The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

Done With Trying

Peter Pettigrew sat on the couch in the alcove off the Trophy Room Passageway, eating a sandwich that he'd gotten from the house elves in the kitchens and flipping through some of the photographs and notes left over from older generations of students that had used the alcove as a hang-out. Every photo made him sadder, and more lonely feeling - perhaps most especially the ones that made him smile the most.

He'd set aside a couple photos to eventually show the others, things he reckoned they might want to see. Like James's dad, Charlus, when he was young and on the Quidditch team, the same as James, playing Keeper while Minnie McGonagall played Chaser. There were pictures of Elphinstone Urquart and Filius Flitwick, who were easily the tallest and the shortest in the group photos, standing next to one another and laughing at their height difference. He even found a really, really old one of a boy that looked like Newt Scamander and a girl he supposed could maybe be Tina, but he wasn't sure. Peter thought Remus might like to see that one.

In all of the photos was the feeling of friendship and good times, and Peter missed the feeling of the camaraderie that was so perfectly depicted in all of their smiling faces and hugging arms. They made him smile but they also broke his heart because the photos that the Marauders had added to the walls were only... mostly like that. James, Sirius, and Remus were, at least. There was only one that Peter could find, where he'd inserted himself between Sirius and James, that he was included quite as closely as the others - and it may possibly have been that Sirius was reaching over Peter to put his hand on James's shoulder, it was hard to tell from the photo as all four of them were jostling and laughing so much in it. The other photos of them, Peter was always on the end, and sort of forgotten - especially when he was on the end closest to Sirius.

Peter glowered at Sirius in the photos, wondering what he could've done differently that might have made them closer. What had it been about James Potter that had made Sirius Black choose him, from day one it seemed, to be his best mate? Why didn't Peter have that same quality? Was it something that someone like James was just born with, and that someone like Sirius was just drawn to? Was there anyone out there in the world that was drawn to someone like Peter? And if they were... who were they? Where were they? Would he ever find them?

He sighed and pushed the photos all away from himself, he couldn't stand looking at friendships anymore, and he crawled onto the couch and curled into a ball at one end, nervously biting his fingernails, the sandwich only half eaten on the floor where he'd left it. He stared at the fabric of the couch and wondered what the hell he'd do with himself for the next ten days before James returned from holiday...

He had been actively avoiding the dormitory as much as possible. Granted, Sirius was being a lot nicer than usual, but Peter got the feeling that the kindness was costing him a great deal and that it was only because James had said something to him about it. It made Peter feel sort of patronized, rather than thought about or cared for, and it weighted on him heavily. All he wanted in the world was to just fit in naturally, not because Sirius had gotten in trouble but because all four of them actually wanted him around.

Well, he laughed to himself, that wouldn't ever bloody happen, would it? Seeing as none of them really wanted him around - even James. Maybe especially James, he thought suddenly. Maybe he was a problem that James couldn't solve and thereby because he went to James with everything he was the most annoying to James but James was so good that he wouldn't ever say anything to Peter. It was a silent sort of hatred, Peter decided, that James probably had for him. At least Sirius said what he was thinking, at least Peter knew exactly where he stood with Sirius. But perhaps with James he didn't really know. After all, if Sirius hated him and James and Sirius were such alike then it stood to reason that James hated him, too. And Remus, by association of course would hate him because Remus never, ever stood up against James and Sirius, not in anything really serious, that is. Every now and then maybe he'd try to talk them out of a prank or two, but most usually Remus went along with whatever the other two were doing to avoid a confrontation.

Peter shivered. It had never occurred to him, at least not quite so logically as all of this, that perhaps all of his friends hated him... perhaps he didn't have any friends at all.

Tears were hot on his cheeks and he rubbed them off with the heels of his hands and curled into an even tighter ball, hugging his knees as close to his chest as his pudgy belly would allow him to go.

"They aren't very GOOD friends if they treat you like that," Wendy had once said about the other Marauders.

At the time, Peter had argued and defended even Sirius. But now...

Then again, where exactly was Wendy Brighton herself?

For a short time in his life, Peter had entertained the thought that perhaps Wendy was that sort of person who would like his sort of person. He'd believed that she really saw and appreciated him. But then something changed, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was because it had changed very suddenly, and because they'd been apart over the summer quite a lot, he wasn't even sure exactly when it was that it had changed. Wendy had simply going from caring for Peter and being very kind to him to not returning his phone calls and never asking him to go out anymore.

She'd one day simply disappeared from his life.

Sirius had asked him once over the summer if Peter and Wendy were still together, and Sirius had made fun of him for not knowing, but it had been the truth. Peter hadn't known. He still didn't really, though he was fairly certain after Yule Ball that it was very much most definitely over. And he'd gone so long not telling the Marauders that he'd been so confused about it, making up things that he was "doing with Wendy" whenever they asked him why he wasn't hanging about with her, that now it as very awkward to try to tell them what he'd been going through.

Besides, Sirius would probably just make fun of him. And then James would get mad at them and they might have a row and then Remus would say something wise and James would apologize even though it was Sirius who ought to have apologized and because it was James who had done then Sirius would think it wasn't as big a deal anymore and he'd go right back to his ways of making fun of Peter. So nothing would change and it was easier to just not tell them, but he had to tell them, and ---

Peter covered his face, thinking it would be a good deal easier if Voldemort would just stop the bloody watch and get it over with. Get everything over with. It wasn't even worth fighting Voldemort for Peter's life, was it? Even James didn't care enough to have scheduled things properly for the Order to figure out how to help. He'd nearly left for holiday without even getting things started, and what had been resolved? Nothing really. And none of them cared.

Nobody cared.

If it was Sirius's time or Remus's, they'd care. James's, they'd care. Lily's - well, James would've gone after Voldemort so fast that he probably would've forgotten his wand and Sirius would've had to go after him with it, wouldn't he? And Sirius would because it was Lily and James in trouble and not Peter.

So he'd curled up in the little hiding hole in the Trophy Room Passageway and decided that if Sirius and Remus were so bloody willing to forget about him, then he'd just let them. He was done fighting to be noticed and given a damn about... and if they wanted him, then it wasn't as though he was very well hidden. They could come and find him anytime they wanted. Furthermore, he was done fighting for their friendships, done fighting for them to pay him attention, to believe him when he said something about what he saw in his divination practices, or anything else.

It had been seven years of fighting for his place as a Marauder and finally, after all that time, Peter Pettigrew was done with trying so hard to be one of them.