Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
I Don't Care
The cell is filthy, but I don't care. The blanket I am left with is threadbare, but I don't care. The other prisoners are shouting, screaming, crying, but I don't care. How can I care, when Lily and James are dead? The dementor's pass my cell, once, twice, three times a day, but they don't affect me. The worst memory of my life is on repeat in my mind anyway, the worst sight I have ever seen is plastered to my eyelids, it is all I see. I know I am innocent of course, I know I could never betray them, my brother and sister.
Innocence doesn't matter in here though.
I thought I would always feel anger towards Peter, but here, I don't feel anything but cold. Numb. I should feel anger, pain, sadness, anything but I don't. Maybe I will someday, but now, I feel nothing but cold.
Padfoot helps me. When I transform, the emotions come back, but they are less human, far easier to deal with that they would be if I was in my human form. I transform everyday, in a strange attempt to keep myself feeling human. It seems strange, even in my messed up mind, that I need to change to a dog to feel human, but that is what I do, and it works.
I think about Harry a lot, I hope he is having a good life somewhere, and I hope he knows all about Lily and James. I hope he's a little prankster like his father, I hope he's a little firecracker like his mother, and I hope he's safe. I think about Remus too, though that is painful. I've tried to feel angry that he believed I could do such a thing, but I can't. I believed it could be him too. I hope he's been looking after himself.
I've been here for years, or maybe weeks, or maybe decades. I don't know. I don't care. I've given up the hope that I will be taken from my cell, to the ministry, for a trial. I feel...I don't feel anything about it. When they captured me, when Peter escaped, I laughed, because I though they would take me straight to trial by Veritaserum, and they would realise just how stupid they had been.
It was much later when I realised it was me that had been stupid.
Its often strange, the things that bring clarity to a mind. I had sunk into mine, passed the time by wondering just how long it would take me to die in the cell I called home. Then Fudge came by, and with him, he brought the prophet. I only asked him for it because he looked far to smug when he peered into my cell. It unsettled him as much as I hoped, and it was me that was feeling smug when he handed it through the bars.
The rat.
Front page news, the Weasley family, and in the back of my mind I could remember Arthur and Molly Weasley and their many children, were on the front, smiling and waving at the readers. I recognised him instantly, how could I not, and fear gripped at my soul as I read the article, where it proclaimed that the youngest boy, the one Peter sat on the shoulder of, would be returning to Hogwarts. Harry would be there, my Harry, my Godson. My Harry would be in danger, and I was the only one that knew.
I had to do something. Finally, after many years of feeling nothing, of caring about nothing, I had a reason to live again. Harry needed me, and I would be damned if I let him down again.
Written for the Monthly OneShot Competition for Prompt #24 Cold.
Written for the Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge - Marauder Era Fic.
Written for the Star Challenge - Sirius