The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.
Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
I have heard it said that home is where your heart is. Can someone have a home if they don’t have a heart? I asked myself the same question.
He called this… place… his home, but I knew it as hell. This hell was where I had spent the last year of my life “ but no more. Finally, we were leaving. I carried him, as a mother would carry her baby, out the front door. His heartless body, if you could call it a body, was cradled in my arms. This day was the day I had been waiting for. It was the day that I would make the ultimate sacrifice for my master. This day, I would repay my dept.
Repayment was a hard thing to comprehend. What right did one person have to say that another person “owed” them something? I asked myself that question, too, as we headed for the graveyard. When someone sacrificed something for someone else, the person who did not make the sacrifice owed the sacrifice something, I decided. What had my master sacrificed for me, Peter? And where would he be if I had not found him, one year ago? Had I not repaid whatever debts I might have owed him in finding him, in bringing him here, in caring for him for the last year? No, he required me, Peter, to do this one more thing for him. This one thing that might change my life forever “ no, the life of all wizardkind forever.
We made our way through the dark Muggle streets towards the graveyard. I had already set up the stone cauldron a few hours before. As we reached the graveyard, I could see it silhouetted against the moonlight, its surface reflecting the radiant beams. I brought my master a little way down the aisle and turned him to show him a grave. It was a grave that I knew too well; it had been burned into my mind by my master’s thoughts as clearly as his Dark Mark was burned into my forearm Chiselled into the marble were the words Tom Riddle. “Very good, Wormtail, put me down back over by the cauldron. We can’t be seen before the ideal moment,” said the cold raspy , voice of my master.
I walked back over to the cauldron and gently put the bundle of cloth down on the ground and checked my watch. It was late, a quarter to nine. It would be time soon. I breathed in the air. The air was damp, and carried the taste of freedom on it. I was reminded of a night much like that night, many years ago...
I walked down the dark street of Knockturn Alley and entered The Green Hag I quietly went to the bar and sat down. The barmaid winked at me and poured me a drink. I passed her a few sickles and she handed me the firewhiskey. A man with long blond hair came and sat next to me. “You said that it would be worth his while to meet you?” asked the man.
“Yes, Lucius, I… I have something that I need to tell him…”
“Then you can tell me,” said Lucius, flashing a fake smile.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I am not letting you take all the credit! Tell me were he is, or I am walking out right now.” I breathed hard. The entire pub had gone quiet. The barmaid dropped a glass, and it shattered all over the floor. The bar owner swore and hit her across the face. Lucius smiled and leaned forward. He whispered in my ear, “Let’s take this outside, away from prying ears, shall we?” He stood up and grabbed me by the cloak. He dragged me outside and threw me to the ground. During my whole life so far, I had always been weak. But for some reason, I felt stronger because of my knowledge. It was as if I was empowered to stand up for myself. The fact that I could live without giving up my knowledge, but the Dark Lord wouldn’t, made me feel really good and warm inside. The warm feeling started in my feet, and seemed to make its way all the way up to my head. I did not know that this feeling was called courage.
I breathed in the damp air. On it, I tasted my freedom. The freedom of knowing that James and Lily’s hold over me was almost over. The freedom of knowing that soon, I would be strong. The freedom of knowing that soon, I would make the choice that would affect the entire wizarding world.
“Trust me, the Dark Lord will want to hear this,” I said. “It is about the Potters.”
I checked my watch again. It was almost nine o’clock. I pulled out my wand and shot a jet of warm air at my feet. It was a habit I had recently gotten into, although I did not know why. But the truth was, I was trying to feel something that I had not felt in a long time. I was trying to feel the warmth of courage spreading though my body, but all I could feel was the coolness of loss, pain, and suffering. If I had made a different choice that night all those years ago, I might have felt something different. But I hadn’t; I had betrayed my friends. And now, I had suffered the consequence.
But most of all, I felt scared. I felt almost as scared as I had felt a Halloween night long ago...
I was running down the Muggle street because I was being followed. I pushed two Muggles out of the way and continued down the road. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a giant dog bolting after me. I ran, turned right, ran a little more, turned left, right, left, and right again. All the while, I was pushing my way through the endless sea of Muggles. It was like some horrible game of cat and mouse, where I was running through a maze of buildings. But this was no game of cat and mouse; this was a game of rat and dog, and I had just reached a dead end. I ran forward and banged into the wall, but there was no way to get through.
“Hello, Peter,” said a cool voice from behind me. I whirled around and saw Sirius standing there in his human form. “Long time no see, old friend.”
I looked at him and whimpered. I said quietly, “Please, I did not mean to, but he is just so strong! You would have done the same.” I spotted a sewer under his feet and thought of a plan, a way out of this trap. I began to circle away from the wall, Sirius moving to stay in front of me the whole time. Now Sirius had his back to the wall, and I was standing on the sewer with my back facing the entire Muggle street.
“I would have died,” said Sirius blankly.
“Well, I… I guess we are just different then… I guess…” I said nervously, putting shaking my hands behind my back.
“Yes, we are. Now, prepare to die.”
“I don’t think so,” I whispered. Then, I shouted so the entire street could hear, “Lily and James “ Sirius, how could you! They were our friends!”
Sirius, the stupid fool, looked at me blankly and pointed his wand at me. “What are you talking about?”
“How could you?” I yelled. I pointed my wand at my right index finger behind my back and muttered a spell. With a horrible burst of pain and blood, my finger fell right off. I had never, and thought I would never, experience that pain again. Not only was it the feeling of one of my appendages falling right off, but it was also the feeling of knowing that I had caused it to happen. I bit my tongue hard to keep myself from screaming, and I could taste blood in my mouth. However, Sirius did not notice.
“What are you talking about?” He raised his wand a little more. By now, there was a big crowd around us: people were running, shouting, and crowding behind me.
“How could you betray our friends?” I screamed. I pointed my wand behind me and muttered the spell. I felt the very ground I stood on shake as the street behind me blew up, and at the same time I turned into a rat and fell into the sewer. I heard people screaming, and a baby was crying somewhere in the street. I should have felt courageous for the choice I had made to stand up to Sirius; it was something I had never done before. But instead, I felt scared, sorrowful, regretful, and shameful for my actions. Most of all, I felt frightened for my future.
I stood in the graveyard and thought about my past. I thought about all the decisions I had made, and how I had found a wizarding family to live with, to listen for news of my past world. I reflected on how I had almost seen the end of my life, but Harry Potter had spared my life. I remembered how I had found my master again, how I had decided to bring him Bertha Jorkins, and how he had repaid me for it. I thought about all the choices I had made that had led me to that exact point in time at the graveyard. Then it occurred to me. If I had done any one of those things differently, who knew what would have happened? Maybe the Dark Lord would be dead, and the Potters would still be alive. Maybe my life would be better. Or maybe, it would have been worse. There was no way of knowing, but what I did know was that I had made all those choices, and it was too late to change them. The fate of the wizarding world rested on my actions, and I had made my choices. Now, it was time to see how they would play out.
My master and I sat in silence for a few more minutes, and then there was a loud sucking noise from far off in the direction of the Riddle grave, and two loud thumps. “The time has come,” said the Dark Lord, extending his hands. I walked over to him and lifted him up. We walked over to the source of the noise. Standing in the darkness, a shiny cup fallen at their feet, were two young wizards. As we approached, one of them, the shorter one, screamed and dropped his wand. He put his hand on his forehead and fell to the floor. I took another step closer and saw that it was Harry Potter. From my arms, my master said, “Kill the spare.” I thought about it, and decided I had no other choice. I raised my wand and said, “Avada Kedavra!” A jet of light, as green as grass after the first spring rain, hit the boy squarely in the chest. The boy opened his mouth a little, as if he was shocked, and crumpled to the ground, dead. There was a time when that would have bothered me; the shock of what I had just done would have filled me with loss, grief, and sorrow. My very soul would have been ripped apart by the image of that boy, lying there on the grassy graveyard ground, as if he had just decided that it was a nice place for a nap. But once I became a Death Eater, I learned to live with death. It was a talent not easily unlearned.
I put my master on the ground and went over to Harry Potter. He looked at the body of his friend lying on the ground and shuddered. I lit my wand tip, dragged him to the Riddle grave, and conjured some rope to tie around him. He began to struggle, so I reached up and hit him. He looked at my hand, the same hand from which I had taken a finger all those years ago, and gasped “You!”
I ignored him and checked the ropes. They were pulled as tight as guitar strings, and they would be the strings that would, in their own way, play to the rise of the Dark Lord. Next, I drew a thick wad of material from my pocket and stuffed it into Harry’s mouth. He tried to scream, but the material served its purpose. He was silent to all other ears but his own. I turned around and went back to the cauldron. It was about twenty feet from the Riddle grave, and I pushed the heavy stone cauldron the whole way. It took a while, but after much huffing and puffing, I managed to take it to its destination. I could see that my master’s horrible snake had coiled itself around Harry, and I could also see that my master was squirming impatiently, like a fledgling anxiously awaiting its mother to return to the nest from a hunt
I turned from them and crouched on the ground. I took out my wand and started a fire underneath it. Within seconds, the flame was surrounding the cauldron, licking its stone sides. A few minutes later, the liquid within the stone cauldron was bubbling like there was no tomorrow. Fiery sparks also began to shoot off from the surface of the liquid. They danced their beautiful dance before they winked out of existence altogether. I realized that one day, we would all be like those sparks. We live, and our actions, our choices, and our own dance, all feel important to us. But in the end, would we not blink out of existence, just like those sparks? When we left this world, would anyone remember what we did? Years from now, when I was dead, would anyone remember that I betrayed the Potters? Would my name still be recognized in the wizarding world? I did not know, but I knew that as of this moment in the graveyard, I was the person whom everyone was paying attention to, and they were all waiting for me to finish my task. The steam from the cauldron started to get thicker. My master called out, “Hurry!” and I did. The sparks began to get more frequent. It was ready.
“It’s ready, master” I called.
“Now…” said the cool voice of my master. I choked back my nervousness and walked towards the bundle of robes that concealed him. I tried to feel brave, to feel like I was doing the right thing. I walked over to him and pulled back the robes to reveal the horrible and disgusting form that I had helped him to bring about. He was the size of a crouched child, but he was hairless. His eyes were as red as fire, and his nose flat. I was revolted, but nonetheless, I picked him up and brought him over to the cauldron. I could see the look of disgust on Harry Potter’s face. He looked as if he had just seen the face that haunted him in his dreams. I realized that I was probably right about that. But on the other hand, all I felt was hatred towards that boy. So, knowing that this would hurt him more than me, I dropped my master into the sparkling liquid. With a soft thud that continued to echo in my mind, he landed on the bottom of the cauldron.
Now was the time to add the second ingredient for my master’s rebirth. I choked back my fear of messing up, which was mixed with my fear of what would come next, and raised my wand. “Bone of the father, unknowingly taken, you will renew your son!” I flicked my wand, and the surface of the Riddle grave cracked. From the crack, a fine trickle of dust came. Small and powdery, I levitated it to the cauldron and dropped it in. Slowly, it began to dissolve, and the liquid sparked furiously before changing to a poisonous blue colour. It occurred to me how strange it was that something so small and fine as powder was able to change the course of the future. If it could do that, then would I be successful in the plan to revive my master?
I hoped so, because of what I was sacrificing for it. If I failed, the results of the sacrifice would be permanent. If I succeeded, they would be temporary. This was the part that I had been dreading. This was the moment that would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. I was about to feel the same pain I had felt that day I had cut off my finger. I whimpered and tried to feel courageous. I was brave “ look at what I was about to do! But what I was about to do did not feel brave… it felt stupid.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a silvery knife. It was clean, but it would not be for long. The moonlight reflected off its shining surface. It glowed white with the moon’s beams, as white as the ground after the first frost. I whimpered again and raised the knife above my outstretched arm. “Flesh “ of the servant “ w-willingly given “ you will “ revive “ your master ” I brought down the knife, hard. I was wrong when I had said that it would have been as painful as cutting off my finger… it was worse, much, much worse. I have heard of a kind of bird called a Jobbernowl. It is completely silent its whole life, until the moment of its death, when it recites every sound it has heard over its entire life. I felt like that. I felt like all the pain that I had ever felt, both emotionally and physically, was being put together and concentrated at the stump of my wrist. My hand fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Why I had not thought to cut it off over the cauldron, I did not know, but now I had to pick it up and put it in the cauldron. I willed myself with every bit of strength I could muster to bend down and pick up my fallen limb. Blood was pouring from my arm like a waterfall of Yuletide punch. When I touched my detached hand, it was already losing its warmth. I choked back tears and picked up the hand. Then, with a shudder of horror, I dropped it into the cauldron. The potion inside turned as red as the blood pouring out of my stump- of- an- arm.
I moaned with pain and picked the bloody knife up off the ground. I must have dropped it in my painful state of shock before. Then, I walked over to Harry Potter. His eyes were closed, but I could tell that he knew I was in front of him. He was squinting his eyes, as if he feared that my breath contained some horrible disease. I choked back my pain, and said to the night, “B-blood of the enemy…forcibly taken…you will…resurrect your foe.” I took the knife in my remaining hand, which was shaking, and pushed it into Harry Potter’s bare arm. The knife punctured the skin, and blood began to flow openly from his newly made cut, mingling with mine on the blade. I dropped the knife and took out a glass vial which I held to his cut, and I filled it with his blood. This was the blood that my master needed so badly. It was blood of a boy who had spared my life almost one year ago. The blood of Harry Potter.
I walked to the cauldron, stumbling most of the way. I took the beaker and poured the blood into the cauldron. Slowly, the blood fell from the vial, tumbled through thin air, and rippled the surface of the red liquid within the cauldron. With a blinding flash, the liquid turned white as a cloud.
I collapsed to the ground. Thick, white steam was all around me. Something was happening around me, but I did not know what. I just lay there on the ground, holding my bleeding stump of an arm, waiting for it to be over. Waiting for my life to end. Suddenly, a voice brought me back to the present. “Robe me.” I stood up and looked at my master. There he was, nude in the moonlight, looking exactly like I had remembered him fourteen years ago. He had the same slits for eyes, the same clammy skin, and the same flat nose. He seemed to give off a horrible aura, as if his body had willed him to die a long time ago, but his spirit had refused to leave the body to rest. He looked at me sharply, so I grabbed the robes from the ground. Using one hand, I flung them over my newly resurrected master’s head, and then I slumped to the ground.
The next fifteen minutes were all one big blur to me. Through the pain of my arm, the guilt in my soul, and the shock of seeing my master again, I was barely able to understand what was going on. He asked for my arm, and I gave it to him. He asked me questions, and I answered them. A few times I asked if I would get my new hand soon, the one he had promised me. He put it off each time.
The next thing I knew, there were crowds of people around us. My master was talking to them, to me, to us. I could not make out faces through my pain, but I did notice that they were all wearing black robes. Then it occurred to me “ Death Eaters.
My master was asking them questions and yelling at them for not coming to his aid. At least I had… although he seemed to know that I had no other choice. Then he asked me a question, and I agreed with him, without even comprehending what he was asking. After that, he waved his wand and silvery dust came off it. The dust glided through the air, and then each grain began to attract and stick to each other. Within a few seconds, a silvery hand was floating in the air. It glided down, as if it was being guided by angels, and set itself on the stump where my hand had been. I flexed the fingers, and they moved. The hand felt cool against my wrist, or it might have been that my skin was cold from the evil that I had just helped to resurrect. I reached down and picked up a twig from the ground. I could feel the rough bark between my fingers; its delicate pattern was either the result of the wind’s random work over time, or it was carved by the lost spirits that were wandering in the forsaken graveyard. I crushed the twig into a fine powder between my thumb and forefinger, and it was caught and blown away by the cool summer breeze.
A strange feeling came over me right then. It was warm sensation, but it was not the warmth of courage, or of bravery, or even of… heat. It was the warmth of confidence. This was who I was. Bravery was for fools, courage was for weaklings, and love was for those who had no other power. I had power, and that was what I needed. I did not need a heart; I just needed something that would pump my blood. It was the blood of a person who had helped to resurrect the Dark Lord of our time. It was the blood of a person who had just changed the course of the world forever. It was the blood of a person who had just ensured that the most powerful wizard of his time knew that I was his faithful servant. It was the blood of me.
Then, I got up off the ground and walked to my place in the circle of Death Eaters.
Maybe the heartless really cannot have homes. Azkaban is no home. And it is where I have been rotting away, thinking about… different times, choices, and what might have been.