Being on the run is a living nightmare for me. Each setting and rising of the sun is accompanied by the knowledge of what they'll do to me if I'm caught. I have to be smarter than them, quicker than them, a rabbit outfoxing the hounds. Doing the impossible.
It doesn't help to know that not one living person gives a damn about me. They'd just as soon see me dead as alive. Sooner, rather. To them, I'm just one more person who killed a lot of people a long time ago.
Of course to me, that day burns in my mind as if it was yesterday. But there's one major difference between my memories and everyone else's. In their memory, I killed three of my best friends and twelve Muggles. In mine, Wormtail did. Wormtail killed them and framed me.
I've had thirteen years to think about it. Thirteen years to sit and brood, for my anger to simmer beneath my skin. Thirteen years for the grief to fade, and thirteen years to plan my revenge.
I will have it, mark my words. I will kill the little rat in retribution. He killed James and Lily. A part of me died with them. What's left will drink his blood.
I hardly dare to sleep now. They're on my trail, those wretched creatures that never sleep. They want me, they want my soul. If I take the time to fall into oblivion, to take the rest I so desperately need, all will be lost. The traitor will return to his master, and destroy Harry.
Harry...did I say Harry? I meant James of course. James and Lily. Harry's the only thing left of them, the last bit of evidence to prove that they ever existed. Their living legacy. A legacy too easily betrayed by the same who betrayed us so many years before.
I'm tired now, so tired. Even in this alien form, no longer so different, I need rest, though perhaps less than I need as a human. I must keep going though, I must prevent the rat from escaping.
Resigned to my fate, I locate a shrub that promises to provide some shelter. My eyes close, but my mind remains awake, prevented from true sleep by the knowledge that every moment may be my last.