Oh, Merlin, this isn’t right… Where am I? Where’s my wand?

I sat bolt upright, those two questions raging at my mind as though burned there with a white-hot brand.

I was soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone, my temple sticky from drying blood. Tentatively, I reached out to try and feel where I was in the pitch-black. I felt cold, hard stone, running with water, all around me. No door, no window, not even bars.

And I was alone; completely alone.

How had I been stupid enough to let myself get caught? What had I even been doing?

I was spying! Yes, that was it! I was in a Death Eater meeting, disguised as a rat. But I was caught, then thrown in here. I hit my head on the stone… Yes, that was why I’d been bleeding.

And I had no way out. Not even something as small as a rat could escape from stone.

So I sat, and I waited. I waited for what must have been day. Food or water appeared occasionally in my cell, which was just enough to sustain me.

I once thought that I heard footsteps, echoing from somewhere beyond my stone-universe, but I must have been dreaming.

It was hard to tell when I whether I was awake or dreaming and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure which I preferred.

When I was awake, I could keep watch. No one could creep up on me in my sleep. But if I was asleep, I could escape to my friends; to James and Sirius, and Remus and Lily.

So, I had to settle for something in between, a sort of hallucinogenic state, where I saw things I didn‘t even know I remembered.

I saw my first meeting with my fellow Marauders. It was my first time on the Hogwarts Express, and I was terrified, until I found that compartment. Things just sort of … Snowballed from that day, until our seventh year, and beyond that, even!

I saw my family, though my parents were dead now. Killed by the very people that had captured me.

And all of a sudden, my hands were shaking and my breath was catching in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

That’s when I really thought I was going to die. I thought it was the end.

And I was glad! That was the strangest thing to me, because I was so young, my death just seemed so far away that I’d never paid it a second thought.

But all I wanted at that moment was to keep those memories forever, and never forget them. Perhaps this was the only way to preserve them…

“Come on, he wants you,” a harsh voice hissed. A black-booted foot kicked me onto my back, though I don’t remember how I got onto my stomach. I was pulled to my feet, though I couldn’t hold my own weight up. Strong hands under my arms dragged me along. Where did that opening come from?

My head was still spinning from lack of oxygen, and my limbs were numb with cold. But I tried to move, to hold myself up, for they had not beaten me, until my will was gone. I had to do my friends proud; they would never break.

We rounded a corner and stopped dead in front of a wooden door, set in the unforgiving stone. It opened, though I didn’t see where from, and I was pushed through to land, unceremoniously, at the feet of You-Know-Who.

I couldn’t bring myself to raise my head. I only knew who it is by instinct. I may have told myself that I would say strong until the end, but I was breaking, falling faster than I’d ever thought possible.

“Stand up, Peter.” And I did, because I didn’t know how to stay lying down.

That was the first time I saw the face of my new master; that flattened nose; chalk-white skin, how ironic that such a colour used to bring the word “purity” to my mind. Maybe he was pure, and I was not…

“So, you thought you could spy on my forces without detection?” That voice; I still have nightmares about it. “Not even vermin escape my detection.” Was I vermin? I’d never thought about myself like that. I’d always been proud of my small shape, my adaptability. Perhaps I’d been wrong, for all that time…

“I-I-I…I” I don’t know why I tried to speak. I didn’t want to explain myself, or to give anything away. All of a sudden, my friends’ faces burst into my mind with such clarity that they could’ve been stood in front of me, and bathed in a bright sunlight. For a dazzling moment, I thought I saw halos around their heads.

But then, they turned away from me, hanging and shaking their heads. I wanted to follow them so much that my heart ached, but I couldn’t. They didn’t want me to follow…

“Peter, what is it you are feeling?” My hands trembled as he spoke. What did he care about me? I was caught spying; he should’ve killed me already. So, why hadn’t he?

“W-w-well, I… I…” My voice died in my throat. I didn’t want to tell him… Did I?

“Go on, Peter.” His voice was silky-smooth, delicate, almost gentle and sweet. I’d shut my eyes - it was so soothing to listen to.

“I was thinking about my friends,” I mumbled, without opening my eyes. I was still standing, barely five feet away from him, and yet no one was making a move. He hadn’t harmed me, and I didn’t want to harm him, for I was so grateful that he hadn’t killed me.

I felt heat from the torches around the walls. It was the most wondrous thing I’d ever known after that time in the dark! I felt like a young shoot whose head had just pushed through the soil and into the sun.

For all I’d thought earlier about wanting to die seemed so far away, in another time, another place. I wanted to live for ever and ever! But it all depended, however, on keeping You-Know-Who from tiring of me. I had to prove myself.

“I was thinking about my friends,” I said again, my voice a little louder, a little more animated. Remind him that you are real, said a voice in my head. Remind him that you are a human, and not just a plaything; the rat to his cat.

“And who are your friends?”

“Sirius, Remus…And Lily and James.” My voice grew a little more this time. I knew that I was giving my friends away, but it wouldn’t matter soon, because I could go back and protect them. They could go into hiding and I could help them!

“Yes, we knew about them, Peter. Now, if you have nothing else of interest to say…” Those bone-white hands were reaching into the shadowy robes. He was getting his wand. Driven on by instincts I didn’t know I had, I forced myself to speak, and the words tumbled from my mouth until I was sure that I sounded deluded. Eventually, I must have said something of interest, for the hand stopped, and those blood-red eyes widened with interest.

“What was that you said, Peter?” I couldn’t answer; I genuinely couldn’t remember. Everything had come out in such a rush that I hadn’t known what I was saying. “About the Longbottoms, Frank and Alice?”

“Er, I-I don’t know-”

“Put him back until he remembers,” he whispered, turning his back on me. I fought to remember. I’d said something about what they were doing within the Order…

“They’re guarding something, or someone!” I cried out. The room froze. “Because they’re Aurors, and they can access it easil-”

“I want someone out there after them. Now! What are you waiting for?!” Orders were bellowed and Death Eaters ran, trying to organise themselves. Through the midst of it all, I was dragged back to my room, though I kicked and I screamed the whole way.

*

Later, they came for me again, and I was taken back to where he waited for me. There was a sickly half-smile on his face. My hands shook again.

“Your information was good, Peter,” he said in that soothing tone. “Do you have anything else for us?” I saw his hand twitch towards where I knew his wand was hidden.

I had a choice. I didn’t know that I had a choice, nor did I know that I had made it before it was truly presented to me. I just said what I knew he wanted to hear: “I could find out for you.”