Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor the cover photo. Nor the cat with the pink fur that seems to pop up on my facebook wall a lot lately.

Peter and Wormtail

Peter was never brave.

He never thought he had 'courage' or 'unbeatable strength'. He wasn't hotheaded nor stubborn, arrogant nor loud. A bonafide Hufflepuff was what he had always thought himself to be: mellow and quiet, always loyally cheering from the side, never standing in the spotlight. There was a sure barrier between him and the ones above him, a barrier he thought he could never breach.

And then the Sorting Hat placed him in Gryffindor.

His first question was an obvious one: why? He wasn't courageous. He wasn't stupidly daring. He was simply...Peter. A boy who planned on spending his seven years of schooling quietly in a corner, getting hopefully acceptable grades and then getting a decent job with decent pay. Making it into Gryffindor practically threw all those plans out of the window.

Gryffindors are noisy. Gryffindors are loud. Gryffindors are reckless, rowdy, boisterous. Gryffindor were the type of people who'd play with fireworks at three in the morning on a school day and you could count it as a normal occurrence. Peter had no business being there.

He was simply Peter. There was no other way to put it.

Small, quiet, out-of-place Peter who had better luck becoming a sandwich box than surviving first year as a Gryffindor.

He went for classes with them. He ate with them, sat at the same table and everything. He hung out in the same common room as them- but somehow, he didn't feel like one of them. He didn't feel like a Gryffindor. He simply felt like Peter.

Then one day, he asked. Just after the class had left, just as McGonagall had put her hat back on, he uttered the pressing matter that had been eating his mind.

"Did the Sorting Hat...make a mistake?"

He couldn't take it back. He didn't have to.

And she stared at him. It was a cold, hard stare that said everything she wanted to say, and just like that, he got it. No words were exchanged, but he understood.

There is a reason.

There's a reason why the hat chose Gryffindor, even though his qualities are the exact opposite of one. There was a reason why such a mousy, small, clumsy little boy was put in the midst of the swarm of the explosive, the loud, the rowdy. There was a reason- he just had to find it.

A while later, he met James, Sirius, Remus.

Together they cheered, together they laughed, together they mixed pink dye into Dumbledore's shampoo and set pixies into Slughorn's classroom. And soon enough, together they became the noisy four, the Marauders- Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail.

His doubts were slowly fading. The barrier between him and those whom he thought stood above him was cracking. The reason he was looking for- the answer he was searching for -was so close, yet so far.

Until one day, he asked them, "why am I here?"

The few moments of silence that followed nearly killed him. The eyes that stared into him, the looks that clearly judged him, seemed to stab him. Again. And again. And again.

And then, everything broke. The barrier was completely torn down. The reason he searched for was grasped tightly in his hand. It was like those doubts never existed as James- Prongs -shared his crooked grin with him, and replied, "because we need someone like you."

On that day, Peter became Wormtail.

He accepted that while he was not a bonafide Gryffindor, while he was everything a Gryffindor was not, he could truly live his life here, make time friends and truly enjoy everything he experiences. He became a true Gryffindor.

.

But how true is a true Gryffindor?

.

Wormtail was loud, reckless, foolish, daring. Peter was not.

To call him a coward would be taking it too far, but he was never the kind to take stupid dares or do foolish things that put his life on the line.

Wormtail, as long as he has his friends, was fearless. Peter was not.

Peter feared many things.

But most of all, Peter feared death.

He feared death, and the pain that would come with it. The mere thought of losing his soul, letting it get shattered and fading out of existence made his insides go cold, sent chills down his spine, sent his mind into an overdrive.

He couldn't handle it, the thought of being dead.

His friends know this; they didn't say anything.

His enemies knew this.

They said something.

.

"Leave me alone!"

"Come on, Pettigrew. The Dark Lord won't take no for an answer."

"I won't work with you! Ever!"

"Even if the penalty is death?"

.

If you were faced with this, which side of you would you choose: your loyalty as a Gryffindor, or your timidity as a rat?

.

"No, please don't kill me! I'll...I'll do whatever you say!"

.

On that day, Peter destroyed Wormtail.

Because Wormtail wasn't him. Wormtailwas reckless, obnoxious, loud like the rest. Peter could never be someone like that. Wormtail was simply a mask he put on to fit in, to be accepted, to act as the reason.

Up until today, the barriers were still up, and they were higher than ever.

And so he finally submitted to the doubts that claimed him, that gnawed at his insides slowly and mercilessly, he finally allowed them to swallow him up.

James, Sirius, Remus...

Wormtail...

I'm sorry.

.

Because in the end, Peter wasn't Wormtail, and he never could be.

A/N: For some reason, my writing muse decided to drop off the face of the earth when November hit, and I didn't write AT ALL until today.

So here: isn't much, and Peter isn't exactly an attraction for attention, but it's the best I got right now.

Also, I truly believe that, during their school days, Peter was fully accepted as a Marauder. Even though he became a lying bastard in the end, I believe he was part of the Marauders for a reason, and not just because he worshipped James and Sirius. James takes every single one of his friendships seriously, and I can't imagine someone like him and Sirius and Remus letting someone into their group just because he 'worships' them.

So yes, that's my take on it. Be sure to leave a review, or favorite, or chuck it in a corner, or something. I dunno.