Rodent Rant

The journey to the Riddle Mansion was a bit hazy. It involved a lot of scurrying and the occasional transformation to turn back to his Peter-form to apparate from one deserted part of Scotland to another and then to a deserted part of England, foraging for leftover food in rat form, taking a lift in the back of a lorry, some more scurrying, until he eventually reached his destination.

The Riddle Mansion, while still as imposing as he remembered, against the backdrop of the darkening sky, looked old and neglected from the outside and equally decrepit once he had made his way inside, through a crack under the back door. It reminded him a bit of the Shrieking Shack, which made his little rat body shiver. He did not want to think about the last time he was in that place. He did not want to think about his two best friends readying themselves to kill him. He definitely did not want to think of all those other times he spent in the Shrieking Shack with Prongs, Padfoot and Moony, the three majestic looking animals whose friendship he had craved both in human and in animagus form. They had been friends all through their student days and beyond, but he had learned that there were degrees of friendship and that he would always be the odd one out, the one that didn’t quite belong, the ugly duckling among the swans, the rat among the fearsome wolf-pack, the wallflower in a testosterone filled dorm room. They had been his friends, but he was more of an afterthought, a charity project.
Things had gotten worse when Lily finally succumbed to James’ endless attempts at wooing her, and Remus and Sirius at long last admitted to themselves that they were more than friends. They were decent enough not to turf him out of their Marauders club, but he had been the fifth wheel and was largely ignored by all. Even Lily, the most decent creature that roamed the Hogwarts halls, would sometimes forget that he was there. Peter Pettigrew was as invisible as a person as he was as a rat.

That invisibility suited him now, as he scurried for food near the caretaker’s cottage. The old man had a very nice vegetable patch and conveniently left his back door open to give him easy access to the well-stocked pantry. It always amazed him that he could eat his fill as a rat and still be satisfied when he would transform into his human self, even though he would need much more food in human form.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He didn’t know how long it was before his master, or what was left of him, finally showed up at the mansion. He only remembered nearly being eaten by that enormous snake, before he even had the chance to welcome, what used to be, the Dark Lord back to his former home. Whether it was his panicked shriek or his master sensing that he was no normal rat, either way, he received a reprieve from becoming snake snack.

Coming face to face with the open mouth of Nagini, when he opened his eyes that day had been bad enough, but the sight of his master, or the demonic remnants of him, was absolutely terrifying and, not for the first time in his life, Peter regretted the choices he had made. With difficulty he hid his revulsion at the sight of the abomination that had once been the most powerful wizard of all time, though this fact had been disputed once or twice by some, with even that blasted Harry Potter proclaiming that Albus Dumbledore was the greatest Sorcerer of all time. Not for the first time, and possible not for the last time either, Peter found himself between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He had no choice but to throw his luck in with that of Lord Voldemort, even though his Master’s current state left him in a lot of doubt as to his actual power, but that pet snake, Nagini, scared the living daylights out of him.

When Lord Voldemort learned that he had recently returned from Hogwarts, he wanted to know every detail of what had been going on there, since he himself had to vacate the place after an unfortunate incident that led to the demise of Professor Quirrell, one of Hogwarts many short-term Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.
One of the advantages of being a rat was that he had at times overheard snatches of conversations between teachers and in particular between the headmaster and deputy headmistress.
Lord Voldemort was particularly interested to hear of the plans for the Tri Wizard Championships to coincide with the Quidditch World Cup and wanted to know every word Peter had ever overheard on the subject.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Whatever Peter had hoped would happen following the return of the Dark Lord, it wasn’t being his Master’s whipping boy. When they were joined at the mansion by another person who, like Peter, had been living under the radar, though in his case not presumed dead but presumed imprisoned, life turned slightly more interesting, as he was now privy to some exhaustive planning to restore the Dark Lord to his former glory. Some of the details were quite unsavoury, no surprise there, but Peter wasn’t exactly in a position to object. It was either literally giving a helping hand or becoming snake food.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Peter was half hoping that their plan would fail, as he quite liked having all his limbs and wasn’t at all keen on participating in the killing of his friend’s son. Peter sometimes dreamt that he had not been made the Potter’s Secret Keeper and that they all lived happily ever after, but then he would wake up in the morning, noticing his missing finger, and reality would hit him like a bludger. If only he could turn back time…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The arrival of the port key in the graveyard with not one but two Tri Wizard Champions had come as a bit of a shock to Peter, who nearly fainted when his master ordered him to kill ‘the spare’. If the life of a beautiful, innocent lad like Cedric Diggory could be snuffed out just like that, what hope did Peter have in the service of the Dark Lord. But there was no turning back now, no matter how much he would want to.
‘Flesh of the servant, willingly given …’
‘Willingly, my ass’, Peter thought, as he cut off his hand with the recently sharpened knife.
‘Fuck, that hurt!’ he thought, desperately trying to keep himself from screaming in pain. ‘Why could he not have cut off Diggory’s hand instead?’
Harry’s screams, when he cut the boy’s arm to get some blood of the enemy to complete the ritual, were an echo of his own silent screams, as the blood poured out of his severed limb.
He was in so much pain that he barely registered the pain and fear in the young boy’s eyes, nor the miraculous rising of the Dark Lord from the cauldron.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Had he really thought that giving his own flesh to help bring back the Dark Lord would change his life for the better?
Of course he had. He, Peter Pettigrew the Invisible, had hoped that the Dark Lord would be grateful for his sacrifice, and would proudly show of his most faithful follower to all. But other than magically creating a prosthetic hand, the Dark Lord gave no indication that he appreciated Peter’s contribution to his resurrection and Peter continued to be treated as a nobody, worse than a house elf. He wasn’t even referred to by his real name, but as Wormtail, a constant reminder of his betrayal of his friends and of the life he had thrown away to serve this ungrateful master. Merlin, he hated his life and he hated the Dark Lord for making him feel this way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

‘Wormtail, have I not spoken to you about keeping our guest quiet?’
This question uttered to him in private, would have been annoying enough, but in front of the other Death Eaters and in that superior voice of his.
If Peter had a galleon for every time the Dark Lord had spoken to him this way, he would be a very rich man.
Nearly every command that came out of the Dark Lord's mouth started with ‘Wormtail, …’
He was so sick of all of it.
None of the other Death Eaters were treated as his Lordship’s personal servant. In fact they all seemed to think they were better than him. They were part of the inner circle and he was no more than a common footman.
Oh, how he longed to be a rat again.
Unfortunately the silver hand that the Dark Lord had bestowed on him, somehow prevented him from changing into his animagus form.
At first he thought this was just an oversight, but lately he was beginning to think that this was a deliberate act by the Dark Lord to make sure that no-one in his company could perform magic that the Dark Lord could not. It also cleverly stopped his servant from running away again.
He hated that silver hand. It was too heavy and at times he felt that he was not really in command of the hand, but surely he must be imagining that.
He kept trying to convince himself that it was just a prosthetic hand, not some weapon that could be controlled by the Dark Lord at the first sign of disloyalty, but he sometimes wondered if he would not have been better off without it.
He made a face at the hand and put it behind his back, as he made his way down to the cellar.
Deep down in his heart he knew he had chosen the wrong side, and no-one regretted this more than he did.
With every day that passed, Peter wished that he could somehow distance himself from the evil Master he was serving.
Only someone without any remnant of a soul would cast the killing curse, the way others would cast Lumos. Only someone without any sense of decency would imprison an innocent young girl just to prevent her father from printing news about the Boy Who Lived. Only a truly evil person would keep torturing an old man for information he clearly did not possess.
‘Please, try to keep it down, Mr Ollivander’, he whispered half-heartedly, when he got down to the cellar, not wanting to raise his wand at the man who made that very wand for him, when he was just a boy.
Maybe one day he would get a chance to redeem himself, but he feared that, when that day came, it might be his last act on this earth.