Cut With Diamonds: The extended DVD
Feb. 1st, 2004 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkBy popular demand (right!), the DVD commentary meme. I might do one for 'Oil' too, to be fair to the outnumbered XF people on my list.
The Story
The Story with Commentary:
TITLE: Cut With Diamonds
AUTHOR: Eodrakken
RATING: NC-17
PAIRING: Ron/Peter
WARNINGS: Non-con.
I don't like euphemisms -- I didn't label this a rape story because I don't think it is one. For the lack of violence, and the emotional entanglement, I'd say Peter's behavior is closer to molestation than rape.
SUMMARY: What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut with diamonds? or to be smothered with cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
The quote comes from Webster's 'The Duchess of Malfi'. The discussion of death in this scene is rather fascinating -- so much so that I've pillaged it twice for fic titles: here, and in "For Men to Take Their Exits".
NOTES: This is a sequel to Juxian Tang's "Damage Control", which is in turn a sequel to Amanuensis's "And Just Plain Wrong". As such, it is an AU, and may not make much sense if you're not familiar with the other stories.
I wasn't all that taken with AJPW when I first read it. I thought it was well and cleverly done, in the way it paralleled (and almost parodied) the books, but since neither rape nor chan are kinks of mine, it didn't completely grab me. DC, though equally violent, relied more heavily on emotional horror, so I found it more involving.
"Ron says he understands," he adds suddenly. [...] "He said Pettigrew... he wasn't all that bad to him."
-Damage Control (Juxian Tang)
And of course, DC introduced Peter, and the general outline of CWD -- Peter chooses Ron as a pet, attempts to keep Bellatrix from mutilating him, and is eventually the first DE to receive the Dementor's Kiss. This particular quote of Harry's is primarily what spurred me to write CWD -- it's a remarkable idea, that Ron says he _understands_ that Harry's fallen in love with his captor, because of his experience with Peter.
The little boat rocks sickeningly as it glides across the cold, murky water. There are a few too many people to fit properly, and Ron is jammed up against the side with Harry's hip digging into his thigh. The smell of pitch and wet wood almost reminds Ron of the boats to Hogwarts, but not quite, because that was always at night. This is an icy-bright morning, too early to be awake. Harry's sharp elbow bumps his arm as he covers a silent yawn.
I originally thought Azkaban was across a short distance of water, maybe because I'm used to looking at Alcatraz, but luckily I checked the HP Lexicon and realized that it's actually in the middle of the North Sea.
When they make land, for a moment Ron thinks they've just stopped off somewhere, because it looks so... ordinary. A tiny dock and an old fortress, metalwork and wilting ivy. And petrifying, unnatural cold.
They climb out of the boat, limbs stiff from sitting too long. It takes a few minutes for everyone to gather their coats and handbags and whatever else and get onto the pier. Ron rubs his elbows, squinting crossly at the horizon.
If it's that cold, they'd already be wearing their coats, wouldn't they? Oops.
'Fucking dawdling,' he says.
'Can't blame them,' Harry answers in an undertone, sidling up close to him. 'They can't start until we get there, so it seems like... we're responsible. I mean, we're not, but...'
Ron doesn't answer. Harry hesitates a moment as if he's about to say something else, but then turns and steps briskly over to the boat to give Lavender Brown a hand up.
Lavender kind of invited herself into this story -- she wasn't part of my original plan, she just showed up when I started writing. I think she ended up being important to CWD, for reasons I'll point out later on.
The seven witnesses are carefully warded and then led through the gateway by one of the human warders. It's still freezing, like being out in the snow without a jacket, but the Dementors can't come near them, can't dig into their memories. Ron thinks he hears Lavender whimpering somewhere towards the back of the group. Harry's walking very close to him. The stonework of the floor is slippery with frost, so Ron makes sure to place each foot down carefully as he goes.
This could have been tighter. The idea is that Harry and Lavender are responding to fear, discomfort, or anxiety, whereas Ron's actions betray nothing more than emotionless concern for slipping on an icy floor.
Light spills in at an angle from the high windows. It glistens off the particles of ice on the stone walls, and paints Harry's face a faint sunrise gold.
Ron remembers something then.
I tried to leave some ambiguity as to whether the proximity of the Dementors is influencing Ron or not, which goes along with this dichotomy of Peter's behavior, which can be considered horrifically abusive by normal standards, or 'not that bad' in comparison to what was going on around them. Would it make sense for the Dementors to feed on those memories of Ron's, or not, is the question I'm trying to pose.
*
Light through the windows of Pettigrew's room, and he was sitting there looking out with yellow spilling over his face, piggish little eyes squinting. 'Look at the way they're blooming,' he said, and his voice could be a woman's if you closed your eyes. 'It's summer soon, I think, Ron.'
In the first draft, I wrote everything in present tense, including the scenes taking place in the past. I don't think we discussed it in beta, but I changed it while I was doing the post-beta rewrite.
Ron was on his knees on the floor, rubbing Pettigrew's feet, and Pettigrew wasn't watching him. The feet were hot and blue-veined from being crammed into tight leather and walked on all day, and they smelled stale. The soles were thick yellow and rough-ridged under Ron's thumbs as he carefully kneaded, staying away from the blisters. The toenails were small and curved and white, and one was torn to the quick. He rubbed Pettigrew's fat-bony swollen ankles, where the hair on his legs started.
These two paragraphs were the first I wrote. It's this image that sort of encapsulates the idea of the story to me. In a sense, the whole story takes place in this scene, condensed. Peter is taking pleasure from Ron, and seems more or less oblivious to the fact that it isn't by Ron's choice -- he's making idle conversation, almost like he's imagining they're a married couple on a lazy afternoon.
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caesia390 shared a brief but amusing thought on editing this scene here.
'On my feet all day,' Pettigrew said faintly, still looking away out the window.
Looking away -- refusing to see the reality of the situation.
'I could wash them if you want.' Ron froze as soon as the words come out, like someone else had said them.
Ron surprises himself with how good he's become at thinking like a slave. There's maybe an undercurrent of subconscious affection for Peter here, too, which is shocking to his conscious mind.
Pettigrew looked down at him sharply, the afternoon light making deep shadows in his frown and double chin. 'Saying my feet are dirty?'
'No...'
Pettigrew drew his feet back out of Ron's hands, shifted his arse awkwardly, leaned in, and backhanded Ron across the mouth.
The blow wasn't as hard as Ron had thought it would be, but he let himself fall to his hands and knees on the waxy floor. He stayed there for a minute, breathing, not looking up, feeling the heat rise in his left cheekbone where it had caught a knuckle. Looking at the fuzzy shadow of his head and hair from the yellow window behind him.
Pettigrew breathed too, shallow and fretful. 'Well,' he said eventually, 'well, you can wash them.' Anxious, muffled as he looked away again. 'You can wash them if you want.'
And then there was warm water rubbed over the pink and white indentations from Pettigrew's socks, and the dribbling of a cloth being squeezed out into a ceramic basin, like the sound of a weak piss into the toilet.
One of my favorite bits of description in this story.
Pettigrew could have hit him with his right hand.
With his metal hand, in other words. Peter isn't a sadist -- he doesn't have any desire to hurt or humiliate Ron for the sake of it. He's just trying to keep him obedient, hence the lack of excessive violence.
*
The two middle scenes in Azkaban didn't exist in the first draft -- the three flashbacks came one after the other, which didn't flow well at all. You can thankcaesia390 for her help with this.
Ron feels Harry's hand on his arm, and he realises the group has come to a halt. Their escort is whispering with the chief warder, a fat blonde woman.
I think "warder" is a somewhat archaic Britishism, but nothing else sounded right. As I'm sure you're all aware, I'm an American, but I do try to write in British idiom when I'm writing from the POV of a British character, as here.
'What's the matter?' Ron asks.
'There's been a delay,' the warder says, looking from Ron to Harry as if not sure who she's meant to be talking to. 'Don't worry, it'll be put right. Just a quibble over the last meal.'
Ron laughs sharply. It sounds wrong in here, like the walls aren't sure where to send the echo. 'He's getting picky over his food?'
The warder shifts uncomfortably. 'No, no... Of course, he isn't eating. But there's a question of the offer being made, being documented. Under the new law.'
'Good,' Harry says quickly, throwing Ron a glance. 'Fine. We'll wait.'
The pit of Ron's stomach is cold and numb. There are no windows here, and the walls don't entirely muffle the groans of suffering prisoners. Their little group herds closer together.
Harry turns his head to look back, and Ron follows his gaze. Snape is standing a few steps off, his teeth clenched hard. The back of his stained hand brushes against the stone wall. Harry throws him a wan, crooked smile. Snape's face doesn't move, but as he looks at Harry, there's a little shift of reflection in his eyes, and for a moment it seems like maybe you could see something inside.
I rewrote this passage many, many times trying to get the right flow, the right amount of detail. I'm still not sure if I like it this way.
*
Pettigrew had had a lot of sherry at dinner, and Ron knew he didn't hold his liquor very well. They were walking back down the dim corridor with jumping shadows like a crackling fire, and Pettigrew's soft hand was clutching Ron's shirt at his lower back as if afraid he might fall while trying to negotiate the moving stairways.
Juxian has Peter dragging Ron around on a leash at one point; I tried to leave it vague as to whether that's the case here.
Snape came walking briskly the other way towards the dungeon steps, (how many times had they run pelting down them laughing and late for class?), click click click boots echoing even and sharp, with Harry naked and leashed like a poodle at his heel. Harry's eyes were glassy; he looked concussed -- fucking bastard, Snape.
As they passed, Pettigrew savagely raked his eyes over Harry's body like a starving rodent. Looks just like James, doesn't he, Ron almost wanted to say. Not looking where he was going, Pettigrew stumbled and pushed Ron's shoulder into the stone wall, a breath-squeezed-out grunt. Snape glanced back at them scalpel-sharp, tightened his grip on Harry's lead, and walked on quicker.
In my mind, Peter has a certain sexual fixation on James, so it makes sense for that to carry over to Harry. I'm not sure if it makes as much sense for Ron to know that -- he could tell easily enough that Peter is attracted to Harry from his present behavior, but would he realize why?
Pettigrew got his footing again, and they made their way up to his-- their-- his rooms. All the way up the rickety stairs with the hairpin turn, Ron thought about how this should have been Harry, Harry would have been Pettigrew's first choice if he'd been allowed. The idea was oddly hard to pin down, like it kept dancing away. Trying to catch it left a bitter taste in Ron's mouth.
A good moment. This thought triggers a dozen contradictory feelings in Ron, and hopefully in the reader too. Peter wanted Harry, and Ron both wishes that had been the case, and doesn't. Harry would have been better off in some ways, but not in others. Ron wants Harry to be better off, and yet part of him doesn't. Not to mention the idea that Harry is the _important_ one in this situation, being the one who has to defeat V. It's almost sexual martyrdom -- Harry _has_ to suffer most outrageously for the story to function.
Pettigrew skipped the normal bedtime routine and stumbled into bed half-clothed in the pitch dark, dragging Ron down with him. The springs moaned under their combined weight as Pettigrew pulled him close with a sigh of intoxicated exhaustion. Soft fat belly pressed against him, and a thick calf rubbing over his leg.
I hope being frank about the fact that Peter is fat doesn't come off as mocking him here, because it's not my intention. Ron is made sick by Peter's behavior; his appearance doesn't enter into it.
'I was just a little boy once, you know?' Pettigrew mumbled into Ron's face, pressing their foreheads together. 'An ordinary boy. How did I get--'
He kissed Ron's lips, and Ron lay still. Pettigrew must not have liked that, because he grabbed Ron by the side of the neck and squeezed, and when he kissed him again, Ron made sure to kiss back. Red-fermented taste of stale sherry and spit.
' 'S can't last forever, can it? You all go home over the summer, and even with the memory charms, somebody's bound to find out.' Warm touch, heavy sweet breath, a fat, shaky hand stroking his hair. ' 'M amazed it's gone on this long. Don't you think someone'll find out?'
In vino veritas. Some of Peter's self-imposed inhibitions -- his denial -- is breaking down here, so he's actually more lucid and rational when he's drunk, to some extent.
Ron wasn't sure if Pettigrew wanted him to answer. Alcohol had made him lax and unpredictable, and forgetful of the fact that knowledge of a thing didn't grant the power to end it.
'What do you think, Ron?'
Imagining Ron is his equal again.
Ron swallowed. 'I think you're right,' he said hoarsely into Pettigrew's sick-sweet mouth. Because that answer could never be wrong.
*
The delay drags on, and Ron and the other witnesses are stowed away in a musty little office. The warder hands around brandy, and hot water for those who don't partake. It doesn't really make it seem warmer, but you can pretend, can't you? She gives a very drawn smile as she hands Ron a drink. He tries to smile back, but doesn't think it quite comes out. He turns the cup back and forth in his hands as he and Harry sit on the cheap-looking desk. It doesn't feel solid, like it might not hold them. One of the witnesses, a girl Ron doesn't know, is turned around in her chair and picking at the back of it. Lavender is sitting on the floor in the corner with her forehead on her knees.
Lavender serves some of the same purpose as Neville in DC -- she *feels*, when the other characters are beyond feeling, or can't access and acknowledge their feelings. She can be seen as a translator of sorts for Ron's emotions, reflecting how he would react if he could allow himself to.
'What time do you reckon it is,' Ron says.
Harry shakes his head. 'Hard to say, in here.'
Harry hesitates, then says in a very low voice, 'It's... you know, it might be better, knowing-- knowing it'll be over. For him, I mean. It might be better than just being here forever, not knowing when it'll end. Every day the same, just you and-- them.'
The drawn-out delay, not knowing what time it is, and this line of Harry's are supposed to sort of chime together to evoke the Hogwarts scenes, which I hope seem somewhat timeless.
'You don't know, though,' Ron says, looking at the cracks in the plaster wall. 'You don't know what they make him remember.' He takes a shot of his brandy without thinking, and the burning in his stomach makes him want to retch. He snatches Harry's water off the desk and gulps it down.
The connection between the feeling of burning liquor and the memory of hot come in Ron's stomach later -- I hope these aren't too far apart.
*
Evening-dim in the room, and Ron was sucking Pettigrew's dick as he lay in bed, the way he liked to have it done. Ron knew this penis better than he'd ever know his own -- short and tapering, the particular network of purple veins, the way the left side of the head stuck out a little more than the right. Ron knew what he liked, where he was sensitive and when. His heavy wheezing breath in the quiet, the little creak of the mattress, the up and down of the hairy distended stomach when he looked, all familiar and ordinary. Pettigrew wouldn't ask him to lick his arsehole that night.
This scene is really very similar to the first Hogwarts scene -- maybe too much so, actually. Again, Peter is taking pleasure from Ron, and as we see in a minute, some part of him believes Ron is a willing participant.
Easily readable, the buildup of tension and grunts and hitches of breath, and Ron may have been going crazy but he thought the smell-taste changed, sharpened just a little and gave him half a second to brace himself before Pettigrew grabbed his head and ground into his face, filling his mouth and throat with hot liquid salt that all had to be forced down if he didn't want to be punished. Ron swallowed almost all of it, but deliberately let a dribble spill onto the mattress -- it gave him a pleasant feeling of defiance to know that he'd technically broken the rules.
Pettigrew caught his breath and pulled Ron up beside him. He murmured and petted him, his hair and back. It made Ron think of Ginny, the Christmas before she'd started school, that stuffed lion she'd wanted so badly, the way she wouldn't stop hugging it after it was opened.
Of course, Ron wasn't at home for Christmas the year before Ginny started school -- the year of PS/SS -- he was at Hogwarts with Harry. D'oh.
Pettigrew shifted and turned, putting his arms around Ron and then pulling back and doing it again a different way. He hummed and mewled in pleasure, patting him. Ron lay there like a rag doll. Too much come boiled and sweltered in his stomach, and the dark chandelier was a giant burnished spider above his eyes.
The spider image is all CoS, of course -- Aragog, hence an echo of Ron sacrificing his comfort for Harry. A Meaningful Spider also appears in "Force of Habit"; it's a very little one, and Ron washes it down the plughole.
Ron waited for him to drift off. He thought about Harry being beaten and torn somewhere else in the castle. Pettigrew hadn't even fucked Ron in what seemed like a month or more; he never could seem to find the right position to get comfortable to do it, so he just got Ron to suck him instead. Ron thought about being here, being cuddled, used, and hoarded like gold.
I like the way this comes off -- it makes sense superficially, since Peter is physically awkward, and then has another layer of Peter's emotional discomfort at actually hurting Ron.
Pettigrew began to snore. He slept soundly, and slept late every day, and sometimes took naps in the afternoon. Ron missed class a lot because of it, because Pettigrew hadn't got up yet and wanted Ron in bed with him. He liked to sleep. --Well, of course he did. That was all Scabbers had ever done.
Ron carefully extricated himself and crept over to the bathroom. He knelt on the cold tile and vomited it all up into the toilet, and it was pure salt and burning acid, but getting rid of it would settle his stomach and let him sleep. He'd done this so often that his throat felt red-raw all the time, and nothing tasted right.
He drank a trickle of cold water out of the tap, and came carefully back into the bedroom. He stopped abruptly with a seizing shock.
Pettigrew was awake.
He was sitting up and had the blanket clutched in both hands at his waist, and his eyes were shining as he stared. There would be punishment, but what Ron remembers is just this: Shining wet beady eyes in the darkness, and a sharp indrawn breath like half a sob.
Again, this is rather like the first scene, but amplified and sexualized. I didn't realize how closely the scenes parallel each other until now that I'm re-reading and trying to analyze what I did. It's almost like this is what Ron is trying to/trying not to remember -- this moment of mutual realization of each other's humanity -- and he's sort of working up to being able to face it.
*
Ron opens his eyes, and the door is open, the warders are ushering them out. This is going to be it, everything's been settled and arranged. There's nothing left to wait for.
It's a little room with a thick heavy wall of protective magic in between the witnesses and the prisoner, which distorts the view, but Ron can see well enough. Pettigrew struggles against the warders' arms and the knotted magic chains bolted into the floor, wild with terror. He's dirty and has lost a lot of weight, but he looks... he looks the same.
This is a little vague, like there's a missed connection somewhere. Maybe it could have been stronger if I'd decided Peter could see the witnesses, and have him and Ron make eye contact.
The masked warders behind him have their wands at his back, preventing him from transforming. The Dementor hovers a few feet off, waiting, flexing its rotten fingers and shifting from side to side.
The chief warder passes around a parchment for the witnesses to sign. Under the new law, the Dementor's Kiss cannot be administered without seven witnesses. Ron doesn't know why -- as though seven people are too many to conspire to do wrong. Lavender Brown signs last. She's crying, and they take the parchment away from her quickly, probably afraid she'll smear the names. Harry stands with his hand firmly on Ron's shoulder, and somewhere back there Ron can feel Snape's presence, fiery and penitent.
For some reason I've made a habit of writing fics where Snape is barely present, yet somehow important to the story. It's the same thing in "Blood of the Nightjar", "Force of Habit", and "Forgetful".
The chief warder nods, and the Dementor lunges forward eagerly and shoves its mouth against Pettigrew's. In his animal terror, Pettigrew seizes the sides of its wet, decaying neck with both hands and digs his nails in.
This is supposed to evoke, ascaesia390 put it, the 'Ron-kiss-me-more' gesture, and draw a comparison between Ron and the Dementor, the suggestion being that Peter may be feeling regret, or at least torment due to what he's done to Ron.
Ron remembers: Lestrange's hand around his neck and her wand at his balls -- 'We have your friend, Potter. Come out before we start cutting off pieces of him' -- and Harry was barricaded in the Room of Requirement with Snape, and Ron was going to let himself be slowly torn apart to save him (just like always, just for Harry)--
And that anxious, androgynous, hand-wringing voice from behind them, and the almost undetectable calculation that modulated the words:
'My lord. He's my property.' Pettigrew's voice broke. 'Please...'
The dialogue here is verbatim from DC. I added the notion that Peter is being calculating, trying to manipulate V into protecting Ron.
Ron remembers that, and the Dementor feeds, and Harry's hand is tight on his shoulder.
Even through the wards, there's still a hint of ice like a draught from a crack beneath a door.
I like this sentence a lot. The image is precise, and I like the rhythm and sound of the words -- wards/door and draught/crack, and the little hiss of 'ice' in the middle.
What Ron is seeing is beyond his experience and too horrible to be a part of real life, but he has a feeling he'll remember it anyway -- the soft wet suck as the Dementor pulls back, satisfied, and the body slumps down to the floor.
Pettigrew is gone.
end.
So there you have it. All told, it took about a month and a half to write, which is actually pretty speedy for me. Thanks for listening to my rambling; I hope it's as interesting to read as it was fun to write.
And, in true DVD style, the extras:
Deleted scene: Ron takes a bath
Excerpts from 'Damage Control'
The Duchess of Malfi, Act IV, scene ii
The Story
The Story with Commentary:
TITLE: Cut With Diamonds
AUTHOR: Eodrakken
RATING: NC-17
PAIRING: Ron/Peter
WARNINGS: Non-con.
I don't like euphemisms -- I didn't label this a rape story because I don't think it is one. For the lack of violence, and the emotional entanglement, I'd say Peter's behavior is closer to molestation than rape.
SUMMARY: What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut with diamonds? or to be smothered with cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
The quote comes from Webster's 'The Duchess of Malfi'. The discussion of death in this scene is rather fascinating -- so much so that I've pillaged it twice for fic titles: here, and in "For Men to Take Their Exits".
NOTES: This is a sequel to Juxian Tang's "Damage Control", which is in turn a sequel to Amanuensis's "And Just Plain Wrong". As such, it is an AU, and may not make much sense if you're not familiar with the other stories.
I wasn't all that taken with AJPW when I first read it. I thought it was well and cleverly done, in the way it paralleled (and almost parodied) the books, but since neither rape nor chan are kinks of mine, it didn't completely grab me. DC, though equally violent, relied more heavily on emotional horror, so I found it more involving.
"Ron says he understands," he adds suddenly. [...] "He said Pettigrew... he wasn't all that bad to him."
-Damage Control (Juxian Tang)
And of course, DC introduced Peter, and the general outline of CWD -- Peter chooses Ron as a pet, attempts to keep Bellatrix from mutilating him, and is eventually the first DE to receive the Dementor's Kiss. This particular quote of Harry's is primarily what spurred me to write CWD -- it's a remarkable idea, that Ron says he _understands_ that Harry's fallen in love with his captor, because of his experience with Peter.
The little boat rocks sickeningly as it glides across the cold, murky water. There are a few too many people to fit properly, and Ron is jammed up against the side with Harry's hip digging into his thigh. The smell of pitch and wet wood almost reminds Ron of the boats to Hogwarts, but not quite, because that was always at night. This is an icy-bright morning, too early to be awake. Harry's sharp elbow bumps his arm as he covers a silent yawn.
I originally thought Azkaban was across a short distance of water, maybe because I'm used to looking at Alcatraz, but luckily I checked the HP Lexicon and realized that it's actually in the middle of the North Sea.
When they make land, for a moment Ron thinks they've just stopped off somewhere, because it looks so... ordinary. A tiny dock and an old fortress, metalwork and wilting ivy. And petrifying, unnatural cold.
They climb out of the boat, limbs stiff from sitting too long. It takes a few minutes for everyone to gather their coats and handbags and whatever else and get onto the pier. Ron rubs his elbows, squinting crossly at the horizon.
If it's that cold, they'd already be wearing their coats, wouldn't they? Oops.
'Fucking dawdling,' he says.
'Can't blame them,' Harry answers in an undertone, sidling up close to him. 'They can't start until we get there, so it seems like... we're responsible. I mean, we're not, but...'
Ron doesn't answer. Harry hesitates a moment as if he's about to say something else, but then turns and steps briskly over to the boat to give Lavender Brown a hand up.
Lavender kind of invited herself into this story -- she wasn't part of my original plan, she just showed up when I started writing. I think she ended up being important to CWD, for reasons I'll point out later on.
The seven witnesses are carefully warded and then led through the gateway by one of the human warders. It's still freezing, like being out in the snow without a jacket, but the Dementors can't come near them, can't dig into their memories. Ron thinks he hears Lavender whimpering somewhere towards the back of the group. Harry's walking very close to him. The stonework of the floor is slippery with frost, so Ron makes sure to place each foot down carefully as he goes.
This could have been tighter. The idea is that Harry and Lavender are responding to fear, discomfort, or anxiety, whereas Ron's actions betray nothing more than emotionless concern for slipping on an icy floor.
Light spills in at an angle from the high windows. It glistens off the particles of ice on the stone walls, and paints Harry's face a faint sunrise gold.
Ron remembers something then.
I tried to leave some ambiguity as to whether the proximity of the Dementors is influencing Ron or not, which goes along with this dichotomy of Peter's behavior, which can be considered horrifically abusive by normal standards, or 'not that bad' in comparison to what was going on around them. Would it make sense for the Dementors to feed on those memories of Ron's, or not, is the question I'm trying to pose.
*
Light through the windows of Pettigrew's room, and he was sitting there looking out with yellow spilling over his face, piggish little eyes squinting. 'Look at the way they're blooming,' he said, and his voice could be a woman's if you closed your eyes. 'It's summer soon, I think, Ron.'
In the first draft, I wrote everything in present tense, including the scenes taking place in the past. I don't think we discussed it in beta, but I changed it while I was doing the post-beta rewrite.
Ron was on his knees on the floor, rubbing Pettigrew's feet, and Pettigrew wasn't watching him. The feet were hot and blue-veined from being crammed into tight leather and walked on all day, and they smelled stale. The soles were thick yellow and rough-ridged under Ron's thumbs as he carefully kneaded, staying away from the blisters. The toenails were small and curved and white, and one was torn to the quick. He rubbed Pettigrew's fat-bony swollen ankles, where the hair on his legs started.
These two paragraphs were the first I wrote. It's this image that sort of encapsulates the idea of the story to me. In a sense, the whole story takes place in this scene, condensed. Peter is taking pleasure from Ron, and seems more or less oblivious to the fact that it isn't by Ron's choice -- he's making idle conversation, almost like he's imagining they're a married couple on a lazy afternoon.
caesia390 shared a brief but amusing thought on editing this scene here.'On my feet all day,' Pettigrew said faintly, still looking away out the window.
Looking away -- refusing to see the reality of the situation.
'I could wash them if you want.' Ron froze as soon as the words come out, like someone else had said them.
Ron surprises himself with how good he's become at thinking like a slave. There's maybe an undercurrent of subconscious affection for Peter here, too, which is shocking to his conscious mind.
Pettigrew looked down at him sharply, the afternoon light making deep shadows in his frown and double chin. 'Saying my feet are dirty?'
'No...'
Pettigrew drew his feet back out of Ron's hands, shifted his arse awkwardly, leaned in, and backhanded Ron across the mouth.
The blow wasn't as hard as Ron had thought it would be, but he let himself fall to his hands and knees on the waxy floor. He stayed there for a minute, breathing, not looking up, feeling the heat rise in his left cheekbone where it had caught a knuckle. Looking at the fuzzy shadow of his head and hair from the yellow window behind him.
Pettigrew breathed too, shallow and fretful. 'Well,' he said eventually, 'well, you can wash them.' Anxious, muffled as he looked away again. 'You can wash them if you want.'
And then there was warm water rubbed over the pink and white indentations from Pettigrew's socks, and the dribbling of a cloth being squeezed out into a ceramic basin, like the sound of a weak piss into the toilet.
One of my favorite bits of description in this story.
Pettigrew could have hit him with his right hand.
With his metal hand, in other words. Peter isn't a sadist -- he doesn't have any desire to hurt or humiliate Ron for the sake of it. He's just trying to keep him obedient, hence the lack of excessive violence.
*
The two middle scenes in Azkaban didn't exist in the first draft -- the three flashbacks came one after the other, which didn't flow well at all. You can thank
caesia390 for her help with this.Ron feels Harry's hand on his arm, and he realises the group has come to a halt. Their escort is whispering with the chief warder, a fat blonde woman.
I think "warder" is a somewhat archaic Britishism, but nothing else sounded right. As I'm sure you're all aware, I'm an American, but I do try to write in British idiom when I'm writing from the POV of a British character, as here.
'What's the matter?' Ron asks.
'There's been a delay,' the warder says, looking from Ron to Harry as if not sure who she's meant to be talking to. 'Don't worry, it'll be put right. Just a quibble over the last meal.'
Ron laughs sharply. It sounds wrong in here, like the walls aren't sure where to send the echo. 'He's getting picky over his food?'
The warder shifts uncomfortably. 'No, no... Of course, he isn't eating. But there's a question of the offer being made, being documented. Under the new law.'
'Good,' Harry says quickly, throwing Ron a glance. 'Fine. We'll wait.'
The pit of Ron's stomach is cold and numb. There are no windows here, and the walls don't entirely muffle the groans of suffering prisoners. Their little group herds closer together.
Harry turns his head to look back, and Ron follows his gaze. Snape is standing a few steps off, his teeth clenched hard. The back of his stained hand brushes against the stone wall. Harry throws him a wan, crooked smile. Snape's face doesn't move, but as he looks at Harry, there's a little shift of reflection in his eyes, and for a moment it seems like maybe you could see something inside.
I rewrote this passage many, many times trying to get the right flow, the right amount of detail. I'm still not sure if I like it this way.
*
Pettigrew had had a lot of sherry at dinner, and Ron knew he didn't hold his liquor very well. They were walking back down the dim corridor with jumping shadows like a crackling fire, and Pettigrew's soft hand was clutching Ron's shirt at his lower back as if afraid he might fall while trying to negotiate the moving stairways.
Juxian has Peter dragging Ron around on a leash at one point; I tried to leave it vague as to whether that's the case here.
Snape came walking briskly the other way towards the dungeon steps, (how many times had they run pelting down them laughing and late for class?), click click click boots echoing even and sharp, with Harry naked and leashed like a poodle at his heel. Harry's eyes were glassy; he looked concussed -- fucking bastard, Snape.
As they passed, Pettigrew savagely raked his eyes over Harry's body like a starving rodent. Looks just like James, doesn't he, Ron almost wanted to say. Not looking where he was going, Pettigrew stumbled and pushed Ron's shoulder into the stone wall, a breath-squeezed-out grunt. Snape glanced back at them scalpel-sharp, tightened his grip on Harry's lead, and walked on quicker.
In my mind, Peter has a certain sexual fixation on James, so it makes sense for that to carry over to Harry. I'm not sure if it makes as much sense for Ron to know that -- he could tell easily enough that Peter is attracted to Harry from his present behavior, but would he realize why?
Pettigrew got his footing again, and they made their way up to his-- their-- his rooms. All the way up the rickety stairs with the hairpin turn, Ron thought about how this should have been Harry, Harry would have been Pettigrew's first choice if he'd been allowed. The idea was oddly hard to pin down, like it kept dancing away. Trying to catch it left a bitter taste in Ron's mouth.
A good moment. This thought triggers a dozen contradictory feelings in Ron, and hopefully in the reader too. Peter wanted Harry, and Ron both wishes that had been the case, and doesn't. Harry would have been better off in some ways, but not in others. Ron wants Harry to be better off, and yet part of him doesn't. Not to mention the idea that Harry is the _important_ one in this situation, being the one who has to defeat V. It's almost sexual martyrdom -- Harry _has_ to suffer most outrageously for the story to function.
Pettigrew skipped the normal bedtime routine and stumbled into bed half-clothed in the pitch dark, dragging Ron down with him. The springs moaned under their combined weight as Pettigrew pulled him close with a sigh of intoxicated exhaustion. Soft fat belly pressed against him, and a thick calf rubbing over his leg.
I hope being frank about the fact that Peter is fat doesn't come off as mocking him here, because it's not my intention. Ron is made sick by Peter's behavior; his appearance doesn't enter into it.
'I was just a little boy once, you know?' Pettigrew mumbled into Ron's face, pressing their foreheads together. 'An ordinary boy. How did I get--'
He kissed Ron's lips, and Ron lay still. Pettigrew must not have liked that, because he grabbed Ron by the side of the neck and squeezed, and when he kissed him again, Ron made sure to kiss back. Red-fermented taste of stale sherry and spit.
' 'S can't last forever, can it? You all go home over the summer, and even with the memory charms, somebody's bound to find out.' Warm touch, heavy sweet breath, a fat, shaky hand stroking his hair. ' 'M amazed it's gone on this long. Don't you think someone'll find out?'
In vino veritas. Some of Peter's self-imposed inhibitions -- his denial -- is breaking down here, so he's actually more lucid and rational when he's drunk, to some extent.
Ron wasn't sure if Pettigrew wanted him to answer. Alcohol had made him lax and unpredictable, and forgetful of the fact that knowledge of a thing didn't grant the power to end it.
'What do you think, Ron?'
Imagining Ron is his equal again.
Ron swallowed. 'I think you're right,' he said hoarsely into Pettigrew's sick-sweet mouth. Because that answer could never be wrong.
*
The delay drags on, and Ron and the other witnesses are stowed away in a musty little office. The warder hands around brandy, and hot water for those who don't partake. It doesn't really make it seem warmer, but you can pretend, can't you? She gives a very drawn smile as she hands Ron a drink. He tries to smile back, but doesn't think it quite comes out. He turns the cup back and forth in his hands as he and Harry sit on the cheap-looking desk. It doesn't feel solid, like it might not hold them. One of the witnesses, a girl Ron doesn't know, is turned around in her chair and picking at the back of it. Lavender is sitting on the floor in the corner with her forehead on her knees.
Lavender serves some of the same purpose as Neville in DC -- she *feels*, when the other characters are beyond feeling, or can't access and acknowledge their feelings. She can be seen as a translator of sorts for Ron's emotions, reflecting how he would react if he could allow himself to.
'What time do you reckon it is,' Ron says.
Harry shakes his head. 'Hard to say, in here.'
Harry hesitates, then says in a very low voice, 'It's... you know, it might be better, knowing-- knowing it'll be over. For him, I mean. It might be better than just being here forever, not knowing when it'll end. Every day the same, just you and-- them.'
The drawn-out delay, not knowing what time it is, and this line of Harry's are supposed to sort of chime together to evoke the Hogwarts scenes, which I hope seem somewhat timeless.
'You don't know, though,' Ron says, looking at the cracks in the plaster wall. 'You don't know what they make him remember.' He takes a shot of his brandy without thinking, and the burning in his stomach makes him want to retch. He snatches Harry's water off the desk and gulps it down.
The connection between the feeling of burning liquor and the memory of hot come in Ron's stomach later -- I hope these aren't too far apart.
*
Evening-dim in the room, and Ron was sucking Pettigrew's dick as he lay in bed, the way he liked to have it done. Ron knew this penis better than he'd ever know his own -- short and tapering, the particular network of purple veins, the way the left side of the head stuck out a little more than the right. Ron knew what he liked, where he was sensitive and when. His heavy wheezing breath in the quiet, the little creak of the mattress, the up and down of the hairy distended stomach when he looked, all familiar and ordinary. Pettigrew wouldn't ask him to lick his arsehole that night.
This scene is really very similar to the first Hogwarts scene -- maybe too much so, actually. Again, Peter is taking pleasure from Ron, and as we see in a minute, some part of him believes Ron is a willing participant.
Easily readable, the buildup of tension and grunts and hitches of breath, and Ron may have been going crazy but he thought the smell-taste changed, sharpened just a little and gave him half a second to brace himself before Pettigrew grabbed his head and ground into his face, filling his mouth and throat with hot liquid salt that all had to be forced down if he didn't want to be punished. Ron swallowed almost all of it, but deliberately let a dribble spill onto the mattress -- it gave him a pleasant feeling of defiance to know that he'd technically broken the rules.
Pettigrew caught his breath and pulled Ron up beside him. He murmured and petted him, his hair and back. It made Ron think of Ginny, the Christmas before she'd started school, that stuffed lion she'd wanted so badly, the way she wouldn't stop hugging it after it was opened.
Of course, Ron wasn't at home for Christmas the year before Ginny started school -- the year of PS/SS -- he was at Hogwarts with Harry. D'oh.
Pettigrew shifted and turned, putting his arms around Ron and then pulling back and doing it again a different way. He hummed and mewled in pleasure, patting him. Ron lay there like a rag doll. Too much come boiled and sweltered in his stomach, and the dark chandelier was a giant burnished spider above his eyes.
The spider image is all CoS, of course -- Aragog, hence an echo of Ron sacrificing his comfort for Harry. A Meaningful Spider also appears in "Force of Habit"; it's a very little one, and Ron washes it down the plughole.
Ron waited for him to drift off. He thought about Harry being beaten and torn somewhere else in the castle. Pettigrew hadn't even fucked Ron in what seemed like a month or more; he never could seem to find the right position to get comfortable to do it, so he just got Ron to suck him instead. Ron thought about being here, being cuddled, used, and hoarded like gold.
I like the way this comes off -- it makes sense superficially, since Peter is physically awkward, and then has another layer of Peter's emotional discomfort at actually hurting Ron.
Pettigrew began to snore. He slept soundly, and slept late every day, and sometimes took naps in the afternoon. Ron missed class a lot because of it, because Pettigrew hadn't got up yet and wanted Ron in bed with him. He liked to sleep. --Well, of course he did. That was all Scabbers had ever done.
Ron carefully extricated himself and crept over to the bathroom. He knelt on the cold tile and vomited it all up into the toilet, and it was pure salt and burning acid, but getting rid of it would settle his stomach and let him sleep. He'd done this so often that his throat felt red-raw all the time, and nothing tasted right.
He drank a trickle of cold water out of the tap, and came carefully back into the bedroom. He stopped abruptly with a seizing shock.
Pettigrew was awake.
He was sitting up and had the blanket clutched in both hands at his waist, and his eyes were shining as he stared. There would be punishment, but what Ron remembers is just this: Shining wet beady eyes in the darkness, and a sharp indrawn breath like half a sob.
Again, this is rather like the first scene, but amplified and sexualized. I didn't realize how closely the scenes parallel each other until now that I'm re-reading and trying to analyze what I did. It's almost like this is what Ron is trying to/trying not to remember -- this moment of mutual realization of each other's humanity -- and he's sort of working up to being able to face it.
*
Ron opens his eyes, and the door is open, the warders are ushering them out. This is going to be it, everything's been settled and arranged. There's nothing left to wait for.
It's a little room with a thick heavy wall of protective magic in between the witnesses and the prisoner, which distorts the view, but Ron can see well enough. Pettigrew struggles against the warders' arms and the knotted magic chains bolted into the floor, wild with terror. He's dirty and has lost a lot of weight, but he looks... he looks the same.
This is a little vague, like there's a missed connection somewhere. Maybe it could have been stronger if I'd decided Peter could see the witnesses, and have him and Ron make eye contact.
The masked warders behind him have their wands at his back, preventing him from transforming. The Dementor hovers a few feet off, waiting, flexing its rotten fingers and shifting from side to side.
The chief warder passes around a parchment for the witnesses to sign. Under the new law, the Dementor's Kiss cannot be administered without seven witnesses. Ron doesn't know why -- as though seven people are too many to conspire to do wrong. Lavender Brown signs last. She's crying, and they take the parchment away from her quickly, probably afraid she'll smear the names. Harry stands with his hand firmly on Ron's shoulder, and somewhere back there Ron can feel Snape's presence, fiery and penitent.
For some reason I've made a habit of writing fics where Snape is barely present, yet somehow important to the story. It's the same thing in "Blood of the Nightjar", "Force of Habit", and "Forgetful".
The chief warder nods, and the Dementor lunges forward eagerly and shoves its mouth against Pettigrew's. In his animal terror, Pettigrew seizes the sides of its wet, decaying neck with both hands and digs his nails in.
This is supposed to evoke, as
caesia390 put it, the 'Ron-kiss-me-more' gesture, and draw a comparison between Ron and the Dementor, the suggestion being that Peter may be feeling regret, or at least torment due to what he's done to Ron.Ron remembers: Lestrange's hand around his neck and her wand at his balls -- 'We have your friend, Potter. Come out before we start cutting off pieces of him' -- and Harry was barricaded in the Room of Requirement with Snape, and Ron was going to let himself be slowly torn apart to save him (just like always, just for Harry)--
And that anxious, androgynous, hand-wringing voice from behind them, and the almost undetectable calculation that modulated the words:
'My lord. He's my property.' Pettigrew's voice broke. 'Please...'
The dialogue here is verbatim from DC. I added the notion that Peter is being calculating, trying to manipulate V into protecting Ron.
Ron remembers that, and the Dementor feeds, and Harry's hand is tight on his shoulder.
Even through the wards, there's still a hint of ice like a draught from a crack beneath a door.
I like this sentence a lot. The image is precise, and I like the rhythm and sound of the words -- wards/door and draught/crack, and the little hiss of 'ice' in the middle.
What Ron is seeing is beyond his experience and too horrible to be a part of real life, but he has a feeling he'll remember it anyway -- the soft wet suck as the Dementor pulls back, satisfied, and the body slumps down to the floor.
Pettigrew is gone.
end.
So there you have it. All told, it took about a month and a half to write, which is actually pretty speedy for me. Thanks for listening to my rambling; I hope it's as interesting to read as it was fun to write.
And, in true DVD style, the extras:
Deleted scene: Ron takes a bath
Excerpts from 'Damage Control'
The Duchess of Malfi, Act IV, scene ii
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-01 04:54 pm (UTC)By the way, I hope your mom's recovery is going smoothly.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-01 11:28 pm (UTC)I think this was the key line for me in the first one, and your little commentary entirely substantiates it, because it's the moment when Peter has to realise Ron isn't completely willing, and he can't barricade himself in his married-couple scenario.
Of course, I loved the entire thing, too, and this commentary just substantiated it for me.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 01:40 am (UTC)(And the fact that Peter didn't hit Ron with his metal hand? My god, man-- can you say "perfect encapsulating moment"?)
I hope this is a meme that catches on in Livejournal. Pimp it,
Paraque Paruaque ParakeetPauraque, pimp it!...I hope you don't mind that I skimmed over the story, and mostly read your comments. I felt a little too wussy to read the whole story again, since I actually did read the other parts of this entire fanfiction saga, and had the piss run from me scared.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 02:23 am (UTC)It's fascinating to read your own thoughts on the story. Pettigrew's point of view, especially. The phrase 'married couple' never popped into my head, but it's there, evident, throughout the whole thing... They could almost be on holiday somewhere, all the lazy time spent napping, masturbating... ooOOooh it just gave me the chills. >:}
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:11 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 03:14 pm (UTC)Oh, but I recently offered to proofread the short story of a friend of mine, without really thinking about what that would entail. His work's... rather rough. I realized very quickly that the nature of my comments would be very different from what I've grown used to writing. A lot more about grammar; a lot more about style; a lot more about character development rather than refinement of character depiction. Skimming it, realizing to my horror that I'd forgotten that not everyone can write as well as
(And don't you just hate it when it's something a person's bursting with pride for, because others have told him it's wonderful, but you have to say, cringing, 'To be honest, my dear, and don't take this the wrong way...')
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 10:13 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-02 02:14 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-03 06:05 am (UTC)Thank you for writing it! It was intensely enlightening and interesting! And Ron-taking-a-bath scene! Oh wow. It was gorgeous - like all your writing is gorgeous: such precise details and constant reminder of the emotional state of the character!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 01:07 pm (UTC)And thanks, I'm glad you liked the extra scene.