𝐉𝐈𝐆𝐒𝐀𝐖

Chapter 2

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Chapter Two:

Tales from the Dark Side

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Peter Pettigrew didn't sleep most nights.

He didn't expect a lot of sympathy and knew he didn't deserve it. That was the difference between him and most of the other Death Eaters. He knew what he was doing was wrong. The rest were under some mass delusion, he supposed. He didn't really understand how they thought, but somehow they managed to justify their actions in their own minds. He wished he could.

Oh, perhaps he could blame it on James and Sirius. After all, they'd never truly treated him as an equal. He was always slower than they were, more excitable, more pathetic. Always the butt end of their jokes. But that fell rather flat. How could you justify giving up your closest friends' secrets and leading a madman to murder them just because you had to tolerate some good-natured ridicule as a boy?

He couldn't justify it. He could try to say that when the Dark Lord had approached him with offers of family, love, and acceptance he'd been led astray. But even that was a weak excuse. There was nothing in the world that could ever justify what he had done. Yet, it didn't change the fact that he had done it and now had to live with it.

He had a lot of nightmares, when he did manage to sleep. Nightmares that usually consisted of watching James, Lily, and lately Sirius die. He hadn't witnessed any of their deaths, but he imagined he had it down to the tiniest, most minute detail, because they felt so real. They were terrible really. Dreams that wracked Peter with guilt and remorse beyond imagining. He expected no sympathy from his new "friends", so he never mentioned it. It would only get him killed, in any case.

There was, of course, always the matter of the throne.

Peter stared at his silver hand, flexing it very carefully. He hated it. He pulled up the sleeve of his robe and poked at the fresh bruises there. He caught Snape sneering at him, so dropped his sleeve back down. No doubt Snape knew what a throne was. No doubt he knew that Peter's guilt had manifested a creature much like a poltergeist to torment him at night. The creature had been haunting him for almost fifteen years now. It never came when he was with someone--one reason he'd always taken to sleeping in a Weasley boy's pocket or bed as often as possible. But whenever he was alone at night, it came for him. Since he had his own room here at the Dark Lord's house, he spent many nights alone. And the throne was a cruel as ever. Every night he felt what it was like to have Killing Curse cast on him. Only he never actually died. And when the throne would leave him at sunrise, it left behind trails of unexplained bruises. Very few people had ever heard of a throne. But then, few wizards had ever felt as guilty as Peter Pettigrew.

They were all in the sitting room, watching Draco Malfoy get the Dark Mark. The boy was wincing and whimpering as the Dark Lord slowly traced the Mark upon the white flesh of his arm with the wand. The Dark Lord wore a hooded black robe, the hood pushed back to reveal his white, snake-like face. Draco wore the Death Eater's black robes as well, but unlike with the Dark Lord, they did not give him an air of menace. They only served to make him looked washed out. Peter remembered getting his own Mark, long ago. He remember how much it had stung. He looked around the room, gazing at his fellow Death Eaters.

The absence of Lucius Malfoy was quite a relief, as was the absence of his insufferable wife. She had never been a Death Eater, but ever since Lucius had been arrested, she had been very instrumental to the Dark Lord's plans. Few knew of the details, and Peter supposed he should feel privileged to know of what he wanted to do. But he didn't. It made him sick, in some ways.