~*~ Murderous love ~*~
To be in the presence of James and Lily was to be in the presence of true love, and who should know this better than I? As a friend I watched as Prongs gave away his heart and as Lily opened her own beating organ and learnt to love in return. As a friend I watched as they commemorated their love in a wedding, exchanging vows and rings. As a friend I watched their first child grow and turn into a younger James. And finally, as a betrayer I murdered them.
People never really understood why I did it. Why I betrayed the Potter’s to Voldemort. Those who knew it was me thought it was my desire for power. The fact that I was fond of powerful allies and even fonder of the strength they gave me was common knowledge. But the main reason I did what I did to the Potters was for love.
People might think that strange. That I would kill my best friend, his wife and their only child. How could someone be so cruel, so cold to kill those that you love? But I didn’t love them. I loved her.
I loved the way her auburn hair would shimmer in the sun, the way her vibrant eyes would sparkle with suppressed joy, even if I wasn’t the one to bring that joy. I loved Lily Evans. I loved Lily Potter. People at Hogwarts always thought I was stupid, couldn’t put two and two together, but if was as stupid as they thought, I would never have come up with ‘The Plan.’ ‘The Plan’ was to give away Lily’s secret and then save the day, or plan b was to string Sirius up for betraying the Potters and killing me, does that sound like an idiot?
The students at school never knew that I acted thick so Lily would offer me her tutoring sessions and we would once again be alone in the quiet corner of the common room. No one knew how much I longed for her touch as she brushed her delicate fingers against my own, stubby hand to take the quill from me and re-do my transfiguration essay. No one knew how I paid no attention to what she was saying and would gaze at my best friend’s perfect woman. For that’s what she was, is; the perfect woman. But she was also my best friend’s.
Lily was everything I wanted to be myself. She was brave, loyal, funny, smart, beautiful and in some ways when I was with her I felt those traits reflect onto me. She gave me a hope, a light, a strength that I so desperately wanted and needed. Sirius was always poking fun at me, in some ways I don’t think he ever considered me a marauder. I got my revenge on him eventually, though. See he always thought I was a weak, stupid boy but then when I lost Lily, I lost everything, even a part of my mind. So I strung him up for murder, not only Lily and James’, but I also made it appear that he had killed me. I felt no guilt, no pity, no mercy for him. He was never one of my friends, nor was James really. Those two were as bad as each other and I only put up with their insults because I knew that one day I would get revenge for it.
I didn’t reveal the Potter’s whereabouts without a price. And my price was Lily. The Dark Lord wanted to kill her but I bargained with him for her life. I gave Voldemort the secret because I wanted James dead. If James and Harry were dead then Lily would no longer have that happiness that I wanted her to have with me. She might even come to me for comfort and then I’d finally get my chance. The original plan had been for me to rush in before Voldemort killed Harry. In my mind, if Voldemort killed James, Lily would think he was weak and then I could defeat him and she’d think I was strong, but I backed out at the last minute, and the Dark Lord was so powerful that I, I couldn’t withstand him. His will bore down on mine until my body had his mind, his will was my will.
But I believe that I did it for love, but maybe I’m just making excuses and love is an easier word for insane jealousy and anger. After all, they do say it’s a thin line between love and hate.
The way I followed James at school, the way I worshipped him, it wasn’t because I particularly liked him. I liked what he had. He had all the attributes that Lily claimed to want. He had everything that I wanted, that I needed. How could I ever compare to him? To follow him around, I hoped to gain some of his talents, to make Lily see that I could be a better James Potter than the original. When seventh year came I thought that Prongs would finally run out of time and Lily would never give him that chance that he, and I, so desperately craved. But she did.
That broke me. I flew apart for a while. I would go to the Shrieking Shack and sit there for hours, thinking about the two of them together and how I would never feel the warm touch of her soft lips on my own, nor the gentle hand that caressed, nor the love of Lily Evans. The rest of the Marauders assumed I was getting my own life, but really all I wanted was James’ life, in both senses of the word. I wanted to take it, yet I also wanted it for myself. They thought I was leaving them and separating into my own world, that maybe I had found some new friends. And I did.
But these weren’t the type of friends I had had before. They weren’t jokers or arrogant school boys. These were men, evil, cold, cruel men who could give me anything I wanted. Power, wealth, Lily.
I became jealous of any minute that Lily spent with James and not with me. I couldn’t hide it and I couldn’t, or didn’t want to, fight it either. So I crept silently into solitude. Sirius and James never really noticed me drifting away, I don’t think Remus paid that much attention either. In all the seven years that I spent with the ‘Marauders’ not once did I feel appreciated or even liked. I was there. I was there to press the knot on the Whomping Willow and that was it. I was no more a companion or a friend than Lily was my lover.
I often go to the Forbidden Forest and the Shrieking Shack when I want to think of her. Somehow I always knew that she would never look twice at me but I always harboured a secret hope that one day she might see me and like me for who I am, and return the love that I so passionately felt for her. Maybe one day she would spark the fuse that I had made for us, maybe she would love me in return, but I never got my chance to confess my feelings before she died.
I hate to say that word ‘died’ but I suppose it’s better than murdered. People think I’m an evil villain, a heartless, cold brute, who would kill anyone in a second. It might make you feel better to know that I can’t sleep at night without hearing her chillingly cold voice whisper ‘murderer’ in my head. That I can’t sleep for fear her eyes will be there and will look straight into my filthy soul. That I can’t sleep without seeing that blinding green light that killed her. Does that make you feel better?
To make me the Potter’s secret keeper was a stroke of genius by Sirius. He didn’t know my feelings, no one did, or does. When I heard that James was dead I was secretly happy, even if I knew it was me who had killed him but then Lily’s name was added to the death toll. I remember wanting to laugh, Lily dead? No. She wasn’t supposed to be there. My plan to have Lily had ended with me destroying the one thing that had given me hope to go on with my life. Even if I wasn’t with her like James was, she was still my light, every time she smiled at me I could feel my soul melt, my heart flutter and my knees tremble. And now she was gone. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t. She was meant to be meeting her sister. For I should know, I sent her a false letter saying that Petunia wanted to meet her. She however, never got the letter. I assume it was intercepted, by Dumbeldore or Voldemort, I’ll never know.
Have you ever wondered why Voldemort asked Lily to step aside before killing her? She was a mud-blood and a constant nuisance who had defied him three times. He would have destroyed her in a second, like he did to all the other innocent muggles. But he didn’t. He gave her an escape route. That was what I pleaded for when I offered the Dark Lord James’ whereabouts. I bargained for the safety of Lily.
Voldemort gave her the opportunity to leave, but she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t. She was too strong, too bold, too damn stubborn. So he flicked her aside like you would bat a fly away. And that was it. I had betrayed the Potters for the one thing I lived for, and now she had disappeared, escaped my futile grasp. When I uttered those fatal words I knew then that I was wrong. “Godric’s Hollow.” Those words haunt me still, after 13 years. Her death weighs on my conscience, although I am not sure I have one anymore.
I never wanted anything out of life, not really. Sure I had dreams, but that was while Lily was alive. The crush that I developed upon her, became an infatuation and I found that I could no longer bear to see her with her own husband. The sight caused me so much pain that I refused to see them any longer. I would not go to the christening, Lily had a child by another man, it was too much to take. I had always, secretly, wished that Lily and James’ tempers would create a conflict, a rift between them and then maybe I would have my chance. But no, they were blissfully happy and I was forced to watch as an outsider who could only reflect in their happiness and mourn in my own misery. How could those two achieve the one thing I so desperately craved and clawed for?
Seeing Harry grow up has been heart breaking. He has turned into a younger James, yet his eyes are Lily’s. The only thing that’s left of her now. Sometimes I lie awake on Ron’s bed just watching Harry sleep. How I wish he had died and Lily had lived! She wasn’t supposed to be there. I know I shouldn’t see Harry, after what I did to him, but the sheer fact that he is a part of Lily seems to comfort my soul, which is in ruins and chaos.
When Lily died I felt my own soul whither and melt away. It was as if my heart stopped beating and never started again. Cold, cruel and unsatisfied with life. The flame of life in my eyes that was slowly being diminished each time I saw the Potters was finally extinguished, once and for all. After I heard of their death I embraced the darkness, the shadows that seemed so welcoming all of a sudden. I serve the Dark Lord because I am compelled to, because that is the only way I can remember Lily and it is the only way I can live. The Peter Pettigrew that I knew passed away a long time ago only to be replaced with the shadow of a man. The guilt gnawed away at me until I could no longer feel it and ate away at my very being. No longer truly living so I feel no pain, no resentment, no jealousy. Just fear and an almighty loss.
When I serve the Dark Lord, I see her. Which is another reason why I continue to serve him. The only way I can see Lily is through him, even though the image pains me, I live for the moment where I can see her features clearly. When I see his face, his malicious grin I see her emerald eyes, her auburn hair, her creamy complexion. But when I touch him, when I have to serve him, I no longer see the beauty of Lily, I see a mutated figure, a screaming face, pointing at me in an accusation. Her mouth screams at me, filling my head with the worst of noises. Knowing I caused that pain rips me apart every time, which is why I wince when I touch him. Her once beautiful emerald eyes burn with a loathing so strong that I have to turn away. She has an insatiable appetite, an appetite that is only fulfilled when I am in pain. She is no longer the Lily I once knew, but some monster within myself, that I alone have created.
She knows it was me, she always has and always will. She knows that I did it. That I killed her and that I loved her. She knew all along but never said and never truly saw.
So here I am, once again completing my monthly ritual. Every full moon I change into a rat, which symbolises me so completely that it is almost painful to transform. The greasy, deceitful, slime ball that I am. I go to where Lily lies and change back into a human. I sit on the dewy grass as the light of the sun appears over the trees in the distance and a single beam of light manages to fall on the tombstone in front of me, illuminating the letters upon it. “Lily Potter.”
I turn my back on the one beside it; her husband’s. I don’t want him to see me mourning once again over the loss of my love, and his wife. With my dirty, stubby finger I wipe the cold stone lettering “Lily.” It shines out in the light yet I leave “Potter” covered by moss, in the hope that, if I leave it covered perhaps one day it will go away and be un-true. That they never did get married and that I can freely weep for her. But each time I return the name is still there, stubborn, like James. It stays, like a constant reminder of the hurt I have caused, broken a happy home, a happy life, something I have never achieved. The name ‘Potter’ is engraved into the stone and remains there, almost to spite me. James always was a stubborn young man. He won’t let go of her, not even in the face of death. And nor will I.
The rain starts up again and I shrug as I feel large drops of water trickle down my back and seep into my clothing. I wipe away the drops of water from the tombstone. As the rain falls, large beads of water drop down the side of the stone grave and it seems as if she’s crying. Crying from being dead, or from my touch? I am not sure but still I wipe them away; I cannot bear to see her crying.
Finally I turn, leaving James’ grave untouched, the vines lay undisturbed to crawl and creep up the side of his stone grave yet Lily’s seems almost as fresh as the day it was created, thirteen years ago. There’s just one small patch which remains hidden under the green moss which reminds me so much of her eyes; ‘Potter.’ ‘Potter’ lays hidden but always present.
Upon Lily’s grave I have left a fresh bunch of flowers over the top of it. I transform once again into a rat, a fresh feeling of guilt bubbling in the pit of my stomach. Is it from going back to serve the Dark Lord? Visiting Lily’s grave? Maybe I feel guilty because I murdered her, and I know I did, no matter how many excuses I think up. Or is this feeling of guilt simply because I loved her?