𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 [𝐑. 𝐋𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐧]

𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐇𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐒

Song:
Paint it, Black (The Rolling Stones)
"With flowers and my love, Both never to come back."

OCTOBER 1981

Peter Pettigrew wasn't born under the best circumstances.

His mother, a sweet woman named Evie, had a difficult birth. She had spent 72 hours in the delivery room, but when she finally gave birth, it all felt like it was worth it. The baby's name was picked years before he was born and so, little Peter Pettigrew came to life.

While there was nothing obviously wrong with his family, he didn't feel that much love towards it. He said "I love you" to both his mother and father, but he stopped feeling it after he turned 7. It was more of a typicality, something he had to say because all the kids did. He didn't hate them, or find them cruel, but at the same he didn't love them either.

They were just there; indifferent to him the same way he grew up to be indifferent to them.

He would come to find his real family in a dingy compartment. The scenery was something out of a comedic spy movie. Four kids, seated on old, leather seats that started to break at the corners, gathered around a game of cards like a group of grandpas in the 50s. It had all started when James Potter exploded the game accidentally, all four of them covered in black ash from head to toe that he became interested in them.

He didn't realise when James adopted him in his group of misfits, but he felt more love towards the three boys than he ever had for his family. As they became bigger in his eyes, his biological family withered into nothingness. They stopped trying to please him, hoping it would make him feel love towards them. They stopped trying to get closer to him, because it never really panned out.

It was no secret that Peter was different from his friends. He wasn't naturally approachable or friendly like James, he wasn't charming or extroverted like Sirius and he wasn't mysterious or smart like Remus. That didn't matter to him though, because his friends saw qualities in him that they appreciated. They saw humour, bravery, loyalty, and so much more. He was a shoulder to lean on, a person that felt safe.

That didn't mean that he wasn't bothered by how people saw him though. He tried to ignore it, but soon he confessed to himself the most shameful secret out of all.

People viewed him, the same way he viewed his family.

It shouldn't have hurt him that much. It's better to be moderately liked than hated. He found some comfort in the fact that nobody hated him, when someone so adored like James Potter was loathed by his crush. At least his crushes never called him a toerag or said they'd prefer to drown than ever be in his vicinity.
Right?
Wrong, because it turned out that even Lily Evans loved him, no matter what she said. James Potter would turn out to have everything in the palm of his hands. He was a rich, handsome, Quidditch Captain that got straight O's and even made Lily Evans his girlfriend.