For a minute all that could be heard was the sound of heavy breathing. The rage in Harry's face was terrifying to behold. He accused Black of murdering his parents, which Black did not deny, though he did claim that that was not the whole story. Harry would hear none of it and continued to speak, to talk himself into killing Black.

"This is ridiculous." Artemis whispered. "He's thirteen. He doesn't even know how to kill people."

"At least I won't have to stop Harry from doing that. But Black's going to remember that soon."

"Yes. Be ready."

But someone burst through the door behind her before Black showed ant signs of movement. With a cry of "Expelliarmus!" Professor Lupin disarmed everyone in the room, except for Mina, whose wand and crescent compact stayed strangely still under the invisibility cloak, and Black, who was already unarmed.

Mina got out of the way as Lupin strode into the room, a stern expression on his face. 'Thank god.' she thought.

"Where is he, Sirius?" Lupin asked.

Everyone gave Lupin an incredulous look. What was he talking about? Harry was right there. Then, more confusingly, Black pointed at Ron.

"But then, why hasn't he shown himself before now? Unless," Lupin said with sudden realization, "he was the one. Unless you switched without telling me."

"What is he talking about?" Mina asked Artemis. "What the hell does Ron have to do with anything."

"I'm as confused as you are."

Lupin walked over to Black and the two men regarded each other for several seconds. Then, to everyone's horror, they hugged. Mina raised her wand but Artemis said "Wait! Something's wrong here! Lets get all the facts before we pounce!"

Though it went against every instinct in her body, Mina complied.

"I trusted you!" Harry screamed. "And all this time you've been his friend!"

"No, Harry. I have not been Sirius' friend for twelve years. But I am now. Let me explain."

"No!" Hermione screamed. "Harry, don't listen to him! He's been helping Black get into the castle! He wants you dead! He's a werewolf!"

Everyone was silent at the final revelation. Lupin looked at her calmly and shook his head.

"Not up to your usual standard Hermione. Only one out of three. I have not been helping Sirius into the castle and I do not want Harry dead. I do not deny, however, that I am a werewolf."

The atmosphere in the room had shifted even more against Lupin, who questioned Hermione on how she figured it out before saying "And speaking of people who realized that my bogart was the moon, where is Miss Aino?"

Mina nearly choked trying to suppress a gasp while Harry and Hermione just asked "who?" quite confusedly.

"Mina Aino. I saw her on the Marauder's Map following you here."

"Wait." Harry said. "You know how to work the map?"

"Certainly. I helped write it. I'm Moony."

He proceeded to tell the story of how the Whomping Willow was planted and the Shrieking Shack built to give him a place to go when he transformed once a month as a student at Hogwarts, how his friends, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew figured out his condition and became animagi to spend more time with him, how they, all transformed, explored the castle and grounds like no students before or since and thereby wrote the Marauders Map. Harry interrupted at one point by screaming that Dumbledore had been wrong to hire Lupin because he had been helping Black; at which point Lupin handed Harry, Ron, and Hermione back their wands and even gave Harry his and Black's own wands to try to show his trustworthiness.

But Lupin explained that he had always been too afraid to tell Dumbledore that he had betrayed the headmaster's trust in that way, and therefore never told anyone about Black's ability to transform into a large dog.

"No wonder we couldn't find him!" Artemis exclaimed. "We were looking for a person, not a dog!"

That night, Lupin said that he had predicted that Harry, Ron, and Hermione, would visit Hagrid before Buckbeak's execution, which they did. He had seen Mina sneaking around, possibly letting the hippogriff loose, but what shocked him was the extra person that had accompanied them when they left Hagrid's hut, Peter Pettigrew

"Isn't Pettigrew the name of the wizard Black killed?" Artemis asked.

"Yeah. What's he saying? They didn't leave with anyone else."

"Hold on! He said that Pettigrew was one of his friends that became an animagus, the rat!"

Sure enough, when Black finally spoke again, it was to accuse Ron's rat of being Peter Pettigrew. In a rage he launched himself at Ron, attempting to get at the rat, but Lupin stopped him.

"Sirius, wait! You can't just do it like that! They've got to understand!"

"Oh, I understand perfectly." said a voice from the doorway.

All turned to where Severus Snape stood, wand in hand, his mouth wider than any of them had ever it and a maniacal look in his eye.

"I went to your office to bring you your wolfsbane potion, Lupin, but you weren't there. I couldn't have that, not when the full moon's tonight. Lucky for me that map on your desk told me where you were. Lucky."

"Severus, listen."

"How I'd hoped I'd be the one to catch you Black. And as a bonus I get to tell Dumbledore he was wrong! He was so sure you were a tame werewolf, but now I've got proof that you've been helping Black all along."

"Professor Snape, maybe we should listen to them; it couldn't hurt, right?"

"Miss Granger, you are out of bed and out of bounds. For once in your life, hold your tongue!"

"Listen to yourself, man!" Lupin shouted. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth sending an innocent man to Azkaban?"

"It's all right, Remus." Black said. "As long as we show the rat to Dumbledore, I'm fine coming along."

"To Dumbledore?" Snape laughed. "I don't think so. I think we'll stop by the dementors on the way. They'll be so happy to see you they just might kiss you."

"Mina," Artemis said, "do something about him! This can't be resolved with Snape here."

"But he's a teacher!"

But Mina was spared the choice of whether or not to attack the potions master when Harry and Hermione, perhaps angered by his enthusiasm for someone suffering the dementor's kiss, attacked him themselves. The double spell blasted Snape into the wall, knocking him out.

"Thank you." Lupin said.

"This doesn't mean I believe you." Harry said. "I just want to know the truth."

"Very well. Ron, would you please give me the rat? If he really is a rat I promise this won't hurt him."

After being handed his wand back by Harry (who still had Black's wand) Lupin held the rat by the tail and waved his wand at it.

The rat grew, until it was a short, fat, balding, ugly man. Harry, Ron, and Hermione leaned away. The animal they had known for three years was actually a person in disguise.

"Remus," he said, "Sirius, my old friends."

"We've got some questions for you, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died."

"You've got to protect me Remus. He's come back for me, like I knew he always would!"

"You knew Sirius would escape, when no one has done it before?"

"He's got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of! I expect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks!"

Black laughed. "What? Voldemort, teach me tricks?"

Harry, who insisted on saying the name, was startled when he heard Blck say it casually. Pettigrew flinched.

"Can't stand to hear your old master's name? I don't blame you. They're not very happy with you, his other servants. Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow on your advice, and met his downfall there. I've heard them in Azkaban. They think that the dirty double crosser double crossed them and would kill you themselves if you were still alive. And not all of Voldemort's followers are safe in Azkaban. It's them you've been hiding from all these years, not me."

At last the story was beginning to make sense. Black had persuaded the Potters into making Pettigrew their secret keeper, think that Voldemort would come after him and ignore Pettigrew. But Pettigrew betrayed them to Voldemort and Black chased him, intending to kill him. He thought he had, but Pettigrew had been a little too fast in transforming and escaped, cutting off his own finger to make it look like he'd been murdered. Black was blamed for Pettigrew's actions and sent to Azkaban. The year before he saw a picture of the Weaselys in a newspaper brought to the prison and recognized the rat as Pettigrew. He then escaped as the dog to commit the murder he'd been imprisoned for.

"I don't know about you, Artemis," Mina whispered, "but this is giving me a headache."

At last everyone but the unconscious Snape was convinced of Black's innocence and Pettigrew's guilt, and Black grabbed Pettigrew from behind to hold him still.

"No transforming this time. Do it now, Remus!"

"No! Please! The Dark Lord, he would have killed me!"

"Then you should have died! As we would have for you!"

"You should have realized," Lupin said calmly, "that if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would."

"Wait!"

Harry had shouted it, and he looked surprised at himself.

"You can't kill him."

"Harry," Black said, "this man is the reason you have no parents."

"I know that, and he can go to the dementors, but I don't think my dad would want his friends to become killers just for him."

Lupin smiled. "He's right, Sirius."

"Fine." Black growled. "We'll go up to the castle and he can get what he deserves."

And they left through the tunnel towards the castle grounds, Pettigrew in magically conjured restraints and Ron and Snape being supported on conjured, floating stretchers.

Mina followed the procession, still under the invisibility cloak./

This is probably the chapter that follows the book the most closely. I don't like quoting the conversations from the book so much, but it was kind of unavoidable this time.

Next chapter is going to be called "The Werewolf."