Disclaimer: No, the work of Harry Potter is not mine. Never was.
Picking Strawberries
Peter doesn't know why he's remembering it now, back in Voldemort's headquarters after a battle, but he is. Still, the memory is vivid in a dusty way, and there's no nostalgia to be found.
(Him and his mum went to strawberry fields, one of those places where you can pick lots of fruit and vegetables and put them in containers in dusty red and brown wooden wagons.)
His mum hummed the tune of some song which she said was about strawberry fields, while Peter focused mainly on picking the reddest, plumpest, biggest, juiciest strawberries he could find hidden in the vines, nestling next to each other in clumps of two or three.
(And his cheeks and his fingers and his clothes were stained red, red as blood, from the strawberries.)
He ran around on the vines and tugged at strawberries, sometimes pulling them in not quite the right way, spilling yet more red juice onto his small pudgy palms. Some he threw back onto the ground as soon as he inspected them a bit more, or did the same after taking one bit.
(Because they had hidden sides that were awful yellow-green, or they tasted too sour. So they sat forever and some more on the ground between rows of vines, rotting and gathering dust while flies settled on them.)
The strawberry juice continued to run down his face, bright ribbons of red winding around his neck and down his shirt, making him giggle and scream.
(One of the few times his giggles would intertwine with red.)
And he gobbled up the strawberries, pushing them into his mouth and spitting out half.
(The yellow-green sides sat unexposed, leaving unassuming toddlers to find them again and find half-eaten strawberries, greenish rotting strawberries.)
After many joyful hours spent Peter and his mum left, carrying plastic containers full to bursting with strawberries from the cream of the crop, specially picked by Peter.
(Yet the ones who he rejected sat gathering dust, sitting yellow-green forever and some more.)
He's like a strawberry, Peter realizes, cheeks stained with dried blood held in bloody hands. Not the plump juicy red ones he had looked for, but the other ones. The ones with yellow-green sides and sour tastes on the tongue. The ones that get thrown out and sit in the dirt gathering dust forever and some more.
(Because he was thrown out of the Marauders, the dirty rat traitor he is, because Sirius and Remus saw his yellow-green side, tasted his bitterness.)
But then he was picked up again, thought to be red and big and juicy, and the toddlers that were Voldemort and his Death Eaters welcomed him eagerly, because they saw a big red strawberry.
(Except they saw his yellow-green shriveled side, too, but instead of throwing him out onto the ground to gather dust like sensible toddlers, they kept him and just ate him, leaving only the yellow-green shriveled part out of their mouths.)
He's a strawberry, Peter knows, but he was once red and juicy and plump, but now only the yellow-green sour part left.
(and the almost eaten strawberry that is Peter sits yellow-green in the dirt, to gather dust and rot forever and some more.)
A/N: I was trying out a new style here, so constructive criticism is definitely appreciated.