CHAPTER SIX
Speckles of snow danced elegantly through the air before joining their brethren in the shimmering sheet of white which coated the forest floor. Untouched for years, the ground had no sign of imperfection. Until now.
Harry Potter and Peter Pettigrew appeared out of nowhere, accompanied by an ear-shattering crack. Harry slipped and stumbled, latching onto his companions jacket and clawing it off in the process — but it was no longer needed. The man was already shifting back into a rat, scuttling away from Harry as he raced over the sheet of snow.
"NO!" Harry roared. De ja vu struck as he recalled the urge to freeze a tiny creature. Lockhart's lessons! The fairies! Oh but what was the spell? Right!
"Immobulus!" The rat froze as expected, but still four words rang relentlessly in Harry's mind. The ministry had Sirius. The ministry had Sirius!
Harry's face creased in conflict as he aimed his wand for another spell. Was his godfather going to go back to Azkaban? Was this it? How could Harry have wasted his hours with his godfather this way, plagued by mistrust?
"REDUCTO!" Harry roared, his wand held like a sword as the blue jet pummelled through the falling snow. But Pettigrew was faster. He transformed back to a man, breaking out of the old curse and dodging the new one, which instead slammed into a tree.
The man's features twisted, something like a smile spreading through his contorted face. Strands of hair were scattered across the canvas that held a revolting likeness to that of his rat form. His beady eyes and misshapen teeth only worsened the sickening sensation that Harry was still looking at a rat rather than a man.
"Harry Potter," the high voice drawled. "What—" Harry had silently watched as the tree his curse had hit swooped downwards through the air. Every bird in the area fled as the heavy log crashed against the ground, only a foot away from where the murderer stood, sending waves of snow flinging into the sky.
"You shoot such powerful curses at me!"
Harry's wand tip glowed, another one clearly coming, but with a fumble that revealed it was a long unused gesture Pettigrew drew his own wand from his robes and quickly cast a shield.
"But why?" Pettigrew continued. "What could that murderer mean to you? What lies could he have told you?"
"MY GODFATHER IS NOT A LIAR!" the boy roared, a fire growing within him which set alight all that the cold froze.
"Oh but he is. I was his friend, Harry Potter. What were you?"
"His godson." Harry said with cold fury. And though he'd never done it before, he sent the disarming jinx barrelling out of his wand without a single incantation, catching his opponent off guard and slicing through his shield - sending his wand flying.
Peter Pettigrew stared briefly at the child, every hint of cockiness replaced by a flash of fear before hardening in determination.
"He killed your parents!" Pettigrew screamed, all composure thrown out the window. But it was the wrong thing to say. Harry Potter blinked slowly, his eyes almost red once opened.
He was done.
Done with the lies. Done with the Dursleys. Done with the fear.
Harry Potter's wand tip glowed the deadly shade of green the Dark Lord's servant knew well. For the second time that night Harry Potter felt the urge to kill, but this was nothing like the first. It would be so easy now. He could feel the rage flowing from his bones and the bolt cascading into the rat, but he was better than that. Sirius was better than that. Sirius had never cast to kill, not once. And Harry Potter loved his godfather, and he would follow his example.
An unmistakable flash of terror glinted in the murderer's eyes before he shifted to a rat once more. He had almost reached his wand, he was almost there—
But the curse the boy cried into the night was faster.
"SONNIUM!"
A dazzling cacophony of light exploded out of the end of the boy's wand, flooding across the snow in waves.
The rat turned its head towards the sound, instantly blinded by the glimmering rays.
A single jet of light, practically solid in its lumosity, came crashing into the rat's form with more intensity in the spell than the Dark Lord's servant had ever seen in his life. A crater was blasted in the ground with a as the rat was sent ricocheting off the tree trunks, a mighty boom sounding with each brutal collision, until it finally fell still onto the snow, its era of lies finally terminated.
And Harry Potter burned.
The falling snow was cooked into steam the moment it came into contact with Harry's boiling skull. Coupled with his blotched face, it gave the impression he had been set on fire.
And Harry Potter still burned.
A smile spread on the boy's face, tears streaming from his eyes like waterfalls. Then exhaustion took over and he wanted more than anything to lie in the snow, to sleep until the fire wore off and he froze to death himself. But the work wasn't over. Not yet.