A/N: Thank you everyone for the wonderful feedback!

In the end, Sirius decided that since he wouldn't know where to find Pettigrew until the students were back at Hogwarts, he would stick with Harry until then. He spent most of the past week wandering around Diagon Alley alongside Harry and learning about his godson's past. Harry never told him the full stories behind everything he said, but he had let quite a few things drop when talking to his dog, and, after hearing those things, Sirius had to conclude that Dumbeldore had indeed gone daft. Trolls, basilisks, a crazy house-elf, a diary that sounded eerily like a Horcrux, and not mention a professor with Voldemort on the back of his head. Lily and James had to be rolling over in their graves by now!

But what bothered Sirius the most was what Harry said about his life with his aunt and uncle, and how he said it. While Harry clearly wasn't happy about it, he talked like living in a cupboard and having bars placed on your window was nothing to be concerned about, acceptable even!

Sirius didn't know whom he wanted to have a 'word' with first: the Dursleys or Dumbledore. Either way, he was going to find Pettigrew and give his godson a new home by Christmas.

Sirius wiped the fog of the bathroom mirror. Being fed by Harry for the past week had certainly done him some good. He was no longer deathly skinny and some color had returned to his skin. Being able to wash and cut his previously greasy, elbow-length hair helped too. He would have liked to magically clean his prison robes-being the only clothes he had-but, thankfully, Harry had enough wits about him not to leave his wand in the room when he was out, so he settled for a washing them in the shower.

The first time Harry had left Sirius alone in the room and returned to find his dog clean, he muttered something about housekeeping being thorough, which was lucky for Sirius seeing as how dogs weren't supposed to bathe themselves. Sirius shook his head much like a wet dog would. He needed to finish drying, get dressed, change back into Padfoot, and let the bathroom air out before Harry got back, and Harry never left him alone for too very long. The boy hadn't been kidding when he said he knew what it was like to be lonely.

"I'm going to leave Scabbers in my room."

Voices at the door woke Padfoot up. He yawned, stretched, and jumped off the bed when Harry opened the door. A couple minutes later they were joined by someone Sirius assumed was Harry's friend. He took one looked at the gangly red-head and pounced. This was the boy from the Prophet! The one with Pettigrew on his shoulder!

"Ahh!"

"Down!" Harry grabbed Sirius around the neck and tugged.

"The bloody hell is wrong with that stupid mutt?"

"I don't know. He's never done that before. Bad dog."

Was Harry trying to reprimand him? It didn't sound too convincing. Regardless, Sirius put his tail between his legs and gave an apologetic whine. That boy didn't have Pettigrew with him at the moment. Now that Sirius knew where Pettigrew was, he would wait for everyone to fall asleep, and then make his move. He couldn't afford to delay now that he had evidence that Pettigrew was not only at Hogwarts with Harry, but quite possibly in the same dorm as him. With any luck, he'd have the traitor in time to sign Harry's Hogsmeade form himself.

"What's going on?" A girl with bushy, brown hair came into Harry's room.

"Harry's dumb dog attacked me!"

"He only jumped on you, Ron."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Dogs jump all the time. It doesn't look like he's trying to attack you. But you should really train him better, Harry."

"He's never jumped on anyone like that before!"

Two more red-heads-twins, by the looks of it-stuck their heads in the room. "You probably scared him with that ugly face of yours, little brother," the first one said.

"Yes, what poor creature wouldn't attack when confronted with that?" the second one added.

"SHUT UP!"

"Harry got a dog? I want to see!" A red-haired girl pushed her way into the room. "He's adorable!" She pet Sirius on the head. "What's his name, Harry?"

"Oh, er-"

Come to think of it, Harry never had given him a name. Not really being a dog, Sirius was intelligent enough to know when Harry was talking to him without being called, and always responded instantly to a 'come here, boy'. People Harry ran into from school had commented on what an awesome dog he was, but no one had asked his name before.

"Tsk, tsk. A dog as magnificent as that should not be without a name," one of the twins said.

"I just… never thought about it," Harry admitted.

The names the kids started throwing around for him got worse by the second. The one they finally settled on, 'Procyon', wasn't as bad as it could have been, except now his godson was expecting him to answer to that.

"Are you bringing Procyon to Hogwarts, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I should think not." Another red-head, this one a bit older, appeared in the doorway. "Dogs are not acceptable pets at Hogwarts, and as Head Boy-"

The door slammed in his face before he could finish, much to the amusement of the kids in the room.

"Percy's right though, you won't be allowed to bring a dog on the train," Hermione said.

"I know," Harry said, and bit his lip. "Plus, I've got Hedwig. I can't leave her behind."

"Don't worry about that, mate," one of the twins said.

"Fred and I can help you get him in, you'll just need to hide him," George said.

They opened Harry's trunk and emptied some stuff out of it. They looked at Sirius with a glint in their eyes that Sirius recognized from the eyes of James and himself during their own school days. Not good.

Those fool kids actually tried to stuff him in a trunk! It wasn't until Hermione pointed out that he wouldn't be able to breathe and Harry's trunk would look too suspicious with holes in it that they let him go long enough to get away.

It had gotten a lot quieter now that it was only Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the room with him.

Harry was scratching Sirius behind the ears. "I really don't want to leave him, but I can't take him, and the Dursleys won't watch him for me."

"Ask Hagrid to take him," Ron suggested. "We had to help take care of his stupid dragon."

"Yeah, maybe I will," Harry said.

Sirius had to admit, it would be a lot easier to get Pettigrew if Harry just brought him to the dorm where Pettigrew was being kept. He still wanted to grab the rat while everyone slept at the Leaky Cauldron, but it didn't look like these three were headed for bed anytime soon, so he had to prepare for the chance that he wouldn't get an opportunity until he got to Hogwarts. Plus 'Scabbers' appeared to be ill, so Ron was watching him extra carefully. He'd have to wait for the boy to let his guard down.

In the meantime, there was nothing Pettigrew could do to hurt Harry while Sirius was there. He would gladly rip the rat apart first.