Chapter 12 : Peter's Plan

The air was heavy with the scent of cookies in the oven. A slight breeze made the golden trees shiver. Lily Potter admired the view snugly from behind the window. An immense amount of a quilted blanket she had been sewing lied on top of her stomach that was still mildly swollen from the burden of birth. Her husband was in the hallway hammering a nail to the wall, a family portrait of himself, Lily, and a bloated, big-eyed newborn.

Lily, who had in truth been waiting anxiously, could discern the distinct knocking from the unskilled pounding James was performing in the other room. The rap tap tapping took her back to her schooldays ... o! the midnights when they hungered for her!

James also had a tinge of nervousness that was evident in his manner of hanging the portrait. At the sound of his wife's voice it came crashing to the floor.

She poised herself like a reclining Madonna, desiring to appeal to their visitor the same way she had not all that long ago. The door opened a tiny crack, the flood of autumn light falling upon her.

"Peter!" James said almost hoarsely. "We've been waiting."

"I-I know," Peter apologized. "Business and such-such ... things."

"About that thing we needed to talk about, I was thinking--well, in a whirlwind of crazy things I was tossing around last night after Sirius called us I just figured, I dunno, I just--"

"James!" Lily shouted, by now feeling wronged for the lack of attention that was being paid to her. "I think the cookies are ready." She batted her lashed and made a slight head gesture toward the kitchen. Peter's ears pricked up at the mention of baked goods.

"Oh! Right," James said and walked toward the oven and absentmindedly patted his wife's shoulder.

On his way he was sidetracked just as easily from his destination as he had been from the point he was trying to bring up with Peter.

James' spotted the cracked picture frame lying desolate and forgotten on the hallway floor. He picked up the frame and headed to the garbage to empty the shards. Thwacking the frame against the can shook loose all the glass but one piece that resided stubbornly in one corner. Obeying his thorough nature, James pried at the piece, but in removing it he sliced his index finger wide open.

"Oh, gosh darnnit!"

He pivoted on his way to bandage the finger that was bleeding profusely when he collided with his wife. Lily rubbed her forehead and momentarily spotted James' injury.

"You should get Peter to help you with that," she said and then added after a second "He has amazing hands."

"W-What??"

"No joke. I pricked my finger while finishing Harry's blankey. He held my hand and took the pain right away like that!" she snapped her healed finger to emphasize her point. "Now, I'm going to put this in the baby's room and then we can all sit down and have our little talk."

James headed back into the living room, completely absorbed in his wound. Peter rose obediently when James beckoned him over.

"Oooh, that's a big mama," Peter said, to which James responded with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, I can take care of it."

James Potter held out his hand, palm up, the blood dripping steadily onto the polished wood floor. Peter Pettigrew's pudgy fingers sandwiched the wound far more gently than what was expected of his clumsy character. Peter's finger then traced delicately around the perimeter of the cut, his left hand circling beneath his patient's hand. Soon there was no more trickling blood.

"Not even a scar," James marveled, raising his hand to the light. "Where'd you learn that, Petes?"

But Peter didn't respond. And somehow he looked slightly different ...

Peter's head swam. His body didn't feel like his own. The duty he had just performed gave him a satisfied aura of importance. It wasn't often he felt important.

He examined his own hands in the musty room. They were silver in the late night, but his palms might as well have been painted red.

Upon leaving the Potter's home Peter found himself at the Death Eater's HQ, more exclusively, in his master's private chamber.

In front of him was an entire wall of jars. Shelf upon shelf, the entire area was flooded in gleaming glass containers. In the jars, each one ornately different from the other, resided frogs. They were not the average mold-colored toads. Each looked like they had been captured and experimented on by fans of the Grateful Dead. Their slimy, brilliant flesh reflected the moonlight like inviting jewels.

It was by sheer luck that Lord Voldemort wasn't in the vicinity at the time. In his slightly crazed state, Peter told himself he didn't give a flying expletive if his master was in the bed to his right at that very moment.

He picked up the ax on his left. The power of the simple tool filled Peter's body with a maniacal and destructive nature. He raised his club like a savage and brought it down with all the brute force in his squat figure.

Splinters, glass, and amphibian entrails flew through the air as Peter hacked and labored tirelessly. His sweat and determined glare made him out to be a crazed Greek god of iron works.

Abruptly, he heaved the ax and it flew dangerously into one corner of the room. Immediately it combusted, the flames consumed only the ax itself.

While his discarded destruction aid crackled in the corner, Peter gnashed at his own hand, biting off the tip of his middle finger. The blood he had absorbed from the Potter's wounds flowed exclusively over the useless wood and mountain ranges of treacherous shards. It mingled with the toads that kicked their final moments of life through cold-blooded legs. Peter held up his hand to cease the blood flow while he maneuvered through the battlefield to his master's bedside table.

In a glittering golden jar all by its lonesome hopped a purple and orange toad. With curiosity that is deeply disturbing when painted on the countenance of a madman, Peter picked up the jar. He held it between his blood-caked hands for a moment, observing the creature he knew gave Voldie all those bizarre and harebrained ideas. Inside this glass was the source of Voldemort's strength and power.

Without a wince, Peter crushed the jar and amphibian between his hands. He laid its limp body on the down comforter and with the final drop of Potter left the spot of a forged signature upon its broken breast.

"Well, it's bedtime for me," Lucius said, his high pitch trailing off into a yawn.

"Good God, man! It's only eight o'clock!"

With disgust, Severus and Narcissa stared at the man at the end of the table. Through the haze of smoke and drunken stupor they watched as Lucius tied his infamous pink bathrobe that boasted the initials "L.M." on the left breast.

"Early to bed, early to rise, Sevy," Lucius retorted with a cheerful nature that wasn't often found in the sleepy.

Severus let out a derisive gust of air that blew the smoke of his slim cigarette across the table. Narcissa inhaled it without conscious thought.

"I know," she said, examining her two treasured queens that were stuck in a mess of useless threes and a two. "He's always pullin' crap like this. Like on our honeymoon. Except, I was the first one to fall asleep there."

Severus and Narcissa erupted in cackles while Lucius placed his hands defiantly on his hips. He waited a few minutes for their sniggers to subside and when they did the disapproving look on his face was washed away and replaced with his usual perky expression.

"Now now, kids," he said, trying but not succeeding in sounding like a parental figure. "You two don't stay up too late, alright?"

"Yes, sir," Severus replied mockingly while Narcissa blew a raspberry at Lucius.

When the last swish of pink robe disappeared up the staircase, Narcissa pulled another card out of the deck and took a gulp of one of the many liquids that littered the table.

"Imagine living with it," she said, shifting through her cards.

"Don't have to, I know all too well the ways of the dim-witted one."

"Honest to gawd, you can slip anything past that man."

Their eyes met.

"Give him a stuffed bunny to play with an he'll be distracted designing its home and sketching dress patterns for it." Severus threw down his cards and stood up with haste, never leaving Narcissa's gaze.

"Ya've got him down to a tee," she said, tossing aside her cards as well and knocking over a few glasses. She stood as well, and leaned across the table. They stared, nothing but the smoky air between them.

Then, very abruptly, they both erupted in mutterings of disgust and sat back down and continued the game as if nothing had happened until the early morning.