A/N: Thanks to my loffly betas, laughableblackstorm and JaxGranger over at HPFF for the much needed help through this chapter, as the Lord knows I needed it. Loff to you both! Also, thanks to those of you that read the last chapter, most specifically those who reviewed. Enjoy, and Happy Hols!

A combination of the drafty winds that poured into the cell uninvited and the rustling of someone on the far side of the room woke him from his all ready restless sleep. At first, he wasn't quite sure where he was, but after looking around the musty cubicle he recalled when he had arrived and where he was.

He inhaled slowly through his nose as he tried to fill his lungs completely, for he suddenly felt that he hadn't breathed easily for ages. When he did, tears sprung to his eyes as he choked back a cough that threatened to escape.

The shadowy outline on the opposite side of the room stiffened at the sound of the slight hacking coming from the boy. Immediately, as though in a life or death situation, it stopped what it was doing. Holding his breath, he held stock still and waited for the thing to continue with whatever it had been doing.

It didn't take long for it to become occupied once again, and when it did he felt sudden curiosity to see exactly what was keeping it busy. He moved forward slowly, not daring to do so much as breathe for fear of being found and heard. Before he knew that he had moved at all, the chain around his ankle pulled taut, and he was unable to get any closer.

The slight chink of metal as the chain links hit one another when he tried to pull it a little further must have caught the thing's attention, for quite suddenly and unexpectedly a candle – rather large for normal standards – was lit, illuminating a little ways around it.

He could identify it now: not quite a dwarf; none he had seen were quite as ugly as this one was. Its face was contorted and covered in scars, and was rather unappealing to the eye. A long beard draped from his chin and fell over his knees, just grazing the ground. His nose, crooked and hooked, appeared to have chunks missing, and one eye seemed to be stuck constantly squinting.

It was with wide blue eyes, which reflected the flames of the wick menacingly, that stared at the boy unsurely. The boy, unable to move from where he sat on the ground, inhaled, trying to remain quiet as it lowered the miniature torch to what it had been doing.

There on the ground in a heap, lay the mutilated bodies of two girls. Their limbs twisted in odd directions beneath them, tangled in one another's knotted hair and torn gowns. Unable to properly breathe, he sat frozen in a time that was unrelenting and treacherous.

His little sisters, the gentle Susan and the valiant Lucy, were dead.

From behind him, the boy heard a voice creep out of the dark and surround him, as though in an embrace that was more than unwelcome. "Do you like it?"

He spun around at the harsh voice, knowing that it was familiar from somewhere, yet unsure of where. At the doors to the cell stood a richly dressed young boy, no more than ten years old, a smug look on his face.

"I could have made things better, but I didn't really see us having enough time," the youthful boy said with a defeated sigh. "It's rather unfinished at the moment, as you can tell, but soon they shall be no more than unrecognizable corpses."

The smirking would be prince stopped, as though he suddenly noticed the repulsive look on the other's face. "Is there something wrong?" he asked. "Peter? Don't you like it? It's for you, you know. Because of you, more like."

Because of me?

Seeing the question in his eyes, the royally-garbed boy crossed his arms, sighing as though he was about to explain something to a young child that had asked one too many questions in a short time period. "Do you not remember? You were the one that sold them out!"

"Edmund!" a voice snapped, and both boys jumped. A woman in white stepped forward, hands on her hips and an icy glower on her face. "What are you doing? You know full well that you shouldn't be here! This place is for---" She stopped, staring hard at Peter, whose own face was full of questioning hurt and tribulation, "---the dogs," she finished with a flare, and the boy sat back, his brows furrowed.

The woman placed a hand on Edmund's shoulder and led him away, muttering something that he couldn't quite make out. Sure that he didn't want to know, he drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them as he wrapped his arms around his legs.

Just then, the maniacal laughter of the dwarf enveloped him, and he remembered that he was not alone in the cell. He lifted his head ever so slightly so that he could just make out in the wavering, now dim light the image of the mad creature lifting a dagger high above the prone bodies of his sisters.

When it brought the blade down, Peter was more than thrilled that no one was around to hear his cry.

Opening my eyes abruptly, I fought against the meager light that greeted my sight; I tried to regain control over my ragged breathing. Wisps of the dream I had just lived through flickered in front of my eyes, patches and pieces of it playing out in the near-abandoned cell. I couldn't help but let out a soft groan of fear, anger, stress, and pain as I stared at the cold, hard ground.

Sweat was it was the only thing I felt as it steadily made its icy way down my brow as I sat up straight against the cold rock wall from my slouching position, trying to stretch a tightened muscle that had knotted in my restless sleep. It was only then that I realized where I was, and what had gone through my mind as I rest.

Because of you…. Because of you….

I quickly looked around the cell, expecting to find the corpses of my younger sisters lying to the side, bloodied and battered, broken in odd places and beyond repair. Yet when my focus was settled and my vision cleared, I noted that there weren't two forms lying there, but one.

Gods, no, not Edmund…. He's dead….

The thought of him dead paralyzed me for a moment as thoughts reeled through my head like the slides would in an old film. Memories of our earlier years, when we used to be close and would spend hours together doing whatever we could think of, flooded through my mind, causing me to feel slightly nauseous as I stared at his motionless form.

Half of me screamed at myself for not immediately going to wake him from what must have been no more than a deep sleep and relieve me from this nightmare of my own. My other half, however, held me back with invisible hands, telling me not to go forward, for it may be true that he was no longer of this world. It would do too much damage, hurt me too much, to realize that my brother, my own flesh and blood, was gone.

But what if he wasn't? What if he was just unconscious? There had to be an excuse, a reason that he wasn't moving, I deduced as I stared at his still form. Finally, after an inward war with myself, I found the strength to move forward.

I crawled slowly on the ground, bits of stone and pebble sinking into my knees and imprinting their shape for what felt like what would be forever, I moved towards his prone form. Every shift of leg and arm brought me closer to my brother, the one that had, inevitably, caused everything to happen. Despite the rage I felt towards him earlier that week, when I was first brought to the White Witch's palace, I still couldn't bear to think that he was gone forever.

I was halted by a snagging sensation at my ankle. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the chain drawn tight, unwilling to go any further.

"Ed," I rasped, allowing my body to sink to the frozen, rocky ground below. The one thing that I had set out to do ended in failure, and I would never be able to tell him something as simple as it was all right, and that it didn't matter that he had betrayed us, because he was my brother.

He didn't answer me….

Why didn't he answer? What kept him from responding to the desperation in my voice? I tried again, though once more there was no response.

A painful lump formed in my throat, but I struggled to push it back down. I wouldn't cry, couldn't cry now. Edmund needed me to be strong, to pull through this all. He needed more than anything for me to wake him from his dream, from what must have been the same torture I had been going through.

And when I did, he would need me to help him work through it all.

The lump rose again as memories surfaced from our childhood. I tried to push them away, but they kept on resurfacing, and I couldn't find the will or strength to fight against them. Instead, I closed my eyes and bit my lower lip in defeat and mental exhaustion, allowing it begrudgingly to replay itself over and over in my all ready weary mind.

"Do you have to be such a jerk all the time?" eight-year-old Edmund pestered as he sat down in a chair across the room. He folded his arms stubbornly across his chest, puckering his lower lip in a pout.

Peter looked over the top of his book, raising an eyebrow at his younger sibling. "What are you on about now, Ed?" he asked half-heartedly, unwilling to set down the text for a moment. As of late, it seemed that all Edmund wanted to do was bicker, and it had started to annoy the older boy greatly after the first week of it.

The dark-haired boy simply stuck his lower lip out and crossed his arms uncooperatively. Peter, in turn, sighed and turned his gaze back to his book. "You're going to have to grow up eventually, you know," he said as his eyes scanned the words on the page, but not really taking them in.

"What?" Edmund spat back, more out of reflex than anything.

Again, Peter sighed, and finally gave in and shut his book. He set it aside on a nearby table and leaned his torso forwards, folding his hands in his lap as he fixed his younger brother a steady, even stare. "You have to start acting older than this," he said slowly, each syllable measured for what it was worth.

"I do act older!" the other replied in a huff, a scowl on his face in irritation.

"That's not all too mature," Peter said simply, sitting back in his seat again, unable to take his eyes off his brother.

"You're doing it again," Edmund said suddenly, as though resorting to a final remark that always helped him win the battle. "You're acting like Daddy, and you're not."

"I know I'm not," the blue-eyed boy replied slowly, keeping calm despite the accusation. "No one ever said I was."

"Then why do you act like it?"

"Act like what?"

There was a moment of silence, in which the two looked at each other. Edmund's eyes were ablaze, hate and pain swirling in the brown orbs. He wanted to glance away, to turn his head and not have to stare at Peter, but something inside of him kept him from doing so.

Peter, on the other hand, masked his emotions quite well, pulling off the appearance of one used to such things, but still unsure as to how to deal with them. Inside, however, a war had begun to rage.

He had been so close to the boy not to long ago; what had stopped them from being such friends? It couldn't have been growing up, surely, because when Peter was that age, he never did such things. Even when he was angry, he would never take it out on one of his siblings, or yell and shout and kick whatever was nearest him.

So what made Edmund feel the need to just that?

It wasn't until he heard the door slam that Peter was yanked ruthlessly from his thoughts. Edmund had stormed out of the room and made his way down the hall. Peter closed his eyes and shook his head as Edmund's little feet thumped as hard as they could against the floor.

And Peter knew, deep down inside, that there was nothing he could do.

A/N: For those of you who didn't catch on to it, the first section was a dream sequence, the second was present time in the cell from Peter's POV, and the third was a flashback. Reviews will be rewarded with cookies and other sweets.