Title: en échange de âme
Author: Greenie
Author's website: http://www.glassknives.net/
Author’s Email: escapism@gmail.com
en échange de âme
Two spells were cast on Peter that fateful year.
The second was the Fidelius Charm that was to be the downfall of James Potter.
Peter had watched his best friend disappear to everyone but himself. He had
laughed with them around a fire, jogging the baby Harry on his stout knee,
sipping coffee. He played genial, as he had always played genial, as he had
been silly, innocent, bumbling little Peter from the moment he saw the Trio and
understood what he would have to do to be their friend.
James took it all in, one arm around Lily as he discussed the latest move from
the Minister with his closest friend. James Potter was deceived, and so James
Potter was doomed.
Doomed, because the first spell was something that bound Peter to his Lord more
tightly than a Dark Mark could; what the ancient wizards had called an exchange
of wands; en échange de âme. When the ritual was complete, the Dark
Lord’s magic ran in his veins and over his hands and robes. Peter wrinkled his
nose, having always preferred what his newfound friends referred to as
'paperwork' rather than the sickly stench of blood that accompanied their
gruesome pleasures.
At the same time, the Dark Lord held Pettigrew's nine-inch wand in his
lily-white hands and bent it until its owner screamed out the name of Godric's
Hollow. An exchange of wands was Dark Magic, and never was it made to be a
thing of equality; of mutuality; of love. An exchange of wands was not a
marriage ceremony. An exchange of wands was like Lord Voldemort taking a young
boys soul in his hands and tearing. Worse than Cruciatus, for that was pain of
the skin -- this was something deeper. No man could resist it. Peter didn't
even try.
So Peter was doomed, just as his friends were doomed... but Peter was powerful,
and he used that to his advantage. The explosion that rocked the street and
killed thirteen Muggles was not his own magic. Sirius laughed when he saw the
primeval look in his friends eye, because something awful was festering behind
the blue of Peter’s innocence, and Sirius had always been taught to laugh in
the face of Death.
Peter hid as his power waned, and crept silently -- first through gardens, then
through the beds of children, taking comfort in the purity he could never again
possess, snuggling up to his beloved owners and getting fat, getting happy,
getting confident.
Until ten years later when the Dark Lord began to rise again, and the singing
in his veins strengthened to a shriek.
As he had turned from foe to foe in desperation he was sure his heart would
burst out of his chest and lie twitching on the dirty floor of the Shrieking
Shack, like a fish out of water. But even his owner turned away from him, as
though he could see the reek of corruption hovering around Peter's sorry hide.
Every inch of him called to be reunited with his Master – so he ran, and he
ran, and he ran.
Two spells were cast on Peter that fateful year.
-End