Usual disclaimers. Not all of this will make sense if you haven't read the rest of my HP stories, so you might want to check them out first. Special mentions to Kittenmommy for letting me borrow her characters, JTBJAB for helping me with my Halloween costume -pictures available on request as soon as they're developed- and Chuck Shepherd of News Of The Weird for including a story about my home town in last week's column (w/c Oct 23rd, the one about Weavers School)!
Peter Pettigrew, aka the Heir of Voldemort, was in a very bad mood. He was also in the hold of a rickety container ship bound for New York City, in his animagus form.
What the hell else can go wrong? he wondered. Those kids -the Order of the Basillisk or whatever- have been a thorn in my side since before they were even BORN!
He remembered it well. He'd apparated into Godric's Hollow, knife up sleeve and poised to take out Voldemort once and for all... and then assume command of the forces of darkness and rule the world himself. But of course Potter and his ragtag mob had been hiding in the sodding house courtesy of the combined efforts of Professors Snape and Flitwick (and apparently an older version of one of those children from the unaltered timeline; he was still somewhat fuzzy on those details), with a sizeable quantity of automatic weapons. Peter could just about have lived with this if one of the arriving Aurors turned out to have arrested Sirius Black earlier that day for the numerous murders for which he'd been carefully framed. A perhaps understandably livid Sirius Black had been released shortly thereafter. It had only been a temporary measure, Peter had protested; he needed to cover his tracks, and as soon as Voldemort was out of the way he would have made sure the truth was known.
It was the twelve dead Muggles -better get used to calling them Drabs, now, given where I'm headed- that had led to awkward questions, though. The Wizengamot regarded that as rather excessive in demonstrating his 'loyalty' to the Dark Lord, and sentenced him accordingly.
Peter's memory actually shut down at the thought of those four years in Azkeban. It said much about the place that he could feel in any way pleased to see Bellatrix Lestrange; she'd finally succeeded in infiltrating the place with the aid of about five times the stated dose of Prozac and a cloak she'd appropriated from somewhere. They'd immediately gone to ground, building up their numbers and learning the Muggle way of doing things ready for the final showdown.
The bomb in Kings Cross had been a spectacular success, the attacks on the homes of the Order's various members less so. If we'd known they all still had the guns they'd used in battle against Riddle, I'd have sent more manpower and more firepower, Peter thought to himself. The seige of the Burrow nearly worked, but I just had to go and entrust cutting the Floo connection to Vincent fucking Crabbe, thick tosser above all thick tossers! It was of little consolation that Crabbe had been killed fighting off the Auror reinforcements that descended to assist the Order in protecting Minister Weasley's wife and assorted children and grandchildren (how they all fit inside the Burrow was a mystery to Peter; the legendary Weasley Clock had been replaced with something resembling the digital threat board in the Pentagon War Room a few years after the last of the brood finally got around to marrying), given that shortly thereafter they had been pursued to the Heir's Lair -it was quite a good alliteration with the right accent- and been well and truly trounced. Always had a bad feeling about Malfoy Manner. If Lucius hadn't given us the use of the place rent-free I'd have gone for somewhere a sight less obvious! Lucius might at the very least have mentioned the sodding secret passageway that his wayward sodding offspring led the sodding Order of the sodding Basillisk though into Lucius and Bellatrix's special sodding dungeon. The one with the whips and dildos and other unpleasant items; nobody had ever cared to discover who did what to who in there, but it had got quite loud at times.
And now here I am, on some rickety banana boat heading for what I sincerely hope will be a more serene life. Could be worse, I suppose. I've got three hundred Galleons and five thousand US dollars in small bills, my wand, a Beretta with two spare clips and a twelve-pack of condoms... the makings of a nice relaxing weekend break in Vegas, in fact!
But first, I'd better submit my resume to certain individuals...
It isn't made widely known, but certain factions of organised crime are always happy to take on ambitious young wizards or witches who don't mind getting their hands dirty. They are both residents of their own parallel worlds, and occasionally have interests in common with one faction or another; Capone played a key part in keeping Grindelwald's influence east of Iceland, and Ronnie Kray had a son in Slytherin. Peter had a list of names and addresses, most of them mail drops.
First order of business once they docked was getting off the ship, expedited by a Disillusionment charm. I wonder if any wizards have ever tried this before? Once that was out of the way, he booked himself into a Holiday Inn and began making some essential purchases. A cellphone was top of the list, followed by a secondhand laptop and printer. A trip to New York's answer to Knockturn Alley got him a perfectly forged British passport, driving license and work permit, all in the name of Peter Patterson. He also acquired OWL and NEWT certificates in the same name; he didn't bother to change the actual grades, which were perfectly good. A carefully edited curriculum vitae omitted any mention of the Heir of Voldemort and everything to do with it, merely stating that he had been 'engaged upon business ventures of my own.' Even the wizarding Mob might be a little leery of hiring a known terrorist these days; it'd be like putting Bin Laden on the payroll.
He had to resort to the Internet to find out what had happened back home. Tapping the laptop with his wand, he watched with interest as resolved itself into quibbleronline.wiz. I wonder if the webmaster knows about this? He was vaguely pleased to find out that chez Malfoy had been burned to the ground in the fighting, and decidedly reassured to learn that the Aurors had decided he had fled the country.
Well, they'll have enough to do over there finding whoever got away from that fiasco. No, you needn't worry about me. I'm going to build a new life here in the New World.
I, Peter Pettigrew, am gonna be a made man!
And in order to further that ambition, I will never attempt to sound like Robert De Niro again. Ever.