November 1981
A man enters the scene, his face is dark and threatening, rippling in concentration and fury. His handsomeness is blacked out by the demonic thoughts that go on under his scalp. Yet anger like his cannot be contained by the brain and spreads out: to the heart that pumps harder, to the blood that reddens, to the stomach which trembles. Everything about this man speaks his anger, people leave him a lengthy lane. His eyes turn downwards, but still see everything. He sees the man he is looking for and raises his head.
'This street is busy,' he thinks, 'it's the ideal place.'
"Pettigrew!" he roars, the syllables are stretched out to almost disintegration and his voice overpowers every other sound. No bird, car or human can be heard over this roar. Everybody stops and looks at the fury unleashed. Then, when he extends his arm, people awake and scoot away. But one man.
"Hello, S-Sirius," the rat-like man replies meekly as he faces his opponent. He is not impressive: perpetually bent, fingers curved. His watery dim eyes reveal an equally dim mind, sealed in a soiled soul. "My old friend, Sirius Black," Pettigrew smiles a watery, meek smile, but his tone carries a subtle difference. A flash of surprise comes on Black's anger riddled face, beneath the meekness, lies… a jeer?
"Can you imagine what you have done?" Black shouts back, drawing his wand. Pettigrew does not reply, instead he simply looks over his shoulder. For a brief moment, his smile is an open smirk. He comes closer to Black, the latter remains unmoved, but his face shows evident disgust.
"I-I have learned," he states slowly and quietly, "I have l-learned a lot, Sirius." Pettigrew steps forward, "From you, from h-h-Him, from everybody!" Pettigrew hisses the last word, lifting his paw-like hand as if to stroke Black's cheek as a lover would.
"Get away from me, venomous worm," Black lashes out. Pettigrew simply shakes his head knowingly.
"I know h-how it feels," he continues, then gestures at the street, "this." Black's frowns. "You know it too, now" Pettigrew says, a hint of triumph in his mousy voice. Black set a step backwards. Pettigrew only looks behind him.
"You will understand," Pettigrew says, "but l-like you always preached: true understanding, comes only after acceptance of it's true nature."
"I'll blow you to from Zeus to Hades!" Black roars and raises his wand. Pettigrew only smiles.
"You will pay for what you did to James and Lily, you m-monster!" Pettigrew shouts, draws a knife and with one swift cut his finger drops to the ground. Containing a shriek, he draws his wand from nowhere.
"CONFRINGO!" a heavier voice bellowed. The road is ripped open, everybody behind Pettigrew disappears in a cloud of dust and rubble. Black is blown away by the power of the explosion. A rat flies and falls, it scurries around and disappears in the dust filled sewers.
All anger has been swept away from Black's face while he crawls back to his feet. Between coughing inhaled dust, a smile creeps on his complexion.
'A genius, a stroke of geniality,' Black can't help himself but a laugh wells up from his throat, it quickly grows to maniacal dimensions the laugh and the understanding of every word Pettigrew said, overpower the strong wizard. He barely notices the aurors who bind him with many a restrictive spell and take him away. He laughs himself to court, he grins on the journey to Azkaban. But the horrible truth of Azkaban takes away his joy. Where weeks turn to months and days resemble years there is no room for happiness, only for darkening reflection. The shock of the genius that Pettigrew had shown had taken Black's mind away of the hard reality, but the world of waiting and suffering the ministry had condemned him too forced him back.
July 1993
"Is this everything?" a huge moustached official asks. The skinny guard nods. "What is this?" the official asks.
"A personal notebook, we allow each prisoner one," the guard says, "we take the books away when they stop writing, because then it has no use anymore."
The moustache nods, and takes the notebook and browses through the increasingly irregular writing. "It seems that he goes over his trial time and again, vowing a violent end. He is insane, the mindless ramblings of a deranged man, I can see it in the handwriting. There is no need to read it. Burn it with the rest of his belongings."
As it falls in the fire, the book opens on the last page. In an irregular, shaking handwriting, but with a grammatically remarkably coherent content:
"Sirius Black, you have been found guilty on the charge of complicity to murder on James Potter and Lily Potter, née Evans as well as the murder on Peter Pettigrew, have you anything more to say?"
Yes, I have, he was brilliant and he was right. I know now what it is to be the one who doesn't understand, who is surprised at the abilities of someone else. I have accepted it and see it's true face: I lost. Yet, I have hope, for I can also see beyond, to the future. I made mistakes that need rectifying. I need to get out and kill him, only then he and I will be safe and at peace. Peter, I long for you, but our next meeting will not be joyous. I will startle you, even better:
I
Will
Kill
You
.
.
.
Authors note:
Erinye and Clytaemnestra: the title is based on the murder of Agamemnon conducted by his wife Clytaemnestra and her lover. Although Agamemnon was not as spotless as chalk and Athena considered the murder just, the story is an almost fit to the events J.K. Rowling describes. The Erinyes are in Greek mythology the goddesses of revenge, the furies of Roman mythology.