Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor.

That fact made him stand out during his first meeting with The Dark Lord's sympathizers.

Lestrange, Rosier, Wilkes, and Malfoy were all Slytherin. Bellatrix Black. Macnair.

There were Ravenclaws, and two Hufflepuffs. Probably joined together; Hufflepuffs never
did things alone.

The mark of a Gryffindor, someone had once told Peter, was bravery. The other Houses
often mistook it for foolhardy righteousness.

What was brave about this?

-

One summer, when Peter was eight or nine, he had been standing on a rock above a deep
pool of water. Below him, two of his friends (well, boys who didn't mind his company,
mostly because he often had Chocolate Frogs to share) were swimming and shouting for
him to jump.

Another friend, who was sort of their leader, stood back and shook his head when Peter
gestured for him to go first.

Peter closed his eyes and did it. See? they said. Easy.

The other boy never jumped.

When Peter got home, his mum was tear-streaked and shaky. Never, she said. Never,
ever. Why would you be so foolish?

His mum had been in Hufflepuff. She was a good woman, but she was timid. She had
spanked him for scaring her.

-

"Peter, could you hold Harry while I finishing cooking dinner?"

Lily was brave. Sirius liked to joke that anyone who would sleep with James had to be brave. Lily would retort that the Sorting Hat had whispered that very thing to her at Hogwarts.

Bravery was not equal to shrewdness, though, and Lily failed to notice the Dark Mark when it peeked out from under Peter's sleeve.

Harry was like his mum. He just slept on.

-

He was paired with Bellatrix for a mission once.

Peter called them missions, but never out loud. The others called them chores, or duties.

Some called them killings.

Bellatrix was merciless where Peter was careful.

He aimed his wand at a child, a boy with untidy black hair and wide, scared eyes. Peter closed his eyes and choked over the word.

Bellatrix came into the room and without hesitation, shouted the boy's fate.

When Peter opened his mouth to tell her he had been about to do it, she grabbed his forearm and dug her nails into the gruesome tattoo. "I never had the patience for Gryffindor scruples,
Pettigrew."

She spit at him before Disapparating.

-

Peter knew he would be the one the Dark Lord wanted to do it.

Whatever it was.

There were whispers. A prophecy, a Chosen One sent to do the Dark Lord in.

Peter said nothing, because he knew about the prophecy. Dumbledore had told James and Lily and Sirius. Sirius told Peter.

Harry.

The Dark Lord is an accomplished Legilimens, Dumbledore once said.

"You, Pettigrew."

That slick, dark voice, that almost-whisper that sounded the way blood spread under a newly
slain body.

-

Secret-Keeper. James had been the one to ask, in the end. Even though Peter knew it was
coming, even though he had arranged it.

Sirius hadn't been difficult to convince. He was so eager to impale himself upon the sword.
A Gryffindor, through and through.

He watched Lily's eyes the night they did the spell. They glowed with determination, and
she was not afraid.

She hugged him before he left to go into hiding. "Peter, thank you for being so brave."

It was so very sad, how they took him for granted.

-

"No scruples, Pettigrew. That's how we do it. That's what he demands of us."

Bellatrix had been standing there, almost as if she were the Dark Lord's sentinel.

"You can't hesitate." She put her hands on each side of his face, the way a lover or
dear friend might. Her eyes glowed as Lily's had, except Peter knew this glow to
come from hunger, from power, from staring too long into the dark.

He pushed past her and told the Dark Lord what he knew.

-

James Potter, that Mudblood, twelve Muggles, and possibly the Dark Lord later, Bellatrix
was finally able to admit that Pettigrew had no damnable Gryffindor scruples.

She would have liked to find him and tell him so.

While he writhed under the Cruciatus, and she cackled with glee.