Part 1
He hadn't been a Death Eater for nearly long enough – two weeks at most. Profes- Albus had said he needed a spy, and he'd volunteered almost immediately. He suspected he wasn't Albus' first choice, but there weren't enough pure-bloods in the Order of the Phoenix to be fussy – and anyway, he had a smattering of Occlumency: enough to persuade the Dark Lord that he'd never really fitted into Gryffindor House, and that he understood and agreed with the values of the Death Eaters.
How he'd managed it, he didn't know. He suspected that his fear hadn't been nearly as well-hidden as he'd hoped, and he also thought that it had counted in his favour. The Dark Lord liked his followers to be terrified... and therefore loyal.
But he'd only been a Death Eater for two days when he first had to kill someone. He hadn't bargained on that: he'd thought that spying would mean he was just an onlooker, standing on the sidelines, never getting that involved: immune, somehow. Stupid really, but he'd always been a bit naïve.
And then today they'd raided Diagon Alley – an ambitious target if ever there was one. He'd known they wouldn't be able to do it, not yet, but he'd kept quiet.
He'd told Dumbledore about the planned attack, of course, and the Death Eaters had Apparated straight into the ambush. There had been a lot of confusion, and he'd suddenly found himself fighting alongside the Aurors, and then he'd sent a Bone Breaker in the Dark Lord's direction, and from then on his death warrant was signed.
Of course, they wouldn't kill him just like that. No, the Dark Lord had grabbed him and Portkeyed to the usual meeting-place, and they'd all stood around him and taken turns at torturing him.
And now he was lying face down in the mud, dreading the next curse, hoping for death, and wishing he hadn't ever had the stupid idea of buying the Dark Lord's protection for Lily and his friends. It would be worth nothing when he was dead.
He ached. Countless Crucios had made it painful even to breathe. His fingernails had been pulled out at some point, and he was missing several teeth. Something was wrong with his tongue... and then he realised that it had been sliced longways inside his mouth. So that was why he could taste blood. And he could only see out of one eye.
He felt sick. Even if he could have transformed, it wouldn't have done him any good. Over thirty wands were trained on him, and anyway, he wasn't sure he had hidden the secret of his Animagus as well as he'd thought.
And finally – finally! – the Dark Lord stepped forward for his own, individual revenge on a traitor.
The curse that pulped his bones was a variant on the Bone-Breaking Curse – the Dark Lord's own peculiar sense of irony. And then the Death Eaters Disapparated, leaving a deserted moor and, barely visible beneath the eerie light of the Dark Mark, the remains of James Potter, to be found – or not – in the morning.