Hermione must have fallen asleep. She stretched her stiff, cold limbs and slid out from under the bed. She looked over her shoulder to the window as bright gold light shone through it. Squinting, she judged it was mid-morning. She checked her watch to see that it was already three-o'clock. She tried to remember what classes she missed. Hermione had so much to take in, and with OWLs in May and June, well, she couldn't really afford to miss any.
Honestly! Hermione chided herself brushing the dust off her robes and out of her bushy brown hair. How can you possibly think about classes at a time like this?!
Hermione got on to her hands and knees and began searching for Scabbers. She hoped Ron didn't decide to take him with him to avoid Crookshanks attacking him.
Hedwig stirred on a perch by Harry's bed and stared at her with a penetrating yellow gaze.
"You could help you know," Hermione hissed.
Hedwig's response to this was simply to close her eyes and go back to sleep. Some great rodent hunter she was. Hermione once again missed the cat-like senses she had been cursed with the previous year. She didn't miss the claws, tail and ears, but the sharp sight, keen sense of smell and fantastic hearing would have been useful. She briefly wondered if she could get away with stealing the supplies to make an Animagus potion, but an image of her displeased further surfaced in her mind. That was almost worse than the fact that it was illegal for underage wizards to become animagi.
Focus, you stupid little girl, Hermione chided herself once more. Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she had him in her sights. The fat, grey rat skittered across the floor, and cowered by Neville's bed post, staring at her with his black, beady eyes. Hermione wondered why he would expect harm to come from her, but it was also clear she was looking for him, and she doubted he had anyway he could know her reasoning.
She grabbed her wand and pointed it at Scabbers, casting in one fluid motion. "Forum Vero Revelare!"
A stout man, perhaps only a head taller than Hermione appeared in Scabbers's place. The man stared at her, shaking with beady eyes and his overbite was worse than Hermione's, actually protruding over his lower lip. His gnarled hands had long claw like nails, and his faded robes seemed to be falling apart at the seems. His shaggy, shoulder length hair was the same grey as his fur in rat form.
Perhaps he was cursed? Hermione thought, noting that his human form was incredibly rat-like, as though he'd been living as a rat for-
"Twelve years, and he wasn't exactly a baby then," she recalled Ron telling the witch at the menagerie.
She squinted, examining the man's face. There was something very familiar about this fat, little man. She couldn't put her finger on it though. Finger...Hermione's drifted to his gnarled, clawed hands, noting that his left index finger was missing. Didn't the auror Shirai say they only found an index finger in that article?
Hermione was looking at a dead man. The terrified man was none other than Peter Pettigrew. She never came across his name in the Animagus Registry...no one would have known to look for a rat...
"There you are, you little bastard!" Hermione recalled. Black was after him! Pettigrew wasn't cursed. He faked his own death...why?
Hermione bit her lip, wand still pointed at the trembling man. She felt sorry for him, he looked so pathetic and part of her wanted to lower her wand and let him go. If she could just get him to Dumbledore, they could find out what happened. Did he fake his death because Black was after him?
"Sweet girl," Sca-Pettigrew pleaded. "Y-you d-don't want to hurt me, do you? You're not as cruel as your father, are you?"
A lump formed in Hermione's throat. What would her father have done? Was she as cruel as he was? She wasn't-she couldn't have been behaving the way he would. Was she? Hermione's stomach churned, was she on the verge of becoming her father? She wasn't the nicest person...what if one day she told her own daughter that she was a-
"Nice try, Pettigrew," Hermione said in a shakier voice than intended.
Pettigrew was the one to shake now, his beady eyes growing in size as he recoiled next to the bed post. It was as if the mere mention of his name sent him into a panicked spiral. So, I was right.
"All I want is answers," she said.
"Like who your real parents are?" Pettigrew wheedled.
"Severus Snape raised me from infancy," Hermione tried to kill the shaky notes in her voice, but now her body shook. "He is my real parent."
Despite Hermione saying that, she desperately wanted to know. There were so many rumours, so many possibilities and none of them seemed likely, yet all of them seemed likely. She wasn't sure there was anything she wanted more in life than to know who her birth mother or parents were. She bit her lip so hard that she could taste blood on her lip, and her nails dug into her palm around her wand.
"I know something about Snape you don't. A reason why he can't be your real father," he said. "I'll tell you, little girl. All you have to do is lower your wand."
Hermione planted her feet and straightened her spine. He ran around Ron and Harry for years. He must have just known that Hermione didn't know where she came from. It was low hanging fruit, easy for him to take. So, why did she want to lower her wand. Even if he truly did have answers, it was the wrong thing to do.
"I-I don't care," Hermione said in a small voice.
"No?"
Hermione furiously shook her head. "No! You're coming with me to Dumbledore's office. The grown-ups will sort it out."
Pettigrew cocked his head to the side. "You don't actually believe they'll do what's right do you?"
The man didn't sound as certain as the words he said would suggest. He was scared. But, still, even lacking confidence, he knew exactly where to hit. Hermione had no faith in the adults around her. They'd proven arrogant and useless often. She wondered if he'd slip through their fingers, or worse, if the ministry would deny Pettigrew's continued existence to avoid looking bad.
"I'm not sure my faith in them matters," Hermione said.
Footsteps echoed from the stair well. Hermione turned her head wondering what the hell she was supposed to do. Pettigrew didn't seem like a danger, but he could be. Would any harm caused by him be her fault? How was she supposed explain the dead rat man standing before her, cowering at her wand point? She tried to think of ways to explain when she realized that she'd taken her eyes off of Pettigrew!
You stupid piece of shit! Pathetic stupid little girl! Hermione turned back to see that Pettigrew had vanished. How could I have been so stupid!
"Hermione?" Harry stared at her, Ron looking incredulous. "What are you doing up here?"
"I-I-" She straightened her spine and clasped her hands together. "I have something really important to tell you."
"I swear it's true!" Hermione cried.
"That Peter Pettigrew was Scabbers for the past twelve years?!" Ron scoffed. "Hermione, have you any idea how mad this sounds? If this is some sort of joke , it's sick."
"No, Ron!" Hermione pleaded, digging her nails into the backs of her hands as tears sprang to her eyes. "Please, believe me! Harry, you believe me, don't you?!"
Harry's mouth twisted into a pitying grimace. "I reckon you believe it, Hermione. Are you sure Black didn't mess with your mind again? And you've been under loads of pressure lately."
Hermione dug her nails deeper into her flesh in an attempt to stop her eyes from brimming over. "Fine. I-I don't care. I'm done. I h-have to go. I missed all my classes today and I still have to help Hagrid build his case. I don't have time for people who refuse to li-."
"Oh, come off it, Hermione," Ron groaned. "Black did mess with your memory before and you've been keeping this completely mad schedule on top of it. Can you really blame Harry for thinking you've gone bonkers?"
"I didn't say that!" Harry snapped.
"Ho ho!" Hermione spat. "So, am I playing a sick joke on you, Ron or am I bonkers? Make up your damn-"
"I said if it was a joke!" Ron snapped. "I'm not the snuck into our dormitory your dormitory to spy on a pet. Because a cat told me to. Can you blame me for not knowing how to take this? You know what, Hermione? I'm going to go get Scabbers and put a stop to this nonsense."
"Pettigrew probably fled," Hermione rolled her eyes. "But be my guest."
Ron stomped up the stairs to the boys' dormitory leaving Hermione and Harry in the miraculously empty common room. Hermione shrank beneath Harry's inquisitive gaze wondering with dread what he was about to ask her.
"Hermione," Harry adjusted his glasses. "Did you say Black also had the violet aura-thingy?"
Hermione nodded stiffly, still afraid she might cry. "You said you saw a big black dog the night you left the Dursleys', right? I think that was Black. I think it was him you saw before you lost consciousness at the quidditch match too. It'd match the blur I saw, and-erm-I the kellas cat on Hallowe'en mentioned a dog. I'd be careful, H-"
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!" Ron roared marching down the steps with a fire in his blue eyes, his ears scarlet and teeth bared. "What the bloody hell is that, Hermione?!"
Ron slammed down a scrap of blanket covered in blood with a clump of tell-tale ginger fur on top of it. For a brief moment the air in Hermione's lungs froze as she wondered if Crookshanks really ate a human being. Her stomach churned before it occurred to her that faking his death worked out well for Pettigrew before, perhaps he was doing it again.
Hermione gingerly picked up the dry, fluffy clump, much like the clumps she pulled out of Crookshanks's brush. She drew out a sigh of relief. "It's a clump from the fur brush, Ron. Sc-Pettigrew faked h-"
"Shut up! Shut up, Hermione!" Ron cried. "Scabbers had been with me since I was a year old. Pettigrew was murdered by the man that's after Harry! This is disgusting! Invoking Pettigrew to protect your monster of a cat! Though I suppose you're used to protecting monsters at this point, aren't you, Snape?"
"Ron!" Hermione squeaked. "I-I-I'm telling the truth! You have to-"
"I don't have to do anything!" Ron spat. "You-you-I hope McDonald and the Vane sisters do turn you into a bloody cat-freak again! It'd serve you right after this! You're a better cat than a human!"
"Ron," Harry spoke quietly, but evenly. "Calm down. This isn't her fault."
"I will not calm down!" Ron cried. "I don't care if it is her fault. That bitch can't pretend Scabbers is a dead man on vacation! I don't care if she did go mad after the chamber! Ginny was possessed and you don't see her running around with loons and trying to convince her friends of this complete rubbish!"
"Bitch?!" Hermione seethed, tears finally brimming over despite her best efforts. "Have you any idea what I've done for you lot? What I've been through? But I'm certain the great and talented Ronald Weasley needn't care about such trivial things, do you?"
"What you've been through?" Ron shouted. "Like being the daughter of a professor and top student has been so hard!"
"It is!" Hermione screamed. "You would fucking know that if you opened your eyes, you great arrogant prat!"
"Arrogant prat?!" Ron spat. "Snape was right about one thing. You are an insufferable, self-righteous know-it-all! No wonder no one wants you around, you stupid bitch!"
"Ron," Harry tried. "She's-"
"Standing right in front of you!" Hermione hissed.
"Why don't you let him finish a bloody sentence, Little Miss Perfect?" Ron snapped. "This is why your mum left you!"
Hermione stared at Ron shocked. Tears renewed and refreshed. How could he say that? Hermione's stomach churned and heart fell to her feet. Every muscle in her body shook. She stood in place practising all the restraint she could not to hit him or attack him magically. Were you ever truly my friend? she wondered. She had put up with so much from him. Even with all she endured, she always helped him with his homework. Hell, she had been helping him with a Charms essay that week. And this was how he thanked her? She would have rather been slapped in the face. It would have hurt less.
Harry stared at Ron, his bright green eyes nearly the size of apples and his face lost what little colour it usually held. She wondered if he was half as horrified as she was. Harry was no longer the only by-stander. Ginny's brown eyes were as large as Harry's and she covered her mouth unsure what she was witness. Neville awkwardly stared at his feet in shame. Fred, George and Lee were just as shocked. Dean and Seamus whisper to each other under their breath, as did Lavender and Pavarti. Others watched in morbid fascination. She imagined he hell that was waiting for her at the other end of this. Ron didn't only betray her, but paraded her insecurities for all to see. Was her father right about him?
"You've spent the last thirteen years of your miserable life you've been peacocking around in the hopes that we don't find out just how inadequate you are," Hermione spoke as evenly as she could. "But we all see through it. You're just a scared little Mummy's boy who knows he will never measure up!"
Ron's face flushed red and his balled fists shook at his sides. It was mean, but she hoped he felt half the hurt she felt. If the stupid prat had the emotion capacity. Had Ron proven himself to have more than the emotional depth of a teaspoon she would have hoped his pain was tenfold after all he put her thr-You sound like your damn father! Back down, apologize now and gather evidence later, you stupid piece of shit. But Ron never will... Hermione clasped her hands back together and tried to steady her breathing.
"Hermione," Harry said in a firm voice. "Listen to yourself. You sound like your father."
Hermione dug her nails into her nails further into her flesh and failed to stop her shaking. She didn't think she could have been more hurt after Ron's exploiting of her worst fears. Yet, Harry's blow knocked her feet from under her. Harry knew how much it frightened her that she might be like him. Worse, Hermione feared he was yet. Pettigrew knew exactly what to say when she revealed him for what he was. Perhaps it wasn't because they wanted to hurt her, but because it was true.
"You too, Harry?" she said quitely. "After everything we've been through and you still don't believe me. After the chamber. After I was right about the diary?"
"Hermione, I just think you need to calm down."
"Fine, I am calm," Hermione slung her bag over her shoulder and skirted around Harry.
"Where are you going?"
"To find someone who will believe me!"
"GOOD RIDDANCE, STRAY!" Ron called behind her.