Getting Harry Back

Chapter 12
Himself

And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav’n.
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book IV

“Power.”

“Power,” she hissed. “You have, within you, the power to cheat death, to become immortal.”

She fixed him with her eyes, seeing her own red eyes looking back. She smiled inside, and her tongue flicked out to taste-smell his reaction: excitement, yes, but also fear and wariness.

“Feel it growing inside of you. Always growing, getting stronger.”

She saw him nod slightly, his eyes defocusing and glazing.

“Your final, your ultimate transformation.”

She’d been breathing along with Tom, at his pace. When she slowed her breathing, he followed her, slowing his breath, too. Then she began weaving her head in rhythm to her words, noticing that he began swaying imperceptibly to her rhythm.

She knew, once again, she had him.

As usual, they were together, just Tom and Nagini, in the small room off the subterranean Great Hall, the room where Tom slept and ate, where he met privately with Death Eaters. And with Nagini.

As her continuing self grew within him, Nagini realized that Tom, her surrogate, could feel it more and more. It was making him increasingly uneasy as it began to take him over, she could taste that. So these “talks”, these trances became more needed. Without explaining those feelings and allaying those fears, she knew that Tom would begin exploring areas that even the strong biological boundaries in place within Tom's body might not be able to contain. Then….

Nagini felt a shudder move down her scales.

“And what about Harry?” she worried, “my other surrogate?”

Her continuing self in Harry -- that was her even greater concern. It, too, grew more noticeable, and she had no way to deflect Harry. So she knew that she was more vulnerable with him, much more.

She sighed.

And there was Tom’s mania to kill that boy. What would happen if he succeeded? Or if he got himself killed? Or if he got both of them killed? Whenever Tom thought of Harry, he became reckless, and when he became reckless, anything, anything could happen.

Again, she shuddered, then brought her attention back to Tom, who was still moving in time with her, deeply entranced. He’d always been such a willing subject.

“Soon,” she hissed, “soon that power will be strong enough to accomplish your last and ever-lasting transformation. Feel it growing stronger and stronger. Feel it and be glad.”

* * * * * * * * * *

…what can be worse
Then to dwell here, driv’n out from bliss, condemn’d
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end….
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book II

He, himself, stepped back from Voldemort, stepped back from them all, though of course he could still feel them. He was aware that all of them were listening to Nagini, though each listened with different emotions.

He felt Voldemort’s eagerness, his cravings, so strong that Voldemort quivered on the edge of madness. While he knew that Voldemort had been his survival, Voldemort had nearly been his death, too, especially when this madness took over. This madness – Voldemort’s manic greed, his even more manic rage – he knew that this could trample all the careful planning, all the lessons so painfully learned. And then….

He ever-so-slightly shook his head.

He felt Tom’s wariness. He knew that Tom certainly sensed whatever was growing inside, that Tom felt its power. But Tom was leery of “its” power. “Its”. There was a disquieting, not-him feel to “its”, almost as if something not-him were taking over. This was a much different feel than any previous transformation. Tom knew that alien feel, and so as “it” had grown, Tom’s wariness had grown, too.

Tom also felt Voldemort’s cravings, his madness, and this increased Tom’s worries. Tom knew where that madness had led. Not for the first time, Tom wished there were, at the very least, a better balance between Tom and Voldemort. He, himself, joined Tom in that wish, though not quite as Tom wished it. He knew -- bright and powerful as Tom was – that Tom was no match for Voldemort. There were times when no one but Voldemort would do.

And of course he felt Tommy, who was terrified.

Nothing about this felt right to Tommy, nothing. He knew that Tommy felt “it” more directly, more oppressively and deadly. He, through Tommy, had felt “it” enwrapping “itself” around Tommy, subtly beginning to crush the life, the Tommy out of himself.

So Tommy was terrified.

“With good reason,” he thought.

But as to how he, himself, felt….

He wasn’t entirely sure -- shadowy, furtive being that he was. He was often unclear whether he was, indeed, a full-being, as he seemed to spend so much time not-entirely real. And even that could be so tiring, so mortally tiring -- in its way, more tiring than just letting himself be.

Except when he, "himself", was out, he never had fully embodied feelings and reactions. And yet.... "I can always feel my emotions, that's for certain -- just as clear, just as intense as when I'm out. Even when I'm not out, it's like I've got this shadow-body or ghost-body -- something like that, or maybe like I've got a small whisper of the body we all share. What I'm feeling and how I'm reacting, well, I sense it in that ghost-body, just like when I'm out, in the real body, only not so strong, not so... there."

He allowed himself a whisper-sigh. "And I worry about whether the others can feel my feelings and reactions, like I can feel theirs."

He did know when the others were rendered incapable or, more accurately, when they unbecame, then he, himself, was who was “left”, who was “there”. At first this had shocked him -- no, it had horrified him, to be so suddenly, so hideously exposed. To better protect himself, he’d learned to hover around the edges, to blend into whomever was central, taking the measure of who was in charge, of the state of the others, and of the overall situation. Then, should he be dumped into control, he was at least somewhat prepared. He could have a few of his defenses, or pretenses up and running.

He spirit-smiled wryly. “More pretenses than defenses.”

He, himself, had never had much strength or magic, at least none that he could directly call on. His defenses were few and not all that effective. Except for a primitive, grudgingly-felt but dogged survival instinct.

He felt his shadowy shudder.

He remembered the first time he found himself left out. “In the orphanage, after the rape but before Jim came,” he said. “Tom had been exploring some back closet and he came upon a toy that Tommy and Esther had played with often. Not sure why – must’ve caught him both unawares and in a sensitive spot – but he just unbecame. Nor did Tommy come out.”

He whisper-sighed at this memory.

“And there I was.”

Indeed, there he was. Himself.

He was never sure whether, or rather to what extent he’d truly existed before that. Maybe he’d been before, but if he had, he hadn’t been… fully formed, or something like that. He sensed, in a vague way, that he had been. He had earlier memories. Or was it just that he’d “borrowed” or somehow learned those memories from the others? It was all so hazy, so… incomplete.

He ghost-shrugged.

“Even afterwards, for a long time, I was out only occasionally, here and there. Until Tom broke off with Bryan and Voldemort appeared.”

He frowned. “At first, Voldemort’s appearance was like mine – not all that coherent or stable. But definitely there, and different from Tom, Tommy and me. Ah, poor Tom. That time was so hard on him.”

He felt his sigh go deeply through his spirit. “Tom tried so hard. But Tom was too vulnerable to love, his own and others. No matter how hard he tried, a glance from Bryan, a wistful look from Jim, a memory of Esther, and all the transformations were gone, taking their powers with them.”

He, himself, could see that, then and now.

“I could see the reason, the need for Voldemort, for more dependable power. And I could see that, so long as Voldemort rested on such vulnerabilities to love, we could never depend on him.”

“Voldemort, now – there's one not likely to love. I saw that from the start. Thrived on hate, he did -- pure cold, hard hate. No love there, that’s for sure.”

He’d long known that hate, distance, hardness and coldness were key buffers to love.

“Voldemort had this kind of power – sharp, quick, rapier-like, deadly and to the point – but also brittle, with a hollow, mask-like quality. But he kept falling into these unbalanced rages. And the stronger he got, the more powerful, the worse those rages got. Sometimes so bad, they emptied him out, and Voldemort just unbecame. Leaving me out again.”

He subtly felt his ghost-teeth grind.

“Sometimes I wonder whether or not I should bring Voldemort back – he’s so unstable.”

He felt his almost-fists clench.

“But I always settle for power.” He felt a touch of sadness. “Because power and control are what we need most. But again, that left Voldemort more and more vulnerable to those mad rages. And as Voldemort got stronger, more powerful, that left us more vulnerable to him. Especially as this Nagini-transformation grew.”

He checked to make sure that he was not noticeable, that he had blended into Voldemort and the others. He only allowed himself to be fully around when the others weren’t. “Not that I have a choice about that, being out when they’re not.” But when the others were present, he kept himself an unseen observer, or at most an insinuator of thoughts which, apparently as far as the others knew, had simply popped into their minds.

But sometimes it felt as if he were central, that it was he who called forth the others. Those times, he recognized, for example, that “he” had become “Tom”. And if at a later time, “Voldemort” was needed and safer, “he” would bring out “Voldemort”. Sometimes, though, it felt as if he and the others blended in and out of one another, like lights on a complicated dimmer switch. He could, then, feel himself becoming “more Voldemort”, for example, or “less Tommy”. There wasn't a distinct "he", separate from "Tommy".

“Maybe that’s how I got those earlier memories,” he thought, “from those times they and I blend together.”

And sometimes he was powerless to change who was out; sometimes he couldn’t direct or take over. He could only observe and subtly advise.

“Many’s the time,” he thought, “that Tommy’s come out and I knew, I could just feel that we were stuck with a five year old in charge.” He recalled a time just last week, when Bellatrix and Flint brought those pictures of the Patil family they’d tortured and killed, this for the Death Eaters to enjoy.

“Tommy came out and took over.” He shuddered. “All those bloody memories of that wog, Esther. Had to coach him for over an hour – ‘don’t cry,’ ‘nod here,’ ‘frown there,’ ‘keep your bloody mouth shut,’ – until I felt Tommy’s “grasp”, or whatever it is, loosen and I could bring out Voldemort.”

He shook his head slightly. It was all so confusing and so tiring.

He often wondered how much the others knew about him. He suspected little or nothing. Even when he brought out someone, or when he faded out into one of them, they didn’t seem to notice him. They appeared to think that they came directly from one of the others. “Tommy or Tom just reckons that Voldemort shoves them aside. Pretty much what Voldemort reckons, too. They don’t seem to notice me.”

He frowned. “Curious, that. Never understood why.”

But however it worked, he’d much rather it stayed that way.

“If Voldemort discovered me….”

Again, he felt a ghostly-shudder.

He knew the fiery brutality which Voldemort sometimes inflicted on Tom and Tommy. No, he, himself, would rather almost anything than that. That alone was worth the constant vigilance, the effort to stay hidden.

He’d never considered trying to replace, much less trying to destroy Voldemort. Voldemort’s power was too important. He’d often felt forced into reassuming Voldemort, bringing Voldemort back to life, back to control.

But earlier this year, it was he, himself, who got them back from the Department of Mysteries after that disastrous possessing of the boy. “Not a moment too soon,” he thought, “with those Aurors Apparating.” And long before that, it had been he, himself, who, after that disaster with the Potter baby, had painfully, laboriously crawled to Albania to hide and rebuild. All this while Voldemort and the others slept through their “dark night”.

“Their dark night,” he chuckled hollowly. “I gave them my memories, letting them think that they’d done it, that Voldemort was in charge. Yet the whole time it was happening, they were unbecome and unaware.”

“But we were all aware that night, the night of the failed death curse.”

* * * * * * * * * *

And that must end us, that must be our cure,
To be no more; sad cure; for who would loose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity,
To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night….
John Milton
Paradise Lost, Book II

He whisper-shuddered when he remembered, as if in slow motion, watching that Avada Kedavra curse, that hideous green light ricocheting back at them, closer, closer, closer. He’d sped out of their body faster, more completely than ever before, leaving behind Tommy screaming while Voldemort and Tom just stood and stared. He watched all three not just withdraw or unbecome, he watched their essences, their very souls vaporize.

And for one glorious moment, he, himself, felt free. Finally and at last, free of them, free of them all, and free of their world.

Then with horror, he felt something that had never before happened, that he’d never considered possible – he felt himself unbecoming, and that blackness, that utter cold blackness, a swirling anti-light enveloping him in agony and ripping him apart, sucking him down into a maelstrom vortex, ever-deepening while ever-more-crushing him into a pit of painful black fire.

Only by snatching up whatever of their dark soul fragments he could see, was he, himself, able to resist, able to re-become. Only the sparkles within those fragments – sparkles which seared him as he grabbed them – only they allowed him to grab anything at all.

When he’d collected enough fragments, a vapor-self came together, most of it darker than the blackness around him, yet with those burning sparkles still embedded. After he reached a critical mass, his vapor-self floated up and through the blackness swirling ‘round him, up and into the smoldering ruins of that house in Godric’s Hollow.

First order of business was to shield himself from those infernal sparkles – he had more than enough pain outside. After walling them off, he began the slow, awful process of reassembling himself. And, he discovered, reassembling all of them.

He quickly learned that his own "himself" was so linked to the others that reassembling "himself" reassembled "them". And more: failing to reassemble "them" left "himself" with gaping, aching vulnerabilities.

“But I was the one who did the work. Then, before and since. Even after Voldemort got his sodding body back.”

His doing the work, that happened frequently this summer, too, during their recovery. Voldemort or Tom would try something, some way to recover transformations and power, and all of a sudden, there they weren’t, and there he was: out, stuck cleaning up the mess and making do. “Seems to be, if not my greatest talent, then at least my most frequently-used skill: cleaning up the mess and making do until I can pull someone else up.”

The snake was quiet, now. “Except for that weaving, which makes me groggy.” He hated being that way around her, which was why he’d pulled back from Voldemort and the others. “Don’t trust her.”

Even pulled back, though, it was hard for him to stay alert. To stave off that grogginess, he turned his attention inside, on himself, on their selves.

He thought of Tom with a smile. He rather liked Tom.

“Spunky lad,” he smiled, “quick-witted and brave, without Voldemort’s mad recklessness.” When Tom was in charge, in a way he felt more at ease, though he knew that Voldemort was more powerful.

“But with all those thugs around, Voldemort’s generally safer. A few times this summer, when Tom popped out unexpectedly, there were difficulties. Nothing dangerous, but with everyone hovering around and expecting Voldemort, it’s risky.”

He wished Voldemort had more of a taste for privacy. It would make it easier on him.

“Voldemort draws strength from the terror and fawning. That does have a power – that’s what got Tom through. But I’ve never much liked it.”

Not that he, or Tom for that matter, were against stirring up fear, though for different reasons. He’d found it good protection, while Tom….

“Tom likes revenge. Not like Voldemort, who thrives on it. Tom uses it for control, killing off the competition, or those who get in his way, and keeping the others in line.”

He had often told himself that he didn’t mind killing. “You do what’s needed, and surviving is often hard.” He generally felt, however, that killing drew too much attention and risked too much reprisal. Afterwards, after killing, though, he noticed….

“More emptiness – I’ve enough of that already. And more tiredness, too, as if, somehow, an extra weight were added.”

He thought of Tommy. "Tommy, I feel sorry for. He’s had a rough life, he has. So often, Tommy’s the one getting the short end of the stick.”

Not that he liked it when Tommy was out.

“Disaster,” he whisper-shuddered, “always a bloody disaster.”

Whenever that happened, he went on full alert, knowing that at any moment, he could be dumped into the open, often into a dangerous mess. Meanwhile, he was constantly trying to help Tommy calm down, constantly feeding Tommy thoughts as to what to say or do.

“Fortunately the child’s more-than-willing to listen. And if Tommy isn’t frantic or paralyzed, his follow-through isn’t bad. For a five year old, that is." He felt his almost-face frown. "Not that I like depending on even the best five year old.”

He wished, as he often did, that Tommy were even just a few years older. He always had to work harder the more Tommy was around, or even conscious. And he, himself, never enjoyed hard work when he could get around it.

Himself.

Yes, he often wondered who "himself" really was. Was “he” only “him”, the "he" who mostly lurked and watched? Was “he” also Voldemort, Tom and Tommy? Or did “he” wear them all like masks, sometimes at his choosing, sometimes not? He’d never been able to figure that out. Sometimes they were all so distinct. Other times, they all blended into each other. And there were those thoughts and feelings that didn’t seem to be any of them.

But this snake, this Nagini, he knew she was not himself, and never would be.

“Leery of her. Always have been, right from the start. Don’t trust the feel of her. And this power she keeps nattering on about, that drives Voldemort so mad – it’s not safe. It’s growing, she’s right on that, it’s growing, but….”

He felt a ghostly-wave of nausea and fear.

“...But I agree with Tom. It doesn’t feel like transforming. Not like the other transformations at all. More like it’s taking over.”

At times, though he knew it was mad, he felt as if “it” were not just taking over, but eating the life out of him.

“Like Tom once read in a book, about those wasps that lay their eggs right in the spider while it’s still alive. And when those eggs hatch, they start eating away at the poor spider – now there’s a notion I never thought to have, ‘poor spider’ – all the while the spider was still alive.”

He felt his ethereal face grimace.

“Sometimes that power inside, it feels like it’s eating away at my soul. Like a slow-acting Dementor. And there's another strange thing about this power – I can’t get Voldemort to bloody explore it. Can’t even push Tom into it. And Tommy… well, no use there.”

“Reckon I’ll have to do it myself. Not that I much like the idea. Tom and Voldemort, they’ve got more power than I have. Much more. But sooner or later, it has to be done.”

He frowned.

“And the way it feels, the sooner the better.”

He ever-so-slightly shook his ghostly head.

“But if I do find something, they all seem deaf about going into this power, even to explore it. How will I get ever them to understand what’s going on, much less to do something about it?”

He scowled at the still-weaving snake.

“The more she talks, the worse it gets and--”

He felt Voldemort awaken, and he quietly slid further into the background, blending in with “The Dark Lord”.

* * * * * * * * * *

Peter did not like that snake. Long before it bit him, he did not like that snake.

He never understood why Voldemort kept that thing around. Except, of course, when he'd needed its milk to survive. Oh, Peter had hated milking it.

“The feel of its scales,” he thought, “that look in its eyes as I held it….”

His shudder was almost a convulsion.

“Don’t trust her,” he thought sullenly, “don’t trust her a bloody inch.”

Voldemort and Nagini had just come out of the small room and back into the subterranean Great Hall. And with their return, the torchlight dimmed as if Voldemort had suppressed it, while at the same time that glow, that green aura surrounding Voldemort became more visible. Voldemort had surveyed the people in the Hall, one by one. As always, Peter felt the eyes of Voldemort’s lighter Legilimency pass over and through him. Peter felt, too, when it settled on someone else. For which Peter and, he was sure, all the others not-attended felt grateful.

Voldemort’s eyes were elsewhere, as were his thoughts, though Peter knew Voldemort’s feelings were murderous. A murderous feel Peter had come to recognize as Harry-murderous.

Ever since giving his hand to help create Voldemort’s body, Peter discovered he could feel Voldemort’s feelings with awful clarity.

“Especially in my rat state.”

While he lived in terror that the Dark Lord would find this out, it had been useful, and he lived in terror anyway. It gave him an early warning, when to be absent or to duck. As he became more skilled at reading those feelings, Peter could anticipate not only Voldemort’s moods, but also his desires, helping Peter curry favor as never before. His access to power was greater and smoother than ever.

Yet.

“That outrage inside of me,” he thought, “it’s come back and it’s getting stronger. Especially this last day. And all because of Potter.”

The outrage had returned. At first, it had been vague and just around the edges, after Harry had saved him, and after Peter had found Voldemort and realized Voldemort intended to kill Harry. Vague and around the edges, but the outrage had returned, this after disappearing at the end of his first year at Hogwarts, when--

“Not yet,” Peter thought. “I’ll have to feel that soon, but not yet.”

The outrage grew more after Peter had seen Voldemort and Harry duel, and after Peter had felt Voldemort’s growing obsession with killing the boy. Peter tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that Harry was nothing to him. He certainly knew that he was nothing to Harry, less than nothing. But still that outrage grew.

Peter found his mind drifting, again, into his past. He knew once this started, there was little he could do. He braced himself.

“Brought up with no dad,” he grumbled, “under-sized in the Dewsbury slums. Weren’t only the mills dark and satanic, like that bloody song says. The streets were, too, and the schools. And--” He swallowed. “--every place we lived.”

Behind his mask, he scowled.

“Every place we lived,” he thought. “Never a home, just a place we lived. Until we had to move on.”

Peter did a quick Hall-check and found, as usual and as he hoped, that no one was paying attention to him. Reassured, he went back to his thoughts.

"Just me and my mam. Didn't find out 'til I got that Hogwarts letter that she was a witch, and my dad a wizard. And how he'd been a drunk and had beaten her and told her that if she ever left, he'd find her by her magic and slowly kill me in front of her, and then kill her." Peter frowned. "Always afraid for the both of us, she said. Felt she had to hide out among the Muggles, and not use any magic. Even though she didn't know any way of making a living."

“So I lived by my wits, I did, that and by my hiding. Except when I was cornered. Then I fought with anything at hand. ‘Til I got wise and learned to find friends, big friends, and to stick close by them and let them do the fighting.”

“But at home, those men mam kept hooking up with….”

Peter felt himself slipping back into the past further and more completely. He quickly, quietly left the Great Hall for a subbasement. He knew what was coming, and he knew he couldn’t stop it, only delay it, and that not for long.

In a dimly lit corner, Peter felt his boundaries weaken, releasing the pain of those upwelling memories. He doubled up and fell on the floor. An unseen piece of broken glass cut his arm. He didn’t feel that pain -- it was nothing to those memories -- but he saw the blood trickling down his arm and onto the stone floor. As he lay there, he put his hand around the cut to slow the bleeding. And to feel the warmth, even if it was only his own hand and his own blood, only his own warmth. There was only him, anyway, he knew that.

He thought about the strange happening that had made everything worse.

“Yesterday morning, I felt that light, that magic enter me. And enter Voldemort, too – he was crippled for hours. He had to work through all his transformations, again.” He shuddered. “That’s when Nagini bit me.” He shuddered again. “And I know it’s from Potter – I can feel it.”

That magic had released, in Peter, the outrage, as if letting it out of a cage or some dark hole. He’d felt the outrage almost as strong as he’d felt it as a boy.

“When I was a boy,” he sighed, and he felt the last wall between himself and the memories crumble. Peter let himself go into the inevitable….

* * * * * * * * * *

“I live in the facial expressions of the other, as I feel [her] living in mine."
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
“The Child’s Relations with Others”

……….

Memory pictures of beatings and bullies – there were so many. Each time he and his mam fled one man, they wound up with another just as bad, just as drunk, maybe worse. And little Peter had to learn new hiding places, had to find new big friends to protect him, had to figure out which new people to avoid.

At first there was just terror. Beatings and bullies and terror. And love, too. Maybe the love came before the terror – Peter wasn’t sure, but it felt that way. He liked to think that the love came first. His mam’s love.

Whenever he felt his mam’s love, he saw her eyes. Because whenever he’d seen his mam’s soft hazel eyes, he saw her love. No matter how sad she looked, or how scared, no matter how drunk she was, or how badly beaten her body, how blackened her eyes, Peter always saw her love.

Peter never saw love in anyone else’s eyes, then or since. He’d seen lots of other things, mainly contempt – he was used to that, and he used it, too. Because when he saw contempt, he knew there was often carelessness, and that was often useful. And he saw pity, though he never got used to that. He hated the pity too much to use it.

Contempt and pity, that and indifference were mostly what he saw now, and had seen ever since he attended Hogwarts, when anyone bothered to look at him. Which, mostly, others never did.

But when he was growing up, sometimes he’d seen rage. That’s what brought the terror. Because with the rage came the beatings, the drunken beatings, often so bad that they left him bruised and bloody and aching for days.

But that wasn’t the worst. The worst was when his mam tried to protect him. She always tried to protect him, just like she always tried to provide for him, always with love, almost always ineffectively. In trying to protect Peter, she usually wound up getting herself beaten, badly beaten.

That had been Peter’s worst terror.

That, too, was where the outrage came from. Peter remembered the first time. He was only five. His mam had tried to protect him, and oh, she was getting beaten. Again and again and again, the drunken, raging man was hitting her in her eyes, her beautiful, loving hazel eyes.

Before when he’d watched his mam getting beaten, he’d either screamed and cried, or he’d been frozen, immobile. This time, he flung himself at that drunken man. With everything in his five year old self, Peter was hitting, kicking, scratching, biting. He was hit, too, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was stopping those hands from hitting Mam’s eyes.

Then something happened, something surprising.

Suddenly both of the man’s hands were bloody, his fingers twisted at odd angles, and he was thrown back, away from Mam. The man screamed, looked at his hands, and ran away. Then Peter and his mam left before the man came back, and they never saw him again.

Of course there were other men, and other drunken beatings. But each time they beat his mam, each time they hit her loving hazel eyes, the outrage came back, and Peter attacked the man, and somehow the man’s hands were hurt, and he stopped beating Mam. Then Peter and his mam would go away, and they’d never see that man again.

……….

“Oh, Mam.” Peter, still curled up on the floor, rocked and moaned. “Why? Why?” Tears fell down his face and onto his paw and leg, mixing with the blood, then dropping onto well-worn stones underneath.

……….

The last time….

Peter was just eleven, and he’d heard her muffled screams while he was still on the street. As he raced up the stairs, her screams got louder, and he heard words:

“No! Please! George, I swear I didn’t do it! George! NO!!”

In the hallway, he heard the dull thud of flesh slamming into flesh, again and again. And he heard her screams, now louder and more desperate.

Then he heard his own scream as he flung himself into the much-larger man, and was flung into the wall. He felt nothing, only his terror and outrage. As he flung himself again at the man, his mam’s screams seemed more distant than when he was in the street, though he still heard her words:

“Not the boy, George! Please, not Peter!”

He was thrown onto the table, which collapsed under him.

By the time he got to his feet, his mam had put herself between him and George, and George was beating her, beating her face, beating her eyes.

Peter was more terrified than ever before – it wasn’t working! The outrage was there, but the man’s hands didn’t become bloody and twisted. Desperate, Peter searched for something, anything, anything at all that could stop that man, stop him from hitting his mam. He spied two forks, which had been on the table, and he grabbed them.

Then he lunged at the man, raking his face and getting both eyes before he was flung again, this time into his mam.

His mam tried to hold him, but he shook her off, charging again and burying both forks in the man’s throat as the man fell backwards, with Peter on top. They bounced once, then settled, like a great tree falling, and Peter kept burying those forks in the man’s throat and face until he realized the man was no longer screaming, no longer moving, no longer breathing.

He got to his feet, looked down at the man and, vaguely hearing his mam sobbing, was sick all over that bloody, shredded face.

In minutes, he and his mam had changed their blood-soaked clothes and cleared out. Two weeks later, he got his owl from Hogwarts.

And a month before the end of his first year, he learned that his mam had been beaten to death.

The Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, told him. Dumbledore also arranged, after the funeral -- only Peter, Dumbledore and McGonagall were there -- for Peter to stay summers and holidays with a childless and older magical couple. "Kindly, they were. After a while, I even started to call them Mam and Dad, when I saw how much that meant to them. Not how I felt, but... for all they did by me -- seemed like little enough I could give them back. And they didn't have to know my feelings. I liked them, after a fashion."

"And I always hoped that, maybe, by calling them Mam and Dad -- well, at Hogwarts, no one, except McGonagall and Dumbledore ever knew. Made them both promise -- McGonagall and Dumbledore -- not to tell about my real mam, about what happened and everything. And I don't think they ever did. Even after everyone thought Sirius'd killed me, and the poor woman got that medal and my finger." He sighed. "Always hoped she felt proud of me, and maybe that, too, made up for all they did, and all they tried to do."

Of course, no matter what they did or how hard they tried, the couple couldn’t remove Peter's terror. Nor could they remove Peter's shame of not having been there to save his real mam. A shame he never shared with anyone, not even his strong friends – James, Sirius and Remus.

"After my real mam died, and me keeping it secret and all, along with that terror and shame...." He forced himself to go on. That's something else that'd changed with all those new Harry feelings yesterday -- he started forcing himself to be honest, "at least with myself." He blushed. "Seemed like, until now, I was never honest with anyone, always pretending who I was, what I felt, what I wanted -- everything. After a while, it just got so telling the truth seemed harder, and lying almost more natural -- at least about me."

And his shame seemed to send that outrage away forever. It was over twenty years before Peter felt it again.

No, he never shared his shame with his strong friends. Strong friends they were, but never close friends. Because after his mam died, Peter decided that he’d never let anyone get close to him. And he never did. "None of them tried much, either, after they found how it was, that I didn't like talking about me."

Peter was their tagalong. They allowed that, they were amused by that, and they got to so they liked him, trusted him, and even cared about him, in their careless and clever way. But they never pushed to know him beyond a certain point, beyond Peter's small lies and his well-maintained mask. So it was never hard to hide what had happened and his feelings; it was never hard to hide Peter, even from himself. No one was ever that curious.

“Except Remus,” he admitted. “He tried. He even kept trying, though he never pushed hard. Remus was never one for pushing hard. And I liked that, his trying and his not pushing hard.”

Peter had felt devastated when he saw Remus’s hate, Remus’s willingness to kill Peter that night at the Shrieking Shack when Harry had saved him. Peter knew that Remus would never try again, never care again. And he knew that he, Peter, didn’t deserve Remus’s caring. Or anyone’s caring.

But then Peter never had felt that he deserved anyone’s caring. Except his mam’s.

So nobody learned what had happened to Peter and to his mam.

Except one -- that day when Voldemort trapped him, away from his strong friends, and with Legilimency….

……….

When he came back to himself, he was still in the subbasement, still lying fetal on the stone floor. At some point, he’d become a rat. He didn’t know why, but becoming a rat helped with the shame, though not with the terror. Since terror was more bearable, however, he spent increasingly more time as a rat, time spent so automatically that he often didn’t realize he’d transformed into a rat until long afterwards.

Sometimes he felt more at home, more truly himself when he was a rat. Sometimes when he transformed into human, he felt as if he had left his native state. Was he now, in essence, a rat? That’s often how he felt.

But even as a rat, that sense of Harry and outrage, especially after the day before—

He shook his head.

“Later. I must get back to the Great Hall before my absence becomes too noticeable.”

He was almost to the stairs when he looked down at his feet, his rat feet scurrying over the trash. Only then did he remember that he needed to leave his rat form.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
William Blake
From Milton