After a pregnant pause, the others all choked on their disbelief, refusing to believe it, Harry most of all. "Peter Pettigrew's dead! He killed him twelve years ago!" He pointed his wand at Black who remained perfectly still.

"I meant to." He admitted and I felt the warmth drain from my face as I listened. "But little Peter got the better of me, not this time though!" He lunged for the rat and almost collapsed onto Ron's leg but I grabbed him by his filthy, tattered robes and flung him back as Lupin did the same, the both of us wrestling with him in order to keep him away. For a man who was little more than skin stretched over bones, he was surprisingly strong.

"Sirius no! Wait! You can't do it just like that, they need to understand…we've got to explain…"

"We can explain afterwards!" He snarled, still trying to break through as he desperately clawed at the air over my shoulder in a bid to grab the rat. Lupin continued to protest, insisting that we had the right to know everything before the next step was taken, so with a firm push Lupin and I forced Black backwards, though I was now panting from the effort.

"Ron, give me that rat." I snapped, holding out my hand for him.

"What?"

"Give him to me, Ron. I'll hold him until this is sorted. Don't worry, I won't hurt him and I won't let Black have him either, but…just give me the damn thing." Blinking but agreeing, Ron handed Scabbers over to me, or rather, Peter Pettigrew. If he really was an animagus, then I wanted him as far away from Ron – and Harry for that matter – as possible. I gripped him by his tail, shooting the rat a look before then turning to Black. "You're not getting this rat until you tell us everything. The truth. Harry deserves to know what really happened to his parents, if what you're saying is true and that there's more to it than we know." Sending me a grateful look, Lupin gripped onto Sirius's shoulder.

"Mia is right, Sirius. Ron's kept him as a pet, there are parts of it even I don't understand, and Harry…you owe Harry the truth." With our combined efforts, Sirius finally accepted our bargain. The rat continued to squeak and try to free himself from my grasp, even going so far as to try and chew off his own tail but he couldn't reach, which only made me all the more suspicious. That rat could understand us. It knew exactly what was going on, and it didn't want to be here when the truth came out.

"Alright, then. Tell them whatever you like, but make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for."

"You know, you're not really making a great first impression here." I told him flatly, giving him a dry look but for a brief instant, Black smiled at me again, a light almost flickering into view before it vanished once again and he returned his focus to the rat in my hand. Ron tried to leave, declaring that both Lupin and Black were complete nutters but the moment he tried to walk, he turned a startling shade of green and collapsed again. "I'd stay put if I were you Ron."

"Mia, this is mental! That's Scabbers you're holding, Scabbers! Not some Peter Pettigrew or whatever his name is…"

"There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die," Harry murmured, his wand still raised as we all stood on edge. "A whole street full of them."

"They didn't see what they thought they saw!" Black snarled, still glowering at the rat who, for the moment, had given up struggling. Probably on account of exhaustion.

"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter, I believed it myself." Lupin agreed in a much calmer tone than Black's. "Until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's Map never lies. Peter's alive, and you're holding him right there, Mia." He pointed and I couldn't help but hold the rat a little further away from me with a distasteful look on my face. I had to admit, their story was a little farfetched, but still, I had a feeling they weren't lying.

"But Professor Lupin, Scabbers can't be Pettigrew, it just can't be true…" Hermione started saying, shaking her head as she remained tucked closely against Ron with her wand trembling in her hand.

"Why can't it be true?"

"Because…because people would know if Peter Pettigrew had been an animagus. We did animagi in class with Professor McGonagall., and I looked them up when I did my homework – the ministry keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals; there's a register showing what animal they become, and their markings and things…and I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register, even Mia was on there, and there have only been eight animagi this century, and Pettigrew's name wasn't on the list."

"Wait a moment." I frowned for a moment, thinking quickly. "That might be true, but it's up to the individual's discretion to register themselves as an animagi." I pointed out to Hermione, and I saw a slow smile spread across Lupin's and Black's faces once more. "You'd be sent to Azkaban if you're caught unregistered, I only went through the process because I was bored and McGonagall suggested it, but if someone else wanted to do it, then they may choose not to register. There have been cases of it before, people getting caught."

"Right you are, Mia!" Lupin said, clearly satisfied that I understood that there was a slight possibility of all this having a slight chance of being true. "The ministry never knew that there used to be three unregistered animagi running around Hogwarts." Things were starting to make a great deal more sense now as I steamed forwards.

"So you, a werewolf, were Moony." I started, looking at Lupin and then to Black. "You're Padfoot the dog, Wormtail…no." I looked at the rat incredulously. "You called the rat Wormtail? I always wondered why the strange names…they're to do with your animagus forms. Pettigrew turned into a rat, so he's…" I actually laughed a little at that. "Seems like the joke's up, Wormy." I said to the rat who had started to squeak with fright as I frowned at him. "So if this is Wormtail, I'm guessing Harry's dad was Prongs."

"Right again, Mia." But Black was becoming impatient, telling Lupin to get a move on so that he could finish what he started. "Alright, but you'll need to help me, Sirius, I only know how it began." When a noise sounded from outside the room, Lupin quickly turned in order to take a look but found nothing there.

"This place is haunted!" Ron squeaked fearfully, to which Lupin chuckled.

"It's not. The Shrieking Shack was never haunted, the screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me. That's where all of this starts, with my becoming a werewolf. None of this could have happened if I hadn't been bitten…and if I hadn't been so foolhardy." For a moment he stood there, looking forlorn and dejected, but continued all the same in order to tell us that he had been bitten when he was only small. "My parents tried everything, but in those days, there was no cure. The potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery. It makes me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform. I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again."

"That's why you were never in the hospital wing." I guessed and he nodded at me.

"Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me, but then Dumbledore became headmaster, and he was sympathetic. He said that, as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn't come to school." Then Lupin turned to Harry, reminding him that he'd said that the Whomping Willow had been planted the year that he came to Hogwarts, then explained that the tree, the tunnel and even this house had been built for his own use and once a month, he was smuggled out here.

All four of us were now listening with unwavering attention. I had sat back down again, still holding Pettigrew – for there was no doubt in my mind that it was Pettigrew – up by the tail. We listened as Lupin described his painful transformations, how he used to scratch and bite himself, how his howling and screams started the rumours of the Shrieking Shack being haunted and I couldn't help but feel sympathetic towards him. "But apart from my transformations, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and of course your father, Harry. James Potter." Then, the story continued.

His friends had noticed Lupin's regular disappearances, and how that they eventually figured out the truth, but instead of ostracising him, they decided to become animagi for him. This perked Harry's interest, asking if his dad also became one. "Yes, indeed. It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school, and lucky they were, because the animagus transformation can go horribly wrong, as I'm sure you're aware, Mia." I couldn't help it, I grinned.

"That just made it all the more fun. Not to brag or anything, but I succeeded with my transformation in just under a year." I said with a look at Black who chuckled richly towards me, finally now looking away from the rat and started to study me properly, but I was already paying attention to Lupin again as he pressed on, explaining how it took them until their fifth year to succeed.

"But how did that help you?" Hermione questioned, probably curious from an academic perspective despite the situation.

"They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals. A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's invisibility cloak. They transformed…Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow's attacking branches and touch the knot that freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so whilst I was with them."

"Hurry up, Remus." Black suddenly quipped, breaking the rapt attention momentarily that we'd had for Lupin's story.

"I'm getting there, Sirius, I'm getting there." Lupin sighed softly before then telling us how the four of them would roam the grounds and village, which lead to them creating the Marauder's Map. Of course Hermione spoke up, saying that it was a reckless thing they did, that if anything had gone wrong, Lupin could have bitten someone.

"Well I think it was brilliant." I supplied, much to Hermione's surprise. "I'm almost jealous."

"Oh come on Mia, you can't mean that. Someone could have been hurt!"

"Hermione, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're in the wizarding world now. There's always going to be risk. If you let yourself worry about every little thing all the time, you're just going to end up missing out on all the great stuff. Look at Harry, he goes on the best adventures, and this is only his third year!" Huffing indignantly, Hermione reminded me that Harry had nearly died twice. "Well…yeah I guess, but he turned out alright, didn't he?" She glared at me and pointedly looked away. "Anyway professor, you were saying?"

Lupin admitted that he had almost gone to Dumbledore several times in order to tell him that Sirius was an animagus, but insisted that he didn't because he was too cowardly, because it meant he would then have to admit how he had betrayed Dumbledore's trust whilst he had been at school, roaming freely as a werewolf despite all of his warnings. "Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using Dark Arts he learnt from Voldemort, that being an animagus had nothing to do with it, so in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

"Snape?" Sirius frowned suddenly, looking at Lupin quickly. "What's Snape got to do with it?"

"He's here, Sirius. He's teaching here as well." He explained before looking at us four again. "Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He had his reasons, you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me…"

"It served him right. Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to, hoping he could get us expelled…" I frowned at him.

"No way. So the reason Snape hates mine and Harry's guts is because of you lot?" I almost dropped the rat. "No wonder he detests us if you guys nearly killed him as a kid." Lupin looked completely ashamed and Black had the decency to look a little guilty.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." After clearing his throat, Lupin awkwardly continued. "We were in the same year, you know, and we…er…didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the quidditch pitch…anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me towards the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be…amusing to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it. If he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf, but your father," Lupin then looked at Harry who had remained silent all this time. "Who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life. Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden to tell anybody by Dumbledore, but from that time on, he knew what I was."

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

"That's right." The fine hairs on the back of my neck shot up when I heard that voice, Snape himself pulling off Harry's cloak with his wand levelled at Lupin. Everyone else reacted with jumps and screams, but Snape remained calmly smug. "I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow. Very useful, Potter, I thank you. I also found this." Lifting up a long, ebony wand with an encrusted gemstone at it's base, I immediately stood up.

"My wand!"

"Indeed, though I think I shall hold onto it for the time being." Snape said to me, my jaw dropping.

"You can't! That's my wand!"

"Silence, you foolish girl. You are already facing expulsion as it is, do not make things worse for yourself." I clamped my mouth shut and Black growled deeply, eyeballing Snape as he looked around with unhidden triumph. "You're wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here? I've just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a goblet-full along. Very lucky I did, lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."

"Severus…"

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you've been helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here's the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have had the nerve to use this old place as your hideout." Lupin desperately tried to explain that Snape was misunderstanding, but he was beyond the point of listening, to wrapped up in glorified victory. "Two more for Azkaban tonight. I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this, he was quite convinced you were harmless, you know Lupin, a tame werewolf."

"Shut up!" I said without even thinking, growing angry as my shoulders trembled and Snape turned a shocked and rather incensed eye on me.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't talk about Professor Lupin like that. You have no right!" Snape opened his mouth to say something to me, but I was beyond caring about detentions, deducted house points or even getting expelled. We were starting to get to the truth, and I'll be damned if Snape was going to interrupt. More to the point, I couldn't stand the way he was speaking to Lupin, one of our best teachers, like he was nothing more than a filthy degenerate. "You're not listening, there's more to the story than what we know, we have to know." Snape's lips curled at me, clearly wavering over the idea of hexing me.

"Thank you, Mia, it's alright." Lupin assured me gently, moving himself so that he was standing between me and Snape, as if having the same thought I had. "You fool, Severus. Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?" With a sudden bang of sound, thick cords erupted from the tip of Snape's wand and bound themselves around Lupin's mouth, wrists and ankles, forcing him to the floor as I cried out in alarm and darted forwards but with only one hand, I couldn't really do much. The cords were pulled too tight, digging into Lupin's flesh as I held Wormtail aloft still.

"Let him go!"

"Silence!" The wand then pointed at me, causing Black to roar furiously but Snape then turned his wand at him instead, begging him to give him a reason to just kill him where he stood. The others looked to be in a state of shock, though Hermione managed to find her voice long enough to ask if it would hurt to just hear Lupin and Black out.

"Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school. You, Potter, Weasley and Miss Black are out of bounds, in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue." She started to quiver, speaking again and this time, Snape thundered loudly as I stared at him. "KEEP QUIET YOU STUPID GIRL!"

"OY!" I bellowed back, rising to the challenge as I leaped to my feet and snarled. "Don't talk to her like that! She's smarter than you are by a longshot! Now…GIVE ME MY RUDDY WAND YOU IGNORANT BASTARD!" Thrusting out my hand, I allowed all of my fury to drive my magic to my fingers, causing the wand to twitch in Snape's grasp before all at once, it flew to me as I called to it and the moment I grasped hold of it, I made to cast a spell but Snape was ahead of me.

"Impedimenta!" I felt myself slow down and freeze up, then with a second spell Snape blasted me backwards with enough force that I hit the opposing wall and smacked against it forcefully.

"Mia!" Everyone cried out my name as I blinked but focused mainly on the rat. I almost lost my grip on him, but thankfully I managed to tighten my grasp just before he squirmed free as Black howled at Snape, starting for him but the potions professor quickly returned his wand on Black as he purred gleefully.

"Vengeance is very sweet. How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…" Still clearly angry, Black took several deep breaths as I staggered to my feet, still gripping my wand and the rat tightly.

"The joke's on you again, Severus. As long as the rat comes with us up to the castle, I'll come quietly, though I'll get you back for harming my daughter." It was surprising to hear such a display of fatherly defensiveness, strange to say the least.

"Up to the castle?" Snape echoed, a daunting feeling rising at his tone. "I don't think we need to go that far. 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." The horror that suddenly broke out on Black's face made me think that this kiss Snape mentioned wasn't anything to be eager about. He looked positively terrified. Dismissing Black's attempt at reason, even a little begging, Snape turned to the rest of us and ordered us to move, a snap of his fingers causing ropes to dart to his hands from where Lupin remained bound on the floor, saying that he'd drag Lupin and that perhaps the dementors would have a kiss for him too.

"So…you're going to let the dementors hurt them." I surmised, feeling a little stunned from the earlier blow, but still perfectly in control of myself as Snape sneered at me.

"Of course, stupid girl."

"Right." With the fastest movement I had ever made, I cast a silent spell at Snape which blasted against him, slicing my wand to then drag him across the room and fling him against a wall with an almighty crash. He dropped all at once, crumbling with a bloom of dust which hissed as it settled. "That settles that then." With another wave of my wand I freed Lupin then smirked, twirling my wand around my fingers playfully as Black looked at me with wide eyes. "Never liked him much anyway."

"Mia! You attacked a teacher!" Hermione gasped at me, looking rather horrified.

"So? He attacked me first. It was pure self defence, Hermione. You guys can be my witnesses. Besides, I'm not done listening to the story, and now I want to know the truth more than ever. What about you, Harry?" I asked, turning to him as Black helped Lupin up onto his feet.

"I'm still not saying I believe you." He said honestly, making Black straighten up.

"Then it's time we offered you some proof. Mia, give me Peter." He opened his hand towards me, focusing on me as I considered the screaming rat hanging by it's tail.

"Come off it." Ron said weakly, making me pause for a moment longer. "Are you trying to say you broke out of Azkaban just to get your hands on Scabbers? I mean, 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?" That was a very good point, actually, one that Lupin now turned to Sirius, asking him how he found out where Pettigrew was. Digging into his pocket, Black then pulled out a rather torn and ragged piece of paper but did his best to smooth it out in order to show us. It was Ron's family in Egypt, and after a moment, I noticed Scabbers sitting on Ron's shoulder.

"How did you get this?"

"Fudge. When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me his paper, and there was Peter, on the front page. On this boy's shoulder. I knew him at once, how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts, to where Harry was…" Squinting at the picture in the dim light, I lit my wand so that Lupin could see properly, holding it over the newspaper clipping until he suddenly breathed in disbelief.

"His front paw…"

"What about it?" Ron demanded and I immediately looked at the rat, seeing for the second time that sure enough, part of his toe was gone.

"He's got a toe missing." Lupin seemed to have put things together, though it took me a little longer. I had to think back to everything I knew about what happened between Black and Pettigrew, as well as Harry's parents. It wall swirled in my head, until finally, it came to me like a stroke of brilliance.

"You were never their Secret Keeper, were you?" I asked softly, all feelings of distrust slowly waning as it all became so clear that I could barely take it in. My eyes now fixed on Black, I could feel tears starting to rise as thick swells of emotion began to power through me. "And Pettigrew…his toe…finger…"

"Just before he transformed." Black affirmed, now looking at me gently. Lovingly. I couldn't handle it. "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." Genius. It really was genius. A flawless escape, one that had everyone else fooled for twelve long years.

"Didn't you hear Ron? The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger." Lupin said to him but Ron still reused to see the truth, saying that Scabbers probably lost his toe in a fight, that he'd been in the family for ages. "Twelve years, in fact. Didn't you ever wonder why he was living so long?"

"We've…we've been taking good care of him!" Ron insisted, but his voice was starting to waver, like he himself wasn't too certain anymore.

"Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he? I'd guess he's been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again." This time, Ron blamed Crookshanks.

"This cat isn't mad." Black answered as Crookshanks started to purr and wind himself around my legs, having been sat quietly until now, listening. "He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognised Peter for what he was straight 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…"

"What do you mean?" Hermione cut in, looking at Crookshanks with wonder as the cat continued to rub himself against my legs.

"He tried to bring Peter to me, but couldn't. So he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for me…as I understand it, he took them from a boy's bedside table." Neville. Poor Neville, guess he hadn't lost them after all. "But Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it. This cat, Crookshanks did you call him? He told me Peter had left blood on the sheets, I suppose he bit himself. Well, faking his own death worked once…"

"And why did he fake his death?" Harry demanded, growing angry again. "Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!"

"Black never killed your parents, Harry." I announced, making everyone now turn to me. "If I've got this right, and I'm pretty sure I do, then Sirius couldn't have betrayed your parents, because he wasn't their Secret Keeper. Ron, Hermione, you remember you told me about the Fidelius Charm? Well, it only keeps the people inside it safe so long as the Secret Keeper doesn't disclose to anyone else willingly where they are. If what Lupin and Black are saying is true, then I'd bet my life that it was Pettigrew who betrayed your parents."

"But…but…he said he as good as killed them!" Harry reminded me, so I looked to Black for an explanation as his face struggled with pain.

"It's true, I as good as killed them. I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret Keeper instead of me. I'm to blame, I know it, the night they died, I'd arranged 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 realised what Peter must have done. What I'd done." With a crack his voice broke, and I practically felt his guilt as he struggled to even look at anyone.

"Enough of this." Lupin finally announced, feeling the same regret and anger as Black now that his attention was focused on the rat. "There's one certain way to prove what really happened. Give me the rat, Mia." Having no objections, I gladly handed the rat over though Ron worried over him, demanding to know what they were going to do as Black went to retrieve Snape's wand as Lupin explained they were going to force Pettigrew to show himself. "Ready Sirius?"

"Together?"

"I think so. On the count of three." Both of them held their wands ready as Lupin held onto a desperate Scabbers. Giving the count, a flash of blue light then filled the room, making me blink as Harry moved towards me and I naturally reached out to grip his sleeve, ready to pull him out of the way in case of…well, anything really. We watched as Scabbers hung in the air, writhing frantically until suddenly hitting the floor as Ron yelled in alarm. It was then the rat started to change, growing larger and bulbous, then without warning a head shot into view and limbs sprouted as the fur disappeared and in the rat's place stood a man.