Alright guys, here's the next one as promised. It skips through a whole bunch of parts from the book but I sort of had to do that so this chapter wouldn't be 15 pages long XD So Enjoy!!

Several months had passed since Remus's patching up with Sirius.

The werewolf had done as he was told, from sending Harry that Firebolt (which he was proud to see the boy use it to win the finals) to keeping Dumbledore completely unaware. And Just as Sirius had promised, he had showed up at the next full moon, and the one after that...and the one after that. And the wolf was starting to get used to having the dog around again after so long.

June was approaching and he had also held his final exams. His third years had an outdoor obstacle course in which they had to wade across a paddling pool containing a grindylow, cross a series of potholes full of Red Caps, cross a marsh while being fed misleading directions by a hinkypunk and enter a trunk to battle a newly procured boggart. And he had to admit, for third years they performed spectacularly. He was especially impressed with Harry, who had walked out of the course looking at Remus as though to say "That's it? That was all?" The werewolf couldn't have been more proud. His cub was really growing stronger.

So all in all things where very good for Remus. And really, he had been in a rather brilliant mood since he had met up with Sirius. Guess it helped having 13 years worth of stress and pressure lifted of your shoulders.

On this particularly fine evening, Remus was in his office, ready to down another goblet full of the disgusting Wolfsbane Potion. Full moon was tonight and he had forgotten to take the potion last night, so best take two doses tonight to make up. Like every other moon for the past few months, Remus was pretty much expecting Sirius to be waiting at the Shack for him.

He smiled and lifted the goblet to his lips, but just as he was about to take a sip, a strong scent hit him(and surprisingly it wasn't the potion.) He set the goblet down on his desk and sniffed the air once more.

No...no it couldn't be...what in Merlin's name was Sirius's scent doing so close to Hogwarts grounds so soon? Sirius normally didn't show up at the Shrieking Shack until at least 11: 30 on full moons, and it was only about 9.

Remus frowned. Was that man trying to get himself thrown back into Azkaban? He shrugged, maybe Sirius had decided to come early...he reached for his potion once more but stopped abruptly as another scent hit him...another four scents to be more specific. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and another very familiar smell that he couldn't exactly identify.

Remus's heart suddenly skipped several beats. He raced over to the top right drawer of his desk and pulled it open. He extracted the Marauder's Map from it and quickly called it to life. And as soon as the little blots of ink showing where each person was, appeared, Remus's eyes immediately searched for Sirius. And his heart skipped a dozen more beats when he saw in the Shrieking Shack where the symbols of Sirius, Harry, Ron, Hermione and-Peter Pettigrew? Peter.....what the devil was Peter-

And then it suddenly hit him. Like a killing curse to the chest it hit him. Peter had cut his own finger off and transformed into a rat to frame Sirius 13 years ago...and Ron...owned a rat...that was missing a toe...and he had owned it for 13 years.

Scabbers was Peter! The excitement of the revelation suddenly died down when the thought really hit him. Merlin's beard, Scabbers was Peter! Sirius had found Peter!

In one swift movement, Remus dropped the map, threw his wand back into his pocket and raced out the door. A million and one things ran through his mind as he dashed through the halls and headed straight for the back entrance that was closest to the Shrieking Shack.

What was Sirius doing with Harry and the others? Did they know that Peter was right there with them? Or worse, had Peter or even Sirius done anything to harm the kids or themselves?

The thoughts only made Remus increase his speed, and a wave of relief washed over him as he felt the cold breeze on his skin upon stepping out of the castle. He looked briefly up at the night sky before taking of in the direction of the Whomping Willow. As soon as he approached the deadly tree, it swung its enormous club like branches at him. But Remus hurriedly uttered an incantation, causing the tree to freeze on the spot. He was relieved it had done so because he could have sworn his incantation was a bit muffled, but that thought was tossed very quickly aside as he spotted the entrance at the base of the tree to the Shrieking Shack.

He dashed towards the small arched entrance and slipped in. He undid the charm on the Willow and stepped carefully into the Shack. He both quietly and carefully ran up the stairs leading to the actual Shack itself. Just as he approached the door of shack, he heard Hermione call out "HELP! WE'RE UP HERE!"

Remus's breath caught in his throat, nevertheless he forced himself to burst through the doors. He was greeted by the scene of Sirius laying on the ground in the center of the room, Harry on top of him, pinning him to the ground, wand at Black's face. Ron laying on the small couch at the corner of the room, Hermione at his side.

"Expelliarmus!" Remus shouted, sending the wand pointed at Sirius, flying out of his hand, and into his own. Harry looked back at him a bit blankly.

Remus then spoke in a very tense voice "Where is he, Sirius?" he noticed Harry spin around to look at him, then to Sirius and back.

Sirius on the other hand wore a very emotionless expression. It hurt Remus to see him in the same condition that he had been way back in the winter. Remus had offered him shelter, a change of clothes and such but all Sirius had accepted was a bit of food and water over the course of the months. Still, Sirius looked focused and determined as he slowly lifted up his hand to point at Ron, or more specifically the rat in his hands.

Remus suddenly had the overwhelming urge to run up there and strangle Peter himself...but why? Really...why? He didn't even know why Sirius had him looking for Peter..."But then..." he muttered softly trying to make sense of the situation. He stared hard at Sirius. "...why exactly has he been....why hasn't he shown himself? Unless..." something suddenly hit Remus. The only reason why Sirius would go after Peter right after James and Lily's murder is if..."unless he was the one...unless you switched without telling me?" He knew his sentences were broken and he was making no sense but what he really meant was that if they had switched the Potter's secret keeper to Peter instead if Sirius then it would have been Peter that betrayed the Potters...not Sirius. Thus deeming Sirius completely and absolutely innocent. The thought made Remus truly want to jump up and scream to the world that his best friend was innocent.

Despite Remus's broken sentences, Sirius seemed to have understood, and nodded.

"Professor" Harry interrupted loudly. But Remus drowned him out as he reached out a hand towards Sirius. It was finally confirmed. Finally justified as a truth. That Sirius Orion Black, was innocent. That simple thought brought so much happiness to him, that as soon as Sirius reached up and took his hand, Remus pulled him up off the ground and embraced him like a brother.

"I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" Hermione screamed, suddenly tearing Remus out of his happiness. He reluctantly let go of Sirius and turned to her. She took a step towards him and pointed directly at his chest, wild-eyed "You-you-"

"Hermione-" Remus tired to reason. But Hermione wouldn't have any of it.

"-You and him!"

"Hermione calm down-"

"I didn't tell anyone!" Hermione shrieked "I've been covering for you!"

"Hermione listen to me please! I can explain!" Remus shouted almost desperately. These children had come to mean so much to him...he didn't think he could bear it if he where to loose someone else because of his "furry little problem."

"I trusted you!" Harry suddenly shouted at Remus "and all this time you've been his friend!"

"You're wrong" Remus mustered up. He felt simply shattered at the sight of Harry turning on him "I haven't been Sirius's friend-but I am now, let me explain..." he tried to hold on to what little faith they still had in him.

"NO!" Hermione screamed "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too-he's a werewolf!"

There was a sudden ringing silence and all eyes turned to Remus. Who himself had gone terribly pale. Sirius looked like he was going to hex Hermione for not only bad mouthing Remus like that, but also randomly screaming out his condition.

"Not at all up to your usual standard Hermione" Remus said keeping his voice as calm as possible "Only one out of three right there I'm afraid. I have not been helping Sirius into the castle, I certainly don't want Harry dead..." Remus shivered a bit "But I won't deny that I'm a werewolf."

Ron made a valiant effort to stand but fell back with a thud. Remus moved to help him with a concerned fatherly expression but stopped dead in his tracks as Ron immediately spat "Get away from me, werewolf!"

That one stung. It stung terribly. But Remus shoved it aside as he turned to Hermione "How long have you known?"

"Ages" Hermione snorted "Since Professor Snape assigned that essay."

"He'll be delighted" Remus said coolly "He assigned that essay hoping that someone would recognize the symptoms....did you recognize from the lunar charts that I was always ill on full moon or that my boggart was the moon?"

"Both" Hermione answered quietly.

Remus forced himself to laugh as a cover of swallowing the lump in his throat. "You really are the cleverest witch of your age, Hermione."

"I'm not..." Hermione whispered "If I'd been a bit cleverer I would have told everyone what you are."

"But they already know" Remus quirked "At least the staff do"

"Dumbledore hired you knowing you're a werewolf?" Ron gasped "Is he mad?"

"Some of the staff thought so" Remus sighed "He had to work very hard to convince them that I was trustworthy-"

"AND HE WAS WRONG!" Harry yelled "YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM THE WHOLE TIME!" He pointed accusingly at Black, who suddenly had his face in one shaking hand.

"I have not been helping Sirius" Remus repeated for the umpteenth time. "If you'll just give me a chance to explain. Look-" he separated the wands he had collected upon barging in and returned them to their rightful owners.

"There" Remus said sticking his own wand back into his belt "You're armed, we're not. Now will you listen?"

"If you haven't been helping him" Harry said with a furious glance at Sirius "Then how did you know he was here?"

"The map" Remus answered "The Marauder's Map. I was in my office examining it-"

"You know how to work it?" Harry asked suspiciously "Of course I know how to work it" Remus rolled his eyes "I helped write it. I'm Moony-that was my friends' nickname for me at school."

"You wrote-?"

"The important thing is I looked at the map this evening and saw someone else on that map with you" Remus said.

"What? There was no one else with us!" Harry protested.

"I couldn't believe it" Remus said ignoring Harry's interruption "I thought the map must have been malfunctioning, I mean how could he have been with you?"

"No one was with us!" Harry yelled.

"I saw Sirius and the four of you in here and I came to see myself" Remus continued.

"There's only three of us" Harry corrected.

"No, four of you" Remus said as he walked up to Ron and stared intently at Scabbers.

"What?" Ron said holding Scabbers close "What's my rat got to do with anything?"

"That's not a rat" Sirius croaked suddenly.

"What? Of course he's a rat-"

"No, he's not" Remus said quietly "He's a wizard" he then looked over to Sirius, gesturing for him to continue.

"An Animagus" Sirius spoke "By the name of Peter Pettigrew."

"You're both mental!" Ron shouted.

"Peter Pettigrew is dead!" Harry yelled "He was killed 12 years ago! He killed him!" he pointed a finger at Sirius.

"I meant to back then, but the little rat got the best of me. I think I'll do it now though" Sirius growled, lunging towards Ron. But Remus immediately put an arm around his chest and held him back.

"Sirius, please" Remus said struggling to hold his friend back "You owe Harry and explanation, there are parts even I don't understand."

Sirius eased a bit "Alright...but I'll make things short." By this time Scabbers was squeaking madly, scratching and biting at Ron to try and escape.

"I guess we can begin with, I wasn't James and Lily's secret keeper...At the last minute I told James to change it to Peter. Because I would be such an obvious person to tell and what not. I told them to make Peter their secret keeper instead of me..." Sirius muttered,

"Alright, I've got that, but why Peter?" Remus narrowed his eyes.

"Because.." Sirius took a deep breath "Because at the time we suspected you to be the one that was leaking information to you-know-who."

"Me? I-But I don't understand, why James and Lily allow me to keep interacting with them and Harry if they thought I was leaking information?" Remus frowned, trying to hide the hurt tone in his voice.

"Well...it was me really..." Sirius looked down "James and Lily thought I was being paranoid until they where forced to go into hiding. That's when James started becoming more cautious of you. Lily didn't believe us for a second though. She never really did like Peter. She said we where letting this war blind us from who we could really trust and who we couldn't" Sirius let out a dry laugh "Hell, was she right. Too bad James and I didn't tolerate any of her talk."

Remus's just hung slightly open. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. They thought...he was the spy? Did they really have that little faith in him?

"The night they where killed, I have a very unsettling feeling so I went to visit Peter" Sirius continued "When he wasn't home I immediately ran to James and Lily's house. That's when I saw what Voldemort had done. I figured as much as you did and as you can probably imagine I was furious. I ran off to find Peter, bent on killing him and making him pay. I found him in the middle of a busy street. The little rat was terrified when he saw me. He knew I was going to kill him. So he blew up half the street, transformed into a rat and cut off his own finger to make it look like he was dead. He ran off like the coward he always was. It looked like I killed them all. I had no one to prove otherwise and I was thrown into Azkaban."

Silence resonated around the room. Everyone took a moment to let the information sink. But before anyone could make any sort of reaction, a new figure stepped through the door, wand pointed directly at Remus's neck.

Severus Snape.

"Severus..." Remus muttered breathlessly.

"Careless of you to leave that map of yours out in the open like that, Lupin. I found you so easily with that handy little object" Snape drawled.

"Listen, Severus-"

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping Black into the castle, Lupin and here's proof. There will be two more in Azkaban tonight" Snape's face glowed with suppressed triumph. He snatched Remus's wand from his belt and pointed it at Sirius. Now he had both Remus and Sirius at point blank range. "Now come along children.

But Harry suddenly strode over and blocked the door.

"Step aside Potter" Snape snarled "If I hadn't been here to save your skin-"

"Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year Harry said "I've been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against dementors. If he was helping Black then why didn't he just finish me off then?"

Remus winced a bit at hearing Harry address Sirius so harshly. He did smile a bit thought at the fact that Harry was defending him.

"Do not ask me to fathom the way a werewolf's mind works, Potter now move out of the way you arrogant boy....before I make you" Snape growled. And then much to Remus's horror and pleasure, Harry pointed his wand straight at Snape and screamed "EXPELLIARMUS!" Except his wasn't the only voice that shouted. Remus noticed Ron and Hermione disarm Snape at the exact same moment, causing the potions master to be lifted off his feet and slammed into the nearest wall and knocked out cold.

"We attacked a teacher" Hermione panicked a bit.

"Good job, Harry" Remus ignored Hermione's whimper.

"This doesn't mean I trust you" Harry said half-heartedly.

"Alright then, let us give you proof" Remus said grabbing at the opportunity to expose Peter "Please give me Peter, now."

"But wait!" Ron yelled "Come on, how many million rats are there in the world? How is this your rat?"

Remus thought for a moment "Actually he's got a point Sirius, how did you know this was Peter?"

"This" Sirius said as he took out an old crumpled newspaper from his pocket. Remus surveyed the front and saw it was a picture of The Weasleys in Egypt, and on Ron's shoulder-oh yes that was unmistakably Peter's animagus. "I've seen Peter transform millions of times. I recognized him right away" Sirius explained. "Plus he's missing a toe on the right paw, biggest part of Pete that they found was that finger he cut off."

"Enough, Sirius, there's only one way to settle this, Ron give me the rat" Remus put out a hand.

"What are you going to do to him?" Ron asked tensely.

"Force him to show himself. If he's really a rat then nothing's going to happen to him" Remus assured him.

Ron hesitated, then at long last he held out Scabbers and Remus immediately snatched him away. Scabbers suddenly began to squeak like mad.

"Ready, Sirius?"Remus turned to his friend "Together."

Sirius nodded as he retrieved Snape's wand.

"One-two-THREE!"

A flash of blue-white light erupted from both wands and for a moment, Scabbers was frozen in mid-air, the rat then fell on the floor. There was another flash and then-

There was a man. Suddenly there was a man in the place of the small rat. He was very short, hardly taller than Harry. His thin, colorless hair, unkempt along with a bald spot atop his head. His features were very rat like, from his little beady eyes to the sharp claw-like nails. His eyes darted from everyone around the room to the door.

"Well, hello Peter" Remus said pleasantly. He had to admit he was a bit surprised at Peter's appearance. What happened to him?

"S-Sirius, R-Remus" his voice was squeaky. His eyes darted to the door once more "My friends, my old friends..." and suddenly out of no where he made a break for the door. Remus and Sirius however where quick to grab his arms and push him back. The cornered him behind the old piano, one man to each side.

"You sold Lily and James out to Voldemort!" Remus growled.

"Please, understand Remus, he was going to kill me! What would you have done, Sirius?" Peter begged.

"I WOULD HAVE DIED! I WOULD HAVE DIED BEFORE I BETRAYED LILY AND JAMES!" Sirius roared.

"You should have known, Peter, that if Voldemort didn't kill you, then we would" Remus gave a sort of twisted grin as he pulled out his wand.

"No, wait" Harry called out. Remus and Sirius both turned to him with murderous expressions "I don't think my dad would've wanted his two best friends to become murderers...we'll bring him up to the castle...the dementors can have him there."

Peter suddenly turned pale.

Remus looked over to Sirius who admittedly nodded. So with the silent agreement Remus grabbed Peter and held him at wand point while Sirius helped Ron out.

The six made it out of the Shack with much difficulty, what with Ron's broken leg(which Remus had no idea how came to be, but he guessed it had something to do with Sirius) and having to drag Peter out.

Once they where out, Hermione sat Ron down to look at the leg, while Sirius took Harry aside to speak. Remus decided to give them their time while he held Peter and made sure he didn't go anywhere. He ignored the little rat's constant pleas for mercy and just looked away.

And then suddenly...a cloud shifted revealing the vibrant glow...of the full moon.

"HARRY!" Hermione's scream pierced the air. They both spun around to face him. Ans suddenly Remus's body gave an uncontrollable shudder. He glanced out into the sky and was terrified to see the moon, glowing in his face. Things got a bit foggy for him after that point. All he could register was the blinding pain that was shooting up his body from being recomposed from that of a human to that of a werewolf. He vaguely felt Sirius run up and grab a hold of him; and he tried to so desperately to hold him back, but the transformation had already begun and it suddenly hit Remus...that he hadn't taken the wolfsbane tonight. He wasn't safe.

Remus cried out as his body twisted and stretched to fit the form of the wolf. He tried as hard as he could to cling to his human mind....but it was too late. The wolf had already taken over and there was nothing but darkness

HP

HP******HP

HP

Oh noes!!! Poor Remus =( Well guys, this was the second to last chapter. Well technically this is the last chapter since the next one is just an epilogue so stay tuned!!! =]

And Please Review!!