Patterns
The night set softly
With the hush of falling leaves,
Casting shiv'ring shadows
On the houses through the trees…
As Lily cooed and rocked Harry to sleep, James pushed aside the drapings and gazed out the window. He had felt something, as if all was not well in Godric's Hollow.
"What is it, James?" Lily asked, looking up from Harry, whose bottle-green eyes were half-closed.
James shook his head and forced a reassuring smile. "It's nothing, love." He turned back to the window and listened to the eerie silence.
And the light from a street lamp
Paints a pattern on my wall,
Like the pieces of a puzzle
Or a child's uneven scrawl.
"James, Lily, look out!"
Remus's eyes flew open as he jerked awake. He abruptly sat up, a cold sweat trickling down his face. Wiping off his brow with the back of his trembling hand, Remus transferred his gaze from the shadows chasing each other along the wall to the window.
He fell back onto his pillow and sighed. His "premonitions" were normally uncannily accurate (like real wolves, Remus possessed a sixth sense for the future, heightened by his wizard abilities), but he doubted the likeliness of this one ever happening. Sirius was the Potters' Secret Keeper and best friend. He could never be the spy. Though Dumbledore did say that the leak was someone close to James…Remus stopped that train of thought before it could progress any further and laughed at it. Peter would be the spy before Sirius was! And everyone knew that could never happen.
Remus rolled over and fell back into a fitful sleep, and, despite his reassurances, his misgivings still filled his dreams.
Up a narrow flight of stairs
In a narrow little room,
As I lie upon my bed
In the eerie midnight gloom…
Lily lay in the bed that she and James shared, caressing Harry's cheek and whispering for him to fall asleep. He finally drifted off, and, with a loving smile, she placed him gently in his crib. She pushed back a lock of the baby's already wild hair away from his face.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang: the sound of a door being forcefully opened. Concerned about what James might bee doing, Lily hurried down the stairs and into the foyer.
"James, what's – "
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off – "
"Avada Kedavra!"
Lily's eyes widened in shock as her husband stiffened and fell over, a look of horror and concern forever frozen on his handsome face.
"James – " she choked, her hands flying to her face as the tears started to flow. She looked up to find herself staring at Voldemort, the Dark Lord himself. His gaze switched from James's body to Lily's brilliant green eyes, and a malicious smile stole onto his features.
"Take me to him," Voldemort hissed, "and I will let you live…"
"No!" Lily shrieked, her eyes flashing as she hurled the wooden statue by the staircase at him, hitting him in the belly. Voldemort doubled over, wheezing, and Lily turned and fled up the stairs.
A thousand thoughts were racing through her mind as she ran to the bedroom. How did he find us? Who told him where we were? Did…no…did Peter betray us?!
She reached the room where Harry slept and flung herself at the crib scrambling to pull the baby into her arms and escape.
"Lily…"
The woman whirled around to find Voldemort standing in the doorway, his wand leveled at her – no, at the crib behind her. Sweat trickled down her neck and face, causing her hair to stick to her skin, and she was terrified, but her love for her child had already decided her fate.
"Not Harry! Not Harry! Please – I'll do anything – " she pleaded, tears coursing down her cheeks.
"Stand aside," Voldemort demanded, but Lily did not move. "Stand aside, girl!"
In that moment, Lily's resolve hardened, and she lifted her chin in determination.
"Never," she whispered.
Impaled on my wall
My eyes can dimly see,
The pattern of my life
And the puzzle that is me.
"Where could they be! How is it possible that NONE of you can find the Potters for me?" Voldemort roared, flinging one of his many Death Eaters against a tombstone in his rage.
Quivering, Peter Pettigrew raised his hand. "Excuse me, Master, but I know where they are hiding – "
Voldemort whirled on the twenty-one-year-old, and cast a choke hold on him with his wand.
"Where are they?" the Dark Lord growled, his magic's hold tightening on the squirming Peter.
"I-in Godric's Hollow. I-I can lead you t-to them, My Lord."
Voldemort released him, and Peter fell to the ground, gasping for air and massaging his neck. The Dark Lord strode over to him and yanked the rat Animagus violently to his feet bringing him so close that Peter could smell the foul stench of his breath as he hissed, "Why did you not tell me sooner?" Peter whimpered.
"Please, Master, I just returned from visiting – I mean, spying on them, and – "
"Enough!" Voldemort flung him down and pointed his wand threateningly at Peter's face. "You will lead me to them. Now."
Peter woke in his bed, trembling all over. A memory. A memory from just moments before, moments before he had led his master to the Potters, and now he was "safe" in his bed in his family's house. He whimpered, pulling the covers over his head. Had he really done it? Had he rally betrayed Lily and James? Handed them over to Voldemort, just so he could have some of his and their power?
He lowered the covers, his tightened muscles relaxing. He had, hadn't he? The young man, boy, actually, turned onto his side and coolly stared at his shadow on the wall. As he gazed at it, the shadow changed, becoming something evil, sinister…treacherous.
Just as he had become.
From the moment of my birth,
To the instant of my death,
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath…
Remus pushed aside the drapes, peering out into the cold, moonlit night. He gazed up at the growing crescent moon. It had been days since his last transformation, and he was not looking forward to the next. But that was not what he was concerned with on this cold Halloween night. He had a horrible feeling that Lily and James were in trouble – but that was ridiculous, as he had told himself earlier this night. But the nightmares would not go away.
Remus shook his head and allowed the window's hangings to fall back into place. That was one thing he really shouldn't have to worry about – Sirius would never betray Lily and James, even if someone forced him to swallow Veritaserum. Sirius would find away around telling.
He was certain of that.
For now, he had other problems to worry about. Such as the next full moon, which was in eleven days. Remus sighed and fell backward onto his bed, laying still a moment as his fears for the Potters chased each other through his mind before crawling under the covers.
"Ouch!" Something was poking into his leg…He reached down by his leg and pulled out a small animal claw from the bed. Remus tossed it at the wall, from which it bounced into the trash. Damn lycanthropy. It would never leave him alone.
Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters
Until…the rat dies.
"Excuse me, sir…Would you mind letting me borrow your newspaper. I have a fondness for filling out the crossword…"
The minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge, stopped as Sirius Black called out to him from his cell in Azkaban. He pointed at himself, looking very bewildered as he said, "Are you talking to me?"
"Yes sir," Sirius replied, nodding. "It's been a while since I've done the crossword. Are you finished with your newspaper?"
Still a little stunned at Sirius's level of sanity, Fudge walked over to the cell and held the newspaper out at arm's length, as if he was afraid Sirius might bite his hand off.
"Thank you," said Sirius sincerely. Fudge nodded as he slowly backed away before hastily walking down the corridor.
"Foolish man," Sirius muttered as he withdrew into the confines of his cell. "He needn't have worried…he's not the one I want to kill. Never did like him much, anyway." He was flipping toward the crossword when a photograph caught his eye, and he stopped.
In the picture was what had to be a family, though there were many of them. They all looked too much alike to be otherwise, and they were standing in front of an Egyptian pyramid. But that was not what had captured Sirius's attention. It was the rat sitting on the third tallest boy's shoulder. Altogether, it was not a very peculiar-looking rat, but it looked all too familiar to Sirius Black. As he looked closer, he nearly dropped the paper.
The rat was missing a toe.
There was only one rat that one could be, and that was not really a rat at all, but an Animagus: Peter Pettigrew. Sirius remembered all too well that wretched Halloween night. He had been at home, listening to the Wizarding Wireless Network and fretting whether switching to Peter had been the right thing to do, when an announcement came on the radio, stating that there had been an enormous explosion from the small village of Godric's Hollow. Sirius knew that that was the village Lily and James were hiding in, though he did not know which house, so as soon as he heard that, he was on his flying motorcycle and off to Godric's Hollow.
He had known immediately which house was theirs when he arrived in the village, as it was the only one that had been completely and totally destroyed. He also became aware of the one thing he had been dreading: Peter had been the spy. And Sirius had convinced Lily and James to switch the position of Secret Keeper from him to Peter. Making it his fault that Lily and James were now dead.
The rest of the story is history. Sirius went to search Peter out, and when he did find him, the little rat framed him and landed him in Azkaban, where he had been imprisoned for the past twelve years.
His heart pounding, Sirius scanned the article, looking for some clue. And then, he found it:
Hogwarts.
Wormtail was attending Hogwarts as the boy's familiar. Sirius's eyes lit up, but not with hope. No, all vestiges of anything even remotely like hope had long been drained away by the dementors. Instead, his eyes burned with something far opposedto hope: renewed anger, and the desire for revenge.
"I have you now, Wormtail," Sirius murmured, and then, he laughed.
The pattern still remains
On the wall where darkness fell,
And it's fitting that it should,
For in darkness I must dwell…
Wormtail gazed at his paw, where he was missing a single toe: the finger that he had cut off to strengthen the story that landed Sirius in Azkaban. This was his mark: the mark that, if nothing else, proved that he had betrayed Lily and James – no, all those he had called friends. All the friends that he had ever known, just to serve a man who was lost moments afterward. And what did all that trouble amount for?
Nothing.
Now he had to constantly hide in his rat form, never revealing what he truly was to his new "master."
Like the color of my skin,
Or the day that I grow old.
My life is made of patterns
That can scarcely…be controlled.
"You will pay, Wormtail."