Sirius Black was on the loose. No one could figure out how it happened, or where he was. Everyone believed they were in danger. But only Sirius knew who actually was.
He was hungry. As a dog, he could scrounge meals from caring families in the towns he passed. But he'd seen enough of the papers to know that towns weren't safe for him. He'd been traveling for miles in forests and woods.
Perhaps he could go into a village, he thought. But it really was too much to hope that Remus hadn't told anyone about his Animagus form. All the Marauders were good people—well, all minus Wormtail. If Remus thought him a murderer, he'd never be able to keep silent and put others in danger. Then again, they were all fiercely loyal to each other. Once again, minus Wormtail.
Sirius stopped dead when he spotted a rat on the ground in front of him. He was very hungry, and this would do.
"Hello Wormtail, nice of you to drop by," he murmured, advancing slowly on the rat. "Where are your filthy little friends? All you Death Eaters are no more than rats in robes."
If he'd had a wand, Sirius could have stunned the rat, or killed it right there. But even without magic, it was an easy kill. He pounced on the rat just as he would have if he were a dog, took it in both hands, and snapped its neck.
"Come on now, where are the rest of you. Filthy creatures like you never venture out on your own." The maniac gleam that was so many witches and wizards' worst nightmare was in his eye. "No, that'd be too noble for you. Too brave. You wouldn't do that with Old Padfoot on the loose."
He checked the rat's paw. Five fingers.
"Well then it wasn't you, Wormtail. But the loss of any rat makes the world better. Now what have we here?" He grinned again, spying another rat a little way off. Placing the dead rat on a tree stump, Sirius went after the live one.
Pouncing again, he let the rat squirm for a bit before ending its life. "I'm going to eat well tonight," he said to himself, once again checking the animal's paw. "Not you, Wormtail. But you're hiding from me now, I know that. I'll find you at Hogwarts, I'll save Harry, I'll do what I was imprisoned for in good time. But for now, old friend," he placed the second rat next to the first, and went for a third he saw running out of a bush, "It's dinnertime, so I must be going."
Sirius roasted each rat on a spit over a fire. He took a sadistic pleasure in watching them burn; watching their limp forms cook and imagining the same thing happening to Wormtail. Even in the woods, there were plenty of meals that would have satisfied Sirius Black's hunger for food. But only this one satisfied his hunger for revenge. It only slightly took away from his pleasure that each rat had five fingers.
