Strike First

Harry had actually had an idea ever since she was reborn.

She would destroy all of Voldemort's Horcruxes before he could act.

Originally, she had planned to carry it out in her fourth school year, but Dumbledore's death had caught her completely off guard.

The Elder Wand had vanished after Dumbledore died, and Harry simply couldn't think of a way to kill herself and still survive.

After giving it serious thought for some time, Harry had finally reached a conclusion once Draco began pursuing her openly and relentlessly.

She would take Voldemort down with her in a one-for-one trade!

She couldn't go on living as a girl anymore!

She would much rather have Draco greet her with snide remarks and outright mockery as he had in her previous life. That had been far better than this!

In the Weasley family's guest room, Harry made up her mind as she stared in bewilderment at the thick bundle of pages an owl had just delivered from the Malfoy family, a letter inviting her to visit Draco's home.

Someone else had the same idea.

Scabbers... or rather, Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail, was restlessly gnawing on the iron bars of his cage after receiving a new task from Voldemort. His pink paws were bleeding from the strain.

He had no doubt that, if he were human right now, the half of his hair that hadn't fallen out yet would probably fall out too.

Sirius's hearty laughter came from downstairs, filling Scabbers with terror.

He huddled in the corner of the cage, his gray-black fur covered in cold sweat. This was far from the first time in twelve years that he had hated how weak his Animagus form was.

He also hated himself for leaving loose ends when he acted, allowing Black to survive!

"Damn it..."

Peter cursed in a voice only rats could hear, his black, beadlike eyes fixed on the light shining through the crack beneath the door.

Under these circumstances, his master had actually ordered him to find a chance to kill Harry Potter!

Master doesn't understand at all! That damned Black is right downstairs! If he sees me, he'll kill me!

His whiskers trembled. In the corner of the cage, the half-eaten piece of cheese Ron had forgotten gave off an enticing aroma, but all Peter felt now was nausea.

When the first ray of sunlight streamed through the window, Molly called Ron out of bed from downstairs. Scabbers guessed he was going out with Harry and the others, and sure enough, a little while later, Molly's loud voice rang out: "Children! The Floo Powder is on the mantelpiece!" A jumble of footsteps and the sound of a door opening and closing followed.

The house fell quiet.

The latch on the cage door was loose.

Peter's heart nearly leaped out of his chest. He carefully pushed the cage door open with his nose, then slipped out, his pinkish-gray body like a puddle of sludge. Ron's stinking socks hung right beside the cage, and the smell nearly made his rat instincts scream.

Freedom! Free at last!

He stumbled toward the fireplace, only to stop short at the last moment. He couldn't use the Floo Network as a rat! He had to turn human again. Peter glanced warily around him, and after confirming that the room was empty, he began to transform, trembling.

As the last of the Floo Powder's green light faded from the fireplace, silence returned to the attic.

The Invisibility Cloak was lifted, and three figures appeared out of thin air.

Disbelief covered Ron's face. His mouth hung wide open, and he rubbed his eyes, as though he couldn't believe what he had just seen.

His voice trembled slightly. "Scabbers turned into a person? How could he turn into a person?"

Hermione gave Ron a perfunctory pat on the shoulder to comfort him. "He didn't turn into a person, Ron. He was a person all along." She turned to Harry, her voice softening in sharp contrast to her perfunctory manner with Ron. "You know him, don't you?"

"Scabbers's real identity is Peter Pettigrew," Harry said, patting Ron on the shoulder to calm him down. "He was once my parents' closest friend, and later betrayed them."

Ron opened his mouth even wider, his face full of disbelief. "But everyone said he was dead! Why is he still alive?"

"A finger," Harry said. "He cut off his own finger and faked his death in an explosion."

The attic fell silent. Outside the window, the weight of the snow snapped a branch with a sharp crack.

Ron needed some time to rebuild his worldview... Scabbers had lived a very long time, but he had never expected him to really be something other than a rat!

It would have been one thing if he just wasn't a rat, or even if he was a man, but why did he have to be a fat, short, balding middle-aged man?!

Ron didn't need comforting. He could recover on his own.

Between her friend and the person she liked, Hermione chose the latter. She stepped forward and gave Harry a firm hug. Her fingers gently squeezed the pad of Harry's finger, warm and firm. "We'll be with you."

Once Ron had recovered, he stood on Harry's other side. He thought it over before finally speaking. "Should we go to the same place he did? We could follow him."

Harry shook her head. "There's no need to follow him. Voldemort will come to me himself."

In a filthy alley, Peter stumbled out of a fireplace. Ash from the Weasley family's hearth still clung to his robes, and sharp pains came in waves from where his finger had been severed.

"Master... oh, my great master, please protect me..."

He fell to his knees on the damp, cold flagstones, murmuring to the air.

In the shadows, a pair of scarlet eyes slowly lit up.

Peter raised his head. He didn't know whether it was his imagination or something else, but he couldn't help feeling that there were dark circles under Voldemort's eyes.

It must be my imagination, right?

Swallowing, Peter eagerly raised a hand. "Master, Sirius is already close to Harry Potter... Harry Potter won't trust me."

Voldemort didn't answer Peter.

Peter's hand froze in midair. He repeated himself, and only then did Voldemort finally reply, "I know..."

"I'll deal with her myself," Voldemort said after Peter breathed a sigh of relief.

His words made Peter's eyes go wide. "No, Master! You don't have a body of your own yet... If you..."

"Shut up, Peter."

Voldemort's voice held unmistakable anger. "Do you think I can't deal with a mere fourteen-year-old child?"

Peter hurriedly fell to his knees, trembling and afraid to speak. Only after seeing his subordinate submit did Voldemort suppress his anger. "Go back. If you can't return to the Weasley family, go wherever you like. I'll deal with Harry Potter myself."

With those words, Voldemort's connection broke.

Watching Voldemort's figure disappear from the mirror, Peter opened his mouth.

He didn't know why, but a bad feeling lingered in his heart.

It must be my imagination...

How could Voldemort possibly lose to some wet-behind-the-ears child? Haha.