The Singing Dog
by Teddylonglong
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story. I am merely borrowing the characters to play with them.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
Warnings: Completely AU, partly OOC.
Harry looked up from his dinner in surprise, when the headmistress rose from her chair to make an announcement.
"Dear students, tonight, I have good news for you all. The culprit of the attacks has been identified, and I can promise you now that there won't be any further attacks." She then explained without mentioning names that a girl had used a book, which had turned out to be a dark artefact and finally uttered a warning. "Never trust an item that obviously contains magic, of which you do not know the origin. It could as well be very dark magic like in this case."
Harry and Draco exchanged a horrified look, mouthing, "Mireille." Skimming the head table, Harry realised that neither his father nor Draco's father were present for dinner, which was extremely unusual.
As soon as the meal was over, they took Neville and Luna aside, and the four returned home to hear the whole, horrifying story and to aide their families consoling nine-year-old Mireille.
When they went back to Hufflepuff on time for curfew, Harry resolved to visit the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets as soon as possible, trusting his younger siblings to show him the way. 'It's funny that the twins can speak and understand Parseltongue in their Animagi form, but not in their human forms,' he thought, surprised at the fact. 'Oh well, I don't know if I'll be able to understand it in my canine form.' He then pondered the fact that he was a so-called natural Animagus, just like his siblings and wondered if he might be able to have a second Animagus form. 'I'd like to become a bird, so that I could fly even without a broom,' he thought and resolved to try it out at the next opportunity. 'Right now, I am too tired,' he realised, already drifting off to sleep.
HP
He soon should become distracted, however, when he overheard the Weasley twins speak with their brother in the entrance hall before breakfast the following morning.
"Who in the world…"
"… is that Peter Pettigrew…"
"… who's always together with you…"
"… even in your bed?"
'Peter Pettigrew,' Harry thought in surprise. 'Somewhere, I've heard that name before.'
'Dad,' he thought to his father, 'who was Peter Pettigrew?'
The answer came promptly. 'The man who gave your mother and your birth father out to the Dark Lord. He's still on the run.'
"Excuse me." He turned to the redheads. "Peter Pettigrew? Where is he? He's a wanted criminal."
Glaring at their brother, who chose to enter the Great Hall without further comment, the twins motioned Harry to follow them into one of the small alcoves, where they showed him what seemed to be an empty parchment.
"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."
All of a sudden, the parchment came to life.
'Messrs. MOONY, WORMTAIL, PADFOOD & PRONGS are proud to present the MARAUDERS MAP' appeared in writing, before a voice spoke up.
"Reveal yourself. You seem to be Prongslet, the rightful owner of the Marauders Map."
The twins stared at Harry in apparent surprise, while Harry eyed the parchment in front of him in suspicion. "I am Harry Potter," he said, when he recalled that James had once told him about a map, which he had made together with Sirius and Remus.
"My Dad and his friends made this map," he informed the twins, smiling. "Now, where is Pettigrew?"
"May I?" Fred took the map out of Harry's hands and unfolded it. Thin lines along with dots appeared on the parchment, and the older boy pointed to two dots. A dot labelled 'Ronald Weasley' was right next to the dot 'Peter Pettigrew.'
"Could it be his rat?" He recalled that Ronald had an extremely disgusting rat as his pet.
The twins slapped their hands against their foreheads. "Of course."
"It's Scabbers…"
"… and that's why he's always together with him."
'Dad. Ronald Weasley's pet rat is Peter Pettigrew.'
'Are you sure about that?'
'Yes.'
"I've informed my Dad about the matter. Thanks for telling me."
"Your Dad?" Four eyes stared at Harry, questioningly.
Harry let out a deep sigh. "Please keep this to yourselves, but Professor Snape is my stepfather."
"Wow…"
"… That's a well-kept secret then…"
"… but it sounds as if it was going to be a spectacle…"
"… Let's go to the Great Hall and watch."
They hesitated a moment, before deciding, "We'll leave the map to you…"
"… considering that it told us you were the rightful owner."
"Oh and… to close it…"
"… just say…"
"Mischief managed."
"Thanks," Harry uttered, before he closed the map, folded it, slid it into his inner robe pocket and dashed after the twins into the Great Hall.
HP
Severus strode behind the Gryffindor table, his tea cup still in his left hand. "Mr. Ronald Weasley, why are you sitting here? This is not your house table," he uttered, before he spilled the tea right over the boy's robe pocket, where a slight movement had confirmed that some kind of living being was inside.
An instant later, the boy jumped up from his seat and began to shout at him, while at the same time, a rat made his way out of the pocket and let itself fall to the floor.
"Stupefy." Before the boy or his older twin brothers, who had joined them at their house table by now, could do as much as react, he transformed into his lynx Animagus form, gathered the rat in his snout and dashed out of the Great Hall through the slightly open door. He ran straight home, contented that in his private quarters all doors opened to a tough by his right front paw.
Reaching the lab, he dropped the rat, which still remained stunned, in front of his wife's feet, causing her to stare at him, wide-eyed.
He quickly transformed back. "According to Harry twins, this is Peter Pettigrew."
"Remus!" Lily shouted, causing the Marauder to storm up the stairs, seemingly alert.
"What's wrong?"
Severus pointed to the rat. "Is this Pettigrew?"
Remus' eyes widened in surprise, however, he quickly confirmed that the rat looked just like Peter's Animagus form.
Picking up the rat, Severus carried him into the living room, closely followed by Lily and Remus. They all trained their wands on the rat, before Severus cast a spell that made the small animal transform back into his human form.
"Peter!" James' voice was laced with disgust, and the man quickly turned towards the portrait.
"Please James, you must understand…"
"Stop snivelling." Severus admonished the traitor, before he quickly transfigured him back into his rat form, stunning him by a silent spell. "I'm going to take him to Black and Moody."
"Sev, wait." Lily pointed her wand at the stunned animal, which was quickly replaced by a wooden rat.
With the wooden form of his former classmate and traitor, Severus stepped through the fireplace to the Ministry of Magic.
HP
"Severus, thanks for catching him. I hope he's going to be adequately punished." James cast him a grateful look from his portrait, when he returned home from the ministry.
"It was the least I could do," Severus replied, sincerely.
"How did Harry know that it was Pettigrew?" Lily cast him a questioning look.
"That's what I'm going to find out at lunchtime."
HP
'Harry, how did you know that the rat was Pettigrew?' his father's telepathic question penetrated his mind, when he was enjoying his lunch together with the other second-year Hufflepuffs.
'The Weasley twins had the Marauders Map,' Harry thought back. 'It was made by the Marauders, and it displays everyone at Hogwarts.'
A few minutes later, his father strode between the Hufflepuff and the Gryffindor table. "Mr. Potter and Messrs. Fred and George Weasley, please follow me into my office for a moment."
The three friends exchanged a glance, before they followed the Hufflepuff head into his office. The professor motioned them to take a seat, before he held out his hand. "May I see the Marauders Map, please." It was not a question. It was a request, and Harry quickly pulled the map out of his robe pocket, handing it to his father.
Hearing that the map immediately began to insult his father, Harry quickly spoke the activation code, causing the map to display many small dots.
The twins quickly explained how it worked, and the professor nodded in apparent understanding.
"May I ask where you got this document?" He quirked an eyebrow at the twins.
"We nicked it from Mr. Filch's office…"
"… in our first year."
"Seeing that it accepted Harry as its rightful owner…"
"… we left it to him."
Nodding, his father handed the map back to him, and Harry quickly uttered the deactivation code, returning the map to a blank parchment.
"If I ever get to hear that you misused the map for any mischief whatsoever, I will confiscate it."
"We won't," Harry promised, smiling. "Thanks, Dad."
When his father quirked an eyebrow in silent question, Harry said, shortly, "I told them earlier."
"Very well then, fifty points to Gryffindor and Hufflepuff for alerting me to the fact that a wanted criminal was in the castle. Now, I believe that it's time for you to leave for your afternoon classes."
The three friends thanked the professor and hurried to their respective classrooms.
HP
A few days later, Pettigrew had a trial and was sentenced to a life-long stay in Azkaban.
'Thank Merlin,' Harry thought, when his father informed him about the matter. 'It was him who got my birth father killed after all.'
HP
Sirius Black made sure to inform all the Aurors along the chain to Azkaban about the fact that Peter Pettigrew was a rat Animagus. However, the Aurors were unaware of the fact that Animagi were not as affected by the Dementors as humans. Therefore, they did not take any specific precautions to prevent their newest prisoner from transforming into his Animagus form.
Peter realised soon that being in his Animagus form helped him against the effects of the Dementors, and he spent as much time as possible in his rat form. Only when the Aurors came to do their rounds around the prison did he change back into his human form.
From a newspaper that the minister of magic had brought with him into Azkaban, when he visited the prisoners one day, he knew that it was July. 'I've already been here much too long,' he realised. 'It's time to leave and look for the Dark Lord. Considering that my Dark Mark is still visible on my arm, he won't be completely gone. I'm going to search him out.'
In his rat form, it was easy to escape. Neither the Dementors nor the Aurors took any notice of him, nor did the minister, when Peter came as a silent guest onto the boat that took the minister and a couple of Aurors who accompanied him back to the mainland.
Only a couple of days later, the Auror on duty suddenly noticed that Peter Pettigrew was missing from Azkaban.
tbc... ?
Thank you so much for your kind words on the previous chapter. Please tell me what you think about this chapter and what you expect from this story. Sorry, but due to the lack of resonance, my muse was too lazy to write; therefore, the chapter is a bit shorter than usual.
