#wormtailweek2022

"Crucio." His master cast the curse in a high, dispassionate tone, only a slight curl in his lip betraying his emotion. The boy cowered and writhed against the ropes that bound him to the gravestone, his screams uncontrolled and useless, splitting the night. Peter saw almost nothing in that moment of the parents in the son, none of James’ stupid courage or Lily’s quiet defiance. The sharp smell of urine pierced the cold air and tears shone afterwards below the boy’s green eyes.

A baby.  He’d been a baby once, Peter remembered, plump and soft-faced, reaching with delight towards the silver wisps of a Patronus cast by James to entertain him as he bounced on Lily’s lap.  “He’s teething again and we’re all going mad.” 

If the child had only died then, when he was meant to…. James would not have. Perhaps nothing right now would have to be this way.

Peter pushed back the thought that had been triggered not only by the boy but also by the man before him.  He’d carried his master’s bundled form, before the ritual, into the graveyard—needing to set it down in order to cast the curse that killed the spare. From the day the first potion had worked, he had been repulsed by how feeble the body was that the Dark Lord had been restored to.  Another infant, he’d thought bitterly.  How Sirius would laugh.

His master’s snide voice echoed in his ears. “Why, I am growing quite sentimental….”