Remus went to make sure Snape was all right, since Hermione was staring at the Potions professor in horror, shaking like a small earthquake, and whimpering, "We attacked a teacher . . . we attacked a teacher . . . oh, we are going to be in so much trouble." Sirius and Regulus, after all, had already made it clear enough that they weren't going to do anything about it.

"He'll be fine," he announced. "You were just a bit . . . overenthusiastic. But perhaps it's best not to revive him right now."

This seemed to calm Hermione down a little, so Remus turned to Harry. "I want one more question answered, then we'll offer you proof, all right?" he asked.

Slowly, Harry nodded. Remus turned to Regulus. "How did you get here?"

"There weren't three illegal Animagi running around Hogwarts in 1977. There were four," Regulus admitted. "And then I lost my taste for killing just watching it. When I finally stopped Bellatrix from crossing a line and I had to run, I transformed when Nott tried to blow me up . . . a lot like Pettigrew apparently did, except Nott really did create the crater. I've spent the last thirteen years on the mainland, but when Sirius escaped. . . ." He shrugged. "Lupin, I got into the Death Eaters for family, and I got out of them for family, too. You cannot honestly expect me to watch Sirius do something incredibly stupid from the other side of the channel."

"No," Remus admitted, "I can't. You . . . how did you get out of them for family?"

Regulus shook his head. "We're running out of time and they're running out of patience. It won't be long before someone wonders where you or Snape got off to or notices that the kids have disappeared. You ought to prove we're right."

Remus nodded. Regulus was simply saying he didn't want to explain, but he also had a point. "You're right. Ron, give me Peter, please. Now."

Ron, however, just clutched Peter tighter to his chest. "Come of it, you're saying he broke out just to get at Scabbers? Okay, let's say Pettigrew could turn into a rat . . . there are millions of rats. Why mine?"

Remus looked over at Sirius, who had gotten to his feet and was rubbing his bruising jaw. "That's a fair question. How did you know, Sirius?"

Sirius shot him a bit of a guilty look and pulled a yellowed Daily Prophet clipping out of his pocket. The article showed Ron waving at the camera with Peter on his shoulders. Remus opened his mouth to ask, but Sirius supplied the answer before he could get the words out. "Last time Fudge inspected Azkaban, he gave me his paper. And there was Peter on the front page, safe and positioned to act. At Hogwarts—"

"—where Harry was" Remus finished, taking the clipping from him to take a closer look. He looked back up at Peter in the flesh and paled slightly. "My God. His front paw. . . ."

"Missing a toe," Sirius said, nodding.

"He cut it off himself?"

"Just before he transformed. He shouted to the entire street that I'd killed Lily and James, cut off his finger, blew up the pavement, killing everyone within twenty feet of him, and scurried off into the sewer with the other rats."

"The biggest bit of Peter they ever found was his finger," Remus added to the three kids.

"Look," Ron told them desperately, "Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something. He's been in my family for ages."

"Twelve years, right?" Remus asked. "Didn't you ever wonder how a common garden rat lived so long?"

"We. . . ." Ron hesitated, obviously trying to think up a rational explanation for that. "We've been taking good care of him!"

"Not looking too good now, though, is he?" Regulus asked mildly.

"He's been scared of the mad cat!" Ron exclaimed, pointing ant the ginger animal.

Crookshanks had been rubbing against Sirius's legs, and he knelt down and picked up the "mad cat." "This cat isn't mad," Sirius answered. "He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met."

"Because he's half kneazle," Regulus muttered under his breath.

"You just don't want to admit he's smarter than Anna was," Sirius shot back. Regulus raised an eyebrow, and for a moment the two brothers stood locked in a silent argument even Remus couldn't fathom. Then Sirius shook his head and got back to the matter at hand, summarizing their year in relation to the cat, up until the point at which Peter had faked his death, when Harry interrupted again.

"And why did he do that? Because you wanted to kill him just like you did my parents. And now you've come to finish him off!"

"Well. . . ." Sirius seemed to hesitate. "Sort of."

Harry opened his mouth again, and Remus cut in hurriedly to avoid another outburst. "Harry, wait. Don't you see? We've been hearing the wrong story for twelve years. Peter betrayed your parents—"

"I could have told you that much," Regulus muttered.

"Yes, but you were too busy pretending to be dead yourself," Remus reminded him. "Sirius tracked Peter down, not the other way around—"

"No!" Harry shouted. "He said he'd killed them before you came up!"

Regulus put his hands over his face, obviously at his wits' end. Remus glanced over at Sirius, who was clearly not ready to answer. Too bad— he had to. Remus held out a hand to stop the protest obviously about to burst out of Harry, staring at Sirius intently.

"Harry . . . I as good as killed them," Sirius admitted after a long moment. His voice was cracked and he seemed to be on the verge of tears. "It was my idea to use Peter; I missed every little thing that should have told me it was him. . . . The night they died, I'd gone to check on Peter, and then he was gone, no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I went straight to Lily and James's, but then . . . it had already happened. . . . ."

Remus bit his lip and decided that Sirius had been on the spot more than enough tonight. "That's enough. There's only one way to know for sure. Ron, give me that rat."

"What are you going to do?" he demanded.

"Force him to show himself. If we've got the wrong one, then it won't hurt him."

Peter squeaked and started struggling more than ever. Ron, however, handed him over with some difficulty, and Remus grabbed him by the tail.

Blue light flashed, and for a moment the rat froze as if stunned. Remus dropped Peter as the tail dissolved into nothing, as he was growing from a rat into a short man, perhaps not even as tall as Regulus. It was definitely Peter— he was missing a lot of his mousy hair, true, but the beady eyes and pointed Roman nose were the same as they had always been. "Hello, Peter," Remus said, keeping his voice mild with a colossal effort. "Long time, no see, but it's nice of you to finally join us. We've been discussing the night Lily and James died; you might have missed a lot of the discussion in Ron's pocket—"

"R-Remus," he squeaked. "Y-you don't r-really believe him, do you?"

"Well, I'll be willing to listen to your side of it, certainly, although it will have to be a fairly convincing story—"

Peter interrupted him a second time. "He's going to try and kill me again!"

"No one's going to try and kill you until we've sorted a few things out," Remus answered.

"Sorted things out! He tried to kill me, Remus!" Peter repeated, as if by saying it enough times he could make Remus actually believe it. "I knew he'd come back for me; I've been waiting for him to come back for twelve years!"

Remus glanced over at Sirius, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius smiled grimly. He didn't have to be a Legilimens to know what Remus was thinking; he just knew the man well enough: Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that the lunatic was the lucid one. "Have you been hiding from me for twelve years, Peter, or from the rest of Voldemort's supporters?" he wanted to know.

"I . . . I don't know what you mean!" Peter exclaimed.

"Then perhaps I ought to make things a bit clearer for you. His lot aren't happy with you. Voldemort went to the Potter's on your orders, Peter, and there he met his downfall. I've heard them in Azkaban— they think the double-crosser double-crossed them, and plenty of them didn't go to prison, now did they? If they knew you were still alive. . . ."

Peter blanched, but somehow he rallied his thoughts together. "I dunno what you mean, Sirius. . . . I . . . I suppose you must be as mad as they say you are. Surely you don't believe this, Remus?"

Remus shrugged. "I have some difficulty fathoming why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat."

"Innocent but scared!" Peter yelped.

"Yes . . . scared of what might happen if you showed yourself," Sirius spat. "Remus would find a hole in your story if you told him you'd blown up an entire street to save yourself, and of course if you walked the streets again any Death Eaters who survived free would have been after your blood. You always did need big friends to protect you. . . . I'm surprised I didn't see it from the start. . . . With Voldemort gaining power everywhere Dumbledore must not have seemed to be a big enough protector anymore. . . ."

He scowled. "Lily and James only made you Secret-Keeper because I suggested it. A perfect bluff . . . if you hadn't already double-crossed us. Must've been the greatest moment of your life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters."

Peter had begun muttering halfway through this speech, and Sirius caught the words "raving lunatic" and "madness." But he wasn't making a very convincing show of it. Objectively, he'd lost the argument when he'd ceased to be a rat, but glancing surreptitiously at the exits and looking anywhere but the faces of the men he was talking to was earning him no credibility.

Hermione spoke up tentatively. "Professor Lupin?" she asked, addressing the man who had clearly taken charge. "Can I . . . can I say something?"

"Certainly," Remus answered.

"Well, Scabbers— I mean, this man— he's been sleeping in Harry's dormitory for two and a half years now. If he was really working for Voldemort, why hasn't he done anything to Harry before now?"

"Exactly!" Peter squeaked, grasping the only shred of evidence available to him thus far. "I've never hurt him, never so much as touched him!"

Sirius sighed theatrically. "Of course you didn't. There was nothing in it for you, and you never did anything unless you could see your own gain in it. You weren't about to commit murder under Albus Dumbledore's nose until you knew Voldemort was gaining power again. But if you handed him Harry, no one could say you'd done anything to betray him . . . you'd be welcomed back with honors."

Peter groped feebly for the "lunacy" explanation again, but evidently he could see all the little pieces clicking together in Remus's eyes, and the grim smile tugging at the corners of Regulus's mouth, who had always referred to Peter as the hanger-on.

Hermione spoke up again. "Er— Mr. Black— Sirius?"

Sirius stared at her for a moment, startled to be addressed like that. "It's Sirius," he told her weakly after a moment.

"Well . . . how did you get out of Azkaban, if you didn't use Dark Magic?" she wanted to know.

Sirius bit his lip. He'd known he would have to provide explanations, but he hadn't expected those explanations to involve relieving everything from the time they'd switched Secret-Keepers to tonight, with a side trip down memory lane to their fifth year. At the same time, he couldn't fail to provide explanations at this point. "I think . . . I think that the only reason I didn't go insane was that I knew I was innocent," he said slowly. "It wasn't a happy thought, really, but I still knew who I was, so I kept my powers . . . and I could transform when it all became too much . . . become a dog. Dementors . . . dementors can't see, after all, so when they sensed a dog's thinking they just thought I was losing my mind like everyone else. . . .

"And then Fudge gave me his paper, and I saw Peter. . . . No one else knew he was still alive, so I had to be the one to do something. It became an obsession, but it focused my thoughts. . . . Still, I couldn't drive them back without a wand. . . . Instead, I slipped past them as a dog . . . I was thin enough to slide through the bars and swim back to the mainland. . . . Then I was stunned by Regulus in Surrey on my way to Hogwarts. He believed me, at least, and came here with me. We've been living and hunting in the Forbidden Forest, except when I dragged him up to watch Quidditch games . . . you fly as well as James did, Harry. . . ."

He looked up and met Harry's eyes, and the boy didn't look away. "Please, Harry . . . I never would have betrayed your parents. I would have died first."

For a moment they stood with their eyes locked, and again tension filled the room as everyone held their breath. Then, slowly, Harry nodded.

Author's Note: All right, I'm glad Snape was in character; for obvious reasons, I get a little nervous when a plot requires I give a character I'm not particularly fond of his fifteen minutes in the limelight. . . . Anyway, yes, more deja vu here; it's just impossible to continue the plot without getting the kids on the same page as the adults. It occures to me that, since this is chapter 14 of 18, I only have a month left to get a head start on 1994. I need to do so. But, thank you to my five reviewers, and to anyone who cares to leave a note after this one; it might motivate me to start 1994 or at least make me extremely happy. . . . Cheers! --- Loki