The piercing scream cut through the air and I threw the thin blanket over my head to try to keep out the noise. It had no effect. The growling continued and I knew that in a few minutes, there would be silence until Snape's front door slammed shut. I waited.
The bang came and then heavy footsteps sounded on the wooden floorboards. I tensed, knowing exactly what was about to happen.
"WORMTAIL!" The voice snarled up the narrow staircase. "DOWNSTAIRS!" The words were hardly audible underneath the rasping and hissing. Quickly, I scurried out of my room, down the cracked wooden steps and pushed open the false bookcase with my hand.
He sat in the armchair opposite the front door, blood dripping from his human face, his hair matted around his cheeks and his yellow eyes blinking expressionlessly at me.
"Water." I nodded frantically and shuffled off towards the kitchen. By the light coming from outside, I stood in front of the sink and ran the tap, filling the glass with a shaking hand. As soon as I handed it over, the bloody-faced creature finished the water in one gulp. I hovered, motionless by the door, wondering if he would scream after me if I left the room.
Greyback dropped the glass to the floor, where it smashed into pieces. He snarled maliciously.
"Clear it up." My hand was still shaking so much that I could hardly hold the wand straight. It took me three attempts just to vanish the pieces and as I stood up, Greyback stepped close to me. I choked at the stench of his breath in my nostrils. He smelt of blood, of decaying flesh, of corpses. I tried to step backwards, terrified, but he grabbed a fistful of my robes with his hand. I noticed that his fingernails were long, yellow and covered in bloodstains.
"You worthless piece of scum," he hissed at me. "How did an idiot like you ever survive the Dark Lord wrath?" I blinked helplessly in his grasp, petrified to speak in case I had the wrong answer. "If you weren't the Dark Lord's pet rat, I'd have killed you months ago. It would have been too easy." I shivered in fright. Greyback snarled once more and shoved me roughly away from him. "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!" he yelled at me. I obliged, scuttling all the way back to my bedroom as fast as I could.
It was Christmas Eve. I sat on the edge of my bed with tears pouring down my face. Just who I was crying for, I didn't know.
I was fed up. I could admit it to myself, if to no one else. Everyday I wished that I could escape, that I could get away from Snape's house, from Greyback's constant bloodshed, from the Dark Lord's grasp. I didn't want to take sides at all. I just wanted to stay hidden away from the rest of the world. I curled up on the bed and cried myself to sleep.
I was crouching behind the sofa, biting my nails, crying silently into my knuckles and telling myself that it would be over soon enough. Both of my hands were pink and whole, unscarred. I peeked tentatively at the back of the man who Greyback had brought home.
He howled in the middle of the room, still in human form but just as murderous, just as dangerous and just as blood-thirsty. He held the man by the hair, hissing gleefully in his face. I heard the man's echoing scream as Greyback tore his skin with sharp teeth. I buried my face in my palms.
"Wormtail," he growled. "Come out and watch this." I heard a soft moan and I removed my face from my hands. Greyback was going to force me to watch him murder someone? "NOW!" he roared in fury. I stood up quickly, knocking the sofa as I did so. When I recognised who was restrained in Greyback's grip, I gasped in horror.
Remus stared into my eyes, horror and cowardice met bravery and strength. I took a step towards Greyback.
"Don't…" I stammered. He laughed, a wild and menacing sound.
"You chose your side sixteen years ago, Wormtail," he hissed. "We don't protect our old friends now." I swallowed hard. News of Sirius's death had reached me a few months ago. Remus was the last of the friends I had once had. How could I let him die in front of me?
"I can't let you do this…" I whispered. With a nasty smile on his face, Greyback shook his head.
"You will let me do this. Or you will take his place."
Tearing my eyes away from Remus's tortured expression, I stared down at the carpet and shuffled back towards the sofa. Greyback let out a satisfied burst of laughter.
I hadn't died for my friends in the past. Sixteen years later, that fact hadn't changed.
Sweating, trembling, crying, I awoke in the pitch black. The distant chiming of a clock downstairs told me that it was midnight. Christmas Day.
Had that been a dream? I knew in my mind that it had but it had also been very possible. Had it been reality, I doubted that I would have acted any differently. My future was set to follow a very distinct path. Betrayal and loneliness would eventually culminate in death.
If I had the chance to go back in time, I wouldn't take it. I wasn't brave enough to change my actions. I wished that I had done differently but I knew that no matter how many times I repeated the past, I would never change it. I wished that I could. I never would.
It was Christmas and a part of me which seemed to grow more dominant every year longed to be able to celebrate it once again. There was no Christmas with the Death Eaters. For my Christmas Eve, I had listened to the sound of Greyback mutilating a young Muggle girl in the abandoned house next door. He hadn't even transformed into a wolf and he was still prepared to bite, to wound and to savage. His monthly transformations caused me emotional pain too. I stayed locked upstairs, far too terrified to risk exposing myself. I usually transformed into the rat and huddled at the bottom of my bed until I saw the first glimpse of sunlight beginning to pour through the moth-eaten curtains. Sometimes, I spent the full moons thinking of Remus, knowing that he would be transforming too, wondering if he had anyone with him to ease his suffering. I knew that I shouldn't still care for him after everything that I'd done but I couldn't throw away seven years of close friendship. I could just about bear to hurt Harry Potter if I had to obey the Dark Lord's orders but to imagine my old friends in pain, suffering, made me whimper with guilt and sorrow. I was forever plagued with memories of the Shrieking Shack and my schooldays when I was forced to listen to Greyback on a full moon.
Somewhere, in the distance, the bells stopped chiming. I angled my head to glance out of the window and I noticed a few white flakes starting to tumble out of the clouds.
"Happy Christmas," I muttered to myself. By next year, I wanted to be free from the Death Eaters. I wanted to have something to live for.
All I could do was hope for something better.