Chapter 18

Wormtail's Captive

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny started out the month of December rather exhausted. They all felt rather put out by the fact that their potion had not allowed them to find out where Wormtail was hiding. Finally they had decided, after wracking their brains in a night-long conversation once everyone else had left the common-room one night in the first week of December, that they would just have to wait for Voldemort to strike first, and fight once they had the chance.

But oddly enough, it was only the day after they had given up hope on finding out where Wormtail had been hiding that the mystery was solved for them, in the least likely of all ways. The four of them were walking back from the Great Hall when they ran into a frantic and extremely unhealthy-looking Colin Creevey standing by the portrait of the fat lady. Colin looked like he had started to go bald, he had less hair than Harry remembered him having, and he looked scared out of his mind.

"Harry," he said, when he saw the four of them approaching, "you've got to help me! I've only just escaped. There's this guy named Peter Pettigrew, and he's been keeping me captive and using my hair to make a poly-juice potion since the beginning of the school year."

Harry's mind was racing. He remembered how Malfoy had looked over at the table with Colin at it when Harry asked him psychically where Wormtail was. He remembered how the person who he had assumed was Colin had cursed him when he was about to beat Malfoy in a duel, and then lied about it later. He also remembered how during Quidditch try-outs, Colin had almost knocked Harry off his broom. It made so much sense, Harry was simply surprised that he hadn't seen it sooner.

"Do you know where he is now?" asked Harry urgently.

"No, I don't have any idea. He's still probably walking around masquerading as me at the moment, he won't even know I'm gone until he comes to check up on me again," said Colin. He still looked terribly frightened, pale, and rather sickly. Even as he spoke, he wobbled a bit on his feet.

Hermione rushed to him concernedly. "We've got to get him to the hospital wing!" she said to the others.

"Yeah, you're right," said Harry, somewhat distractedly. "But we've also got to try to find Wormtail. And we've got to tell Dumbledore what's going on."

He looked around for a moment as if expecting somebody else to announce who exactly was going to do which of these tasks, but as everyone else seemed to be content to let him take the lead, he said, "All right, Ron and Hermione, take Colin down to Madame Pomfrey, and then try to find Dumbledore and tell him what's going on. In the meantime, Ginny and I will try to find Wormtail in Colin's form before he catches on to what's happened. Now let's go, so we can find that rat before he sneaks away again." Harry spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that made him sound like a battle-hardened strategist. He might soon have another chance at Wormtail, the man who had ruined his life on so many occasions.

Hermione looked at Harry uncertainly, as if hesitant to contradict him. "What?" Harry asked.

"Well, it's just, if Wormtail sees us before we get Colin to Madame Pomfrey, that's the time when he'd be the most dangerous, since he'd know his cover was blown and he'd have little left to lose by attacking us. Wouldn't it make sense to have all of us with Colin until he's safely in the hospital wing, and then we could split up?"

Harry hesitated, knowing that any delay might give Wormtail enough time to check the place where he had left Colin, and discover he was not there. But Hermione was right. Seeking revenge was important, but at this point their main priority had to be keeping Colin safe.

"All right," said Harry, and the five of them began to walk quickly toward the hospital wing.

"Where did he keep you?" asked Harry, as the silence between them began to grow uncomfortable.

"A bunch of different places. Abandoned classrooms, tunnels below the school. Never in one place too long, he must've been paranoid that someone would find me if he kept me in one place for too long," said Colin, his voice still shaky.

"Where'd he have you last, where'd you just come from? Maybe we'll be able to head him off before he gets there," Ron said. It turned out Ron could be quite the strategist too, which should not be too surprising, considering his skills at wizard-chess.

"In one of the abandoned classrooms near the library... he had me stuffed in a broom closet. It's just, he forgot to lock it, and when the sleeping-potion he had given me wore off, I was able to get out." The five of them were nearing the Hospital Wing now. They were quiet for a moment before Colin spoke up again. "Who was he anyway? I mean, I know he was a follower of He-who-must-not-be-named, but I've never heard of him before. And why do you call him Wormtail?"

But now they had reached the hospital wing, and Harry was quite anxious to drop Colin off so that they could find Pettigrew before he noticed Creevey was missing. "I'll explain everything later on tonight, I promise, but first, we've got to try and find him."

Colin looked a little put out by the fact that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were about to leave him after he had just experienced such an ordeal, but he seemed to be just as anxious as they were to be sure that Pettigrew was caught, which made sense since being Wormtail's captive must have made the last several months torture for Colin. Therefore, he didn't protest as Harry opened the door to the hospital wing and led him inside.

"Madame Pomfrey!" Harry yelled, after making sure there were no sick students trying to sleep in the dormitory, and knocked on her office-door.

The nurse bustled out, and looked very irritated that Harry had disturbed the peace of her hospital-wing. "What is it?" she asked shortly, and then her face filled with concern as she saw Colin. "What's wrong with him?" she asked in a more sympathetic voice.

"He can tell you himself," said Harry, in a tone which was rather more impatient than he had meant for it to sound. "Just, partition his bed off from the rest of the wing, so that nobody coming in can see him, and please especially make sure that nobody else who looks like him comes in here."

Harry was aware that he wasn't making a lot of sense, but had no time to explain the situation. Even as they spoke, Wormtail could be making his way up to the deserted classroom where he expected to find Colin waiting to be the unwilling supplier of another handful of hairs that would allow Wormtail to continue to use the poly-juice potion. Madame Pomfrey looked extremely confused, but knew from the determined expression on Harry's face that it would be no good to try to make him explain himself further. Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione quickly left the Hospital Wing.

"Okay," said Harry hurriedly, once they were back out in the hallway. "We need to split up, but I think we really should at least stay in pairs, in case he finds one of us after he figures out what's happened. If he encounters one of us alone, he might be able to kill that person and escape. So, Ron, and Hermione, go tell Dumbledore what's happened, then, if he lets you, go and wait outside the abandoned classroom to try and head him off. Ginny and I will check all the places he might be if he hasn't yet figured out what's going on, like the common-room, his dorm, and the Great Hall."

"All right," agreed Ron and Hermione simultaneously, and the two pairs went off in their separate directions.

As they walked, Harry could think of nothing but Pettigrew, and naturally, this conjured up memories of all the wrongs Pettigrew had done to Harry. The list seemed endless.

"Do you really think we'll find him?" asked Ginny nervously as they made their way back towards Gryffindor tower so that they would be able to look in the common-room and the fifth-year boys' dormitory for Pettigrew.

"I hope we do," said Harry fiercely. "It's about time that filthy traitor was caught."

Ginny looked rather frightened. Harry mistook the cause of the fear to be the fact that they might have to do battle with Pettigrew if they found him, so he reassured her by saying, "If we find him up here, we'll have caught him off guard. We'll be able to stun him before he knows that we know what's going on, and then we can take him to Dumbledore."

But what Ginny had really been frightened by was the tone of uncontrollable hatred in Harry's voice. It wasn't that she didn't think Harry had every right to hate Wormtail. It just scared her to think that Harry was capable of such hate and anger as had made itself audible in his voice.

As they walked toward the portrait-hole, Harry could still feel that hate coarsing through him, and his mind went back to what Lestrange had told him about the Cruciatis Curse in the Department of Mysteries last spring. "You need to really want to cause pain- to enjoy it." He grimly reflected that he probably would enjoy causing Wormtail pain right now. He was the reason that his parents were dead, and he was the reason Sirius had spent 12 years in Azkaban. Twelve years when he could have been Harry's proper godfather. And really, without Wormtail, Voldemort never could have begun his rise back to power. Without Wormtail, Sirius would not now be dead. Yes, Harry thought, he really did want to cause Wormtail pain. He wondered whether he would be able to perform a proper Cruciatis Curse on Wormtail if they found him.

Harry, lost in his thoughts, had hardly realized that they were now in the common-room. He had also not realized that his face was flushed red with anger and that he was breathing heavily. He did not notice the strange looks he was getting from the people in the common-room. Ginny, who was managing to keep a much cooler head at the moment, had already scanned the room. "He's not in here," she whispered to Harry, and then she led the way up the staircase to the boys' dormitory. The other occupants of the common-room looked rather scandalized with the fact that a girl was going up the guys' staircase but most of them were below fourth year, and didn't have the nerve to say anything. Even the older students were put off by Harry's furious expression, and simply ignored the situation.

When they got to Colin's dorm, they found the room empty. But on Colin's bed was an old piece of parchment-- the Marauder's Map! Harry quickly realized that this must mean that Wormtail had seen on the map that Colin had left his hiding place. And as he made his way over to the bed, his fears were confirmed. There had been a small note left on the bed beside the Marauder's Map, which he read out loud, "Mr. Wormtail would like to say farewell until we meet again. Judging from your position on this map as I am writing this note, I will be long gone before you read this." Even in his haste to retreat, Wormtail had found the time to taunt Harry.

Harry let out a yell of frustration. The hate he felt for Pettigrew, and for Lestrange, and for all the other Deatheaters was increasing within him, threatening to consume him completely.

Ginny rushed over and hugged him. "Don't worry, Harry," she said kindly, soothingly. "We'll catch him soon. You'll have your revenge."

Somehow, although Ginny was trying her best to be soothing and comforting, the word revenge still sounded terribly ugly when she said it. "I don't want revenge," Harry said, "I just want to capture him to make sure nobody else gets hurt by Voldemort and his servants."

And the strange thing is, at that moment, Harry really didn't want revenge. True, revenge had been all that was on his mind when he entered the room, hoping to find Wormtail posing as Creevey, but somehow, when Ginny hugged him, he was glad that he had not had the opportunity to perform the Cruciatis curse in front of her. He wanted to protect her, and he knew it would hurt her to see him perform an unforgivable curse. As much as he wanted to hurt Pettigrew, Harry knew it wouldn't be worth it if it meant hurting Ginny as well. And as she held him comfortingly in her arms, he had felt the hate slowly melt away, replaced by a different emotion.

He knew that the emotion must have been a really strong one in order to win out over the hate he was feeling. That was when he knew, as he bent down to kiss her, that he really did love Ginny Weasley.

A/N: Okay, when I first started writing this chapter a few hours ago, I had no idea it was going to turn out like this... Pretty much all I knew going into it was that Colin was going to escape from Wormtail this chapter, and that Wormtail was going to get away. The whole romance bit was a sudden inspiration, and I'm not really sure how it's going to come off. So at this point, I would really appreciate some reviews. You can comment on any part of the story you want, but I'm really curious to find out whether or not my attempts at the romantic angle so far have, well... sucked. Anyway, thanks for reading, and remember, it'll only take another 30 seconds to review. And if it turns out that this chapter sucked, let me know, 'cause I can still change it.