Re: Peter/James
Peter could have pretended, he could have hidden behind 'I don't know' or 'I'm not sure', but he was still a Gryffindor. He raised his head and stared at James. "Yes, because you and Lily still had a chance and you chose to get in the middle of this and drag me into it. My family, they have no idea. They don't even know about magic. They had no way to protect themselves."
He stayed where he was because he knew how James could get, but also because he felt tired. He had played this conversation over and over for months, long before they discovered him. "And what would have happened? You were worried about Lily and Harry, as you should have been. Sirius worried about you. Remus was gone. Do you really think that Dumbledore would have cared about my cousins? Sure, he'd have protected me, because he needed to protect your secret, but no one would have protected them. And us? We couldn't even protect ourselves. What were you going to do? Leave your wife and just sit in front of my family's home?"
He turned around on the bench, so he could look at James. "Don't you think I've thought about it. I spent weeks dodging her, trying to find ways out. How were you going to stop her from casting the Imperius and killing my grandmother? Or my grandfather? Or my aunts? How were we going to do it? We couldn't, that's the answer, and I chose to protect the most powerless and the ones who were completely innocent."