Chapter 68. A Rat

Peter Pettigrew was not exactly an intelligent man. His only redeeming quality was that he was good at potions. He was cowardly and incompetent in other areas of magic. He was also ugly and physically weak. He was a pitiful creature, always living in the shadow of others and unable to shine with his own light.

First, there were the Marauders. They were never his equals and almost turned him into their bag carrier. He was part of the group, but not really. He was a character who constantly went unnoticed.

Then came his master, Lord Voldemort. He would have paid him little attention were it not for his closeness to the Potters and the Order of the Phoenix.

Because of his ability to betray them, he joined at first out of fear, not believing that anyone could defeat Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore was getting older and, after him, no other wizard or witch was capable of standing on equal footing with Voldemort.

Then it became a lust for power. Peter wanted recognition, but the Marauders wouldn't give it to him. What about their deaths?

James thought he was so irrelevant that he believed no one would ever guess he was the secret guardian. Lily had a strange ability to sense his intentions. But the patriarch's word was final.

Peter never knew why his master wanted the Potters dead. He never asked; he simply handed them over, like a good servant.

Everything went wrong. His master failed; the Potters are still alive, except for the older brat, Harry. Somehow, Lily outsmarted Lord Voldemort. It was a Muggle girl who was responsible for murdering the greatest blood supremacist. He wasn't just a dark wizard, he was something else.

The recent revelation of her ancestry made the event seem less absurd.

Peter escaped, but not quickly enough. He ended up in Azkaban. Dumbledore pushed for him to be locked up for life in Azkaban. There was talk of the Dementor's Kiss, but it never happened.

He spent fifteen years in Azkaban.

Months earlier, he had watched Bellatrix escape in her Animagus form. Using that little sanity he had left, he managed to imitate her escape. A rat inside Azkaban wasn't common, but it would not lift eyebrows. Once Bellatrix was far enough away from the island, she returned to his human form. She was malnourished and dirty, but Peter didn't care. He slipped into her clothes and appeared on a street in London.

He didn't know where she had found the magic, willpower or focus to do it. It was hundreds of miles away. Even in his prime, Peter couldn't have done it. The thought made him bitter.

He considered following her, clinging to her like a parasite.

But he forgot that cats are expert mouse hunters. Once she returned to her cat form, Bellatrix pounced on Peter, ready to devour him and make him her first meal as a free woman. He barely managed to escape.

He lived as a fugitive for months. Even then, his escape was overshadowed by hers, reduced to a mere footnote in The Prophet.

Bellatrix Lestrange escapes from Azkaban! Oh, and Peter Pettigrew escaped too.

Who cares about little Peter? Only his mother had ever shown him any genuine concern. She died alone, while Peter lived in Azkaban. The prison guards told him not out of sympathy or to inform him, but because they knew that his punishment from the Dementors would be worse when he found out.

A few weeks ago, he met his master again. Peter had given him up for dead. The greatest Dark Wizard of all time showed him how wrong he was. He survived — at least, his soul did.

Peter was found by Arcturus Black, who had recently been declared a wanted man by the Ministry of Magic. Peter was happy. He had met Arcturus before. He remembered his gaze running up and down him in Diagon Alley when he found him with Sirius and the other Marauders.

"You really don't care how our family is perceived," the old man had said to Sirius.

Peter held out his hand to greet him and ingratiate himself.

They are equals now, both servants of the Great Dark Lord.

He trembled in his Animagus form as he watched the creatures at the edge of Hogwarts. Following the incident on the Quidditch pitch in which Harley fell off his broom, Dumbledore expelled all the Dementors from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. He forced them to stay away.

The students no longer felt the oppressive and depressing atmosphere they had created.

Peter scoffed. He had gotten over it by then. For more than fifteen years. Couldn't they handle a few months? Peter had never felt guilty. The days were painful, of course, but he always clung to the idea that it wasn't his fault. He was simply a product of this world. He was doing everything he could to survive. That thing prevented him from becoming crazy.

He entered Hogwarts looking for his target: The little sprout of Bellatrix, Altair. He had been advised to be careful with him; he wasn't just any target. No, he needed a bait:

Lyra Lestrange.

No one paid any attention to a rat scurrying through the Slytherin dungeons. The black-haired girl was chatting with a blonde girl. Peter looked at them. They had both already come of age. They were both just like their mothers: beautiful and refined. Peter felt disgust; they would never know what it meant to be a nobody. No witch would ever do that.

Despite his anger, he didn't rush into attacking them. There were other people in the room. His chance came hours later. When the two of them decided to leave the common room, it was late, and the sun had already set.

In an empty corridor, he ambushed them. According to information he had received from his master, Lyra and Daphne were important to his objective, even though they weren't close.

Just like his other partners. But Peter wouldn't dare approach them. He was probably nearby.

Peter snorted inwardly as he prepared to attack. The fact that the boy was already forming a coven turned his stomach. He was supposed to be a nobody — even worse than Peter. With mediocre magical abilities. Yet somehow he had defied destiny and become dangerous.

Didn't he deserve more women, too? Looking at both girls, he thought that maybe his master would let him keep them. They looked like good trophies.

He stunned both girls from behind. First, the blonde. He fell on top of the other one, destabilising her enough to make her an easy target.

All done.

Peter picked up the two bodies and threw them carelessly into a small box enchanted by Arcturus Black. They both fit perfectly. Peter noticed that Lestrange had unsheathed her wand.

Arcturus had asked him to take his granddaughter with him, along with Altair. The old man said something like, "I can get blue contact lenses any way I want." Peter didn't understand, but Voldemort told him to do it. Arcturus was of great value to his master. Reluctantly, he obeyed. If he can't have both, the other girl could be his.

They could marry, and he would take control of the Greengrass family after Voldemort won the war and took over the wizarding world. He almost drooled at the thought.

Peter left the castle and headed for the Whomping Willow, where he would set the stage.

He hoped Arcturus had already arrived; even with hostages, he was afraid to face Altair.

Meanwhile, inside the Gryffindor girls' dormitory, a girl looked at the Marauder's Map, bored. She searched for her beloved. She found him between Cho Chang's legs with Harley in front of them. Their shoes formed a row. Violet could imagine the position they were in. Altair was behind Cho, with her head between Harley's legs.

Ahhh! Cho was so conceited, always thinking she was better than everyone else. It was incredible that Altair could dominate her so much. She would never admit it to him. Everything would become boring if he knew how much she admired him.

The girl's grey eyes scanned the map. Her father had given it to her a few weeks ago. Apparently, her grandfather had used it to track them down. It had been created by her father and his friends at Hogwarts. "It will be more useful to you than to me," he wrote in his letter. She looked at three pairs of shoes in the hallway. Daphne Greengrass, Lyra Lestrange, and... Peter Pettigrew. She stood up swiftly. She watched the first two disappear and feared the worst.

He went out in search of Altair, checking the map periodically. He watched him leave the grounds of Hogwarts until he disappeared in a certain direction. She memorised the address.

She ran to Altair's location