Slumming It
The first time I met James Potter, I was eight years old. Short, and slightly overweight, I was neither athletic nor was I handsome, and I definitely wasn't brave.
I have never been brave. Right after my speech impediment, cowardice is my most notable trait.
James was a bully. He, apparently, had always been two things: near-sighted, and cocky. As long as I knew him, he never stopped being either, and what he could have possibly wanted with a kid like me (other than to use as a punching bag) I never knew. I was just happy to have someone other than my annoying younger cousins to hang out with.
James may have been a bully, but he'd never bullied me.
I met Sirius Black quite by accident, and under most unfortunate circumstances. While James had some sort of fondness for me, Sirius did not, and had James not come looking for me that very first day on the train I likely would have spent my first night at Hogwarts in the hospital wing.
If James was a bully, then Sirius was a terrorist.
He had caught me alone and unawares in the loo, and unlike James, he didn't show sympathy for the short, stuttering, fat kid. No, there was no pity in his eyes, only contempt and malicious glee.
I can't remember how many Stinging Hexes he cast on me, or how long he made me dance uncontrollably before James came to my rescue. What I can remember I how much pain I was in and James threw the door open, wand at the ready. I remember seeing the look on his face when he recognized Sirius, and thinking that this was it – he'd finally found someone to replace the fat kid, and now they would torture me together.
But they didn't. For all James being a bully, he was my friend, and when Sirius invited him to join in, he just shook his head. "Save it for the Slytherins", he'd said.
And Sirius had.
I've been decidedly twitchy ever since.
By the time the train had arrived at Hogsmead Station I was so terrified of the prospect of being sorted that I was trembling. I don't think I've ever wished as hard for anything as I did for the Sorting Hat to ignore my lineage. "Not, Slytherin, not Slytherin." I begged it, chanting the words in my head as thought it were some sort of prayer. "Please, anything but Slytherin."
And it obliged.
"Gryffindor!" It announced, and I was too relieved then to read too much into it. Now… now I wonder if I would have been able to save myself, if I had just let the hat do its job.
No matter – that's all water under the bridge now.
We met Remus Lupin in first period Herbology. I remember that day – and him – clearly, because he had to go to the hospital wing halfway through the class period after James and Sirius' horsing around knocked him into a bed of aconite. He had an extremely violent reaction, and James felt so bad afterwards that he insisted that the three of us pay the bloke a visit.
I remember thinking that it was strange that Remus had such a bad reaction to it. Of course, when I later discovered that he was a werewolf, it would all make sense, but at the time it was just odd.
I never knew why James decided to befriend Remus either. Looking back, I blame his hero complex, which his son would inherit years later. Yes, James had 'saving people' thing, and it was something awful too. Harry does it because he's noble.
James did it because he's conceited.
In all of our times at Hogwarts, there was not one person that James saved that he did not endanger himself, or have Sirius endanger on his behalf. From that one Ravenclaw with the pigtails, to the infamous 'Whomping Willow Incident', all of the students that were 'saved' by James Potter wouldn't have been in any danger at all if he hadn't taken an interest in them.
Severus Snape was not an exception.
I don't know what he did to James and Sirius on the train, but whatever it was put their hackles up something fierce, and Snape's friendship with Lily Evans only made things worse for him.
Looking back, it's a wonder that James didn't befriend him too, as obsessed as he was with taking on the dregs of society. But then again, Snape was a Slytherin, not to mention he fought back, especially in Lily's defense.
James and Sirius were not pleased that someone managed to consistently foil their 'rescue' plans – that it was Snape was simply icing on the cake.
It was obvious from the start that Snape and Lily were two halves of a whole, and it should have been obvious to James and Sirius that if anyone would be saving her, it would be him. After all, it was obvious to me and Remus.
Despite our observations, James and Sirius continued to attempt to stage 'rescues' of Lily, and when Snape continued to beat James to his glory, the targeted him – mercilessly.
I'll say it again – James was a bully, and Sirius was a terrorist.
At first, the confrontations started out as relatively harmless – much less so than what Sirius did to me on the train (after all, Snape never developed a twitch) – but as time wore on, they became more aggressive. Honestly, I have to hand it to Snape -- he was usually outnumbered, but that never stopped him from giving as good as he got, and then some. He should have been in Gryffindor, not me. I probably would have begged my parents to transfer me to a different school, had I been in his shoes.
As it was, I was on the inside, looking out.
In our third year, I figured out Remus' secret. James and Sirius both thought it was the most brilliant thing ever that Remus changed into an animal, however dangerous and uncontrollable it was. Mastering the animagus transformation became the Marauders' top priority. By the end of fourth year, we could all do it. We used to go running in the Forbidden Forest on the full moons with Remus in his wolf form, and he and Sirius would howl at the moon together.
I always thought that Sirius like Remus more once he realized that he was dangerous.
The following year saw the invention of the Marauder's Map, which made it easier for James and Sirius to flush out Snape. This turn of events spawned several confrontations, including the 'Lake' and 'Whomping Willow' incidents – both of which occurred during the time we took our OWLS. How Snape managed to obtain twelve of them, I don't know. He may have been the Marauders' mortal enemy, but he was by far the most brilliant mind in our year. It was amazing that he didn't make Head Boy, what with all of the 'Outstanding's that he received.
Perhaps it was this brilliance that drew the Dark Lord to him. Perhaps it was his dueling skills. One can only speculate really -- it's not like I'll ever get the chance to ask. It is certain, however, that the Dark Lord didn't pick me at all, let alone for any of those reasons.
I stumbled into his service quite by accident.
I met Sybil Trelawney when I was a child and, friend of the family or no, the woman had always been odd. Over the years I saw less and less of her – she was in Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor didn't have many classes with them, although we should have – and it wasn't until sixth year when everyone else started pairing off that I actually stopped and wondered what happened to her.
By the time I found her again she was… different. Attractive, definitely (that is, if you're into willowy girls with curly hair and glasses), and she ran with a decidedly darker crowd. The timid, quirky Sybil that I had known was gone, and in her place was a loud, raunchy Sybil who drank and swore like a sailor.
Sybil was a good girl gone very, very bad, and it turned me on more that I care to admit.
Sybil ran with the LeStrange brothers, who were widely known supporters of the Dark Lord. They're not the sort that I would have hung out with on my own, but with Sybil… well, let's just say that with Sybil around, I'd do just about anything.
That something included taking the Dark Mark.
It happened on a Tuesday. Sybil and I had snuck out after curfew to meet the LeStrange brothers for our weekly round of drinking and bar-hopping. It was something that Sybil had been doing for a while by the time I joined in, and it was something I didn't mind doing so long as Rabastan didn't get so plastered that he couldn't apparate us back.
This week, however, was different. Instead of taking us to some dive bar in London, we were taken to the Dark Lord. Apparently it was mandatory for new recruits to present others as prospective Death Eaters. It was supposedly a test of their willingness to serve. Sybil was completely sloshed, and spent the entire time rambling about Merlin-know-what. I however, was sober enough to be coherent, and after several rounds of Legilimency, Veritaserum, and Obliviation, I was returned to my dorm none the wiser.
Or so they thought.
As it turns out, I was good for something – at least in the Dark Lord's eyes. A natural Occlumens, removing my memories happens to be near impossible. I returned to where I had been taken, furious that they had attempted to tamper with my mind, and proceeded to hex Rabastan from one side of the courtyard to the other.
The Dark Lord was very, very impressed. So impressed in fact that he marked me on the spot, and I am ashamed to admit that I was too happy to be acknowledged to do much protesting.
And so I became a Death Eater.
I won't lie and say I didn't enjoy myself. There's something about being able to hold your own against a fully trained Auror that makes you insanely proud of yourself, and even plain-faced coward like me needs to feel important.
And I did – at least until I realized that my fellow Marauders wouldn't be joining me.
James and Sirius were bullies and enjoyed every moment of it, and Remus was a werewolf with barely any right to speak of – they were all prime candidates for the Dark Lord's service. If there was one of us that wouldn't have made the cut, it would have been me. As it turned out, the other three-quarters of the Marauders were so far indebted to Dumbledore because of the 'Willow Incident' the previous year that getting out from under his thumb would have been nearly impossible. So, when it was my turn to present the Dark Lord with a new recruit, I chose the only person I knew who might fit have fit the bill: Regulus Black.
Despite his eagerness to prove his worth to his family, picking Regulus was a bad idea. He was younger that I was, for one, and he didn't have the stomach or the fanaticism for some of the things Death Eaters were required to do.
I wasn't surprised when he turned up missing a few years after leaving Hogwarts. He always was too trusting for a Slytherin, and I'd always thought that he was the better brother, between the two.
Sirius and James never really grew up, and Remus and I grew up too fast. Despite being involved in school, Sirius distanced himself from Remus during the War. There was a spy in the Order, of which we were all a part, and while Sirius never came right out and accused him, he made no effort to hide his suspicions regarding Remus' whereabouts for most nights out of the week, and Remus – quiet, docile Remus -- was too ashamed of his poverty to tell Sirius about his Muggle job. Although the misunderstanding caused tensions to run high, I couldn't help but feel relief. If they'd ever stopped accusing each other, they would have had time to accuse me, and I didn't want to know what would have happened then.
As it happened, I never needed to worry about that. The Dark Lord had been vanquished by the time they'd stopped pointing fingers.
I don't regret betraying Lily and James. For all of his friendship, he treated me and Remus both as charity cases, bullying us into compliance whenever we disagreed with him. And Lily… I'll admit that she didn't deserve to die, but I didn't really know her. By the time she gave birth to Harry, James had painted a target on both of their backs with his overly-confident ways.
It's one thing to tell the Dark Lord 'no'; It's quite another to insult him while doing so.
The only thing I regret about that Halloween is that Harry was orphaned. James and Lily made their choices, as did I, and Harry shouldn't have paid the price for it. The Dark Lord pulled their location out of me using Veritaserum, not that I fought him much – by then I knew better. I was kept in confinement the entire night with Snape watching over me, and neither of us could have warned them in time. It was a poor choice on my part, and maybe if I had known in advance that the kid would live and grow up abused I might have chosen differently.
Oh well, it's all water under the bridge now, and there's no going back. Not for me anyway. I spent twelve years in hiding as a rat, and if that doesn't say "Unrepentant Death Eater" I don't know what does. I told Sirius and Remus it was about the power.
I lied.
Power never held any allure for me. Recognition – now that was a worthy goal. And I got it, in the end. I'll go down in history as the man who:
betrayed the Potters,
killed 12 Muggles while simultaneously framing Sirius Black (the only person to eve escape Azkaban on their own) and faking his own death,
hid out in his animagus form for twelve years, right under Dumbledore's nose
Resurrected Lord Voldemort, and
Killed Voldemort's snake, thereby assisting in his defeat.
Now that my spot in the history books has been cemented, I can retire to some remote island country that hardly anyone around here has ever heard of –maybe someplace on the other side of the planet.
I've heard Nauru is an excellent place for terminal cancer patients like me.