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[Sep. 11th, 2008|10:12 am] |
THE PLAYER
NAME: Kira
AGE:
AIM:
E-MAIL:
TIMEZONE:
CHARACTERS PLAYED @ COLLIGO: Gabriel "Sylar" Gray, Angela Petrelli, Robert Bishop, Claire Bennet (E!V), Tonks, Scorpius Malfoy, Tom Riddle, & The Master
THE CHARACTER
FULL NAME: Peter Pettigrew
SERIES/FANDOM: Harry Potter
AGE: 20
GENDER: Male
SPECIES: Human [Wizard]
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
PERSONALITY: Peter is one of those people who are almost impossible to pin down. He's a terrific actor. Peter is able to adapt whatever persona is appropriate for the situation he's presented with. He has absolutely no qualms about lying directly to someone's face if it keeps him out of trouble. And he has gotten rather used to pretending to be something he's not to keep other people happy. If he has a feeling that letting someone see what he's really like will end up putting them off, he'll do his best to mask his behavior. Of course, this type of attitude often leaves people with little idea of what he's really like.
When he isn't putting on, Peter is naturally shy, preferring to keep to himself when it comes to most things. This lead to a lot of isolation in his early years, pulling himself away from the crowd when it became clear that he wasn't able to break into it. Not that he didn't try his best to place himself into the thick of things. Always the people pleaser, Peter attempted in his childhood to endear himself to the other children by basically becoming a doormat, allowing himself to be trodden on without complaint and helping everyone around him any way that he saw fit. While this allowed him some sort of inclusion for awhile, children are fickle and most of them quickly became bored with him, which is when he withdrew and started focusing on his own motivations rather than catering to other people.
Peter was never afraid to think big when it came to projects or his ambitions. He had quite a few ideas about what he'd been when he grew up, almost all of the jobs being of the muggle variety. All of these dreams were then squashed rather vehemently by his father who didn't want his only son trapped in some 'ridiculous muggle profession' when he didn't have to be. While his career goals might have been nixed early on, that didn't mean his projects had to be. Most of them weren't the least bit practical or functional, but that didn't stop him. He dove right into any project that he undertook with an untempered enthusiasm, working until another idea would grip him, and he would alter his focus. His mother often referred to him as a wayward dreamer, someone who had to understand the reality of life before they can get off of the ground.
Reality hit Peter hard, repetitively, after he started school. Peter was used to being teased because he was short, fat, and academically slow, but being dropped into an environment that was so drastically different from the muggle one in which he was raised, this caused him to revert to many of his old ways as well as focus upon his own insecurities much more intently than he ever had before.
While his issues have lessened since leaving Hogwarts, his insecurities still flair up every now and then. He knows that he isn't as talented as James, as likable as Sirius, or as smart as Remus, and sometimes, he finds it difficult to figure out what real value that his existence holds. He's never really been able to shake the nagging doubts that he's had since being a child that he's not good enough, for his father, for his mother, for his friends, for school, for a career, or for anything. Peter can't help but feel jealous of the ease which his friends seem to navigate everything and feel as though he'll never really live up to any of them no matter how much he tries. James has a wonderful family that Peter feels that he'll never be able to achieve. Sirius is both rich and charming in a way that awkward, lumpy Peter can never ben. Even Remus, who has to suffer with lycanthropy, is far smarter than Peter feels that he could ever hope to be, and he knows that eventually someone will see beyond his disease and give him the chance that he deserves. Peter will always feel second (or rather fourth) best compared to the rest of them and part of him wonders if they look at him the way that everyone else seems to, as just the little tag-a-long that they put up with.
BRIEF BACKGROUND SUMMARY: Raised in a household by a mother who was constantly supportive and a father who was convinced that his only son was nothing more than a waste of space, Peter grew up with a deep, conflicted sense of self-worth. While he had faith in his own abilities, he found that most people didn't, and anyone who would provide him with any sense of understanding and support would have found it was very easy to get Peter to do things for them or to get him to defend them.
It was perhaps one of the reasons that James, Sirius, and Remus were willing to put up with him that first year while Peter was trying to figure out exactly how to be a friend since it wasn't something he had had experience with prior to Hogwarts. But it wasn't long after, though, that the four of them became rather fast friends. While one might have thought that the discovery of Remus's condition would change things, it only seemed to make them an even more cohesive unit. By the time the four of them had taken their NEWTs and left Hogwarts, they had a laundry list of accomplishments to their names, among them being the creators of the Marauders' Map and (unregistered) animagi by the age of 16.
It wasn't long after leaving school that the four of them were approached by Dumbledore expressing his concerns about the sudden downturn that magical society was taking. He had organized a group to combat the campaign of fearmongering and intolerance that the Death Eaters were inflicting upon their world. While Peter was hesitant about what good he'd be able to do in a rebel faction, he was eventually persauded that it was what was best. He didn't want to sit idly by and watch the wizarding world collapse in upon itself, after all.
Not long into the war, however, it became clear just how impossible the task in front of them truly was. The Order was, as far as Peter was concerned, disorganized at best and downright self-destructive at its worst. While most of the members meant well, they certainly weren't equipped to fight (muchless defeat) such an organized combat force like the Death Eaters seemed to be. No matter what ground they seemed to make, it was more than often beaten back from them, and the number of close calls and sheer lucky breaks that he and his friends were pulling off was just dampered each time news of the death of one of their lot came to light.
By late in the year of 1979, the organization that Peter had once backed with all of the enthuasism he could muster was beginning to be tinged in his mind. They would keep fighting, yes, but in a Gryffindor manner. Brave and bold til the end, no matter how futile the cause. Death before dishonor was a concept that made no sense to Peter, and it seemed to be the path that the Order was rapidly descending down. And while he hated himself for thinking this way, he was of the opinion that it might have just been time to call it quits before someone decided to go after him next.
Which is why when, in February 1981, he was captured during one of many scrimmages between the Order and the Death Eaters, Peter decided to take the easy rather than the noble way out. When he made the deal to spy on the Order's inner workings for Lord Voldemort, Peter hardly had any ill intentions towards those he'd called friends for years now. Naive and perhaps a little too confident in his own ability to lie, Peter had first assumed that he could manage to fake his position by providing information that was either useless or false.
It didn't take long, however, until Peter realized that Voldemort could tell whenever a lie left his lips or whenever he even contemplated doing so. Pain and torture became Peter's constant friend through the rest of the year until Peter became more willing to give up information on the Order's activities. It wasn't until he was made secret keeper through one of Sirius and James's brilliant ideas that he thought the desire not to speak again.
But Voldemort had already proven himself more than willing to use torture to get the information that he wanted, and while it took much longer for him to bleed the information out of Peter this time, he did eventually find out where the Potter family was hiding. Afterward, Peter was no longer of any use to him, and Voldemort was willing to simply let Peter's friends deal with him when they realized the betrayal.
As soon as Peter regained his senses, he apparated to Godric's Hollow in the hopes that he might actually be able to get there in time to warn them but found the place in ruins, the only sound in the place the quiet crying of an infant. Guilt rising in him, Peter quietly collected the wands discarded in the rumble and soothed the worst of Harry's distress before apparating away. Someone from the Order would be there soon enough to retrieve him, and Peter knew that eventually Sirius would be out for him.
Better to do that somewhere that Harry wouldn't end up in the crossfire.
ABILITIES: Peter doesn't believe that he has any strengths. He's not brave or smart or athletic. He's certainly not strong like his father or compassionate like his mother. And his friends make him look like a joke. But what Peter doesn't realize is that his strengths are highly unorthodox and are one of the things that kept the Marauders out of a good deal of the trouble that they could have gotten into back in school.
Peter's trademark is his capacity for deception. For someone who is so nervous and timid, it's amazing how calm and controlled he can be when spinning a tale. He can lie right to someone's face without even flinching. Of course, his degree of comfort with you has some bearing upon how effective the lies will be. McGonagall was usually able to crack him, and if confronted, he can't lie to either of his parents to save his life.
Peter has a highly creative mind, one that often prompts him to come up with ideas that are distinctively 'outside of the box'. However, this way of thinking often prevents him from being able to see logistical problems with his ideas or options outside of the line of action that he is determined to take.
Peter isn't exactly magically gifted in most areas, often fumbling and causing more harm than good. But the one thing that he has been able to master is Charms work. The spells seem to come easily to him, the words tripping off his tongue with a practiced ease. It really is such a shame that his Charms skills are something that Peter is both proud and shameful off. His father says Charms is a discipline for housewives, after all. What does that say about him?
WEAKNESSES: Peter's mental health is...questionable, at best. He's not batshit insane by any stretch of the imagination, but he has some severe self-esteem and dependency issues. His fears are slowly starting to migrate into unaddressed bitterness, resentment, and feelings of aggression toward the people that he cares about the most. This is a fact that scares him more than anything else he's ever come across, and because of that, he's been trying very hard to pretend like these issues don't exist.
CANON POINT: After James & Lily's Deaths, but Prior to the Confrontation With Sirius.
WHY HAS YOUR CHARACTER CAUGHT THE EYE OF THE COLLECTOR?: Three Marauders is a travesty even if the other three want to kill the fourth.
3RD PERSON SAMPLE: He was too late. Apparating into Godric's Hollow had become a routine since James and Lily had moved into the protected house several months earlier, but as he arrived this time, the smoldering rumble still concealed behind the binds of a Fidelius Charm caused his stomach to pit. The silence the outside world would have heard was jarred for Peter by the wailing cries of an infant. Harry was still alive? Quietly baffled, Peter carefully headed towards the wreckage with a swell of hope in his breast, but that was thrown a blow when not long after reaching what would have been the foyer, he came across James's body, splayed out with the shock still evident on his face. With no wand to be seen near the body, Peter felt a swell of despondent fondness when he realized that James's wand was clear across the room.
He'd never even had a chance.
Leaning down, Peter sighed, gently closing the eyes of his best friend, giving him back at least a modicum of the dignity that he'd robbed from him. Peter set forward again, the cries drawing him towards what had once been a stairwell and into the remains of the bedrooms. The dust that swirled at his feet provoked a quiet confusion until his toe stubbed on a wand amidst the mess. Picking it up and studying it quietly, it took Peter only a second to realize what it was. It was Voldemort's wand. So the dust that he was currently trodding in had to be what remained of the Dark Lord. That didn't explain what happened nor how or why, and the sight in front of him, Harry sobbing, half curled in the arms of his dead mother, was enough to knock Peter cold.
Quietly pocketing the wand, tears pricking at his eyes, Peter stepped forward slowly, leaning forward and lifting Harry in his arms. "I'm so sorry," Peter whispered, the familiar voice half quieting Harry as Peter closed his eyes and held the boy, bouncing him and rubbing his back until the crying had stopped. Pressing a soft kiss to the boy's forehead, Peter tried to stifle his own guilt even as the thought of just staying here and waiting out what was coming to him crossed his mind.
But no, that wouldn't work. Sirius would be out for blood, and the last thing that needed to happen was for Harry to witness more violence than he already had. Gently setting Harry down with a deep reluctance in his actions, Peter offered him one final smile, gently tussling the boy's messy black hair.
"You'll be fine, Harry," Peter whispered. "No matter what, I know that. You'll be brilliant."
And with the crack of apparation, the Hollow was left silent once more.
PB: Taylor Handley
JOURNAL: ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cowardlydevoted
WAS THIS CHARACTER HELD FOR YOU?: Yes
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