Dead People;
and How Rats Kill Them

Spoilers:Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Summary: Written in response to a challenge for a writing club, Sirius' thoughts as he corners Wormtail.
Rating: PG Disclaimer: Not mine, J. K. Rowling’s. Hopefully she won’t mind my visiting the characters from time to time.

It was insane.

Madness.

The extent of his stupidity—his naivety—slammed into him like the energy of a bolt of lightning. It had never occurred to him that the mild-mannered, scared-of-his-shadow boyhood friend could have been anything other than the shy, somewhat insecure, but generally good-natured man he portrayed to the outside world.

They had all suspected someone, something, had been carrying information to the enemy.

He had never suspected it was him—it.

Hatred coursed through him, thicker than molasses in his veins, as he realized how stupid he must have sounded. Handing the Rat exactly what he wanted on a silver platter. How excited he must have been when he’d been able to creep away, face his Dark Lord and explain that he could give his master what he wanted most. There must have been a party, dark brews and cheesy appetizers for all. His hand tightened on the narrow rod in his hand, the hard, smooth feel of the object giving his energies focus.

Turning his mind away from what must have unfolded, from the reality of what might have been avoided, he raised his head, narrowing his eyes. The Rat had to be caught—before anyone else was killed. Before he himself was killed, because only he knew the truth after all. What really had happened that night, what was really responsible for the blank look in the eyes of the man who might have been a brother, what madness had been set upon the world by a creature that might have ran had someone looked at him the wrong way.

And there it was: its eyes frightened, yet depraved, beady black holes: its hair matted and limp. And its words no more than shrill whining.

He could feel his hand tightening over the stick, anger focused into one location, where he would destroy the animal that did this to his friends—to his family really—revenging their senseless deaths. Never would this monster find favour or grace in the sight of his master. He would not live long enough to see the face of the only being on the planet more despicable than him.

The battle had begun with words and a crowd had begun to gather. Curious, frightened bystanders moved away as though they could feel the power and anger between the two men facing off on the maroon, brick paved, one way drive. In the deep recesses of his mind, he registered someone crying to call for the authorities, but he did not waver or look away from the Rat in front of him. More words, but this time accompanied with smoke, sparks, and the bystanders began to move away.

So did the beast in front of him, raising his arm as he did so.

He moved to follow, raising his own arm, but too late. He was blinded by light, smoke, and a ringing in his ears that could only have been caused by a blast vast enough to destroy lives and tear apart the firm earth under his feet. He found himself knocked off balance and he slid, dropping the instrument in his hand, and fell half way towards the bottom of a crater.

He sat, stunned, very aware of the particles of dirt underneath his hands, the blood trickling down from the gash on his forehead, leaking into the corner of his mouth and registering a salty, elemental taste as it slid over his tongue. Around him, it looked as if he’d been thrown into a picture from the Blitz. The bricks of the street lay scattered like child’s building blocks. Bits of pipe and wires rose haphazardly into the air like the twisting legs of a beetle caught on its back, unable to right itself again, and as the smoke cleared he just glimpsed a tiny, bare tail disappear into a diagonally cut sewer pipe and he stared.

Around him there were cries of horror and fright: screaming, the energy and disbelief of a disaster site or terrorist attack. People on the street were running around, scampering, and darting amongst themselves, calling out for survivors, reaching into the pit to reach for the arm of an injured but still alive human being, screaming at the sight of bits of flesh or the hideous sight of a blonde curly pigtail, pulled back by pink yarn, one of the child’s arms thrown back in an impossible way like a rag doll tossed aside, the rest of her body buried by the rubble.

Dead. More had died.

He would be held responsible. But it wasn’t him. It was the Rat.

And impossibly, horrifically, he began to laugh. A harsh, guttural sound without any joy or real mirth, the sounds of his laughter echoed across the barren landscape causing the witness above to stop, eyes widening, and stare.

When the authorities arrived, they would find him still laughing. Eerily, hauntingly, almost like a creature from another world. They would drag him away. They would speak to the witnesses, who would explain how the dark haired man fought with another smaller, mousier man, and how he raised that stick and it must have been dynamite, or perhaps a very thin bomb of some variety, and he had killed the mousy man, and all these people. And as they shook their heads, tears still welled up in their eyes, the witnesses would find themselves face to face with what might have been dynamite, but would simply modify their memory of the event.

Twelve years later no one would remember what had really happened there that day, and those who did would believe the mousy man the hero, but one man would seek the truth to set himself free and finish what he had failed that afternoon. He would go after the Rat.

Because only Sirius Black knew the truth: It was the Rat who killed those people.

By Sabrina

Dead People; and How Rats Kill Them

Dead People;
and How Rats Kill Them