Beneath A Grey November Sky

Rating: PG-13 for adult themes.

Title: Beneath A Grey November Sky

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred. Additionally, locations in and around the United Kingdom are used as a basis for “historical reality” or in a purely fictitious manner.

Spoiler Alert: Books 1-5.

Summary: Death is finite. There is no afterwards. There is no return. Death is a one-way passage and there isn’t enough fare in the vaults of Gringott’s to bring one back.

Pairings: James/Lily

Author’s Notes: This is from Peter Pettigrew’s vantage point and is written in second-person POV. No reviews or comments are necessary.

Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem.

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BENEATH A GREY NOVEMBER SKY

[] THE BALLAD OF PETER TURNCOATTAIL

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|| theme: it pleased the lord

It will be easier on you if you will only believe.

But you won’t. You never did.

It still seems ridiculous. Because it never seemed true.

Then and now it sounds like the babblings of a hysteric and feeble mind.

How can such things be real?

Ghosts.

You don’t believe in ghosts.

Even now, even after you have seen, met, spoke with, befriended them, the ghosts, you still don’t quite believe.

They can’t be...dead.

They seem far too alive for that. They feel too real for that.

Death is finite. There is no afterwards. There is no return. Death is a one-way passage and there isn’t enough fare in the vaults of Gringott’s to bring one back.

After all, ghosts are imaginary creatures. Things made up to make the sound of the house settling, the lamp light flickering, the cat bolting from the room for no apparent reason, more exotic.

To make the mundane into something out of the ordinary.

Even after meeting your first ghost, Sir Nicholas, you find it difficult to think of the apparition as that, something non-corporeal, bound to the earth for whatever reason, one borne of magic, one of religion, or one of science.

Your logic and your scepticism in things fantastic are your strengths, or so you believe.

In the end, it does you little good. Your reason and your intellect don’t make it feel better. Once you realise this, the words of your texts become colder, indistinct. You think you understand.

But you are proven wrong.

You ask yourself what went awry, even though you know that you never had it right.

You think that you feel ten different kinds of pain. You feel that your heart is rending, is being split into fractions. You feel a shadow come across your vision, a frisson of hate.

You don’t want to feel this way.

You don’t know how to stop it.

You are angry, hurt, jealous, lonely, filled with hate, longing, feeling disappointment most of all.

You feel disappointment at setting yourself up for the fall.

Disappointment in the shock that numbs you. You knew what the possibilities were, what the potential impact was, but still, you proceeded regardless.

You wonder what hurts more. That you don’t want the title of “just a friend” or that you no longer want to wait around for the time that you are needed or remembered.

You know that you don’t want to feel any more pain.

You think that it has come time for you to lie.

“I’m okay.

I’m all right.

I’m fine.”

Just lie about it. And hide your true self in the shadows.

Yes, that is the prescription for your malady.

Lie and hide.

|| phrase: it goes like this

Thinking backwards. You are reminded of a song that you’ve heard Remus Lupin play on his phonograph. It’s a Muggle song. You remember the name of the group because you thought, still think, that it is one of the greatest combinations of words you’ve ever heard.

The Velvet Underground.

You think it’s brilliant, the bloody greatest ever.

You remember the music and the lyric.

“...all the people are dancing and they’re having such fun, I wish it could happen to me.

‘Cause if you close the door, I’d never have to see the day again.”

You wish it could happen to you.

You fear the life that your father and mother lead. One of quiet, upper middle class desperation. He, drowning himself amid the strains of things like career path, balance sheets, projections, facts, facts, facts. She, blinding herself with the glitter of things like societies, groups, associations, hobbies, hobbies, hobbies.

You fear becoming committed to that kind of life. One in which there is no living, one in which there is only repetition of activity. Where there is no emotion, only constant motion to hide the loss.

The loss of love.

You fear, but you are certain that you will become one of them. You are just like them. This knowledge does not come to you as a surprise.

They lay the groundwork for the inevitability. They build your foundation upon a ground of doubt.

You wonder if there is a way to keep from becoming. You wonder if you can stay the transformation into something no one will hold.

You want to look away, to not see yourself. Not see the reflection in the eyes and the acts of the others.

You don’t like the way you look in view of their happiness. Their casualness.

You want to look away.

You know that you are fated to be denied. You don’t want it, but you acknowledge that it is what remains to you. It’s no fault of yours. This is something that you do not lie to yourself about it.

You know that they see this in you. You know that Sirius, Remus, James, that they know you are uncertainty and anxiety, disgrace and rejection. They see you on the outside, face pressed against the glass, looking in. You are with them but you are still alone. They see this, but they don’t talk about it.

No, they don’t talk about it and you cannot blame them for that. You simply watch; they fail to take notice, don’t see the fade, as you become a shadow of yourself.

|| osinato: the fourth

You never thought yourself to be a jealous person.

You wonder if this is what leads to the winding down.

Watching them, all of them, love and be loved.

Not so much Remus, though he certainly has better and more opportunities than you. Despite his affliction, he still dates, still has close ties to those around him.

Not Sirius, despite his bluster and cocksure swagger. His blood traitor-heir act is little more than a front, and many of your classmates see through that to the man on the other side, and engage with him.

Certainly not James, never James, with his years-in-the-making courtship of Lily Evans.

It is a sight to see, it is indeed a sight to see.

You wonder if your loneliness leads to the twisting down.

Everyone seems to bask in the glow of their love, once they realise it. James Potter and Lily Evans, two of the most stubborn people you know, Sirius notwithstanding. Sirius Black takes the practise of “stubborn” to a wholly different plane, so it wasn’t fair to compare anyone else to him in such terms.

You watch them, and you are happy for them, as they move through love and laughter. You are with them, they would not have it any other way, and yet, you are alone.

You are happy for them.

Really. You are.

You aren’t lying to yourself. Not this time.

You wonder if the lies are what lead to the sliding down.

It is enough to feel the joy of others, you tell yourself. You are happy for them, happy with them, happy because of them.

Yes, you tell yourself, it is enough. Watching the bliss and the passion between James and Lily, the camaraderie between them and Remus and Sirius, yes, that is enough for you.

You can live your life being a bystander. Recording, noting, memorising. Isolated and detached. You can live with being some sort of leech, a kind of emotional vampire.

You wonder if the realisation of your condition is what leads to the breaking down.

|| adagio: the fifth

You have a dream of happiness, of love and laughter and life and of someone to share such things with. You have this dream, a dream you’ve held dear since being a young lad.

But something goes wrong along the way.

Something breaks.

They should know better than to mess with someone’s dream.

You remember the young lad, and you compare him with the man of now, and you see that he has grown up to be...mean.

But with a smile. Always with a smile.

You feel a surge of...power in their surprise.

They must not have thought they would find you laughing.

Sirius, in his usual callous and half-ass manner, in full-blood swagger, takes hold of Hestia Jones and makes plans to take her to the Yule Ball.

He should know better. He should realise that you fancy her. You are much more polished, much more mature, and you are approaching Hestia with a level of pride and dignity.

You are being subtle and low-key and Hestia, she is most receptive. She is appreciative of your circumspection. The steps you both take are tenuous, but you take them together.

Sirius just has to step in and steal her away from you.

And neither Remus nor James do anything to stop him. If anything, their inactions and actions make them complicit. Remus says nothing, though you know he must at least suspect your feelings for Hestia. James encourages Sirius, though you know that he must have seen you and Hestia together.

When you make mention of your intentions for Hestia to your friends, to Sirius, to Remus, to James and Lily, you make a simple statement and then leave the words, leave your friends, in the Common Room.

You leave them to laugh at you, your failing, your cowardice, your inability to take action. You leave them to laugh at poor Peter, poor Wormtail, slighted yet again.

You know that when they finally locate you, sitting outside of the Shrieking Shack, that they must have thought that they would find you in tears. Clinging to a wall or fencepost someplace, trembling in fear and disappointment.

They did not think they would find you laughing. With a smile. Always with a smile.

You acknowledge that Sirius is the king. At Hogwarts, he is the king, standing above all others on the field of play.

But you know that when it comes to this match, that your position is not that of pawn, as they might suspect, but that of queen.

The jokes, the innuendo, the snide remarks, they are not lost on you. Not long ago you would have made such comments about yourself. But no more.

Yes, you are the queen, the real power, and you hold their rooks, their bishops, their knights, in your grasp.

You are different now, in your final year at Hogwarts. While everyone, your classmates, your roommates, your instructors, are looking the other way, absorbed in their own dramatis personae and interplay, watching the war, while they have their backs turn to you, their eyes closed to you, you change.

While you imagine them licking their lips, savouring your misery, you sell your soul.

Your anger, hurt, jealousy, loneliness, hatred, longing, disappointment, all of these feelings tear a hole in you.

You see only one way in which to fix the tear.

You begin taking control

He gives it to you. He sees beyond your forced station, sees potential, and gives you control...

|| andante: the minor fall

This, you admit to yourself, is beginning to feel good.

You are graduates now, living in the real world, far from the protective bounds of Hogwarts.

You are in control.

You watch them fret, worry, writhe. You watch them fear the darkening of the light.

Your classmates, your comrades in the Order of the Phoenix are falling around you.

But the control intoxicates you. Watching your friends squirm feels good.

Seeing the glimmer in their eyes, seeing their once studied and assiduous movements take on a frantic air, seeing the small beads of sweat on their brow collective brow when they learn of the murder of two members of the Order and their families.

You can hear the growls from Remus and Sirius, and the apprehension in their bellies, the apprehension they are, in delicious irony, too frightened to admit.

You know something they don’t know...

You know your place in the Marauders.

You are Peter Pettigrew, the least talented of them all.

You are Wormtail, the one with nothing to offer.

You are the small one, the beady-eyed one, the unattractive, unassuming, ungraceful one. You are the one who makes the Marauders better. You are the contrast in the comparison.

You are not to be granted an opportunity at love or fame or fortune. This is not your place in the scheme of things. Sirius is the cunning one, Remus is the quiet one, James is the charming one, and you are the other one.

Your place at their side is what keeps you from loving, you think to yourself.

Keeping you in your place, that is what feeds on your soul. The knowledge that there is nothing better for you. That there is no higher station for Peter Pettigrew than that of the sullen boy. This knowledge is what has been destroying your life.

No more. Now you have control. What is torn within you, what is sheared in half, it is made whole.

While no one is looking, because no one ever looks at you, you sell your soul.

|| allegretto: the major lift

So, you muse, this is how it feels.

To be like them. To be able to breathe and to feel.

To hear the song of…freedom? inside of you.

The life, the future, that He and She, your parents, taught you to fear, has gone away. You rid yourself of the possibility and the trepidation that permeates your being fades. You tell the sensation that it is no longer welcome.

You are still on the outside, but with your control, your new power, his favour, you feel just a little bit closer.

You look at them.

Why can’t she love you?

She loves James without question, but still you wonder, why can’t she love you?

What is there about you that would keep Lily from caring about you the way she cares about James?

Why is James the one who married first?

Sirius is likely to be next, though the war has him distracted.

Remus is the confirmed bachelor, being unable to be with another. You feel a certain kinship with him on this matter. For you are both under restraint. Remus, due to his prohibitive connection with the moon, you, due to your inability to form a connection with anyone or anything.

You look at James and Lily and you wonder how it is that they have such strength. Such joy in their eyes.

Why them and not you?

James and Lily’s love has again grown, strengthened. They almost glow with it. You wonder what it feels like.

Their love has born them a son. They name him Harry James.

Despite the losses to the Order of the Phoenix, they continue to give you the benefit of the doubt.

When suspicious arose that one of them, one of the Marauders, is compromising the Order, Sirius looks to Remus.

You can scarcely believe your ears when he, Sirius, tells you this, but it is true, Sirius placed his faith in you.

Then came the greatest stroke of them all: Sirius tells you that he is the secret keeper, that the Fidelus Charm on the house in Godric’s Hollow rests on his friendship and that, due to his suspicions relating to Remus, he wants you to become the secret keeper.

He tells you that no one would suspect you of being their secret keeper. Not even James and Lily, from whom he intends to keep this. He says that you have been a friend to them all of these years, like a saint, and that you will be perfect.

You can hear the Dark Lord’s voice in your mind as Sirius tells you this. “Not every saint is a fool.”

You agree and become the secret keeper.

Absolute power.

You hold complete sway over the current and future happiness of James and Lily, and, by default, of Sirius and Remus.

You.

The other one.

Absolute power.

Power.

Corrupts.

|| allegro: the baffled king

It happens so quickly.

The wolves. This is what the Dark Lord calls the fastest, the swiftest, the wolves swarm in.

You tell him what he wants to hear. The news he has been waiting for more than any other. You tell him where the Potters are. Where those who thrice defied him have taken refuge.

James, Lily, and Harry. In Godric’s Hollow.

The wolf brigades carry out their duty of diverting and distracting. The Dark Lord leaves with you for Godric’s Hollow.

You know what it is that he will do.

You know that you cannot stay his wand.

It happens so quickly. He walks into the house. You hear and see flashes of light, sparks, crashes, and then, you see that singular green light, and you know that it is James.

James is dead.

Your friend.

Your Prongs.

Your Jamie.

Your envy.

There is another flash of green light, and you know that this is Lily.

Lily is dead.

It comes from the top floor of the home and you know she must be near the nursery.

There is a final flash of light, pure white, brilliant, driving away the night, making you recoil.

The home shudders and heaves and the Dark Lord does not come out. Bits of brick and mortar start to loosen, to fall.

How is this so?

What does this mean?

You feel it return to you, the fear, the worry, the dread, all of those things that you said you rid yourself of when you took control. You feel these things return and more.

You feel sick. You hide in the shadows, trembling.

You see Sirius. You hear him first, as he comes in on his flying motorbike, and then you see him. He stares at the home for a moment. You see confusion, fear, worry cross his face, and then he runs in just as the house begins to sway.

You watch. You always watch. This is all you ever do.

He barely escapes being struck by pieces of the Potter home, which is slowly disintegrating, he barely escapes with something bundled in his arms.

No, someone.

Harry.

James and Lily are dead and the Dark Lord did not come back.

And Harry is alive.

You watch as Sirius climbs onto his motorbike, with Harry under his arm, and you watch them fly off into the night, tears streaming down Sirius’ tortured face.

You know that you can no longer watch. You must act.

Sirius knows.

Sirius is the strongest of you all. He will find Remus and together they will kill you.

You must regain control.

|| sforzando: your faith is strong

The house is on the verge of collapse.

You wait for him to return.

When Sirius does, you, in a move against your very nature, sever your own finger, toss the dismembered flesh aside, and use your blood in casting the spell.

You are the least powerful, but years of observation have granted you knowledge, if not practical expertise.

He is thrown backwards and away from the Potter home.

You transform and scurry away.

The whole is large. Not only is the Potter home reduced to rubble, but the surrounding homes are damaged.

You can smell the dead of many others.

You watch.

And then you run.

|| staccato: cold and broken

Complete now.

Discover, alive.

Reunite.

Escape, suffer.

Two ends of time neatly tied.

End of the line.

Faces return.

See them.

Pain in heart. Losing mind.

Soul decaying.

Body hurting.

Lose control.

Good try.

Say goodbye.

|| fine: somebody who’s seen the light

You stand beneath a chilly grey November sky.

You are far beyond all pretence of make-believe now.

Remus is still alive. Beholden to the moon, yet smiling.

Sirius passed beyond the veil in the Department of Mysteries.

Tomorrow, you think, tomorrow is the day.

You know there will be no second comings. You had your first and only when you helped Voldemort murder James and Lily, then faked your own death, framed Sirius for it, to be exposed twelve years later.

You once asked Harry Potter for his forgiveness. You are enough of a man now to recognise that it took some gall to do that. Gall you never thought you possessed.

You wonder why you asked him that.

What did you think it would get you?

It was a good try.

Still, tomorrow you are going to.

The Dark Lord took you back, after twelve years in deep hiding, but your body isn’t the only thing he reclaimed, taking your hand like it was a candlestick or a book.

He took back your soul as well.

No control.

The fear grows larger and larger within you, burning your eyes, causing great suffering.

Upon seeing the ghosts of James and Lily Potter, you know you deserved every moment and more.

You don’t believe in ghosts, but there they were.

The ghosts of James and Lily, among many others.

They were together. They were still together.

It was then that part of your mind resolved itself. You had not gotten control or power from Voldemort. You had received yet another shadow to hide behind. Your friends did not hurt you with intent or malice of forethought; perhaps they were selfish and unaware, but what children weren’t, what adults weren’t?

No, you did not have control then. You had a lie.

Lie and hide.

You know that there is a way in which you can wrest back some measure of control. You still have one way in which to salvage yourself, honour the memory of the Marauders, the love of James and Lily, one that has endured beyond the grave, one that has evidenced itself in that graveyard and has saved their son Harry. One that continues to save him.

You will set the time.

You know where you are now, who you are. You have regained your bearings.

You are no longer lost.

The shadows are changing to light.

It amuses you, you are no longer in shadow, but you are now haunted.

You wonder what will happen to you at the end.

Will you become the unbelievable, will you become a ghost?

Or will you merely inhabit a casket and bear the passing of years?

You are haunted. By the memories, the lives that you envied, the friends that you betrayed, the promises you broke.

Yes, it is time. Time for you to set things to rights.

There is great cost, but instead of being afraid, you feel a strange sense of peace.

You think that you are beginning to believe.

You know that you feel ten different kinds of pain. Your heart is mending, is being reformed. You feel a light fill your vision, a realisation of your fate.

You’ve long wanted to feel this way.

You must stop him, the Dark Lord.

You know that you don’t want Harry to feel any more pain. For the sake of James and Lily, and Sirius and Remus too.

You wonder if you will see them again on the other side.

Yes, you think that it has come time for you to—.

†