Chapter 8: Reinvented it goes on

The reddish sky and the birds' fresh song gleefully announce the dawning of a new day.

"There's nothing more fetching than Hogwarts in spring!" a red-haired girl with eyes of emerald green had once said. Long ago. A distant, bittersweet past remembered only in the memories of a handful of people.

But today's Hogwarts is not quite as fetching. There's something moving in the shadows of the forest, there's someone trying to break in ... and Hogwarts is terrified.

They call him a murderer; they fear his name, his power and his mind ... Pain buried under the sands of a decade now surfaces once more as they wait, as they shiver, worry, hate.

How can they know it's all a lie! They're only human, after all...

And all this time he's watching. From the shadows. In the darkness. For all that's left for him is sorrow. In his mind, he knows nothing but vengeance, and all he craves is life. They took his world away ... he only has one thing left to fight for, and it fuels his will, giving him power, giving him patience, giving him hope.

Sirius Black moves through the silence, and with each step he takes his fate's being written in the stars. He watches the moon with glistening but tired eyes, and he aches. Remembering days so long forgotten, he runs. The drive to go on, the pain in his chest, the taste of rats fresh in his mouth ... his body feels broken in a million shards, but his spirit runs free, pushing him further, talking to him, screaming « Go on! ».

Tonight he is immortal. His life is worthless. He fears nothing but failure in his final task. Even as the Grim, his mind is clear. He follows the path; he blends with the greys of the night; he gets past the guards and into the castle.

The doors, the dark corridors and hidden passageways; he remembers them all so well. It's like hitching a ride in a Pensieve ... thoughts as old as the night, memories that seem to come from a previous life, dreams of a youth long forgotten. And he glides forward, just as he did before, for fate's wheel seldom returns you to places you know, to places you thought you'd never see again...

Hope is alight within him. Dark hope. Reckless drive sending him to his death; 'No matter what,' he tells himself, 'That rotten bastard won't touch Harry. I'll end this now. There's nothing to lose !'

Harry? Harry Potter. The son of Sirius' best friend, orphan child raised in misery; powerful; innocent; defenceless. For 12 years Black dreamt of his face ... a baby, nothing more, but the nightmares it brought to a broken man's mind ... the guilt ... unbearable. Images, voices, they were all in his head, swirling around like a carousel of dark thoughts; blaming him; calling him ... wringing tears from his eyes in the darkness of a cold stone chamber.

'I could have done more, something different.' he thought 'You could have, you know, much different, more' the rattle of ice echoed each time in his head. 'It's all my fault.' Guilty, good for nothing, traitor, it's all your fault.

The stench of death, the shrieks, all calling out to him like mermaids to sailors who venture through the storm ... Give in to your pain ... You're ours forever ... give in to the cold. And so he shivered in the night. His nightmares always real, memories burning behind his eyes, the happiness he once felt draining away as his soul slowly froze. Freedom was a dream he couldn't afford to live. But innocence was his gift, and it kept him alive.

You can see it all in his eyes. The sunken, blackened gateways to a man's true self. Eyes always have a story to tell ... and his would write novels.

So, the man behind the story moves forward. He creeps through narrow passageways and forgotten corridors, rushing through the sleepy castle like a forgotten ghost. And he finally reaches the tower.

The Gryffindor Tower, his home from long ago, his place of refuge away from his family, close by his friends; the tower now welcomes him once more.

With a week's worth of passwords held tightly in his hand, he watches as the door flies slowly open and the still fuming fireplace in the common room comes into view.

He's hunting a rat tonight. A yellow, backstabbing fiend he once called his friend; a friend who once betrayed an oath, a friend who took hope away for many. Tonight he'll finally pay.

Peter Pettigrew, the friend, the rat, the coward is dreaming of some yummy cheese while resting in his rat form on Ron Weasley's pillow. Suddenly he hears someone calling his name.

It's a foreign voice, and yet surprisingly familiar. His dream unveils itself to be a nightmare as the yellow cheese grows taller and turns the colour of stone. It's a building. It's a prison. It's Azkaban. And the voice he heard keeps on calling him. At first it was distant, but now it grows louder, and louder, until he sees where it was coming from. He sees him, he sees his old buddy, but all he can think of is death. His doom ... the man rises up from behind the building, taller than the sky itself. He crushes the prison under his boot and moves towards the true subject of his wrath. And he laughs. A merciless, insane laughter ... and his eyes glint in the moonlight.

Peter Pettigrew wakes. Shivering he opens his beady rat eyes and finds himself staring into the same eyes his dream had shown him minutes earlier. He panics.

Frightened, he tries to run. But where? And how? Danger's before him, too close to fend off. He tries to run but Ron Weasley, still sleeping soundly, turns over, laying an arm right over his shivering, small body. The rat cannot move. He squeaks and tries to get free but his enemy's hands are closing in on him. He's trapped. It's over. He squirms around and manages to bite the hand that held him prisoner, taking off and hiding under the bed covers.

Seeing his life pass before his eyes, he shivers. His hair on end, blood rushing to his head, he waits...