Rain

Rain splashed against the room's only windowpane, loud and strong. Not a gentle mist, this was a steady, soaking thrum of spatters against the glass, sure to collect in dips and holes in the grass, making for the eventual trek across the hospital lawn and down the alleyway back to the seamy underbelly of the sewers slippery and depressing.

Elizabeth Pettigrew had occupied the same bed for several years, getting out only when a caring orderly lifted her gently into his arms and placed her in a special wheelchair with soft straps that could encircle her midsection and chest so that she didn't slump over when he pushed her through the dingy hallway to the landing near the elevator. Her blue eyes blank and unseeing, her mouth slack from several strokes suffered at the beginning of her stay at the hospital, it was obvious that she would never again be the tiny dynamo she'd once been, baking shortbread biscuits and sewing patches onto the knees of Peter's trousers almost before he could tear them.

This night, nobody had rolled Elizabeth down the hallway. Instead, she lay in her bed, arms folded across her chest, her eyes open and staring at the ceiling, a line of drool drying on her cheek. After watching her waste away, her plump fingers thinning out to the point where she could no longer wear the wedding band her dead husband had given her so many years ago and listening to her vocalize in nothing more than occasional moans, Peter had taken matters into his own hands.

Avada Kedavra was the hardest curse to cast; no wonder righteous hate wasn't enough to kill a person. A person truly had to feel hate...red hate and powerful, in order to make it work. It had taken Peter three tries before he could point the wand at Elizabeth's chest, utter the incantation and have the telltale green light burst forth and encircle her before it attacked her, killing her. She made no sound, didn't fight it off, and now she lay completely still, her chest no longer rising and falling but silent.

Peace.

"When you s-see dad, t-t-tell him that I'm sorry I wasn't the s-son he wanted. T-tell him I should've done it a long time ago, but I was t-too much of a coward...I c-couldn't do it..."

The sound of the rain was especially loud now that one person in the room breathed no more. Lightening flashed across the sky; the thunder rolled. God's moving furniture again, Elizabeth would have said and when he was a child, Peter was comforted by the thought.

If his mother only knew what caused the storms...

With trembling hands, Peter reached forward and gently closed his mother's eyes. He ran a brush through her hair as best he could and arranged her hands over her chest in what looked like a peaceful pose. Her face, twisted and wrinkled from so many years of worry and torture, finally looked calm.

In all the old movies and television shows, Peter thought, it's always raining when someone important dies.

Apparently, it's true in real life, too.

With that insight, Peter transforms and leaves the hospital, careful not to slip on the wet grass.