All in the Family

Chapter 55: The Servant of Lord Voldemort

It sat on an island, gritty sand loose and packed full of bodies on sight and ready for the next victim. The higher up one went, the fewer concentration of dementors, and the less the security. It was all open halls and little caves to die in, for dementors needed no bars to keep their pray captive, their own heads did that. The cells were housed on the lowest floors, guarded twenty-four-seven. These were not the ones sentenced to a few months in this place for some forgivable infringement, but saved for those who had no hope of escape. Most did not survive past the first year, only those of no remorse would last. It was here Sirius had survived.

It was here Peter wondered if he was going to die. From his first gasping breath in these ice encrusted walls, he felt his soul shiver inside, he heard the horrors of this future trying to force its way into his reality. The worst part was how he could already see it, he was already begging for a way out and imagining anything for it. He could hear the rattling breaths of thousands of dementors closing in on his location in the heart of their land, and he sobbed and begged for strength not to do the wrong thing again, but what choice did he have? If You-Know-Who appeared now and told him he'd rescue him, but had to leave his friends here, would he still do it? He'd never been strong like James, and Remus, and Sirius- Sirius!

A silver light seemed to ignite inside him as he recalled how his friend had survived this place for so long, and then he was Wormtail, pattering across the bone ridden floor and slipping in between bars, hunkering into every shadow as dementors faded around him. Every shadow he entered felt like another plung into the beasts, even his sharp eyes couldn't divine the natural darkness from their essence, but he could finally traverse the hallways freely as he went in search of the book to get them out of here!

To his relief, he heard the beginnings of the book even through the bowls of these walls, and after concentrating only a few moments he recognized Smith's voice. His worry only increased though as she quickly went through Snape's cruel interactions and then being dispelled from the story, he had no way of knowing if his friends were suffering now while she tried to get them out of this. He had to find James, had to make sure he knew of this trick that helped to fight off the dementors, however little it diluted the effect.

Every cell was empty, every nook, cranny, and hole vacant. After a while, even this started to disturb him. Was Azkaban not the place of death? The rancid smell permeating the air, the very breath of every dementor he passed, his own soul seemed to echo with this notion, but the dead were no more visible to him than any living soul they'd encountered since this began. How studios were the dementors in collecting the bodies? Surely he'd have come across one?

They finally came into view through the gloom, on the highest levels, where the dementors were scarce but you could no more be free. The seven of them huddled around each other alleviated not by the silver moonlight above that was barely a day away from being full and causing yet another problem, but the circling of a stag and dog, which were starting to flicker.

The book's words had clouted around him as he'd traversed the doomed prison, every accusation since Remus and Sirius had forced his appearance worse than any dementor passing above him. He could hear his own pitiful protests being lobbed, hated himself more than his friends ever could for the spineless thing he'd become, but he'd convinced himself if he just found them they'd see who he really was. Like Sirius, this twisted parallel of their life was not a reflection back.

The difference, he now saw, was that Sirius really had been innocent all along, and he hadn't. As Wormtail confessed his crime, the Patronuses faded from sight.

I've always wanted to do a chapter solely from Peter's perspective, and this seemed like the perfect time. Everyone will get one at some point in the story.