Title: Six Months
Rating: PG
Type: Once again, ANGST!
Six months will do it to anyone. Six months of endless torture. Six months of wishing you were dead and waking up to find your prayer has been denied. Six months of nightmares, real and unshakeable. Six months of complete and utter hell. Six months would make anyone crack.
James was a god to me, more real then any omnipotent being I was taught to pray to. That one never answered back, but James did. I'd say, "why do you suppose clouds are white James?" and he'd say, "it's so cold up where clouds are, that the air freezes and turns white." James always knew what to say. Even if it wasn't right, I didn't care-- he always answered me back.
He kept me around, James did. I knew what Sirius and Remus would say, always telling him I was worthless when they thought I couldn't hear. Always saying I slowed them up when pulling practical jokes and pranks- their reason for living. But I heard them, I always heard them. And still, James made them see, made them listen to reason. He'd say, "nah, Peter's alright," or "he hasn't got anyone else!" That's right, James was my saviour. He saved me from suffering alone through that extruciating time people with inappropriate fondess call being "a teenager."
And when the four of us decided to be animagis, and the only one I could pull off was a rat, Sirius and Remus mocked me. "Loose a hundred pounds, Peter, and you won't have to transform," Sirius would say. I almost gave up all together until James told me he thought a rat was a perfect idea, a useful creature. That prophetic intuition was probably the only one that James ever got right.
After Hogwarts, when everyone went off to persue their dreams, James would owl me with an encouraging note once and a while. It'd say, "Don't worry Peter, you'll be great someday." He was right, someday I would be great, just not how he or anyone else ever imagined. When James got married, the notes became fewer. When he had a child, they stopped completely. That is, until he wanted something-a secret keeper to be precise.
But as I hung, shackled and restrained against the wall of that cursed dungeon all those years ago, I was shown just how little I really mattered to James Potter. A man, hooded and hidden from prying eyes, used his wand to create a projection, a window into the present upon which I could spy on my James. Every day I was forced to watch as a dutiful father returned home from work to a beautiful wife and a perfect, tearless child. Every day I was reminded of my insignificance to the man I reveered as my own personal deity.
That's when it began, the hold the Dark Lord claimed upon me. I had been abandoned, like a sickly orphan left in a crowded, chaotic world. The Dark Lord showed me that I had my own strength of sorts, different then Sirius' pride, Remus' intellect, or James heroism-it was different because it was uniquely mine, not borrowed. Mine. Maybe it was the numerous blows to my head, or the hallucination that comes with starvation. I don't know, but I killed my James.
At first the Dark Lord convinced me that doing in Lily and the baby would be all required. Then I would have my James back and my dreams of skipping through endless fields of daisies would become a reality. No wife, friend, or son to get in the way. Afterall, they stole him from me! Reciprocity, that's all I wanted-taking their lives for stealing the source of my own. It only seemed fair.
But it didn't happen that way. Every day under the tutolage of the Dark Lord, anger grew and ate away at my spirit, my boyhood identity until there was no traceable evidence of a childhood. Slowly, James was transformed into the enemy. My James, the betrayed became the betrayer.
Now, I sit in Azkaban, moments away from being relieved of a soul I'm not really sure is even there. I'm not scared like all those other times when my life was threatened. No. Soon this fat book of torment and dread I call my life will be over, no "to be continued" in sight. Frankly, that's a comforting thought-no one will remember me, and they'll be better off for it.
I close my eyes and lean my head back to rest on the ancient stone walls overgrown with mold and decay. There is a horrible rotting smell wofting into my cell, and I wonder whether or not that's a reflection on my life. Images of James and I prance around in my head, pleasant images I didn't know I still retained. Somehow, in this dark and dismal hell, a glimmer of happiness has entered my mind, temporarily warming the permafrost that has settled on my heart. But they are only images and soon reality has reared its ugly head. I killed my James.
And still, moments away from the end, I manage to rationalize. Six months will do it to anyone. Six months of endless torture. Six months of wishing you were dead and waking up to find your prayer has been denied. Six months of nightmares, real and unshakeable. Six months of complete and utter hell. Six months would make anyone crack.
Six months will do it to anyone. Six months of endless torture. Six months of wishing you were dead and waking up to find your prayer has been denied. Six months of nightmares, real and unshakeable. Six months of complete and utter hell. Six months would make anyone crack.
James was a god to me, more real then any omnipotent being I was taught to pray to. That one never answered back, but James did. I'd say, "why do you suppose clouds are white James?" and he'd say, "it's so cold up where clouds are, that the air freezes and turns white." James always knew what to say. Even if it wasn't right, I didn't care-- he always answered me back.
He kept me around, James did. I knew what Sirius and Remus would say, always telling him I was worthless when they thought I couldn't hear. Always saying I slowed them up when pulling practical jokes and pranks- their reason for living. But I heard them, I always heard them. And still, James made them see, made them listen to reason. He'd say, "nah, Peter's alright," or "he hasn't got anyone else!" That's right, James was my saviour. He saved me from suffering alone through that extruciating time people with inappropriate fondess call being "a teenager."
And when the four of us decided to be animagis, and the only one I could pull off was a rat, Sirius and Remus mocked me. "Loose a hundred pounds, Peter, and you won't have to transform," Sirius would say. I almost gave up all together until James told me he thought a rat was a perfect idea, a useful creature. That prophetic intuition was probably the only one that James ever got right.
After Hogwarts, when everyone went off to persue their dreams, James would owl me with an encouraging note once and a while. It'd say, "Don't worry Peter, you'll be great someday." He was right, someday I would be great, just not how he or anyone else ever imagined. When James got married, the notes became fewer. When he had a child, they stopped completely. That is, until he wanted something-a secret keeper to be precise.
But as I hung, shackled and restrained against the wall of that cursed dungeon all those years ago, I was shown just how little I really mattered to James Potter. A man, hooded and hidden from prying eyes, used his wand to create a projection, a window into the present upon which I could spy on my James. Every day I was forced to watch as a dutiful father returned home from work to a beautiful wife and a perfect, tearless child. Every day I was reminded of my insignificance to the man I reveered as my own personal deity.
That's when it began, the hold the Dark Lord claimed upon me. I had been abandoned, like a sickly orphan left in a crowded, chaotic world. The Dark Lord showed me that I had my own strength of sorts, different then Sirius' pride, Remus' intellect, or James heroism-it was different because it was uniquely mine, not borrowed. Mine. Maybe it was the numerous blows to my head, or the hallucination that comes with starvation. I don't know, but I killed my James.
At first the Dark Lord convinced me that doing in Lily and the baby would be all required. Then I would have my James back and my dreams of skipping through endless fields of daisies would become a reality. No wife, friend, or son to get in the way. Afterall, they stole him from me! Reciprocity, that's all I wanted-taking their lives for stealing the source of my own. It only seemed fair.
But it didn't happen that way. Every day under the tutolage of the Dark Lord, anger grew and ate away at my spirit, my boyhood identity until there was no traceable evidence of a childhood. Slowly, James was transformed into the enemy. My James, the betrayed became the betrayer.
Now, I sit in Azkaban, moments away from being relieved of a soul I'm not really sure is even there. I'm not scared like all those other times when my life was threatened. No. Soon this fat book of torment and dread I call my life will be over, no "to be continued" in sight. Frankly, that's a comforting thought-no one will remember me, and they'll be better off for it.
I close my eyes and lean my head back to rest on the ancient stone walls overgrown with mold and decay. There is a horrible rotting smell wofting into my cell, and I wonder whether or not that's a reflection on my life. Images of James and I prance around in my head, pleasant images I didn't know I still retained. Somehow, in this dark and dismal hell, a glimmer of happiness has entered my mind, temporarily warming the permafrost that has settled on my heart. But they are only images and soon reality has reared its ugly head. I killed my James.
And still, moments away from the end, I manage to rationalize. Six months will do it to anyone. Six months of endless torture. Six months of wishing you were dead and waking up to find your prayer has been denied. Six months of nightmares, real and unshakeable. Six months of complete and utter hell. Six months would make anyone crack.