The Night Before

The Night Before

By SarcasticMyth

October 31^st, 1981

11:26 PM

Peter Pettigrew stands in the doorway to his kitchen, his stocky figure leaning against the door frame and an amused smile playing across his lips.

A very pregnant Erin sits on their green kitchen countertop in her pyjamas, eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon and singing along to the ABBA song on the radio in a thick, slightly muffled voice.

"Tho when yuh near me, noffink elth can thave me, Eth-Oh-Eth!" Erin sings as she shovels more of the brown glop into her small pink mouth. She waves the spoon in time to the music, unaware that her boyfriend of two years is watching her every move.

"Other people might actually want some of that, you know," laughs Peter as he walks into the kitchen. Erin looks up as he shuts off the radio that sits next to the sink, swallowing the peanut butter in her mouth and sticking her tongue out at him.

"That's very mature, Erin."

"I'm a New Yorker, Peter. I don't have to be mature," Erin retorts, planting a soft kiss on his cheek. Peter smiles weakly as he digs another utensil out of the silverware drawer and takes a spoonful of peanut butter for himself.

"How was your day?" he asks, pushing a few strands of Erin's dark hair out of her eyes as he speaks.

"Good, good. Andie, Lily, and Jeanie came by to help me decorate the baby's room and they brought Nym, Harry, and Katie with them." says Erin. "Nym wants to know if she can still come and play with her Uncle Peter once the baby's born. Oh, and your mother called again, asking when you're going to marry the mother of your unborn child."

"Again?" Peter arches an eyebrow and Erin laughs.

"Nah. All she wanted was to know if we were still coming to dinner next Saturday, because your sister can't make it. And she also wanted to know if I had seen an article in the Prophet about some cleaning charm she thought I should use."

"Well, that seems pretty pointless," Peter says as he places his spoon in the sink. "Especially since you Muggles can't do magic."

"Har-dee-har-har, Mister Magical." Erin cuffs him playfully on his head as she eases herself down from the counter. "That was so funny I forgot to laugh."

Peter grins with a vitality he does not feel as he closes the lid on the jar, stretching his arm to place it back in the cupboard above his head. Erin stares at him, her eyes narrowed and an odd look of apprehension taking over her normally pleasant features.

"What's that on your arm?" she asks.

Peter looks at his left arm, and his jaw drops in horror. The sleeve of his sweater has fallen, exposing the snake and skull that writhed across the pale flesh of his inner arm.

"It's nothing, Erin." Peter pushes his sleeve back down and stares at the floor. "It's absolutely nothing."

September 20^th, 1981

Midnight

Peter was terrified.

Erin was sleeping, wrapped in every single blanket on their bed to fight off the cold in their apartment, the seven-month evidence of her pregnancy beginning to protrude through her thick cocoon. Peter watched her from his perch at the end of the bed, the freshly-burned Mark on his arm sending a sharp, searing pain through his body as its poison made its way into his bloodstream.

This was the price he would have to pay to keep those he loved safe.

He sighed and walked into the hallway, adjusting his robes and mask as he did so and Apparated to the Dark Lord's side.

The room was dark and smelled of something wet and unpleasant, and behind his Death Eater's mask Peter wrinkled his nose in disgust. He had been summoned to a place he had never seen before: a cold, dark room with heavy velvet drapes veiling the windows and an uneven stone floor. The Dark Lord reclined in a green armchair, looking more imposing than any Muggle king. To his right stood a masked Death Eater; Peter squinted, but could not for the life of him figure out who it was. He stood in his usual position between Snape and Barty Crouch, unsure of why they were called at this ungodly hour of the night.

"Pettigrew, step forward," the Dark Lord commanded, and Peter trembled slightly before falling to his knees in front of the Lord.

"You have some information you are not sharing with me, Pettigrew." drawled the Dark Lord. The Death Eater to his right glared at Peter, his cold eyes burning into Peter's skin.

"N-n-no, my Lord..." Peter stammered, staring at the floor.

The Dark Lord laughed, the sound high and unnatural and sending ripples of fear down Peter's back. "Do not lie to me, Pettigrew," he sneered. "I will get the information from you one way or another."

Peter cowered in fear, bracing himself for the expected cry of Crucio!

"Legilimens!"

Peter's surroundings swam in front of his eyes and began to vanish; image after image was flittering in front of his eyes until they blinded him completely to the world around him....

He was six, standing by the door with his parents as they brought baby Hannah into the house....He was eleven, and Professor McGonagall had just sat him down and was explaining that his father had been killed....He was turning into a rat underneath a full moon, and two boys behind him were changing into a stag and a massive dog....He was dancing with Erin at that Muggle club and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her....He watched on in fear as Dumbledore told James and Lily of the prophecy surrounding their son....Erin was looming over him with a look of longing burning in her big blue eyes as she unbuttoned her blouse....

No, said a voice in Peter's head, as the memory of him and Erin together drew closer to the surface, you're not watching that, you can't watch that, it's none of your business----

Peter felt a sharp pain in his head as the Dark Lord lowered his wand, his snakelike lips curled up in a cruel, contemptuous smile.

"Your weakness, Pettigrew, is that you love." The Dark Lord spat the word at him as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. "Love is such a pointless emotion...It clouds the senses and makes one a soft, worthless fool incapable of proper wizardry.

"You are still struggling with your conscience, Pettigrew, I can feel it. Betray your friends, or keep the woman you love safe? It's quite the conundrum, isn't it?" He laughed shrilly and Peter remained silent, shaking with fear.

"Would you like to see what will happen if you do not tell me?" he hissed. Peter shook his head. "No? Perhaps I should show you anyways..."

Peter's mind was suddenly filled with horrible visions; Erin and his mother and his sister being tortured, the child wailing in a crushed heap by the bedroom door, Hannah shaking uncontrollably as she is slammed again and again into a wall by an unseen force, his mother bleeding and broken on the floor and crying for help, Erin's screams blood-curdling and horrific as Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange take turns attacking her with all manners of curses, Barty Crouch holding him down and forcing Peter to watch as Rabastan killed them all one by one, the malice in Bellatrix's eyes as she turned her wand on him....

"I'll tell you!" he found himself yelling, tears streaming down his face behind his mask. "I'll tell you anything you want to know if you just leave them alone!"

The Dark Lord smiled, obviously pleased.

"I shall let the Muggle bitch you lie with alone, as well as the whelp you've sired together. None of my followers shall lay a hand on either of them."

Peter sighed and muttered praises, prostrating himself at the Dark Lord's feet.

"Now tell me, Pettigrew, where are the Potters hiding?"

Peter looked up into his Lord's red eyes and told him everything.

October 31^st, 1981

11:30 PM

"Don't lie to me, Peter," Erin says as she walks towards her lover. "What is that on your arm?"

"I told you! It's nothing!" Peter turns away from her and walks out of the kitchen, collapsing on the battered couch in their sitting room. He turns down the lights with his wand and Erin follows him, her eyes full of terror and wonder as she stares at the man before her.

"Peter, please, I love you....tell me what's going on..." she begs as she sits next to him. Peter leans forward, his head cradled in his hands as Erin touches his back. "Please, Peter, don't shut me out...."

Afraid to blink, afraid to breathe, Peter rolls up his sleeve and reveals his Mark.

The Dark Mark is black and sinuous, a poisonous combination of ink and spells that writhes across the soft flesh of his arm. The skin around the edges is red and raised, like the tattoo Sirius had gotten the previous summer had been before it healed. Erin lifts a delicate hand, slim fingers hovering above the mark, but she stops just shy of touching it, pulling her hand away and folding it neatly with the other in her lap.
She studies it, meeting the stare of the skull's empty eyes, and looks at him with questioning eyes the colour of the ocean.

"Why, Peter?" she whispers, wringing her hands together. "After all the things you've gone through---what we've gone through---why did you tell Voldemort?"

Peter flinches ever so slightly as he turns to her, tears already falling, and takes her face in his hands.

"They would have killed you, Erin," said Peter, his voice shaking a little. "They would have killed you and the baby and Hannah and Mum and I couldn't let that happen. I love you too much and they would have killed everyone I love and made me watch and I had to do it, Erin, I had to!"

Erin holds him tightly as he sobs with his head resting on her shoulder, and she can no longer hold back the tears she's been suppressing.

The two sit in the semi-darkness, both crying for the things that cannot be helped, and for those that cannot be changed.