I Don't Belong Here
loser
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double-barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
-Beck, "Loser"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Pettigrew was Peter's dad. He was an Auror, brave and strong and proud. He had a wife named April, Peter's mum, and they loved each other so much that it hurt. But on the day April found out she was pregnant with their first child, the man in black showed up at the door. She'd been dreading that man ever since she started to have feelings for Adam, because he meant her husband was gone. Dead. Such a strange concept, to simply not exist anymore. But it's what happens - people die, and they don't exist, and the only way you can keep them alive is through memories and sharing those memories, so that's what April did.
Peter doesn't remember his dad; the man died before he was even born, so there aren't even the fuzziest of memories. But he grew up hearing stories every night of what a great man he was. That's all his mum ever talked about..."your dad" this and "your dad" that. When he was a kid, he wanted to grow up and be him, work for the Ministry and be an auror and save lives. Just like his dad. So maybe some day a nice, pretty woman would be telling their kids stories about him, or maybe he'd be alive to tell them himself. But as time went on, it became increasingly clear that Pete would never be that man.
You see, at first, Mrs. Pettigrew anxiously awaited Pete's first sign of magic. And waited, and waited, and waited. There was a span of two years in which she was terrified he was actually a squib. What would she do with a son like that? It's easy to love your son when you think he has a world full of possibilities, but not so much when you're afraid he's going to be a failure. A nobody. Especially when your sisters have children who are increasingly bright and talented. Especially when there's nothing remarkable about your family in the first place except that they are pureblood. Pete was a good kid, though, and that made it easier. He was so eager to please, so desperate to be loved, so excited to go to Hogwarts and learn magic. So she tried, she really did. She tried to teach him fundamentals of how things worked, the basics. He seemed to catch on with things like Potions and Herbology. He liked to keep her company in the garden, things like that. Never exceptional at it, but he seemed excited and so she let him enjoy it.
To her great joy and relief, Peter finally showed signs of magic at age ten-just in time. He always tried to play with the other kids in their neighborhood, all magical, but they liked to snub the weird kid who all the adults whispered about to each other, the kid who they all assumed was going to turn out a squib. The other kids liked to tease him, pretend they wanted to play with him and then leaving him somewhere. It happened a lot. But one day, Peter'd had enough. He could hearthem laughing, and it was just too much. The last nerve of a ten year-old who was tired of the laughs and at being the butt of all their jokes. Let's play hide and seek, they said. It'll be fun, they said. They always did this, he was reluctant, but they promised this time that they wouldn't leave him. And just like before he believed them, because Peter wanted to believe people. He wanted to believe they liked him, finally. But as he was counting to ten, he could hear them laughing, and he snapped. Peter stopped mid-count and shouted "olly-olly-oxen free" except it was so loud the entire neighborhood could hear him. His mum could hear him three blocks away, the kids who were running away from him heard it and stilled. That's right, Peter was magic, and it surprised everyone and the other kids looked at him in a new way. He wasn't a freak anymore. Now he was just like the rest of them, he thought, and they would treat him that way. Except they didn't. Because he was still Peter Pettigrew, the kid who helped his mum out in the garden and she was his best friend, all proud of him now to boot. Nobody whispered about him anymore, none of them talked about him at all anymore. Ordinary. And he hated it more than he did being the weird one. He wasn't talented, not like his cousins, he'd taken forever to show magic, the kid who was shy and stuttered but you could just tell wanted friends but didn't know how the make them. There was nothing special about him. Nothing at all. Not even the bad kind of special. It wasn't fair. He wanted to be special, wanted to be extraordinary, wanted to be remarkable. Wanted to be his dad.
Here's the thing: We all know kids like Peter growing up. There's one in every primary class, one in every high school, sometimes even one in every household. This is them: they are small, they are weak. They feel vulnerable. They don't speak up when they see bullies, and they don't say anything when their friends bully them. They just want to be liked. They just want to feel like they belong. So you have to ask yourself what it means to be accepted- what it means to find your star. Why good people do bad things? Where potential goes...Because we like to try and make sense of things, but what about a life really makes sense? Or that maybe sometimes it has nothing to do with what other people do but instead what lies deep within us, buried away until we are knocked about just right and it falls off the shelf, ready to be found.
When it comes down to it, Peter is kid who is uncomfortable in his own skin. He's desperate to belong. But more than that, he wants to fly. And yet...he's ordinary. Ordinary. Defined as commonplace, standard, bearing no special or distinctive features. If you looked it up in a dictionary, you'd probably find a picture of Peter Pettigrew, right there in the book. But you probably wouldn't notice it, because that's how it's always been. Ordinary. It's the worst word in the dictionary. It's a word that haunts Peter, has haunted him all his life. Because that's what he is...commonplace, standard, and bearing no special or distinctive features. And he can never forget it. Nobody will let him.
So it goes.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double-barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
-Beck, "Loser"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Pettigrew was Peter's dad. He was an Auror, brave and strong and proud. He had a wife named April, Peter's mum, and they loved each other so much that it hurt. But on the day April found out she was pregnant with their first child, the man in black showed up at the door. She'd been dreading that man ever since she started to have feelings for Adam, because he meant her husband was gone. Dead. Such a strange concept, to simply not exist anymore. But it's what happens - people die, and they don't exist, and the only way you can keep them alive is through memories and sharing those memories, so that's what April did.
Peter doesn't remember his dad; the man died before he was even born, so there aren't even the fuzziest of memories. But he grew up hearing stories every night of what a great man he was. That's all his mum ever talked about..."your dad" this and "your dad" that. When he was a kid, he wanted to grow up and be him, work for the Ministry and be an auror and save lives. Just like his dad. So maybe some day a nice, pretty woman would be telling their kids stories about him, or maybe he'd be alive to tell them himself. But as time went on, it became increasingly clear that Pete would never be that man.
You see, at first, Mrs. Pettigrew anxiously awaited Pete's first sign of magic. And waited, and waited, and waited. There was a span of two years in which she was terrified he was actually a squib. What would she do with a son like that? It's easy to love your son when you think he has a world full of possibilities, but not so much when you're afraid he's going to be a failure. A nobody. Especially when your sisters have children who are increasingly bright and talented. Especially when there's nothing remarkable about your family in the first place except that they are pureblood. Pete was a good kid, though, and that made it easier. He was so eager to please, so desperate to be loved, so excited to go to Hogwarts and learn magic. So she tried, she really did. She tried to teach him fundamentals of how things worked, the basics. He seemed to catch on with things like Potions and Herbology. He liked to keep her company in the garden, things like that. Never exceptional at it, but he seemed excited and so she let him enjoy it.
To her great joy and relief, Peter finally showed signs of magic at age ten-just in time. He always tried to play with the other kids in their neighborhood, all magical, but they liked to snub the weird kid who all the adults whispered about to each other, the kid who they all assumed was going to turn out a squib. The other kids liked to tease him, pretend they wanted to play with him and then leaving him somewhere. It happened a lot. But one day, Peter'd had enough. He could hearthem laughing, and it was just too much. The last nerve of a ten year-old who was tired of the laughs and at being the butt of all their jokes. Let's play hide and seek, they said. It'll be fun, they said. They always did this, he was reluctant, but they promised this time that they wouldn't leave him. And just like before he believed them, because Peter wanted to believe people. He wanted to believe they liked him, finally. But as he was counting to ten, he could hear them laughing, and he snapped. Peter stopped mid-count and shouted "olly-olly-oxen free" except it was so loud the entire neighborhood could hear him. His mum could hear him three blocks away, the kids who were running away from him heard it and stilled. That's right, Peter was magic, and it surprised everyone and the other kids looked at him in a new way. He wasn't a freak anymore. Now he was just like the rest of them, he thought, and they would treat him that way. Except they didn't. Because he was still Peter Pettigrew, the kid who helped his mum out in the garden and she was his best friend, all proud of him now to boot. Nobody whispered about him anymore, none of them talked about him at all anymore. Ordinary. And he hated it more than he did being the weird one. He wasn't talented, not like his cousins, he'd taken forever to show magic, the kid who was shy and stuttered but you could just tell wanted friends but didn't know how the make them. There was nothing special about him. Nothing at all. Not even the bad kind of special. It wasn't fair. He wanted to be special, wanted to be extraordinary, wanted to be remarkable. Wanted to be his dad.
Here's the thing: We all know kids like Peter growing up. There's one in every primary class, one in every high school, sometimes even one in every household. This is them: they are small, they are weak. They feel vulnerable. They don't speak up when they see bullies, and they don't say anything when their friends bully them. They just want to be liked. They just want to feel like they belong. So you have to ask yourself what it means to be accepted- what it means to find your star. Why good people do bad things? Where potential goes...Because we like to try and make sense of things, but what about a life really makes sense? Or that maybe sometimes it has nothing to do with what other people do but instead what lies deep within us, buried away until we are knocked about just right and it falls off the shelf, ready to be found.
When it comes down to it, Peter is kid who is uncomfortable in his own skin. He's desperate to belong. But more than that, he wants to fly. And yet...he's ordinary. Ordinary. Defined as commonplace, standard, bearing no special or distinctive features. If you looked it up in a dictionary, you'd probably find a picture of Peter Pettigrew, right there in the book. But you probably wouldn't notice it, because that's how it's always been. Ordinary. It's the worst word in the dictionary. It's a word that haunts Peter, has haunted him all his life. Because that's what he is...commonplace, standard, and bearing no special or distinctive features. And he can never forget it. Nobody will let him.
So it goes.