A/N: This is a horrid round.
Word count: 1,103 (according to MS Word)
Infinite amount of virtual cookies to Kefalion, LittleMissXanda, and Clairebear1982 for helping me out with the story, the title, and for betaing. We've come this far, guys, so let's not stop here :)
QLFC Semi Finals: Wasps – Peter Pettigrew's Silver Hand
Extra prompts:
· 5. (quote) "My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice." - Newt Scamander, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
· 7. (restriction) No using ?
· 10. (emotion) paranoia
Freedom. All he'd ever wanted was freedom. It bad been true before he died, and it remained true after.
Something he'd often said before he died was: 'My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice.' He had tried to keep himself to this view for as long as he'd been able to. He had tried to live a life he could look back on without regrets. He'd tried to survive the war without troubling himself about what was to come next. Living life one day at a time. Yes, his blood status had thrown him into danger. Yes, he was unwanted. He had known there was a chance he would die; the thought had always lingered, but if that was to happen, then so be it. Or so he had thought.
He had already accepted death when the Killing Curse hit him after the Death Eaters had found his hideout. A normal death would have been easy. Much easier than the existence that was his reality now. He had never expected to be pulled back into this wretched world twenty years later, not even partly so. He wanted to be free of the chains tying him to this world, free of worry, free of the fear that the war had planted within him despite his best efforts to suppress it.
Alas, he was now bound to the living world, to another being, and would remain so until this other being died, or perhaps even longer. What was worse, he was only present in the form of an arm, with the rest of his body lost somewhere within the ether. He was weak. Powerless. A sliver of the wizard he'd once been. The undoubtedly black magic that had been used to pull him back and attach him to the disgrace of a man he now served had sapped him of his will as well as a body of his own. He was no more than a puppet. No more than a mere object, a means to an end without sentience.
Well, supposedly without sentience. That was what others assumed, but he was very much aware, painfully aware at all times of what he was forced to do, and he had no control over it. As if his nerves had short-circuited and connected to his host's body. From time to time, he was able to wretch enough control of himself to twitch, which would always elicit a yelp of paranoia from the man to whom he was attached, and then his concentration, his tenuous control would slip away, and it would be a long time before he could extract a reaction again.
The name of the snivelling wizard he was attached to was Peter, if he remembered correctly. Not that it mattered, but knowing the name of the person whom he hated utterly and wished the demise of made his feelings all the more vibrant. Oh, how he wished he could end this man, how he wished to be free, once and for all!
This new way of life wrecked his previous hedonistic lifestyle and philosophy. He often wondered why it was him that had been cursed with this fate. He wondered if there was anything he could have done to prevent it from happening. He had become bitter and hateful, with no one he could voice his grievances to. The only true constant was his desire to be free. He had lived in a manner that awarded him freedom before; he ought to do no less now. He should fight for his freedom. It would be foolish of him to wait for what would feel like an eternity before this Peter man died. No. If the chance ever presented itself, he would kill the man with his own one hand. Morale and virtues had become obsolete. Such concepts had ceased to matter a long time ago.
As much as he was weak, Peter was weak as well. He observed as much throughout the first few months they spent together. Peter had no free will to speak of, and he was always paranoid, which would often cause him to shake or twitch involuntarily, making him even more pathetic. He had little control over his actions, and he always did what You-Know-Who instructed him to do. Yet, this creature had more power than he did. It was galling and caused his hatred to grow. At the same time, the other's paranoia and weak-willedness planted some sort of hope within him. He would cause the very timely demise of the rat if it were the last thing he did. He needed only to be aware enough during a moment of weakness.
For a long time, he was unsuccessful. Even in Peter's moments of wavering, he could not channel enough energy to move his form in accordance with his will. He had tried feeding off of Peter's fear and paranoia to take control. He had tried to merge Peter's magic with his own and then turn it to his advantage. He had tried to move the ghostly hand he had been given with short bursts of magical energy, but none of his methods worked. With the passing of months, he began to wonder if he would ever have the chance to be free again, if he would ever escape the cursed state of limbo he had been banished to. The spark of hope he'd been kindling faded with every failed attempt.
When he had almost given up, when he had almost succumbed to the eternal suffering he had been subjected to, he succeeded.
In a moment of danger, Peter's loyalty to You-Know-Who wavered, and all of his self-security came crashing down with it. Although freedom had seemed like nothing more than a distant dream, he had kept on gathering snippets of magic from Peter, and, rather than constantly using it up, he had decided to prepare for a burst instead. And when Peter's hesitation struck, so did he.
Much to his surprise as well as his delight, the hand that had failed to comply with his wishes now moved along with his command.
He felt nothing but cold, bitter determination as his host took his last breath. The years of imprisonment had taken away any feelings of guilt for his actions. He had nothing but his freedom to chase.
As soon as the rat dropped on the floor, he felt a light tug. His senses dulled, and his hand was no more. As the world faded around him, one thought remained echoing, and he swore if he had a mouth, he would have smiled.
"Free, at last."