The Shrieking Shack

the shrieking shack

"You've changed, Peter."

"Remus, please! You don't want to do this."

"You are quite mistaken, Wormtail." But the quiver of fear in Remus Lupin's voice gave him away to the quaking creature before him.

Lupin was in a state. His hair had grayed significantly since the end of the war. All he had known was gone, and his last link to his innocent childhood, his last memory, was kneeling before him, begging for mercy, like a coward.

"You are no Gryffindor," he said under his breath. "James and Sirius would not be proud. Do you know what they would say, Peter? Tell me what they would say."

"Remus, please--"

"TELL ME WHAT THEY WOULD SAY!" screamed Lupin, taking a small step forward. Peter crumbled in fear.

"I- I don't know."

"No," said Lupin, burning bright tears threatening to fall from his old eyes. "You wouldn't know, would you? You abandoned them. You gave James out and the last time you saw Sirius ... that must have been the Shrieking Shack, this very same house. How long ago now? Eight? Nine years?"

Peter was now trembling so violently, Lupin could not tell if his movement had been a nod, or simply a tremor.

"I'll tell you what they would have said, Peter." Lupin took a deep shaky breath, and in a small voice, so very much like the one he had once owned when he was carefree with his three best friends back at Hogwarts, he said, "They would look down on you and say, 'Get up, Peter. It'll take a while to get over this, but we know you didn't mean it.'"

Peter gave a small squeal, barely audible.

"You know the difference between them and me, Wormtail?" Lupin raised his wand until it was pointing in between Peter Pettigrew's watery eyes.

"Remus--"

"I know you did mean it," he whispered, in a menacing voice.

"Remus, my old friend--"

"Do not call me that."

"Moony--" cried Peter desperately.

Lupin's eyes widened for a split second. "No one has called me that for many years."

A small smile, perhaps of victory, began to creep unto Peter's face, but before Lupin noticed, the words came flying out of his mouth. The same words that had killed his best friend on Hallowe'en so many years ago.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Peter Pettigrew was dead before he hit the ground, his eyes open, and his mouth barely cradling the hint of a grin.

Lupin's eyes faded in and out of focus. This house brought back so many memories. Too many memories. Those full moons when he had come here with the dead man at his feet along with James and Sirius. They were all gone now. He was the last one left.

Moony was all that was left of the Marauders.

One by one, they had died. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Counting backwards, his life had been erased. His wand fell from his limp hand to the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack and he fell to his knees.

Peter's body faded in and out of view, and Lupin couldn't help but notice a dusty piece of what looked like parchment, protruding from underneath the man.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, Lupin pulled it out from Peter with a noise that reverberated uncomfortably in the empty ruins. He unfolded the dusty parchment slowly, afraid to rip it.

It looked familiar.

And with a surge of dread, Lupin realized what it was.

He picked up his wand and pointed it at the parchment.

"I solemnly swear..." he began.