Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter.


"No, no. Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, and rock smashes scissors."

"What does it matter if paper covers rock? It can still reduce it to dust." Ginny sighs at Moody.

"Because you come out on top." Moody looks at Ginny, trying to work out if she's kidding or not.

"We've spent too much time down here together." Ginny chuckles, nodding. The lid above them opens and they both look up, blinking in the sudden light.

"It's your lucky day, girl. The Dark Lord has requested an audience." Ginny looks at Barty Jr.

"Today doesn't really work for me, can we reschedule?"

"Stupefy."


Ginny wakes up to see a small deformed thing in a chair before her, she frowns. The thing looks her in the eyes, they are devoid of…anything. She knows she has never met this thing before.

"Miss Weasley is it?" The thing croaks, Ginny rises to her knees, "You shall be pleased to know Mr Potter succeeded in the second task."

"Who are you?" She asks because she is too polite to say 'what'.

"I am surprised you do not know. After all, from what I hear, you have read my diary." Ginny gasps, a pained look on her face.

"Tom?" The thing snarls.

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!"

"I WILL CALL YOU WHAT I LIKE!" She screams back, feelings she'd long ago buried making their presence known once more.

"What is it the diary told you?" She scowls at him, never looking away from his soulless pits that should have been eyes but now fail to see anything beyond his lust for power. She scoffs.

"Very little. It's a horcrux, a part of your soul. It would never have revealed something you would not have."

"Then how do you know of its true nature."

"Because as it invaded my mind, I invaded its." The thing's eyes widen.

"That's not possible."

"Evidently it is. I have seen into your soul Tom. I felt sorry for you." Its scowl deepens, "I felt sorry for you because I could see the potential you had. Potential to be better, to do good. I saw you lose that potential, saw you lose yourself. Now look at you…" Ginny comments dryly, "You are nothing but a mutated creature clinging desperately to a life long gone, a throne long since burned. You will never have the power you once did, Tom. I won't let you." Thing shook as it pulled itself to sit upright.

"And what makes you think you pose any danger to me? You will not even be making it out of here alive." Ginny raises her chin in defiance.

"Kill me. It won't change anything. All it will do is reveal your resurrection and ensure a vast majority of people are against you."

"They will not know what happened."

"Everyone will know what happened." The thing looks her over.

"What have you done? What contingencies do you have in place?" Ginny looks him in the eyes again, knowing who he is and still finding nothing within them.

"I cared for you once, Tom. Even knowing who you were, even knowing what you were making me do, because I could see the man behind the monster." She shakes her head, "There is no man anymore, and I will never aid the monster."

"Wormtail!"

"Yes, Master?" A stout little man asks as he kneels before the creature.

"Find out what the girl has done," He orders, Pettigrew nods, face ashen as he looks to Ginny, wand pointed at her.

"Go on then, coward. Torture a child. If anyone deserves having to live with the memory of that, it's you." Peter locks eyes with her, she sees a flicker of regret, all he sees is righteous anger. Directed at and deserved by him.

"Crucio."


Harry gasps as he wakes up, covered in sweat. He rushes over to Ron's bed, shaking him awake.

"Harry? What's going on?" Ron asks blearily.

"They've got her!"

"Who's got who?" Ron asks, brain still half asleep, Harry slaps him and suddenly he is wide awake, "What the hell, mate?"

"Voldemort has Ginny!"

"Oh…"

"Come on we have to tell a teacher!"

"Wait, we can't!" Harry looks at Ron like he's insane.

"What are you talking about? He's torturing her!"

"If we tell the wrong person she's as good as dead and we along with her, who saves her then?"

"Then what do we do?" Harry asks, hating that there is so much he doesn't know, Ron looks around helplessly, clearly freaking out.

"I've got an idea, but it's a bit over the top."

"Brilliant."


Sirius sits in his cell, hearing screams of a girl and wondering who the unlucky sod is.

Voldemort isn't strong enough to wield a wand right now, which means Peter must be the one doing it.

Sirius thinks he might be sick.

How could the caring boy he had once known have grown into this? Were he and James really such bad friends that Peter would turn on both of them as he had? Was Moony so unimportant to him that he would leave him so entirely alone? Had his own nephew meant so little that he'd have attempted to help kill him, all to save his own life?

How had Sirius missed it?

Sirius looks miserably at the floor. He hates it, hates him, hates the situation, hates himself. More than anything, though, he hates that someone did notice.

He'll never forget the day he sent Severus to Remus on the full moon, it will always be one of his biggest regrets. He will also never forget the things Severus had said to him just before the incident, one of them was that Peter was a coward and would turn on all of them to save himself.

Sirius had defended Peter, truly believed that his friend would never do so, what friend would? Even as he betrayed Moony. And then, years later, it was Moony he suspected. Moony he thought had betrayed them, and why? Because Peter had mentioned a few things here and there? Because Moony had done work for the Order that he couldn't talk about? So had all of them.

What was it that allowed Sirius to believe Moony capable of such a thing, yet Peter, the true perpetrator, had never been anything but innocent in Sirius' eyes?

He knows that reason, of course. Sirius' ridiculous teenaged-crush on the dimply little boy had blinded him to Peter's true nature, his true cowardice. He had thought him so innocent, so compassionate, so incredibly unblemished. Everything Sirius could never be.

To suspect Peter would have been to break that façade, and it was one Sirius had built the new version of himself, the one that didn't follow his parents, around. And when it finally crumbled, the other half of his foundation, his chosen brother, was dead.

Peter is right, Sirius did fail Harry that day, and as such had failed James and Lily too. He's not the one who dealt with the consequences of that. No, he dealt with the consequences of Peter's actions, but not his own. Those were dolled out to innocent little Harry, the Boy Who Lived, and Moony, The Man Who Was Left Behind.

The screams stop upstairs, somehow the silence seems louder.