Chapter five: The boy-who-still-lives

All over the wizarding world, people were waking up to the same headline, the same story. The boy-who-lived still lives! It was the topic of conversation, the only topic of conversation.

"Good Gracious"

"What is it Arthur?" Molly asked. It wasn't often Arthur disturbed the breakfast this quickly while he was reading the paper, you could usually count on the Daily Prophet being the only thing in the morning to keep him quiet for five minutes, at least until he started railing about Rita Skeeter and the latest ridiculous accusation. That morning it had barely been half a second.

"Look at this Molly, 'Harry Potter found alive and well'. I thought Black would have killed him years ago!"

"Arthur really, do you have to say such awful things at breakfast?" She did, however, lean over to look at the headline he was holding up.

"Harry Potter!" Squeaked Ginny, "Really?"

"Yes, really. Looks like he'll be a classmate of yours after all then Ron."

"Huhuh porrer – clashma – ooh me he co to hohurts?" Ron replied. Mind you, it was a wonder he could say anything at all, his mouth was filled with porridge. Ron was fond of breakfast. Nobody in his family, however, seemed to have any difficulty understanding him.

"Yes, it says so right here, he'll be starting Hogwarts in September like you."

"Oh the poor boy. I wonder what he'll be like, raised by …" Molly trailed off. After all, that wasn't the sort of thing you discussed at breakfast either.

"Just think!" Said Fred enthusiastically. "Harry Potter at Hogwarts."

"How cool will that be?" George continued.

"Beyond cool!" Said Ron. Ginny's face fell. She didn't really like to think of next year, home alone, with Ron gone.

"Now boys, I expect you to be nice to the poor boy, he's probably had a hard life considering …" their mother trailed off again.

"Black's still at large though, no-where to be found when the Aurors turned up apparently." Arthur said. "I knew I should have popped into the office yesterday, miss all the gossip when I'm out on raids."

No one noticed, in the corner of the room, Percy's pet rat, Scabbers, freezing. No one in the room could have guessed the dilemma the rat was now facing. He knew. He knew. All that day the rat planned. He heard them talking. Percy was to get an owl; in exchange he was to be given to the youngest boy, Ron. Ron, who would be in the same year as Harry Potter, quite possibly in the same dorm – any child born to James and Lily and raised by Sirius would undoubtedly be a Gryffindor, just like the Weasleys. Harry Potter who would undoubtedly know all about the Animagus abilities of one Peter Pettigrew. All that day the rat planned his escape, cursing his bad luck. He'd had an easy life, these last 9 years. A pampered pet. Now it was over. Late that night, when the last Weasley had gone to bed, he opened his cage and snuck down stairs towards the kitchen door.

'Damn Sirius Black.' He thought furiously. 'Damn Harry Potter. Damn Vol – the Dark Lord who managed to get himself defeated in such an ignoble way, exposing me as a traitor to the only one who mattered: that obsessive idiot, Sirius Black. Damn Remus Lupin. Damn Dumbledore. Damn …'

"Scabbers? What are you doing? You stupid rat, don't you know there are cats out there? And gnomes and stuff?" To his dismay he felt two hands lifting him up and he looked up into the sleepy face of the midnight-snack seeking Ron. "I can see I'm going to have to get a better cage for you when you're mine!"

"Squeak!" He protested loudly. "Squeak!"

'Well, that was distinctly odd!' Thought Remus. It had started with a conversation with Kingsley Shacklebolt, an auror friend of his. Actually no, it had started before then. It had started with Harry.

Dumbledore had arranged for Remus to meet Harry, to have a brief chat about Sirius. Obviously Remus had reviewed the conversation both Professors had had through the Pensieve beforehand, he had already seen how much Harry looked like James. But somehow it was different meeting him face to face. Remus had introduced himself and been completely unprepared for Harry's reaction.

"You're Moony!" Harry had exclaimed delightedly. "I know all about you, did you really …" and headed off into what can only be one of Sirius' stories about their antics at Hogwarts. When Remus had admitted that yes, he had been the instigator of that little prank, Harry had first demanded, then recollected himself and asked politely for Remus to tell him how it was done. Harry didn't only look like an 11 year old James; he acted very much like him too. That was something Remus hadn't been prepared for.

Harry had been, not exactly happy, but willing to let Remus pull a picture of Sirius as he was now out of his mind. Remus had had to promise that he wouldn't pass the picture on to either Dumbledore or the Ministry, but would use it only in the pursuit of the truth – Harry's words. Remus had left the meeting feeling very peculiar, as if he had received another piece of a jigsaw but had yet to find any two that actually connected. It was obvious that Harry believed that Sirius was innocent. But more than that it seemed obvious that Harry had been raised to dislike Voldemort. He didn't see how an eleven-year-old could be so good an actor that in an unrehearsed conversation he could show such strong evidence of a false attitude. Was Sirius actually telling the truth? The small kernel of hope that his conversation with Dumbledore had planted grew slightly stronger.

It was after his meeting with Harry that he had met up with Kingsley. He hadn't actually meant to tell Kingsley anything, they'd been planning to meet up for a while and he had thought that he might be able to pick Kingsley's brains. Kingsley, however, wasn't stupid. Somehow he'd managed to get part of the story from Remus – the part about "there may be more to this", but not the details. He hadn't really wanted to know the details it was safer that way.

As they'd sat there, Kingsley casually mentioned an odd incident at the DMLE. Someone, a Muggle-born witch, had reported some strange activity near a castle that, had it been reported 10 years before, might have been considered to be Death Eater activity. Obviously she was mistaken so the DMLE wasn't investigating. If someone else happened to wander over to Duckett Street and happened to bump into a young witch called Caroline Davidson, they'd probably hear a conversation that was virtually useless for any purpose whatsoever.

Remus agreed that a discussion with said young woman would obviously be a waste of time and what number house should he avoid, just in case he happened to be in the area?

He'd found the young woman was, naturally enough, a little wary about him, but she'd happily consented to tell him the story, although some parts remained vague – like what had delayed her from reporting it further. But it was at the end of the conversation that things got odd. He'd shown her an old photo of Peter, and had elicited no sign of recognition. Then he'd shown her the picture from Harry's memory of Sirius. She had immediately denied any knowledge there as well, claiming that she didn't recognise him at all. Fair enough, but there was a picture of Sirius, taken 10 years ago, on the front of the newspaper at her right elbow. Surely she would have acknowledged a glimmer of recognition.

In addition, once she had warmed up to her story, she had been quite friendly, but as soon as he'd shown her the photographs she had acted like she couldn't get rid of him fast enough. There was definitely more to this than she had told him. Perhaps he should do a little investigating at this castle himself?

"Good morning Mrs Figg!"

"Good morning dear, sleep well?"

"Fine thank you."

"Good, now have some breakfast." She handed him a large plate, filled with bacon, scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and toast. "You need you're strength today. We're going to travel to Diagon Alley today to pick up you're school things. Oh I haven't been to Fortescue's for years – we'll have to have an ice-cream sundae there after we've done our shopping." Harry sat there quietly, ploughing through his breakfast, listening to Mrs Figg reminisce about previous shopping trips. He had a bit of a funny feeling in his stomach – it wasn't the breakfast (although it didn't help that the scrambled eggs were the consistency of rubber) it was more that he'd never been out, in public, properly, undisguised to the wizarding world before. It was kind of scary and, more than ever, he wished Sirius could be with him.

'Well the castle was a waste of time.' Remus thought to himself. 'Not a trace of Wormtail's smell, although Padfoot had been there, and others.' He's searched the castle completely. There was evidence of activities that were less than pleasant, it had obviously been a Death Eater stronghold in the past and had recently been used of some malign purpose involving blood. The girl's story, as far as it went, had checked out. He'd found a room where she had been imprisoned. And also the drainage channel she had escaped by. Padfoot's scent had been mixed in with hers at the tunnel. Padfoot in human form rather than dog. It had been obvious to him that she had lied about it but he didn't know why. Well he had suspicions but …

Remus was sat in his house. He had decided to go about this logically. Padfoot was not at all logical, nor was Wormtail, if he was still alive that is. If it was true, if Peter was alive, then what had he been doing the past 10 years? Hiding, obviously. But hiding where? In front of him was a map – a map showing all places in Britain with known Death Eater connections from the past war.

He must have been hiding as a rat – if he had once shown his human self he would have been recognised. So he must have been a rat. But he wouldn't have wanted to be out of touch – he would have wanted to know what was happening. Remus could feel he was on the edge of an idea but it wasn't coming to him. It was frustrating. Full moon was coming that weekend and he was starting to feel the effects. This was not the best time for thinking things through. 'How on earth' he wondered, 'was he supposed to find one rat?'

A/N: A big thanks to Alphabet over on Sugar Quill for the fantastic solution to the Scabbers question – more of which will appear in later chapters!