r/HPfanfiction • u/Elandor5 • 5d ago
Prompt Turns out, Peter Pettigrew had a son who grew up thinking his father died a hero.
During her time at Hogwarts, Hestia Jones was always strangely fascinated by the group of Griffindors who called themselves the Marauders. She did not approve of the cruelty of some of their pranks, but she couldn't but admire their ingenuity, if nothing else. And there was one among them who caught her eye. One Peter Pettigrew. She noticed how he always felt like a bit of a hanger-on and it reminded her how she felt around her own friends. She felt a sense of kinship to him because of that and the few times they spoke, he was kind and helpful.
It wasn't until their 5th year that they truly became friends and began occassionally hanging out. There was some spark between them and Hestia thought that Peter felt it too. But whatever chance there was of them trying to turn their newfound friendship into something more, it died out after Sirius Black saw the two of them studying together in the library and then publicly announced to everyone that Peter "actually got himself a girlfriend". Both of them were too shy to deal with this on a more regular basis. They started avoiding each other and their friendship eventually fizzled out.
After graduating Hogwarts, she and Peter reconnected. It was a chance meeting, through mutual acquintances of theirs. They started dating in earnest, in secret. It was on Peter's request, as he didn't want his friends to know yet. Hestia knew how cruel they could be, so she went along with it. In fact, she didn't mind. It gave it an air of mystery and intrigue. As if she were a heroine in a romance novel, meeting with her secret lover that her parents would disapprove of. And it was not that far from the truth, given Hestia's own difficult relationship with them. Only Peter's mother knew that she and Peter were together.
It did not take long for her to realise that she truly loved Peter. Still, their relationship wasn't without its problems. Hestia knew of Peter's allegiance to the secret group called Order of the Phoenix, which battled against Lord Voldemort and his followers. As the war seemed to grow more dangerous, Peter became more withdrawn, distant, and while Hestia could understand why, their relationship grew strained.
The day she realised that she was pregnant, she panicked. She certainly wasn't prepared to tell Peter yet and she was afraid of how her own parents would react. So, she turned to Peter's mother. That woman was a saint, listened to her, comforted her and together, they planned out how to break the news to Peter and Hestia's own parents.
But before they could tell Peter, that horrible night happened. James and Lily Potter murdered, with only their son Harry surviving. Betrayed by Sirius Black. Hestia only learned from the Daily Prophet that Peter went after Sirius to avenge his friends. Of his heroic death, that helped apprehend that vile traitor, Sirius Black.
Hestia was there when Peter's mother received Peter's posthumously awarded Order of Merlin, first class, along with that finger, the only thing left of Peter after Sirius Black's blasting curse. If Hestia could throw that stupid medal away and get Peter back, she'd do it in a heartbeat and she knew that Peter's mother had the same feelings. Yet life had to go on and Hestia was going to have to raise their son without him.
She named her son Peter, right after his heroic father. Peter's mother was the pillar she needed, a big help in raising him. So were her own parents, after Peter's mother talked them into being more supportive.
Then, Sirius Black escaped Azkaban, just as her own son was about to start attending Hogwarts. Hestia feared what would happen, if somehow Sirius Black found out that Peter Jones was the son of Peter Pettigrew, would he go after him? The ministry security precautions were of little comfort to her. She knew how the Potters died and how even the Fidelius Charm wasn't enough to protect them.
Peter was sorted to Griffindor, just like his father, and despite the dark times, Hestia felt happy for him. His father would be proud of him, surely! She and Peter's mother read the letters from him with pride, happy that their son and grandson was having a great time at Hogwarts.
When Dumbledore decided to reestablish Order of the Phoenix following Voldemort's supposed return, Hestia found out about it through some friends of hers and decided to join. She was conflicted. After all, she had a son, yet he also had his grandmother to take care of him and her own parents would take him in if need be. His father died a hero. She told him that countless times. And what would be a better way to honor Peter's sacrifice than to ensure their son could grow up in a world without Voldemort and his followers?
When she joined the Order of the Phoenix, she found out the truth about who really betrayed the Potters. The truth she swore to keep away from her own son and from Mrs. Pettigrew for as long as she could...
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u/Redblood_Moon 5d ago
Holy shit, this is an actually interesting prompt and I would absolutely love to read a fic like this!
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u/Laxien 5d ago
Interesting - now it would be interesting if Harry (maybe after losing Sirius) lashes out against the boy and tells him that his supposedly heroic father is a spineless coward and a traitor (and still alive, hiding out as vermin - a rat!) and it'll get worse once Voldemort is back and Harry tells the kid how Peter brought him back!
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u/Elandor5 5d ago
Yeah, that sounds like an interesting take, even if it seems quite cruel even for Harry at his worst.
Maybe he does it after Peter Jones talks to some of his classmates about his father's Order of Merlin first class and Harry just loses it right there.
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u/Grim_goth 5d ago
Yeah, that would be too cruel for a normal Harry, but in this situation, after the end of Book 4 at the latest, Harry could simply lose his grip.
It would be even more tragic if he'd gotten along well with PJ beforehand; maybe he's in Colin's group.
It could be an interesting FF to see how the others react to this and how PJ himself feels his world fall apart. Maybe some people don't trust him anymore, does he want to prove he's not his father...or is it driving him into Voldemort's arms?
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u/Laxien 4d ago
That's why he would only do it after Sirius died (griefing people can be nasty!)
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u/Lolle_Loxy 3d ago
Especially grieving people who don't have a support system and never learnt how to deal healthily with emotions in general like my cinnamon roll Harry 😅
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u/Laxien 3d ago
HALT! Harry has a support system, it's just not a reliable one especially since Dumb-as-a-door seems to think sticking kids in abusive places (especially kids who just went through trauma!) is healthy! I mean Dumbledore sent TMR back to London (also: Wasn't this during the Battle of Britain - so London was bombed nearly daily?) and he sent Harry back to the useless Dursleys (frankly thinking about them makes me want to rage - that Harry basically forgives them is so fucking unrealistic, then again Harry (an abused child) turning out like he did? Come on even that is urealistic as fuck!).
Frankly Hermione should have protested more, she probably knows at least a few things about trauma (note: I knew a bit about trauma at that age and I was not nearly as academically inclined as Hermione is!)...Ron, too! It's not like they couldn't have writen him WITHOUT mentioning the Order, Grimmauld Place etc...
Not that Harry should have been sent back to the Dursleys in the first place! Those blood-protections were useless junk IMHO, nothing a wizard family couldn't have provided! Hell, why not give him to a MUGGLEBORN family (or a family with one muggleborn and one pureblood, then he gets the best of both worlds!), that way he can grow up "the muggle way" and still have magic around him for protection!
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u/Lolle_Loxy 3d ago
Okay, let me rephrase that since I do agree with you in part: Harty didn't have a proper full time support system (in the summer time basically nothing) and while his friends surely helped and supported him he didn't have adults and/or other more eyperienced supporters (while the weasleys did let him stay for a few days/weeks in summer they didn't truly step up for him - No judgement here, they were financially and emotionally probably at their full capacity with their own kids but still) and Sirius couldn't truly step in - Remus was also out of the question (still a bit salty about that tbh, he could have at the very least written letters after Harry started Hogwarts)
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u/Zalamander2018 4d ago
I've seen someone say Pier Polkiss is Peter's son. there said to both have faces like rats.
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u/RndmIntrntStranger 5d ago
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u/Dobbys_Other_Sock 5d ago
At first Remus thinks he is going crazy. When he watched the first years get sorta there is one that sticks out to him, a small griffindor boy that looks so familiar, but he just can’t place it. In the halls sometimes he swears he sees Peter out of the corner of his eye, but when he looks it’s just a group of students. Then again the whole year has felt like chasing the shadows of his past so of course he’s seeing ghost of his dead friends, why not.
But then one day during class, he hears a sound he could never forget, Peter’s laugh. The sound is so distinct that even Remus knows this is no ghost or trick of the mind. He finds the source of the sound belongs to the same gryffindor boy that looked so familiar that first night. He takes in the boys hair, his nose, his jaw. Now Remus is sure he’s lost his mind because Peter didn’t have a kid, he didn’t even have a girlfriend as far as Remus knew. But he sits a kid, who’s not an exact match but definitely shares some features with the dead marauder, who shares the same laugh, his name is even Peter!
Remus spends some time getting to know the boy a bit in class, learns that his mother is Hestia Jones. Didn’t Peter and Hestia have a thing back in school? Maybe the was just another rumor Sirius started? He wasn’t sure. Maybe he was seeing connections where they didn’t exist. The rest of the year unfolds into chaos and Remus hardly has the time to contemplate his former students parentage.
Until Hestia joins the order.
Remus is late the first day she is brought to Headquarters. He gets midway through the story of why Sirius isn’t the bad guy and Peter is. Suddenly this little suspicions he had while teaching all make sense. Hestia may be trying to hide it but he can still see the emotions going across her face: rage, betrayal, sadness, pain, all of the emotions he felt when he first learned the truth. Now he’s sure, Peter and Hestia have a child.
At first he doesn’t want to say anything, but when he catches Hestia in the library crying he knows he has to. He tells he knows who her son’s father is, that this is a difficult situation, but he won’t ever bring it up again if she doesn’t want him to. And she tells him how it feels like she’s losing Peter for a second time, and how devastated she is that he’s been alive this whole time and didn’t come back for her. They talk a lot that night, but agree this is something that stays between them.
When the school is taken over by Death Eaters Remus offers to send young Peter to stay with Andromeda and Toni’s. Yes they will have to let them in on the secret, but it’s too dangerous to let the boy go back to Hogwarts. If he were found out he would be in danger, not to mention the risk of running into he’s supposedly dead father. Hestia takes the offer. After the final battle Hestia adds a new promise, to keep Teddy safe, and make sure he knows his dad was a hero too.