This is my first story here, so forgive me if it's not good or if I can't update regularly. You know work and all may affect things.

I don't see many Peter stories, so either I don't search well and am missing out or he's not a popular guy to write about. Also sorry if a similar fic exists, I swear that I have not read any so far and any similarities just shows a common thought pattern and I will be glad to take down a story if someone think I infringed on their Intellectual property.

All Doctor Who material used is solely for this chapter to enable the time-travel and will not be present the rest of the story (unless actually requested for), so sorry for any bad Who jokes and your regularly scheduled Potter will continue after this...

I have no beta, so sorry if any mistakes come through.

As usual: Don't own anything, blah blah blah

Penitence

"Awake, Case number 24607!"

Case number 24607 opened his eyes groggily and blinked profusely. All around him was pure white light and it really hurt his eyes.

"Awake, Case number 24607!"

He shook his head, trying to get his bearings, sniffing the air around him out of habit and fear. All he could remember were green eyes, emerald green eyes looking into him. Anger, fear, hate echoed in those green eyes, yet there was also pity there. He blinked again as his eyes adjusted more to the light.

"Stand, Case number 24607."

He could now tell that the voice was … feminine in nature. A bit familiar, yet also foreign at the same time. He grabbed his right hand with his left as a memory surfaced. Something about strangulation and flashing silver, something about… Portly? Porter? Potter? Yes, Potter. He opened his eyes a sliver to look at his arms, both were there and fully flesh.

"Are you ok, Case number 24607?"

Case number 24607 turned towards the voice and slowly opened his eyes fully. In front of him stood a lady in a greyish-blue uniform holding a clipboard of some sort. Her hair was a frizzy mousy-brown mess and a pair of black spectacles framed her grey eyes. He looked up and saw the room he was in was pure white and was lit by glowing globes that floated around.

"Can you understand me, Case number 24607, known also by the designates 'Peter Pettigrew', 'Wormtail', Scrabbers' and 'That damn rat'?"

"Y..es." Peter Pettigrew replied, surprised his voice still worked. "Where am I? What am I… wait, you look familiar. Granger?"

The lady in the uniform raised an eyebrow. "I see that your memories are slowly returning. That's good."

"I am not the 'Granger' you know, I assure you, though I do not know which 'Granger' you *do* know, but I am *a* Granger." She continued, smiling a bit as Peter's facial expression showed he was a bit lost now in the logical flow of her statement. "I am case worker Samantha Patrick Granger-Weasley and I am in charge of your case. You are now on the Justice Department Vehicle Number 6015, christened the Teselecta II-B. Though the Captain wanted it to be called the Temporally Adroit Rune Driven Interspatial Ship or T.A.R.D.I.S for short, but was denied the pleasure."

Peter's confusion increased even more and he felt like he was talking to a Lovegood about the existence of a cross-breed between a Nargle and a Crumple-horned Snorkack and it was evident on his face.

"Ok, let's break it down simply for your primitive brain. We are on board a humanoid–shaped time machine. We, the crew of this time machine, locate people deemed guilty of crimes who showed regret at their own actions at the point of their death or moments before. We then find them near the end of their respective timelines, extract them out of time a millisecond before their death and offer them a second chance at life. To correct the wrongs they regret."

"Second chance?" Peter's mind grasped at the one thing that seemed important. He did regret the evil he did in his life when the Dark Lord Voldemort returned to power. Yes, he defected to the Dark Side, causing the death of his friends James and Lily; yes, he framed his other best friend Sirius and caused him to go to Azkaban for a decade or so and yes, he brewed the potion that brought about the rebirth of Voldemort. But each of these things he had done out of fear.

Fear that he and his beloved mother would be killed by Voldemort caused him to betray James and Lily; fear of his betrayal being found out caused him to frame Sirius and the reason he sought out Voldemort, returned his wand and performed the ritual to restore the Dark Lord's body, was the fear of the Order finding out he was not only not dead, but had done all that he had done and the subsequent repercussions of those actions.

After Voldemort came back into power, he began to regret it all. The bullying from the other Death Eaters didn't help much, but not the first time in a very long while, his conscience started to prick at him. Every time he looked the silver hand Voldemort gave him to replace the one he had cut off, he felt that he had done something tremendously wrong and the silver hand just highlighted it daily, pointed it out like a teasing parrot every time he moved his hand. And the worst thing is that every time he had such thoughts the hand would twitch violently until he pushed such thoughts away. The damned hand knew his thoughts and was ever ready to punish him for insubordination.

What he did know deep inside his heart, as the days went by and Voldemort took over Hogwarts, was that he had made a mistake all those years ago when he defected. And every action he took was either to cover up his mistakes, his fears or his inabilities or to escape from the truth. And that every such action just caused things to get worse for himself like a downward spiral.

Why else did he not do anything except be a pet rat to the Weasleys, why else would he not have attacked and killed Harry Potter when he was basically in the same dorm as him for an entire school year. He was afraid and didn't want to do anything to make the situation any worse that it is. He never knew why the Hat sorted him into Gryffindor. Maybe he was not cunning enough, not smart enough and not loyal enough for the other houses. The hat dumped him in Gryffindor because there was no where else to put him.

Now he was being offered a chance to change all that. All that Peter had gone through with Voldemort had truly changed him, all the grovelling to avoid punishment by Cruciatus, all the simpering to please the Dark Lord, all the things he did to cover up his own guilt just caused him to end up in a bigger, deeper hole, they had made him hate himself all the more each day. Change, a discarding of the Peter Pettigrew that he had grown to hate, a reset of his entire life. Maybe he could now become the Gryffindor the Hat thought he could be instead of
the fool he had been.

He realised he didn't even question in his own mind what the lady had told him about a second chance, he immediately just accepted it. So he asked hesitatingly "What do you mean by second chance? And how do I know what you are saying is real?"

Samantha smiled. "It is real. We have Summoned you into our vessel magically to prevent your death, the Teselecta itself has transformed itself into your likeness and is right now taking your place in Malfoy Mansion pretending to have been strangled to death by your hand."

"My hand is no longer…" Peter interjected and pointed to his right hand. His memories of the silver hand still plaguing his mind, it being the very last thing he remembered.

"Ah, right. The hand. We removed it from you surgically when we brought you in and have recreated a flesh and blood hand using some technomantic procedures that even I can't properly explain. Maybe I can ask Doctor McCoy if you truly are curious. But simply put, your hand is restored to you and you don't need to worry about it."

"But let's not digress. As I said, we Summoned you into our vessel and the vessel will temporarily assume your dead form while we brief you on our offer. The Teselecta can manipulate its size and shape via the various magically powered runes that drive the vessel, as for us, the passengers, just think of us as miniaturised by a Rune-powered compression field as long as we are within the Teselecta." Samantha explained as Peter's face started to show signs of confusion again.

"The offer is, as I said earlier, to give you a second chance. Our temporal scanning systems have deemed you sufficiently repentant at the point of death to grant you a choice of reliving your life or going on to the Great Beyond. If you choose to relive your life, we will transfigure some random debris into your dead body and leave it in your place, bring you back to a point in time that is suited for creating a temporally divergent time stream and allow you to live your life again. If you choose to not relive your life, we will send you on to the Great Beyond peacefully with some potions that will ease you into the next great adventure easily."

"Do I have to decide now?" Peter asked. Without the threat of Voldemort looking over his shoulder at every action he did and probing his mind with Legimancy and without the stress of trying to stay alive (well, he was supposed to be already dead, he felt), Peter wanted some time to think it through.

Which surprised him.

Peter had never really been a thinker. That was always more Remus' field. Peter always followed his Fight or Flight instinct and his own creed of following the strongest person, be it James Potter in school or Voldermort after. He had never sat down and thought things through like that.

"You have about 2 hours to decide." Samantha replied as she got up and walked towards the door of the room they were in "After that we have another case to work on, Case number 24608, a Draco Malfoy…"

Peter's head snapped up at the name, but Samantha had already left the room and the doors were just closing behind her.

Peter looked down at his feet. He had no reason to reject this second chance, none whatsoever. Why did he even want time to think it through? After a long while of sitting there thinking, he realised why. He sub-consciously never wanted to make rash decisions again, decisions that would cause him to regret.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not even come up with a scrap of a reason not to take the offer. There was absolutely nothing that he had in life anymore, no more friends, no family and no cause to live for. For him to live his life again, to correct his wrongs, was a blessing. The things he could do, be a stronger person and not hide under James' coat-tails, find love, actually make a difference in the world. Stop being the weakling that everyone says he is.

When Samantha returned a couple of hours later, Peter looked her straight in the eyes as she walked through the doors and told her with a resolute voice: "I'll take the offer."

"Good, most people take the offer and I don't think any of them have regretted it since. Let me first brief you on what to expect. We will be returning you to your first year in Hogwarts, before any major solidifying event happens, so that the time stream can easily diverge without much difficulty. It will also allow you to change more of your life in the way you desire. As the very action of returning you to that point in time will diverge the time-stream, events may not happen the way it had in your own past and you are free to take any action you want without any fear of disrupting the time-lines but you must never let anyone know of your knowledge from your own time-line. Think of your current memories of your own past as what might-have-beens, and make new memories to replace them." Samatha looked at Peter. "Any questions?"

"Err… what exactly do you mean by 'events may not happen the way it had in my own past'?" Peter asked.

"What it means is that Voldemort might not rise to power, or that he might appear earlier this time; James Potter might not marry Lily Evans; Sirius Black might not be kicked out of the Black Household; Severus Snape might not be a Slytherin. We are putting you on the Hogwart's Express, just as it leaves King's Cross Station, Anything that happened before that point in time did truly happen, anything after that may change either due to your actions or by chance. Not everything is a Fixed Event that must happen and sometimes simple actions of turning left instead of right can change the fate of an entire universe due to the repercussions of that single choice." Samantha explained, but it only caused Peter's face to scrunch up in further confusion. With a sigh, Samantha just said "What happened before you got on the train to Hogwarts happened, anything after that can change and may not follow what you remember. Just don't try to tell anyone about the event from your 'previous' life, just try to live a new one"

"I think I get it…" Peter said hesistantly.

"Well then, it's time for you to go then. I'll bring you to the Temporal Launch Bay for the start of your whole new life. Try to make it a better one." Samantha snapped her fingers and two guards entered to escort Peter out. "It's just a formality, don't worry about them"

Peter got up and followed the guards out wordlessly, still sorting out the details in his mind, but if the only rule he had was not to talk about his past, he was glad. He was ashamed of it, why would he want to talk about it?

He walked through corridors of what seemed like metal walls coloured the bluest blue he had ever seen, but nothing shocked Peter anymore after being pulled from his own death, so he just accepted it as normal for these people, what did he know about temporary ajar whats-its.

He arrived in a circular room with rune circles on the floor made of bright dots of lights. He looked at Samantha, who nodded towards the rune circles and said "Just walk into the LED circle and you will immediately be transported to your destination, no need to be afraid. Good luck, Mr Pettigrew."

Peter Pettigrew took a deep breath and walked forwards into the circle of lights and was blinded by a sudden flash of red light, causing Peter to shut his eyes and bring up his arms to shield his face. When he finally opened his eyes and let his arms down, he saw himself standing at a very familiar spot.

King's Cross Station, just after you walk through the barrier to Platform 9 3/4s.

A/N: It's short I know, but I didn't know if this story would be well-accepted and didn't really know if I should continue with it. If I get enough positive reviews, I will continue, else I will try another story.