Character History – (I’ve never written a background like
this before, so I hope you don’t mind. It’s in 1st person, future persona –
Peter’s looking back on his life.)
Introduction ~
The road to how I became who I am today is not one
that can be told easily. I did not become what I am overnight. Many things
shaped the path of my life. I don’t intend to make excuses, but it begins even
before I entered Hogwarts
Son of the Pettigrews ~
My family was an old Wizarding
family. My mother had come from a high class background than my name indicates.
She married down for love over anything else. I don’t know if I understand
that, but I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t, so I’m hardly going to complain. We
had enough to survive off of, but for the most part, we lacked the privileges
that we would have had if my mother’s family hadn’t shunned her for marrying
against their will. I honestly did love my mother, but that is hardly an issue.
My father, Palmer Pettigrew, had come from a family where magic was their
strongest asset. Much more than wealth and far more than
fame. They didn’t need fame or wealth, because the majority of their
family had strong enough magic that they didn’t need it to stand out. They
stood out just because of their strength. That was part of the reason he hated
me. I was never strong. Never good enough to hold the name of
Pettigrew. Even before I entered school, the symptoms of my magic was
unimpressive and far between. They were there, at least, but what little would
show was nowhere near enough. He blamed this on my mother.
Her family while rich and well-known as such, had produced a few Squibs in the
past. Suddenly ‘love’ wasn’t enough anymore. He would have rather had someone
who would produce a better heir for him. He would never have a better one
though, because when I was seven, he was killed in an accident at his job. I
can’t bring myself to miss him, but it made life for my mother very difficult.
She’d never had to support herself, much less me, before. She didn’t really
know the first thing about managing a business. But she eventually did get
things together.
The stress of her newfound responsibility wore on her and she occasionally
started to repeat some of the things my father used to say before he died. How
I was never going to make anything of myself. I blamed my father for putting
the ideas in her head.
The Letter ~
When my letter arrived at home from Hogwarts, I admit
I was a bit surprised. It’d been pounded into my head for seven years of my
short life that I was a disappointment in the magic department, and I honestly
didn’t expect to do anything, much less go to a good school. I almost didn’t
want to attend. It would be a lot of hard work, and if I didn’t have the
talent, then why should I have to bother? I could do just fine at my home,
helping my mother with her
If it wasn’t for the fact that I still loved her, I would have refused, just on
the grounds that she had to bring what he felt into the matter.
The Wand ~
The week before September 1st classes, I made my first
trip to Diagon alley with my mother. She sold a lot
of private possessions in order to get enough Galleons for my supplies. She
didn’t want her son to attend his first day of school in scruffy used robes and
with a beat up wand. Though, she did mention that I could have my father’s
wand, but I refused to touch the thing.
When we arrived into the wand store, my mother spoke with the man who owned it
and then suddenly I was being measured and wands were being placed in my hand.
Ash, unicorn hair, 7 inches.
Nothing happened.
Rowan, phoenix feather, 12 ¼ inches.
Nothing. I was starting to get annoyed.
Oak, unicorn hair, 11 ½ inches.
Again, nothing. I actually was annoyed at this point.
Why couldn’t I just have the first one? I’d rather just have it over with and
get out of this place.
Five more wands, five more ‘nothings’. Until finally,
he handed me a flexible reddish colored wand with a
distinct scent to the wood, 9 ½ pine, heartstring of a Welsh Green Dragon.
There was an almost immediate reaction. I had no idea what it meant, but
apparently I had found my wand.
Luckily, the remainder of the shopping that I had to put up with went a lot
faster. Nothing else was quite as finicky as those silly wands. Even if they
are the Wizard’s ‘greatest tool’, I much rather would have been able to do
magic without them.
The Sorting ~
Then the time came for the Sorting. As my last name
was somewhere near the end, I had to wait silently, watching as a grubby old
hat was placed on people’s heads, calling out where they would be fated to
spend the rest of their years in the school. A boy I'd briefly met on the
train, Remus, was sorted into the house of
Gryffindor. My mother always said I’d never end up in a noble house like that.
The cheering was going on as people were sorted, and I just wanted to get it
over with. I didn’t care where it put me, as long as it did it quickly. I saw
how it took long with some people, and I didn’t think I could stand sitting up
on a stool with a floppy old hat on my head while hundreds of people stared at
me. Finally the called out my name, and I approached the stool, sitting down on
it. That atrocious looking hat was placed on my head and the same voice that
sang the song of greeting started to whisper softly into my mind.
"Hmmm. Don't really belong anywhere, do you?"
'What?' I thought, horrified at what the voice had
said. 'What do you mean?'
"Not very intelligent, hardly brave, lazy and almost no
ambition at all. Where am I to put you?"
I couldn't believe it. This talking hat was insulting me. It was bad enough
that I had to hear it from other people, but a hat?
“No, that wouldn’t work either.” The hat seemed to be muttering to itself.
‘What wouldn’t work!?’ I could feel my body begin to
shake with cold fury. My eyes clenched shut behind the brim of the hat and my
hands closed into fists. I wanted nothing more than to reach up, grab the hat
from my head and--
"Well now, that's interesting. Let’s see..."
I froze in surprise. ‘What’s interesting?’ Only silence answered. Why wouldn't
the bloody hat say something!?
Suddenly a loud yell filled my ears, "GRYFFINDOR!"
I was so shocked that I didn't even bother to stand up. The applause came into
the air, but I didn't move. Finally light flooded through my closed eyelids,
filling my vision with red and someone was speaking to me, the voice of the
woman who had called out my name, "You can take your seat at your table,
Mr. Pettigrew."
My eyes opened in astonishment and I finally managed a nod, sliding off the
stool and walking stiff legged to the table where Remus
had sat down not too long ago. When I flopped into the chair, I felt as if I
might faint. I was barely able to hear when the name 'Potter, James' was called
out.
I barely heard the yell of GRYFFINDOR! and the return
of the cheering. It wasn’t until I found a hand on my shoulder and looked up to
see the source. A small boy my age was looking down at me through wire rimmed
glasses and offering me a comforting smile. I returned the smile and he sat
down beside me, leaning over to speak to another new Gryffindor nearby. That
was the first time I saw James Potter.
First Year ~
The Gryffindors of that year would become my greatest
friends. Remus especially. I was closer to him than all the others. James
Potter was always so nice, but he was a great deal smarter and more talented,
it was only natural that he would befriend someone of similar talents far more
than the rest of us. Sirius Black was the boy that he latched onto more than
the rest of us. The two of them were so much better than me, so much what true Gryffindors should have been. I considered them my best
friends, but I was never as close to them as they were to each other.
Classes, unfortunately, were not my greatest asset. My charms failed more often
then not, I could barely manage to do Transfiguration (and sometimes when it
did work the outcome was muddled and not at all what McGonagall had asked for.
It was only through the help of my new friends that I was able to continue on
in the school without fear of not being allowed to return the next year. And
quite honestly, if it wasn’t for my friends, I probably wouldn’t have cared if
I did get told I was not allowed to come back for the second year.
As it was, I was able to make my way through the finals relatively intact, and
the only thing that was odd about that year was the fact that one of my good
friends often disappeared for a few days to visit his ‘sick mother’. At the
time, I just figured that one of these days he would come back and no longer
have a mother.
Second Year ~
Second year was actually better than the first. Though my robes were slightly
shabbier, and my cauldron was second-hand. Studies continued to go decent
enough, with the help of my friends, but one night, one of them made a sudden
observation and ran it by me. Perhaps they had discussed it amoungst
themselves earlier, but this was the first time they let me in on it. Remus continuously disappeared at a certain time every
month. The time of the full moon. Could there be
something that he wasn’t telling them? What happens on the full moon of every
month? Did he really go home to visit his mother?
Finally, we confronted him and asked, their theory given voice. Was he a
werewolf? At first, I admit I was stunned. Werewolves were Dark creatures,
weren’t they? They were very dangerous. The headmaster wouldn’t let a werewolf
walk the halls when it might decide to eat someone. And then I remembered… this
is Remus. He’s always been good to me. He always
defended me. He wouldn’t harm anyone. If anyone in our group of friends was
capable of harm, it wouldn’t be Remus. James and
Sirius both seemed able to accept him, no matter if he was bit by a monster at
some point in his life, so following in suit, I did the same. It didn’t matter
what he was, he was my friend, and as long as he didn’t decide that I looked
like a tasty morsel, I would remain so.
As the year progressed, Sirius and James started trying to find ways to
possibly help with Remus’ changes. The way he
explained, they were awful, and sometimes he had the marks to prove it. Madam Pomfrey usually got rid of most of the signs of what he’d
done to himself in the shack near Hogsmeade, but
sometimes the evidence remained. It was their idea, of course, but they seemed
to have thought that the only way that they could help him was to be there with
him. And the only way to do that and not endanger themselves
was to become something that a werewolf would not have the desire to hunt. An animagus. Being two of the top
students of the year, no one questioned why James and Sirius were suddenly so
interested in studying in the Library, though they didn’t find very much before
the end of the second year.
Third Year ~
With Sirius and James looking up ways for them to become an Animagus,
and James also having to practice for the Quidditch
team as a Chaser (and a talented one, though Quidditch
and flying was never going to be my strong suite) I lost my two major helpers
when it came to studies. Because of this I sought “outside help”. Namely one Lily Evans. She was nice enough, but I always
figured she would be the type to tell on us and everything, and the last we
needed was to lose more points when we didn’t get caught, so I didn’t really
converse with her much except to get help on homework and other things of the
like. She helped keep me from losing Gryffindor too many points in classes,
though I didn’t make a large improvement in his grades. That wasn’t what I was
after, anyway. I just wanted to be allowed to stay in school, and certain test
scores are required at the end of the year, and with two new classes as well,
it certainly was something that I needed help in.
As trips to Hogsmeade were allowed for third years,
we went as often as possible and enjoyed going. Occassionally
James would slip a couple Sickles into my robes so that I would have some
spending money like the rest of them, without ever saying anything about it. He
would pretend they just miraculously appeared, but I know that it was him who
did it. If it wasn’t for that, I never would have been able to give any of them
or my mother presents for Christmas. I’d barely scraped by and gotten something
small for them the previous two years as it was.
Fourth Year ~
The next year consisted mainly of more research (this
time they let me in on some of it, insisting that I would need to know it in
order to manage to do it myself). My part in the research was mainly skimming
through books and making a few notes. No one had thought it odd that James and
Sirius would spend so much time researching something, they were very good
students, but me? People would start to notice that, so I took it upon to
occasionally doze off in the library over a transfiguration book. Everyone knew
it was my worse subject, so they just assumed I was trying to do better in the
class, though I didn’t.
Fifth Year ~
On their 5th year, Sirius and James finally figured
out how to manage the transformations. They immediately began to tutor me in it
so that I would be able to change as well. They informed me to think of an
animal, preferably small (they’d already decided on theirs and they needed
someone who could reach the knot in the tree easily) and I settled on a rat. I
always had liked rats, thinking they were generally given a bad name. They
weren’t all that bad, and they seemed to strive when other creatures would have
died long before.
I was the last one to achieve my transformation. Luckily nothing had gone
wrong, and we all retained out original appearance (and clothes) when we
changed back. The first night we spent with Remus
down in the Shack, I admit I was scared stiff. I had never been around a
werewolf in his form before, but, as a rat, somehow I managed to stand by
ground, for the most part. Though I do recall occasionally
crawling behind James’ hoofs.
Our presence seemed to have helped Remus, and after
the third full moon, I was starting to get a lot more comfortable around him in
his other form. It was almost the same as when we were all human, just we
weren’t. In some ways, the animal forms were better. We all seemed to be more
aware of our surroundings and it was rather nice to be able to slip inside tiny
little places that James and Sirius and Remus could
never have managed to get into.
Not long after, we started the first of our forays into the grounds and Hogsmeade in our forms. The others could keep Remus under control when someone was unfortunate enough to
get within his range of scent. (Though I certainly hid in a
small crevice when those things happened.)
In that year, we began to call ourselves by our nicknames. Mine came from the
fact that my long pink tail in my animal form looked to the others like a worm,
hence, the creation of Wormtail. The formation of the
Marauders and the creation of the map (mainly by Sirius and James) began soon
after. I did manage to find some passages for the map myself,
using my ability to slip through small holes as a rat.
This was also the year when Lily began to enter into our circle. She’d remained
my on and off tutor throughout these years, but it wasn’t until this year that
we discovered that she had somewhat of a mischievous streak. I admit; I rather
liked Lily. She was certainly the only girl in the school who gave me the time
of day (well, besides girls occasionally approaching me to pass ‘notes’ to the
others – a practice that infuriated me to no end). I know it was nothing more
to her than helping someone out who needed it, though for some reason I
appreciated her efforts.
Her efforts, and the combined efforts of Sirius and
James and Lily saved me when it came down to the O.W.L.s
that all fifth years had to take. I only managed to quire three of them, but
they were enough to fit my purposes and continue my education.
Not surprising, James, Lily and Sirius all scored very well, and I received
owls in the summer telling me that both James and Lily had been made Prefects
for the following school year.
The Beginning . . . ~
What happened next? Well... you’ll see.