[From Litha to Lammas]: Courage Is, gen, Peter Pettigrew and Harry, 3/5
Part Two.
Title: Courage Is (3/5)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing these characters for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Massive AU, unreliable narrator, violence, Harry is raised by Peter Pettigrew, minor character deaths.
Rated: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 5200
Summary: AU. In the chaos after Sirius is taken to Azkaban, Peter Pettigrew tracks down Harry Potter and snatches the child from the Dursleys’ home. He tells himself that he’s raising Harry so that the Dark Lord may have the honor of killing him when he comes back. So he tells himself.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my Litha to Lammas fics for this year, a series of fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. This is very AU, and will likely have three parts.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Part Three
“You were right about Sirius Black never having had a trial, Mr. Smith.” Peter didn’t know Scrimgeour well, but he could see a tension in his shoulders that he thought spoke to the man’s boiling fury. “He’ll have to have one to officially clear his name, but we gave him Veritaserum last night after we took him out of Azkaban. He told us that he hadn’t betrayed the Potters.”
This was something else Peter had been worried about, another risk, that they might talk about Peter being the Secret-Keeper where Harry could hear. Peter didn’t want that to come out until he had to give Harry over to Sirius. But it hadn’t. He relaxed and smiled a little. “Well, it’s good to know that he didn’t betray his friends.”
“Yes, it is.”
From the brooding look on Scrimgeour’s face, he probably knew more than he was saying, probably the whole of Sirius’s accusation against Peter. But he wasn’t going to reveal it, and Peter found that all to the good.
“When can I see him?” Harry demanded, bouncing up and down a little on his chair at Peter’s side, still playing up the part of adorable spoiled precocious child. Slytherin, for sure, Peter thought idly. “I want to see him! My godfather!”
“Ah, well.” Scrimgeour looked unhappy, and Peter felt the first prickling of fear up his spine. “Mr. Black will need a lot of healing before he’s fit to see anyone, Mr. Potter. The Dementors that guard Azkaban…you know about him?”
“Yes, of course. They’re awful!” Harry bit his lip and stared up at Scrimgeour, his eyes still huge. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to rescue my godfather. So he could be away from them. Uncle Pet-I mean, Uncle Alfred said that they were really awful and drove you insane!”
Scrimgeour’s eyes narrowed, no doubt noticing the slip, but luckily, he didn’t pursue it. “Well, they didn’t drive Mr. Black insane, probably because he was innocent. But he’ll need a lot of Mind-Healing before he can take care of you.”
“Oh.” Harry’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that. I mean, it’s all right. I can live with Uncle Alfred until then, right?” He cast Peter an appealing glance.
Peter reached out and tugged a strand of his hair. “Of course, Harry. I’d never abandon you. But justice really is going to be done?” he asked Scrimgeour. “Mr. Black will have a proper trial and his name will be cleared?”
“If he’s innocent, yes.” Scrimgeour hesitated. “You should know, Mr. Smith, that there have been some questions about your custody of Mr. Potter and if you’re the best person to take care of him.”
“I’m not leaving Uncle Alfred!” Harry wailed, on the edge of tears again.
“No, no, of course not,” Scrimgeour said hastily, probably to avoid another crying scene in his office. “But he isn’t related to you, Mr. Potter, and one could argue that he’s fulfilled the Life-Debt he owed to both Mr. Black and your parents beyond what anyone would have asked of him.”
Harry stomped his foot. “I don’t care! If you try to take me away from Uncle Alfred, I’ll just run back to him! Or disappear back to him! I can do that, sometimes.”
Harry had only ever done it once, but Scrimgeour clearly understood the implications of a child able to use accidental magic to Apparate. His eyes widened, and then he fell into a fit of coughing. “Of course not, Mr. Potter,” he managed to say. “But don’t you want to live with your godfather someday?”
“Yes! But I can live with both Mr. Black and Uncle Alfred! They’ll get along fine!”
Peter took a deep breath and told himself that of course Harry would think that, with all the stories that Peter had told him about the four Marauders. But, well, when the truth came out, then Harry would change his mind. He wouldn’t be able to forgive Peter for betraying his parents or leaving Sirius in prison for seven years.
Scrimgeour sighed and began another round of questioning, which Peter submitted to. It wouldn’t disturb the story he and Harry had built up.
The story that didn’t have to last much longer.
*
Peter watched Harry rush down the beach, laughing and yelling and throwing pebbles ahead of himself with his wandless magic. At least it had proven easy to get him to direct it towards structured exercises after Aunt Helene had spent some time staring at the boy.
He was going to be such a powerful wizard. He was already clever and could make the best use of his gifts. Peter tried to picture what he would look like in a year, and felt his heart twinge with cold pain that he wouldn’t be there to see it.
Well. Maybe Sirius could do controlled interviews with the Prophet or something, and that way, Peter could sometimes find a picture of Harry and read the story.
Harry turned around and tossed his hair, growing long and wild, out of his eyes as he laughed. Peter let a true smile widen across his face. He knew that Harry sensed he was subtly withdrawing and didn’t like it. Harry had taken to following Peter around all hours of the day, skipping most of his lessons, and curling up on the floor in his bedroom at night until Peter woke up and sent him away.
Sasha, lying on a rock in the sun, turned her head and hissed something lazy at Peter. Peter, relieved of the obligation to care since he wasn’t a Parselmouth, ignored it.
It would be hard for Harry when he went away. He knew that. Harry had already lost his parents, and he would be losing his beloved Uncle Peter.
But he would understand when he heard the story. How could he love someone who had been the reason his parents were betrayed and an innocent man was put in prison? How could he love a Death Eater?
Peter stroked his left sleeve, and the Mark that lay beneath it. At this point, he had no intention of returning to the Dark Lord, because he would probably be killed for treachery, real or imagined. But that long-ago decision meant he couldn’t be part of Harry’s life, either.
It was too bad, Peter admitted. It really was. But he couldn’t make up for what he had done, the kidnapping or the betrayal. The only thing he could do was to deliver Harry to Sirius’s loving arms, and then leave.
Harry came hurtling back up the beach and flung his arms around Peter. Peter hugged him. He would give Harry all the hugs he wanted in these last days they’d spend together. It was only fair.
“Can we have spaghetti tonight?” Harry muttered into Peter’s robes, burrowing closer the way he used to when he was much younger.
“We just had it the other night,” Peter thought it was his duty to point out. Sirius would probably let Harry eat whatever he wanted after he became his guardian. Sweets and pasties all the time. Peter hoped that the good toothbrushing habits he’d taught Harry would endure in the face of the onslaught that was coming their way. “You don’t need it twice in a week.”
“I want it, though.”
Harry drew back and stared up at Peter with his lip quivering and tears standing in his eyes, and Peter gave a startled laugh and reached down to tug a strand of his hair. Sirius would probably ruffle it.
“I suppose spaghetti twice in one week can’t hurt,” Peter conceded.
Harry leaned against his leg and beamed up at him.
*
Peter carefully touched the expanded bag on his belt as he and Harry were escorted into St. Mungo’s. He had to remember to drop it behind Harry when Sirius spotted him and started roaring out accusations. It had Sasha in it, Harry’s clothes and toys, and even several of the rats, although they would have preferred to ride in Peter’s pockets.
Harry had looked a little suspicious when Peter had asked if he could coax Sasha into the bag again, but Peter had explained that they should introduce Sirius to her as soon as possible and get Sirius used to the fact that Harry was a Parselmouth, and Harry had nodded and accepted that.
It was so easy to trick him. Peter licked sour-tasting lips and fell behind a little as Harry, under red-haired and scar-enhancing glamours again, bounded up the stairs two at a time.
Sirius.
He had been Peter’s friend. Oh, rough and careless and impatient at times, and as prone to playing pranks on his fellow Marauders as anyone else, and there had been that business with Moony and Snape. But he didn’t deserve what Peter had done to him.
No making up for it, no forgiveness, only going forwards, Peter thought, and held open the door to Sirius’s private room for Harry.
Harry bounced in and yelled happily, “Padfoot!”
Sirius was sitting up in bed, staring at Harry. His face was gaunt and pale, his black hair had all the signs of the new cut that Peter should probably have given Harry before he handed him over to Sirius’s tender mercies (because Sirius couldn’t be trusted to be responsible with it), and his eyes were a brighter grey than Peter had thought they would be.
But he could barely see that, because a storm of memories obscured his view of Sirius.
Sirius working patiently with him, again and again, until he mastered the Animagus transformation. Sirius leaping into battle as an Order member, his wand and his eyes alike glowing with deadly magic. Sirius sprawled on the rug in the cottage James and Lily had had before they went under the Fidelius, making excited plans for games he would play with his godson.
You stole all that from him.
Peter stood frozen in the doorway, his hand clenched on the bag, and stared. And then he shook his head, because the guilt would freeze him here if he didn’t get rid of it, and as much as he regretted what he’d done, he wasn’t willing to die for it.
“I didn’t know you remembered that name, Harry.” Sirius reached down and hugged Harry as well as he could from leaning in his awkward position against the pillows, but that was quickly made easier by Harry clambering onto the bed. “I was only a dog a few times when you were that little.”
“Uncle Peter told me all about it!”
The stillness proceeded through every muscle in Sirius’s body, like a Freezing Charm. Slowly, so slowly, he turned his head to look at Peter.
Peter took a deep breath and dropped the bag on the floor. Sirius pointed his hand at it as if his finger was a wand and he thought something deadly might come crawling out of the bag.
Which was pretty fair, considering what he had last known Peter to be doing.
“Sirius?” Harry sounded confused, cautious, upset.
“What the fuck are you doing here, TRAITOR?” Sirius roared the last word, and tried to leap up from the bed. But he was still too weak, and all he did was topple to the side and push Harry to the edge of the sheets.
Peter automatically drew his wand and cast a Cushioning Charm in Harry’s direction as his hands scrabbled. Harry let out a gasp as he landed on the charmed floor, but he didn’t try to thank Peter for the charm. He just blinked at Peter, and then looked back and forth between Peter and Sirius.
“What’s going on, Padfoot?” he whispered. “What did Wormtail do?”
“Betrayed your parents!”
And there was no way that Peter could stay for that, which he’d already known, which was why he’d brought the bag. He could see it thrashing around now, as if Sasha was trying to get out. He hoped she would. She could comfort Harry.
He didn’t look in Harry’s direction, because he would regret it too much if he met his eyes. Instead, he clenched his hand around the button on his robes that he had worked and worked on turning into a Portkey.
He stared steadily at the wall as the swirling colors of Portkey travel consumed him, and didn’t look at either Sirius or Harry at all.
*
Peter landed in their cottage at Dover-by-the-Sea. He collected his own food and clothes, his movements automatic. Part of him thought he should just leave everything here, given that he’d be spending most of his time on the run as a rat.
But another part of him thought that Harry might not understand he was really gone if he came back and found Peter’s things in the cottage. So Peter took them, and shrank them, and packed them in another pouch on his belt that wasn’t as big as the expanded bag, and looked around the cottage for a long while.
His life as Peter Durant was over, and Peter mourned it as he had mourned few other time periods of his life. It had been pleasant. Quiet and peaceful in the way that he’d always sought and never found other than at home with his parents when he was very young, before his father died.
But it was over now. The minute Sirius went to the papers with the announcement that Peter Pettigrew was still alive, it would be gone.
And Peter would run before then. He was a coward. He had always known it. It was only the last few years that had allowed him to pretend otherwise.
He Apparated before he could do something else he would regret, like leaving a note or something. Harry would understand everything after Sirius had explained.
When he reappeared outside Diagon Alley, he shifted into his Animagus form, and ran, and ran.
*
A warm body pressed against his, and whiskers snuffled along his fur. Peter sneezed in irritation. It seemed no matter where he went under magical buildings or Muggle ones, rats found him. He could see why they might have been drawn to him when he was in his human form, but why now? Why did they leave whatever warm and respectable homes they had and come to trouble him?
The rat crowded close to him. With a sigh, Peter rolled over and let it. It was pleasant to have the warmth in this otherwise rather echoing and draughty space under an old hag’s floor off Knockturn Alley.
Peter was almost asleep again when a thunderous bang echoed from above him. Peter leaped to his feet, shivering. That sounded far louder than any stray dropped item or bang of a broom to try and chase rats away, and Peter was sensitive, alive, to the fact that every unexpected noise now could mean danger for him.
He listened, his ears twisting back and forth, and then a familiar smell filtered down from above, and Peter knew he had to leave.
Even as he turned to run, though, an irresistible force seized his body and drew him upwards. Peter fought, twisting. He had done wrong things, he had regrets, and he still didn’t want to die in the jaws of a dog, or by being tortured to death.
It didn’t work. Probably even if he was human it wouldn’t have worked. This wasn’t a Summoning Charm, but some variant that Peter didn’t know, a powerful spell that peeled back the floorboards and whisked him upwards. He heard the rat who had snuggled up to him squeaking in alarm beneath him.
Peter landed on the floor of the hag’s house, a dirty kitchen he had already spent some time foraging in, and found himself staring at Harry’s neat trainers. He glanced up, expecting to see Sirius standing behind Harry. There was no other way that Harry could have come here even if somehow he had tracked Peter down by himself.
But there was just Harry, who was scowling at him. “Why did you leave?” he demanded, with a sound of raw tears in his voice.
Peter squeaked indignantly, and then heard the sound of footsteps from behind Harry. The hag came around the corner holding what looked like an iron stick with thorns coming out of it .
She paused and stared at the sight of them, which gave Harry time to scoop Peter up from the floor and into a pocket on his robe, and then run to the kitchen window and vault through it. Peter braced himself for the crash of glass, but the hag must have been too poor to have it in her window. There was only a scraping snap of wood, and then Harry was pounding down the middle of Knockturn Alley.
Knockturn Alley. No place for a child.
Peter struggled up so that he could hook his claws in the top of the pocket, and glanced out, ready to jump down and run somewhere else so that Harry would chase him and at least leave this place. But at that moment, the world shuddered, and there was another thunderous bang, and Peter found himself tossed back down into the depth of the pocket. He crouched, ready to move when whatever was happening had finished happening. Probably Sirius had caught up with Harry and Apparated them somewhere.
The world went still and quiet. Peter flared his whiskers, but there was no trace of Sirius’s scent. Well, that just meant that the air currents carrying that scent hadn’t filtered to the bottom of Harry’s pocket.
Harry’s hand dipped into his robe pocket and snatched Peter out, and Peter held back the impulse to bite, barely. He didn’t really want to be tossed or dropped.
Harry put Peter on something he recognized a second later as a chair. His chair, in the cottage where he had lived with Harry in Dover-by-the-Sea. Peter stared around, and sniffed. No sign of Sirius.
“Change back to human, Uncle Peter.”
Harry’s voice sounded deep and threatening in a way Peter had never heard before. Then again, he wasn’t usually a rat around Harry. Peter considered it, and then released his tight hold on his Animagus form.
It was the first time in almost a fortnight that he’d been human, except for brief periods when he’d snapped into that form to Apparate. Peter shuddered a little and closed his eyes, trying to get used to the way his skin felt without fur covering it.
“Why did you leave me?”
Harry’s voice was full of actual tears this time. Peter snapped his eyes open and saw Harry standing in front of him with his fists balled, struggling against bursting into full-on weeping. Helplessly, Peter gathered Harry closer, and felt Harry grab onto him in a way that hurt his ribs.
“Why did you leave?” Harry whispered. “You have to tell me.”
“In a minute, Harry. How did you find me?”
“I told my magic to find you and bring me there. And then I told my magic to get you and bring us back here.”
Apparition. That loud bang Peter had heard when he was still beneath the hag’s house had been Apparition. Peter half-shook his head in awe. He hadn’t known Harry was actually capable of directing where he Apparated to, story they’d told Scrimgeour or not; the first time, Harry had appeared on the roof of the school building instead of the rock he’d been aiming for. And given that accidental magic simply did what it wanted half the time instead of fulfilling its owner’s wishes…
No wonder it hadn’t felt like a Summoning Charm when Harry pulled him out of his hiding spot. It hadn’t been. It had been simple, pure will translated into power and doing as Harry told it.
“Sirius must be worried sick about you,” Peter whispered.
“I don’t care about him! I care about you!” Harry drew back and glared at him. The tears were still in his eyes and voice, but they might be tears of anger instead of sadness, Peter thought now. “Why did you leave?”
And here it was, after all, the conversation and revelation he had thought he could avoid by leaving Harry with Sirius. Peter drew a deep and painful breath. Well, somehow Sirius hadn’t explained it in such a way to make Harry understand that Peter had been lying to him all these years, maybe because he was still affected by the Dementors. That meant it was up to Peter to make him understand.
To make him understand why it was unforgivable. Why everything about Peter was unforgivable, from the way he had betrayed James and Lily to the way he had lied to Harry to the way that he had taken the Dark Mark.
And maybe that would be a good place to start. It was a sort of physical proof that Harry wouldn’t be able to reject easily. Peter pulled back his left sleeve.
Harry stared in silence at the faded grey Dark Mark, and then up at him. He showed no signs of letting his hold on Peter go or stumbling back in horror, the way Peter had thought he might. Peter frowned a little. This was going to take more than he’d thought.
“I joined the Dark Lord as a Death Eater,” Peter said. “And I was-I was the Secret-Keeper who betrayed your parents to him, Harry. I’m the reason that Sirius spent all those years in Azkaban. I came and took you from the Dursleys’ house, yes, but not because I was a good person who just wanted to adopt you, or your parents’ last friend who knew where you were and was capable of taking care of you.” That was what he had told Harry all these years. “I took you because I thought I could give you a comfortable childhood until the Dark Lord came back.”
“You didn’t try to hurt me.” Harry’s voice was subdued.
“No. But I thought I was just keeping you safe until someone else could take care of you. That was why I decided to free Sirius. Because he could take care of you, and he had a legal right to you as your godfather. And he was innocent and had been in there long enough,” Peter added. That had been part of it, but he wanted Harry to understand how far down the list it had been. A good man, a really good man, wouldn’t have put Sirius in Azkaban in the first place.
“Why did you betray Mum and Dad?”
Harry still sounded softer than Peter would have thought, but that was probably shock and trying to come to terms with things. “I was afraid,” Peter said simply. “I thought I could get some kind of positive attention by taking the Dark Mark, but I also took it because I was afraid. The Dark Lord was all-powerful. I thought he would win.”
“They made you the Secret-Keeper because you were afraid?”
Harry’s brow was wrinkled. Peter sighed. “No, Harry. They were originally going to make Sirius the Secret-Keeper. However, they thought that would be too obvious, because everyone knew that your father and Sirius were best friends. So they used him as the decoy and gave me the actual job.”
Harry was quiet. Then he asked, “Were you going to go and tell everyone that Sirius was innocent someday?”
“Not until I worked out a way I could disappear and leave you with him. I’m not going to go to prison or die for him.”
“Weren’t you friends?”
Peter didn’t know if he could ever explain this, because he couldn’t explain it to himself. “Yes. We were. And I still betrayed him. And I know that he still wants to kill me, and once he tells people that I’m still alive, people will try to hunt me down. Do you see why I have to leave? I can’t take you along while I’m running from place to place.”
“You’re going to stay.”
“No, Harry. By now, Sirius has probably already told everyone that I’m alive and the Death Eater who betrayed your parents, and-”
“No, he hasn’t.”
Peter stared. Harry lifted his head, and his eyes were free of tears. He looked at Peter, and there was a power in him that shouldn’t have been there in an eight-year-old, and that had nothing to do with magic.
“He hasn’t because I begged him and cried and said I would run away if he told anyone. He didn’t like it, I don’t think. But he promised. And I said that if he did tell people, I would tell everyone that he was just mental because of the Dementors, and they would put him back in Mind-Healing and not let him take care of me.” Harry reached out and touched Peter’s Dark Mark, snatching his hand away for a second, and then letting it rest there. He took a deep breath. “I know you’re afraid. And I know you’re my Uncle Peter. You took me away from the bad Muggles. I want you here.” He glanced up at Peter. “I forgive you. For Mum and Dad. And Sirius.”
Peter stared at him. Harry stared back, not smiling, chewing on his lip.
“You can’t do that,” Peter finally said. He felt as though shock had wiped his mind clean of everything but the next few words he needed to speak.
“Do I need to do something else?” Harry frowned. “I thought I knew the word forgive. Did I not get it right?”
“You can’t forgive me because the betrayal is too deep,” Peter told him. He felt as if he was talking down to Harry, but this was something simple that Harry should have understood. Oh, maybe not from Peter. Peter hadn’t done a good job of raising him. But from Sirius and when Sirius had explained the situation. “You can’t forgive someone who hurt you that badly and let an innocent man go to prison.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can.” Harry frowned harder at him. “I don’t know what other people do. I’m just doing things for me. I forgive you, Uncle Peter. And you’ll come back and be with Sirius and me and work out a way to make him forgive you, too.” He smiled as if everything was all settled.
Peter shut his eyes. He knew there was no way in the world that Sirius would ever forgive him, and why should he? And Harry was making this decision out of innocence and not enough experience with the world. He would regret it when he was older.
“Harry.” He swallowed. “I’m a coward. I’m not a good man. I’m not your real father. I’m not even an uncle who’s related to you by blood. You’ll be better off with Sirius than me. He’ll raise you right.”
“They said he was so screwed up we couldn’t even see him for days. Why would he raise me better?”
“Because he hasn’t committed the kind of betrayals I have. He’s kind and he went to prison for what he believed in. He loved your father and mother.” Peter smoothed back Harry’s hair because he couldn’t help it, even though he knew as he did it that it would be the last time he did so.
“Why didn’t he say it wasn’t him?”
Peter braced himself to think of something he’d avoided thinking about even more than James and Lily’s deaths. “Because he was laughing when I blew up the street and-I killed a bunch of Muggle people, too, Harry.” Harry stared at him, not even blinking, as if this information couldn’t penetrate his skull, and Peter sighed and surrendered to his fate. “I think he realized that I was going to get away and he was going to get blamed. He kept saying it was his fault. It doesn’t excuse him not having a trial, but I suppose that he really did consider it his fault, in a way, that he went after me in a Muggle area and I transformed and got away.”
Harry bowed his head as he thought about that. Then he said, “It was terrible, what you did.”
Peter nodded. The words stung, but that part, he actually had been braced for.
“But I don’t want you to be terrible.”
Peter blinked. “What does that mean, Harry?”
“I mean, I want you to stay here with me. So you won’t run away and be more terrible, and Sirius won’t hate you.”
Peter shook his head. “Sirius is going to hate me no matter what, and I know that you have to be raised by him.”
“Why?” Harry glared at him, and he looked like he had when they’d pretended in Scrimgeour’s office, but Peter knew the tears filling his eyes were real. “Don’t you love me?”
Peter’s breath rattled in his throat. He stared at Harry, and his ears crackled and his mind filled with images the way it had when he was looking at Sirius in the hospital bed.
Harry running down the beach, and Harry playing with Sasha, and Harry throwing back his head as he laughed, and Harry listening intently to Peter when he was drilling him in how to react and what to say when they went to the Ministry, and Harry falling asleep as Peter told him stories, and Harry shoveling food into his mouth.
Peter closed his eyes. “Yes. But that’s-why I’ve got to do the right thing for once in my life, Harry. That’s why you deserve someone who can raise you without being on the run. Someone who won’t betray you to the Dark Lord because he’s too afraid.”
“You’re not doing the right thing if you leave.”
Harry hugged him, and he was probably using accidental magic to strengthen his arms again. Peter leaned towards him, but didn’t open his eyes. How could he? He didn’t even know what the right thing was now.
He had done wrong things. He had done half-right things that he could justify to himself. He had done right things, like taking Harry away from the Dursleys, mostly on accident.
But he didn’t know what to do now. He didn’t know what was right and wrong.
“Harry,” he whispered, and he knew he was on the verge of crying, which he hadn’t been in years. “How can you forgive me? How can you want me to stay when I betrayed your parents?”
“You told me about them. The bad Muggles wouldn’t. You told me stories about Sirius and Remus and Dad and you. Maybe Sirius would, too, I don’t know. You have rats and you feed me spaghetti and you teach me magic. Stay with me, Uncle Peter. I love you.”
Peter took a deep, ragged breath. He’d been focused, for so long, on how nothing he did could make up for the past. Raising Harry wouldn’t make him a good person. It just made him someone who was raising Harry.
But if nothing could make up for the past, then maybe he should stop trying. Maybe he should focus on the present, and the fact that someone was here who could forgive him for his crimes, when-
When he couldn’t even forgive himself.
“All right,” he whispered. “But we have to convince Sirius not to kill me.”
Harry screamed and jumped into his arms and hugged him so hard Peter was convinced he had a broken collarbone. But he didn’t move. He just kept his head bowed and his arms clasped around Harry.
He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this. Maybe nothing. Maybe it wasn’t about deserving.
Maybe it was about something else.
Part Four.