’s workload was lessening by the day.

He made sure to need just a little extra doting and fussing whenever Lily was around, and tried to make an effort to do things like asking her to teach him to make cookies the muggle way.

For Hermione, he’d say ‘no, wait, tell me more,’ or ask questions to keep her going when he saw her starting to twist her hands together or toy with the hem of her jumper as her self-consciousness set in. He also made sure to rant to her just as much–due in part to his desire to make sure she didn’t feel like she was being too much, but also because she was just as good of a listener as she was a talker.

He treated Regulus like all the brooding just didn’t exist. 

Simple, really. 

Most of the others still walked on eggshells around Reggie, and Peter understood, but he could see how badly the guy wanted to relax. He just hadn’t quite learned how to lay his armour down yet, so–in Peter’s mind, at the least–the logical thing to do was treat him like he’d treat anyone else until he reached the point where he was comfortable enough to let his guard down.

With Brad, admittedly, they just teamed up and cracked jokes and made each other even more ridiculous, with James often following suit. Brad had his own shit, but he also had an easy-going sort of nature, and seemed to have already worked through the ‘healing the past’ phase of life the rest of them were in now likely due to the fact that he was a couple years older, and had traveled the world and lived so many lives in such a short amount of time.

They’d all get there, though. They were getting there, and growing closer and stronger all the time, which is exactly why Peter was sure his something great wasn’t on deck for him, just yet. They all had their roles to play, and there was a bloody war to be won. 

Every good team needed an analyst. So, for now, they were his something great.

Still, the restlessness persisted.

Maybe it wasn’t his time yet. But someday, when it was his turn, it’d be nice to have a pretty witch in his lap or a head of hair to run his fingers through, too.

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Peter could not have predicted, when he had been laying on the floor musing about his friends and their dynamics a mere hour ago, that his turn would come the second he was bailed out of muggle jail on a random dreary Sunday morning in March.

After they’d gone through the discharge process, he stopped just inside the door to open his jellybeans–he was a snacker, and had no shame in admitting this, thank you very much–because the bloody coppers had taken them before he’d even gotten a chance to open them.

Once he’d struggled with the weird plastic bag–he’d have preferred a box of Bertie’s, but the muggle kind did in a pinch, even if they were boring and predictable–he opened the door to join everyone else outside and paused to toss a handful of sweets in his mouth, when he caught a glimpse of the girl Brad was chatting with out of the corner of his eye.

Oh, she was hot.

She looked like a Bond girl, straight out of those spy movies James loved so much. Long, pin straight black hair that, paired with the paleness of her skin, made her look quite like a porcelain doll, though that was where the doll-like qualities stopped. Long legs, wide hips, a fitted black coat that cinched her waist perfectly, full bust, lush red lips.

She was a bloody vixen.

Peter knew loads of pretty girls. 

Hermione and Lily were both downright beautiful and he’d crack a bottle over the head of anyone who said any different. Well, okay, he’d probably hand a bottle to Sirius to do the cracking, though if James or Remus were there to hear it, there likely wouldn’t be time to pass bottles or crack them over heads, anyway.

Nevertheless.

He’d known pretty, he’d known beautiful, he’d met plenty of foxy ladies, but this woman was a fucking work of art.

She almost looked scary, like a femme fatale or a super-hot lady spy that would kung-fu your arse through a window. Way out of his league, for sure, but lucky him to get to take a peak all the same. He continued to check her out, running his eyes over her face as he took note of her sharp cheekbones, and the sharper arch of her eyebrows before he finally looked into her eyes.

They were like ice. A piercing pale blue, that nearly knocked him on his arse with their intensity, but then she shifted her gaze, just slightly.

And he understood.

Blue met Brown, and on the front steps of the Fulham police department, sometime around six a.m., on 19th March 1979, Peter Phineas Pettigrew became a fucking hero.

A slayer of dragons. 

A conqueror of evil. 

A Purveyor of all things good. 

A man undone, as every single bit of awareness within him narrowed down to a single point, and he knew, he knew that this was it. 

His apotheosis. 

This was the moment he never came back from. 

Perhaps, in another life, in that other life, there had been a different sort of moment. 

More than likely, it had been a series of moments that weakened him, and led him astray, and turned him into that rat bastard he saw that night in the pensieve. Maybe someday he'd know what the breaking point was, or maybe he would never learn. It didn't matter anymore. He loved his friends, would give anything for them, had already vowed to himself that he would lay his life on the line to keep all of them–and a little boy with Lily's eyes that they'd know and love some day–safe from harm. 

Somehow, they all had faith in him. 

Despite his determination, and his best efforts, he had to admit that he still worried sometimes.

The not knowing what turned him, the fear of inevitability, it all seeped through even his strongest of resolves and the doubt would creep in. More than once in the last month, his fear had kept him up at night. 

How was he to avoid becoming that person, when he had no way to know how it happened? 

How was he to not question every single thing he did in his worry that one step in the wrong direction could be the step that leads him down that road?

How could he truly be sure he'd never become that if he had no way to know how he became that? It was a valid fear, he knew that. 

But on those steps, on that day, that fear died in the air between them. Maybe he'd never know what his breaking point could have been. Maybe he'd never know a million things that other life could have held. For the first time since he'd learned the truth about Hermione, though, he couldn't bring himself to care. 

It didn't matter what happened in the other life, because he knew, with every fiber of his being, that he had something that traitorous rodent of his other self never had. There was no Peter Pettigrew–in any universe or timeline–that had stood here,looking into those eyes, and been capable of anything but good. 

Her.

Anything for her.

Peter had heard all the great and wondrous tales of romanticism and sacrifice, honor and truth, absolution and devotion. 

He'd seen it, directly in front of him, in James and Lily, in Remus and Hermione, could practically feel that sort of world-burning dedication between the couples radiating off of them in waves, but he'd never given much thought to how it felt.

He knew, now, that it felt like this. Exactly this.

Icy eye, in a razor sharp face. 

This intrinsic knowing.

There you are.

Here we are, and it's time, isn't it? 

He felt a bit as if he'd lost his mind. He felt even more strongly that, were that the case, he'd be perfectly fine never finding it again.

She spoke, asking his name, and he responded, his mind still in a daze as he tried to rationalize the way he was feeling, to calm himself down, because surely, certainly, this could not be what he thought it was. 

He wasn't the guy who got this.

But then she stopped in front of Hermione, and the dizzying cloud that had settled over his mind dissipated as a clarity unlike anything he’d ever known set in. She reached her hand out and pulled back the hem of Hermione’s jumper, and he was nearly positive he stopped breathing.

“Does he know?”

I do. I really think I do.

“About my… about Remus and I? Yes, Peter knows.”

Peter does know. 

Does Peter know what Peter thinks he knows?  

He stilled, doubting himself briefly. Hermione had told him what the bond had felt like for her, and gods, he just knew this was it, but what if he was wrong, and what if he was just distracted by how fucking hot she was because really, in what world did Peter Pettigrew get…this? Her?

“Thank fuck.” She looked relieved, as if a thousand pounds of weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and then she looked back up at him again, and she was moving toward him with an intensity in her eyes that would have been terrifying if he wasn’t positive his own stare was just as feral.

This was real, and he had no idea how it could possibly be real. He realized, with amusement, that he had specifically requested this, that day everyone had realized Brad and Remus knew each other outside of their group, when he’d cracked a joke about whether or not he got a werewolf, too. 

Though to be fair, he’d just been trying to add some levity to the situation because of that godsdamned vein in Sirius’ head.

Semantics, as Hermione would say. 

The how and the why didn’t matter, because she–Callie, his very own fucking Bond Girl–was so close he could smell her, and she was all vanilla and cinnamon and woodsy, with some kind of expensive perfume that made his cock twitch, and she was his, or he was hers, or they were each other’s, or all of the above. 

He knew, now, that there had been a reason, all along, why he had been so content to remain on the sidelines. He had simply been waiting until it was his turn for something great.

That time had come, and fuck was he ready.

She stopped just in front of him, the trifecta of his average height, her long legs, and the thin-heeled pumps she wore bringing them eye to eye, and he realized she was letting off some sort of low, growling sound. 

Very Moony of her, honestly, and he’d never found it anything more than funny on Remus, but on her? She could growl at him all day.

He rather hoped she would.

He smiled at her, intending to say something smooth and suave–and to definitely not put his foot in his mouth–but he hadn’t the time, because the next thing he knew, she’d grabbed him by the arm and spun him away.

Bossy.

He could work with that.

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