Chapter 44

"I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you bathing in my eyes.
I hadn't told them about you,
But they saw you in my written words.
The perfume of love cannot be concealed."

- Nizar Qabbani

"I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow," Snape said, amid the general reactions of alarm from the rest of the room's occupants. He casually dropped the cloak to the ground. "Very useful Potter."

With a malicious glint in his eyes he advanced on Lupin until his wand was almost touching the other man's chest. Rose felt sheer terror at the deadly expression on Snape's face while he looked at Remus.

"You forgot to take your potion tonight," he said to Remus in a cold sneer. "Lucky for me, because when I brought you a goblet-full I found a certain map open on your desk—conveniently showing me you running up this passageway and out of sight."

"Severus," Remus tried to interject in a peaceable manner, but Snape dug his wand tip into Remus' chest, burning a hole into the robes there. Rose stepped towards them in alarm, but Snape's dark eyes froze her in her tracks.

"Stay where you are, Miss Malfoy," he commanded, digging the wand—if possible—even harder into Lupin's chest. Rose held up both hands in a gesture of peace.

"Malfoy?" Came the gruff voice of Sirius, and Snape's eyes flickered to him.

"That's right, Black. Did they not tell you? I thought the Slytherin badge on her robes might have given you some clue as to your goddaughter's allegiance, but then, you always were a bit slow on the uptake," he sneered at the fugitive. Rose felt her own cheeks reddening when Sirius turned his gaze upon her, but she didn't look at him—she didn't owe Sirius Black anything, and anyways, she was much more concerned about what Snape was going to do to Remus.

"Professor," Rose tried to interject, terrified by the look of murderous intent on his face.

"Silence," he hissed, and she bit her tongue. Turning back to Lupin he grinned manically. "Two more for Azkaban tonight. It will be interesting to see how Dumbledore takes this. He was quite convinced you were harmless… you know, Lupin, a tame werewolf."

"You fool," Lupin said, staring into his eyes in disgust. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back in Azkaban?"

There was a loud bang and flash of light and Rose screamed. Lupin was engulfed in a writhing coil of rope that shot out of Snape's wand. He fell hard to the floor, and she rushed to catch his upper body to keep his head from slamming into the ground—not caring whether Snape hexed her or not. She needn't have worried as Black, who had also rushed to his friend's aid, was now the direct object of Snape's wrath. Rose couldn't hold Remus up with his dead weight leaning into her and instead sank to the floor, laying his head upon her lap. Their eyes locked, and even though rope was bound around his mouth like a gag, he gave her a comforting nod to show he was alright. With a trembling hand, she delicately swept his hair out of his eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling from her own; she had been so sure for a moment that Snape was going to kill him. She tugged at the ropes that were coiled around his throat, scared they would tighten too much and cut off his breathing.

"Get back, Miss Malfoy," Snape commanded again, his wand pointed at Black. She looked up at him hatefully, her eyes narrowing in defiance. Hazel eyes locked with onyx ones and she sneered right back at him.

"Go to hell," she told him. To her surprise, Sirius began to laugh as if her comment had been the most amusing joke in the world. The laughter died off when Snape pressed his wand to his throat.

"Give me a reason. Give me a reason, and I swear I'll do it," Snape threatened. "Vengeance is sweet, how I hoped I'd be the one to catch you."

"The joke's on you again Severus. As long as the boy brings his rat up to the castle, I'll come quietly."

"The castle? No, I don't think we'll need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They've been longing to see you," Snape jeered, and Sirius' face went as pale as death. "A dementor's kiss is said to be almost unbearable to watch, but I'll do my best."

"You—you've got to hear me out," Black said pleadingly. "The rat, look at the rat."

"Come on, all of you," Snape said to the rest of them, tilting his head towards the door, blatantly ignoring Black. Coils of rope that were attached to Lupin flew into his hand. "I'll drag the werewolf. Maybe the dementors will have a kiss for him as well."

"No!" Rose shouted in shock at these words, and for a wild moment she thought her voice alone had been enough to throw Snape hard against the wall before realizing that all three of the Gryffindors had tried to disarm him at the same moment. She was breathing in shaky gasps as she quickly worked to free Lupin from the ropes and tried not to look at Snape who was crumpled in an unnatural position on the floor, blood leaking down his face. Sirius bent down and picked up Snape's wand.

"We attacked a teacher," Hermione whimpered.

As soon as Remus was free of the cords, he moved to Severus' crumpled form and inspected him carefully. He gave a relieved sigh and stood up, running his hand through his hair.

"There's nothing seriously wrong with him, you were just a bit overenthusiastic," he told the three third-years. Rose buried her head in her hands, shaking in relief, trying to get control of herself. She felt Lupin's arms wrap around her, and she clung to him tightly, burying her face in his chest. He rubbed her back soothingly while she listened to his steady heartbeat.

"Hush now, it's alright. He's not hurt," Lupin told her. Rose pulled back and wiped her face on her sleeve, looking up at him with red eyes.

"I thought he was going to kill you! When he cast that spell, I thought you were going to—" her voice cut off in a half-suppressed sob. Remus looked at her with warm eyes, cupping her face and brushing her tears away with his thumbs.

"Rose, I'm alright," he reassured her with the smile she so adored. She nodded a few times and tried to get control of her breathing. He helped her to her feet and led her to the bed, where she sat numbly. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sirius and Hermione looking at them with similar expressions of suspicion but couldn't bring herself to care. Crookshanks walked over and curled up on her lap, and Rose stroked his fur absently, his purring comforting her.

"Are you okay?" Rose looked up to see that Harry had come over as well and was now looking at her in concern. She tried to muster a clever quip or sarcastic response but was defeated by the sincerity in his emerald eyes.

"I'm fine," she said with a small smile.

"Thank you, for what you did," Lupin said, turning to the three Gryffindors.

"I'm still not saying I believe you," Harry said obstinately, and Remus nodded.

"Then it's time we offer you some proof. Ron, give me Scabbers."

"Come off it," Ron said. "Even if he was Scabbers, how would he know where Pettigrew was after spending twelve years in Azkaban?"

"You know, Sirius, that is a fair question, how did you know?" Lupin asked, and Sirius fished out a very crumpled page of the Daily Prophet and showed it to them all. On the front cover was a picture of Ron and his family in Egypt with the rat perched on his shoulder.

"How did you get this?" Lupin asked incredulously.

"Fudge. He gave it to me on his last visit to Azkaban."

"Merlin's beard, his front paw," Lupin breathed. "It has a toe missing."

"So?" Ron asked defensively.

"Didn't you ever hear? The biggest part they ever found of Pettigrew was a finger."

"He cut it off himself, just after he shouted for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed James and Lily. Then he blew up the street with the wand behind his back and sped off into the sewers as a rat. Faked his own death," Sirius explained.

"And why did he fake his own death? Because he knew you were about to kill him like he killed my parents," Harry shouted, horrified he'd made the wrong choice in attacking Snape.

"I as good as killed them Harry. I persuaded James and Lily to use him as their secret-keeper at the last moment. I'm to blame… the night they died, I'd gone to check on Peter, but he wasn't there and there were no signs of a struggle. I went to your parent's as fast as I could, but it was too late. The house was destroyed, I saw their bodies, I couldn't find Rosie anywhere, just you crying in your crib," Sirius' voice choked up while he spoke, and his eyes grew misty.

"There's one certain way to prove what happened," Lupin interjected. "Give me the rat."

"Give it to him Ron," Harry encouraged as Lupin reached for the rat.

"Scabbers! What are you going to do to him?"

"If he really is a rat, this won't hurt him," Lupin reassured the redhead, pulling Scabbers from his hands. Remus and Sirius pointed their wands at the rat and with a bright flash of light they all watched the rat transform back into a man. In an instant a balding rat-faced man crouched in the center of the room, looking around at them twitchily. Rose felt instantly repulsed by his grubby shrunken appearance.

"Well, hello Peter," Remus said, flicking his hair out of his eyes in the casual confident way Rose found so attractive. "Long time, no see."

"R—Remus, S—Sirius, my old friends."

"We've been having an interesting conversation about the night Lily and James died. You may have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there—"

"You don't believe him, do you? He tried to kill me, Remus! And now he's come back to finish the job, you've got to help me!"

"Come now, Peter. No one's going to try to kill you until we've sorted a few things out," Lupin said. There was a deadly coldness in his eyes that Rose had never seen before. It was simultaneously sexy and unnerving.

"Sorted some things out?" Peter squeaked incredulously.

"Professor Lupin," Hermione spoke up quietly. "If Scabbers—er, this man really was working for You-Know-Who all these years, why wouldn't he have hurt Harry before now?"

"I'll tell you why," Sirius interjected. "Because Peter never did anything for anyone unless he could see what was in it for him. Commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore's nose with Voldemort out there somewhere half dead? He'd wait to make sure Voldemort was the biggest bully on the block before he went back to him. But I knew he'd be perfectly positioned to act if the dark side began to gain strength again, and I was the only one who knew he was still alive. I had to do something."

Sirius turned his eyes to Harry with a pleading look. "Believe me, Harry. Believe me, Rose. I never betrayed Lily and James. I would have died before I betrayed them. I loved them."

Harry looked at Rose and an unspoken thought passed between them before the two turned back to Sirius and nodded. Peter shrieked in dismay and crumpled to his knees.

"Remus! You don't believe this? Wouldn't Sirius have told you if they changed the plan?"

"Not if he thought I was the spy," Remus answered sadly. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me?"

"Forgive me, Remus."

"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend. And will you in turn forgive me for believing you were the spy?"

"Of course. Shall we kill him together?"

"I think so."

"No!" Peter shrieked and crawled over to first Ron and then Hermione, pleading with them both for his life. The two Gryffindors drew away from him in repulsion. Slowly he turned his ashen face to Rose who was seated on the bed and Harry who still stood next to her. Shuffling over to them on his knees, Pettigrew lifted up his hands at them imploringly.

"Harry, Rose, you look just like your parents, just like them—"

"How dare you speak to them!" Sirius roared in outrage. "How dare you talk about Lily and James in front of them!"

"Harry, James wouldn't have wanted me killed, he would have shown me mercy! Rose, sweet Rosie, we used to play together when you were a child, don't you remember? We were friends." Peter continued to plead with them, grasping one of Rose's hands with his own.

And very distantly, Rose thought she did remember. Thought she could recall the plump smiling face of a young man who he picked her up and threw her into the air while she giggled. This was the man whose actions had caused the death of Lily and James—whose actions had resulted in Rose being sent to that orphanage. He was also the man whose actions had caused her to be raised by Lucius and Narcissa, two parents whom she deeply loved. But despite the conflict she felt around her biological and adopted parents, Rose also knew that this was the man who had stripped all of Remus' closest friends from him in a single night and plunged him into over a decade of loneliness and despair. And for that she couldn't forgive him.

Leaning forward, she squeezed his hands comfortingly, looked deep into his eyes, and whispered, "I think I'll enjoy watching them kill you."

She only had a moment to enjoy the horrified look on his face before Remus and Sirius grabbed him and dragged him back, throwing him back onto the floor. The pair leveled their wands at him threateningly.

"You sold Lily and James to Voldemort; do you deny it?" Black interrogated.

"What could I have done? I was scared, I didn't mean to—"

"Liar! You'd been passing information to him for a year before they died. You were his spy!" Rose remembered vaguely that Remus had said Dumbledore had sent him to live among the werewolves for a year before their deaths. That must have been why Sirius had begun to suspect him.

"He was taking over everywhere," Peter protested. "What was there to be gained by refusing him?"

"What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives Peter!"

"You should have realized," Lupin said in a measured voice. "That if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Goodbye Peter."

"No!" All eyes in the room turned to Harry who looked almost surprised to have spoken. "You can't kill him."

"Harry, this piece of vermin is why you have no parents," Black said, his eyes never leaving Pettigrew.

"I know. We'll take him to the castle and hand him over to the dementors. He can go to Azkaban, but don't kill him."

"Harry, thank you," Peter sobbed.

"I'm not doing it for you. Rose was right earlier. They wouldn't have wanted this. They wouldn't have wanted any of us to become killers," Harry said. Rose stared at him for a long moment, not sure whether now would be a good time to mention that she'd been talking out of her ass earlier to calm him down. She didn't, however, think he was wrong about their wishes in this case. Seeing that Remus and Sirius were both looking at her now, she nodded in agreement.

"You two are the only ones who have the right to choose," Sirius said hesitantly. "But think of what he did."

"He can go to Azkaban. If anyone deserves that place, he does," Harry repeated firmly. Lupin and Black glanced at each other and then slowly lowered their wands.