Gentouki taking up from Ao3
Suniseboulevard: It was really nice getting more rambings. I really enjoy your take on it as it opens quite a lot of other possible directions I never had in my mind -him staying at home with Harry, makes sense- and I don’t generally read about him much but for personal reasons I recently feel increasingly close to his character- for example how do you think he personally dealed with having betrayed his friends? Also how did Remus as his very close oldest friend take it? And Jily developments! How did he fit in their relationships? How did they overcome the rockiest times they had? How will Harry broach the subject of his parents to his friends? How will it affect him? How does Peter feels when Voldemort comes back? Does he ever even only just fleetingly consider what would happen if he went to his side again? How does he deal with his anxiety? How is his anxiety affected by him staying home? In what ways do James, Lily and Harry suit him? And just in general anything you feel like rambling about even just remotely related to this and the universe in general. Sorry for the submission but it had gotten too long for an ask and I couldn’t think of other ways of sending it without dismembering it too much
AH, this is really nice!! So many questions!! And I don’t mind the submission format~~
Personally, I don’t think he’d ever get over it. It’s not like taking the last bit of ice cream and lying about it. It’s not a minor thing. It was literally life and death and he never gets over that he almost got them killed. It’s something he deals with day by day by day and even though he slowly feels lesser about it, the general awfulness of what he did doesn’t ever go away.
AND REMUS. BEST BRO REMUS! Ah, Remus is just as horrified as everyone else. And pissed. And mad and angry.
But he understands why Peter did it because he’s known Peter and he knows how Peter panics so easily when everything looks like its turning south and how fear can twist even the best of minds to pure evil.
He loves Peter so much. He’d die for Peter and he knows that in his chest. Even if he’s not sure about how far he’d go for the others, how much of his life he’d put on the line for anyone else, he knows he’d die for Peter. And with Remus, that’s not something that can be so easily shattered.
Especially when Peter confessed. When he told and while that cannot take away from the lives lost on his information, it’s saved so many others. And so Remus, I think, is the most conflicted. Because on one hand, he’s completely in rage, like everyone else, but like James, he loves Peter to his core and those emotions tumble over each other and he’s not sure where he is. He knows he’s mad but at the same time he knows he still cares.
He’d be, at the least, the first person to forgive Peter and the first person to start trusting him again because at the end of the day, Remus has always trusted Peter. And until that moment, Peter had never let him down before. And afterwards, Peter tries so hard not to let him down again.
GAWD, okay, listen. Lily definitely slapped and punched Peter. The first for kissing her husband back and the second for threatening her life. After that she’s pleased he came back and it takes a while but she understands. Like Remus, she gets that Peter’s life is controlled by fear and paranoia and anxiety and that can make good people do bad things. But it takes a long time for her to even trust Peter being in the same room as Harry, much less holding him, but eventually she does.
I think when Peter shows up with Harry, her body gives out and she sort of dies a little inside, realizing she left Harry alone with him for the first time ever and thinking that maybe Peter was tricking them.
And then Harry doesn’t die and there’s this light and a blast and Voldemort’s gone and Peter’s crying and panicking and asking someone to check Harry’s pulse, not giving a flying fuck that he literally shielded her son from death and wound up injured in the process and she thinks, “Oh”.
After that, she trusts him again.
She trusts him so much more than she ever could because he who branded himself a coward was willing to die for a child that wasn’t his.
Peter’s that guy that can sort of just fit in with anyone if he tried and they’re already familiar with him so it doesn’t take much to get used to him being around more often. It first starts off as a little V-shaped triad with Peter and Lily connecting to James but not to each other and develops slowly as time goes on and trust happens easier.
Lily finds she likes snuggling up to Peter more than James and James finds that while he does not like his wife kicking him out of the bed to cuddle his boyfriend, he does like the image of the two of them (sometimes w/ Harry tucked between them) holding each other warmly under the blankets.
Peter likes Lily’s loudness and how brash she can be without being hurtful and he likes teaming up with her to bring James down.
I like to think around the time Harry’s five, she happily gives in and kisses Peter without any preamble (which was not expected but very much appreciated on Peter’s end) and then a few weeks later, she introduces him as her boyfriend to some new co-workers at a Christmas party and they’re partly lost because they didn’t know she and James broke up until James swoops down with a plate and smooches them both before stealing their appetizers and running off and then they’re just completely confused.
(Halfway through the party James and Sirius and Remus all pitch in to valiantly fight for Peter and it’s like they’re all thirteen again and the world feels much softer than it had)
The rockiest time splits between that stage where no one could trust Peter much anymore after finding out and a point past the three of them all piling onto each other. Peter doesn’t totally understand his own feelings for Lily yet and feels overwhelming out of place in their home. I think of it as being the point where James decides that they need a place to start anew, as a complete family and Peter overthinks it.
It was easier when he was just there, when he existed and it was just James he was allowed to hold hands with but suddenly everything is tipping right over and its all so much newer.
It’s easier to fit into James’s love life because loving James as a boyfriend is the same as loving him as a friend but w/ Lily it’s so much more different and the fact that Harry’s started calling him “Papa” and James teases him as being the other father when he’s not… feels wrong.
There’s a brief blowout halfway into them finding a new place and Peter hides out at Remus’s place for about a month before James and Lily show up and apologize for not correctly asking him about his boundaries and he apologizes for not being more upfront about his feelings.
It takes a little while after that to get back into the groove of things but they manage it.
PFT,, HARRY!! Oh, precious baby Harry. He calls Peter “Papa” and James “Dad” and the mix-up confused people sometimes because they assumed that Harry was just referring to the same person but they didn’t know why he said it like that? And then Ron just outrightly asks (because this boy has no patience or filter sometimes) and Harry explains. There’s a brief moment where he’s ready to yell or punch on Peter’s behalf but Ron’s confusion only extends to the format of the relationship because Ron doesn’t care so long as Harry is okay and happy then what does it matter if Peter’s one of his dads? Hermione has so many thoughts and questions about it because she’s read about situations like that before and Harry’s kind of content to just discuss it with her because he doesn’t see what’s wrong with the format and he’s just happy that they don’t mind Peter’s involvement around him when so many people who know have disagreed about that.
I think a lot of people don’t know or believe that Peter is happily situated with the Potters and when they do find out, they either make fun of Harry for being stupid enough to live with the man who tried to get him killed or they worry for Harry’s health in that sort of situation. A lot of them blame Peter for being the reason why a boy like Harry could wind up being in Slytherin (they think he pressured him but like?? What purpose would that serve) or argue that Peter is a bad person and will do something harmful to Harry.
Harry just frowns and says something logical and sarcastic when people scathe at him and walks off. He’s spent so much time being ogled at and having people who recognize him mutter rude things at Peter when they go out that these statements and questions don’t affect him.
And when Voldemort comes back, Peter just vanishes. Not physically but something about him is just gone and he just exists. He doesn’t talk unless someone asks him a question and he spends most of his time sitting and staring out into the open, not doing anything and it takes Harry’s shaking hands holding his and begging for him to come back to them to snap him out of it.
Since he betrayed Voldemort, everyone ushers Peter into staying with Sirius at the Black family residence where the new Order meets up. Harry moves in too to stay safe during the summers.
No one asks Peter to join them when they talk about the upcoming war and he doesn’t ask either. He doesn’t trust himself and a little voice in his head reassures him over and over again that as long as he doesn’t know what they’re planning he has no leverage.
He can’t betray them again. And he doesn’t want to but fear is a powerful thing and he worries so much that he will. For a brief moment, he thinks about it. And he thinks Voldemort would be somewhat forgiving. Would let him in again and wouldn’t hurt him if he brought Harry along too.
Brought Harry along to die.
It’s that thought of his son’s betrayed eyes and the violent squirm to his stomach that makes him throw up his feelings until he’s slumped against the door and whispering for James to just get rid of him. But James won’t and they talk and talk until their voices are hoarse and every ounce of Peter’s worry that he’ll turn again is out in the open air.
Peter deals with his anxiety a bit better now. He talks. Usually to baby!Harry and then sometimes to toddler!Harry who nods very seriously, scribbles random things down and prescribes cookies and hugs as medication. Lily listens to him and James tries to be more attentive about it.
Staying at home alievates it somewhat. There’s no expectations for him to do anything grand. As long as Harry stays alive and healthy then he’s basically succeeded and that just makes it easier because Harry is distracting in the way that kids are and he doesn’t have to think about his problems or the fate of the world when Harry is about ready to crash into the wall on his toy broomstick.
When Harry goes off to school, all he has to do is maintain the house which is simple. He’s always liked clean areas and being clean so it’s a better stress relief to clean things and he works simple jobs part-time that don’t require so much dedication and don’t come attached with the expectation of constant advancement.
Hmm, I guess, James suits Peter in that they’re opposites and they balance each other out. Lily mediates between them when things get stressed because James wants to do one thing and Peter really doesn’t want to do it. She offers a lot of good solutions that meet them halfway and doesn’t get Peter stuck feeling like he’s being taken advantage of or always giving in and doesn’t leave James worried that he’s too insistent and overwhelming.
She’s also a calmer presence to James’s semi-chaotic nature which is good for Peter who’s being stressing over James getting killed over something minor (like sticking his finger in an electrical socket) for the last ten years. She can balance James out when he’s getting too impulsive and Peter’s too emotionally drained to explain why you cannot stick a fork in an outlet.
Harry is good because he’s so much like his mother in that he’s caring and reserved but also loud when he needs to be and sarcastic. I like to think that Lily and Peter share a similar dry wit and Harry’s end up both simultaneously the nicest and rudest child on earth because of how easy it was to soak that all in that goodness and sarcasm. He suits Peter’s timid behavior by being soothing and curious. If he can’t do, he’ll ask. And if someone doesn’t know the answer, Peter will help him look it up.
I’ve been too completely sure of explaining why people are good for each other so I hoped that made some sense~
Okay, with the whole “they both wound up with scars” thing, I think a mother’s love for her child is somewhat innate so my concept is that when you can grow to love someone, when they’ve displayed habits and actions and you’re proud, the love is stronger.
Canon!Lily died for a boy who was newly born and she loved him because he was her son but she didn’t love him in the sense that she knew him (if that makes sense?). Peter loves Harry because he knows him. He knows that Harry likes to walks around in his father’s shoes and has a tendency to make the silverware float when he giggles and that Harry cannot stand someone other than his mother giving him bath and that he likes it best when Peter tells him bedtime stories. Harry at this point is probably about one or one and half so he knows Peter as much as a one year old can and loves him as much as a one year old can and that sort of culminates together and rebounds back at Voldemort much stronger than in canon (in my head anyway :P)
So that’s why Peter and Harry wind up with scars and Harry, being young and the target, still winds up with a piece of Voldemort’s dumbass soul lodged in him~
And I think that’s all I can manage to concept right now. My brain’s a little tuckered out and I’ve got some homework to finish up BUT IF YOU GOT ANY MORE QUESTIONS OR THOUGHTS, PLEASE BRING THEM ROUND~~ I’m really glad you like this AU~~
