(temporary) author's note: Well, I timed my posting here exactly wrong. I'll be even more radio silent than usual, and might be a bit late (or early) posting the next few weeks, given what time of year it is. Sorry about that. The next chapter is one I'd really been looking forward to, too.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Make the Right Choice

Ron was quicker than Pettigrew, despite his shock. He was on his feet, and reaching to restrain Pettigrew, before the man could realise. Harry glanced at the familiar shape, the same he'd seen when he glanced at the Foe-Glass before leaving Gryffindor Tower. This was most assuredly the enemy, and most assuredly Peter Pettigrew. The last vestiges of his doubts in Sirius vanished. He hadn't realised that they were there.

"Stand still, and we will go easy on you," he said, trying to keep raw fury out of his voice. He understood Sirius's desire to kill the man. It was flooding him, now, too. "You dared to betray my parents to Riddle? My dad, who was one of your closest friends, and my mother, the greatest woman to have ever lived? Do you know what I hear when dementors get too close to me? I hear You-Know-Who murdering my parents! And you—you caused that! Explain yourself! At least, tell me why!"

He had no memory of drawing his wand, but his grip on the polished wood was so tight that his knuckles had turned white and numb.

"Well?" he asked, into a ringing silence. "Did you at least have a good reason?"

Pettigrew looked around the room, as if seeking for sanctuary. If you should encounter a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew…give no quarter.

He remembered his mother's words. He would heed them. She was right about Sirius's innocence, and Pettigrew's guilt. And Sirius had, despite his keen intelligence, been tricked. Harry would learn from his mistakes. He kept a level aim at Pettigrew's head, so that the man did not dare to move.

"I know a hundred spells that could kill you, now that you are human again. You should not have transformed—you gave away your best defence."

Pettigrew swallowed audibly.

"You sold Lily and James to Voldemort," said Sirius, white and shaking as the night Hagrid had comforted him. The night his entire world had come crashing down, had burnt to ashes and rubble. "Do you deny it?"

Pettigrew was shaking violently. "I—I didn't mean to—! I was never brave, like you and Remus and James! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me to—"

True that he was never brave. False that Voldemort had forced him.

"Don't lie!" Sirius snarled, eyes glinting with flinty hardness. "You were the traitor—the spy who was passing information to him for a year, at least, before Lily and James died."

"You can't force someone to reveal a secret kept with the Fidelius Charm. You would have had to tell him of your own free will." Braver men than Pettigrew would have quailed at the steel in Harry's voice.

"He was taking over everywhere! What was there to be gained by resisting him? I didn't know what to do! He would have killed me, Sirius!"

True.

"Then, you should have died! Died rather than betray your friends—as any of us would have done for you!" said Sirius, his voice suddenly so loud and so powerful that Harry wouldn't have been surprised if Dumbledore heard it, at the top of his tower. He was shaking with rage.

Pettigrew cowered, and took a step back. Sparks shot from Harry's wand—bright white ones, the byproduct of Harry's lack of control. He tried to force himself to think through this rationally, and remembered Ron, who had drawn his wand, pointing it at Pettigrew, with mounting fury of his own.

That never ended well.

Pettigrew opened his mouth to speak, and Harry shot him a glare.

"That sounds a confession to me," he said, forcing levity into his voice. He didn't know how to handle this situation at all. He couldn't afford to lose his temper, and could even less afford for Ron to lose his. "If I were you, I would shut my mouth, and do as I was told without protest. If your greatest fear is for your own life, that is. Look around you. Do you have any allies who would keep us from killing you? No. You've told me all I needed to know."

"This was easier when he was still in that cage—I should have thought, should've realised that he'd destroy it when he knew his fate was sealed. Now, how are we going to bring him in?"

"I have a map that we could use to sneak through the castle without being detected," he offered, and Sirius turned to him, giving Harry his full attention, again.

"A—a map?" Sirius asked, his tone unreadable. "It couldn't possibly be…" he murmured. Harry noticed that Pettigrew, too, had gone completely still, expression somehow distant, as if straining to hear something only he could hear.

Harry, unsure as to just what was going on, nevertheless pulled the Marauder's Map back out of his pocket, and Black's eyes flickered to the folded-up map.

"It is…that—that's the Marauder's Map!" he cried. A gleam in his eye—not a hard edge, but something like excitement—shone in them. "Ha! It figures it would come to you!"

Harry glanced at Ron, who looked to be thinking troubled thoughts. The anger that had filled him seconds before seemed to have gone without a trace.

Harry turned back to Sirius Black. "I think I may be missing something, here. You know of the Marauder's Map?"

"'Know of it'?" Sirius crowed. "I helped write it. It was a group effort, although Wormtail here didn't add that much." He kicked out at the dazed Peter Pettigrew, who stumbled and fell.

"See, now, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs—those were our nicknames in our school days. We wrought havoc in this school—official spreaders of pranks and mayhem…those were the days…. Some people even called us the Marauders."

Vikings were marauders. Pranksters, not so much. But Harry didn't say that aloud. It was just another not-quite-innocuous oddity to this entire, twisted affair.

"Pettigrew is Wormtail—then…Moony must be Professor Lupin, on account of his lycanthropy—"

Sirius Black snickered, reminiscent nostalgia putting him in a much better mood, and nodded, muttering something that might have been, "Professor Lupin…who'd have thought?" Louder, he added. "And your dad was Prongs."

He sobered up instantaneously, and, with a little shrug, tacked on, "And I guess you can figure out Padfoot by process of elimination."

Harry clutched the Map tighter. Suddenly, the gift became much more significant, knowing that his Dad had touched it, that this had once been one of his own personal projects. A piece of him seemed to remain behind, imprinted into it—in a rather different way from Riddle's horcrux, last year.

Pettigrew stood, on shaky feet, and everyone returned their attention to the most relevant task at hand—how to bring Pettigrew to Dumbledore without him escaping—they had a way to ensure that no one hindered their quest—and he knew that Snape, for one, was sure to do just that, regardless of justice.

But, how were they to ensure that he didn't escape? Ensure it, where close quarters and a lack of door no longer served as sufficient barricades? A stunner would never last long enough, and would make Pettigrew dead weight. But, he was a coward. Unless he saw an opportunity for flight, he would come on his own...

Sirius Black was scratching his head through his thick mess of hair. Harry frowned, trying to think of what made sense. There must be some method that dark wizard catchers used that—

"I have a way," said Ron, in a level voice. There was an omen, a portent, in the way his head bowed. He looked…ashamed? Guilty? As if he had been caught, doing something he should not be doing (and it had always been Harry to expose him to such situations before). If Ron had a means, wasn't that a good thing?

Ron said nothing more. Harry realised he was waiting for a reply, and that Sirius, the outsider in all this, was waiting to see what Harry said. It wasn't as if Sirius had any personal connection to Ron—they'd met only earlier tonight….

"If it works, then what are you waiting for?" Harry asked, cocking his head inquisitively. He didn't understand Ron, sometimes. Ron glanced at him, again, and this time, seemed unable to look away, still facing Harry even as he bowed his head, and closed his eyes. Something shimmered into existence in his hands, and Harry's world ground to a halt.

He kept thinking that he could handle anything, but he couldn't. Probably, only luck had saved him last year, in the Chamber of Secrets, and this year at the Quidditch Match of Doom. He was physically and mentally exhausted, and emotionally a complete wreck, anyway. But he'd never imagined….

There was a roaring, rushing noise filling his ears, the sort of sound that accompanies being buffeted by a strong wind. His heart was racing. He ceased to notice anything that was going on—the world reduced itself to just him, and Ron, and those handcuffs. He'd seen those things before, somewhere. He was sure of it. But where? And how had they appeared in Ron's hands?

Ron's expression was nothing if not apologetic, but, after a moment, his gaze turned to Pettigrew. It was a good thing someone was paying attention, because Harry had gone numb. He couldn't have moved if he tried.

Where had he seen those, before? He was faintly aware of someone calling his name, but he was beyond turning to see who it might be. He couldn't handle this, he realised. This was too much. This was impossible. This was—

Probably just a big misunderstanding. He took a deep breath, only then realising that he'd stopped breathing. He was faintly aware that he was shaking.

"You okay, Harry?" asked a voice, hoarse and scratchy, and higher than usual with concern. He felt that he'd been turned to stone, but apparently he could move, because he managed to turn his head slightly, to see Sirius Black reaching out a hand, as Lupin had, as if he didn't quite dare to touch him.

"I'm fine," he said, automatically, his voice completely flat. Show no weakness!

"Harry?" asked Ron, just as concerned—if not more so, having had previous experience with Harry, when Harry wasn't in his right mind.

Harry managed to drag his feet over to the place where the door should have been, trying to think of what to do.

"Let's just go."

The handcuffs were secure on Pettigrew's wrists. Ron took a step back, studying his work.

"What are those?" asked Sirius. "Where did they come from?"

The most important question: Why is Harry reacting thus to them? went unasked.

Harry paused to listen. He wanted answers to those questions, too. But Ron only shook his head.

"All that you need know is that they prevent the use of any magic. He will be unable to cast any spells, even should he somehow acquire a wand, and he will be unable to transform."

The nagging sense of familiarity intensified tenfold. Harry tried to ignore it, he truly did, but it made an incessant rattling in his skull. He stepped backwards, to Sirius, without knowing what he was doing.

"Here," he said, holding out his wand. "If someone comes to arrest you—if anyone finds this place before we return—you have some measure of defence."

He pressed it into Sirius's hands, and closed his skeletal fingers gently over it. Then, he turned and strode through the doorway in front of Ron and Pettigrew. He didn't want to look at them. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember.

But when Ron exited the room, and the door vanished, he found himself asking,

"Well, where did you get those?" with great vehemence, a striking contrast to the emptiness within. "Will you tell me?"

Ron hesitated. It was one thing to deny a stranger, and another to refuse to answer Harry. He took shameless advantage of this fact. He needed answers. It was the only way to silence that incessant voice that kept trying to make something of all of this.

"My father gave them to me," Ron said, turning away from Harry. Harry's eyes narrowed. That was highly suspicious, but not false. His heart, for reasons unknown to, or unrecognised by, him, skipped a beat.

"'Your father'?" he repeated. "Your dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. Is that what this is? An enchanted muggle item?"

"No." Ah. Now he'd hit the point of monosyllabic answers. Ron set off at a rapid pace, as if to cut him off. Harry ran to catch up, hands clutching the Map, but not looking at it.

Ron gave a haggard sigh, and turned to Pettigrew, who was listening, of course, but Harry didn't care. He winced. Not now! he snapped at the corrupted corner of his mind, as if that had ever stopped it. He thought he heard it laugh at him, in response, and stumbled. No. That was just fatigue, and the overwhelming sequence of events that was the last twenty-four hours.

"Ron, please! Where did you get those?"

Ron paused, perhaps disturbed by Harry's sudden urgency, and turned to look at him, frowning. "Do you recognise them?" he asked, in a level voice that suggested that the question were much, much more important than it sounded.

Harry gave a helpless shrug. "They look familiar," he admitted, and Ron winced.

"My father gave them to me," he said, again, in response. "He believed that I might have need of them."

His father, noted some corner of Harry's mind, a corner that would not be silenced. It whispered louder in his ear: Have you ever heard Ron speak of Arthur Weasley as his "father"? Does that not sound closer to the way you speak of Mother?

Harry stumbled, and very nearly fell, but he caught himself against the handle of a door as they passed. Ron turned back to look at him, and then retraced his steps.

"Harry, what—?"

"Are you telling me that Arthur Weasley gave you a set of handcuffs to bring to school, in case they came in useful?" he demanded, grabbing hold of Ron's arm, to pull himself back up, or to drag Ron down—he didn't know which.

He was dimly aware of Pettigrew, looking from left to right, down the long expanse of hall, with so many locked doors, and none through which he might escape. The hall was too long for him to run. He was stuck as a witness to the unfolding drama. Harry hated him for being there, even if it was against his will.

Ron's shoulders slumped. He looked…defeated. Resigned. "No," he said.

But Harry knew that he had the ability to tell when Ron was lying, and this was not a lie, but neither was anything else that Ron had said. He struggled to find an explanation, any explanation, even as the part of his mind that he had once disavowed lurked, triumphant, in its corner.

The part he'd called Loki. The part that thought it had an older brother, with access to magic unknown in the human world. The part that was strong.

I can't handle this! he cried out to it, unsure when he'd come to trust that part's judgement so much.

Then, you cannot deny the truth any longer. How poetic, that the God of Lies should lie so well to himself…and for so long!

He didn't care what it said. He remembered the dream, the one with the Rainbow Bridge breaking all around, and how he'd detached himself, then. That was the only way to handle the here and now.

Are you sure? asked that part of his mind, into the turmoil of Harry's thoughts. It almost sounded…worried. Denial will no longer avail you. You must stand your ground.

Harry closed his eyes. Later, he begged. It was too much, for the moment. Tonight was too much.

And Ron spoke, continuing his thought; unaware of Harry's internal dialogue, he laid the groundwork for the conflict to come. "You recognise it," he mused. "Then, I will tell you…I should have told you before. I understand that, now. But please, Harry, wait a little longer, until Pettigrew is arrested, and Sirius is safe. I will tell you everything…tonight. If you can wait that long."

Loki shrugged, managing to find something of mental equilibrium. "You're right. This is a more immediate concern. I will wait."

He didn't need to be told. He already knew the answers.

The next few hours were a blur, nonetheless—he was well aware that he needed sleep as much as the next person. He knew that he was mortal. He knew that he had limits. He knew that today had, one way and another, taxed him to those limits. It helped to explain the blurry rush that seemed to comprise the next hour or so.

First, they'd had to find Dumbledore. Loki had wanted to bypass the security gargoyle altogether, but Ron decided to try a handful of wizarding sweets that sounded vaguely familiar, and Loki exercised the self-restraint not to open up his seventh sense and try to see if he could find a way to take the gargoyle apart. Or something less conspicuous.

After that, they'd realised that, it being the middle of the night, the headmaster was not in his office. Rather than be made a fool of, he'd turned to Fawkes, remembering his mysterious appearance into the Chamber of Secrets, last year.

"What do you think, Guy?" he'd asked. "Will you help us to find him?"

Fawkes had disappeared in a torrent of flame, and returned, in like wise, a few minutes later, with Dumbledore, who wore a bright purple dressing gown and grey slippers. The moment he saw the occupants of his office, his usual twinkling cheer was replaced by a tired gravity. That was, most likely, a good sign. It meant that he was taking this seriously.

Then, of course, they'd had to explain the events of that night, and convince Dumbledore of the truth. By the end of the tale, he looked as if he'd aged a hundred years or more. But, he believed them. He offered to watch over Pettigrew while the two of them retrieved Sirius Black. To accompany them, and to protect them, if need be, he called in, of all people, the obvious choice: Professor Lupin.

Watching Professor Lupin being summoned was an educational experience. Harry—and by now he'd adapted more or less well enough to just be Harry, again—had had no idea that you could summon through the floo network (presumably they had to be nearby), just by saying their name, and throwing some floo powder in the grate. Presumably, they weren't called away against their will, or Professor Lupin wouldn't have been wearing his shabby everyday robes. He presumably had pyjamas, or something, that he wore to bed.

Dumbledore then gave a brief explanation of current circumstances, and Professor Lupin glared at Pettigrew, and looked seconds away from banging his head into the headmaster's desk, covered though it was in sensitive instruments. His face had gone very pale, making the deep bags under his eyes stand out all the more.

"All this time, I thought that Bl—that Sirius betrayed Lily and James. How could Sirius ever forgive me for doubting him? For not trusting him? I should have known better. He always hated pureblood politics, and his family—"

"There is no other that I can trust to retrieve him from the secret room. I would certainly not presume to send Severus on such a sensitive mission, lest certain…biases lead him to act in ways I'm sure that he would later regret."

Professor Lupin visibly steeled himself for the coming confrontation, and then glanced around the room. He looked seconds away from asking whether Harry and Ron had to come with him, but then deflated, seeming to know the answer.

"It wasn't your fault, Professor," Harry said. "Pettigrew pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. Sirius has spent the past decade blaming himself for not trusting you. I think it would do you good, to have a bit of a chat with him."

For both he and Professor Lupin had both immediately recognised this mission for what it was. Harry suspected that he and Ron would send Professor Lupin into the Room of Requirement, and then, finally wander off to some out-of-the-way corner with the Marauder's Map, looking for somewhere where they could be sure not to be disturbed, and Harry would at last get answers.

That was pretty much exactly what happened. After a brief, tense exchange of words between Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, the two seemed to come to an understanding, with a teary Lupin drawing Sirius Black into a tight hug filled with guilty apologies. It was very long-lost-brothers-reunited, and put Harry in a precarious mood that had yet to decide on which end of the balance beam it should fall.