Chapter 21 : La Vérité

"Crooks? Snuffles?" she called in between breaths, they had led her out of the castle onto the grounds, and the two animals were nowhere in sight, all she could see were two dark headed boys near the Whomping Willow arguing animatedly.

"We've got to go get him Nev!" yelled Potter.

"Harry — we've got to go for help." the other boy gasped. Hermione could see a growing red stain on his shoulder, she hung back cautiously, if whatever attacked them was still there, she was done for.

"If that dog can get in, we can." Potter panted, darting here and there around the Whomping Willow, puzzling the girl observing them.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Crookshanks darted forward, slithering around fallen branches and leaves. The tabby cat slid into a gap in the tree roots, and Potter, unbelievable, idiotic Potter followed, as well as Neville, who looked like he would rather be eaten alive.

"Bloody Gryffindors." she muttered, before following them.

She slid feet first along an earthy slope, cringing at what her mother would say when she saw the state of her robes, and landed to the bottom of a very low tunnel. She could just barely see Neville running behind Harry, the bespectacled boy's wand was lit, casting eerie shadows along the tunnel walls.

Hermione struggled to keep up with the two boys, cursing her mother for ordering her to sit around like a proper lady all the time. The tunnel reached a steep incline, until she had to hold back to let the boys through an opening at the top.

When their legs had disappeared, she followed, her wand arm at attention, pointing the instrument at whatever lay beyond the opening. Before her was a very dirty looking room. Paper was peeling from the walls, the only furniture not toppled over looked like had gone through a hurricane, the windows were all boarded up, and the floor looked as if the dust on it hadn't been disturbed for a hundred years.

She glanced around the room before pulling herself up from the opening, taking note of the disarray, legs of chairs were flung about over the room, looking as though something had chewed them off, claw marks ran across wallpaper all over the building, and something was nagging at the back of her head.

When she reached the end of the landing, only one door was open, she whispered "Nox." as soft as she could, and was immediately covered in darkness. She hang back, listening to the voices echoing out into the hall.

"It isn't a dog — trap — Harry, he's the dog — he's an Animagus." came Weasley's pained voice.

Suddenly, the door slammed, leaving Hermione behind it in stunned silence. Snuffles was an Animagus?

"Expelliarmus!" a hoarse voice yelled from the other side, the voice reminded her scarily of someone she knew.

Something clicked at the back of her mind, and suddenly, she was in front of them, the door bursting open, the three Gryffindors looking at her in shock as she faced the man she had only ever seen in photographs before.

"Uncle Sirius?" she said, her clear voice slicing the tension in the room like a hot knife through butter.

He was filthy. His hair was matted, his bright eyes were sunken, his face was gaunt, stretched tightly as if he had been starving, she briefly wondered whether she should have added more meat to Snuffle's daily helpings, before brushing the thought away.

"Hello, my dear." the man croaked. His smile was ghastly, yellowed teeth peeked from behind cracked lips, desperately in need of a good scrub.

"I told you she was Death Eater scum!" screamed Weasley, breaking the stunned silence.

Sirius Black's attention was back on the three boys. "I thought you'd come and help your friend," he said. "Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful . . . it will make everything much easier. . . ."

Potter started forward, Hermione could see the anger in his eyes as he did, or tried to, as Neville and Weasley held him back.

"Uncle Sirius, please!" she begged, still not lowering her wand. "I know you're not a killer, Grandfather Alphard doesn't think so too. Come home, Uncle, we'll clear you're name —"

"Like hell! He killed my parents! And now he's out to finish his master's job!" roared Potter.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!" shouted Ron, though she could see it was taking all his remaining strength just to stand beside his best friend.

Hermione saw her Uncle's eyes flick to Weasley. "Sit down, boy, or you will damage that leg even more."

"Did you hear me?" Ron said weakly, though he was clinging painfully to Harry to stay upright. "You'll have to kill all three of us!"

"There'll be only one murder here tonight," said Black, and his grin widened.

There was a flash of something, Hermione realized too late that it was Potter, trying to pry Sirius' wand out of his hands. In an instant, he had her Uncle at wandpoint. A livid bruise was rising around Black's left eye and his nose was bleeding. "You killed my parents," said Harry, his voice shaking slightly, but his wand hand quite steady.

Black stared up at him out of those sunken eyes. "I don't deny it."

Hermione gasped, tears filling her eyes. This man, the man her Grandfather loved so dearly that he kept a picture of him in his wallet, had just confessed to the crime that they refused to believe he had committed.

"But if you knew the whole story."

"The whole story?" Potter spat, furiously. "You sold them to Voldemort. That's all I need to know."

"You've got to listen to me," Sirius said, and there was a note of urgency in his voice now. "You'll regret it if you don't. . . . You don't understand. . . ."

"I understand a lot better than you think," said Potter, and his voice shook more than ever. "You never heard her, did you? My mum . . . trying to stop Voldemort killing me . . . and you did that . . . you did it. . . ."

Hermione stilled. Did she just imagine it, or had she heard the soft thud of footsteps from outside the hall?

"Someone's else is in here." she whispered loud enough to catch the attention of the two Wizards in front of her.

Sirius made a startled movement as the footsteps began thundering up the stairs, and the door burst open again in a shower of red sparks to reveal Professor Lupin, his face pale, and wand at ready. His eyes flickered over Ron, lying on the floor, over Hermione, cowering next to the door, to Harry, standing there with his wand covering Black, and then to Black himself, crumpled and bleeding at Harry's feet.

"Expelliarmus!" Lupin shouted.

Potter's wand flew out of his hand, leaving the boy to gape at his Professor in shock.

"Where is he, Sirius?" said Lupin in a soft voice. Black's face was quite expressionless. For a few seconds, he didn't move at all. Then, very slowly, he raised his empty hand and pointed straight at Weasley.

Hermione heard Lupin mutter some things under his breath, his gaze never leaving her Uncle's. "Unless, you switched… without telling me?"

Sirius nodded, and almost instantly, Lupin was across the room, seizing Sirius and pulling him to his feet, and embraced him like a brother.

"Professor Lupin —" Potter started.

"Don't go any closer, Potter." she said, causing the boy to sneer at her.

"Shut up —"

"He's a werewolf." her words silenced the other boy. Her wand, still in her hand, was pointe towards the two men. "I trusted you. I didn't tell anyone. I've been covering for you for months."

"Hermione, listen —"

"You were his friend all along!" bellowed Potter.

"Let me explain!" roared Lupin, in return, he received the terrified silence of his three students.

"I must say Sirius, I think we've got a miniature you on our hands here." chuckled Lupin. "I've been observing you, my dear, ever since my class with the boggart, and it seems that you've been observing me too."

"I assume our old geezer of a Headmaster knows he hired a werewolf then?" she huffed.

"As does all the staff." said Lupin. ""He had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I'm trustworthy —"

"AND HE WAS WRONG!" Harry yelled. "YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!" He was pointing at Black, who suddenly crossed to the four-poster bed and sank onto it, his face hidden in one shaking hand.

"I have not been helping Sirius," said Lupin. "If you'll give me a chance, I'll explain."

"If you haven't been helping him," he said, with a furious glance at Black, "how did you know he was here?"

"The map," said Lupin. "The Marauder's Map. I was in my office examining it —"

"You know how to work it?" Harry said suspiciously.

"Of course I know how to work it," said Lupin, waving his hand impatiently. "I helped write it. I'm Moony — that was my friends' nickname for me at school."

"You wrote — ?"

"The important thing is, I was watching it carefully this evening, because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed. And I was right, wasn't I?"

He had started to pace up and down, looking at them. Little patches of dust rose at his feet. "You might have been wearing your father's old cloak, Harry —"

"How d'you know about the cloak?" "The number of times I saw James disappearing under it. . . ," said Lupin, waving an impatient hand again.

"The point is, even if you're wearing an Invisibility Cloak, you still show up on the Marauder's Map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut. Twenty minutes later, you left Hagrid, and set off back toward the castle. But you were now accompanied by somebody else."

"What?" said Harry. "No, we weren't!"

"I couldn't believe my eyes," said Lupin, still pacing, and ignoring Harry's interruption. "I thought the map must be malfunctioning. How could he be with you? And then I saw another dot, moving fast toward you, labeled Sirius Black. . . . I saw him collide with you; I watched as he pulled two of you into the Whomping Willow —"

"One of us!" Ron said angrily.

"No, Ron," said Lupin. "Two of you." He had stopped his pacing, his eyes moving over Ron.

"Do you think I could have a look at the rat?" he said evenly.

"What?" said Ron. "What's Scabbers got to do with it?"

"Everything," said Lupin. "Could I see him, please?"

The gears in Hermione's head were working themselves into overdrive as the redhead reached into his pocket to reveal a squirming rodent.

"That's not a rat," croaked Sirius Black suddenly."He's a wizard." "An Animagus," said Black, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."

"Mental." Weasley announced. "The both of you. It's a rat!"

"Peter Pettigrew's dead!" said Harry. "He killed him twelve years ago!" He pointed at Black, whose face twitched convulsively.

"I meant to," he growled, his yellow teeth bared, "but little Peter got the better of me . . . not this time, though!" Sirius tried to lunge for Weasley, but was stopped by an invisible force.

Both Lupin and her uncle turned to her. Hermione's wand was casting a Shielding charm over the three Gryffindors. Even though she wanted Weasley dead half the time, the other half he could be mildly tolerable, and she was not going to have her uncle murder one of her classmates.

"Uncle." she said slowly. "I would rather you explain your side of the story before trying to kill someone again."

Unexpectedly, the man grinned. "You've got fire kid." he said. "I like you."

"All right then." he said. "Moony, tell them whatever you like, but make it quick. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for."

Hermione let go of the charm she was casting, but keep her wand at ready just in case.

"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," said Lupin, nodding. "I believed it myself — until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's map never lies . . . Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."

"It started when we were still young. I've been a werewolf for as long as I can remember. I entered Hogwarts and lived out my transformations in this very shack, luckily for me, I had three great friends there with me to support me. Friends who chose to become illegal Animagi for me. One of them was your father, Harry.

"They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals," said Lupin. "A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's Invisibility Cloak.

"Hurry up, Remus," snarled Black, who was still watching Scabbers with malicious intent in his eyes.

"I'm getting there, Sirius, I'm getting there . . . well, highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did. . . . And that's how we came to write the Marauder's Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."

"And all four of you were the bane of my existence." sneered a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin. Severus Snape pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointed directly at Lupin.

"Severus, you're making a mistake," said Lupin urgently. "You haven't heard everything — I can explain — Sirius is not here to kill Harry —"

"Two more for Azkaban tonight," said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically. "I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this. . . . He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin . . . a tame werewolf —"

BANG! Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape's wand and twisted themselves around Lupin's mouth, wrists, and ankles; he overbalanced and fell to the floor, unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black's eyes.

"Give me a reason," he whispered. "Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will."

"Professor Snape, lower your wand." Hermione said, in a flat voice that masked the terror she felt at the sight of her Defense Professor on the floor.

"Miss Dagworth-Granger, I'm surprised to find you, of all people, here with this filth. Come, girl, help me seize these men so we can get you safely back into Slytherin House."

"You must forget, Professor, that that's my Uncle you are pointing your wand at." she said.

"He isn't your Uncle. He's nothing but a murderer." sneered Snape. "All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They'll be very pleased to see you, Black . . . pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay."

Sirius' already pale face whitened even more.

"Expelliarmus!" yelled Hermione as a blast of bright sparks left her wand, flying straight at the Potions professor. Snape was lifted off his feet and slammed straight into the wall. He didn't get up.

Hermione neared her head of house, and recited a chaining charm that bounded his arms to his body, just in case he regained consciousness.

"He's going to hate you now, you know." Sirius said, eyeing her handiwork while untying Lupin.

"I'm his best student, he can't possibly hate me." Hermione said snootily.

"We still don't believe you." said Harry, who watched them warily.

"Yeah." said Weasley weakly. "Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers? Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat — there are millions of rats — how's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"

They, even Lupin, looked at Sirius for an answer. He put one of his clawlike hands inside his robes and took out a crumpled piece of paper. It was the photograph of the Weasley family in the Daily Prophet, and on Weasley's shoulder stood the rat in question.

"My God," said Lupin softly, staring from Scabbers to the picture in the paper. "His front paw . . ."

"What about it?" said Ron defiantly.

"He's got a toe missing," said Black.

"Of course," Lupin breathed. "So simple . . . so brilliant . . . he cut it off himself?"

"Just before he transformed," said Black. "When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself — and sped down into the sewer with the other rats. . . .

"The biggest bit of Pettigrew they found was his finger." whispered Hermione to no one in particular.

Weasley snorted. "Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something. He's been in the family for ages —"

"Yes, twelve years." said Lupin. "Even for a magical rat, his age is extraordinary. Though he doesn't seem to be at the prime of his life."

"He's terrified of the mad cat!" said Weasley, pointing at Crooks.

"That cat isn't mad." croaked Sirius. "He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me. . . . Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping me. . . ."

"He led me to you." said Hermione.

"I would have continued starving, had this kitten not interfered. Then he stole the passwords to Gryffindor Tower —"

"I was given a week's detention for that!" exclaimed Neville, who, faced in front of an alleged madman, still seemed to find the courage to complain.

"Sorry about that." said the man. "Anyway, Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it. This cat — Crookshanks, did you call him? — told me Peter had left blood on the sheets. . . . I supposed he bit himself. . . . Well, faking his own death had worked once. . . ."

"And why did he fake his death?" Potter said furiously. "Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!"

"Potter, shut up." groaned Hermione.

"No! I should have let Snape take him!" growled the boy.

"Harry, don't you see?" Lupin said hurriedly. "All this time we've thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down — but it was the other way around, don't you see? Peter betrayed your mother and father — Sirius tracked Peter down —"

"HE WAS THEIR SECRET KEEPER!" Potter yelled. "HE'S LYING!"

"Harry . . . I as good as killed them," Sirius croaked. "I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. . . . The night they died, I'd went to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he'd gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents' house straight away. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies . . . I realized what Peter must've done . . . what I'd done. . . ."

"There is one certain way to determine the truth." said Lupin decisively. "Ron, give me that rat."

"What are you going to do with him if I give him to you?" Weasley asked Lupin tensely.

"Force him to show himself," said Lupin. "If he really is a rat, it won't hurt him."

Weasley hesitated for a moment, but held out Scabbers to Lupin, who took the struggling rat.

"Ready, Sirius?" he said. The other man had retrieved Snape's wand from the bed, pointing it at Scabbers. At the count of three, the room was engulfed in a blue-white light, and for a moment, Scabbers froze in mid-air, before he began to twist madly.

They watched as Scabbers transformed before their eyes into a very short man with thin colorless hair, watery eyes, a pointed nose and a finger missing from his person.

Peter Pettigrew.