Rat

June 5th, 1994
Fifth Year

"I smell a rat," were the first words out of Jo's mouth when they walked into their Common room.

Leili, in all seriousness replied, "That's because, Jo, it is a rat…" she gestured to Scabbers, dangling from Artemis' beak by his tail and squeaking madly. When Artemis dropped the rat, gold-eyed Morgan slammed her paw down on his tail when he tried to escape.

Jo rolled her eyes, "No, no, it's a proverbial rat."

Leili grinned and asked, "You sure? 'Cause that is a very literal rat, right there."

Jo glowered at her before asking, "Isn't there some spell you can use? C'mon Charm Queen…"

"Jo! You know as much as I do about charms!" She protested, but anyone could see that the epithet pleased her.

"Somehow, I very much doubt that. So, is there something you can use?"

"I guess… there's 'Homenum Revelio' but it'll only work if there's a masked human presence," Leili sighed, drawing her wand.

"Great, try it."

Leili cast the charm and if you looked closely you could have seen the air around Scabbers ripple like a stone skipping on a lake. "Jo," she started slowly, "do you remember the spell that idiot of a professor said could cure a werewolf?"

Jo slowly drew her wand, "Yeah. Homorphus!" Jo cast. A smart rap of her wand on the rat, transformed him into a very ugly man. He shuddered and sniveled and shivered, making weird noises all the while.

"Well, it looks like you were right," Leili said, brandishing her wand at the no longer rat. "Who are you?" she demanded, both Morgan and Artemis poised to attack.

"P-P-P-Peter P-Pett-tt-igrew." He wailed, flinching from her wand, "P-please! I'm Ron's rat! I'm a good pet! Please don't h-hurt me-he-he-he!" he cried.

"What is an animagus doing pretending to be a 13 year old's pet?" Leili asked the short, fat, blading little man, before she started whispering his name to herself, over and over.

"Whaddya think? Should we take the rat that isn't to Dumbledore?" Jo asked.

Finally, the reason for the name's familiarity dawned on her. "No, I think we should feed the rat to a wolf," Leili answered darkly, her eyes narrowed at the rat-man.

Pettigrew shuddered again and wailed harder. Jo conjured up a cage, opened the bottom and stood, poised while Leilani traced a shield shape with her wand, canceling all enchantments with a simple finite incantatem. The second the rat was a rat again Jo slammed the cage down on top of him before he had a chance to run away. Very carefully, she slid the cage off the table, while lifting the bottom so that she could close it with a snick without Peter/Scabbers escaping.

Cage in hand the girls made their way to professor Lupin's office where Jo plunked the cage on his desk and asked, "Lose something?"

"Jocelyn! Leilani! Really!" Lupin exclaimed. He knew the girls were a tad unbalanced but this was extreme, even for them.

"The rat is an animagus. Says his name is Peter Pettigrew. Wanna do something 'bout it?" Leili asked.

Professor Lupin looked at her in shock.

"I've heard stories, ok? The night V-" Leili sighed, 13 years later and she still had a problem saying the name. She could handle hearing it, but saying it felt wrong, "Voldemort vanished Sirius Black went crazy and killed a whole bunch of people including his friend, Peter Pettigrew. Imagine my surprise when Ron's rat Scabbers-who is lucky he hasn't been eaten by my cat or Jo's owl yet-turns out to be an animagus calling himself Peter Pettigrew."

"Harry mentioned something about seeing Pettigrew on the map…" Lupin started.

"Map? What map?" Jo asked, watching Lupin closely, there was a look on his face that bugged her. He seemed…sad. Maybe even a bit heartbroken.

"Never mind that. What do we do about him?" Leili jabbed a finger at the rat that both was and wasn't.

"I'll take him to Dumbledore in the morning, we'll take it from there." A series of squeaks emanated from the cage. "...How did you know that he was not your normal pet rat?"

"We didn't. Or well, I didn't. Jo thought something was wrong with him. I don't know how. She thought it was unfathomably creepy for him to be pretending to be a thirteen year old's pet and sleeping in his room and so we ventured to stop him." Leili explained.

Lupin looked to Jo who was looking like she'd rather be anywhere else.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally she huffed an annoyed breath and said, "I get these feelings sometimes. Vibes or whatever. And they don't leave me alone until I do something about them. And there was a vibe that has been gnawing at me for three years. Three years, I've ignored it but this year it got worse. And it's always had something to do with that rat. So I convinced Leili to help me get him. And then today, he was in our dorm. I don't know if he was there because Morgan and Artemis decided to put me out of my misery or if he was sneaking around our room on his own. So we decided to bring the little pedophile to you."

There was a mass increase in squeaking at the term 'pedophile', almost like the rat-man was trying to deny it.

"I see. Very interesting. Well, thank you for apprehending him, I'm sure Dumbledore will be very interested in what he has to say for himself. Especially considering he's supposed to be dead."

Peter fell dead silent.

"Goodnight, girls," he dismissed them and they turned to head back to their dormitory.

Lupin cast a containment charm on the cage as the girls left. An hour later, the birdcage Pettigrew was in fell to the floor and Pettigrew wheeled his way out the door by rolling the cage like a giant hamster wheel. From there, Peter made his way back to Ron.

"Damn it Peter!" Lupin swore as he chased after the surprisingly fast cage.