Order Only: Private message to Sirius and Remus

[alt_harry]

So, we got together yesterday and had Sally-Anne practice changing Ron into various animals to see what would happen. That got us thinking about animagi. There are five in the Order: Sirius, Professor Dumbledore, Terry, Ron, and Rachel. Right?

But there was also Peter Pettigrew once, years ago. Before he betrayed my parents. I mean, he was your best friend, wasn't he? Thinking about animagi got me thinking about him and I was wondering what you can tell me about him. What he was like before he was a traitor.

Did you ever think he'd betray you?

Comments

[alt_lupin]

Well, that's a cheery set of memories to revisit

What was he like before. Well, he was very funny. Less of an instigator and more of a tag-along. Sometimes we made him the butt of our jokes because he never seemed to mind.

Was there anything more specific you wanted to know?

[alt_sirius]

Remus says he was more of a tag-along, and he's right, but what he's leaving out is that he was an excellent lookout, and he was very good at providing diversions. Sort of the clown of our little group, you might say.

And no, we never thought he'd betray us. But I think, looking back at it now, that he was actually manipulating us against one another for a long time before the night your parents died. Everyone was so unsure about it all back then, there was no easy way to verify rumours we'd heard and so on. I think Peter was subtly undermining our friendships for a while. As I said, he could provide very convincing diversions in school. I don't think that changed when we left; he just started providing them to me, James and Remus, and anyone else he thought he needed to tell a story to.

Come to think of it, he used to get girls the same way. Always went for the ones he thought were a little vulnerable. Maybe that ought to have been a clue.

Sorry, that's probably not the sort of thing you were wondering.

[alt_harry]

Vulnerable.

Huh.

Okay. Why did -- I know for a long time the Order didn't trust Mr Lupin. Did they think he was the one who'd betrayed my parents?

[alt_lupin]

More or less.

Peter had been working for a while to convince us not to trust each other. He'd persuaded James and Sirius not to consider using me as a Secret Keeper -- though I didn't realise at the time that was distrust rather than just a recognition of the fact that I already had a task I was supposed to be focusing on. (Talking to the other werewolves, trying to persuade them that they'd be better off siding with us.)

Anyway, I think they wound up believing I'd guessed Peter was the Secret Keeper rather than Sirius, and lured him somewhere so the Death Eaters could capture him.

[alt_lupin]

Peter had been talking to me rather regularly, at the time. Far more than the rest of the Order. There was this place we'd meet... Peter had been telling me, he didn't think James and Lily were safe. He thought Dumbledore was planning to use them as bait, somehow, and

When they died, when he was right that they weren't safe, that rather

I honestly didn't

I didn't go to the Order the way Sirius did, after your parents died. I didn't try to clear my name. Because I didn't trust any of them, anymore. Even Sirius. And I got a note warning me that they thought it was my fault, which seemed so utterly mad to me given that they'd kept me from knowing any of the plans to protect James and Lily. You know? They'd kept me out, out of distrust, and then blamed me anyway, and

I guess I decided they could all go hang themselves. They'd let James die, they'd let Lily die, and they'd decided somehow it was my fault because I was a werewolf. I was supposed to be trying to persuade the other werewolves that we were better off under the status quot than we would be under Voldemort, and I couldn't do that. Because I wasn't sure I still believed it myself.

[alt_sirius]

You can imagine, Harry, that Remus and I have been over this ourselves a few times since working out the truth. Peter had been turning me, in particular, against Remus, as well, for a long time before we learned that Voldemort was coming after your parents.

I can't even be certain now whether making Peter their Secret Keeper was really my own idea or one that Peter actually planted through hints and other signals.

And when he disappeared ... I let my worst assumptions guide me, I suppose.

This is rather a morbid discussion, though, Harry. Why ask about Peter, out of all of us?

[alt_harry]

I was thinking the other day about how vulnerable we are.

The Lock didn't exist when Peter betrayed my parents. Did he know anyone else who was in the Order? I mean -- was the organisation at all secret back then?

[alt_sirius]

Hm, well, you've got that photo of us, haven't you? We're not all in it - and there were still some secret members none of us knew, like Snape - but we were also smaller than we are now, as well.

We were secret in the sense that neither the Ministry nor the Death Eaters could confirm we existed, and we had to keep our identities just as protected from them as we do now. Is that what you mean?

[alt_lupin]

And of course it was the Death Eaters who were the outlaws at the time. Things were still a bit secretive, because the Death Eaters had infiltrated MLE and so many other places -- I think when we joined it was less an organisation with oaths and a name and more a matter of, 'I know I can trust you, you, and you.'

Peter might have known more about the more secretive people than I did. I don't know.

[alt_harry]

Also, that story he told Mr Lupin about Dumbledore using them as bait.

How sure are you that he wouldn't have done that?

[alt_sirius]

I'm not sure it's beyond

You've seen enough of how Albus does things to know that he could have done that but the point is that he didn't do it. He wanted them to hide and use the Fidelius as protection. And he had no idea until afterward that I wasn't the Secret Keeper.

Besides, there was no discussion - ever - of laying a trap for Voldemort at Godric's Hollow. He never contacted me in the days leading up to the attack .... No, I don't believe it was ever part of Albus's plan.

[alt_lupin]

For all that Dumbledore's come up with some rather odd plans over the years -- if he intended to use someone as bait, there'd be a trap set up somewhere.