Happy Friday, you guys! Hope your past week has gone great, you more than deserve it. As always, thank you so much for your reviews and your reads. I hope you like this week's chapter. Sorry for the bit of a cliffy you got last week (and the small one at the end of this slightly filler-ish chapter).
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns anything recognizable and anything underlined like this (and their is a fair bit that's directly quoted in this chapter-the most out of any of the other chapters in this story even though I think this is also the last time I directly quote any of the books).
Chpt. 3: Gryffin-don't Cut to the Chase
Before he can answer, Hermione's scruffy orange cat prances proudly into the room with a fat rat hanging limply from his mouth. Hermione fully expects her cat to come over to her and lay his prize at her feet like he's done with many small animals since she'd gotten the grumpy thing from the pet store with Harry that summer. However, the usually intelligent cat strides proudly over to the escaped mass murderer and rubs fondly along his legs before dropping the limp rat at his feet.
"That's a question that needs to wait, it's a much longer and less believable story than the one that got me falsely imprisoned. And it is a question I will only answer when Hermione herself tells me that she is ready to have her whole world turned upside-down and the rest of her life change in a most likely negative way." Sirius sounds tired as he runs his fingers through his dirty hair.
Professor Lupin and Harry stare at him with disbelief but Hermione's magic hums across her skin, urging her to trust him and telling her that she isn't ready to hear what it is he has to say. "Ok," Hermione says, coming out from behind Harry just enough to clearly see both her Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor and the man who had been convicted of thirteen murders.
Both Professor Lupin and Harry's looks of disbelief turn to Hermione who meets their stares evenly, telling them with her eyes that him knowing her name doesn't matter right now. What matters is the story behind his being here. They'll find out the rest eventually.
Sirius nods and squats down to pick up the limp rat by the tail. "This is why I'm here," he states, staring evenly at the two teens.
"A rat? What are you, pest control or some shite?" Harry scoffs, rolling his eyes and Hermione elbows him in the ribs before shooting him a stern glare, this isn't the time to joke.
"That's not a rat," croaked Sirius Black.
"What d'you mean - of course he's a rat -"
"No, he's not," said Lupin quietly. "He's a wizard."
"An Animagus," said Black, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."
Both teens listen patiently as Professor Lupin explains his condition, how Headmaster Dumbledore had taken a chance on him by letting him attend Hogwarts, and how he made three best friends at Hogwarts who became illegal animagi to help him during the full moon. However as soon as their Head of House was brought up, they lost all patience.
"Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons... you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me -"
Black made a derisive noise and Hermione's hand on Harry's is the only thing keeping him from hexing the older man in his Head of House's defense though she fully supported Harry's need to defend the man who had done nothing but protect them, she just wanted the full story first.
"It served him right," he sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to... hoping he could get us expelled..."
"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Lupin told Harry [and Hermione]. "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 field... anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be - er - 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, 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 by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was..."
"That is absolutely disgusting," Hermione spits, her glare on the convicted murderer once more. "I don't care if he was trying to get you expelled, which I have no doubt you likely deserved considering the fact that I know and trust Professor Snape more than I do any other adult in the wizarding world and he would never purposefully go after someone without reason. And he would never be so petty as to go after someone because of something as idiotic as Quidditch. You tried to kill him, that's not funny. That is disgusting."
"Thank you for that very Gryffindor defense, Miss Granger," Snape drawls, swooping into the room from the same entrance the two teens had used and easily slipping in front of his Slytherins before the other two men could fully comprehend that another player had just entered the equation.
"If I had been a Gryffindor, I would have punched him the minute the disdainful noise came out of his mouth at the mere mention of you," Hermione drawls back and the older man's lips twitch, his eyes shooting her his one of his now familiar silent smiles.
"Right you are, Miss Granger. Ten points to Slytherin." Snape's eyes have now checked over both teens, seeing that they seem unharmed and still armed. If this came down to a fight, which Hermione didn't see happening, they would likely win because it was three against two. The older man turns to the two Gryffindors in the room, a disdainful sneer twisting his lips. "I suppose you're wondering why I am here… When Miss Granger failed to show up for her appointment with me, something she has never done in three years I have had the pleasure of knowing her, I went to your office to see if you had seen her considering the fact that I didn't know when she planned drop off your potion… Which I see you still haven't taken yet. Why don't you do us all and drink that while we're on the topic, I don't think anyone here besides Black wants to join you on four legs once a month…" Professor Lupin slowly takes the potion, watching Professor Snape with wary eyes as he does so. Like he could have poisoned it in the two minutes he had been here. "Lying on your desk was a certain map. Imagine my surprise when I saw these two dunderheads that call themselves Slytherins following a man one of which knew was a werewolf and disappeared down a secret passage that I am only too familiar with."
"Severus -" Lupin began, but Snape overrode him.
"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here's the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout -"
"Severus, you're making a mistake," said Lupin urgently. "You haven't heard everything - I can explain - Sirius is not here to kill Harry -"
"Two more for Azkaban tonight," said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically. "I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this... He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin... a tame werewolf -"
"Professor?" Hermione queries before Professor Lupin can attempt to interrupt again.
Professor Snape turns toward her, his eyebrow cocked in a silent question.
"I think there is more to this story than we know. They could have killed both Harry and I and been long gone by now but they haven't. Is there really any harm in hearing them out? Especially since Professor Lupin has taken his potion and both wizards are unarmed and tied up." Her entire question is asked in the sort of wide-eyed innocence that made every adult's eyes widen in disbelief as ropes shot out of her wand, tying up the two Gryffindors at the same moment Harry disarms them. Hermione grins at Harry as he pockets the two wands, sometimes she really wondered if he could read her mind or if he really just knew her that well.
A rough chuckle escapes Professor Snape's throat, surprising the other four people in the room though the two teens do a much better job of hiding it than the two adults currently tied up on the floor. "I suppose we have the time to listen to their story," he drawls, holding his hand out to Harry who hands over the two extra wands instantly and transfiguring a nearby rickety stool into a wingback chair for him to sit in while still staying in front of the two teens. "It's your show, Miss Granger."
"Er – Mr. Black - Sirius?" said Hermione.
Black jumped at being addressed like this and stared at Hermione as though he had never seen anything quite like her.
Hermione steps forward so that she is directly beside Professor Snape's chair but not in front of it because she knows that her Head of House will cut her line of questioning short if he feels she isn't being careful. "Say we actually believe you and Peter Pettigrew has been hiding in his Animagus form for the past thirteen years. How did you find out where he was? There are millions of rats in the world and you've been in Azkaban since the day he supposedly died."
"Fudge," said Black. "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 [yo-]Harry was..."
"What is it with Gryffindors and giving drawn out answers that don't actually answer your original question?" Hermione scoffs rhetorically to the two Slytherins beside her before turning her attention back to the two Gryffindors. "How exactly did you know?"
"He's got a toe missing," said Black.
"Of course," Lupin breathed. "So simple... so brilliant... he cut it off himself?"
"Just before he transformed," said Black. "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..."
"And what has Crookshanks got to do with any of this?" She gestures to the cat who is still guarding the (hopefully) unconscious (and not dead) rat on the floor.
Black's eyes turn to the proud orange cat, a smile tugging at his lips. s a while before he trusted me... Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping me…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...But Peter got wind of what was going on and ran for it." croaked Black. "This cat - Crookshanks, did you call him? - told me Peter had left blood on the sheets... I supposed he bit himself... Well, faking his own death had worked once."
"And why did he fake his death?" [Harry cuts in] furiously. "Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!"
"Harry... I as good as killed them," he croaked. "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 realized what Peter must've done... what I'd done..."
"Enough of this," said Professor Snape as he rose from his seat, pointing his wand at the rat on the ground. "There's one certain way to prove what really happened."
A flash of blue-white light erupted from [his wand]; for a moment, [the rat] was frozen in midair, his small gray form twisting madly - the rat fell and hit the floor [once more]. There was another blinding flash of light and then –
It was like watching a speeded-up film of a growing tree. A head was shooting upward from the ground; limbs were sprouting; a moment later, a man was [laying on the floor where the rat had] been, [looking around the room with wide eyes]. Crookshanks was spitting and snarling, the hair on his back standing up.
He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry and Hermione [when he finally rose to his feet]. His thin, colorless hair was unkempt and there was a large bald patch on top. He had the shrunken appearance of a plump man who has lost a lot of weight in a short time. His skin looked grubby, almost like [the rat's] fur, and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose and his very small, watery eyes. He looked around at them all, his breathing fast and shallow. [Hermione] saw his eyes dart to the door and back again.
A flick of her wand has his wand flying into her hand at the same moment ropes are shooting out of Harry's wand, tying up their third Gryffindor of the day. "Better safe than sorry," Harry and Hermione chime in unison, shrugging when the three Gryffindors on the floor stare at the two teens in disbelief and their Head of House raises a questioning eyebrow.
Hermione's eyes focus on Harry as Pettigrew begins stammering his way through explanations to Professor Snape's questions while at the same time trying to wiggle away from the other two Gryffindors on the floors because Harry is the most important person in her life and the only other person she cares about in this room besides him is her Head of House who can more than take care of himself. She watches as her best friend becomes more and more distraught, though she doubts the three Gryffindors can see through the stoic mask every Slytherin perfected within their first year (how else were they supposed to bare all the negativity from the other houses), until she snaps.
"Silencio!" Hermione's voice cuts through all the arguing, her spell silencing the three adults tied up on the floor. "There's one way to find out who exactly is telling the truth here. Diffindo!" The spell cuts through the left sleeve of Sirius Black first, showing a bare arm. "Diffindo!" A dark mark glares out at everyone in the room from the arm of Peter Pettigrew as his sleeve falls away. "Now I think it's time to hear exactly what Black has to say. Starting with how exactly he got out of Azkaban without the use of Dark Magic."
She lifts the silencing spell from Sirius Black and he begins to speak in a voice that is still rough from disuse despite how much he'd conversed today. "I don't know how I did it," he said slowly. "I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't suck it out of me... but it kept me sane and knowing who I am... helped me keep my powers... so when it all became ... too much... I could transform in my cell... become a dog. Dementors can't see, you know..." He swallowed. "They feel their way toward people by feeding off their emotions... They could tell that my feelings were less - less human, less complex when I was a dog... but they thought, of course, that I was losing my mind like everyone else in there, so it didn't trouble them. But I was weak, very weak, and I had no hope of driving them away from me without a wand..."
"But then I saw Peter in that picture... I realized he was at Hogwarts with Harry... perfectly positioned to act, if one hint reached his ears that the Dark Side was gathering strength again...ready to strike at the moment he could be sure of allies... and to deliver the last Potter to them. if he gave them Harry, who'd dare say he'd betrayed Lord Voldemort? He'd be welcomed back with honors...So you see, I had to do something. I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive..."
"It was as if someone had lit a fire In my head, and the dementors couldn't destroy it... It wasn't a happy feeling... it was an obsession... but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So, one night when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog... It's so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused... I was thin, very thin... thin enough to slip through the bars... I swam as a dog back to the mainland... I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I've been living in the forest ever since, except when I came to watch the Quidditch, of course. You fly as well as your father did, Harry..."
He looked at Harry, who did not look away.
"Believe me," croaked Black. "Believe me, Harry. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them."