Hello lovelies, here is another chapter for you all to enjoy.

Harry stared at Hazel. "I don't have a sister. I think I'd know if I had a sister. You're as insane as they are." He pointed at Black and Lupin.

Hazel crossed her arms over her chest and went to argue when Lupin stepped in. "Listen, give us a chance to explain. Here." He handed Harry, Ron and Hermione their wands and put his away. "You're armed and we're not."

Harry looked between Lupin, Black and Hazel. "Okay, okay so if you're not working with them how did you know we were here?" Harry asked Lupin.

Hazel sat down next to Sirius again on the bed and rested her head on his shoulder in a silent comfort.

"The Marauders Map."

"You know how to work it?" Harry exclaimed.

Lupin smiled. "Of course I know how to work it. I helped write it. I'm Mooney. It was my nickname at school." He explained. "I was watching it tonight because I suspected you, Ron and Hermione would sneak out of school to see Hagrid tonight and I was right. I watched you three enter and four of you exit Hagrid's hut."

"There weren't four of us." Ron butted in.

"I then saw the four of you start back to the castle when a fifth person, Sirius, came charging at you and took two of you down the tunnel I knew was under the Whomping Willow." Lupin continued.

"One of us." Ron cut in again.

Lupin sighed. "I then saw you, Harry and Hermione follow. At first I didn't quite believe it, how could he be with you. I thought maybe the map was malfunctioning but the Marauder's Map never lies."

"No one was with us!" Harry exclaimed.

Lupin turned to address Ron. "Do you think I could look at the rat please?"

Ron frowned. "What do you want to look at Scabber's for? What's he got to do with anything?" He shifted from his position on the floor.

"Everything." Hazel and Sirius answered darkly.

Lupin held out his hand. "Could I look at him please?"

Ron shrugged and reached into his pocket pulling out a thrashing, squealing Scabbers by his bald tail.

Lupin stepped closer, appearing to be holding his breath as he did so.

Ron instictively pulled Scabbers to his chest. "What? Why are you looking at him like that? What's my rat got to do with all this?"

"Not a rat." Sirius said.

Ron frowned. "Of course he's a rat you nutter."

Lupin shook his head. "No. He's a wizard."

"An animagus." Hazel added.

"By the name of Peter Pettigrew." Sirius spat out.

Ron laughed. "You're mad. Completely insane."

Hermione shook her head. "It's ridiculous."

"Black killed Pettigrew twelve years ago." Harry added glaring at Sirius.

Sirius growled baring his yellowing teeth. "I meant to. But little Peter got the better of me. Not this time. This time I'll kill him with my bare hands if I have to."

Hazel reached out and grabbed Sirius's arm. In a split second later Sirius was on his feet and trying to get at Ron and Scabbers and would have done had Hazel not got a hold of him.

Lupin grabbed Sirius by the shoulders. "No Sirius. Not like this. We need to explain it. They need to understand. I need to understand some of it."

"We can explain once I've done it." Sirius struggled. "Hazel let go." He snarled at the girl on the bed.

"No. You owe it to Harry to tell him the truth." Hazel looked up at him with sad eyes and a small smile. "Like you owed it to me." She whispered.

Sirius froze and went still. "Fine. Tell them whatever you want. Just make it quick I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for."

Hazel let go of Sirius once he had sat down again. That cold chill was creeping up her spine. Something was coming. But she couldn't understand what else could possibly happen tonight. Sometimes she wished her 'feelings' were a little more specific.

"I've had enough of this." Ron tried to pull himself up onto his good leg but Lupin and Hazel both pointed their wands right at Scabbers.

"You're going to hear us out Ron." Lupin told him.

"That rat isn't going anywhere." Hazel snarled.

Ron glanced at Harry and Hermione. Harry gave him a small nod and he sat back down. "But there were witnesses." Harry spoke to Lupin. "People saw Black kill Pettigrew."

"They didn't see what they think they saw." Sirius snarled his eyes fixed on Scabbers.

Carefully Hazel placed her hand on Sirius's and gently tried to calm him taking away the pain and anger inside him. A neat little trick she'd picked up recently it was like she could feel everything swirling around inside someone like water and she could pull the bad stuff away like sucking it up with a straw. One night Sirius had been having a nightmare about Azkaban and she'd been able to help him. She wasn't sure how it worked or why she could do it but Hazel tended to subtly do it every so often on Sirius's darker days.

Sirius's shoulders slumped, he turned and looked down at Hazel's hand on his and frowned at her. "Stop it." He mumbled knowing Hazel was doing her little trick on him.

Hazel shook her head. "Don't know what you're talking about." She turned her attention back to Lupin, removing her hand from Sirius's.

"I believed it myself." Lupin was saying. "Until I saw the map tonight. You see the Marauder's Map never lies. Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew."

"But it can't be true. Professor Lupin, Scabbers can't be Peter Pettigrew." Hermione spoke up shaking her head.

Lupin gave her a quizical look. "Why?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Well… Because I… When… Because people would know if Pettigrew was an animagus. We studied them in Transfiguration class and I looked it up. You have to register if you become an animagus. And for the homework Professor McGonagall set I looked it up and there have only been seven registered animagi in the last century."

Lupin grinned. "Right again Hermione but the Ministry of Magic had no idea that there were three unregistered animagi running around Hogwarts."

Hazel gripped Sirius's arm. The cold creeping up her spine now felt like she'd been submerged in icy cold water.

Sirius felt Hazel's tight grip on his arm and looked down into Hazel's wide eyes. "What is it?"

"Feeling." Hazel whispered.

Sirius nodded understanding what Hazel meant. "If you're going to tell the story get on with it Remus." Sirius urged him to move faster, if Hazel was right and something was coming which Hazel was normally always right about these things. "I've waited twelve years. I will not wait much longer."

Lupin nodded. "Alright Sirius but you'll have to help me. I only really know the beginning of the story."

Before Lupin could say anyting else the door to the bedroom opened of it's own accord. Lupin turned around and checked outside the room. "No one there."

"Please, everyone knows the Shrieking Shack is haunted." Ron gasped.

Lupin shook his head. "Oh no. The Shrieking Shack has never been haunted. The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me. And I suppose it's really where the story begins. With me becoming a werewolf. You see I received the bite at a very young age and back then there was no cure. Professor Snape has been brewing me a potion, a recent discovery, known as the Wolfsbane Potion. If I take the potion a week before my transformation I become a harmless wolf and can curl up under my desk in my office until the morning. When I was a child however this potion didn't exist and once a month I became a monster." He told them sadly. "There appeared to be no way that I would ever be allowed into Hogwarts. But then Dumbledore became Headmaster and he was sympathetic. He said that as long as we took precautions he didn't see why I shouldn't be able to come to school." Lupin turned and looked at Harry. "I told you that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. In fact it was planted because I came to Hogwarts. The Whomping Willow, this house, the tunnel between the two of them. All of them were built for my use. Once a month, I was smuggled from the castle to the tunnel, where I would transform. The Whomping Willow acted as a deterant from people coming across me when I was transformed."

There was a pause of silence where no one spoke except Scabbers who squeaked incessantly. Lupin looked down at his shoes. "Back then my transformations were… they were terrible." He sighed. "As I was not around any humans to bite, I would bite and scratch myself." Lupin explained. "The villagers heard my screams and thought they were evil spirits and Dumbledore didn't do anything to stop the rumours. Even now years later they will not approach the house. But aside from the transformation. I was having the time of my life. I had three friends. Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and James Potter. Of course my new friends did not fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I came up with all sorts of excuses but like Hermione they figured out what I was. And I thought they would desert me. But they didn't. In fact they did something spectacular to help me with my transformations. They became animagi."

"You mean my dad was an animagus too?" Harry asked.

Lupin nodded. "Your father and Sirius were the smartest students in their year and lucky they were. It took them the best part of three years to do it and Peter needed as much help as possible from James and Sirius but by our fifth year they had managed it."

Hermione frowned. "But why would that help you?"

"Werewolves are only dangerous to humans, they are not to animals. James, Sirius and Peter kept me company in their animal form. Peter was small enough to get past the vines and freeze the willow. With my friends with me I became less wolfish."

"Hurry up Remus!" Sirius barked. Hazel's grip was almost unbearably tight on his arm now and she was staring at the door with terrified eyes.

"I'm getting there Sirius." Lupin sighed. "So with the four of us could now transform we began to leave the Shack and explore the grounds and the village. With Sirius and James able to transform into large animals they were able to keep me in check. We learnt more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmede than probably the teachers. Which was how we came to write the Marauders Map. We each signed our names to the map. I am Moony, Sirius is Padfoot, Peter is Wormtail and James was Prongs."

"What animal…?

"But that was still really dangerous." Hermione cut Harry off. "Running around at night with a werewolf. What if you'd come across someone?"

Lupin nodded. "There were times when we came across near misses but we were young and foolish and thought ourselves invincible. And I did feel guilty for betraying Dumbledore's trust. He had admitted me to Hogwarts when no one else would and I had broken the rules he had set for me. But I soon forgot those feelings when we would sit down to plan our next adventure. And I haven't changed. I have been battling whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius is an animagus but in doing so I would admit what I'd done all those years ago. And for that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I managed to convince myself Sirius was getting into Hogwarts using the Dark Arts Voldemort taught him. So in a way Snape has been right about me all along."

Sirius frowned. "Snape? What's Snape got to do with anything?"

"He teaches here too Sirius. He was completely opposed to my taking on the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Has been telling Dumbledore all year I am not to be trusted. And he has his reasons. You see Sirius played a trick on Snape when we were at school. A trick that involved me."

Sirius huffed. "Served him right. Skulking around and trying to get us expelled."

"Severus was in the same year as us at school and we were… well we didn't get along. He was very curious about where I went each month and one night he saw me cross the grounds with Madam Pomfrey to the Whomping Willow. Sirius thought it would be er… amusing to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot at the base of the tree and he would be able to follow me. Of course Snape did and would have met a fully fledged werewolf had James not pulled him back at great risk to his own life. But Snape saw me at the end of the tunnel and was sworn to secrecy but he knew what I was."

"And that's why Snape hates you because he thought you were in on the joke?" Harry asked.

"Percisely Potter."

And Snape whipped off Harry's invisibility cloak, standing exactly on the spot Hazel had been staring at the last few minutes and pointed his wand at Lupin.

Uh oh here comes Snape. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please keep following and reviewing.