At the Paw of a Rat
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Harry Potter series. Wish I did, but I don't. I also don't own The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. See if you can figure out who this fic is about if you didn't already know. :D
Author's Notes: I decided to do this one-shot fic. Got inspired to do it. Italicized things are either quotes from The Dark Tower series or words that are accentuated in the story.
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"You want to know the only thing my brother ever had to teach me?" His voice was hitching and thick with tears.
"Yes," the gunslinger said. He leaned forward, his eyes intent upon Eddie's eyes.
"He taught me if you kill what you love, you're damned."
Growing up in my family was tough. Especially with my father. He was one of those big hot shot guys. He got so much power, it corrupted him. He literally threw up his money and yelled, laughing manically, "I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich!" It was disgusting really. Very horrid.
But when things came down to it all, and they naturally always do, I had to love him. He was my father, after all. All little boys look up to their fathers and try to get them to notice them, don't they? All I wanted was for him to be proud.
Which is why I had to have the best friends, the coolest crew, whatever you want to call it. I could come home and tell my father how popular, smart, and athletic I am. Even though I am certainly none of those things. I just wanted him to see me.
"I am damned already," Roland said calmly. "But perhaps even the damned may be saved."
I always admired James, Sirius, and Remus. For their intelligence and the way they could always stand up to anyone, anytime. For example, how Sirius stood up to his mother and his entire family. He never wanted to be a Slytherin. He wasn't snobby, he wasn't cold hearted. He was Sirius. And he knew it. Or for Remus, standing up to the entire wizarding world. I stand up and salute, my old friend.
However, I still had an undying itch to be the very best. To have power, to be noticed. It was either late in my Hogwarts years or early when I graduated that I met him. He claimed he would be all powerful. He said he would share it with me. That I'd have that taste of glory I had been longing for my entire life. And like a sick little puppy being offered a new home, I gave in.
"Are you going to get all of us killed?"
Roland said nothing.
Eddie seized the rags of Roland's shirt. "Are you going to get her killed?"
At first I was skeptical. This seemed dangerous. And oh, it was. So very dangerous. But at then I had no clue. I didn't know what was in store for me. And by the time I realized how much this would cost me, how many lives it would take down, I was too far in to back out without being killed or shamed. So, when Sirius told me, I tried to keep it to myself. I tried not to tell him the secret. That damn man that is filled with pure evil. But he threatened me with power, the chance to let everyone know who I was, and I couldn't turn that down.
"We all die in time," the gunslinger said. "It's not just the world that moves on." He looked squarely at Eddie, his faded blue eyes almost the color of slate in this light. "But we will be magnificent." He paused.
I never wanted to hurt James and Lily or their little boy. I wasn't doing anything wrong…but I was. I wasn't being the innocent boy everyone thought me to be. I wasn't being clumsy or foolish or just plain stupid. I was being retched, evil…it disgusted me. I disgusted my own soul. And I began to be corrupted. But nobody knows power like this man had. I had good intentions. Then again, can you really have good intentions these days?
"There's more than a world to win, Eddie. I would not risk you and her--I would not have allowed the boy to die--if that was all there was."
"What are you talking about?"
My father, he had to be proud now, didn't he? Everyone that ever doubted me, didn't they now see that I was a force to be reckoned with? Or did they just see me as a little rat, a little minion to the most evil thing to ever touch Earth? Wasn't anyone proud?
I got my answer when I met up with Sirius again. He was in violent, angry tears as he stared at me that day. With nothing but pure hatred in his eyes. What did I do so wrong? What happened?
"How could you?.." he had whispered to me that day. Sirius had trusted me, making me the one to hold the secret. But I had betrayed them all. For power. For pride. And now Sirius had to fight, I knew he did. He had to fight for his friends, for himself, for everything good in the world. But I was scared.
"Everything there is," the gunslinger said calmly. "We are going to go, Eddie. We are going to fight. We are going to be hurt. And in the end we will stand." Now it was Eddie who said nothing. He could think of nothing to say.
So I once again ruined someone I had once loved so much. One of the best friends I had had, I smashed him in the dirt. He was sent off to prison in a far away place that no innocent man should even have to hear of. And it was all because of me. I wanted to quit, I wanted to get out, but I was just so far in. It hurt, thinking of myself now. Of how many people I had hurt. All those people I had once known, I had once loved dearly.
Roland gently grasped Eddie's arm. "Even the damned love," he said.
Eddie eventually slept beside Susannah, the third Roland had drawn to make a new three, but Roland sat awake and listened to voices in the night while the wind dried the tears on his cheeks.
Sirius found his freedom, but eventually it was taken away from him again. Remus and I, the last ones left. How is it so? I sit up too many a night, pondering this and many other things. Things of which I had been the cause. Things I never meant to do but did anyway. What did I get from it? And I now realized: Nothing at all.
Damnation?
Salvation?
The Tower.
He would come to the Dark Tower and there he would sing their names; there he would sing all their names.
One day, one day I'll stand up for them. One day I'll fight. I'll be just like those I so very admired. I'll fight for them, I'll die for them, I'll cry out for each and every one of them. If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure they know, whether up in Heaven or still down here, that I am so very, very sorry.
The sun stained the east a dusky rose, and at last, Roland, no longer the last gunslinger but one of the last three, slept and dreamed his angry dreams through which there ran only that one soothing blue thread: There I will sing all their names.
While getting vengeance…on who? Myself, I suppose…while getting vengeance on myself, I know nothing will patch up and heal the wrongs that I have committed. I can never make things right again. If only I could change everything, change how things turned out. But I can't. I will always be a simple rat. The one nobody notices. The one nobody is proud of.
And I don't think I'll ever be saved.