Saying that Peter was afraid would fall short of what he was feeling. Terrorized would actually be the word for it. Even though he didn’t let anyone see how terrified he was, it was a different story when he was completely alone.
It had now been five days since Sirius and Remus had gone to find James. Five days, in which Peter’s mind wandered, and he hoped that the three of them were alright at the same time he wished everything would go according to the new plan. So far, there hadn’t been a day that went by where he wasn’t afraid of, practically, everything.
He had been trying not to think about his terrors and had been keeping himself very busy in order to stop thinking the thoughts that he knew would start pouring in. At the moment, he was leaning against the soft white pillows on his bed with his books on his laps, the curtains of his four-poster bed thrown open, studying. At first, he wasn’t even aware of the fact that his pudgy hand had stopped the process of writing his Charms essay. His mind was in a different place.
‘What if someone figures it out? What if someone knows that I was the last one to see Sirius and Remus before they left? What if they know that I am the one who sent them on the fatal mission that they hadn’t planned?”
The part of his mind that was used to counter acting these kinds of thoughts suddenly took over and gave him the assurance he needed.
‘No one is going to be able to figure the plan out! Severus said that it was full-proof. There is no way that he lied to you when there is just as big of a chance of him getting caught in this. And why would it matter if someone knew that you were the last person to see Sirius and Remus? You are after all their best friends. There wouldn’t be anything weird about that at all. Plus, there is no way that someone could find out that you were the one who sent them off. It wasn’t even your fault that they went on that mission in the first place. James asked if they would come to save him. All you did was opt to stay out of the part of the plan where you go to find James. You had a place in the plan, anyway. You were to stay in the dorm and make sure nothing bad happened to them.’
“And a lot of good I did on that job, huh?” Peter said out loud.
‘Other then to think up these dumb thoughts, I’m not going to accomplish anything by staying up here. I might as well go down to the common room and talk to someone who will get my mind of these things.’
As he was getting out of bed, though, another thought struck him, ‘What if Sirius and Remus find out that I was the one that caused the Death Eaters to come to attack the spot where they were?’
‘Well, I’ll just have to hope that they won’t be smart enough to figure it out.’
Deep down inside, he knew that Sirius, Remus, and James would have probably figured it out by now, but he couldn’t make himself think of how much they would hate him if they had.
Without bothering to make his bed neat again and straightening up his books, he swung his legs over the bed and pushed his body up and out. He then made his way out of the room and proceeded to make his way down the staircase, into the Gryffindor common room.
~~~~~~~
‘What had gone so completely wrong? Why had I agreed to join the Dark Lord in his reign of terror, anyway? Was there any real reason? I was pretty, popular, and well liked by everyone. Why had I ruined my life like this? Why do I have to be so terrified?’ Julie Edmonds asked herself as she sat up in her dorm room.
Every little sound she heard caused her to jump in fear and look around the room. Almost every time she would expect to find one of the many Death Eaters that Snape had told her he would unleash on her if she did something wrong again, lurking around.
She wasn’t expecting anyone to come in through the main door anytime soon. Arielle and Nicole were both out by the lake, sulking. At least until an hour before dinner, she had the whole room to herself.
She knew that she was safe at the moment. All of the Death Eaters knew how much torture Snape had put her through because of her poor judgment. Anxiously, she looked around the room, hoping that she actually was completely alone. She wanted to voice her thoughts but, because of the nature of them, she didn’t want anyone else to hear them.
“I’m in too deep now. There is no backing out. If only I had just rejected them when they first asked me to join them, I wouldn’t be in this mess. There was no reason for me to join them anyway,” she whispered softly, her voice steadily rising until she was yelling.
“What have I done? I’ve put an innocent girl in the middle of the Dark Lord and his cronies. I’ve trapped James Potter somewhere in the Forbidden Forest and no one knows where he is. I’ve worried the families of almost every student in this school. I’ve confused and frightened many members of the faculty, the students, and everyone in the Ministry of Magic. And why? Just so that I would know that people ‘respect’ me. But they don’t actually care about me. As long as I don’t give away their precious secrets everything is fine!”
She began to sob loudly and covered her formally beautiful face in her small hands and shook her head. With a streak of anger, she pushed off all of the small objects on her desk that she had collected from her friends over the years.
Slowly, the sobs began to subside and Julie’s body quit shaking. With a shudder, she began whispering once again, “I’m so afraid; afraid of myself. What if the next time someone gets really hurt? What will I do next in order to make myself happy?”
~~~~~~~
‘The only thing that I wanted to do was be happy and popular. What is so wrong about that? Nothing, that’s what...’ Peter thought to himself as he slumped even lower into the couch in the Gryffindor common room.
‘When you put your friends in danger to become popular, it is wrong! Plus, you could lose your best friends because of what you did,’ Peter answered himself, ‘What if you killed Lily Evans? You heard what the Dark Lord said! He was going to bring Lily to the graveyard and, and... well, you know. He doesn’t care if he kills ‘just another Mudblood’, much less torture. You shouldn’t have said anything to him about her. Besides, you were popular before you tried to pull this stunt. You are a Marauder, for Merlin’s sake! How is selling your friends out going to make you any more popular? That will just make you less popular!’
“...Peter? Are you even listening to me? Peter?!” one of Peter’s friends in sixth year, Ralph, asked.
“Huh? What?” he asked, caught not having been paying attention.
“Did you hear a word I said?” he asked, giving him an accusing and slightly irritated look. The two other sixth year boys and other fifth girl around him also gave him the same looks.
“I’m sorry, you guys. I just... I just need some time to think,” he said getting up and nearly running through the portrait hole and out into the hallways.
Walking as quickly as he could, he made his way toward the hallway he knew would contain the Room of Requirement.
‘This is stupid! I had the whole dorm room to myself to think and then I walk out here to think in a different place. I should have just stayed in there with Ralph and them and forgotten about this whole mess,’ Peter told himself as he reached the seemingly empty wall.
‘I need a place to think. I need a place to think. I need a place to think,’ Peter thought as he walked in front of the small area where he knew a door would soon appear.
Once the door was visible, Peter reached out his hand, twisted the brass handle, and pushed the door in.
As soon as he was inside, he slammed the door shut and sat down on the large, comfy lounge chair that was place slightly to the right side of the room. The huge place a replica of the Forbidden Forest except there weren’t any deadly creatures running amongst the trees. For some unexplainable reason, the area that he had wanted looked almost exactly as the area where James was being held captive. But, obviously, Peter had no clue why in the world it would resemble that particular area. Many red and silver lounge chairs, the colors being a mix of the two houses where his loyalties lay, were placed around the room as well.
“I guess I was popular before all this. And the only people that know that I did anything are just a few Slytherines anyway. They aren’t even people that I wanted to be friends with, in the first place. All they are just a bunch of Muggle haters and wannabe Death Eaters,” Peter admitted to himself.
“I just wanted to be happy. I thought that these people actually cared about how I felt. James, Remus, and Sirius act as though I am not even good enough to be friends with them. Well, at least James and Sirius... That day that Snape came up to me was one of the best days of my life. I felt as if, for the first time, I was actually somebody important. As if my opinion mattered and that if I thought something was right, it would get done. But that never even happened. Snape promised me that what I wanted was important, but really, nothing I said matters,” Peter felt a surge of rage and kicked the walls of the room hard and tried to ignore the pain that began to radiate through his leg.
“Worst of all,” he said softly to himself, “I might have killed off the only true friends I ever had.”
~~~~~~~
“I really did it this time. I’m going to get in the biggest trouble ever. There is no way that I am going to just get forgiven for this. Snape told me that his ‘little punishment’ had nothing to do with what the Dark Lord was going to do to me. He told me to expect something bigger and worse to come from him,” Julie said to herself as she stood in front of the mirror in her bathroom.
She was examining the cuts and bruises that were showing clearly against her abnormally pale face. Underneath her eyes were large bags that gave away the fact that she had been not getting enough sleep at all. Her silky blonde hair was now a messy pile of tangles that was placed untidily on top of her head in a huge bun. With a terrible effort and a large groan, she sat down on to the ledge of the bathtub.
From inside a pocket in her robes, Julie pulled out her wand and began to go through her daily process of repairing her injuries. Snape had warned her not to go to Madame Pomfrey unless she ‘wanted to get hurt ten times worse than the first time’.
Afraid that Snape would stay true to his word, she had refrained from properly getting her many lacerations fixed. Although this made facing the continuous questions tough to answer, she knew it was better to do as she was told.
“It wasn’t as though I actually intended to like Potter. If the Dark Lord was so stuck on making sure his plan followed through, he shouldn’t have stuck a newcomer on such a tough job. Nearly the whole female population at Hogwarts is in love with James. What made everyone think that I wasn’t too?” Julie complained to herself as she began to apply a scar receding cream onto her slowly fading cuts.
Once she was done trying to heal herself, she walked out of the bathroom and sat back down onto her bed. Looking over to Arielle’s bed, which was next to hers, she felt the tears beginning to form in her eyes. On her table, there was a picture frame with all of the girls in their dorm room together smiling and waving at the camera. She reached over and picked up the flower frame and a small mirror that was placed beside it. When she saw how happy and beautiful she looked in the picture compared to how wrecked she looked at the moment, she let herself cry for what seemed like the thousandth time since she joined the dark side.
As soon as she stopped crying and shaking, the terrible thoughts began coming again.
“What is the Dark Lord going to do to me? Will it be as bad as what Snape did? Or will it be worse?”
“I didn’t really even do anything wrong! As promised, I brought James to Hogsmeade with me. My portion of that terrible plan was OVER! I didn’t have anything else to do! Why is it that I have to be punished for doing what I was told to do? It isn’t my fault that Evans just happened to be walking in the area when James and I were going into the coffee shop.”
“In fact, I should be praised for being the most loyal Death Eater to join the dark forces. I’m the only one in all of the ranks that would have been able to get James Potter to Hogsmeade. I’d like to see Lucius Malfoy, Snape, or even Potter’s best friend Peter Pettigrew bring him along with them,” Julie exclaimed, near hysterical.
“It’s just not FAIR! Why does this have to happen to me? I didn’t even have a choice in all of this mess. I would have walked away at any chance I got. But did I ever get a chance? No! I hate this!” Julie yelled out as loud as her voice would let her go, the tears once again forcing way out of her eyes and all over her face.
With the tears still coming down her face, she threw her head back onto the pillow behind her and pushed her way under the covers. The last thought she could recall she had was, ‘Thank goodness it’s Sunday.”
~~~~~~~
“Everything is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Dark Lord is going to punish me so badly. I let Lupin and Black find out where Potter is. He is going to kill me for doing that. Why did I have to be so STUPID! I knew they were trying to figure out where James was but all I did was stand by and hope that they wouldn’t,” Peter yelled as he continued walking around the replica of the Forbidden Forest and kicking around the rich soil. Although the trees towered all around him, he knew exactly how to get back to the door in the front of the room.
“How could Snape be that stupid? Didn’t he realize that James had the two-way mirror on him? He probably thought that he had it for something dumb like vanity instead of communication. Now, because of his mistake, I am going to be in trouble. At least we were able to get those Death Eaters at the scene quickly. The Dark Lord would never forgive either of us for letting Sirius, James, and Remus all get out without so much as a scratch.”
“What is he going to do to me? At least I know that it won’t be as bad as what is going to happen to Edmonds. Even though I let Sirius and Remus figure out where James is, I led both of them into a trap. All Edmonds did was mess everything up and made it harder for the rest of us to get the plan going.”
“If only the Dark Lord would tell us why it is so important to make sure that Evans and Prongs are not able to communicate. What could they know that is so important? It is not as though they know more than they are supposed. All they heard was only conversation between Edmonds and Snape. The probably don’t even know what they were talking about.”
“Although, if they did manage to figure out what the two of them were talking about, they would know that the Dark Lord was planning to kidnap Potter. Malfoy said that the two of them wanted to kidnap Evans before they got Potter, but the Dark Lord wouldn’t have anything to do with that plan. But why doesn’t he want to kidnap Evans? If he does, he could easily get James since he will more than likely try to get Evans back. What is so important about one seventh year? And why is it that, now that they have Evans and James both caught, they don’t just continue on with the plan and kill them?” Peter asked himself. Afraid though he was at facing his punishment, he was angry at the Dark Lord for not explaining to any of his loyal Death Eaters what his plan really was.
“I wish I could just get my punishment over with. It is more torture not knowing what is going to happen to you and make you worry about it than actually doing something to you,” Peter explained to himself, for no reason.
“It isn’t exactly all my fault that this happened. How was I supposed to know that Remus had been there before? That isn’t exactly something you just causally ask your friends,” Peter reasoned to himself, trying to push all of the blame off him, “It was much more Snape’s fault than it was my own. If he had just found the mirror and gotten rid of it in the first place, none of us would have been in this mess.”
“If Edmonds had only been able to keep James away from Evans long enough to get him trapped, the whole thing could have been avoided. Those Death Eaters wouldn’t have accidentally gotten Evans instead of Potter. If they would have done their job right, Snape and I wouldn’t have had to trick James into safety. Then, I wouldn’t have to feel guilty and have all of this on my conscious,” Peter grumbled.
For a few minutes, he continued walking around the large forest, the only happy thought in his mind was that he was alone, and then he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“This is bloody RIDICULOUS! I should go out and help them. None of the stupid Death Eaters will be looking out for me. None of them will think that I would be brave enough to go out into the forest without someone helping me. They all think that I am ‘determined for the cause’. I am going to go out there and save my friends,” Peter exclaimed furiously.
He stormed his way through the maze of trees and plants and finally made his way to the door that would lead him out into the corridor. But before he could get out of the door, fear overtook him once again. He stood there, his hand extended toward the doorknob, waiting for the courage to open it. Finally, he withdrew his hand and leaned back against a nearby tree.
“I don’t want to risk getting into any more trouble. Sirius, Remus, and James are going to have to get out of this one on their own,” Peter decided, part of him wishing he was brave enough to leave and save his friends.
~~~~~~~
Arielle and Nicole sat by the edge of the lake, their tear-stained faces facing straight forward, toward the quiet and peace of the lake.
“Nicole?” Arielle said, her voice shaking. Without saying anything, Nicole signaled her to talk.
“It’s been five days, hasn’t it?” she asked, struggling to swallow the large lump in her throat.
Nicole nodded her head, afraid that if she talked, she would breakdown and continue crying.
“Where are they?” she asked her, hoping that she would know the answer, although she hadn’t known for the past thousand or so times.
“I don’t know, Arielle,” she responded hoarsely.
“Let’s recap, then,” Arielle said, the bitterness quite apparent in her voice, “Lily, our best friend, got taken from us. James, one of our good friends, got taken from us. Sirius, the person that I never even got a chance to tell that I loved, got taken from us.
And...”
“And Remus. Sweet Remus that never did anything to harm anybody. The one guy that ever really cared about me and the one that I ever really cared about got taken from us,” Nicole finished for her, as she, too, forced the lump in her throat to go away.
“I think it is quite fair for us to say that our lives stink,” Arielle said as pulled the heavy jacket she was wearing around her even tighter. Although it was literally freezing cold and the ice was slowly begin to form at the corners of the lake, the two girls hardly noticed. All they cared about was getting their friends and loved ones back in one piece. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to go about that.
“Arielle?” Nicole asked, something finally clicking in her head, “I just thought of something.
“What?” Arielle asked with a slight sniffle.
“How come that Pettigrew fellow is still here? Isn’t he also a Marauder? I find it very hard to believe that there is a logical reason that he stayed behind when the rest of the four are gone. Something is very wrong here, and I intend to find out what,” Nicole said, jumping from her spot in one of the only places where there was no snow on the ground.
“What exactly are you going to do, Nicole?” Arielle asked.
“I am going up to that rat Pettigrew and asking him what’s going on. Are you coming with me or are you just going to sit here and sulk?” Nicole asked sharply, noticing that Arielle hadn’t moved from her spot.
For a few seconds, Arielle sat in the snow, her face completely blank and unfeeling. Then, what Nicole had said sinking in and causing her to realize the same thing Nicole had, anger flashed on her face. Quickly, she pushed herself up and off the ground to join Nicole as she began to make her way back to the castle.
~~~~~~~
“Peter! Just the guy we were looking for!” Arielle called out repeating the line that she and Nicole had been rehearsing as they were searching for Peter, slowly stepping her way toward Peter.
Peter, confused and making his way back to the common room, turned around to see Nicole and Arielle coming toward him.
‘They can’t possibly know can they?” Peter thought to himself in fear as he looked upon the two girls.
Nicole threw her arm around Peter’s neck, as did Arielle, as she began to talk, “Peter, Peter, Peter! What brings you here?” Nicole pulled her finger along Peter’s cheek in a comforting gesture.
“I-I was just going t-to-to,” Peter said, startled by the sudden attention.
“Mm-hmm, yeah, whatever,” Arielle said to make him be quiet, “Anywho, Nicole and I were wondering which of us you find more attractive.” She smiled at him, forcing herself make the smile look as genuine as possible and not roll her eyes at the absurdity of the statement.
“Wha-what?!” Peter asked in shock, “What about Sirius and Remus?”
“Who and who?” Arielle asked, feigning a look of confusion.
“Oh, um, nevermind,” Peter said trying, and failing, to smile as James always did, thinking that the two girls actually did like him.
“So? Who will it be?” Nicole asked smiling as she flirtatiously flipped her black her away from her face, causing it land on her shoulder.
“Oh, er, well,” Peter said, pulling at the end of his coller.
“Pick me! Pick me! I would do anything to go on a date with you Peter, darling,” Arielle said as she batted her dark brown eyelashes and made sure to focus her dazzling hazel eyes to stare into Peter’s watery ones.
“Really?” he asked in surprise.
“Oh, of course we would, sweetie!” Nicole answered, “We were just waiting until the day that Lupin and Black would leave us alone. Now, we can focus all of our attention on you!”
Arielle and Nicole were proud of themselves. They had managed to make Peter completely forget about getting to the common room, as they were now walking in the opposite direction, and had distracted him at the same time. Arielle nodded over to Nicole in an inconspicuous manner and she took the hint.
“Oh I like completely forgot!” Arielle said, making herself sound like a ditzy girl, twirling her silky brown hair around her fingers, “We like have a present for you!”
“You do?” he asked, only slightly suspicious.
“Yeah!” Nicole said, “Now close your eyes...”
Peter, doing as he was told, closed his eyes and waited for his ‘surprise’ to come. Nicole and Arielle both quickly pulled out their wands.
“Petrificus Totalus!” they both yelled at once, right after Peter’s eyes opened in surprise and confusion.
“Surprise,” Arielle said her voice low and filled with anger as she and Nicole levitated Peter to the nearest girl’s bathroom. Once there they quickly made sure that no one was in there, locked the door, and placed a silencing charm upon it.
Confused, Peter looked from one girl to the other in shock, not being able to say anything.
“If you agree to tell us everything that has been going on, we will let you go. You will not tell anyone of this, and if, by chance, you do, the punishment will be deadly. If you choose not to, you may stay here until someone finds your body,” Nicole said, her voice dangerously low and cold.
Arielle gave her a proud look, than proceeded to glare down at Peter, “Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
Without wasting any time, Peter blinked once. Arielle bent down and removed the wand from his pocket and put a charm on it to protect it from any spell directed at it.
Nicole then took off the body-binding spell and allowed Peter to sit up against the bathroom stall.
He took a few terrified deep breaths, and Nicole, getting annoyed and impatient, kicked him in his large stomach.
“Ouch,” he muttered, rubbing the sore spot.
“YOU BETTER START TALKING, PETTIGREW!” Arielle yelled directing all of her anger at him, losing her patience and pointing her wand toward his heart.
“Arielle!” Nicole said, giving her a look that said I-miss-them-too-but-you-have-to-stay-calm!
Arielle snorted and pulled her wand away, “I wouldn’t waste my time on you anyway.”
Nicole retrieved the bottle of Veritaserum from her inner robe pocket. She quickly dripped two big drops in Peter’s unwilling mouth and asked him to repeat the story of exactly what happened. After a few more seconds of silence, Peter began telling the story.
He began with the trip to Hogsmeade where their whole plan started messing up because of Julie Edmonds. Also, he explained to the two girls how it was an accident that Lily was taken first and James after. Then, he explained about the long process of creating a plan to get James away and capturing him. Next, he told them about the discovery of the two-way mirror and how Sirius and Remus found out where he was. Here, Nicole and Arielle smiled proudly for a few seconds, and Peter rolled his eyes. Continuing his tale, he told the two about how Sirius and Remus left to go find James. Finally, he concluded by letting them know that many Death Eaters were alerted and went to the spot where they knew Sirius and Remus would show up. Once they saw those two, he said that they began dueling.
“And that is all so far,” Peter spoke truthfully. After about a minute or so, the effects of the potion wore off. Fear clouded Arielle and Nicole’s pretty features as they thought about the dangerous, maybe even lethal, mission they went on.
“Now Peter, you have a choice. You may either speak of this to no one, or forever stay in this bathroom, immobilized. It’s your choice,” Arielle told him, reiterating Nicole’s words only slightly differently.
“I-I w-won’t tell-tell anyone about thi-this,” Peter said.
“Wait a second,” Nicole said, once again removing the vile which contained the Veritaserum. This time, though, she only gave Peter a single tiny drop, long enough to last only a minute.
“Will you speak of this to anyone or will we have to leave you in this bathroom for the rest of your life?” Nicole questioned, knowing that she would get the truth.
“I won’t tell anyone about this,” Peter answered, the potion causing him to speak clearly, without stuttering.
“Good,” Arielle murmured. The two best friends waited until the potion’s magic stopped.
“Get out of our sight, you scum,” Nicole said to him. When Arielle saw him giving her a defiant look, she, once again, pulled out her wand and pointed it to his heart, her anger getting the best of her.
“What abo-about my-my wan-wand?” Peter stuttered.
“You’ll get it back when we are sure that there are, let’s just call them, ‘witnesses’,” Nicole answered, giving him a shove and causing him to get closer to the exit.
Arielle smirked and put away her wand as she saw how Peter’s eyes grew wide in fear and he ran out of the door.
The brunette was about to congratulate Nicole when she remembered the terrible news that they had just heard.
“So... what are we going to do about this?” Arielle asked, her voice sounding small and tiny when it echoed through the large bathroom.
“I don’t know,” Nicole responded, her voice smaller.
The two girls looked at each other helplessly and left the bathroom. Although they knew that their actions could get themselves killed, they were determined to get their friends back.
Always and Forever by jamesnlilyforever
Chapter Notes: Oh gosh, I don't know what happened! I put the chapter in the queue and then it just got deleted... with no email about it. I know it's been forever since I've updated but I have no clue why it just disappeared like that. I don't know what happened but I apologize for the delay! It wasn't supposed to be late, at all! =(. But anyway, I'm putting it up again and hopefully, you'll get to read it... gah, I am so confused... =/.