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Wormtail


Lily Evans parked the Morris Mini in the road outside the Lupin House. Her mum would kill her when she found out the car was gone, but Lily really didn’t care. She needed to talk to Sirius. She pushed open the door of the car, tugging her pink wool coat around herself, the air cold on her knit-tight covered legs. She struggled with the latch on the gate and ran up to the door, hugging herself, and rapped her knuckles against the wood, shuffling to stay warm as she stood on the porch.

The lawn was covered with snow and there were footprints from the garden gnomes, and birds that had landed.

The owl she’d sent with her letter to Sirius hooted from the tree. He still had her parchment tied to his leg.

She frowned up at the bird and leaned to look through the window. “Are they not home?” she murmured, sighing in frustration. She banged on the door again. “HELLO?” she cried, “HELLO? SIRIUS? REMUS? JAMES?”

But there was no reply.

She huffed and her breath came out in a great cloud and she turned around to run back to her car. She stopped dead in her tracks at the edge of the porch for there, before her, stood a very, very old man indeed. He was hunched over and wearing robes that were worn and moth-bitten, and he leaned upon a can like a hundred trees whose roots had been entwined together. Large knuckles and pale, paper-thin skin, his eyes milky with blindness… One hand was laid over the other upon the handle of the cane, and from that hand hung a long chain with a watch hanging upon the end.

He seemed to stare at her, though without seeing her, and Lily’s spine tingled from the back of her neck straight down to her toes.

“You seek answers to questions that you do not have words to ask, Miss. Evans,” Mopsus said lowly, his voice grainy from disuse.

Lily stood her ground, wary, wondering where he came from and… how.

“Come now,” Mopsus said. And he held up the watch in his hand. “We wouldn’t want to waste precious seconds. Now would we?”

Lily hesitated. She shook her head.

“Good, then,” he murmured, “No time to waste.” And he held out his palm.

Very much against most of her better judgement… Lily walked across the yard and put her palm into his. With a CRACK! they were gone.

It would be but moments later that a spark would flash in the hearth beneath the mantel and Sirius Black would step out of the floo…




“Quaerite tenebris.”

. When he finished speaking the spell, there was a jerk behind his belly button like being transported with a portkey and Peter landed hard on his stomach on a stone floor and he looked about, scurrying to flip over.

It was pitch dark except for a far-off glow of flickering torch lamp and he could see cell bars and he crab-walked backwards, away from the doors, fearful… and his hands tread on something and he turned, fearful, and drew his wand. “Lumos!” he announced, and the cell was illuminated, long shadows of the cell bars cast over the corridor outside.

But there on the floor was James Potter.

“P - P - Prongs!” Peter stammered in shock and he hurried to his mate’s side. “Prongs, you’re here, you’re here!”

But James didn’t move.

“Prongs!” Peter went up to him. “James?”

There was the tiniest of whimpers.

That’s when Peter saw the blood. There was blood. James’s upperlip was dry and crusted with it. There was a dried up cut on the side of his mouth too. His torso was bare and there were funny, fading marks across his skin - like welts, like he’d been struck with something hard and narrow and his arm was at a funny angle, his shoulder a bit distended and Peter realized it was probably out of socket.

“Oh Prongs,” he breathed. “What’d he do to you?”

“It took you longer than I should have expected, Peter,” came a voice from behind him.

Peter turned and looked up.

Voldemort stood behind him, emerging from the darkness that had filled the corner of the room.

Peter dropped his wand onto the floor and with the echo of the sood striking the floor echoed in the dark and the illumination charm stopped and the cell as plunged into darkness again.

There came a cold laugh in the dark.

Peter scrambled for his wand again, catching it up in his fist as Voldemort waved his wand and the torches in the cell sparked to life and cast an orange glow over them. Peter had stood up in the time it took the lamps to night, stood up between Voldemort and James Potter, and his wand arm was extended, the hand shaking so terribly that he wouldn’t even be able to guarantee that he would actually hit the Dark Lord with his spell work if he were to cast one. His breathing was panicked and in great bursting gasps.

The Dark Lord smiled at him, the way an adult would smile at a child who’s just made some ridiculous suggestion playing at being grown-up. “Peter,” he said in a gentle voice, “You wouldn’t.” He paused. “You couldn’t.”

What would James say?

“W - watch me,” Peter choked. His voice trembled. “You… you great wanker.”

“Well, this is precious.” Voldemort’s smile had only widened.

Peter felt his face flush.

“Step aside, Mr. Pettigrew,” Voldemort whispered, and he waved his wand and sent Peter flying across the room and against the wall rather hard - and Peter’s legs went out from beneath him and he fell onto his bum. “Expelliarmus,” the Dark Lord whispered. Hi wand flew across the room and into Voldemort’s waiting palm. He smiled and looked the wand over a moment before tucking it into his robes neatly.

Peter rubbed the back of his head with his palm. He had struck it on the stone wall.

Voldemort had descended upon James. “Ennervate,” he hissed and there was a choke as James was forced awake, deep chested coughs that heaved his entire body and blood fell from his mouth onto the floor. James’s eyes were dim and tears instantly flooded them as he tried desperately to catch a breath, but his chest would just not heave correctly and his lungs would not fill properly.

Peter stared, horrified.

The Dark Lord smiled. “Good evening, Mr. Potter.”

James continued choking on the air.

“You’ll see, once you’ve finished this display, that we have company…” Voldemort’s walked around James. “You may not recognize him, after all, you’ve barely paid him any mind, have you?” and when James continued on choking instead of looking up, Voldemort reached down, snaked his long-fingered hands through the top of James’s hair roughly, jerking his neck back so he was looking up at Peter. “Look, Mr. Potter.”

James eyes landed upon Peter and there was a flicker there in them, a flicker of hope… but it quickly extinguished, seeing Peter trembling as he was, and it was replaced by…

Disappointment.

“....Wormtail?” James breathed.

Peter’s cheeks burned. “Yes - yes, I’m here, Prongs,” he said, “I’m here….”

Voldemort smirked. “Wormtail. Is that what they call you?”

Peter looked up at him. “Y - yes sir,” he stammered, “Because we’re - we’re friends and - and that’s what friends do, they have nicknames and tell jokes and they - they have good times. But you wouldn’t know that because your friends aren’t - aren’t real friends!”
Voldemort dropped James’s hair and his head fell back to the stone floor somewhat roughly. He laughed, “And you would know all about not having any real friends, wouldn’t you, Peter? Always left out, always forgotten… Always hearing about their adventures second hand.” Voldemort hesitated,. “If it had not been for your stones, you would never have known James Potter was here because none of them bothered to tell you that he was missing. Not a single soul bothered to tell you.” Voldemort’s voice wrapped around the words in a strange, nearly seductive manner.

Peter stared up at him. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to so badly. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t because it was the truth. It was exactly what he had been thinking.

And the Dark Lord smiled and continued, “They didn’t bother to tell you because they only told the people they thought could help them in finding Mr. Potter, only the people they thought might be of use in coordinating a rescue.” He laughed breathily. “They consider you useless. Or else one of them might have at least sent you an owl.”

Peter felt sick. This, too, he had been thinking. Tears filled his eyes.

“After all, Wormtail,” Voldemort said, smiling, “What good is a bumbling fool such as yourself against someone as powerful and great as me?”

Peter’s jaw shook.

“They don’t love you and they never have,” the Dark Lord cooed.

“Don’t listen to him Pete,” James’s voice was broken and could barely be understood, the words coming out as funny squeaks and breaths, mumbled against the stone floor.

The words swelled in Peter’s heart… a flood of bravery filling him up.

“Crucio,” Voldemort hissed and a jet of sparks shot from his wand, directly into the center of James Potter’s shoulder blades and James began to writhe there on the floor of the cell as Peter let out a squeak.

“No! No! Stop! You’re hurting him, please stop!” Peter begged and he struggled to his feet, “Stop! Don’t hurt James anymore, please… Hurt me instead in you like but don’t hurt him anymore, please! He’s my best friend and he’s been through enough! Please!”

Voldemort’s wand dropped and James fell limp against the floor again.

“Do you think, Wormtail, that he would do the same for you?” Voldemort asked.

Peter did not hesitate. “James? Yes. He would.”

Voldemort smiled. “Well. Then… as you wish.” And he raised his wand to aim it directly at Peter, pausing, staring into his eyes with a gleam of amusement as Peter’s face twitched with fear and a sort of childish defiance. “Crucio,” he whispered.

And Peter fell to the floor.