Disclaimer: HP belongs to JKR. Not me.

A/N: Thanks for the Favs and Follows. Please Read and Review.

Rat et Diary

School days, 1988, Surrey

The days till the winter holidays was filled with their usual routine, but with some added quirks. Their school team won most matches in the interschool tournament. Anna had cheered Harry on in the matches.

Their martial arts classes, that is the training in the dojo was going well. Sensei was very happy with their progress in both their combat based training for self-defense and weapon based training.

They had continued their practice of -spells, charms, defensive magic, potions; training their elemental magic, Metamorphmagus abilities; with Anna showing Harry other tricks of magic.

He had mastered his Animagus form. And was a cute little panther whenever he transformed. It could actually pass for a black cat so Anna wasn't worried about him learning other forms in hurry, though he wanted to be a house cat like her as well.

"Cats are found everywhere. So nobody would be suspicious of it. I could spy on people easily in the form rather than being a conspicuous black cat." Harry explained his reason.

"You would have to start from scratch for it like you did for your panther form. Learning anatomy, morphology, characteristics and habits and all that stuff of the cat. Panther and Cats belong to same Family but they are still very, very different." Anna warned.

"I know Anna. I will study it thoroughly like I did the panther. No -Hakuna Matata." He smiled.

"Hakuna Matata." Anna smiled back.

"You know what, we need to have our own language or something, a mix of Japanese, English and may be sign language. We can add in it as we go." Anna added.

"Yeah. That would be brilliant, if we had time to learn the new languages. I think if we are going to learn a new language we should study French and other European languages. Something useful." Harry replied.

"But if we learn Japanese and sign language, maybe the American sign language, then almost nobody here would understand it. We could learn French as well and as I said add more as we go. So should we search for it? We could adjust some time. Maybe take time out of the practice of magic."

"We had already reduced our time for it. We used to practice it for so much time before. Now we would only be able to practice it for one hour at most if we add the class for languages."

"Well I already know both Japanese and American sign language, so I can help you with it and I know some French too, but we could take it in the school, it is included in the extra curricular and see if we could find the class for Japanese or sign language or something else. I suck in teaching anything academic. So you would be better off learning the languages properly, I will help you where I could." Anna said.

"Alright we will ask about French in school." Harry conceded.

So they had started the slow process of learning new languages.

They had signed up for French classes in school.

But hadn't found any other class in the neighborhood so Anna started teaching him. She would tell him the name of various things in other languages, talking to him while signing so he could get used to it and learn it that way.

-x-

Winter Holidays, 1988, Gringotts - Ottery St Catchpole

The winter holidays arrived and with it many other things.

Sirius' trial was going to be held along with three other's a few days before Christmas day, near the end of winter session.

They were going to do the ritual for finding Pettigrew on the Sunday after the holidays start for school, as the dojo would be still open for few more days.

And decide when to break in Malfoy manor after they found out about the parties they were going to attend from Cato, whom they had owled asking for details. He hadn't replied yet, probably wondering why they asked something like that.

On Sunday they started early, going to London for breakfast then to Gringotts. They were led to the ritual chamber like last time. This time as they didn't had anything of Pettigrew they were going to try and search him by searching for his magical signature.

Anna knew this way of finding people, known only by few selected individuals like Bumblebee and done through an old ritual. So she was teaching Harry to hide his signature and had cleaned the places they had went to search for the horcrux from their magic, as wizards like Bumblebee, could identify the magical signatures of an individual, imprinted in the place.

They were successful in finding the general area Pettigrew was in. He was in Ottery St Catchpole, Devon.

How he was able to hide there, with so many maj families living there, Anna didn't understand.

He would have to hide his identity for him to remain undiscovered for so long. Though why he would have to hide at all was also confusing for Anna. She didn't knew he was alive in her last life. The story of Sirius Black wasn't known much. Harry hadn't written much about him. The topic was painful for him Anna thought. And now she was left with speculations.

She was suspicious about Pettigrew's behavior. Hiding for so long, not coming forward to help Sirius. It all smelled fishy to her. And she remembered he had lost his order of Merlin later in the years. Maybe it was all related.

They left for Ottery St Catchpole after thanking Bloodaxe for their help.

The payment would be collected from her vault. Harry had protested it but Anna had just shushed him and said it didn't matter which vault it came from as they both shared most things anyway.

Anna was reluctant to go though. She had bittersweet memories of the place.

The Diggorys lived there.

When Harry detected her mood and asked her the reason for it, she waved off his concern with a smile.

She stepped them in the forest surrounding the village and then they wandered the place searching for his signature. She stepped them all over the town, searching the muggle settlements and isolated countryside but they couldn't find his signature.

"He couldn't possibly be living with a maj family, could he?" Anna asked frustrated.

They had searched for him all over the place. His signature was very weak and they couldn't locate him properly. Its as if the signal was coming from a small, miniature being or someone with too little magic almost a squib.

"Maybe, he is. We could try to find if they have any sign of him being there or maybe he had been there sometimes." Harry shrugged.

So they started with the nearest house. It was Lovegoods house.

"Their daughter was your friend too. Luna. Lost her mother when she was nine. She's one year younger than you. She was bullied in her house for being eccentric. Became a magizoologist." Anna told Harry monotonous, as if giving out information like a computer or robot does.

Harry shook his head at her tone, but asked, "So her mother's still alive?"

Anna nodded her head.

"Then we need to make sure she doesn't die this time, don't we?"

Anna shrugged. "I don't mind. We will see. We still have one or two years. Though maybe her age has changed as well. Do you want to check it out? See if anything's changed?"

"Alright let's go." Harry agreed.

They entered the house disillusioned and in their Animagus forms. It looked like nobody was home so they searched the place changing their forms. There were pictures of the family on the walls and the walls of the house was covered with paintings otherwise. Luna looked 7 almost 8 in the pics. But they couldn't be sure. Her mom was alive still though.

Anna put some undetectable protective spells on the place, used by mothers to protect their babies from their accidental magic.

She had heard Luna's mother had died because of a misfired spell or while she was creating a new spell. It was something like that, she didn't remember it clearly and didn't knew about it much in the first place.

But she was hopeful the spells she placed over the house would protect the occupants from the misfired spells.

She can do only so much. She could change things, but chance still played a major part in their lives.

They left the place then, Anna promising Harry to check on them frequently.

They went to the Fawcetts, Wrights and Diggorys.

Still didn't find anything.

The last place they searched for any signs, and actually found a miniature magical signature.

The Weasleys it looked like were hiding Pettigrew or he was hiding with them under disguise.

While Anna contemplated if he could be impersonating one of their children or something incredulously, Harry was thinking something else.

"Are we getting the magical signature from the rat Anna?" He asked.

"What?!" Anna exclaimed.

He indicated to the rat and then at his eyes. She got his message and watched for the magic in the house. He was right, the signature was coming from a rat, sitting on the windowsill, lazing in the non-existent sun.

"Wow. I told you. Unregistered Animagus, see. I can't believe it though, even if I can see his signature. Look, he's that red head's pet. Ew. Ah. Merlin. I remember, his name was something... No, I don't remember his name, but he used to be Ron's pet." Anna said ranging from disbelief at his hiding place then disgust at him for living with the children like a pet.

"How are we going to get him? What if he tries to run or something? We would never be able to search for a rat in the wild." Harry asked.

"First, I'm hungry and you must be too. So let's eat something in London. We ate so little for lunch. We will think of something while we eat. He isn't going anywhere just yet. Don't worry."

They had searched all the day for him and eaten only a meager meal at lunch to continue searching for him, so she stepped to London taking him to their usual cafe. It was nearing evening.

They decided to go in the morning the next day to catch him. He may run away in the night if they tried to do it that night.

Harry was feeling nervous and anxious all night, convinced that he wouldn't be there when they go back and slept fitfully.

Nyx had tried to reassure him saying she wouldn't let him get away in the rat form, but he still couldn't keep the thoughts away.

"We should have caught him while we could yesterday, what if he had run away in the night? Hurry up Anna. We can't waste time. We shouldn't have waited till today. Its all going to go wrong."

As Harry paced up and down in the clearing Anna silently ate the breakfast Folksy had brought for them.

"Eat something Harry-kun. Or you will be hungry later. Come on. Everything will be alright." Anna said placidly.

"How could you take this so lightly Anna?! I wouldn't be able to stomach anything for a while." Harry replied harried.

"I'm not taking it lightly Harry-kun. But we couldn't do anything yesterday. It was getting dark by the time we found him. Come on. Just eat this toasts then we will go." She said gesturing towards them.

He ate a slice but wouldn't take more so Anna took him to Ottery St Catchpole.

Stepping near the Weasleys house in the trees. They saw that Pettigrew was still in the house. Now they just have to find a way to get him.

"They don't have much strong wards. I guess the threat has been gone for 7 years now I think. Maybe that's why they don't find it necessary." Anna muttered.

They waited in the trees, trying to find the right time to get him. Finally the children left to play quidditch in the orchard behind the house and they entered it in their animal forms, disillusioned. The wards didn't have to be altered much just like with the Lovegoods.

Mrs. Weasley was in the kitchen clearing up after the lunch, and the rat was in one of the rooms on the second floor. They went up the staircase then changed their forms outside the room. Still disillusioned they warded the area to prevent the rat's escape and to prevent any noise from going out. The rat still seemed unaware of them.

Anna spelled the door silent, then they opened it and went inside cautiously.

They both cast a sleeping spell as soon as they saw the rat when they entered. He remained asleep as they put him in an unbreakable cage, Anna had spelled it with many protections to prevent him from using magic, to transform or bite through the cage.

She put the cage in her bag and secured it inside the magical pocket in her jacket.

After that anticlimactic moment, they got to work erasing their magic from the house and soon were back in the trees and then in their clearing.

"Well that all worked out well. And I was so anxious about it." Harry said, shaking his head as they sat in the clearing.

"Ah, Harry-kun. It was alright to be anxious. This is important for you. Its important for me too. But more so for you. He's the ticket to prove Sirius's innocence. Now we need to find a way to send him to the ministry." Anna said contemplative.

"I don't understand Anna. Why wouldn't anyone else realize he was alive with the help of their ward books like we did? And Dumbledore, he had his name in the book so why couldn't he get inside the manor?" Harry asked, he had the questions in his mind for a while.

"Ah. I had wondered why you didn't asked about Bumblebee. First for the rat, he was friends with your parents and so was included in their ward book. But it was a time of war, so if he even had any other rich friends having manors they would have canceled his name like we did, for safety of their family. And your parents didn't lived in the manor later so they probably didn't get to cancel his name or they may be best friends or something so didn't cancel it. But they should have, as you couldn't trust anyone then. He probably didn't had his name in anyone's else's ward book, for them to realize that he was still alive. And ward books are only used for manors and all. You saw the Weasleys house, it isn't even structurally sound, held up totally by magic. And they had just a few wards on it. They shouldn't even have many anyway, it would be disastrous. The house may collapse with the load of the wards." She explained.

Harry nodded his head in understanding at her explanation.

"And Bumblebee couldn't get in because the house may have locked down after your father's death. He controlled the wards of the place last and probably had made arrangements so that the house could only be opened by you or something. Though why Bumblebee wouldn't just bring you to it to open it, I don't know. Maybe he was afraid the elves would have followed you back to the Dursleys, which they definitely would have done. Or it could be like the death wards, they lock down the manor when the previous lord dies, not letting anyone enter till the next lord or heir allows them in." Anna finished.

Harry again nodded his head.

They spent the rest of the day as usual, for the holidays. Harry had football practice, then they went to the dojo and then had meal together.

The next day Anna decided to owl the cage to the DMLE, the department of magical law enforcement, deciding to let them handle him.

Hopefully they wouldn't let him get away. But just to be sure she had added safeguards. Spelling him with various restrictions so he won't be able to escape in anyway.

She was sure he wasn't innocent and was therefore had no qualms about doing so to him. Before sending him she removed her and Harry's signature from him so that they wouldn't get involved in any questioning.

They didn't interrogate him, though they wanted to but it would mean tampering with his memory so he doesn't remember them. Cause even if they disguise themselves they may leave clues about their identity with him. And a tampered memory could still give clues to an expert. So they decided to be safe and just give him to them as they got him.

They would learn the truth about it all on the day of trial anyway. They were going to disguise themselves to go and watch it.

Harry had checked their mail while she had owled the package to DMLE disguised, Cato had replied with the information, asking them why they wanted to know.

'If you want to meet them, you could arrange a meeting. You won't remain in obscurity if you meet them in a party. But I don't think that's the case, so whatever you are asking this information for?'

They had replied it was confidential and would be better if it wasn't written down. They would tell him when the time was right.

"Would we really tell him? We can't possibly tell him we are bringing back Voldemort." Harry had said later incredulously.

"No we are not going to tell anyone about it. The goblins, I told them because they would help us bring him back and also in creating a new identity for him and all. They are useful and resourceful beings. We will make something up for Cato, I can lie easily." Anna answered.

"But it would be better to give him a half-truth, that way...what?" As he was talking Anna had started beaming at him.

"You are learning so early." She said wiping fake tears.

"Lies told as half-truths save us from mostly ever getting in trouble as we could just say we had told them some of it and just not the whole thing. We don't need to remember what lie we told them too, keeping it up with another and another lie. We could just tell him we wanted to steal something he had taken from us back. Which could be true, as after he comes back Tom would be a part of us too. Truth but not really." She finished.

"Like you did with me before." Harry said with a frown.

"I didn't do any such thing." Anna protested.

"You did. Telling me your were 7 when we met but not really." Harry said.

"But I told you about it later and I was telling you the truth. I was 7 then. Physically. And it was a just itsy bitsy minor thing." Anna said.

"What about when you had said I won't help you in your task, you were lying then. I'm helping you in both tasks." Harry said hiding a smile.

"Well I wasn't sure about it then. You had every right to reject giving any help. I was just reminding..." She saw his smile then.

"You are just pulling my leg. Harry-Chan!" She pouted.

"You take everything so seriously, Onēchan." Harry said with a smile.

"Miscommunication can create confusion and misunderstanding. And that can lead to fights and all. So better to be safe and clear than sorry later." Anna said intelligently.

"Such big words, Onēchan. How did your brain handle it?" Harry asked teasingly.

It was a running joke between them after Anna had said to him she couldn't teach him anything 'academic'.

"It survived. Hakuna Matata." Anna replied back cheeky.

"But we still can't tell Cato we stole something from the Malfoys. We need another reason. We don't need to involve him in the theft by even giving him any knowledge about it. Plausible deniability and all." Harry said, thinking out loud.

"Then we could just tell him that. Not giving him the reason for plausible deniability." Anna said with shrug.

Harry nodded back.

-x-

December, 1988, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire

The Malfoys were going to a ball on the Friday of that week. So they were going to break in on that day.

The week passed and Friday finally arrived. There dojo would be closing for the holidays that day. They were going to leave for Malfoy manor after they had their usual meal in the diner and then gone to their rooms early.

"It looks grand in the night still. But of course can't beat Hogwarts or Potter manor." Harry whispered as they watched it from their hiding place.

"No, of course it can't." Anna said indulgently.

"Come on. Let's hurry. We don't want them to catch us, arriving back early or something." She added moving forward.

They disillusioned themselves and changed forms.

After entering the manors wards Anna changed her form again, opening a window for them to get inside. They jumped inside through the open window. It was a parlor they landed in. They sniffed for Tom's signature. Like they could see the magic, they could sniff it and hear it too.

So they used the trick to lead them along the hallways. They finally arrived at a room quite a few hallways away from the parlor they came in through.

It was a study they saw, when they entered it, after she had disabled the wards. There was a tricky one hidden and undetectable, alerting the creator of someone entering the study, but Anna knew the wards like the back of her hand, so was able to detect them all and deactivate them.

They changed forms on entering the study.

"He wouldn't just hide it in plain view like that, would he?" Harry asked, Tom's magical signature was coming from a book.

The horcrux, the book was just in the bookshelf near the desk, in plain view. It was small book, almost looked like a diary or journal.

"Maybe the horcrux is inside it. Why would he make a book into horcrux? Was it his own journal or something?" Anna was muttering to herself.

"Sorry, what did you say Harry?" She asked not hearing him before.

"I asked that why would he hide it in plain view like that?"

"There's a powerful notice me not charm on it so most wouldn't see it. And those who would be curious about it and could see through the notice me not, would see the Malfoy Family Grimoire in its place. They wouldn't be interested then as a grimoire can't be opened by anyone else than a family member." Anna replied.

"So how could we...? Because of our sight huh." Harry answered his own question.

"Yes. Sight. Now there are also other wards on the book, to prevent anyone from taking it. We can't do anything else but break through them. I don't think we would be able to fool him in thinking he still has the horcrux like we planned. We are gonna just have to take it." Anna said.

They were going to leave a copy behind of the horcrux to keep Malfoy from realizing it was gone, but that couldn't happen now because the wards were infused with Malfoy's magical signature and while Anna could imitate it and put them back on she wouldn't be able to fool him for long.

"We will still try it. But it won't fool him for long. He will probably realize something's wrong as soon as he enters his study."

Anna worked fast then, dismantling the wards and taking the book, a diary, and keeping it in the spelled pouch. Then she kept the copy of the book in its place, putting the wards on with Malfoy's signature-

"Maybe you should just keep the place empty Anna. If he is going to realize about it anyway then it would be better if he doesn't also learn that you, I mean the thieves, also could copy his maj signature." Harry said.

Anna nodded her head at him and removed the wards she had put up, vanishing the book.

Then they got to work clearing their magical signature from the room and closed it, getting out. Not even putting the wards back on it. Then they moved back towards the room they came from, clearing the signs of their presence there. Finally they got out of the manor, without alerting the wards or the house-elves about them.

They breathed a sigh of relief when Anna stepped them back into the clearing.

"That was easy. Too easy actually. Are you sure we didn't trip any wards or other traps?" Harry asked.

"Yes. I'm sure we didn't tripped any traps, don't worry. But the theft is going to be realized by Malfoy and he's probably going to be scared about the theft of that book from his study like that. We would get to see his worried visage in the court room on Monday." She high fived Harry.

-x-

December, 1988, Gringotts

They took the horcrux to Gringotts in the morning the next day. Bloodaxe took the horcrux from them and put it safely away then looked at Anna with his brow raised.

"We had a deal. Right." Anna said.

She explained to him the threat from the muggles to the majs.

"Everyone, every magical is in danger from them. So we need to distance ourselves from them soon. I know we mostly depend on them for various things. Food, money, basic amenities, but we could produce all this ourselves. Could get our markets improved so we didn't have to depend on them. And we could start it now. As there is still time for the muggles to even learn about us on a large scale. No one is secure enough now to tell them about us, trying to increase contact with them."

"But what about the inbreeding that would be caused because of us isolating ourselves Anna?" Harry had asked her when she had discussed about it with him before they were going to talk to Bloodaxe about it.

"I mean the others would be alright, the goblins, centaurs and all. But what about wizards? I had read in the book about the blood status of wizards, that we all would have died out if we hadn't married muggles."

"We aren't actually the same species Harry. I mean we are all homo sapiens as you learned in school and we could reproduce with the muggles, but it weakens the magic in us. Its true wizards would have died out if they hadn't got together with muggles. But the truth is we are different species but the same family or same genus actually. Like for example take the cats. Panther and house cats are from the same family but couldn't reproduce with each other. But lion and tigers are from the same sub families or genus and could produce offspring together. So we are like them. But unlike with them the offspring produced aren't stronger than their parents, they have weaker magic than their magical parent. And those who do have stronger magic, it is because of the magical blood through the squib ancestor of the muggle." Anna explained to him.

"I had studied it in my lifetimes. We could marry muggles, squibs, muggle-borns, half-bloods, pure-bloods, goblins, centaurs, veelas, giants even, vampires, werewolves, even mermaid if you want and have kids. The kid would be magically stronger in most cases, except with muggles because they don't have magic in them. Their blood -if they don't have a magical ancestor, even a squib- don't have magic in it. So some Muggle-born are powerful like Hermione, others aren't."

"Then why would the author of the book..."

"Incomplete research. Or he didn't do it properly. He should have included the squibs in the factors. The majs don't give the squibs much value. They can't do magic but they still have magical blood in them. The magical genes. They send them in the muggle world, leaving them to try to make something of themselves in the different surroundings. Pure-bloods disown them. The maj world is seriously going to the dogs." Anna had said with the shake of her head.

"Would welcome the muggles with open arms but treat the squibs so bad. As if they are something shameful for their family." She added.

After Anna told Bloodaxe about the threat, she talked about the measures they could start taking.

"So I want you to first start investing more in the businesses in our world. And you must know about the squibs in the muggle world, the muggle-borns who didn't remained in the maj world, you do business with the muggle world through them right?" She asked him.

"Yes. Mostly. Though I would have to discuss all this with others before we could move forward with anything. We had kept an eye on the muggles for such a possibility in the future, but now we can be sure that the threat is real, so we will start taking measures to prevent it. It may have been late for doing anything, if you hadn't told us about this now, and we had learned later." Bloodaxe said to her and tilted his head in thanks.

"I am doing it for all our wellbeing and survival. And I didn't told you about it until now, so you don't have to be so grateful Bloodaxe-dono." Anna replied cheekily.

They then discussed about the ritual to bring back Tom.

"We had been preparing for it since you kept the first horcrux safe and didn't destroyed it. So most of the preparation is complete. We could do the ritual in these holidays or later if you want to do it on some important day like Samhain or others."

"Actually I was thinking about doing it on his birthday. It would give a boost to the ritual. And I know his birthday is on 31st December."

"You could learn it even now, searching the official data of the time period he was born in." She added at Harry's inquisitive look.

"He didn't destroy all his records properly." She added.

They then discussed a new identity for him.

"He would probably give himself an extravagant name, if we left it to him." Anna had said at their unenthusiastic attitude.

They decided to discuss his back story with him before they decided on anything. Then moved on to the topic of the trial.

"Cato informed me that they received Pettigrew in a cage in the DMLE. Good job." Bloodaxe said. Harry and Anna just smirked back.

They bid him farewell and went to wander around the alley. It wasn't crowded just late minute shoppers, shopping for Christmas gifts. Anna and Harry had bought theirs earlier in the last week.

-x-

A/N: Thanks for reading. Please Fav, Follow and Review. See ya, Novarkek.