"It's proof, then." Snape had eyes only for Lupin. "You've been helping Black into the castle this whole time."

In a flash Lily drew her wand and thrust it under Snape's chin. "Back away from him. What right have you to harm my friends?"

"Lily! I—I . . ."

"And I know you're a death eater. I know what you are, Severus. Back off before I make you back off."

"Lily, allow me to explain, I—"

"And you're cruel to children! Do you know how many letters I've received from my daughter, telling me about the horrors of her potions class? She told me you spent a lot of time belittling her for coming from a non-magic background, Severus, she is twelve years old! What gives you the right? What gives the right to bully children, and what gives you the right to come in here threatening my friends?"

"Mrs. Potter." Hermione said softly. "Harry, Ron, and I can tell you lots more about Professor Snape being rude to students. He favors Slytherins, bullies Neville Longbottom for struggling in the subject, and thinks I'm a bossy know-it-all."

Harry nodded. "He said I strut around Hogwarts like my father before me."

Lily flicked her wand and thick black ropes bound Snape. "I'll have words with you later, Severus. Sirius, Remus, let's deal with Peter first." A flash of red light and Snape slumped against the wall.

"Right." Sirius's eyes gleamed as he headed for the bed. "I've waited twelve bloody years, I'm not waiting any longer."

"He's not Peter, he's Scabbers!" Ron wailed as Christina scampered off the bed in fright.

"How long has he been in your family?" Lupin asked. "Twelve years? That's quite a long life for a rat. Give him here. I'm going to force him to show himself. It won't hurt him." He flicked his wand and Scabbers was flung into the air, his form twisting and expanding into that of a small, grubby-looking man.

"S-Sirius. Remus. My old friends." He glanced around the room, spreading his arms in a weak gesture.

"I know what you've done." Lily grabbed his hair and pulled hard, slamming Peter's head into a wall. "You betrayed us, and you framed Sirius. How did he do it?"

"He must've faked his death." Lupin was looking at Peter with an odd look on his face. "There was an explosion and thirteen muggles died. Peter would have slipped into rat form and slunk away, like the coward he is. And we all thought Sirius was secret keeper and that he'd done it."

"Let's dispose of him already." Sirius snarled, moving forward.

"No!" Harry jumped in front of Peter. "Don't kill him."

"Harry, this piece of scum is the reason you grew up an orphan."

"I know. We'll take him to the castle. He'll go to Azkaban. Don't kill him. I don't think my dad would've wanted you to become killers."

"He's right." Lily's voice was thick. "James wouldn't have wanted this. Send him to Azkaban, it's what that traitorous rat deserves."

"All right." Lupin flicked his wand and ropes bound Peter. "Peter, transform and we will kill you. Understood?"

Peter nodded, looking terrified.

"Let's go." Remus looked around. "Oh, right. We ought to bring Snape back too. Mobilicorpus!" Snape's unconscious form hovered in the air like a grotesque puppet.

"We need to get this one to the hospital wing too." Lily patted Ron's shoulder. "What's your name, dear?"

"Ron."

"You're one of Molly and Arthur's, right?"

Ron nodded. His face was deathly pale and he was still wobbling on his broken leg.

"We ought to be chained to the rat." Sirius snarled. "To keep him from running off again."

"I'll do it." said Ron savagely, limping forward. "I can't believe I let that bastard sleep in my bed for three years!"

Crookshanks leapt off the bed and bounded forward, leading the way out the door and down the hall. Lupin, Ron, and Peter followed, side-stepping to fit down the hall. Sirius, gleefully levitating Snape and bumping him into walls and ceilings, followed next. Lilly walked with Harry and Christina on either side of her, and Hermione brought up the rear, looking around with her wand at the ready.

"Do you understand everything, Christina?" Lily asked. "I know we've had a busy night."

"Everyone thought Sirius Black sold you out to Voldemort, which I knew before. But Peter Pettigrew was actually your secret-keeper. He framed Sirius, faked his own death, and then lived with the Weasleys as a rat."

"Mum, do you remember everything?" Harry asked.

"I do now. Everything before 1981 is crystal-clear. Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for leaving you behind, and not realizing you needed me. I escaped with Christina, but you wiggled out of my arms just as the portkey left. I knew I had to go back for you, but then I hit my head and was knocked out."

"It was an accident then." said Harry as they emerged from the tunnel beneath a starry sky. "You're here now, and that's what's important."

"I'm sorry, Harry. I don't even really know who are or what you're interested in."

"There's time to talk about that later. Let's just get the rat back to the castle."

"Quidditch. He's interested in quidditch. All he ever talks about." Christina muttered.

Lily smiled broadly. "Harry, did anyone tell you that your dad used to play quidditch? He was a chaser on the house team for several years. If he were here he'd ask you what position you play."

"Seeker. Been playing since first year."

"Youngest house player in a century." Christina rolled her eyes. "Oliver Wood tells that to anyone who will listen. And Harry's not much better, telling me all about his firebolt broom and the Wronski feint all day every day."

"I do not talk about quidditch that much!"

"Yes you do!"

"No I don't!"

"Children, please. There will be time to talk about this later." Lily pushed them apart. "But first let's just get back to the castle without incident."

"We'll make it back without incident." said Sirius. "We'll convict the rat, and when all this is over I'll be a proper godfather to you, Harry. You'll see."

The round moon glided out from a thick panel of clouds. Lupin, upon seeing it, turned pale and began to shake.

"He hasn't had his potion tonight!" Hermione screamed.

"Get back!" Sirius shouted, pushing the girls away as Lupin burst free from his chains, his body transforming grotesquely as he did so. Pettigrew, seeing his opportunity, grabbed Lupin's wand and stunned Ron.

"No! Petrificus totalus!" Lily's spell missed as Pettigrew transformed and vanished into the undergrowth.

"No!" Christina ran after Pettigrew, scrambling into the undergrowth as well. When she lit her wand she could just see him scrambling away, and she hurried over bushes and ducked under tree branches as the rat ran deeper into the forest. A branch caught her around the knees and she fell hard on the ground.

"No! No!" Christina screamed, but it was no use. The rat slipped into a tiny hole underground and was gone. "No." Her hands fell back to the ground. She lay there like that in the mud for a minute before a soft set of jaws took the back of her robe and hauled her to her feet. "Sirius?"

Sirius morphed from dog form back to human form. "We need to get out of the forest. Let's go!" He grabbed her arm and they started running.

"I couldn't catch Pettigrew!" Christina wheezed as they ran. "I'm sorry. You can't get acquitted if we don't catch him!"

"That doesn't matter right now. All that matters is that you're safe, little one. Remus isn't in his right mind right now, and he would bite you or worse if he found you here in the forest."

"Is Professor Lupin gonna be ok?

Sirius shuddered. "He'll come out of it when the moon sets. But right now he has no control over himself and is extremely dangerous. I fought him away from the others while in dog form but you'd already run away. Don't you ever run away like that again, understand?"

"I wanted to catch Pettigrew!" Christina leaned over, panting, as they drew level with the others.

"And I told you that doesn't matter right now. It's ok."

"I can still testify before the wizengamot." Lily had walked over and was rubbing Christina's back. "My testimony may still be enough to overturn Sirius's conviction. Come on, let's get inside." No sooner had she said those words than a terrible cold feeling washed over all of them. No one had to say it or point to the dementors that had started to glide out of the trees. They all knew what was happening.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry shouted. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!" His wand produced only white puffs of smoke as the dementors circled them.

"There's too many of them!" Hermione wailed.

"E-expecto Patronum." Lily's wand arm was shaking slightly. "Expecto Patronum!" Nothing happened.

"You need a happy memory!" Harry shouted over the roar of the dementors.

Lily nodded, but she couldn't think of anything happy. Sirius was wrongfully imprisoned, Peter had escaped, and Remus was left to transform without wolfsbane potion. And her children—oh, her children. The one on her left who fired off wisps of silver from his wand, the only reason he'd had to learn the charm stemming from her failure to protect him, and the one on her right who clung to her mother's robes, unaware of the fidelius charm and her family's past, again because of Lily's failure to protect her. They came from such different backgrounds, yet she'd managed to fail them both.

Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, dimly aware of Harry and Christina sinking to the ground on either side of her. They would lose their souls. She would fail them one last time.

But something gleaming silver was galloping toward them, and as it drew closer Lily recognized a familiar shape. It was Prongs, that majestic stag with a crown of antlers. It cantered in a circle around them chasing the dementors away, and as it passed Lily reached out a hand to touch it. It didn't stop for her, instead running back to the person who had cast it, someone who knelt at the edge of the lake and stretched out a hand to meet it. Lily tried to sit up to see who it was, but her head was too heavy and it sank down to the soft earth.