Confessions of a Rat

Confessions of a Rat

I can´t remember how old I was when it began. I reckon that it probably started before I was born. I had the faintest suspicion it had always been that way, but I never could understand why. I never really tried to figure it out really. It had always been the norm within my home. I wondered why no one ever noticed. People have often asked me how I was sorted into Gryffindor, because I was so meek and timid. I didn´t seem to have an ounce of bravery in me, but it took a lot of bravery and resilience to survive from day-to-day while I was home.

My earliest memory of my home was very blurry. I must have been four or five. I remember hearing the screaming coming from upstairs. That´s all I had heard at first. Sometimes I wondered if it had always been just screaming. After that point, I could hear the thuds. I could hear my mother hit the floor or the wall. I could hear things breaking as they fell due to the way the walls vibrated during the scuffles.

I remember when I was six and waking up to find a picture of my grandmother lying on the hallway carpet, shattered and torn. My mother hadn´t been out of her room to clean it up yet. I had gone downstairs to find a toy that had been misplaced. While I was searching the living room, my father emerged and stepped on some of the glass from the picture. I remembered hearing the yelling and the pleas for forgiveness. My mother had tended to the wound, and not a moment later the thuds could be heard once more, because she hadn´t cleaned up the picture the night before.

I was used to this by the time I was seven. I never asked questions; I knew better. It had always been that way. I had seen my mother nurse her own cuts and bruises after my father had went to work. She had always been beaten terribly, but never enough that she needed to see a mediwitch. My father had always been careful like that.

It wasn´t until I was eight that things began to change. It was late in the evening. I had gone upstairs to do some homework for one of my grade school classes, and I was in my room, being quiet as always. Another fight (if it could be called that for she was beaten over everything, anything, and nothing) started in my parents´ room, just down the hall. I ignored it as I always did. I was only eight after all, what could I have done? But I could only ignore it so long. The fight ran over into the hallway, and before I knew it, they were in my room. I had leapt into the corner to escape them. It was the first time I had been forced to watch. I had wanted to escape, but they were between the door and me. I watched as my mother was raped without knowing what was really happening. My father seemed to notice me after it was over. He sent my mother out of the room to clean herself up, and we spent a long time just looking at each other. I remember being scared at the look in his eyes.

The next night, it happened again. They fought their way into the room. This time my father watched me as he beat her and then raped her. I know he saw the fear I had in my eyes, and he reveled in it. He found a new source of pleasure in my fear. Taking his pleasure from her wasn´t enough anymore. He now needed to see me hide in the corner, not wanting to look, but too afraid to look away. He was a sick, vile creature. I hate him! I hate him for what he did to my mother! I hate him for what he was doing to me!

It happened over and over again. Each time seemed more graphic than the last. I didn´t know what I could do. I had to make this end, but I was only eight years old. My mother, who had been a great witch, couldn´t even stop him, what was I to do?

It was upon my ninth birthday that my life changed as I knew it. I was in my room, doing my homework as the diligent child I was. My father hadn´t returned from work yet. Mother had gone down to the basement to find something. My father needed it and had told her to find it. I remember hearing the crash even today. The echo of it rang throughout the house. At first I thought father had come home early and started the beating in the basement, but minutes passed and the sound wasn´t repeated. Another sound hadn´t even occurred. I waited for a long time and it was half an hour later before I ventured downstairs. My father would be home any minute if the clock was any guide, and I wanted to know if Mother had found what she was suppose to be looking for.

The basement door was open and the light was still on. I made my way down the staircase. I crept slowly so not to disturb what may be taking place. When I made my way to the bottom I finally looked around and saw something I never expected. Mother was lying on the floor. She had turned a bookcase over onto herself . . . her head had been busted open . . . blood had pooled all around her. I remember standing there for a long time before I went back upstairs. I didn´t need to look for a pulse. I didn´t even know how anyway. But I knew she was dead, for her eyes were open and glassy. I had stared right into them and seen nothing. What I did see however was something I had never seen from her before; she had a triumphant smile on her pale face.

The funeral had been soon after. I had cried in my room for a long time already. I did so again at the funeral itself. I remember my father crying. It was the first time I had ever seen it, but I knew it was just for show. He had never cared for her. The people who attended had been friends from my father´s job. Some were friends of my mother´s while she had been in school. James´s mother had been there, with her husband and James in tow. It was the first time I ever saw him. He was uncomfortable and spent the whole time in a corner. I remember several women comforting my father over his loss, and I felt disgusted. If only they had known. Several women came over to comfort me. I looked malnourished, pale, and broken then. They comforted me because they saw a frightened child. They told me that they knew it hurt, but things would be all right. If they had only known.

Things were not all right. I didn´t realize it then, but things were about to get much worse for me. With my mother gone, my father could no longer vent on her. At first it seemed like he was handling his frustrations privately, and I would not see it anymore. But the Fates are cruel women, just as cruel as my father was. For they had allowed him to remember one very important detail. He remembered my fear. He knew I was afraid of him ever since that first night they had came into my room. He knew that he loved the feeling that came when he saw that fear. He knew what to do to see more of it.

It was three months after my mother had been laid to rest when the door to my room opened that first time. It was a Thursday and I had just finished my homework only ten minutes before and was dozing off into an exhausted slumber. He came in and silently closed the door, for what purpose I never knew since we where the only ones in the house now. He had a belt in his hand. Before I knew it, my screams were now echoing off the walls instead of my mother´s. Just like before, no one heard them, for we lived outside of town. It lasted an hour that first time. Later it was longer, more like two or three hours. He enjoyed causing pain and suffering so much I thought he was a demon of some sort, having taken a human form.

The first morning after, I didn´t go to school. He hadn´t thought about the fact I would have to go somewhere the next day, but he worked around that. He modified his schedule so it happened on the weekends. He wouldn´t have to explain it then. I found myself dreading the summer holidays and Christmas, for then he could beat me everyday without anyone being the wiser.

Far worse things came. It was little after my tenth birthday when I lost all faith in humanity. It was a weekend, and I sat in my room waiting for my father to come upstairs. I was waiting for the tell-tale signs: the way the house grew eerily silent, how I could hear every step he took on his way up the stairs, the creak on the fourth step, the soft padded sound as he made his way down the hall, the squeak from the doorknob as it turned. . I remember being startled when he didn´t have his belt; every beating had begun with it, though he usually ended it with his fists. But this time his hands were empty. His shirt was opened. He walked into the room to the bed and stood beside me. He stroked my cheek, and then I felt fear like I never had before and sick feeling started up in my stomach.

I won´t go into detail, though the images are still planted firmly in my mind. I could see, hear, and feel everything still today. I don´t know how no one ever noticed. That was when I changed. I became the meek and timid boy who later went to Hogwarts. I had resided myself to the torment the Fates had given me. I remember the day I got my Hogwarts letter. It was a flashing new hope. Surely he wouldn´t dare to keep me here; it would ruin the charade. But if I was at Hogwarts, the blessed time I was at Hogwarts, he couldn´t be with me. I remember crying upon seeing that letter. I never felt joy like that before. It was my escape at last! I knew I would have to come back at Christmas and then during the summer, but for the time I was at Hogwarts I was free.

I remember getting on the train that first day. My father had kept up with appearances and hugged me goodbye. I had dashed away with my trunk as soon as he let go. I boarded the train and took the first empty compartment I came across. I was there earlier than most. I had carefully hidden all my bruises (a result from my `going-away´ encounter) and changed into my Hogwarts robes before more people could enter. I hoped they would take it as me merely being eager and not that I was hiding something.

I remember when the compartment door opened and a boy with amber-colored eyes and a weary expression gazed in. He was nervous and his voice was faint and soft. He asked if he could sit with me. I helped him store away his trunk, and we sat in silence until he got the nerve to tell me his name. He was Remus Lupin, a scared eleven year-old werewolf (not that I knew that at the time), and he had the same reservations about getting to know people as I did. We were both rather timid and shy. Remus got better in no time though after the next two boys made themselves at home. The lively James Potter and his best mate, the rowdy Sirius Black, entered my life at that point. We became friends by the time we made it to Hogwarts, and when we were sorted into the same house, our friendship seemed cemented.

The best years of my life were at Hogwarts. Even though I was bullied after I gained weight, became the favorite punching bag for Slytherins, and was even teased and taunted by Sirius and James, I had never felt better. Sirius and James, while sometimes harsh with their words, rarely phased me, I had suffered from far worse of course. But over time, despite all the adventures we had together, I didn´t feel like their friend. It was seventh year when I first realized it. I hadn´t had friends before, so it took a while. But I realized I didn´t think of them as friends anymore. I still hung out with them and caused trouble with them, but I grew distant as I began to realize that I would never return to the safety that was Hogwarts once the year was over. I became scared, but they never noticed my reluctance to celebrate our approaching `freedom´. They had never noticed how after returning from the holidays ever year, I was distant and hiding away from them. It occurred to me that they weren´t really my friends that I was just a tagalong they never had the heart to shoo away. Remus still felt like a friend, but he was a recluse in his own right and for his own reasons, so it wasn´t a strong friendship. I began to wonder if they would remember me after the year ended.

Before graduation, I began looking for ways out. I was trying to find a way to avoiding my father for the rest of my life. I found that with the most unlikely person imaginable, Lord Voldemort. He told me that I didn´t have to go back. That he would take care of my father for me if I promised him never-ending loyalty. I was willing to do anything by that point. I wanted as far away from the wretched man as possible. I became one of Voldemort´s servants, his closest and most loyal one. Voldemort became my savior when he came to my home the day after graduation and we left the body of my father lying in the living room.

People knew Voldemort killed my father, but no one suspected it was because I had asked him to. James, Sirius, and Remus comforted me as I found myself pretending to suffer from the `tragedy´ just as my father had done for my mother. No one suspected me at all. I did several terrible things in the months and years that followed. I had promised never-ending loyalty to my lord and savior Voldemort, and he used me every chance he got. Most of his Death Eaters thought nothing of me, despite the fact I found myself as the go between for them and Voldemort. What I said to them was Voldemort´s command, and they obeyed. They didn´t respect me, but at least they knew better than risk not obeying what I told them to do.

I was startled when James asked me to be his secret-keeper. I felt positive that Sirius would have been chosen and told him so. He explained that Sirius was too obvious, and he needed someone else he could trust. I was touched a bit by that, but I knew James was making the wrong decision, for if Voldemort asked I would tell. I tried to talk him out of it. I suggested Remus, especially since Remus was harder for us (I said Death Eaters here, but I meant Voldemort and me) to find due to his tendency to wonder from place-to-place. He was insistent, however, and his fate was sealed. Voldemort asked, and I told. James and Lily died soon after.

I didn´t expect (as most people didn´t) the Voldemort would be defeated (if only temporarily) by Harry. I felt loss for James and Lily, but I felt nothing over Voldemort´s `death´. It took me a while before I realized that he couldn´t be dead, for I still had the Dark Mark, and I was positive that it would have faded away if he perished. I later went out to seek him, and found myself among the Weasleys' instead, deciding it would be best to hide out there so I can keep informed of the wizard news.

I can honestly say that I regret what I did to Sirius. It wasn´t until that moment in the middle of that street crowded with Muggles that I decided to frame him for the crime. I knew that I would be of no use to my master dead or in Azkaban, and Sirius would have delivered me to either fate. I decided it would be either him or me and I wasn`t the self-sacrificing type. I couldn´t kill Sirius, even after all the betrayal and the terrible things I had done. Instead, I faked death by his hands and sent him to Azkaban. I never thought he would escape and come after me. I never thought I would see Remus again. Most of all, I never thought Harry Potter would spare my life.

It was the first time anyone had done that for me. Harry had every right to wish me dead, yet he let me live. Somewhere, Harry had learned a valuable lesson and picked up one of the most noble and civilized ways of thinking I had ever seen. I´ll never forget what he did. I owe him a debt that I will have to repay someday. Harry has allowed me to see the flaws in Voldemort. I now see him for what he really is, a manipulator who knew how to press my buttons and work my strings. Someday I´ll break free from my loyalty to him, and I have Harry to thank. I will not let Voldemort destroy Harry, but I doubt that I need to intervene there. I know that this time, the better man shall win, and that man is Harry Potter.