Itinerarium Maraudentium Or The Roadmap to Love and War

by MissMcGregor

Theirs is a story told around magical fires and bedsides, one of love, loss, and betrayal. It is a story that created heroes and the worst of villains. It is a story that sparked a war. But do you know the whole thing? How the betrayer was unwilling, young love a war, their loss not only physical? No. So listen, and decide for yourself whether the storytellers told it right.

1. Prologue

Prologue:

A crescent moon sat sinister and cold in the sky, slanting through gaps in clouds heavy with rain. The time of night was late-or early-and the deepest hush lay across the countryside as beast and man slept. Only the sounds of a dense wind carried through summer leaves disrupted an otherwise impeccable, velvety quiet.

Yet there was one man, a boy truthfully, who noticed the silence of things sleeping and the signs of an oncoming storm. He hadn't slept much at all, in fact, due to the letter sitting in his lap. Tucked away in his room with the door locked, he had no need for light to read the letter. The words written in thick ink, soaked into the heavy parchment, had burned themselves into his mind. They sat there, smoldering and burning, repeating themselves over, and over, and over…

The boy folded the letter and tucked it away, hidden from a mother's prying eyes. If she found this, oh if she found this, he thought, he would be finished, his life ruined. It didn't matter that the events described in the letter would take place even without his unwarranted help. Simply being a part of something so horrible, involuntary or not, would be enough to hang him…or worse.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and the boy in his bed, watching the moon judge him, cried silently. There would be no end to this, he knew, just like the letter said.

This is the just the beginning, Pettigrew. There is no running. I know what you value most dear.

And, unbeknownst to Peter, his correspondent knew him better than he knew himself.

Authors Note: This is my first fanfiction. Ever. So reviews would be lovely! I intend for this to be a full length story, with many chapters, so reviews would be much, much appreciated. Thank you for reading! (Also, I do not own J.K. Rowling's characters)