PART TWO: AN INSTANT AND WHAT COMES AFTER
The Werewolf
Nothing moved and I wasn't breathing.
My whole body was trapped as it was. My legs were bent and I was hunched on my knees, as though praying. My right arm was up, hand brushing my throat. The pain was perpetual now, unchanging. I knew it would be a dull throb when time resumed, but for now, all was still. My left arm was extended, reaching toward the hole in the wall. My eyes alone seemed able to function, and they took in the many details of my surroundings. My robes were dusty and torn, my hair was hanging annoyingly against my face, and my back was still sore where I had thrown myself against the wall in horror. I was huddled in the deep corner of the mausoleum, mouth still open in a silent, strangled scream. My extended arm was held fast only a hairs breadth away from a bright shaft of moonlight, stabbing like a blade through the wall of my hideaway. The pull of the moon was dead with time, and my hand held fast out of the light. I knew that when all things resumed I would be drawn by an idle curiosity to pass my hand through the seemingly solid brightness, to feel it on me. I felt the wolf stir again, which was ill company. I could only hope that Albus would get them out…
They had dragged me here for that purpose, to be a tool for the undoing of friends and enemies, blind to which were which. For this third shining moment of his pitiful life, Peter Pettigrew had a secret worth handing over, a past worth falling back on. Snape had never told the Dark Lord what I was, out of no love I knew for myself, or for good things. Perhaps he had taken Dumbledore's orders to heart back when Dumbledore alone had stood by him. Somehow I doubted that it had slipped his mind. Indeed, as I continued to scan through to possibilities, it seemed likely that the Dark Lord had known all along, and that Peter's true use would prove fetching me and storing me for the opportune moment, which any dunderhead could likely have managed. I hadn't exactly made myself scarce the past few weeks.
I had felt useless, trapped. James had been trapped by Voldemort, and Sirius… Sirius had been trapped by the Ministry. Harry had been trapped, we had trapped him. I felt like a time-bomb, professor… But Harry… I was so much like Sirius. Harry was not one of us. I felt guilt again. Shame. Sympathy. Loss. God, I knew this feeling so well. I was always trapped between the foaming jaws of the wolf, writhing and only digging their razor blades deeper and deeper into bloodied flesh. I always resisted, I always insisted, but I could do nothing. I was trapped in a body which was trapped in the jaws of the wolf, and I was useless there. I wanted to go out and to warn people, protect people, fight the darkness which held me down. But others were far better placed than I, Alastor at the Ministry, Minerva and the rest at the school, and Albus, at the very top of everything. And people were much more trusting toward the leader of the movement against Voldemort than toward a werewolf who had to beg for window cleaning jobs.
All of England was a vast web of Fidelius Charms, the Secret Keepers had their Secret Keepers, who had their own and so on until everyone was somehow strung up all together. The spiders roamed the web freely, Death Eaters and Dementors, traitors and thieves who paid allegiance to themselves and to their purses. The foulest and most gluttonous of them all sat quite at the center, devouring all who went past, but rarely straying from his post himself. Sometimes the insects caught in the web forgot to be afraid of him, and devoted their fear to the more mobile enemies. Every so often a fly would pass by and catch himself on the threads. He would die. Indeed, the spiders thickened and expanded their webs to catch flies. All spiders love the taste of flies. There were butterflies too, some caught, some flitting about pointlessly, some trying to untangle those pinned in the web, next to be eaten. There was even a butterfly pretending to be a spider. How strange.
Outside the pitiful window of my equally pitiful cage, a butterfly was suspended in midair, halted with the rest of all moving things. I watched it for a while, a while which never really existed, before it faded out of focus. My eyes slid farther, across the hill. But there were only shadows there, shadows I was not ready to see. I tried to look back to where Ronald had come from, tried to see Molly, who had screamed, but my body was fixed staring out of the hole in my shelter. Had I thought it a cage? I was hiding here, hiding from myself. It was something between being sheltered and trapped. And I had never liked either. I pushed myself to think about Ron, Ron who had stared at me, white-faced, from across the hill. He had seen Peter first. But when he had seen me, he had come running. He had understood. Had they always known what a liability I would prove to be? Or was I being arrogant? He probably hadn't seen me at all, as the moonlight was blinding. It was usually hatred which drove such acts as his, violent acts. Love was more pure than that. Love drove me to cry.
The air which separated me from the butterfly was thick and vaguely warped, where my scream had halted. It would be an ugly sound to hear, but, had it made it out in time, it may have just ever so briefly extended the moment when my hopes shifted from success to survival for Albus Dumbledore. I stared at the thin, arched form of the Dark Lord, whose head was lost under the hood of a dementor. I stared and stared and took the empty time I had to plead with Fate to let us succeed, to let all go as planned. Harry wasn't supposed to come. God, why was he here? Harry… I couldn't see him from here, but I had heard him say the words, plain as day. They were supposed to watch him, to stop him from running off and fulfilling what he would call destiny. Alastor and Hagrid. Hagrid was here, I had seen him with Molly. Ron was here, and Neville too. Peter had mentioned him, and Hermione, though I hadn't seen either. Minerva would be here by now, she was to leave with Severus. And we knew Albus had come. Who brings a pocketful of galleons to go shopping at Knockturn Alley? And Harry. Why did you come Harry, what did he dangle before you this time? Baiting him. Just as he had baited a hungry wolf. Can you save him, Moony…
The butterfly twitched, warning me. I braced for the impact of time, my right arm ready to stop the left on its inexorable journey into the moonlight. I moved, throwing my whole body deeper into the corner. It was like the ocean refusing the tide, but I am a stubborn old ocean and I wanted to give them time to flee, while it was still hesitant outside, still silent. The butterfly appeared to be dangling from a different wing now. Why hadn't I seen the flame of Dumbledore leaving? The body of the dark lord fell back, haltingly, as the world skipped beats on its way back into function. The dementor rose. The thin, fallen body, which housed somewhere between zero and two souls, was my last human observation. It hit the ground with a resounding thud, first of all the many sounds to hurtle themselves against my transforming ears. My heart was broken in the dust someplace. I would probably eat it before I was in my right mind again.
And a thousand screams were loosed with the stars
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
~*~ A/N- That's the style of Part Two, an Instant and What Comes After. Depending on who's POV we're working with the instant or what comes after may be longer etc. But that won't be apparent until another chapter pops up. I bet you get the butterflies thing. The flies are Muggles. The party continues next chapter with The Mother. Guess which? Hehe… much thanks and love and stuff. ~*~