Chapter Forty-eight: An Unexpected Meeting

Summary: Forty-Eighth chapter. One to go. That about sums it up.

It was several very long days before Sirius regained consciousness. During that time Harry and Arabella again sat their silent vigil next to his bed as they had before, ignoring the invitations to numerous parties and celebrations going on throughout the castle and Hogsmeade over the fall of the dark lord.

Harry silently wondered, as he listened to revelers go by the door one night, if this is what things had been like the night Voldemort had been supposedly defeated when he tried to kill him as a baby.

Supposedly.

The thought brought with it a single, horrible possibility for Harry. One only he seemed to be thinking.

What if, like then, Voldemort wasn't dead? What if he was out there somewhere, waiting to come back. Waiting to find one of his followers and return, more powerful and more vengeful than before.

But Harry had listened to Lupin's account of what had happened in the chamber. He had said he had watched as the body had crumbled to dust. There was nothing left of him. Surely he had to have a body to come back. If he could exist without a body, was there ever a way to truly beat him?

Ministry wizards had reported that as soon as the group had appeared outside of the chamber, the Deatheaters had begun to scatter. It was as thought they knew something had gone wrong. That Voldemort wasn't coming after the group or trying to stop them in anyway. At that point they simply gave up the fight and tried to save themselves.

When Sirus regained consciousness a few days later, Harry found the ideas of Voldemort returning harder and harder to hang onto. Things were simply to wonderful then to want to hold onto morbid thoughts any longer.

Voldemort was gone. The Deatheaters were gone or on the run. Both his godparents were alive. Those were the thoughts Harry concentrated on. Past them he tried not to think too hard on the future.

Only one thing clouded that future for Harry.

Pettigrew.

Somewhere out there Peter Pettigrew still walked around a free man. But surely someone must have seen him that night. With all the Deatheaters supposedly in the lair, and Pettigrew not in the chamber with his master, surely he had to have been somewhere in the lair. At least one ministry wizard would have seen him. Mad-Eye Moody must have been on the look-out for him, believing Arabella's story of having seen him in Diagon Alley.

Someone must have seen him.

These were the thoughts that Harry had on his mind as he made his way down the road towards Hogsmeade one sunny afternoon a few days later. Sirius and Arabella had asked if he didn't want company, but he had told them 'no', that he just wanted to get out of the castle for a little while.

Everything would be perfect if not for Pettigrew still hiding under his rock somewhere, Harry told himself. Sirius would be freed of the charges against him. He and Arabella could get married. And then they could adopt him. They would finally be a real family.

Yes. Everything would be perfect then.

"Stupid Pettigrew." Harry muttered angrily as he strolled down the road towards the Three Broomsticks, kicking a can as he went.

The can rolled off to the side of the street, stopping at the feet of a small figure standing there, wrapped tightly in its robe so that no part of its body showed.

"Be careful who you're insulting, Potter." A small voice replied from under the hood. "You never know whose listening."

Harry stopped short and turned about so fast to face the figure he nearly lost his balance.

"Pettigrew!" He nearly shouted, recognizing the unmistakable voice.

Pettigrew pulled his hood back slightly as he gave Harry a cautioning stare. "Yell like that again, Potter, and I'm gone. Understand?"

Harry just stood staring at the little man, still not believing he was standing there.

"I have something for you, Potter." Pettigrew said. "Something you might want."

"I want nothing from you, Pettigrew." Harry spat at him. "Anything that comes from you is tainted."

"Well, maybe your godfather won't feel the same way." Pettigrew stated with a small, baleful smile.

"What do you mean?"

Pettigrew reached into his robes, which caused Harry to immediately go for his wand. Pettigrew stopped short as he stared at the boy pointing his wand at him.

"My, but you are a nervous one, aren't you, Potter?" Pettigrew said softly as he slowly pulled his hand back out of his robes. In it he held a rolled up piece of parchment. "Put that thing away, boy." Pettigrew hissed at him. "You're drawing stares. People staring at me make me nervous. When I'm nervous, I tend to run."

Harry slowly lowered his wand, but he didn't put it back in his robes.

"What is it you want, Pettigrew?" Harry stated.

"First of all, your word."

"To what?"

"That you'll hear me out."

"Depends what you have to say."

"It'll interest you, I promise."

Harry thought for a minute.

"People are getting curious again, Potter. Starting to stare. Make up your mind."

"All right." Harry agreed. "Talk."

In answer Pettigrew threw the rolled up parchment at Harry's feet.

"There. That's for your nut-case godfather. Tell him to give it to the ministry. They'll be able to authenticate it. Prove it was written by me in the last few days."

Harry picked up the parchment and began to unroll it. "What is it?"

"In short?" Pettigrew asked. "A statement. It tells the ministry I was your parents secret keeper. That I was the one who caused the explosion in the street, Not Sirius."

Harry paused as he read over the parchment, then turned his stare to Pettigrew. He noted with a touch of disgust that Pettigrew never once admitted, in what he said or what was on the parchment, that he had killed or harmed anyone.

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Why?" Pettigrew replied. "Because of something Sirius said to me in the Shrieking Shack, Potter. That I should have died for James and Lily, just as any of them would have done for me. And he was right. They would have. I should have." Pettigrew paused with a small sigh. "But you see, Potter, I'm simply not that brave. I never was. And I couldn't stand the thought of going to Azkaban. I just couldn't. But if I can't put myself there, I won't put an innocent man there in my place either. Least of all a friend." He added with a small smile.

"Didn't bother you for twelve years, did it?" Harry spat back at him.

Pettigrew closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he fixed a hard stare on Harry.

"As I said," He stated, "I'm not the bravest person in the world. But I was once a marauder . Something you might remind your godfather of for me. I stood up for and beside my friends. James, Sirius, and Remus. We all stood together against anyone and anything that came along. And believe me, you couldn't do half the things we did if you didn't have some sort of backbone. Even if it was just one vertebra. You had to have something." Pettigrew fell silent again for a moment. "I was once their friend." He said quietly. "I was once your father's friend. I'm sorry I'm not anymore."

Harry refused to let himself be taken in by any sad words from the man. He felt Pettigrew could play any part he needed to given almost any situation.

"What is it you want for this?" Harry asked, holding up the parchment.

Pettigrew turned back to him with a sad sort of smile and shook his head. "Believe it or not, Harry, nothing. Nothing at all."

A group of revelers chose that moment to pass by. Several of them passing directly between Harry and Pettigrew. When the crowd passed, Harry looked up to find Pettigrew gone.

Looking about frantically, Harry bolted down the alleyway. He threw trashcans out of the way as he went. But reaching the end, he found nothing.

Running back to the street, Harry took off after the revelers, thinking Pettigrew may have simply slipped in with them. But as he sorted through them as they moved along, he found no sight of the little man. Finally he gave up, assuming Pettigrew must have taken the opportunity to disapparate as the group passed between them.

Sitting on a small bench, Harry pulled the piece of parchment out of his robes. Unrolling it again, he suddenly felt a smile form across his face. If the parchment wasn't just some sick joke on Pettigrew's part, Sirius was as good as freed. Harry couldn't help but feel a small flame of hope growing inside him.

If the parchment was authentic....