To Bedlam and Partway Back

NOTE: WARNINGS FOR SLASH

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters

Chapter Eight

Harry bit his lip, and exchanged an anxious glance with Cedric. "That's what we need Scabbers for," he whispered. "He's an animagus."

"Peter Pettigrew's an animagus- and he's been hiding out in our family for the past twelve years?" the twins squeaked.

Harry chewed on his lips. "We need him," he repeated.

The twins stared at each other, and then down at the map.

"Forget Mrs. Norris, we'll say we filched him for experiments and he exploded," one of them declared fiercely. "We'll get him to you tomorrow morning, first thing at breakfast."

Harry nearly sagged with relief. "Thank you."

"No," the twins said tightly, "thank you." They took another look at the outline of Gryffindor Tower on the map. "If you'll excuse us." It was the first time Harry'd seen the twins look so hard.

"Just have one more thing, if you wouldn't mind?"

The twins turned halfway, about to disappear into a nook near the ovens.

"Don't ever show me that map again."

They turned to fully face him, surprise clearly showing on their faces. Harry shook his head, wouldn't explain. "Just- please, don't."

They slowly nodded. "Alright." Then they disappeared into the nook and from the kitchen entirely.

Harry immediately turned to Cedric. "That was the right thing to do, wasn't it?"

"You thought you could trust them," the blond said slowly. "You know them better than I do. I trust your judgment."

Harry bit his lip again, and Cedric smiled, running his thumb over his lower lip to stop the abuse. Harry let his thumb slip into his mouth, and accidentally flicked his tongue against it. The two boys both reflected surprise, and abruptly drew back.

At last Cedric smiled. "I'm sorry if this is going too fast," he said. "It's just too easy to forget how young you are, that I've only known you for less than a week. Everything just happens so naturally-"

Harry shook his head furiously, but his cheeks were smarting. "I don't blame you a bit. I-I like what's happening, and I trust you." He smiled a little hesitantly as he sent Cedric's words back at him.

The blond's open face broke into a genuine smile, and he slipped his hand up Harry's neck to the back of his head and tugged him close for a kiss. Harry met him comfortably, lips shyly parted as Cedric slipped his tongue into his mouth. He gasped as Cedric's tongue slid under his own, and clung to his shoulders a little tighter. He moaned into Cedric's mouth, and after they broke apart, Harry refused to look anywhere even near his face.

Cedric grinned at him, unable to hide his cheer, and captured his lips once more, although this time they merely kept their lips pressed against each other. "You don't know how amazing you are," Cedric murmured against his lips.

The blush on Harry's face was slowly creeping down his neck as well, making him laugh all the harder.

"How d'you want to go about it tomorrow?" Cedric asked Harry as they were firmly ensconced in one of the squishy Hufflepuff chairs. Herbie and Hermione were once again sitting opposite them. The other Hufflepuffs were scattered about the Common Room, providing a good yellow showing of solidarity while at the same time giving their corner a comfortable berth, allowing the quartet their privacy.

Once they'd returned to the common room they immediately told Herbie and Hermione about the events of the Shrieking Shack, and Hermione let out a scream just after Herbie Silenced her reflexively. Herbie himself had just looked stunned.

"How about we go in all guns- wands, in this case," Harry corrected, "blazing?"

Cedric rolled his eyes. "The Gryffindor way?" he teased. "Herbie, we really have to look for something that'll cure these Gryffindor tendencies that keep emerging in our new Hufflepuffs."

Herbie slipped him a grim smile, but wasn't half as festive as his friend. "I say we sic it on Lupin. He deserves to see what us Hufflepuffs are capable of, to see what it truly means to be loyal."

Hermione fretted over the chestnut-haired boy. "That's a dangerous game to play," she said.

Herbie quirked a tired smile at her. "Every step in this game's been dangerous, so far," he said, "from the beginning when Ced and Harry Bonded. It's a wonder no one's caught on yet, and it's only going to get worse, I think." Then he sighed. "Well, at least we'll have the tools to make something good out of this."

Harry looked at him questioningly. "Oh? How?"

The Sixth-Year jerked his chin over to where Susan Bones sat with Zacharias Smith, going over their Transfiguration homework. "Have her aunt come in for breakfast tomorrow; Amelia Bones is notorious at the Ministry of Magic for a low tolerance of the bollocks Dumbledore shovels. It's a Sunday, so she should be able to make it. Not to mention she won't need the same sort of clearance another parent or guardian would, because she's with the Ministry. We've got to watch our timing though, it's got to be exactly right…"

Cedric's eyes widened at the sly gleam in his friend's pale blue eyes. "Merlin, Herbie, where were you hiding this Slytherin all along?"

Instead of being insulted, Herbie just laughed. "I can't count the number of times over the years I've used it on you." Then he winked. "Obviously I'm good, if you've only just realised."

Cedric gaped, and then snorted. "Alright, be like that," he said. Then he leaned forward in his seat. "What's your plan, then?"

Herbie bared all his teeth in a shit-eating grin. "Well, for starters…"

By some miracle or other, nearly the entire school had made it down for breakfast on the Sunday morning. Dumbledore was conspicuously absent at the head of the table. Some of the staff looked surprised, but not too concerned by the number of students in the Great Hall.

The twins came in twenty minutes late, their jaws clenched. They went straight to Harry and Cedric at the Hufflepuff table, and the tension in the hall ratcheted up another twenty notches. The school had been on tenterhooks all week, although opinion leaned heavily toward the Hufflepuff cause. The badgers had never been more in the limelight. The Slytherins especially, and surprisingly enough, even a great majority of the Ravenclaws, were having a grand time taunting the more explosive members of Gryffindor.

So when the twins went straight to the Hufflepuff table, heads turned all over the hall. Ron opened his mouth to spit out something nasty, but Dean Thomas kicked his shins.

"Here you go," they said, smuggling the Stunned rat to the black-haired boy. Their eyes were steely. Then they went back to the Gryffindor table, but sat at the very end beside Lee Jordan and, amazingly, their brother Percy. They didn't open their mouths to speak, no matter what questions were flung at them.

Herbie smiled at his two friends supportively from across the table. Harry was a sickly shade of pale.

"The stage is all set," the older boy whispered. They glanced down the table at Susan, and she winked at them, giving them a thumb's up. "Don't worry; there isn't any way you can't come out of this looking good."

Harry took a deep breath, and then grit his teeth. Cedric rolled his eyes and Herbie mouthed the word, 'Gryffindor', at him. Hermione saw and stomped on his foot.

Harry slipped out of his seat and approached the staff table, Cedric on his heels. The noise in the hall slowly trickled down to nothing as people were turning in their seats to watch. Sprout, sitting beside Lupin, gave them a small smile.

"Professor," Harry began. Lupin was very pale. It looked like Sprout had already grilled the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor previously, but hadn't been able to tell them about it yet. Harry reached into his robe pocket and drew out the fat, Stunned rat. "Do you recognise this?" He held the rat up far enough so that Lupin could catch a glimpse of the missing right paw.

Ron shot straight to his feet. "HE STOLE MY RAT!" he screeched.

Percy was on his feet a moment later. Obviously the twins had told him- something. "Twenty points from Gryffindor," he said icily.

"B-but-"

"And a detention on Friday night with Filch," Percy snapped, "for creating a commotion. Now sit back down!"

Lupin didn't even react to Ron's shouting. His eyes were wide and lost as they stared at the rat his once-Bonded's son held. "H-how-"

"Do you recognise this rat, Professor?" Harry asked again.

"I-I swear," he breathed, "in another life I would- but it's just- it isn't possible."

"Cast the spell to revert an animagus to its human form," Cedric ordered. If possible, Lupin's eyes went even wider.

"How do you-"

"Cast it, if you would, Professor," Harry said tightly.

Lupin appeared too stunned to do anything, so Sprout rolled her eyes at him and pulled out her own wand. "Animeo Revealus!"

A jet of sickly yellow light hit the rat, causing Harry to drop it in surprise. Its form shook and distorted, extending and enlarging and unravelling to form a larger mass. Once he'd been fully restored to his human form, Harry quickly cast a cutting charm on the man's sleeve.

"Diffindo!"

It sliced off the sleeve just above the elbow, revealing the faint outline of the Dark Mark.

"A Dark Mark!" Flitwick squeaked, and fell off his chair. Hagrid goggled at the body on the floor.

"Whaddya know? It's Peter Pettigrew!"

At that exact moment, Amelia Bones was slipping into the Great Hall rather unnoticed due to the commotion at the staff table, but at Hagrid's exclamation, she shoved her way to the front of things, and gaped at the Stunned figure of a man that had long been thought dead.

"What's the meaning of this!" she shouted.

"I'd like to know the same thing," Harry said firmly. "Sirius Black was imprisoned for the betrayal of my- the Potters, I mean, Pettigrew's murder, and the murder of a dozen Muggles, but here we have Pettigrew, alive and, well, Stunned, really, who's been sleeping in little boys' beds for the past twelve years as a rat of all things."

Ron and Percy turned decidedly green at that.

"And he's carrying the Dark Mark," Cedric added helpfully.

"I'm calling backup," Amelia snapped. "We're taking him into custody and getting the truth from him- with Veritaserum."

Her blue eyes snapped sharply to McGonagall. "Where is Dumbledore?" she demanded.

But the tartan-clad woman was too shocked to even summon up a reply.

Lupin stared unwaveringly at the faint mark on his once-friend's skin. Then his face slowly transformed into the most frightening snarl they'd ever seen, and for once, Harry believed the fragile man as being capable of the terrors werewolves were supposed to be.

"Snape," he growled gutturally. The Potions Master went for his wand, but in an astonishing show of speed, Lupin had him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. With his free hand he broke Snape's hand, and the wand clattered to the ground.

"You were the spy," he thundered for all the hall to hear. Many of the Slytherins sat stunned at their table, none more so than Snape's godson and staunch Dark supporter, Draco Malfoy. Snape struggled futilely. Even Amelia looked too shocked at the moment to be able to do anything.

"You were in his upper ranks! You had to know- which one was the Death Eater, Sirius or Peter. You had to know who was the traitor. And yet you said nothing! You let an innocent man rot in jail for twelve years-"

This was getting out of hand. Cedric glanced desperately at Sprout. "Stun him," he pleaded.

Amelia managed to hear. "Stun them both," she snapped, firing two Stupefys at the professors. She hit Lupin with both of hers, but it took yet another Stupefy from Sprout to bring him down. Snape tried to dart away, but Astrology professor Aurora Sinistra proved to have surprisingly quick reflexes and shot a Stunner at him. He skidded to a halt in front of the Hufflepuff table.

On the floor, Peter moaned, and Cedric immediately kicked him in the head just as Flitwick sent a Stunner at him.

Amelia shot the blond an amused look. "Oops," he said, shrugging.

She quickly bound all three of them in magic-restricting ropes.

"Floo the DMLE," she commanded the Deputy Headmistress. Finally, the old Scotswoman managed to rouse herself out of her stupor. "I want my Aurors here for cleanup yesterday!"

McGonagall raced out of the Great Hall for the Floo in the nearest office. Amelia looked down at the Stunned Lupin with disgust.

"Honestly, what in Merlin's great name was Dumbledore thinking when he hired a bloody werewolf to teach in a school full of children!"

Many of the Muggleborns gasped in shock, but most of the Purebloods looked unsurprised. A shocking amount of gold began to exchange hands, and the Hall filled with disgruntled mutters. Amelia stared at them in astonishment.

"It was blatantly obvious what he was a week into the semester, Auntie," Susan said helpfully as she collected a handful of galleons from a scowling Megan Jones.

Amelia looked at her niece wryly. "And you didn't report this- why?"

Susan smiled, baby-blue eyes and dimpled cheeks just radiating innocence. "He's a really sad excuse for a werewolf, Auntie, not to mention he was such a vast improvement over Gilderoy Lockhart that we just had to keep him."

A nervous titter of laughter filtered round the Great Hall at her words, and Amelia sighed at her niece's behaviour. Then she turned to Harry.

"There also begs the question, of course, of how you two are involved in the thick of things," she said, bemused, "and how coincidental for all this to occur just when Susan owled me late last night to join her for Sunday brunch."

Harry shrugged, fighting a smile. "You'd probably want to find the last one of these, Sirius Black, to get the story straight."

"And just how would you know that?" she teased, although the twirling wand in her hand said that she was very, very serious.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Black told me himself," he retorted.

He was spared a reprimand when McGonagall returned with Rufus Scrimgeour and his team of Aurors, and finally, the long overdue headmaster.

"Amelia," he began patronisingly, "why don't we all just-"

"Stay out of this, Dumbledore," she snapped. Both headmaster and Deputy looked shocked at her tone, while the Aurors were looking smug. They rounded up their three prisoners quickly, although more than one of them raised their eyebrows at just who these captives were. The exposed Dark Mark on Pettigrew's arm caused more than a few eyebrows to hit a few hairlines.

"Twelve years ago you testified that Black was the one who'd given up the Potters. The Ministry acted based on your testimony and imprisoned Black, despite the lack of concrete evidence. I'm of half the mind to drag you down to the office right along with these lot," Amelia snapped. Cedric had to hide a smile when he saw how ravenous Scrimgeour looked at that.

"Now, Amelia-"

"Not this time, Dumbledore, but mark my words, you're going to have some very big questions to answer," she growled, sounding more than half-wolf herself.

She waved her wand at her men. "Let's go. We'll get the story straight from these three, and if it matches, I'll make an announcement that Sirius Black need only turn himself in to corroborate their story to be declared free." She said this with a pointed look in Harry's direction.

The Auror taskforce marched smartly out of the Great Hall, their three prisoners bobbing among them. Dumbledore's eyes immediately snapped to Harry.

"Harry, a word in my office, if you-"

"I don't think so," Cedric cut in crisply. "Unless it concerns academic matters, which of course his Head-of-House, Professor Sprout, is more than capable of handling, or familial matters, then you have no grounds to speak to him. And it can hardly be familial, since his family is dead." Thanks to you, went the unspoken insinuation, but it might as well have been shouted in everyone's ear.

"Mr. Diggory, this is most improper-" Dumbledore began.

"No it isn't," Hermione interrupted, flushing pale pink. "According to the Hogwarts Charter, everything Cedric's said so far has been correct. The headmaster of the school is supposed to be concerned with the running of the school, and not the day-to-day affairs."

"Miss Granger-" McGonagall began reluctantly after Dumbledore looked desperately at her.

Hermione's eyes were actually brimming with tears. "I'm afraid my Head-of-House is Professor Sprout now, Professor." She sat back down abruptly, and Hannah immediately slipped an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. Now McGonagall looked ready to spit fire as she glared at Dumbledore. Apparently she blamed him for losing her two best students.

She marched off, pausing only briefly by Hermione to murmur something that made the girl's bushy head shoot up, and then was out the Hall, her clenched fists revealing just how angry she was.

When Dumbledore looked at Harry again, the boy immediately took a step back into Cedric's hold. Seeing the two of them together like that abruptly reminded the school of their Bond, and just what the headmaster had already done to them earlier this week.

"Leave me alone, Professor," Harry managed. "Haven't you done enough already?"

He walked quickly out of the Great Hall, resolutely looking at the floor. Hermione immediately threw her napkin on her plate and shot out the door after him. Herbie flung his hands into the air with exasperation and followed them at a more sedate pace, although he did filch the cinnamon rolls from the end of the table. Cedric grinned at the sight.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, Professor," Cedric said faux-politely, "my Bonded needs me." He sketched a mocking bow at the old wizard and slipped out the door as well.