Peter Pettigrew Headcanons
He came from a working-class family. Raised by a single mum
He doesn’t know his father
While he did not grow up in a blood supremacist family he grew up with the same prejudices and assumptions that many wizarding families have about muggles. He finds them odd and different.
Peter was one of those kids who lit ants on fire and threw rocks at people while standing on bridges. Being mean = power = being important
Definitely heard his mum or grandparents say muggle-borns have it easy or get extra benefits from the government (which isn’t true) and that’s why Peter’s mum has to work so hard.
Very excited to befriend Sirius and James because of their families' positions in wizarding society. He’ll be cool and popular by association
Yes, Sirius family are dicks to him but he doesn’t understand why he’d give up such a cush life and run away. Thinks Sirius doesn’t know how lucky he has it
Has always enjoyed playing mind games with his friends and other people to make himself have better favor in group dynamics
Was always the best at getting out of detention and coming up with lies on the spot
Made the rudest jokes out of the marauders
He isn’t dumb. He just isn’t good at school. He became an animagus at 15. He is powerful, OK? Upset that no one sees it and he can’t really brag about being an illegal animagus.
Really likes that he’s the one that gets to push the knob on the whomping willow. Makes him feel indispensable.
James and Sirius mature in 6th and 7th year and their jokes aren’t so cruel anymore. Peter is caught off guard when they start (lightly) calling him out on some of his jokes. (I thought you’d find it funny? Why aren’t you laughing anymore? What, James you get a girlfriend and you can't be fun anymore?)
The slowdown in bullying is also combined with James, Remus, and Sirius's political awakening and further interest in fighting against Voldemort. Peter starts to feel alienated from their discussions. Peter is a-political at best
And like yes, James, dark magic is bad but isn’t it also cool? Like did you hear about the man who turned a bunch of dead bodies into snakes? Or did you hear about the spell that turns your guts inside out? Isn’t that impressive?? I bet you could learn that spell James, you’re powerful enough, right?
After Hogwarts Sirius and James live off their family money and devote themselves to the order full time. After Remus gets fired from a job James starts supporting him financially. Peter doesn’t have the luxury (looks like werewolves get benefits just like muggle-borns. Poor Pete is always left out)
Pete gets a job at the quidditch league offices which he thinks will be lots of fun and exciting, maybe he can swing tickets for him and his friends
But the job is really boring. He is tracking how much teams spend and data entry is the worst.
His order assignments are just as dull. He doesn’t go out on duels or covert operations. Dumbledore instructs him to get intell on Ministry offficals and Peter grows resentment, he wants to be more useful like his friends.
He gets further separate from his core group of friends as James marries Lily and eventually goes into hiding (peter thinks James is foolish for getting Lily pregant. way to mess up our fun, James!), Remus is doing super secret werewolf stuff, Sirius is off on his own order missions plus becoming increasingly protective of the potters.
Peter starts meeting up with people at work, not death eaters but just a few people with storng ideas, and he’s like yeah, these guys are right muggle-borns and half-breeds are ruining our society
And he doesn’t hate Lily and Remus, no they are seperate from the developing idelogy.
But then after a while his intell gathering and workmate meet-ups start to become his only social settings. And he is agreeing more and more with what they are saying
And he impresses the people he is gathering intell on with some of his knowledge on dark spells (not that he’s every performed them. He’s just interested in reading about them)
Its been a long time since Sirius and James found him impressive or amusing
He goes to a couple of meet ups, and then a couple more
He enjoys these meetings more than order meetings. He doens’t feel underappreciated.
He gets invited to a bigger meeting and oops its got full on known death eaters attending
James and Lily are fully in hiding. Voldemort is wining the war.
Peter thinks he might as well just do what he needs to do to survive, everyone else is doing the same. But he's not going to be like James and hide like a coward.
And if he is going to survive he is going to be useful, important. In a better position than he was in the order. And then he’ll use that new position to help his friends when the war is over. He is so clever!
He willingly becomes a spy for Voldemort. He enjoys it. Its the best he ever felt about himself. He has secrets and information. He’s important.
He gets tested on his loyalty and is told to kill order members.
He actually enjoys murdering people (he is a serial murder in the books!) Reminds him of the same feeling he got when he threw rocks off of bridges but bigger.
He continues to climb up the Death Eater power structure. He enjoys watching the chaos unfold in The Order as they can’t figure out who the spy is
James asks him to be his secret keeper. He has a choice to make and he shows who he really is. He chooses power and manipulation over protecting people he used to (supposedly) love
And while this was all going on its important to remember that James, Remus, and Sirius all would have died for Peter. He was their friend. The betrayal is painful. The radicalization went unnoticed
