@ambiidexter / closed starter
His hand moved slowly, like a spider stretching its legs, bony fingers reaching for his wand. The motions were calculated, soft, and almost gentle. Why rush into things? There was an elegance to these gnarly affairs, a beauty to the horror. He walked around the young man, nothing but a pathetic shadow, shaking, curled up on the cold stones as if there was some comfort to be found in the rocks suffocating him.
Voldemort was circling him, robes floating in a horrifying caress. A vulture, patient and imperturbable. Soon, the boy would crack -he was hardly a man despite the years, after all the Order was nothing but an irritable army of kids playing dress-up. It suited Dumbledore, the old fool, really, to use child soldiers as cannon fodder.
"I understand, Peter, I do..." murmured the towering silhouette, his voice nothing but a cold shiver, "how could you even consider betraying your friends..."
He pressed the boy's shoulder with the palm of his hand in a mockery of tenderness. The Secret Keeper. Oh, but it was the only secret he could keep, for the Dark Lord's mind was invasive, sliding in every little crevasse.
"They... Are your friends, aren't they? Please, enlighten me, dear boy... The things I have seen, the memories you cherish so fiercely... I wonder, do they love you like you do?"
Vultures had no need for impatience, dinner was always served.
There were times he thought he’d become something. In the company of James, Sirius, and Remus, who soared so high in the sky of success it was easy to imagine he could fly too. And it didn’t matter, he thought, that he displayed no genius in the classroom or on the broom, the collective power of the Marauders would magically and seamlessly transport him into adult life. But where he wanted to fly, he had to crawl, and hide, and feed on the bread crumbs life threw his way. Life has scattered the Marauders like autumn leaves across the Clocktower Yard, and each one has found an anchor to attach them to some solid foundation. Each one, except Peter. The tenacious fingers of boyhood wouldn’t let go of him, and the horrible, nasty kind of nostalgia gnawed on something under his breastbone incessantly. The Marauder magic was gone, and with it went his adamant faith in some things.
In a way, they stayed connected, but it was not the sort of connection Pettigrew desired. They saw each other at the Order meetings, where the faces were as grim as the news they brought, received their tasks and got dispersed again. Pettigrew’s life filled with danger, not the kind they were in during their school year, the somewhat amusing risk of being sent to polish silver in Filch’s lumber-room, but real, actual danger, that had flesh and name. He started spending more time as a rat than human, expecting an attack in his back at any moment. Sometimes spending all day nibbling on a hardtack in the dusty space behind the walls of respectable London citizens didn’t seem that bad.
And he’d continue to do it, had he not been yanked out of his shelter by a Death Eater’s hand and forced back into human skin. It didn’t fit him anymore. He felt too small, insignificant, too damn weak to put up any fight. Bound and gagged, he was Apparated into a cellar full of unknown smells. He could tell, because he’s been to dozens of cellars. Dropped on the floor like a broken doll, he hid his face against the stone slabs, feeling his heart tremble like a taut string. No, no, please, no…
And presently he’s having a rendez vous with death itself. Strange, he was hoping at least death wouldn’t demand anything of him. Voldemort wants answers, quickly, quicker than Pettigrew can think. Those are questions he has no answer for, though he’s spent so much time trying to find them.
“They are… my friends, sir…” a sob flares and dies against the coldness of stone. “I love them…”
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