InsaneJournal

This place was overwhelming. It was an assault on all of Peter’s senses. It reminded him in some odd way of Knockturn Alley, especially at night, though all of the bright Muggle lights made that comparison a little silly. Knockturn Alley was always very dark. He didn’t know why he felt uncomfortable around Sirius - maybe it was just that he always did and even here, now, there seemed to be something that wasn’t being said or something between them - but he still wanted to be around him. Which is how he found himself sitting beside Sirius at a row of very confusing, very loud slot machines in the middle of a casino floor.

“Do you even know what to do with these?” Peter asked, his eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Sirius replied. He’d watched people play before they’d chosen machines, so he had a general idea of what he was doing. He gave a simplified but mostly correct explanation of paylines and bet amounts, then shrugged as he lost his first spin. “We can go over to the ones where you just pull a lever if that’s better?”

He glanced over at his friend who still looked confused, wondering why Peter had wanted to tag along to the casino when gambling money seemed like the last thing he’d want to do. Of course, he wasn’t entirely sure he could say anymore what it was Peter would or wouldn’t do. “Right, so don’t bet more than you’re willing to lose, and if you win big, just walk away.”

That was general advice on the Vegas brochure he’d looked at, but Sirius wasn’t necessarily known for heeding good advice. Which was why he was here at all, despite the fact that he couldn’t get Lily’s departure out of his mind. Maybe because he was the one person who knew what had been going on when she showed up.

His next spin yielded him about an 80% payback, so maybe he’d last more than fifteen minutes at the slots. These were the machines with the smallest starting bet, but Sirius was bidding the max on each spin. Because of course he was.

Peter listened and watched Sirius, nodding like he got it, though he didn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand; it was more that he didn’t really see the point. Which begged the question, why did Peter go on the Las Vegas excursion in the first place. “I hope you don’t lose too many credits,” he said carefully, eyes darting nervously around them as he watched Sirius place another bet.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, Sirius?” he asked a moment later, in a sudden breath, like he wasn’t sure he really wanted to ask this question. “Can I ask you something? About what you remember and what - happened - back home, I mean?” He knew that Sirius had talked to Remus and Lily more than Peter had. Peter had, really, been avoiding the lot of them. Mostly he just didn’t want to know what path he had gone, eventually, because he had a feeling he knew and it was bad. Very bad.

Another loss. This was going to be a short trip. And then Peter spoke up and Sirius turned so quickly to look at his friend that he nearly fell out of his chair. He was choosing now to ask about it? Sure there were plenty of witnesses for Peter’s own protection, but still.

Taking a deep breath, he ran a hand through his hair and then attempted a casual shrug. “Well first tell me this,” he said. “Right before you got here, who’s side were you on?” That had been the unknown, the question Sirius had wanted to ask but hadn't wanted to know the answer to. Now, however, after Peter had so brazenly brought up the subject, he was going to be direct.

Peter blinked at the direct question and he felt like Sirius knew, somehow - from Remus? From someone else? - what Peter was dealing with. What he had done. He looked away and started to shake his head. “I’m not a Death Eater,” he said, the words slipping out quickly, firmly, because it was true. He wasn’t. He couldn’t help but rub his left forearm though, as though the Dark Mark that could have eventually been there was there. But it wasn’t there.

“Yet,” Sirius replied simply, an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before. His eyes flickered to the slot machine in front of him and he pressed for another spin. “Which is why I haven’t hated you. Yet.” He sighed, only vaguely aware that he’d won something, and focused his attention on Peter. “But you’re not completely innocent right now, are you, Wormtail?”

“I’m not a Death Eater,” he repeated. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” He pulled his sleeve down to his wrist and turned back to the slot machine in front of him and hit a few of the buttons until it spun and whirred and then realized he’d lost whatever he bet and he mumbled something under his breath.

“You tell me,” Sirius replied, his attention far from gambling his credits away. “You asked, so let me tell you. James and Lily are both dead in the future, where Remus is from. They had a son, my godson, Harry, who You-Know-Who targeted and they died protecting him. And you know what the best part is? They were going to make me the secret keeper, to protect them… And I thought that was too obvious, so I suggested you instead and you betrayed all of us.”

He frowned, the words spilling out before he could really think about them, his voice getting slightly louder. “And then you framed me for it, and I went to Azkaban for years, while you pretended to be a pet rat or something ridiculous, and I finally escaped Azkaban, only to die fighting in another war, this time not with James but with his son.”

He was telling a story of something he hadn’t even lived, but that still made him furious. “You know when Lily got here, how she assumed something terrible had happened to you? That’s because you had betrayed them but she figured they had to have killed you in order for the spell to have been broken. She showed up here right before she would have died and now she’s gone back! So you tell me, Wormtail. Is it all that matters that you haven’t done any of this yet? There’s a reason you haven’t wanted to know the future, isn’t there? Because you’re already on that path, aren’t you? Because I don’t think you can say it doesn’t matter now.”

Bloody hell. Really, why had he chosen a casino to have this conversation in, and out of nowhere? Sirius was now fuming, and even when he looked at the screen and realized he’d almost doubled his initial credits, he wasn’t happy. “Why?” he demanded.

Because even knowing what he knew, he still had a difficult time believing that Peter, who wouldn’t even attempt to apparate on the ship, could have had the guts to betray them all. To stage his own death at the cost of the lives of Muggles. It was foreign to him, but he knew it was true. So perhaps there was a how to be asked as well, but all the anger and frustration and even fear in Sirius had deflated, and he just stared at Peter, wanting an answer.

“None of that happened!” Peter burst out. Maybe it might have happened eventually. It was certainly heading that way. But he wouldn’t have - there was no way he would have - “I would never betray James like that, like what you said. You don't know what'll happen to Lily when she's gone back! We don't know anything.” He shook his head, backing away from Sirius because he was getting angry and Peter didn’t like it when people got angry at him. When people started to try and tell him what to do or tried to pressure him into something.

He felt sick. “You don’t know any of that happened,” he said. “Remus could be lying. He could be wrong. I would never do any of that.” The more he protested, the worse he felt, because he knew, he really knew, that he could have done that, with the right pressure, the right incentive. “The Dark Lord isn’t even here, in this universe,” he whispered a moment later. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Remus and Ginny?” Sirius asked. “They both told me the same, independently of each other. So why, Peter? How? How can someone scared to apparate in the Enterprise fake his own death and kill Muggles in the process? I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but James? He’s always taken up for you.”

Casting a long look at Peter, Sirius ran his hand through his hair again, and then turned to properly look at the screen. Oh. He won. He should’ve walked away there, but instead he spun again. And then again. He didn’t know how to deal with Peter, who seemed to be far too much of a coward to act the way he now knew he would. He wanted answers.

“I didn’t do any of that,” he insisted, because it sounded so unlike him. They both knew that. “I haven’t done any of that either. I’d never -” Peter lowered his voice, swallowing. “- kill anyone. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t even know how to do that.” It was true too. Though he knew that he would have had to kill someone, eventually, if he were to become a Death Eater.

He slouched against the machine he had been trying to win on and shook his head. He breathed out heavily and tried to keep the next words from tumbling out but he couldn’t help it. “It was Amycus Carrow,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t betray anyone.” There was that yet again, unspoken.

This was exactly why Sirius had a hard time believing what awaited them in the future. Because the man sitting next to him was incapable of all those things. He didn’t doubt that it happened, but there was a huge disconnect in his mind.

“What about Carrow?” he asked. How had Amycus Carrow turned Peter Pettigrew of all people into a Death Eater?

Peter shook his head. He didn’t think Sirius would understand. “I don’t - he just said - you wouldn’t understand.”

That was true, Sirius probably wouldn’t understand. He’d die for his friends, even now. Well, maybe not Peter, currently. “No, tell me what he said that got you to listen to him,” he said, his voice harsh. “You brought this up, you had to have known where the conversation was going to go.”

“I brought it up to tell you that I haven’t done any of that yet and I’m not going to,” he said sharply, in a tone he had never used around Sirius, around James, around his friends before. “And because I hated feeling like I had to avoid something with you and we’re all here and none of us are going anywhere so I just had to say it. But I didn’t do any of that and I’m not going to.”

Sirius looked at Peter and sighed. “Yeah, I know. You think I like looking at you and wondering how you could hate me that much? Because I don’t. And I also know that my future would have entailed trying not to lose my mind in Azkaban, and instead I’m here. So maybe I got a second chance there, and maybe you should have one too. Or maybe that’s what I thought. Before Lily disappeared. Now I don’t know…”

Turning back to the machine, he continued his losing streak four more spins before winning half of it back. He was still considerably up, and no longer feeling like gambling was all that fun.

Peter swallowed. He did hate Sirius, but not in the way that Sirius probably thought. He had always hated Sirius because of how close he was with James. Peter wanted to be James’s best friend, and he never got that. James chose Sirius and then he chose Lily and even Remus was closer to James than Peter ever was. Peter never had a chance when compared with any of them.

He sank onto the seat in front of the machine and stared at it. “Yeah. A second chance. That’s - good.” His time here was better before everyone else showed up, that was for sure. But Peter was trying.

Sirius had come in with 100 credits to waste on the slot machines and he was at 160, when his next spin netted him another 20. “Well, I think that’s a sign,” he mumbled at Peter. “That maybe I should quit while I’m up and watch you play instead.” Normally a risk taker, he felt like he was already doing that, in even considering giving Peter a chance to be someone other than who he turned out to be in the future they’d left behind.

That was enough risk for him right now.

Peter looked at the credits he had in his hand. “Yeah,” he said, “all right. I guess I’ll see what happens.” With a sigh, he placed another bet and hit the button.