The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Team: Holyhead Harpies

Position: Chaser 2 Remus&Peter

Prompts Used: (plot point) holding a baby, (emotion) worry, and (color) lime-green

Word count: 1,195

Warning for mentions of threats against a character's family, and a slight bit out of character. I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who beta read this story for me. It means so much to me that you would take the time to help me out like this. So, thank you very much!

"Can I hold him?" Peter asked, worry coloring his voice for a number of reasons. First and foremost, he was tossing about making a decision that could cost everyone in this room dearly. The baby he was asking to hold included. Secondly, he was pretty sure that at least one of the people in this room knew he could possibly turn traitor on them. Not that he was doing it for his own good. He had his reasons. His family, his mother, and his father were his reasons. Thirdly, he was much worried that he'd hurt the baby. He, after all, had never held a baby before, being an only child and all that included.

Lily looked at James, and Peter could see the worry in her eyes. She didn't want to let Peter hold little Harry. She must know what was happening with him.

Lily was about to say something when Remus walked over to Peter. Remus was one of the most mature people that Peter knew. So, maybe he was going to help Peter out and tell him what he was doing to make Lily nervous about allowing him to hold her child.

"Have you ever held a child before, Peter?" Lily asked, sounding afraid to even let him near Harry.

"Lily, I'm pretty sure that Peter can handle this," Remus said, reassuringly. "After all, he is a trained Auror. They have to be prepared for anything that comes their way. Isn't that right, Pete?"

"Uh...um...yeah," Peter said, trying to sound as confident as Remus had just made him out to be. To be honest, Remus's words had only made Peter more worried that he'd make his friend look bad. Not that he wasn't about to do that in other actions. But he didn't want to look bad now, not before he was forced to look bad by outside parties.

"Did you wash your hands yet?" asked Lily, the worries of a new mother coming through in her voice. Peter had never known Lily to be worried about anyone washing their hands. She was married to James, after all. The biggest proponent of not washing hands that Peter had ever met in his entire life.

Peter looked over quickly at Remus, who was nodding his head. Remus had instructed him to wash his hands as soon as he'd entered the Potter's house. He must have known that Peter would want to hold baby Harry. But the look on Lily's face still brought with it a worry that Peter couldn't shake. The worry that anyone who ever beheld a baby felt. What if the baby didn't like him?

James was leading him over to the sofa and instructing him to sit down. Something Peter noticed wasn't done for either Remus or Sirius. The worry built in his Peter's gut but as he looked over at Remus who was smiling encouragingly at him, the worry started to diminish a bit.

But even when Peter was sitting, the worried look remained on Lily's face. She'd never acted this worried about him before. He was pretty sure that he'd remember it if she had been. But once again Remus came to the rescue.

"You might want to discard your work gear, Peter," Remus suggested, pointing toward his holster and wand that was still within reaching grip of the baby's hand.

"Also the small buttons on your jacket are a choking hazard," Lily pointed out, trying to keep her voice from sounding like that of a new mother who had all sorts of rules about how to handle her child.

Peter nodded and took off his wand holster and jacket. Looking to make sure that there was nothing else that could be construed as a threat to the baby or anyone else in the room, he sat back down in the chair he'd vacated to divest of the items.

Remus, who'd been holding Harry while Peter had been preparing, brought the baby over to the worried man in question. "Are you ready, Pete?" he asked, watching the little man's watery blue eyes fix on the tiny green ones of the baby.

Peter nodded, worry still evident in his eyes. If he messed this up, he'd risk ruining his friendship with James and Lily. He also didn't want to think about what would happen to his parents if the Potter child was taken out of the equation as the one that the Dark Lord marked as his equal.

"Don't worry, Peter," Remus whispered as he passed baby Harry lightly into Peter's arms. "He's sound asleep. See."

Peter looked down at the baby's face to find that Remus's words were true. Somewhere between Remus's walking over with Harry and Harry being swapped from one man to the other, the baby must have fallen asleep.

"He's so tiny," Peter commented, thinking that only he'd been able to hear himself. He looked at the infant in his lime-green pajamas. The pajamas that he'd picked out as a present for the baby before Harry had even been born.

"He is," Remus whispered. "He trusts you, see?"

Peter looked up at Remus in shock. He was pretty sure that baby Harry didn't understand what it meant to trust people yet. He was also pretty sure that if Harry had known what it was to trust someone, he, Peter, would be the last person the tiny baby in his arms would trust.

"How do you know?" Peter asked Remus warily, not truly wanting to know the answer because he was sure that it would be something that would make him regret doing what he was going to do.

"The way he's curling into you," Remus pointed out. "They only do that with people they trust, and that means that Harry must trust you as much as he trusts the rest of us."

"Are you sure?" Peter asked one last time. He looked down at the tiny bundle sound asleep in his arms, curled against his chest. Tiny cheek pressed against the white of Peter's shirt and a puddle of drool soaking into the shirt.

"I am," said Remus.

After a few more minutes of holding baby Harry, he handed the sleeping child off to Sirius. He pulled Lily and James aside and declined their offer to be their secret keeper. He told them all about what the Dark Lord was doing. How the Dark Lord and his followers were threatening Peter's family and livelihood.

James and Lily after a bit of shock were understanding about why Peter was turning down their offer. But they still needed someone to act as secret keeper to keep their family safe from the Dark Lord and his followers.

"Why not Remus?" Peter suggested. "He's one of your closest friends and he is the one that stopped me from making a horrible mistake."

James and Lily shared a look before going off to speak with Remus about becoming their secret keeper. Peter smiled at the thought that now he didn't have to betray his friends anymore. He could keep them safe and in turn, they could help him keep his parents safe too.

I hope you all enjoy The One Where Peter isn't the Secret Keeper as much as I enjoyed writing it.