James knotted the rope as tight as he could. The fraying fibers cut into Peter’s shoulders like twine making a hay bale bulge, but he couldn’t help the urge to check that Harry was still asleep upstairs.
His eye twitched the longer it was trained on Peter’s pale, sweaty face. And his fists clenched tightly around the wands in each hand. He didn’t miss the way grey eyes flickered down to ebony wood. He was scared, James realized with a bit of a start. He was shaking in the chair like a cornered animal.
His sandy hair was choppy, like someone had taken shears to it as a punishment. His face was breaking out, splotches of red like hives throughout his skin. His teeth were yellowing, and his nails were caked in dirt and overgrown.
He began to cry, and James’ curiosity quickly changed to fury.
“What are you weeping about?” he demanded, watching his volume. Peter wailed, only stopping when he bowed his head at James’ pointed wand at his nose.
“I’m sorry!” he stammered through each syllable.
James thought of Snape and Regulus answering vaguely whenever he asked about Peter. Saying he was serving Voldemort from one manor to the next. Staying hidden for the sake of keeping Sirius locked away. He briefly wondered if they’d held back more information to spare him the feeing he had in that moment.
Lily’s face appeared in front of him, the walls of their old home like blurry shadows behind her. He didn’t hear anything when her mouth moved, but he recognized the terror in her eyes. The tears that had fallen as she’d said goodbye.
“How could you do it?” he asked, hollow to Peter’s wide, fretful eyes.
“He made me,” Peter pleaded. The fingers of his left hand wriggled. “He made me vow to serve him until my death.” He shivered, as if the memory he’d conjured up made him weary. James felt like he was back in front of the television. “An unbreakable vow.”
James felt his heart break. It caught him off guard, and he sought to figure how it could have splintered even more. Instead, he stuffed a cloth napkin in Peter’s flapping mouth.
“I hadn’t asked you to do so much,” he waved his wand and watched as thin strings of silvery magic wrapped around Peter like cords of wire. He looked his betrayer in the eye, “Funny how you’ve made everything worse for yourself just on your own.”
He heard light taps above them, signaling his son’s rise.
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