Chapter Text
Summer was a time of madness. Between the heat, the Dursleys, and the existential dread, Harry was losing his mind. So, he spent more time inside of his mind, sorting things out.
Harry’s mental landscape was Privet Drive, which was so stultifyingly mundane that he doubted any legilimens could tolerate it for more than a few seconds. Harry didn’t like it, but he knew it, and he had a few places he could go to get away from the Number Four of his mind. Mrs. Figg’s house, the primary school, the public library, the alleyways, the play park, the field where they had the fair, the corner shop at the end of Wisteria Walk. Places that were special and magical to him before he knew he had magic.
On one of these mental excursions, Harry discovered something equal parts terrifying and thrilling. He rarely visited his mental cupboard, as that’s where all the worst things were kept, but one evening he heard something.
“There is a little more in the bottle, my Lord, if you are still hungry…”
“Later…”
Nothing in the cupboard should have been making noise, that was something the Dursleys had beaten into him. Curious, and concerned, Harry took off all the locks and looked inside.
There was a window in the cupboard.
“What the fuck?” Harry said, getting on the crappy little bed. The window showed what was once an opulent room, now in disrepair and coated in dust. There was a fireplace with an old iron grate, and huddled next to it was a small, balding man.
Harry couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Peter Pissboy Pettigrew.
“It’s been two months,” he whispered. How had Pettigrew found him so quickly?
“Move me closer to the fire, Wormtail.”
Harry startled. The cold, high-pitched voice sounded like it was coming from within the cupboard. He looked around, his head pounding, but knew there was no possible way for Voldemort to be here.
“Where is Nagini?”
“I… I don’t know, my Lord. She set out to explore the house, I think…”
“You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail. I will need feeding in the night. The journey has tired me greatly.”
Wormtail. So, Voldemort knew that Pettigrew was an animagus, which meant he knew Sirius was, and that Lupin was a werewolf, and knew whatever information Pettigrew gleaned from spending twelve years living as a rat with the Weasleys.
“My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?”
“A week. Perhaps longer. The place is moderately comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over.”
Used to long hours in the cupboard, Harry settled in to listen. Was there a window in Voldemort’s head too? Could he look back? Harry didn’t want to find out until it was too late, and so added another topic to his summer reading. Getting to Diagon Alley was easy enough. If he went looking like a pretty red-haired girl he still got bothered, but not for being Harry Potter.
“Your Lordship is still determined, then?”
“Certainly I am determined, Wormtail.”
“It could be done without Harry Potter, my Lord.”
“Without Harry Potter? I see…”
“My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the boy! The boy is nothing to me, nothing at all!”
Harry yawned. It sounded like Voldemort was having fun messing with Pettigrew’s head.
“You... you... you... are going... to kill me, too?”
“Wormtail, Wormtail, why would I kill you? I killed Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite useless…”
Harry really wanted to know how it only took Pettigrew two months to find Voldemort. If Peter Pillock Pettigrew could do it, why couldn’t Dumbledore? The Ministry? Any other Death Eater? And in those two months, somehow Voldemort, in his incorporeal state, managed to kill someone. Wait, who the fuck was Nagini? And Voldemort was drinking her milk? Gross.
Voldemort started hissing. “Nagini, my sweet, come to me.”
A fucking massive green snake slithered into the room. She started hissing about an old muggle man outside of the room, listening in. Harry grimaced. He kept watching, even though he knew what would happen to the old man.
Whatever Voldemort looked like now made the old man scream and drop his walking stick. The end of a wand appeared in the window, and Harry understood he was seeing this all from Voldemort’s perspective.
“Avada kedavra.”
The familiar green light, a rushing sound, a last breath, and then nothing.
Harry imagined a curtain and tacked it over the window in his mind. Then, he woke up.