Chapter 43

"I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees."

- Adrienne Rich [What Kind of Times Are These]

The barking laugh that came from Sirius' mouth at her statement was so unexpected that it made Rose jump.

"Still your father's daughter, I see," he said, and the smile on his face darkened, his eyes shifting to Ron. Rose's eyes flickered to the door while she thought he was distracted, but he quickly tisked at her. "None of that now. Why don't you go stand over there while we wait for the other two."

"They've gone to get help," Rose lied, backing up next to Ron. She was hoping he'd decide to run for it while he had time.

"We'll see," he said unconcernedly. "But I doubt it."

"Are you okay," Rose glanced at Ron. He nodded slowly, his eyes continuing to fixate on the murderer across from them. Glancing back to Black, Rose met his eyes and said, "I'm going to help him sit on the bed."

"Mind the rat," Sirius said with a nod.

"The rat…?" Rose's question trailed off as she bent down and slung Ron's arm around her shoulders. She got him to his feet and helped him sit on the dusty bed. Something strange was going on here. This was not the type of encounter she'd expected with Sirius Black. Was he being kind to her because he knew she was being raised by fellow Death Eaters? But he'd compared her to James Potter only moments ago. Something wasn't right. Rose shook her head—maybe she was overthinking it. He was likely insane from Azkaban.

"Not a word," he said at the sound of movement downstairs. Crookshanks walked into the room and hopped up on the bed, purring contentedly. Black slunk into the corner behind the door. She was at a loss as to how to warn Harry and Hermione to get out. Before she could decide what to do, the door had been shoved open and Harry and Hermione were dashing across the room towards them.

"Ron, are you okay?"

"Where's the dog?"

"Not a dog, it's a trap. He's the dog, he's an animagus," Ron shouted. The pair spun around and were immediately disarmed by Black. Rose was irritated to watch her own wand—which Hermione had been holding, fly across the room and be caught by him.

"I thought you'd come and help your friend," he said, taking a step towards Harry. "Brave of you, it's what your father would have done for me."

Hermione grabbed the back of Harry's robes when he started towards the man and dragged him back. Rose who hadn't thought he'd try something so stupid hadn't had time to react. She was distracted from telling Harry off by Ron struggling to stand.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too," he said. Rose thought Ron was taking quite a few liberties with that statement—she didn't really want to die for anyone.

"No, only one will die tonight," Black answered.

"What's the matter," Harry snarled. "Gone soft in Azkaban."

"Harry, shut-up," Rose hissed, and the boy turned angry green eyes on her. "He killed our mom and dad!"

And without any warning he leapt forward, breaking free of Hermione's grip and wrestled Black to the ground. Rose was in such a state of shock at the idiocy of what was happening that she didn't move when Ron and Hermione ran forward as well and began punching and kicking at any part of Black they could find. Rose heard their wands clatter to the floor and lunged for her own. By the time she stood back up, Harry was holding his own wand, pointing it at Black who was sprawled in the floor. Hermione was helping Ron back onto the bed.

"Going to kill me Harry?"

"You killed my parents," Harry accused through gritted teeth.

"I don't deny it, but if you knew the whole story—"

"You sold them to Voldemort! That's all I need to know," Harry cut him off, clenching his wand tighter.

"You've got to listen to me; you don't understand," Black said, staring up at him out of dark sunken eyes, and Rose once again was overcome with the feeling that something was going on here that they weren't getting. Typical Gryffindors, so firm in their beliefs all while missing key pieces of information.

"You never had to hear my mum, begging for Voldemort to kill her instead! Never had to hear her pleading with him." There were tears of rage in his eyes now, and his wand hand was shaking violently. Rose cautiously stepped forward and placed her hands on Harry's shoulders. He jumped and glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye, his gaze hostile.

"Listen to me little brother," she said soothingly. "The same woman you hear when the dementors get close… that woman, our mother, she wouldn't have wanted you to become a murderer."

"He killed her," he said in a choked voice.

"No Harry, V—Voldemort killed her," Rose stammered out the Dark Lord's name. "He killed her twelve years ago. The question is, how are you going to honor her memory now?"

Green eyes met hazel ones, and she knew she had him. He let his wand fall ever so slightly just as the door burst open, and Remus Lupin ran into the room.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted with such force that he hit both of them with the spell, their wands flying across the room to be caught deftly in his hands. For a moment, Remus stood there panting from his run across the grounds, then he moved forward and wrapped Rose and Harry in a tight embrace—one arm around each of them. Rose let out a shaky breath, clinging to his robes. She hadn't realized how exhausted she was until that moment; they were safe now, he was here.

"Where is he, Sirius?" Remus asked, pulling away from the embrace. Rose saw Harry give Lupin an expression that was as confused as she now felt. She watched Sirius lift one hand and point silently at Ron.

'What the hell is going on?'

"But then why hasn't he shown himself—unless, unless he was the one. Unless you switched without telling me," Remus asked in a pained voice. Black nodded his head. And then the most unexpected thing happened. Remus crossed the floor, pulled Sirius to his feet, and embraced him like a long-lost brother.

Rose felt her mind swirling with a tempest of emotions. All she could do for a moment was stare in confusion, and then anger began to edge the haze of confusion out of her mind. Had Severus been right this whole time? Had Remus been helping Sirius? Had his concern for hers and Harry's safety and his own sadness over the loss of his friend all been manufactured? Surely, surely that couldn't be the case… could it? When Remus broke away from Black, his eyes immediately found hers and read the emotions there, and he opened his mouth to speak.

"I don't believe it!" Hermione shrieked, cutting off whatever he was going to say. Rose half-turned to the girl in bewilderment. "I've been covering up for you! I didn't tell anyone!"

"Hermione," Remus began in a placating voice but was cut off once more.

"I trusted you, and all this time you've been his friend!" Harry shouted, putting the emotions Rose was feeling into words better than she could.

"This is a misunderstanding," he said pleadingly, his eyes flicking to Rose's for support. Rose crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him. "I haven't been helping Sirius, but I am now—"

"No! Harry, don't trust him. He's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too, he's—he's a werewolf!" Hermione wailed and the room went deathly quiet. Rose watched Lupin's face drain of color but wasn't feeling particularly empathetic at the moment.

"Not at all up to your usual standards, Hermione. Only one out of three; I haven't been helping Sirius get into the castle, and I certainly don't want Harry—or Rose—dead," his eyes flickered between the pair of them as he said this. "But I won't deny, I am a werewolf."

The confession hung in the air heavily and seemed to make the room darker and fill with a strange ominous electricity.

"How long have you known?"

"Since Professor Snape's essay."

"He'll be delighted. He was hoping someone would figure out what my symptoms meant. You really are the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met."

"I'm not," Hermione whispered. "If I'd been cleverer, I would have told someone."

"But they already know. The staff do anyway… and Rose figured it out almost the same time you did," Remus said. Rose felt all eye move to her for a moment and tried to keep her cheeks from reddening at the unexpected attention. "Dumbledore had to work very hard to convince some members of the staff that I was trustworthy—"

"And he was wrong! All this time you've been helping him!" It seemed that Harry's long silence had only been an opportunity for him to gather all his energy for more shouting. Remus held up both hands in a gesture of peace and then tossed both Rose and Harry their wands back, sticking his own wand in his robe's pocket. Rose caught hers deftly and took the time to scoop Ron and Hermione's off the floor and toss them to their owners. Turning back, she aimed her wand carefully at Remus whose blue eyes locked with hers for a long moment before he looked back at Harry.

"You're all armed, and we're not. Now will you listen?"

"If you're not helping him, how did you know where we were?" Harry asked immediately.

"The Marauder's Map," he said simply. "I thought the three of you would sneak out to see Hagrid tonight, so I was keeping an eye on it. Your presence, Rose, I must admit was a surprise."

"You know how to work it?" Harry asked incredulously. It wasn't hard for Rose to put together Harry's familiarity with the map with the events back in February and realize that Lupin must have taken it from him on the day Snape had called him to his office.

"I helped write it, I'm Moony," Remus said. Rose closed her eyes in irritation, as missing pieces began clicking together. She glanced at Black when she opened them again.

"And you would be Padfoot," Rose said more than asked. Sirius looked at her quietly and nodded.

"You know about the map too?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Oh yes, Moony here showed it to me weeks ago. Left out a few details though," Rose answered dryly. Lupin winced at the accusation in her voice.

"Rose, I—"

"Don't," she cut him off, trying to keep her irritation in check. "You were telling us about how you knew we were here."

Remus swallowed thickly and began to pace back and forth. "The point is that even though you had the invisibility cloak—"

"You know about the cloak?" Harry interjected again making Rose want to slap him.

"The number of times I saw James disappearing under it at school," he said with a wave of his hand. "But even with the cloak you still show up on the map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut, but when you left you were accompanied by someone I didn't expect—I thought the map had to be malfunctioning, how could he be with you?"

"He? Rose was the only one with us."

"And then I saw Sirius run across the ground and drag two of you into the tunnel—"

"One of us," Ron shouted from the bed.

"No, Ron, two of you," Remus corrected gently. "Do you think I could have a look at your rat?"

"What's Scabbers got to do with it?"

"Everything," Remus replied. Rose, who had already been fooled by an animagus once this year immediately became suspicious. 'Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,' she thought.

"No…" she said disbelievingly. "It can't be."

"Oh yes, Rose," Remus nodded at her approvingly. "Can I see him Ron?"

"What does my rat have to do with it," Ron reiterated, lifting him up so that Remus could stare closely at him.

"That's not a rat," Black's hoarse voice interjected coldly. "That's a wizard. An animagus named Peter Pettigrew."

"You're both mental," Ron gasped.

"Pettigrew's dead, he killed him twelve years ago," Harry said, sending an icy glare towards Sirius.

"I meant to, but little Peter got the best of me, not this time though," Sirius lunged towards the rat with teeth barred—looking for all the world like a wild dog. Rose flicked her wand without thinking and Black bounced off the shield charm she'd cast. He looked at her in surprise, and she leveled her wand at his face.

"Back. Off." Rose said sternly, and Sirius glared at her hostilely for the first time. She drew her lips back from her teeth in a snarl of her own, not backing down. He was not the one in control here, and he needed to remember that.

"Sirius, they've got a right to know everything. Ron's kept him as a pet, there's parts of it even I don't understand, and Rose and Harry—you owe them the truth," Remus said placatingly, stepping between Rose and Black. Rose did not lower her wand, trying to make it clear that until she knew more, she was very willing to hex Remus too.

"Alright Remus but hurry up. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for," he said darkly.

"But Professor Lupin," Hermione began timidly. "Scabbers can't be Pettigrew. The Ministry keeps tabs on witches and wizards who are attempting to become animagi—there's a register showing what animal they can become. I looked it up after Rose became an animagus, and there have only been eight animagi this century and Pettigrew wasn't on the list."

"You are an animagus?" Sirius said suddenly, surprising them all. Rose met his gray eyes curiously. He looked almost… proud?

"Yes."

"What… what animal do you become?"

"A fox," she answered simply and wasn't sure if it was disappointment that flickered across his face or some other emotion. All of them glanced at the door when it creaked open on its own. Lupin moved to it quickly and looked out in the hallway, listening for a moment before closing the door.

"If you're going to tell them the story, get a move on Remus," Black said, retreating back into the corner of the room.

"Alright, but you're going to have to help me, I only know how it began," Lupin said and then looked at Hermione. "You are correct, of course, that the Ministry keeps a registry. But what the Ministry didn't know was that there used to be three unregistered animagi running around the Hogwarts grounds."

Remus launched into the story of how he was bitten, how Dumbledore had invited him to Hogwarts anyways, and how the Whomping Willow had been planted and the secret passage to the Shrieking Shack created for his transformations. The story was nearly identical to the one he'd told Rose back in November except that this time he didn't leave out how James, Sirius, and Peter had become animagi. Didn't exclude the stories of them running around Hogwarts and Hogsmeade during full moons. This time he told the entire truth. He explained what she'd already guessed about their nicknames and how they had created the map together.

"All this year I've been battling with myself about whether to tell Dumbledore that Sirius is an animagus, but I was too much of a coward," Remus confessed.

'This is it,' Rose thought. This was the secret he'd been keeping carefully guarded all year, even from her. And it hurt, but not as much as she thought it might. Rose understood the need for secrets after all. She'd just rarely been in the situation of having been the honest one.

"Telling him would have meant I'd betrayed Dumbledore's trust in me as a boy. And Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was using dark magic to get into the castle, that being an animagus had nothing to do with it… so in a way Snape has been right about me all year," Remus continued.

"Snape? What's Snape got to do with it?" Sirius interjected, and the tone of his voice was more disgusted than Rose had even heard Harry use to talk about Severus before.

"He's here, Sirius, he's teaching here as well," Remus answered and then began to explain to the rest of them the dangerous prank Sirius had played on Snape when they were children and how James had saved Snape's life. Rose felt sick to her stomach at this story, glancing at Black cautiously. She thought of Macnair's axe and the type of men who ran the Committee for the Regulation and Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. Had Sirius known when he played his prank what the Ministry would do to a werewolf who killed another wizard?

"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," Harry observed. "Because he thought you were in on the joke."

"That's right Potter."

Rose felt the blood in her veins run cold at the sneering voice that came from just beside the door. Turning, she watched as Severus Snape pulled Harry's invisibility cloak off of himself—a victorious sneer on his face. His wand was pointed directly at Remus' heart.