Chapter 22: Finding Pettigrew

Hogwarts was back to normal. The whole of February passed without incident. The Hogsmeade day went without a hitch. Once again, Harry enjoyed time with Lupin. Dudley and the twins kept him company this time. Lupin had sought them out and introduced himself, Marauder style. To say Lupin had fanboys was a bit of an understatement. He'd given them some pointers on how the Marauders had started to create the map, and the twins were off. Dudley had shared with the twins his Christmas gift from Harry. They were investigating parchment types and inks at the moment. Lupin had the feeling that the Marauders Map Mark II would be a mite more impressive than the original.

The Dementors kept their distance. Their encroachment onto the grounds had delayed the quidditch season, but it was back up in force. Slytherin had narrowly beaten Ravenclaw but Gryffindor had creamed the Ravens. The score line had been 410 vs 120. Harry had had to play the Ravenclaw game without his Firebolt. All the whining in the world hadn't worked on Snape, it'd eventually got him a swat from Snape's ruler with a promise that if Snape heard the word Firebolt out of Harry's mouth again he'd find sitting on any broom a chore for the foreseeable future.

There was a flurry of excitement at the end of February with the trial of Delores Umbridge headlining the Daily Prophet. The student body were initially scandalised by the fact that she'd evaded Azkaban (Flitwick was collectively popular, not just with Dudley), but a few calmer heads had explained about her total lack of career, job prospects and the fact that the fine she'd received would essentially make her penniless for life. She's also been sentenced to house arrest in the first instance in a small town in Cornwall, the furthest you could be from Scotland and still be on the mainland, with the prospect of only ever living in that town. Umbridge's life was over.

Fudge had been officially censured by the Wizengamot for interfering in the hiring of Hogwarts staff in such a way as to cause physical and mental harm to staff, students and their parents. While he survived an immediate vote for his removal from office, his support was much weakened.

Castle security hadn't lapsed. While there was no more Umbridge, there were still Dementors, an escaped mass murderer and a werewolf once a month. In fact, keeping the castle secure was now a priority. There had been numerous reported sightings of Black in Hogsmeade, especially since his animagus status and its description were now known publicly.

Snape was doing his usual curfew duty. The staff swapped duties around so that someone was out patrolling the corridors, and someone was in the staffroom with the map. Severus had been a bit put out when Albus had told him in no uncertain terms to share. But the staff had placated his ego, by making sure that if there were students seen outside the common rooms after curfew they were taken straight to Snape's office. Severus' omniscience was now legendary. Severus himself wondered why the twins hadn't said anything, but reasoned that the people who had lost their map to a staff member because of a trip for cake would be very unpopular if found out.

Snape was in the staffroom on the first night of March watching the map. Lupin was on duty in the corridors. The map had been expanded to show all Hogwarts grounds and as many passages as they could find. Argus Filch had been a mine of useful information about that. A moving dot caught his eye. It was in Minerva's office. He magnified the map to read the name. What the actual f…?!

He summoned an elf.

"Quickly, it's urgent. Take me to Minerva's office, then get Lupin to the same place." The elf quickly took hold of Severus and popped him into Minerva's office. There was nothing here.

A few seconds later Lupin popped in, "?!" he drew his wand quickly and silently, took in his scenery and Snape and lowered it again. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know," admitted Snape, "I don't map said Peter Pettigrew was in here. He's not here now," he said looking again, "But he was here. It took me maybe 20 seconds from seeing him on the map in the staffroom to getting here, and now he's gone, and he's not here on the map either. Is the map broken? He helped write it. Does the map randomly say you're all on here?"

"It didn't when we wrote it, and I can't imagine the twins messed with it. As far as I know the map is working."

"Well he can't have disappeared into the wall, now can he?" asked Snape, exasperated.

"Oh, Crap!" said Lupin, drawing his wand and looking around near the floor. He saw a small whole in the skirting board near the far corner.

"He can disappear into the wall?" asked Snape, incredulously.

"Well you know I said Black was a dog? And that the three of them became animagi to keep me company, well Peter therefore was an animagus. He's a rat."

"But Pettigrew is dead," said Snape, pointing out the obvious.

"I know," said Lupin sadly.

"You know I don't like this sort of puzzle, Lupin. Think hard, what don't I know that you need to tell me," growled Snape.

"I think you know it all, Severus," explained Lupin. "One werewolf, three animagi. One dog, one rat, one deer. They successfully managed it in fifth year. Black betrayed James, Peter went after him and Black killed him in a street packed with muggles. They only found his finger. He's dead. I can only think the map is screwing up."

Severus huffed. "In the morning I'll tell Dumbledore, and in the meantime I'm going to scour the map whenever I can to see if his name pops up again. I'll also speak to the twins and see if they've messed with the map."

"You took their prized possession and now you're going to ask them if they broke it. Can I watch that interview?" asked Lupin with a grin.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dudley were up in the library. The twins hadn't shown up. Harry was trying to drown out the noise of Hermione and Ron having another fight over Ron's rat. Dudley was ignoring all of them and writing in a journal. He did that a lot recently. Dudley had told Harry what it was about, but Harry didn't know if the twins knew, so didn't ask him about it in public. The twins had granted Dudley a certain Godlike status for evading punishment for drugging Umbridge. Dudley was now very much okay by them. It didn't bode well for pranks now that everything was a bit calmer. Harry was glad that Dudley liked him.

The twins came in annoyed. "Why does he go from human being to git status so often?!" demanded Fred of the world in general.

"S'up?" asked Dudley, calmly, deliberately annoying them.

"Snape," said George, "First he confiscates the map. Then he made snarky comments about him having it, now he uses it all the time so that none of us can have any fun, and to top that off, he just accused us of breaking it. I swear I'm going to do something to him."

"Nooooo," said Harry and Hermione together, sharing a look of horror at the thought of the twins pranking Snape. They'd be dead.

"Alright, alright," said Fred, "But honestly, he's just being a git."

"Did you break it?" asked Ron.

"Sod off," replied George, effectively answering that.

"He didn't explain enough for you to know what's wrong either, did he?" asked Harry, knowing how his head of house operates.

"No, he didn't," grouched George, "What if our new map has the same problem, but we don't know about it. Mooney has helped make both."

"Have you finished yours yet?" asked Harry.

"Not yet, we're just adding a few Weasley features," said George, still annoyed.

"Wotcher writing there Dudley?" asked Fred, feeling aggrieved with the world and wanting a distraction

"Nuthin'" replied Dudley, glancing up, but not elaborating. He was writing about anger this week and the twins had just provided him with an example to talk about.

Fred sometimes forgot that Dudley occasionally had his moments. He was annoyed at the world and snatched Dudley''s journal, "Really, what do you keep writing in there?" He wasn't ready for Dudley to punch him in the face and snatch the book back. Madam Pince threw them out and told McGonagall.

"Explain," McGonagall said to the three boys currently lined up in front of her desk.

Silence. Yes, Fred was pissed, but not enough to say anything. And yes, Dudley was offended, but again, not enough to say anything. George just glared at Dudley.

"Let me guess," said Minerva, providing her own monologue, "You fell and your fist connected with Mr Weasley's face?"

No-one spoke. She didn't expect them to.

"Detention the three of you, 7pm tomorrow."

"Of course it would be the week I set you to write about anger," said Jones ruefully. Minerva had contacted him and he'd summoned Dudley out of the common room late that same evening. "Tell me about it."

"He grabbed my journal."

"Ah," said Jones, fully understanding. "I'll speak to your head of house and tell her. She is aware of your journal as you know."

"Do you feel bad for punching Fred?"

"Kind of not really," admitted Dudley.

"Does he know about your journal?"

"No, just Harry."

"Would you mind if he did know?"

Dudley shrugged.

"Then before anyone does anything rash I'm going to bring the twins in here," said Jones.

"You could have just said," said Fred, "You didn't have to punch me in the face."

"You could have not been quite so narked at Snape and not grabbed my things," replied Dudley, still a bit annoyed.

"Fair point," said Fred. Fred had had his black eye seen to by McGonagall, and she had rescinded their detentions. "We good?"

"Sure," said Dudley.

Severus was in Lupin's office before breakfast a couple of days later.

"What if," he said, "And I realise this really is out there, but what if Pettigrew isn't dead. What if he's in the castle hiding as a rat. What if the map isn't lying."

"Why would he be?" asked Lupin.

"I don't know," admitted Snape.

"Let's pretend for a moment he's alive and hiding in the castle as a rat. Why? And how has he managed to hide for so long?" asked Lupin, willing to play the hypotheticals.

"Black killed him, or let's say tried to kill him. He would be hiding now. Black would be after him."

"But not for the last 10 plus years," countered Lupin. "He'd show himself."

"But now, feasibly, he could be hiding in a safe place from Black. That makes sense, not that anything else does," said Severus.

"Ok, but we've never seen him on the map before or since. And he just disappeared. Account for that," said Lupin.

"You said it yourself, he disappeared into the wall. The map doesn't do wall spaces," said Severus.

"I'm still going with some sort of broken map," said Lupin, "You're sure the twins didn't break it."

"Oh yes," said Severus, "The amount I pissed them off, they'd have told me if they'd done anything, just to annoy me that I now have a broken map."

"Professor Snape, sir!" announced the house elf. Snape managed to not blast its head off when he woke with a start at an elf in his bedroom and reached for his wand on auto-pilot.

"I have magic sir, I've woken you up before," said the elf, "Professor Grubbly Plank says you've got to get to Gryffindor tower." The elf didn't wait for an answer, but took hold of Snape and apparated him, pyjamas and all.

Grubbly Plank was in the common room with the map.

"Third year boys dorm. You said keep an eye out for the name Peter Pettigrew, and if I saw it, to call you and find where it goes." She looked him up and down, noted the pyjamas and said, "Sorry."

Snape looked at the map. Pettigrew was there. Next to Ron Weasley. He drew his wand and went up to the dorm. The boys were all asleep. There was no sign of a human Pettigrew in the room.

Snape hadn't noticed Crookshanks waiting by the door of the boys' dorm to be let in. And Snape had left the door open behind him. Hell broke loose.

With a yowl and a hiss, Crookshanks went straight for Ron's rat. Severus paused momentarily, Ron's pet rat could not be Pettigrew, surely. But that moment's pause was all it took. The rat took off from the bed, the cat in hot pursuit. Snape chose to stun the rat and risk killing a real rat familiar. The cat leapt. Snape's stunner got the cat, missed the rat and the rat was out the door.

The noise woke up all the boys in the dorm. Snape ran out of the room after the rat, but the rat had run into a hole in the wall. Snape pounded his fist into the wall in frustration. "Damn it!"

Neville came out of the dorm first, took one look at a very irate Professor Snape in his pyjamas in the stairs, squeaked and went back into the dorm. All Severus heard from inside the dorm was the word 'Snape'. Then there was silence. Snape looked at the map. No Pettigrew dot appeared.

He looked down at his own attire and summoned an elf. The same elf who apparated him to the common room popped in holding out his teaching robe. "Sorry," it squeaked.

Snape put on his robes hurriedly. The light had now turned on in the dorm. He swept back in. Crookshanks was on the floor. "Rennervate," he said, pointing at the cat. The cat opened its eyes blearily. It looked at Snape and hissed. Dudley got off his bed and picked up the cat. He looked evilly at Snape. Snape let that go. He had just stunned Granger's cat. He made a mental note to get to Minerva before any of her lions did.

All this gave him time to think what to say. He'd just rushed into the dorm in the middle of the night, attempted to stun Weasley's rat, which may or may not be Peter Pettigrew, stunned Granger's cat instead and generally speaking caused alarm. He added this event onto to his list of not stellar actions.

All the boys in the dorm were staring at him, waiting for some sort of explanation.

There was no good way out of this one. So he went with blatant denial. He hoped they'd been asleep when he'd fired the stunner, and it was the scrabbling and general noise that had woken them up. "Go back to bed. Professor McGonagall will speak to you in the morning." He swept out, closing the door behind him, with as much dignity as he could muster with bare feet and the bottom of his pyjamas peeking out from under the bottom of his teacher robes.

Severus awoke early. He was waiting in Mcgonagall's office for her.

"You're early, Severus," she said.

There was a knock on the door.

"Merlin, can't they stay in bed just once?!" sighed Minerva getting up to answer the door.

Hermione holding Crookshanks, Ron, Dudley and surprisingly Longbottom were outside. Severus could see them from where he was sitting. They saw him.

"Um..." said Hermione, not sure quite what to say as they all saw him too.

"Come back later," said Snape. They left again.

"Do I want to know?" asked Minerva when she'd shut the door on the students.

"Please don't go spare," said Severus.

"That's normally your domain," replied Minerva.

"I stunned Miss Granger's cat," stated Severus.

Minerva went spare.