"It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the dementors couldn't destroy it. . . . It wasn't a happy feeling . . . it was an obsession . . . but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So, one night when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog. . . . It's so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused. . . . I was thin, very thin . . . thin enough to slip through the bars. . . . I swam as a dog back to the mainland. . . . I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I've been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry. . . ."
He looked at Harry then at his daughter, who did not look away.
"Believe me," croaked Black. "Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them. Believe me Raea, I am no murderer."
And at long last, they believed him. Throat too tight to speak, Harry nodded. Astraea was filled with fury.
"No!" Pettigrew had fallen to his knees as though Harry's nod had been his own death sentence. He shuffled forward on his knees, groveling, his hands clasped in front of him as though praying. "Sirius — it's me . . . it's Peter . . . your friend . . . you wouldn't . . ."
Black kicked out and Pettigrew recoiled. "There's enough filth on my robes without you touching them," said Black.
"Remus!" Pettigrew squeaked, turning to Lupin instead, writhing imploringly in front of him. "You don't believe this . . . wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?"
"Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter," said Lupin. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?" he said casually over Pettigrew's head.
"Forgive me, Remus," said Black.
"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend," said Lupin, who was now rolling up his sleeves. "And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?"
"Of course," said Black, and the ghost of a grin flitted across his gaunt face. He, too, began rolling up his sleeves. "Shall we kill him together?"
"Yes, I think so," said Lupin grimly.
"You wouldn't . . . you won't. . . ," gasped Pettigrew. And he scrambled around to Ron. "Ron . . . haven't I been a good friend . . . a good pet? You won't let them kill me, Ron, will you . . . you're on my side, aren't you?"
But Ron was staring at Pettigrew with the utmost revulsion.
"I let you sleep in my bed!" he said.
"Kind boy . . . kind master . . ." Pettigrew crawled toward Ron, "you won't let them do it. . . . I was your rat. . . . I was a good pet. . . ."
"If you made a better rat than a human, it's not much to boast about, Peter," said Black harshly.
Ron, going still paler with pain, wrenched his broken leg out of Pettigrew's reach. Pettigrew turned on his knees, staggered forward, and seized the hem of Hermione's robes.
"Sweet girl . . . clever girl . . . you — you won't let them. . . . Help me. . . ." Hermione pulled her robes out of Pettigrew's clutching hands and backed away against the wall, looking horrified.
"Astraea", he said kneeling in front of her. "Your mother always helped me and you seem a lot like her"
And that was it; the breaking point. She seized him by his filthy robes and slammed him against the wall. He wheezed, begging for her to have mercy on him.
"Oh you would wish to be dead you little rat", she spat. "You make me lose my father? YOU? I lose my family because of a snitch like you?"
He was begging her to spare his life.
YOU ARE READING
Black Soul- George Weasley
Fiksi PenggemarIt all began on October 31, 1983, when James and Lily Potter were murdered by Lord Voldemort. Astraea remembers, in a blur, how her mother Aurora woke her up to take her to her aunt's Andromeda. She remembers them talking how her mother woke up to a...