AN - Here is the next one, don't know how long I'll be keeping up this pace. Enjoy, and as always please review with what you like and don't like about the chapter/story in general.
In response to the comments from Guest, I didn't write in a huge, realistic response from everyone at the muggle soldiers, the magical communities, or the soldiers age because a realistic response to that would probably be huge and a story in and of itself. It's a work of fiction and I took some liberty with the responses so I could tell the story I wanted to tell. I agree, it is a slow burn story. I am building the characters and story so that things later on will make better sense. This is the first project like this I have tackled and it is a learning process for sure. I'm currently very excited because things are getting more AU as things progress. I have been sticking closer to cannon currently because there hasn't been much need to change things. I want things to play out a certain way, and so the story progresses as it does. I disagree that nothing has changed with the addition of OC characters, a lot of the large plot points are the same or at least similar for the reasons above. I appreciate you taking the time to review.
Addtional AN, after checking into the comments from OpenSourceArtist, I found that this chapter was in fact extremely similar to the movie. I have updated it to give it a bit of a different flavor, but this chapter of the story largely has to remain canon for the story to progress the way I want it to. I'll take this moment to reiterate what I said in the beginning of the story, everything from Harry Potter is in no way, shape or form mine, and I have no intention of passing it off as my own. The AU things that I add, and only those things, are mine, though I do not intend to profit from them in any way.
Harry and Hermione shifted a step back as Sirius stepped toward them. The tall, emaciated man looked haggard, his wild eyes partially concealed by long, greasy hair that spoke of months without washing. The scent of unwashed body was hard on Harry's nose, but he did his best to ignore it.
Here he is. The man who betrayed my parents...who killed my family.
"Step out of the way!" The man's voice was raspy, it was as though he hadn't talked in months. Likely, he hadn't.
"You'll have to get through me first!" Hermione said bravely. It was dark, and she hoped no one could see her wincing, tensed up for a coming fight.
"I WON'T ASK AGAIN!" Sirius screamed, his voice cracking a bit as he took a step forward, raising Ron's wand. He was within arm's reach of Harry now, who immediately remembered a self-defense technique he'd learned from his sparring sessions with Brad.
Both of Harry's arms shot up, one going to the crook of the surprised convict's outstretched arm, the other to his wrist. Harry pushed hard as soon as he made contact, causing the man to bend his arm towards himself. He tried to fight it, but momentum was on Harry's side. Harry forced his fingers into Sirius's hand, getting a grip on the wand as it reached his face.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry cried out. A jet of scarlet light caught Sirius directly under the chin, sending him back into the wall, Ron's wand clattering toward Sirius's feet. That could have gone better… Harry fished his own wand out as Hermione pointed hers at the crumpled man. Before they could say anything, the door burst open.
"Drop it!" a familiar voice called out. Harry glanced up and felt a flood of relief as Professor Lupin pointed his wand into the room. He relaxed a bit, but tensed up again as Sirius stood and picked up Ron's wand. Harry raised his wand for another spell but Lupin shouted again. "Both of you, drop your wands!"
Dawning reached Harry. Lupin wasn't aimed into the room, he was aimed at Harry and Hermione. He was helping Sirius. They stood there dumbfounded, and dropped their wands. Lupin looked on at Sirius.
"I found him," Sirius smiled hesitantly. His voice was almost hysterical. "I've found him!"
"I know," Lupin replied, a wary, tired grin on his face.
"Let's kill him!" Sirius cried out.
"NO!" Hermione screamed at them, stepping in front of Harry. "I trusted you! And all this time, you've been helping him!" She shouted it, the inflection halfway between a question and an accusation. "He's a werewolf!" She pointed at Lupin as she said it.
"You truly are a clever girl, Hermione," Lupin smiled calmly at her. "How long have you kno-"
"Enough talking, Remus!" Sirius shouted, the impatience palpable. "Let's just kill him, already!"
"Wait!" Lupin yelled sharply in return. Sirius was having none of it.
"I'm through with waiting!" Sirius returned in the same loud tone. "I spent 12 years in Azkaban and now here he is!" Lupin stood there, seeming to weigh things for a moment.
"Alright," he sighed, "but wait one more moment. Harry should know why." That was the last bit that Harry could take. He hated listening to them standing there, deciding his fate.
"I know why!" Harry screamed at them. "My parents are gone because of you!" Harry pointed his finger viciously at Sirius as he exploded with rage.
"No, no, you've got it wrong, Harry," Lupin said, turning his attention away from Sirius. "You're correct, someone did betray your parents, but it was not Sirius."
"Well then?" Harry asked smugly, wondering where they thought they could take this. "Who was it?" Harry had heard the truth, straight from the Minister and some of the most trusted staff at the school.
"Peter-" Lupin started, but was cut short.
"Pettigrew!" Sirius shouted, clearly growing impatient with the back and forth. "And he is in this room…right THERE!" He pointed an accusing finger at Ron.
"Wha…I...me?!" Ron gibbered, terrified. He had no idea how to convince the madman that he was just Ron Weasley and no one else.
"I'm waiting, Peter!" Sirius called in a singsong voice, a giddy laugh escaping him.
Wham, the door flew open again.
"Expelliarmus!" Professor Severus Snape stood in the doorway. Sirius lost his wand and Snape immediately turned his attention to Professor Lupin. "Ah, how I am going to savor this. I told Dumbledore you were helping him, and he told me I was wrong. Yet, here we stand..."
"Severus, I-" Lupin started, but Sirius was past his boiling point.
"Once again, you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task, and once again you've come barreling headlong into the wrong conclusion!" Sirius stepped forward toward Snape in a non-threatening manner, attempting to usher the Professor out of the room. Snape jabbed the tip of his wand into the convict's throat.
"Give me a reason," he drawled, "Anything at all."
"Severus, don't be an idi-" Lupin started, but was again cut off by Sirius.
"He can't help it, it's a habit by now," Sirius flashed a crazed grin at the Professor who was also reaching the end of his rope.
"It would be so easy," he pushed the wand deeper into Sirius's throat, causing the man to take a step back. "I'd rather see you with the dementors, though. They've been looking for you..."
Snape continued on, pressing into Sirius's throat and talking about turning him over to the dementors. Harry took a quick look around the room and everyone was distracted. No one was looking at them. He glanced down. His own wand had clattered far away, but Hermione's was near his foot.
As fast as he could manage, he dipped low, snatching the wand from the ground. The fast movement caught everyone's eye, but before Snape could bring his wand to bear, Harry was on him.
"Stupefy!" The jet of light struck Snape square in the chest, launching him back into a wall and knocking him unconscious.
"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, "What'd you do that for!?"
"Explain!" Harry demanded, his wand now pointed at Sirius. "Tell me about him!" Sirius raised his hands in a mockery of surrender, but did nothing to agitate Harry. It was Lupin who answered.
"He was a schoolmate," Lupin said. "Someone we thought was a friend."
"Wrong, he's dead," Harry retorted. "You killed him!" Harry pointed at Sirius, who didn't react. Lupin darted to get in the way.
"No," Lupin said. "I thought so too until you mentioned seeing him on the map."
"The map was wrong," Harry replied easily, but his wand wavered a bit.
"The map is never wrong, that's the whole point!" Sirius said, his patience again depleted. He took a step forward, pointing an accusing finger at Ron again. "He's alive and he's RIGHT THERE!"
"That's mental, I'm not-!" Ron cried out in alarm.
"No, no, not you!" Sirius looked as though he'd stepped in something unpleasant, appalled at having to break things down to this level. "The rat!"
"You mean Scabbers?" Ron said, instinctively hugging the rat closer to his chest. "That's wrong, he's been in the family for-"
"What, 12 years?" Sirius asked, a mocking tone in his voice. Ron said nothing, the guess was right on the point. "An awfully long life for a rat, hmm? Is he maybe missing a toe?" Sirius was closing the distance now.
"So what?" Ron whimpered.
"All anyone found of Peter was his-" Harry started the sentence numbly as things clicked into place, but Sirius was there with emotion aplenty.
"Finger!" Sirius cried out, now standing next to Ron. "The scumbag cut it off to throw everyone off the trail, then turned himself into a rat!" Ron struggled to maintain his grip on Scabbers as the rat wildly attempted to flee.
"Prove it," Harry said, raising his wand again. It was making sense, too much sense… Sirius stooped down to scoop the rat out of Ron's hands but Ron jerked away. Scabbers chose that moment to bite Ron's finger, and the boy let go, sending the rat sailing across the room.
"Get him!" Sirius shouted wildly as the rat landed several feet from the door. It immediately scampered toward the exit, Sirius taking the moment to snatch Ron's wand from the floor again. Lupin waved his wand at the fleeing creature and suddenly it grew into a man, who slid headfirst into the door with a yelp of surprise.
Everyone stayed motionless for a brief moment, stunned into inaction. The plump man in the doorway started to scamper forward and that knocked everyone from their brief reverie. Sirius and Lupin each grabbed a leg, dragging him back inside the room and standing him up so everyone could see.
He was a short, fat man with wild hair and large front teeth. Unmistakably rat-like. He twitched a little bit, looking back and forth between the two men.
"Remus?" he asked, bending into a submissive posture. "Sirius? Old friends!" he cried. Then, he tried to run. They caught him easily and shoved him back into the room. He whimpered and looked around, eyes locking on Harry.
"Is this Harry?!" he exclaimed, again adopting that submissive posture. "You look so much like Ja-" he started but Sirius stopped him from going farther.
"DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK HIS NAME!" Sirius grabbed Peter roughly by the shoulder and threw him backwards. "How dare you even look at Harry!" Peter whimpered and darted to the other side of the room, trying to find protection behind a small piano in a corner. Lupin came to stand on one end, Sirius at the other.
"You betrayed them, didn't you?" Lupin asked. "You sold James and Lily out to Voldemort!"
"That was an accident!" Peter sobbed. "You have no idea just how powerful the Dark Lord was…you'd have done the same thing, Siri-"
"I would have died!" Sirius cried out. "For my friends? I'd have died!" Sirius lunged toward the whimpering man, but he was too quick. Peter darted underneath the piano and ran to the students.
"My boy," Peter whispered, grabbing Harry by the shoulders. "James wouldn't have wanted me killed over this! AHHH!" Sirius had reached him, pulling him away by his ear and throwing him to the ground. Peter rolled with it, coming to rest on his knees at Hermione's feet.
"Sweet girl, you won't let them kill me, right?" He grabbed at her ankles but she stepped back, a look of revulsion on her face. Sirius grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him to the center of the room.
"Voldemort might not have killed you, but we will!" Sirius screamed at him, raising his wand. "On three?"
"STOP!" Harry shouted, stopping them in their tracks. If all this was true, then Harry couldn't let them become murderers now. If Sirius was his dad's friend, he couldn't let the man become a murderer after all this time of innocence.
"Harry, you realize this man-" Lupin started.
"I know exactly who his is!" Harry never took his eyes off of the whimpering mess of a man. "We will take him to the castle."
"Oh, thank you!" Peter cried, dropping to his knees.
"As far as I'm concerned, he belongs in Azkaban." Harry stared at the man with disgust as he broke back down into a sobbing mess. Harry looked up at Sirius. "He should go in your place."
"If you're certain." Lupin lowered his wand. Sirius looked longingly at Peter, as though calculating the consequences of defying Harry's wish.
Ultimately, he opted to go with the plan and drop the wand. Lupin struck Peter with a binding spell and he and the unconscious Professor Snape were levitated down the passage leading back to the castle. Harry helped Ron walk, his ankle still bruised and bleeding from the bite that dragged him down originally.
"Look," Sirius started conversationally, "sorry for biting you. I imagine that probably hurt a bit."
"A bit?" Ron asked incredulously. "You almost killed me!"
"That's a bit of an exaggeration, I think. Anyway, I was aiming for the rat!" Sirius said, "Normally, I am a very sweet dog. James used to tell me I should just stay that way." Ron rolled his eyes, but they continued onward. After a while, they made it outside. They made better time than Lupin, who was levitating both of the captives, so Harry sat Ron down on a nearby root and Hermione started tending to him. Sirius walked to get a better view of the castle and Harry followed.
"That was a merciful decision back there," Sirius said, nodding toward the still whimpering form of Peter Pettigrew. "He doesn't deserve it."
"I think it is what my dad would have wanted," Harry replied evenly. He still wasn't one hundred percent sure. In his heart, a fierce battle was waging about turning him over to the dementors versus killing him outright. "Plus, we need him alive to exonerate you." Sirius sighed in agreement.
"I don't know if anyone told you, but when you were born, James and Lily...they made me your godfather," he said, hesitantly.
"Yeah, I know." Harry remembered hearing that in Hogsmeade.
"Well, I can understand if you choose to stay with your aunt and uncle..." he sniffed loudly before continuing, "but if you ever wanted a different home..."
"What?" Harry asked, stunned. "Come and live with you?"
"Well..." Sirius backtracked. "I mean...I was just thinking out loud..." Harry opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted.
"HARRY!" Hermione shrieked, her voice an octave higher in panic. "HELP!" Harry and Sirius looked back and saw Lupin standing, convulsing in the moonlight. The moonlight!