ow, yeah, I don't own Harry Potter... and if people ask, I had never intentions to own it one day...
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But if Remus had expected that Ron would give up his pet easily, now they had thrown Snape against a wall, he was very wrong.
"Come off it. Are you trying to say that you broke out of Azkaban just to get your hands on Scabbers? I mean . . . okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat – there are millions of rats – how's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"
Remus noticed two things about that question. Ron was, just as Harry, still referring to him, not to Sirius. And Ron had asked a question that had Remus flabbergasted. It was without a doubt the best question asked to him this year. So what did this mean? Was Sirius still the bad guy? It was too hard for Remus to fall back into that lie again, but still, he had to know.
"You know, Sirius, that's a fair question. How did you find out were he was?"
Sirius looked him for a second out of accusing eyes, and then slowly moved his hand towards his pocket. He pulled out a crumbled piece of what looked like a newspaper, smoothed it flat on his trousers, and moved it in the direction of Remus and the students.
The first thing Remus saw was that it had a moving picture on it. The picture was of a family, and his eyes fell on the little girl in the middle. That was Ginny Weasley! But that meant . . . his eyes fell on the boy next to her, who was obviously Ron, and then immediately noticed the greyish rat on his shoulders. That explained it!
"How did you get this?" he looked up to Sirius' face, his mouth hanging slightly open.
"Fudge. When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me this paper. And there was Peter, on the front page . . . on this boy's shoulder . . . I knew at once . . . how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts . . . to where Harry was . . ."
Remus saw Sirius swallow hard, but focused his attention to the piece of paper again, to find more similarities between Peter and the rat. Had Sirius based his whole escape on just one picture of a rat? Had he really gone mad in Azkaban, or was there more?
The family was waving energetically, with huge smiles on their faces. Scabbers was looking a great deal healthier than he did at present. He looked at the live version of Scabbers (who had just tried to bite Ron again) and back at the photo. If he were to tell anyone that the rat on the photo and in this room were the same, they would probably laugh and ask if he was mad. But then the Scabbers in the photo moved a bit on Ron's shoulder, and it all seemed to become clear:
"My God. His front paw . . ."
"What about it?" Ron immediately asked, now trying to hold Peter and making an attempt to pull his sleeves farther down his arms so Scabbers couldn't bite them again. But Remus was looking at Sirius, who had now a glimmer of a smile in his eyes and around his mouth.
"He's got a toe missing," Sirius answered Ron.
"Of course," Remus said, more to himself than to anyone else. He had read the – for him exceedingly painful – headlines back in the day: Mass murder; only a finger found of the wizard victim. Of course he had, when he had seen that the paper was starting with that subject on their front-page –again-, threw the paper in the waste bin, denying at that moment that it had been his friends they were writing about. "So simple . . ." Peter had made a tiny sacrifice to make it even more believable that he was innocent and dead, "So brilliant . . ."he looked up, and met Sirius' eyes again. "He cut it off himself?"
Sirius was nodding heavily and explained. Although it was hard for him to hear the story in such detail, he knew that this was not half as bad as Sirius had felt for the past thirteen years.
"Just before he transformed. When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself – and sped down onto the sewer with the other rats . . ."
Remus swallowed and turned to the trio, all three of whom were looking flabbergasted.
"Didn't you ever hear, Ron? The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger."
But Remus saw that Ron wasn't buying it. Hermione and Harry, however, were oddly quiet, and Remus had a feeling that he was finally getting through to them.
"Look, Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something! He's been in my family for ages, right—"
Remus cut him off. There was another clue! Ron had presented it him on a silver platter.
"Twelve years, in fact. Didn't you ever wonder why he was living so long?"
Ron got a bit red. "We – we've been taking good care of him!"
But Remus was barely listening to Ron's excuses. Every moment, he got new clues that proved Scabbers was Peter.
"Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he? I'd guess that he's been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again . . ."
He looked at Sirius and could swear that he saw a grin.
"He's been scared of that mad cat!"
Lupin looked around. The cat was looking at Scabbers intensely. Hermione was looking angrily at Ron, and Harry was slowly shaking his head.
"This cat isn't mad," Sirius said suddenly. Remus looked around, surprised. Sirius was a dog as an Animagus. How could he ever like a cat? He shook his head to get that thought out, and listened.
"He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognised Peter for what he was straight away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me. Finally I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping . . ."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, puzzled, but looking a bit more kindly at Sirius now that he had spoken so generously about her pet.
"He tried to bring Peter to me, but couldn't . . . so he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for me . . . as I understand it, he took them from a boy's bedside table . . ."
When the other three humans in the room were thinking what kind of effect this had on their ideas about Black, Remus remembered that Sirius had once claimed to have had an entire conversation with an owl, who had told him that the owls actually had made a society to improve the size of the cages. Back then, Remus had thought that Sirius had made it up, and maybe he had, but somehow, Sirius could still communicate with animals in his Animagus form.
Sirius continued.
"But Peter got wind of what he was going and ran for it . . . this cat – Crookshanks, did you call him?" (Hermione nodded) "—told me Peter had left blood on the sheets . . . I suppose he bit himself . . ." this was news to Remus, but with all the new insights in his head, he wasn't very shocked by it . . . it now seemed to have been a very Peter-like thing to do.
Harry, however, still tried to deny that Remus and Sirius had made a good point . . .
"And why did he fake his death? Because he knew you were about to kill him like you killed my parents!"
Remus didn't have to look at Sirius to know how much Harry's words were hurting him.
"No. Harry—" But Harry didn't listen at all.
"And now you've come to finish him off!"
Remus wanted to correct Harry, but before he could, Sirius spoke.
"Yes, I have."
"Then I should've let Snape take you!"
"Harry, don't you see? All this time we've thought Sirius betrayed your parents, and Peter tracked him down – but it was the other way around, don't you see?" They were all impatient and on edge, and he heard that his own voice wasn't an exception. "Peter betrayed your mother and father – Sirius tracked Peter down—"
But it seemed that Harry wasn't thinking logically anymore, as he had done when Snape had entered. Ron was looking uncertain, and Hermione was nodding, showing that she understood the story. Harry, on the other hand, started yelling again.
"THAT'S NOT TRUE! HE WAS THEIR SECRET KEEPER! HE SAID SO BEFORE YOU TURNED UP, HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!"
Remus didn't understand why Sirius would have said that, and he looked at him, asking himself at the same time how Harry had known all this about his parents.
"Harry, I as good as killed them." Remus saw that Sirius was very moved and upset. His eyes were a bit watery. "I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as a Secret Keeper instead of me . . . I'm to blame, I know it . . ." Remus saw him swallow. "The night they died, I'd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he'd gone." Sirius talked fast, with an emotion in his voice that begged Harry to listen, that begged everyone to listen. "Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared, I set out for your parent's house straight away." When Sirius mentioned this, Remus immediately had an image of Sirius, on his huge motorbike, riding towards Godric's Hollow at the same, fast speed he had used when he'd arrived for Christmas dinner the year before everything had fallen apart. Remus had been standing in the back garden then, jumping out of the way when Sirius landed, and remembered hearing Lily scream at Sirius for nearly half an hour for destroying the garden furniture they had gotten from her parents, while James and himself laughed quietly behind her.
"And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies—" Remus looked away, "I realised what Peter must have done. What I'd done."
Sirius turned around and didn't speak any further. Remus felt a sort of rage beginning to eat his insides, trying to get out. He had never had this before. How could Peter have done it? After all the things they had been through as true marauders, as true friends? How could Peter have lived with himself for the past thirteen years, while knowing that he had killed – no, worse – betrayed his friend and caused his death, and had blamed another for doing so?
"Enough of this," he heard himself say harshly. He saw that Harry still didn't believe Sirius and himself fully and that only got him more angry. He had never felt so enraged about anything in his life. Peter needed to be punished – now. "There's one certain way to prove what really happened. Ron, give me that rat." He said the last words with such a force that it seemed to be an order. Still, Ron didn't budge.
"What are you going to do with him if I give him to you?"
"Force him to show himself," he answered, but still in that same, harsh tone. When he noticed that Ron was hesitating, he added: "If he's really a rat, it won't hurt him."
The hesitateing look in Ron's eyes grew stronger, and then he stuck out his hand with Peter in it. Remus took the rat, which started to squeak and wriggle even more. He looked at Peter for a moment, and got the urge to break his neck right now, just as Sirius had wanted to do before Remus had stopped him. How easy it would be; he wouldn't even have to hear the lies Peter would be telling in a moment. But then his tiny voice of logic sense (that was still somewhere in Remus' enraged mind) said that if he didn't show the real Peter, Harry would still not believe that Sirius was innocent, and his whole story about the marauders, his situation, and James would be for nothing.
"Ready, Sirius?" He turned to his friend, who had the same hunger in his eyes as Remus felt, only multiplied by thirteen years, nodded. Remus also saw that Sirius' eyes were wet, but he didn't fix his attention to it; right now, the rat was trying to bite him. Sirius had already taken Snape's wand from the bed, and approached Remus, his eyes fixed on Peter.
"Together?" Sirius asked in a low whisper.
"I think so. On the count of three. One – two – THREE!"
Remus said the spell mentally and let Peter go. For a moment, he thought that it wasn't working, that they had made a mistake.
Two light blue flashes shot at the rat, which hit the floor with a thud. Then there came a white light, the same thing that had happened when they had forced James to transform back when he was being forced to complete a Potions assignment with Snape.
Quickly, the rat transformed from a rat to human. Remus would have been startled, had he not expected this to happen. When the transformation was done, Remus didn't knew which form he preferred; rats were disgusting creatures, but so was the human who stood in front of him with, Remus noticed immediately, no index finger.
Though undeniably human at this point, Peter still looked like a rat. For a second, Remus wondered if that had anything to do with being in one's Animagus form so long, but then he focused back on the man in front of him.
"Well, hello, Peter. Long time no see." It was with great difficulty that he kept his voice calm and steady; inside he was still raging.
Peter shuddered at the sound of Remus' voice, seeming to become even more rat-like.
"S-Sirius . . . R-Remus . . . My friends . . . my old friends . . ." Remus saw Peter's eyes flickering towards the door. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Sirius was already raising his wand to destroy the evil little creature in front of them. But that couldn't happen! Remus saw that Harry and the others were looking at them with their mouths open, and probably would believe them. But Remus needed to hear Peter confess his crimes; after all, killing him off wouldn't actually prove anything. He grabbed Sirius' wrist and shot him a warning look. Sirius barely even looked at Remus: his eyes were filled with hate towards Peter.
"We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed—" His dangerously calm voice was interrupted by Peter, who was still squeaking, but now in human syllables.
"Remus, you don't believe him, do you . . . he tried to kill me, Remus . . ." Sweat was breaking out on the little man's forehead, and he was carefully avoiding eye contact with Sirius, his eyes darting from Remus back to the door.
"So we've heard. I'd like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you'd be so—"
"He's come to try and kill me again!" Pettigrew shrieked suddenly. Remus was slightly insulted; did Peter honestly think him so dim that he would fall for this obvious attempt to escape?
"He killed Lily and James and now he's going to kill me, too . . . you've got to help me, Remus . . ." The lies Pettigrew was telling only made Remus more sure about his decision to kill him after he had heard the whole story.
"No one's going to try and kill you until we've sorted a few things out."
"Sorted things out? I'd knew he'd come after me! I knew he'd be back for me! I've been waiting for this for twelve years!" Pettigrew's voice rose higher.
"You knew Sirius was going to break out of Azkaban? When nobody has ever done it before?" Remus tried not to shout at the horrible man in front of him, but it was hard not to when he told such unbelievable lies.
"He's got Dark powers the rest of us can only dream of! How else did he get out of there? I suppose He Who Must Not Be Named taught him a few tricks!" Remus felt his blood boiling. How could he? How could Pettigrew, even now and in front of Harry, still lie? Did Peter think that he still had a change to make himself believable?
Before Remus could say anything, Sirius started to laugh, in a cold, hollow tone. It gave Remus shivers and made him uncomfortable.
"Voldemort, teach me tricks? What, scared to hear your old master's name?" he continued, when Peter flinched and could barely hide a squeaking sound. "I don't blame you, Peter. His lot aren't very happy with you, are they?"
His eyes now glanced with an almost begging look to the door.
"Don't know – what you mean, Sirius—"
"You haven't been hiding from me for twelve years. You've been hiding from Voldemort's old supporters. I heard things in Azkaban, Peter . . . they all think you're dead, or you'd have to answer to them . . . I've heard them screaming all sorts of things in their sleep. Sounds like they think the double-crosser double-crossed them. Voldemort went to the Potters' on your information . . . and Voldemort met his downfall there. And not all Voldemort's supporters ended up in Azkaban, did they? There are still plenty out here, biding their time, pretending they've seen the error of their ways . . . If they ever got wind that you were still alive, Peter—" Sirius walked closer and closer to the trembling man, almost forcing him to look into his eyes. Remus stood still, listening to both of them. He knew that Sirius had to do parts of this alone... it had been his hunt for almost thirteen years, until half an hour ago. He felt another shiver running up his neck and wondered for a second if it could have to do with something else than his old friends bickering.
"Don't know . . . what you're talking about . . .You don't believe this – this madness, Remus—" So Peter was trying to appeal to the old voice of reason. In the same, cold, calm voice, he said, "I must admit, Peter, I have difficulty in understanding why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat."
"Innocent, but scared! If Voldemort's supporters were after me, it was because I put one of their best men in Azkaban – the spy, Sirius Black!"
Remus had to admit it: Peter had a lot of courage to say that last part with such force, when Sirius was at that point towering over him.
"How dare you!" Sirius growled. "I, a spy for Voldemort? When did I ever sneak around people who were stronger and more powerful than myself? But you, Peter – I'll never understand why I didn't see you were the spy from the start. You always liked big friends who'd look after you, didn't you? It used to be us . . . me and Remus . . . and James . . ." Remus saw Sirius glance at Harry, who was still looking sceptical, though less than before, now that they had shown that the rat was indeed a man.
"Me, a spy . . . must be out of your mind . . . never . . . don't know how you can say such a—"
But Sirius was losing his patience. "Lily and James only made you Secret Keeper because I suggested it. I thought it was the perfect plan . . . a bluff . . . Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they'd use a weak, talentless thing like you . . . it must have been the finest moment of your miserable life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters."
Remus felt another cold shiver. Then he noticed there was a draft coming in the half-rotted window and the door that was still standing open after Snape had entered. While Peter muttered something, Hermione suddenly said:
"Professor Lupin? Can – can I say something?" She was looking timid, but seemed to understand the situation completely. She was probably going to ask some more things, just to clarify the subject a bit more.
"Certainly, Hermione."
"Well – Scabbers – I mean, this – this man – he's been sleeping in Harry's dormitory for three years. If he's working for You Know Who, how come he never tried to hurt Harry before now?"
"There!" Pettigrew practically screamed at Remus and Sirius, happy to hear another reason he could use to his advantage. "Thank you! You see, Remus? I have never hurt a hair on Harry's head! Why should I?"
Perhaps that the comment about Harry's hair and being suddenly reminded of the genes they came from made him even more angry, or perhaps Sirius was losing more and more patience every second. All Remus knew was that before he could barely open his mouth himself, Sirius had spoken.
"I'll tell you why. Because you never did anything for anyone unless you could see what was in it for you. Voldemort's been in hiding for twelve years, they say he's half-dead. You weren't about to commit murder right under Albus Dumbledore's nose for a wreck of a wizard who'd lost all his power, were you? You'd want to be quite sure he was the biggest bully in the playground before you went back to him, wouldn't you? Why else did you find a wizard family to take you in? Keeping an ear out for news, weren't you, Peter? Just in case your old protector regained strength, and it was safe to rejoin him . . ."
It looked as if Peter wanted to answer, but Sirius didn't let him, and every time, he closed his mouth again.
"Er – Mr. Black – Sirius?" Hermione now looked at him and Remus smiled a bit. They almost had her convinced. Sirius looked bewilderedly around, finally tearing his eyes from Peter, who was looking at the door again. Sirius looked at Hermione as if he had hardly noticed that she was still there.
"If you don't mind me asking, how – how did you get out of Azkaban, if you didn't use Dark Magic?"
Peter took advantage of that opportunity to nod frantically and begin speaking very fast: "Thank you! Exactly! Precisely what I—" But Remus looked at him with such anger, that he fell silent.
Hermione was still looking at Sirius, who was now talking slowly, explaining.
"I don't know how I did it. I think the only reason I never lost my mind is that I knew I was innocent. That wasn't a happy thought, though, so the Dementors couldn't suck it out of me . . . but it kept me sane and knowing who I am . . . helped me keep my powers . . . so when it all became . . ." he was making a vague hand gesture and Remus felt his heart bleed, " too much . . . I could transform in my cell . . . become a dog. Dementors can't see, you know . . ." He looked at Hermione, who nodded and was listening intensely. "They feel their way towards people by sensing their emotions . . . they could tell that my feelings were less – less human, less complex when I was a dog . . . but they thought, of course, that I was losing my mind like everyone else in there, so it didn't trouble them. But I was weak, very weak, and I had no hope of driving them away from me with a wand . . . But then I saw Peter in that picture . . . I realised he was at Hogwarts, with Harry . . . perfectly positioned to act, if one hint reached his ears that the Dark Side was gathering strength again . . . ready to strike the moment he could be sure of allies . . . to deliver the last Potter to them. If he gave them Harry, who'd dare say he betrayed Lord Voldemort? He'd be welcomed back with honours . . ." Sirius glanced to Pettigrew, who was busy with looking at the door and shaking his head frantically at the same time.
"So, you see, I had to do something. I was the only one who knew Peter was still alive . . . It was as if someone had lit a fire in my head, and the Dementors couldn't destroy it . . . it wasn't a happy feeling . . . it was an obsession . . . but it gave me strength, it cleared my mind. So, one night when they opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog . . . it's so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused . . . I was thin, very thin . . . thin enough to slip through the bars . . . I swam as a dog back to the mainland . . . I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog . . . I've been living in the Forest ever since . . . except when I came to watch the Quidditch game, of course . . . you fly as well as your father did, Harry . . ."
Remus' jaw had dropped open. He had forgotten that Sirius had not only had to endure only his jail time, but also the time of a fugitive.
"Believe me. Believe me. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them." His cheeks were wet and his voice croaked. He looked pleadingly at Harry, and Harry, finally convinced, nodded.
"NO!" Peter had fallen on his knees and Remus looked at him in disgust. He was crawling around, first to Sirius.
"Sirius – it's me . . . it's Peter . . . your friend . . . you wouldn't . . ."
But Sirius did the same thing Remus would have done. In fact, he actually reacted more mildly than Remus had expected: he kicked out and Peter crawled away, to Remus.
"Remus! You don't believe this . . . wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?" he squeaked. But Remus didn't even have to think about that question. He remembered all too well that he had just entered Fenrir's colony as the Order's spy, had heard about all the plans Fenrir had, had realized that they actually made sense to the other werewolves, and Remus knew that he had not been in a position to be trusted at the time. He remembered all too well the warning Dumbledore had given him before he had started his mission: "Be sure that you always see the line between right and wrong, Remus, and be sure that the line will not move."
"Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter." He then looked at Sirius, who was looking guilty. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?"
"Forgive me, Remus."
"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend," he said, suddenly feeling slightly better: after all, Sirius had made mistakes too. He rolled up his sleeves: after the story Sirius had told, and after Harry had finally believed them, the urge to kill Peter was becoming bigger and bigger.
"And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?"
"Of course," he said, in the same jaunty way he had done before Azkaban. He followed Remus' example, rolled up his sleeves too, and said: "Shall we kill him together?"
"Yes, I think so."
Peter was looking pleadingly at them, but Remus couldn't find any compassion in his soul for him. This was the creature that had made him miserable for the last twelve years.
"You wouldn't . . . you won't . . ." He fled away from his former friends and crawled to Ron.
"Ron . . . haven't I been a good friend . . . a good pet? You won't let them kill me, Ron, will you . . . you're on my side, aren't you?"
But the look on Ron's face showed a different opinion. He tried to move away from Peter's hand on the bed, and said, with utmost revulsion: "I let you sleep in my bed!"
"Kind boy . . . kind master . . . you won't let them do it . . . I was your rat . . . I was a good pet. ."
"If you made a better rat than human, it's not much to boast about, Peter," Remus said to the grovelling man, but Peter wasn't listening, too busy crawling to the next person: Hermione. Remus was starting to lose his patience now.
"Sweet girl . . . clever girl . . . you – you won't let them . . . help me . . ." But Hermione was just as stubborn as the rest of the company. She pulled her robes out of Pettigrew's hands and stepped backwards, horrified, but with a decisive glint in her eyes.
Then, just as Remus was about to step in, Pettigrew turned to Harry.
"Harry . . . Harry . . . you look just like your father . . . just like him . . ."
That was the limit. Remus would have screamed, if Sirius hadn't already done so.
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY? HOW DARE YOU FACE HIM? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT JAMES IN FRONT OF HIM?"
"Harry," Remus heard Pettigrew whisper while Sirius was screaming, "Harry, James wouldn't have wanted me killed . . . James would have understood, Harry . . . he would have shown me mercy . . ."
With a tiny nod to Sirius, he walked to Pettigrew. They took his arms and pulled him away from Harry. They dumped him on the floor at their feet, where he lay, shaking and trembling. Remus felt himself trembling too, but for very different reasons than Peter did.
"You sold Lily and James to Voldemort. Do you deny it?"
And then, Peter cried. He finally stopped with the lies. But it was too late for their trust.
"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord . . . you have no idea . . . he has weapons you can't imagine . . . I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen . . . He Who Must Not Be Named forced me—"
"DON'T LIE! YOU'D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!"
"He – he was taking over everywhere! Wh—what was there to be gained by refusing him?"
"What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter!"
"You don't understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!"
"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED! DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"
Remus remained a bit calmer than Sirius and said his goodbyes in a different tone:
"You should have realised. If Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Goodbye, Peter." All his emotions of the past twelve years turned into rage. Remus was sure he could perform the Killing Curse now. He raised his wand, saw Sirius do the same, saw Hermione covering her eyes and . . . saw Harry jumping in front of Pettigrew.
"NO! You can't kill him. You can't."
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Long time no update, but this chapter was also hard and boring to write: not much things I could add, from my own inspiration...
If you can't see where th shivers Remus has are leading to, just think what the next chapter will probably bring you, and why Snape knew where they were...
leave a review: that makes me happy, and will give me more energy to write the next chapter:D
xxx-mokimik-xx