Chapter 10: Albus Dumbledore

Standing in the middle of the common space, Rufus Scrimgeour was surveilling the scene critically – and what a scene to survey! The headmaster of Hogwarts, a registered werewolf – there was no point wondering if the head auror knew, they had to have gone through the records for anything about Remus Lupin the moment Sirius Black left a note at his friend's attention – the auror he'd sent to deal with the Black sighting at Hogsmeade, and another auror on her day off, handling what looked like a cage under a heavy piece of blue cloth.

Albus Dumbledore would have shaken his head, if he'd thought it wouldn't have distracted their audience from the point of this visit.

Oh, certainly, Rufus had called for him, and John Dawlish was supposed to bring him back, so their presence wasn't exactly unexpected. What was, on the other hand, was Remus' presence, accompanying Albus, and, perhaps more importantly, Gaia Balrock's – and what was in her hands.

Gaia Balrock. The headmaster remembered her days as a gryffindor prefect fondly enough. Unlike most of her housemates, the girl had been level-headed in her dealings with rules-breaking teenagers, and she hardly rose to a challenge. She'd been more interested in doing what was right and fair than in proving she was both of those things.

She'd become a prefect in 1980, if he remembered well. A difficult year to bear such a responsibility, truly – Voldemort had been at the height of his power, people had died left and right, and students had been on edge because of it. Whenever a Death Eater had been caught or had died, family members in Hogwarts were suddenly isolated by the children and nieces and nephews and cousins of victims – and some, truthfully, might have deserved it, holding similar views to their relative, but those generally hadn't cared that halfbloods or muggleborns would hate them.

Some, on the other hand...

There had been Eleanor Rowle, for example. Her brother had been caught and sent to Azkaban at the end of 1980, and she'd almost ended up in the hospital wing three days later. The harassment, luckily, hadn't lasted long – Eleanor had been on what Slytherin House called "muggleborn duty", managing the few muggleborns in their House, protecting them, when necessary, and that meant she truly didn't care about blood purity. She'd made friends in all Houses, of all blood status, and the only reason she'd gotten attacked was probably that she'd been so discreet about it all, not everyone knew how much she despised her older brother and what he stood for.

There had been others, too. Students Madam Pomfrey had needed to keep away from anyone else, before things went too far, because someone had been angry enough, because teenagers didn't always know where to aim their hurt and grief.

Gaia Balrock had known how to deal with all of it – and it had been her job as a prefect, but at the same time, it shouldn't have been anyone's job at all. If Tom hadn't started his campaign of blood supremacy, if there had been no war...

There was no point wishing the past to be different, Albus knew that. If, If, If...

If he hadn't let Gellert's promises and assurances blind him to the means his friend had been planning on using, if he hadn't let his feelings see only the good in his boyfriend's eyes. If he'd stopped for a moment and wondered how exactly they were going to justify the means when they weren't even certain of the ends...

But Albus had been sorted in Gryffindor, decades and decades ago, and for all that he thought knowledge and wisdom were necessary to do what was right and do it efficiently, for all that he'd had the ambition of doing and being better, for all that he'd never really stopped trying to do good no matter how hard the work, well. Before anything else, Albus Dumbledore wanted to do what was right, to make a better world for everyone to live in, and he wasn't – hadn't been, at least back then, but now he'd learned better – afraid to work for it.

Muggles had hurt Ariana because they hadn't understood, because they had been afraid, because they hadn't known – and the answer had seemed obvious, then. If ignorance had been the cause of his sister's plight, Albus had to get rid of that ignorance, to show muggles that they didn't have to fear wizards, that they could live together, that the child doing magic in their backyard wasn't a monster. To do that, he'd needed away with the Statute of Secrecy – and he'd been young enough, naive enough to believe that could be achieved without much bloodshed. Not naive enough to believe it would all go smoothly, so logically he'd have needed to be powerful enough to reign in the outcries – on both sides – and that meant...

Well. None of it had gone according to plan – and perhaps it was for the best, or perhaps not, but when Gellert had finally told him how exactly he'd wanted to achieve that power... No, when he'd shown him, when the man he'd loved had used the cruciatus on Albus' brother because the younger boy had poked at the holes in their plans – holes explained, in truth, by Gellert's use of means Albus wouldn't have approved of, and that the other man had purposefully kept silent, perhaps planning to introduce them bits by bits, until it was too late, until Albus would have been too far gone to really notice how far they'd have fallen – when that had happened, everything had crashed down.

Like many a Gryffindor led astray, Albus had let his hopes for the future, his belief of what was right and what wasn't, blind him to everything else – to the consequences, to the means, to the holes in Gellert's plans. Feelings had probably had something to do with it too, of course.

The point was, the past was the past. You had to learn from it, you certainly could regret part of it, but spending your life dreaming it had been different would help no one, and Albus had always wanted to help. He'd learned better than to take direct action, to make plans in which he'd be the one showing the way – blind, blind to his own faults while in the moment, but not so much afterwards.

So he'd learned to stay in the background, to watch and observe and not react – unless no one else could, unless it had to be done.

Which was why he was here, this day, standing before Rufus Scrimgeour in the Auror Office's common space, waiting for a revelation he could already see the outline of.

Albus didn't know, no – but he had suspicions, he always did, and those he was having today were unexpected, marvelous, terrible in so many ways. But he'd noticed several things in the last days, he'd noted a few points in Remus' words, and he couldn't help but wonder.

Animagi, self-taught right under his nose. Sirius Black, who'd terrified a few people, murdered the abuser of his son, escaped from Azkaban. Remus Lupin, who looked like he didn't know anything anymore, like what he knew was and had always been a lie.

And then there was Gaia Balrock standing next to him; in her hands, a cage with its contents hidden by a piece of sky blue fabric.

Of course the head auror had questions.

Rufus Scrimgeour's eyes fell back on the cage, after they had taken in the looks on everyone's face.

"What is this even supposed to mean?"

The other aurors, the few hit wizards present, and the three DMJ employees who'd been inside the Auror Office when Albus, Remus, Dawlish and Balrock had arrived, looked like they concurred, and would very much like an explanation – that, or to move on and get back to work on the Black sighting in Hogsmeade. Gaia Balrock shrugged at the head auror.

"What I said, Boss. Someone left it at my door. There was a note in newspapers cuttings saying I had to bring it here, and that we may need veritaserum."

At that she frowned and made a face.

"I tried to look underneath the cloth, but it's been stuck with magic, like the protection we put around pieces of evidence. I don't have a signet ring to open it, so..."

Ah. Clever, clever. Albus could see how that would work – the protective cloth meant there was no dangerous curse underneath. Dangerous items which couldn't be deactivated asked for an entirely different process of evidence preservation. Balrock, seeing the standard protective cloth, wouldn't hesitate to bring it into the auror headquarters. On top of that, if the piece of evidence brought forth didn't have an obvious meaning – if some people might, for example, consider it a bad joke instead of a crucial element in a complex case – keeping it secret until it reached someone with a signet ring capable of undoing the protective cloth assured that everyone would see it regardless.

And it certainly added to the dramatics of it all. The secrets, the revelation.

But Albus was perhaps getting ahead of himself, here. For all that he had doubts... He could still be wrong. Perhaps, what he expected to see in that cage, wasn't what was truly in it.

Balrock put the wrapped-up cage on the floor, and everyone took a step back to see it better – and not to be too close to it when they'd reveal its contents. Just because something was harmless, it didn't mean it was necessarily pretty. Most of the people present, the headmaster surmised, remembered the day they'd received a box full of cut fingers during the war, and it had gotten through all the security tests because there was no curse or traps on it – just that, fingers cut through flesh and bones, just more proof of how far some Death Eaters would go for their cause. Albus had been called in, that day, because two of the fingers had belonged to students who hadn't come back to school after the christmas holidays.

Rufus kneeled down, and made a fist with his left hand. The signet ring on his middle finger reflected a blue light, similar to the hue of the cloth covering the cage. The head auror then brought the ring before his mouth, and whispered a few words – as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Albus knew the incantation, ius aequit, too well – his breath falling on the metal. Its light turned gray.

When the signet ring touched the protective fabric, it shone for a second – then it fell to dust, and that dust disappeared into thin air, before it could settle upon anything.

It revealed a stunned rat, unable to move inside the cage.

Albus caught the shock that rippled through Remus' frame, making him take a step back – it didn't seem to be surprise, not anymore. It wasn't pleasant for all that. There were too many questions.

Just because this rat – and the old wizard didn't know what Peter Pettigrew looked like in his animagus form, of course he didn't, not all rats were the same, but the man's own friends certainly did – was here, this day... Just because Peter Pettigrew was alive, well.

It didn't make everything better all of a sudden.

Why spend the last eleven years hidden? No matter what, Remus Lupin ended up with a traitor and a friend who'd suffered for years without reason – and which was which still remained to be seen.

The werewolf had still been alone for eleven years.

Albus sighed, and caught Rufus' attention, whose face was currently demonstrating both confusion and awareness that he was missing something – but what?

"As we've informed the Auror Office a few days ago, Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were in fact unregistered animagi."

The head auror scoffed at that reminder – great, two of his star trainees back then had been constantly breaking the law, perfect, tremendous news, though he couldn't exactly fault them for keeping it a secret considering the political climate and the fact that having an ace up their sleeves had probably saved their lives a few times.

"Yes, yes, Headmaster, but what does it have to..."

As the head auror said those words, however, Albus saw realization color his face, the truth of the situation dawning on him. There was a stunned animal in a cage, delivered by suspicious means to an auror, using ways specific to the DMLE, and with it came a note advising the use of veritaserum.

To be painfully obvious, animagi turned into animals – Potter was dead, they'd found a body, and Rufus, the headmaster knew, had been one of the people to identify it in 1981, and Black turned into a black dog, not a rat – Sirius Black had worked for the DMLE, specifically the Auror Office, for almost three years, and veritaserum was to be used on humans, not on rats.

"...Pettigrew was supposed to be what kind of Animagus?"

Albus didn't answer that himself – someone, here, was better suited to answer that question, and he'd rather keep an eye on Rufus' thought process.

An excellent student, really, sorted in Gryffindor in 1957 after three minutes on the stool – Albus had his suspicions, of course, as to the alternative, but he'd never asked the head auror, as he'd never asked Sirius Black if the choice had indeed been between Gryffindor and Slytherin, because no one asked those things – and let it not be said he had no intelligence.

Rufus was perhaps a tad stubborn – Gryffindors often were, just like Ravenclaws – but if facts told him something different from what he thought true, he barely hesitated in adjusting his opinion. The truth was too important to him to let his certainty in his own deductive abilities get in the way.

So when, in a whisper, Remus Lupin answered the head auror's question, Albus Dumbledore had no doubt as to what would happen next.

"...a rat..."

The old wizard saw how Rufus' jaw clenched at that revelation – he was making connections, conjectures, and he didn't like where it was leading, not at all, even if there could be a few explanations that didn't imply a grave miscarriage of justice.

It had Albus wonder, for the first time in years, perhaps, what had happened back then. How Sirius Black's trial had simply been dismissed. Bartemius Crouch, it was true, had had more than a few Death Eaters sent straight away to Azkaban, when the DMLE had started cleaning up after Voldemort's disappearance, but they'd all gotten their trial, in the end. It had taken one, two years in some cases... But it had happened, always.

Except for Sirius Black. When you asked people, they were convinced the wizard had been properly convicted at some point, but they couldn't recall any of it – and because they didn't want him out, because they didn't want to think back on it, they convinced themselves, again, that it had happened. They asked why you would bring that back, why you'd want to rub salt into old wounds.

Back in 1981, Albus had waited for the trial to happen, to hear what Black had to say for himself.

By the end of 1982, he'd been distracted by the other trials, by families of muggleborns who had to be convinced that now their children were safe, they could come back to school, by Death Eaters who still had to be captured. By witches and wizards who were coming forth with accusations against anyone and anything, and avowals about things they weren't sure they'd done but that they faintly remembered. By Death Eaters who got away with pleas of mind control, of ignorance.

By the time he'd been elected one more time as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot in November 1984, Albus hadn't thought much of Sirius Black's trial – and perhaps, like so many others, he'd convinced himself it had happened while he hadn't been looking, while he'd been busy dealing with some other part of the global reconstruction happening in the wizarding community. He had stopped presiding over the Wizengamot when he'd become Headmaster of Hogwarts in 1967 for a reason – because it wasn't easy to keep up with everything happening at once.

When the Wizengamot had needed a new Chief Warlock and they'd nominated him in 1984, saying they needed someone who knew what they were doing, someone who had already done it once – someone who wouldn't let the Wizengamot fall back into war habits as they went over the laws which had been passed during the '70s, as they looked for the changes which were not necessary anymore, and those which had been pushed through by bigots – he had let himself be convinced.

But while he had been looking elsewhere...

Sirius Black had never gotten his trial. That didn't mean the man was innocent, or that the rat in front of them was guilty of the crimes pinned on Black. But it led someone to wonder...

Rufus Scrimgeour, this day, was wondering, too.

"This one is missing a front finger, isn't it?"

They all heard a gasp, coming from behind Albus and those who had come here with him. Someone else, the old wizard surmised, had just reached the same conclusion – and it was someone to whom that conclusion mattered, perhaps.

A quick look at the group of auror trainees looking over Remus' shoulder, and the headmaster recognized that pink hair – though it wasn't always that color. Excellent performances in wandwork, slight difficulties in potions due to her general clumsiness, but the trainee had overcome those and scraped by an exceed expectations on her NEWTs, all with the goal to enter the Auror Training Program. She'd graduated a year ago, after a rather colorful stay in Hufflepuff House.

The young woman was, indeed, painfully involved in everything that was happening here, even if most people didn't realize it right away.

Albus decided to give her a chance to speak up:

"Miss Tonks. A revelation, perhaps?"

The young witch's hair turned brighter, and maybe she blushed a bit as well.

"I... Is that why, why he went and got Pettigrew's finger? Why he went to the Bones', for that potion? Because... Because he knew the rest of the body was still out there? Alive... as a rat?"

The old wizard would have given out points to Hufflepuff, for that deduction – but Nymphadora Tonks wasn't in school anymore, and what she needed was to be recognized by her supervisor and the rest of the Auror Office, and not by her old headmaster.

Next to Albus, Remus spoke up and finished the trainee's thought before anyone else could.

"And because he needed to find him."

There was a moment of silence – spent on side-glances between those who were still putting it all together, and genuine shock from those who had already understood – and Albus clapped his hands.

"Well then. Rufus, if you don't mind, we could put that theory to test?"

The head auror looked at him for a second, before nodding reluctantly and taking a step back.

"Go ahead."

Albus eyed the cage – the rat was starting to twitch, he would probably wake up soon.

"We'll need a bigger cage, of course."

And with a complicated wand gesture, the rodent prison grew, grew, its bars thickening and multiplying so neither a man nor a rodent could pass through, its top stretching up to Albus' shoulders, and – perhaps more importantly – its locking mechanism growing sturdier.

It could accommodate a small man, now.

The lone rat suddenly got up and scurried around the bottom of the cage. It looked incongruous, that small, unhealthy pet in a big, human-sized cage.

Albus looked around – no one was volunteering to turn the rat back into his human form. Of course, it wasn't a certainty quite yet, but there was little doubt, considering where this was all heading.

Balrock, the old wizard noticed, had her eyes on Nymphadora Tonks.

"Remus, if you would?"

A few of the witches and wizards present might know the homorphus charm – Albus certainly did, and it was a seventh-year spell, at least in theory – but it made no sense for Remus not to have forced himself to learn it, considering his friends' successful attempts at becoming animagi.

The werewolf started, glanced at everyone in the room – aurors, trainees, hit wizards, DMJ employees, whoever they were – before casting the necessary spell, hesitant.

Balrock had gone back to staring at the rat, like almost everyone else.

A bright blue light hit the rat.

After a second – bated breath on all parts – the rat's form started twisting.

Another flash of light almost blinded them all – and Albus, a hand before his eyes, started mourning once again for Peter Pettigrew.

For, when they all blinked away the flash, when their eyes landed on the man who was now slumped against the bars of the cage, there were no doubts left.

Only a few of them knew what Peter Pettigrew had looked like – and the man had changed, oh, yes, he had, meager and unhealthy where he'd been chubby and youthful – but there weren't enough rat animagi around for them to mistake him for someone else.

Remus fell back, his wand hand limply hanging against his body.

"No, no, no, no..."

And before anyone could guess it – almost, because one person did, one person stopped the werewolf before he could try and do anything to his dead, murdered, betrayed friend, and yet – he was standing in front of the cage, a hand reaching in, his teeth gritted and anger in his eyes.

But Gaia Balrock stepped in, and forced Remus back with a strong grip.

Albus reflected that it was too late to go and look for veritaserum, everyone was too involved, too deep in this – they'd get it later, perhaps. But there was no point reminding them of it now.

Peter Pettigrew, as it was, was already speaking – whether or not it was the truth, well.

"Remus, Remus, please, he's trying to kill me, he missed last time, but he won't again, you know him, you do, you know Sirius...!"

John Dawlish interrupted the former rat's ranting there – the auror looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, like he didn't want to believe any of it, that something was not right here, but he wasn't completely stupid, only hard-headed, and Pettigrew was right here, right before his eyes.

"Yes, of course, which is why he left you on Balrock's doorstep. Because Black wants to kill you."

Nymphadora Tonks licked her lips, and added:

"Sounds more like he wants to denounce you."

Peter grew paler, then, and Albus felt like he'd gone back in time.

Years ago. Peter Pettigrew – kind, courageous enough but not quite up to par with his friends, and most importantly, not quite as good at anything as any of his friends. Good, but not quite enough. Hard-working, though. The young man had asked to talk to him, about a year before Tom's disappearance... and then, he had backed out. He had said it wasn't so important. Maybe Albus should have insisted. Made sure it truly wasn't important. That Peter would grab the right choice, instead of falling into fear.

Fear. Then, guilt. And finally, numbness.

"Sirius was the Secret Keeper! He betrayed James and Lily! He did!"

Scrimgeour was the one to speak, then:

"It doesn't quite sound honest, you know, when you force it like that. An innocent man would be, maybe quite as panicked, but much more convincing. Less interested in blaming someone else, more interested in saying he didn't do it himself. This, it sounds like you know what it looks like."

Then, Remus:

"Peter. Why did you hide, all that time, if Sirius only wanted to kill you? He was... He was in Azkaban. He wasn't going to get out."

Peter – looking terrified and abandoned, like a man who had nothing left – squeaked:

"But he did! He escaped from Azkaban! And I know him, we know him, we spent seven years in the same dorm, Remus! He would kill out of anger! He did! He killed Esta Goldhorn, didn't he? And they had a child together! He would kill out of hatred!"

But there was no proof of that, and everyone present knew it. Even if they suspected...

Albus noticed, at that moment, how Gaia Balrock's face started twitching.

The auror spoke up, for the first time since Peter had been turned back into a human.

"Out of betrayal, you mean."

Everyone turned around, stared at the witch. They saw what Albus had seen.

In a second, everyone had her at wandpoint – everyone but Albus himself, and Remus who looked on but didn't seem to understand anything anymore. Gaia Balrock's features started to melt and boil.

After a few seconds, Sirius Black himself was standing in the auror headquarters – polyjuice wearing out, then. Albus wondered, for a fleeting instant, where he had gotten it.

"No one died since I walked out of Azkaban, did they? In fact, I only ever did look for you, Peter."

Black wasn't looking at any of them – uncaring of the wands, of the threat, his eyes stuck on Peter Pettigrew. One by one, people started realizing he didn't even have a wand out.

Albus noted how the escapee wasn't saying anything about inside Azkaban. About Esta Goldhorn.

Scrimgeour, him, remained quiet, obviously taking in the situation and reevaluating several things. Everyone else seemed to be waiting for a cue as to what to do from the head auror – or for the escaped convict to actually move and be threatening in any way. Which he wasn't.

"I went to see your mother, you know. She's convinced you died a hero's death. It killed your father, too. Knowing I'd killed you, knowing his son was dead."

A pause, then.

"I considered finishing the deed, actually. Killing you for real, this time."

The aurors and hit wizards grew slightly warier at those words – but Albus, Albus could see Scrimgeour remembering the trainee, back before it had all gone to hell. Albus himself thought back to his own experience, both with the former Hogwarts student, and during Black's time in the Order. If Sirius had been about to blow up... They'd see it. They'd feel it.

"Black."

Sirius Black wasn't listening, right now. He wasn't finished with Peter Pettigrew. Not yet.

"But... Harry might have someone to take care of him, a family. Altair doesn't. Even if Esta was alive, I think we can all agree she proved herself to be a worse mother than my own."

"Black."

This time, Sirius looked away from Peter – at Scrimgeour. He looked cautious, but he had come here of his own accord. This had been his plan, all along. He had to have a modicum of faith in it.

The head auror – the one who could have him back in jail, at least for a time – said only one word.

"Explain."

One last chapter, from Harry's POV, after this one.