Guilt

~ Guilt ~

"Peter, you traitor! How could you betray James and Lily? James was one of your best friends; Lily helped you when you were in trouble! How did you get the damn nerve to kill them? You blasted idiot! You would have suffered in Hogwarts without us. You know that! Somehow, somehow, you forgot that, I guess. You owe us, yet you decide to destroy all of our lives! Wormtail-- God you don't even deserve that nickname we gave you. You are a traitor, a liar and a wimp! Nothing more, everything less. You deserve the miserable life of a servant!" Peter, alias Scabbers, woke up from his nightmare.

Ever since he had heard of Sirius's escape from Azkaban, he had been having recurring nightmares about Halloween, 1981: the day he tore his best friends' lives apart. In his rat form, Peter sat on Ron's bed in Gryffindor Tower, where he had once stayed with Remus, James and Sirius. Those damn memories. Now they were all gone: his friends and their lives ruined because of him.

And now, thirteen years later, Sirius was on the run from the Ministry, after escaping from Azkaban. Remus, still a werewolf, lived by himself somewhere, but where-- Peter did not know. James was dead, along with Lily. And Peter was a pet rat, a weak, measly rat.

"Hey Ron, isn't Professor Lupin the best Defense against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had?" A black-haired boy walked into the room, followed by a gangly redhead.

"Yeah, he is really good. But Harry, you call Quirrel and Lockhart teachers? I mean. Quirrel was scared of his own shadow and Lockhart was and is a git. What did we learn from them? Not to release pixies? Not to meet up with vampires?" Ron shook his head.

"You're right. But still, Lupin is great! I mean, we've never learned so much in one class," Harry said as he plopped down on his bed.

"I wasn't saying that Lupin was a bad teacher. He is great... I was just saying that we haven't had a decent teacher." Ron pulled out a Chudley Cannons magazine and skimmed the pages.

"All right! Say, doesn't Scabbers look a little sickly to you?" Harry asked.

"No more than usual. He has been sickly since summer. Didn't you see him at the Leaky Cauldron when we met you there?" Ron replied, looking Scabbers over.

"Oh, okay. Just looked a little sickly to me," Harry shrugged his shoulders.

Peter had been listening this conversation and was filled with guilt when he heard Remus's name mentioned. Remus had been extremely kind to him all through Hogwarts. Remus held the most common sense of the four, and was very smart. He was quiet and seldom mentioned his illness. They had become Anigami to keep him company. Peter knew that without Sirius and James, the two best Transfiguration students of the year, he would not have been able to do it. Now Remus's face surfaced in Peter's mind. His soft voice began to speak.

"Peter, how could you have done this? You knew how much we, your former friends, meant to you. You knew that. Don't try to deny it! We helped you so much. Sirius, James and Lily don't deserve what they got. They do not deserve the death and destruction that befell them. I thought you knew better, Peter. You may not be brilliant, but you should have common sense. You should know better than to betray your own friends. And I thought you were honest. I must have been wrong." Remus faded out as he finished the sentence.

Peters shook his rat head and sighed. Even Remus, kind, understanding Remus, was angry with him.

As he watched Ron and Harry talk and laugh, Peter's mind drifted back to happier times. Yet somehow, those memories didn't seem real anymore. They seemed like a fantasy, a dream. Their friendship seemed so far away, so unrealistic. Guilty, Peter thought, all this because I am guilty.