Thank you again to HermioneGranger519! You're the best! And thank you to all of my other reviewers as well! Also, shout out to all those who have followed and favorited this story. You make me happy too :)
Apologies again for leaving you hanging last chapter. Time to see what Peter is up to...
- Cat
Chapter 28
Interlude IV: The Becoming (Peter)
The Riddle House was filled with empty rooms and empty passages. The people there were empty too. It was dead inside.
Peter used to have a book on human anatomy. It was to help with his drawings, a distant memory now. Bone-structure, muscles, joints, and ligaments of the human body all in artistic symmetry. But right now, he was thinking very hard about the…what was that word? It was long and complex… cardiovascular. The cardiovascular system. The heart with its atriums, the arteries, the veins. Full. Blood pumping. Lies. There can't be anything in my veins…
How could Peter be full of blood if he knew he was dead inside? Dead like the Riddle House.
He had been wandering the halls of Hogwarts when he heard the impossible. Remus' voice was echoing towards him, feather-light, but steady. For a moment, he was convinced it was another ghost from his past, there to haunt him with the memory of friends. Because Remus Lupin was insane and it was Peter's fault. Yet there he was, speaking to James about Malfoy Manor. He was different. His hair was more gray than soft fawn. His face was lined and hollow and tired. His eyes somehow held…less than before. But he was Moony.
And there was James, who spared his life. Who grieved his absence. Who never thought he was nothing. And Lily, with her deep red hair and unfailing kindness. She held Harry, who slept peacefully against her shoulder.
In that moment, Peter understood just what he had lost. He did not even realize that he missed it, that he wanted it back. His old friends had moved on without him. I will never have that again.
The death was quick. Not quite painless. He had hoped for them, until the feeling fled. And then he felt… nothing.
"Don't you regret anything, Peter?" No. Regret requires some kind of life.
He reported to Malfoy immediately. He avoided the cellar where he knew Lyall Lupin was being kept. He did the Dark Lord's bidding. He spent his days as a rat, his nights staring blankly in an empty room in the dead Riddle House. And thought nothing. Felt nothing. Except his traitorous cardiovascular system pumping, pumping… always full.
Peter giggled aloud. His body thought his soul was still alive. It was hilarious. The empty room seemed to think so too, because it echoed the sound back at him.
Yes, he was as stark mad as Remus. Except Remus wasn't mad, he remembered.
"Pettigrew!"
Shut up.
"What the hell are you doing in here? You're needed. Now."
Needed. It used to be all he desired, to be relied on. It wasn't enough. He needed to be wanted. To be safe. To not be afraid.
Time passed. It didn't really matter how much. Peter was standing in the sitting room with the fireplace and the high-backed chair. The Dark Lord stood by the window.
"It seems," he said softly. "I was wrong about you, Pettigrew. There was a spy in our midst, one I knew of since the night the werewolf escaped. I thought it was you. I waited, patiently. You proved me wrong. It turns out to be Severus Snape."
The Dark Lord was unusually calm. Peter expected anger. But he stood still, contemplating the view outside the window, the graves sticking up from the earth. His reaction did not fit. Neither did Peter's. He should feel some kind of relief that the Dark Lord believed him to be loyal. Instead, he continued to feel the horrible nothingness.
"You have been very quiet lately, Wormtail," the Dark Lord continued with false concern. "Is something bothering you?"
"No, my lord."
Voldemort turned from the graveyard to look at Peter. Is there a difference in the view, my lord? The corner of the bloodless lips twitched.
"You have a new duty Peter. You'll find it in the northwest corner bedroom on the third floor. I would kill him outright, but he may prove to be useful in… persuading our enemies to give up hope. You're to keep him quiet for now."
If Peter cared enough to ask what the Dark Lord meant, he would have. But he merely whispered, "Yes, my lord," and meekly bowed out of the room. He marched mechanically down the hallways of the mansion, past the ghostly draped furniture and cobweb covered lanterns. It was not until he was four doors away from the northwest bedroom that his numbed mind registered something…
The room was not empty. Or quiet. The sound was piercing, wrenching, and brutally familiar. But it did not belong in this dead place.
Peter's steps quickened, detached from his mind's lack of bidding. He made it to the door. Without even pausing to be afraid, he pushed it open. The room was clearly an old nursery, long unused by whoever occupied this manor last. The curtains were drawn, allowing only a haze of light to enter. Sheets covered most of the furniture like phantoms, except one piece. Peter focused on the dusty crib, where the only occupant of the room was.
His breath ceased.
Harry looked at him with wide green eyes from his blotchy, red face. His lower lip still trembled, but his desperate cries had stopped.
"Wormy," he whimpered. "Wan' mum an' da."
Peter stared at the child. The one who should be dead because of him. "M-mum and da can't come here, Harry," he whispered. Fat tears swam in those piercing emerald eyes. Harry blinked hard and they slipped down his cheeks.
Then… a miracle. His little hands reached out to Peter, small and desperate and innocently trusting.
Something stirred deep inside Peter's dead soul. It was a tiny movement, but it cascaded. The pain was so intense, Peter gasped. He grasped at his chest, but the pain growing into agony was not physical. It could not be eased. It licked at him like flames against ice. Molten metal filling his empty veins and arteries. Peter was captive in it, waiting for it to abate. It stayed constant and excruciating, so he breathed in shakily and stepped to the crib.
"Y-you don't w-want me," Peter told him, hating how difficult it was to speak. But Harry just strained against the crib's wooden rails, hands reaching. If you knew what I've done… Finally, Peter relinquished.
Harry was heavier than he was the last time Peter held him. He clung onto Peter's Death Eater robes and buried his face in the dark fabric. The excruciation was increasing to something unbearable. Tears were on Peter's cheeks now too. And the pain did not stop.
"Don't you regret anything, Peter?" Lily's voice repeated itself over and over again in his head.
Peter blamed it on luck that Voldemort glided into the mock-nursery when Harry was no longer in his arms and his face was dry. The mysterious pain throbbed in his limbs, but he was too petrified with fear to flinch. Coward. He kept his eyes on the ground. In his peripheral vision, Harry stirred, then started to whimper.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort whispered. "The child of the prophecy is now in my grasp."
Rabastan Lestrange entered behind the Dark Lord, his face in his usual stony mask, his eyes cold. Harry's lower lip was quivering. Even the veiled furniture seemed to be leaning away from the tall figure robed in shadow.
"Surely, the prophecy was wrong," Voldemort continued. His voice was high-pitched with derogatory condescension. "How can this pathetic little thing have power?"
From the depths of his dark sleeve, a long white finger reached out towards the boy pressed against the back of the crib. For a moment, Peter forgot his fear enough to twitch, instinct screaming at him to pull the baby away from the demon. But the iron paralysis of terror was renewed and held him in place. Coward, coward… Voldemort's finger drew nearer. Harry was mute with fear, watching it with wide green eyes.
But as soon as the finger brushed the child's face, Voldemort snatched it back as though burned. Peter started where he stood. He caught a glimpse of the pallid flesh, pink and raised in a blister.
"What is this?" hissed the Dark Lord. Beneath the shadowy robe, he was coiled like a snake about to strike. Without warning, his wand snapped toward Harry. "Crucio!"
"M-my lord-" Peter stuttered before he could stop himself. Phantom pain lurched through his body.
But Harry just stared back into the merciless crimson eyes. Untouched. This was something bigger than luck.
Voldemort made a sound that made Peter want to run far away. Memory of his master's reaction after Remus' escape rose like bile.
"Impossible." Voldemort's denial was like needles in Peter's ears. And then the Dark Lord addressed him with venom. "Stop sniveling like a coward, Wormtail. You nearly ensured the brat's death months ago. Is your stomach too weak to witness what you've wrought?"
Peter quailed and tried to make himself small. "N-no, my lord."
The snake-like face narrowed in on Harry again. "I was wrong. Perhaps the boy does have power… Lestrange, get me Rookwood."
Without another word, Voldemort swept from the room, the door slamming behind him and Lestrange. The walls shuddered, shaking dust into the air like specters. Finally, Harry let out a long wail. It demanded something… comfort.
But Peter was frozen. This is what you've wrought.
With sudden certainty, Peter could name the agonizing pain in his soul. Remorse. And with it, his soul could feel again. He could feel the paralyzing fear of being trapped in this dead place. Of Harry being trapped in this dead place. He needed to do something-
But he couldn't…
"Go away," whispered Remus. His lips were chapped and bloody. Throat was raw from screaming. "I-I can't," Peter responded, wishing he could. "He'll kill me."
Coward. His heart was constricting. The atriums were emptying faster and faster. Bitter adrenaline stung his tongue. I can't go back… He broke the Marauders. They would never be whole again.
"Come on, Pete, let's try again." Remus encouraged him, holding a sky-blue feather between his thumb and forefinger…
"I-it's okay, Harry," he said, faltering over the near-forgotten words. "It's okay." He forced his feet to move, taking leaden steps to the crying son of his friend.
"You were our brother… You were not nothing to me."
Peter lifted Harry and held him close, hating how hard he was trembling. His hands were clammy with nervous sweat. He couldn't go back. But he also couldn't-couldn't-let the Dark Lord try and harm Harry again. He had already failed him too many times.
Sirius grasped his hand.
What should he do now?
"We solemnly swear that we will be bound as brothers until the end."
What do I do?
a/n: So...
Did you see that coming?
This storyline for Pete is basically extrapolated from his final moment in the books, when he regrets hurting for a infinitesimally small moment, which ultimately leads to his death. I said at the beginning of this tale that I find Peter's character an interesting one. He is very, painfully human. And very, painfully relatable in many cases. I will say that finding his humanity was not as hard as I expected, especially since I allowed the other Marauders to survive. Seeing him from the eyes of his friends, both in flashbacks and in the present really helped.
(Explanation for Chapter Title: From the quote, "It hurts to become," by a poet named Andrea Gibson. Also, from what Hermione Granger said about putting one's soul back together after splitting it to create horcruxes. I combined the pain of remorse with the pain of finding oneself through suffering. In Peter's case, the death of his self through betraying his friends.)
I'm very interested to hear your thoughts, whether similar or different from mine!
IMPORTANT A/N: Remember when I said I'd warn you if it would be some time before my next update? Well, I'm going to be out of town for the next week with little to no time to write or post anything. Next update will hopefully be either next Thursday or Friday (6/29 or 6/30), so about a week from now. I promise we'll return to see what James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily are doing at that time. Adios, until then!
