Ron and Hermione were still furious at each other as they did their homework. The tension was so thick that after about ten minutes, Megan snapped her book shut and stood up, facing her friends with her hands on her hips.

"Okay, enough, this has got to stop."

Ron and Hermione stared at her.

"What?" they asked at the same time, before glaring at each other.

"This," she said, pointing at them. "Your ridiculous bickering."

"Ridiculous?!" Ron said in outrage. "Her cat killed my rat!"

"Maybe," she agreed. "But she didn't tell it to. And we told you several times cats' instinct dictates they chase mice and rats and other small animals like that. Didn't we?"

"Yeah, but I told her several times Crookshanks was after Scabbers and she never listened!"

"Because he would have done the same had it been any other rat!" Hermione said crossly. "It wasn't Scabbers per se!"

"Oh, so you can read cats' minds, can you?"

"No, I just know how the animal food chain works!"

"Enough!" Megan called. "You two have been through Devil's Snare, giant chess sets and evil plots! Don't you see how stupid this is?"

"Scabbers was my pet!"

"Will you give it a rest, Ron? Listen, I know you're upset about him missing, but you can't blame it on Hermione, all right?"

She raised a hand to silence him before he could argue and looked at Hermione.

"And Hermione, I know you love Crookshanks. I do, Mira's the same to me. But you should have taken Ron's concerns more into consideration. Because he had a rat, and we all knew it could be a target for your cat. And you should understand Ron's sad about Scabbers disappearing, whether he is alive or not."

They were silent.

"I hate seeing you fight, and I know you hate it too. Can't you two just put it behind you? Don't you think it's gone on long enough already?"

They looked at each other, though not quite as resentfully as they had lately.

"... I'm sorry, Ron... it's true, I should have shown more consideration..."

"Yeah." he said.

They waited.

"... Aren't you going to apologise?" Hermione asked, bristling.

"Why? It's your cat that ate my rat!"

Hermione let out a cry of anger and stormed off to the dormitory. Megan sighed. She'd finally been getting somewhere... but again, Ron's stubbornness had gotten in the way. She looked at Ron.

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and went off to bed as well.

That night, Megan was watching the map by wand light and popping chocolates into her mouth. She glanced around at the other girls sleeping in the other four posters. The moonlight gleamed through the window, difusing the light from Megan's wand. Just then, she frowned and raised the map closer to her eyes. There, down the hallway on the sixth floor was a label named…

"Peter Pettigrew…?" she whispered.

She then saw the chance to maybe find out the truth about Black and the murder of those twelve Muggles. She jumped out of bed, pulled on a jacket and her shoes and headed out the portrait hole, her wand alight. She kept a close eye on the label and marched quickly after it. Then, she turned a corner and ended right behind Pettigrew… but all she saw was herself. Her hair tied in a ponytail, a few strands running loose along her face, her jacket thrown on… She suddenly heard footsteps and quickly turned the map blank and extinguished her wand. But seconds later, a new wand light shone in her eyes.

"Potter."

Snape was standing in front of her,

"How very like your father you are…" he said coldly. "He too was extremely arrogant, spending his time strutting around the castle…"

"My dad didn't strut," Megan said curtly. "And nor do I. Now, if you don't mind, I would appreciate it if you could lower your wand. It's hurting my eyes."

He lowered it slightly. Then he spotted the map in her hand.

"What's this?"

"Spare bit of parchment."

Then, he touched it with the tip of his wand and said:

"Reveal your secrets."

Something appeared on the parchment.

"Read it, Potter."

She took the map again, dreading what she'd find… but the map hadn't been unlocked… it was just a small text.

"… Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs offer their compliments to Professor Snape, and… Request that he keeps his abnormally large nose out of other people's business…"

"You insolent litt-"

"Professor."

They looked around. Professor Lupin was standing behind Snape.

"Well, well… Lupin. Having a stroll in the moonlight, are we?"

Lupin stepped forwards.

"Megan, you all right?"

She nodded.

"That remains to be seen. I just confiscated this piece of parchment from Potter, it is clearly full of dark magic. Take a look, Lupin, it is after all your area of expertise…"

Lupin took it curiously.

"Oh, it seems to me like it's merely a joke designed to insult whoever tries to read it," he smiled. "I can't see much harm in that."

He looked composed but Megan saw a flicker of nervousness in his eyes. She chanced a slight frown. What was that about?

"Could she possibly have obtained it from the manufacturers?" Snape asked.

"Oh, you mean from Mr Prongs or another of these men?" Lupin asked. "Do you know any of these people, Megan?"

She shook her head, but was careful not to do it too vigorously.

"No, sir."

"You see? It sounds pretty harmless to me," Lupin said brightly. "I suspect it comes from Zonko's?"

He turned to Megan, who nodded.

"Yes."

"So," Snape bounded. "You were in Hogsmeade illegally?"

"No," she said. "Harry and Ron got it for me."

"Well, that clears that up, doesn't it, Severus?" Lupin said cheerfully. "However, if it makes you feel better, I'll take a closer look, as you say it is my area of expertise."

"… Certainly…" Snape said coldly.

"Megan, would you come with me please, I wanted a word about my vampire essay, since I have you at hand."

"Uh… yes, professor…"

"Professor, I bid you good night." Lupin said and marched Megan away.

He led her to his classroom without a word. Once they were in, he said:

"I have no idea how you got this map, Megan…"

"How do you…"

"Never mind. But frankly, I'm astounded you didn't report it." He said. "Particularly after what happened the last time. Your parents gave their lives to save yours. And wandering around the castle unprotected with a killer on the loose sounds to me like a pretty poor way to repay them. Did it never occur to you that this could be a map for Sirius Black to get to you?"

In all honesty, it hadn't. She shook her head. Lupin was right, of course. She felt a little foolish.

"Now, I will not cover for you again, Megan, do you hear?"

"Yes sir…"

"I can't let you have this back," he went on. "Now, hurry back to your dormitory." He said. "And don't make any detours, Megan. If you do –" he tapped the map. "– I shall know, make no mistake."

Megan meant to head to the door but paused.

"Sir… I know it was wrong anyway…" she began. "But the only reason I was out was because I saw someone on the map… someone I thought to be dead."

"Really," Lupin said. "And who might that be?"

"… Peter Pettigrew."

Lupin went pale. Or maybe it was the moonlight on his face, she wasn't sure.

"That's impossible…" he said.

"It's just what I saw…" Megan said. "And… sorry. Thanks for getting me out of trouble."

And she hurried out.

Lupin's words echoed over and over in Megan's mind as she crept along the corridors.

Your parents gave their lives to save yours. And wandering around the castle unprotected with a killer on the loose sounds to me like a pretty poor way to repay them.

She had never looked at things that way. And felt shameful for it. Because every word Lupin had said was absolutely right. Sirius Black might have been seen that night he'd sneaked into the castle, and she might have not expected him to be foolish enough to go back into the castle so soon after, but that absolutely didn't mean he wouldn't. She quietly glanced around, thankfully meeting no one else. She eventually reached the portrait hole. She slid inside and crept upstairs to the dormitory. Then, carefully so as not to wake the others up, she picked up her photo album from her bed. But as she pulled it out, she dropped it on the floor, dislodging one of the pictures.

"Oh, shoot..."

She quickly glanced around to make sure no one had woken at the noise, and crouched down. She reached out to pick up the picture but saw that it had fallen on its front, and for the first time, she saw something she had never noticed before. A caption on the back of the picture.

Wherever we are, always be safe. Where your heart beats, ours beats also, for nothing can keep us apart.

Love Mum and Dad.

She glanced at the picture. It was one of her as a baby in her mother's arms with her father's arm around them. She bit her lip, tears tickling her eyes. And she felt even worse than when Lupin had scolded her. Because this was proof that he had been right. They would have wanted her safe, not off throwing their ultimate love token away like trash... She wiped her eyes and put the picture back in place.

Megan found it hard to go to sleep that night. She couldn't get the incident out of her head. Not only because of what Lupin had said, however true and hard to admit that was, but because of Pettigrew. If he had been dead twelve years, how had he appeared on the map? Had she misread the name but so wanted it to be Pettigrew that she'd rushed into a wild goose chase? But then, if that was the case, why had Lupin reacted the way he had when she'd mentioned his name? And he knew the map. How? She didn't know, and hadn't wanted to pry when she was so obviously at fault. But this was yet another piece of the puzzle that, like all the others, she couldn't get to fit. This whole thing gave her a headache. She wished she at least had an idea how to get some clues or some indication as to which direction she should head... She considered asking Cedric next chance she got, but she soon thought better of it. He would almost certainly react just like Lupin had, with good reason. And Megan was aware she had been unreasonable, but she felt bad enough from Lupin's rebuke without facing Cedric, Hermione's and probably Harry's and Ron's as well when they found out. And worse than all... she felt she'd let her parents down. Like Lupin had said very rightly, they had died to give her a chance to live. And had trampled over that sacrifice. Not intentionally, of course, but the fact remained that she had. But then, was it so wrong to want the truth? To understand? She didn't think so...

But truth isn't much use when you're dead, a voice commented in her ear.

There was no denying that, Megan knew it. But she couldn't just sit back and do nothing... It was like every year she spent here things went from complicated to inextricable. And some would say she had no reason to get involved, but she felt she did. Because every time something came up there was a connection to Voldemort, and whenever there was a connection him, there was, apparently, ipso facto a connection to her. She sighed. The Dementors made her feel sick, but it was nothing compared to the way she felt now.

The next morning, and all through the day, Megan still felt a little guilty about the events of the previous night. She did her best to hide it and concentrate on her lessons but, the previous night kept creeping back into her mind. She now realised that she had been extremely lucky. If not Snape, Sirius Black himself could have been there, making a second attempt at killing her. And if even if he hadn't, Snape would have given her enough grief for the rest of the month and he would have been within his right to. The rules were clear: no wandering the school after hours, and the rules were even more firmly enforced after the incident with Ron. But seeing the name of Peter Pettigrew on the map twelve years after he was supposed to have died had made her so sure she could finally get some answers about this whole jumble… not to mention that she wasn't sure if she'd ever get another chance like that. And it had made her act rashly. And more bad news came later that day. Hermione, whom she hadn't seen all day, which Megan suspected was partly because of her umpteenth row with Ron the night before, came up to her when she was heading up to the common room to put her bag down with Harry and Ron.

"What do you want?" Ron asked angrily.

"Ron!" Megan whispered reprovingly, nudging him.

She turned to Hermione.

"What is it?"

Hermione bowed her head and reached into her pocket.

"I… I just thought you'd… want to know…"

She looked up. Megan saw her eyes were bright.

"Hermione, what's wrong?"

"It... It's Hagrid, he..."

"Is he okay? What happened?" Ron asked, momentarily forgetting to be angry at Hermione.

"He's fine... but they lost the appeal… Buckbeak's going to be executed…"