DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the content referenced/quoted. Warning for swearing.
...
The Split Path
Em is standing in a strange hallway.
In front of her stands a destroyed staircase, its insides torn open to reveal sharp broken planks of wood and a deep cavernous hole where the cupboard under the stairs once stood. Bits of broken plaster are piled high beside her. Dirt and debris are scattered everywhere, the remains of a house, a loving home, reduced to rubble around her. It is dark, a little moonlight edging out from another room; Em takes a step towards the light.
A woman screams from upstairs, piercing her thoughts. She turns to the sound.
A thick silence falls, and Em stands uncertainly on the threshold of the broken stairs.
"Hello?" She whispers.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches," a voice whispers from the darkness. "Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
The cold voice whispers to her from all directions, as a shiver wracks her spine.
"...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."
There's a faint sob. Em turns and stills.
The scene shifts and changes around her, until a new room materialises around her. A long dark tunnel now stretches before her, and new voices echo in the distance.
"Hey!" Her cries fill the dark void. But there is no reply.
She starts down the tunnel, her gaze lingering on dangling roots and moss covered corners.
After what seems like hours, she finally reaches an exit. She pushes through the darkness, eyes blinking at the sudden light until - she pauses. The muddy floor has given way to creaking scratched wood, the roots to overturned and destroyed furniture, and the darkness to eerie moonlight.
Em looks up to see the moon, large and full, hanging low in the sky peeking out from one of the broken windows.
A dark sound rips through the heavy silence, somewhere behind her. She freezes. The sound, a low rumbling growl, comes again and she turns.
In front of her, two men tower over a third, wands pointed towards him, tracking every shift and twitch of his body. The first is tall and narrow, dressed in patchwork robes, his shoulders hunched in a tense line; the second man is in a terrible state, with long hair that hangs in greasy clumps around his ears, a pale sallow face, that is so painfully thin, Em can see his cheekbones protruding from under his skin. He is dressed in rags that hang pitifully off his skeletal frame.
The third man is the smallest, and is scrabbling in the dirt before the others, his face hidden behind his hands which are curled apologetically upwards.
"You don't understand!" The third man says, his body trembling, "He would have killed me, Sirius!"
The skeletal man shoots forward to grab a fistful of the third man's grey shirt, "Then you should have died! Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!"
Then something changes, the men shifting until Sirius and Remus are standing in the place of the tall man and his skeletal friend. Em steps forward, reaching for the ghostly apparition of Remus, but neither take notice of her. As she grows closer, she looks down to see the third man shrink into - Peter Pettigrew.
"Peter?" She gasps.
Peter looks up at her, his grubby face twisting into a sick grin and his teeth wickedly sharp.
He lunges.
Em startles awake on the sofa, eyes blinking against the darkness. She is trembling, despite the warmth of the living room. A crescent moon, low in the sky, shines through the window, casting a little light on the shadowy room.
Something is wrong. Something is very wrong with Peter Pettigrew.
Em gets to her feet slowly, trying not to disturb Cass. Her eyes are puffy, and she snorts, burrowing deeper into Fabian's jumper. The sight of her sister devastated even in her sleep makes her heart ache - but she does not linger.
She has a promise to keep.