A/N: I'm back and I'm sooooo sorry this took so illegally long! Well, it's actually only been 10 days, which isn't too bad compared to some authors, but still it's the longest it's taken me to update this story. Now, there are a few reason for that. One is school. With christmas break approaching, all teachers have this funny idea that they need to test us and so, we got just about one exam per day this upcoming week that I have studied for. Next on the list is the publishing of my Pokemon story, that I wanted to get off to a kickstart and update in quick succession. Now don't be angry with me please, there are a lot of readers over there that like me too and they seem to be ok with my work being shared with you guys so I hope you feel the same. If any of you like Pokemon, then perhaps you should check it out?

Now, I am ready to face my punishment for taking time updating, as long as it doesn't involve 1) An angry Hermione with a wand. 2) More schoolwork. or 3) Spinach, I HATE Spinach!

Other than that, I must say I was pretty nervous when posting this chapter, since it's the first real fighting scene I have written for this story and on top of that, I feel like it is one that will have a HUGE impact on you readers, in many different ways. Anyway, here goes!

Disclaimer: Don't own this stuff. I have put it on my wishlist for christmas so we'll see if Santa Clause really can give a guy whatever he wishes! :D

Chapter Thirteen: Pettigrew Escapes! Harry VS Wormtail!

(Recap):

Coming to a stop in front of the Gargoyle statue that guarded the headmaster's office, Severus gave the password ("Banana Split!") and waited for the staircase to reach all the way up to Dumbledore's office. Even if he didn't want to hurt Pettigrew without reason, that didn't mean he couldn't at least give him a few scratches by dragging him up the staircase. He didn't deserve the luxury of sitting on the staircase while it rose to the door. Not wasting any time, Severus began dragging the poor man up the stairs as soon as they came to a stop. He could feel Minerva's eyes on his back and her snort of disapproval at such "barbaric ways" as she would have called it, but he didn't care. And since she didn't say anything to right him, he didn't bother trying. Once they were up the stairs, he knocked hard on the door.

"Come in." Dumbledore's voice sounded from the other side.

Upon the invitation, Severus pushed the door open and dragged Pettigrew inside. Albus Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, reading a book. When Severus entered with a whimpering man dragged by the collar and a still white faced Minerva McGonagall, Dumbledore looked up and upon seeing the odd following that had entered his office, he stood up from his plush armchair.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked with shock while his eyes travelled from Severus, to the man he was dragging with him, to the shocked Professor McGonagall.

Snorting at the question, Severus threw Pettigrew in front of his feet and pointed his wand at the man. For a moment, he just glared down on the man in disgust while Professor McGonagall came up to stand beside him.

"Tell me headmaster, do you recognise this man?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Frowning, Dumbledore bent forward to study the man, who hadn't even bothered getting up. Normally, he would not have tolerated such a behavior as Severus had displayed in his office, but if Severus, with all his mental progress and skill in occlumency, were this upset about something, then it really had to be something important. Looking down at the man, Dumbledore studied him from head to toe. He did look slightly familiar, but Dumbledore couldn't quite place him. That was, before the man looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"A-Albus, I swear I didn't do it on purpose." he whimpered.

Seeing the man's face in full view, Dumbledore's eyes widened in realization.

"Peter? Peter Pettigrew?" he said in shock.

The man on the floor gave an almost unnoticeable nod. Stunned, Dumbledore stared at the man in shock. This man was supposed to be dead! Seeing that the headmaster finally recognized the man on the floor, Severus stepped forward.

"This man has been hiding as a rat for 10 years, Albus. I found him in the Gryffindor tower." Severus said as he held out the map to Albus.

At the sight of the map, Albus just nodded knowingly. Severus had shown him the map as soon as it had come into his possession and he had explained his wish to give it to Harry. Dumbledore had been sceptical at first, since such an object could prove to be very useful for himself, but Severus had managed to persuade him that it belonged with Harry, since his father had been the one to create it.

What no one noticed was that when the map was shown to the room's occupants, Pettigrew's eyes took on a sinister look. So that was how they had managed to catch him, using his own creation! If he was to escape this alive, then he would need to get his hands on the map or they would just track him down again!

"Alright, this is all very confusing. Why don't we all sit down and you can explain to me what's happened this morning, Severus?" Dumbledore said as he waved his wand, summoning 3 comfortable armchairs.

-:-:-:-

Harry laughed as he ducked to avoid being hit by a snowball that had been sent in his direction by Blaise. When they had come outside, they had made up the rules and teams for this little game. It would be one team consisting of Harry, Daphne and Susan against a team of Blaise, Tracey, Ron and Hannah. Each team would be given 20 minutes to build a snowfortress that they would use as a home base. The other team was not allowed to enter that base, so both teams had resolved to use their fortress as a storage for snowballs. When the fortresses had been halfway done, the Weasley twins had come out to join them, so Fred had joined Blaise's team and George had joined Harry's team. Building snowfortresses was so much fun when they could use magic. When Harry looked over towards the other team's fortress, it looked like Blaise had done this before, seeing as theirs was much larger and, presumably, sturdier than Harry's. The playing field was evened slightly when the older Weasleys joined the game but Team Blaise still had a headstart.

When 20 minutes were up, two large snow fortresses stood tall over the ground. Harry's team had focused on getting maximal protection, as they were at a numerically disadvantage. Their base had higher walls than the other team's, but it was also smaller. Blaise had been much more artistic when he built his fortress, bsing its design on the Hogwarts castle. While not as big and majestic, it had several towers of compact snow that could be used to throw snowballs from, increasing their options for a counter attack.

As soon as the time for building was up, the field had broken into utter snow chaos. Both Weasley twins had initiated an offensive for their respective teams, charming snowballs to act like target-seeking missiles that rained down on the opposing team's fortress. All participants had gotten hit in multiple spots, including the Weasley twins who had charmed their ammunition in the first place. They had now been at it for one full hour and no one seemed to be willing to slow down just yet. Blaise even seemed like he was enjoying himself.

"Take this!" he shouted as he used a levitation charm to send a particularly large snowball (about the size of the bottom part of the typical snowman) towards Harry.

Not having enough time to get out of he way, Harry swiftly pulled out his wand and waved it towards the snowball.

"Validus Corripio!" he shoued as he magically grabbed the snowball out of the air and sent it flying back towards Blaise, who looked gobsmacked as his own masterpiece and trumphcard was sent back at him. Harry's use of a high NEWT-level curse might also have contributed to his surprise.

The snowball hit its target and Blaise fell down from the tower he had been standing in to land on the castle wall, beside Hannah. He quickly struggled to get back on his feet in order to return the fire, but he got beat to it by the blonde girl at his side, who had sent a snowball at Harry the second she saw that his attention had been fully focused on Blaise's snowball. Her attack hit Harry in the chest, causing him to stumble back.

"Nice shot!" Ron called to her as he himself sent a snowball towards his older brother George, who had been working on gathering enough snow to build a snowball even larger than Blaise's. Unfortunately for Ron, he failed to notice that Daphne and Susan had been working on the same scheme, just underneath their own castle walls, just out of sight. When they were done, Susan levitated the snowball over the wall and Daphne sent a curse at it, causing it to explode over the heads of the other team.

"Take cover!" Fred shouted as he threw himself out of the line of fire from the rain of smaller snowballs that came down on his team's base.

Harry used the confusion to jump down to George to help him finish his enormous snowball. Grinning widely, the two boys managed to roll it even further to gather more snow, until it was about as big as Harry's body, minus the head.

"I got this. Get your wand ready!" Harry said as he put out both his hands and began levitating the snowball wandlessly. George raised an eyebrow at first as this was the first time he had seen Harry's wandless levitation in action, but just shrugged as he pulled out his wand.

Harry took aim for one fo the towers on Team Blaise's fortress, hoping to bring it down. Those towers were a nuisance as it gave Blaise's team more options for attacking them and also because it was hard to hit them when they were up in the towers, so it served as both an offensive and defensive advantage for them. Knowing that Blaise still hadn't made it back up into the tower he had occupied before Harry hit him, he finally settled his aim on that one.

"Now!" Harry said as he used his magic to push the snowball towards the tower.

"Depulso!" George called as he pointed his wand towards the snowball in mid air. It picked up speed and went flying like it had been shot out of a canon.

The projectile hit its mark and caused the tower to crumble. Together, both the snowball and the tower exploded into a rain of snow, that rained down on Hannah and Blaise, who had been standing just underneath it. Hannah squeked in surprise and Blaise swore under his breath as they were both covered in tha falling snow. Harry laughed as Blaise stuck his head out of the pile of snow and shook it to get rid of the snow that was still on his head.

"That was a dirty trick, Harry!" he called over the field.

Harry just chuckled as he returned to his base.

"Really? I was sure that snowball was pretty clean. Not a single dirty spot on it." he answered.

Blaise growled and turned towards Ron, who had managed to escape a barrage of snowball sent his way by Susan. The two Chudley Canons fans nodded towards each other and jumped down onto the ground to fight snow with snow. It had been a long time since any of them had this much fun!

-:-:-:-

In his office, it wasn't unusual for Albus Dumbledore to allow himself to lean back and feel how old he really was. However, it had been a long time since he had felt this old. As his potions professor explained to him what had happened that morning, from Harry coming to show him the "weird" name on the Marauders' map that shouldn't be there, to his and Minerva's inspection of the Gryffindor Tower, where they found and captured Pettigrew, Albus felt himself getting older and older, as if his years were finally catching up to him. Through the entire conversation, he noticed that Pettigrew was constantly trying to find a way of escape from the room, to the point that Fawkes kept an eye on him without even blinking, in case he decided to do something funny. Minerva didn't say much. She just sat in her armchair and watched and listened as Severus gave his point of view on the events.

"... and then we came here, as soon as we had confirmed our suspicions and apprehended this..." Severus didn't finish and simply cast a disgusted look at Pettigrew.

Sighing as the implications of the situation came over him, Dumbledore hid his face in his hands. This was even worse than what he had believed had happened. If Pettigrew was here and had lived 10 years hidden as a rat, then he must have done something that he didn't want to risk facing consequences for.

"They switched, didn't they?" he asked, not even bothering to tell them what he was talking about. He knew that Severus would understand.

The Potions master looked down at his former classmate and for a split second, Pettigrew looked up at him with a pleading look in his eyes. Big mistake. Without caring about the fact that it was regarded as unethical, Severus pushed his way into Pettigrew's mind. They both seemingly froze in place as Severus rushed through the other man's memories in opposite order. First everything was black until suddenly there was a yelp and out of nowhere, he saw himself lift the blankets from the now human Pettigrew. Then the sceneray changed to resemble that of a kitchen. It took him a second to recognize it as the kitchen at The Burrow. Molly was standing by the sink, as usual and by the table sat 3 of her children: Percy, Ron and Ginny as Severus recognized them. They all looked to be a little younger than they were to current date, but not overly so. On the table was a cage that contained... well, at this point he should probably say Pettigrew but it made him feel sick to his stomach to think that all this time, a Death Eater had been living with the Weasleys. Just as he thought it couldn't get any worse, it got worse (of course).

"Mummy, why can't I get him instead? Ron doesn't want him anyway!" Ginny whined from her seat.

Oh great, just what he needed to see. Harry's soon-to-be best friend had been Molly's stubborness from getting in possession of the man who betrayed Harry's parents. The little redheaded girl was looking at the rat in the cage with her big brown eyes as if she felt sorry for him for getting into Ron's possession. Well, after having seen how well Ron organized the stuff in his dormroom, Severus guessed she would have a point that Ron was not the most accountable when it came to taking care of his possessions, but that was beside the point. Looking at the boy, he could see that Ron himself didn't look too eager to care for the rat in the cage either.

"Because Ron is older than you, Ginny, and he will be able to care for Scabbers better than you." Molly said with finality in her voice.

Ginny pouted, but didn't say anything. Ron just growled as he looked defeated and reached over to take the cage. Percy watched as his younger brother took his former pet and then stood up.

"You better take good care of him Ron. Now, if I am not needed to do anything else, I will retire to my chamber in order to do some homework before I go to bed. Good Night." Percy said as he made his way over towards the stairs and left the others.

When Percy disappeared up the stairs, the scene changed again and for a brief moment, Severus was watching as Scabbers was found by a 5 year old Percy in the garden of The Burrow. Severus growled. That slimeball had conciously searched out the family he knew would most likely accept something as trivial as a rat as a pet. But the scene didn't last for long and just after a few seconds, it disolved and instead turned into a crowded street. Severus felt his pulse rise as he realized what moment this was. This was the moment when Black had confronted Pettigrew! And sure enough, as he turned around he found the two former best friends standing opposite to each other. Pettigrew was looking at Black with a terryfied expression while Black's face was a mask. He probably didn't know if he was supposed to feel betrayed, furious, disappointed or disbelieving. No wait, scratch that. He probably felt all those emotions and didn't know which one to show.

"Peter... why?" he growled under his breath.

The man opposite to him didn't say anything. He simply stared at the man in front of him, not giving any recognition of knowing him. In his hand, Pettigrew held a wand, but it didn't look like it was his own. Severus narrowed his eyes to get a closer look at it and his eyes widened as he recognized Voldemort's wand. How and when had Pettigrew gotten ahold of that wand? Severus was certain that Voldemort must have brought it with him the night he went to kill the Potters, so why did Pettigrew have it when he confronted Black? Did that mean he had taken it from the Potters house? Wait, had the wand been in the house when Severus went there? Severus had hurried to the house as soon as he had heard the news that the Potters were dead. Hagrid had already been there when he got there, since Harry had been gone. But the wand... shouldn't it have been left on the floor in the room where Voldemort had lost his power? And he was pretty sure that was the room where he had found Lily...

Severus had to swallow hard to keep from growling in rage again. If the wand had been gone from the room when he got there, then that meant only one thing! Pettigrew had been to the Potters house before him! That slimy, good for nothing pile of Dragon Dung had sneaked his way into his best friend's house, minutes after their deaths and not bothered to even care about the fact that his best friend and his wife had been lying dead on the floor, but only to retrieve a bloody wand!

This thought made Severus seeth with anger. The list of reasons to let Pettigrew rotten away in Azkaban was growing by the minute! At that moment, he felt Pettigrew try to throw him out of his mind but it was a weak attempt. Severus would have laughed at the futile attempt if he hadn't been so angry. He was brought out of his thoughts when the memory kept playing and once again, it was Black who spoke.

"They were your best friends. They trusted you. We trusted you Peter. Why did you do it?" Black's voice still didn't betray many emotions, but Severus noticed that it had begun to tremble.

When Pettigrew still didn't say anything, Black took that as a confirmation that Pettigrew didn't feel any remorse for what he had done and his face twisted into one of pure rage as the hate he had built up for his old friend over the last few days finally reached the surface. Without wasting another second, Black swung his wand over his head as his eyes shot sparks towards his former friend.

"Avada..." Black's voice was loud and clear, but before he could finish his incatation, Pettigrew acted.

"HOW COULD YOU BETRAY LILY AND JAMES, SIRIUS?! EXPULSO MAXIMA!"

An enormous explosion shook the street as Pettigrew's curse hit the concrete. Severus was not surprised as he had known for a decade that something like this had to have been the curse used. However, he was shocked that Black, even in an enraged state, would resolve to using an unforgivable curse. He remembered that while Black hadn't been one to draw very clear lines in the sand, he had always been very strict when it came to use of the Unforgivables.

As the dust settled, he saw the all too familiar scene where Black was left and Pettigrew had fled, leaving behind a finger. He must have cut it off just before he escaped. But there was something here that didn't go along with the story that was being told. Black wasn't laughing. In the story that was being told of why Sirius Black was imprisoned in Azkaban, Black had been found laughing at the scene of his crime. But here, Black was not laughing. He was panting, probably from the shock of the explosion curse that his supposed "weak" former friend had pulled off, but he definetely wasn't laughing.

With that the scene disappeared as Severus retreated from Pettigrew's mind. He didn't need to see anything else. He most of all didn't want to see anything else. He had seen enough. As he came back to Dumbledore's office, he found that the headmaster was looking expectantly at him while Professor McGonagall was giving him a look of shock and dislike, but she didn't say anything. Severus cast one look at the man whimpering on the floor, which he by now was pretty sure was just an act, before he turned to Albus.

"Giulty. He sold the Potters to Voldemort and that's why Black went after him. He was the one who cast the curse that blew up the street and killed all those muggles and he used Voldemort's wand to do it." Severus glared back down at Pettigrew as he said that last part. "And I am pretty sure he still has that wand in his possession." Severus finished.

This picked Dumbledore's interest and the old man sat up straight in his armchair. Pettigrew peeked up at him, but was very careful not to meet his eyes. Apparently, he was a quick learner.

"Is that true, Peter?"

Pettigrew didn't say anything, nor did he make a move to deny or confirm it. Severus narrowed his eyes. Something wasn't right here. It felt too... familiar. For a moment, the memory where Black had faced off against Pettigrew came to mind and Severus eyes widened. Back then, Pettigrew hadn't made a move or given any recognition on his surroundings either, as if he was putting all of his senses on edge to be able to act the moment his opponent tried something. Slowly, Severus began reaching for his wand but it was too late. As soon as he moved, Pettigrew's hand flew inside his tattered robes and pulled out a wand. A bone white wand with a snake head at the handle. In a swift motion before Severus could react, Pettigrew was on his feet and swung his wand above his head.

"Ventus Crepitus!" Pettigrew shouted and released a wave of compressed air currents that sent the three surrounding Professors flying. Severus hit one of the bookshelves that stood along the walls of Dumbledore's office and grunted at the painful impact. Minerva was tossed up the stairs to the second floor of the office, and landed painfully on the last step. Dumbledore was thrown back but somehow managed to do a summersault in mid air and landed on his feet, wand in his hand. How agile was that old man? It shouldn't be possible!

However, Pettigrew hadn't waited for better times. The moment Severus, Albus and Minerva had been sent flying, he had darted across the room towards the Marauders' Map that was lying on Dumbledore's desk. Fawkes gave a screech of hostility and flew down from his spot to try and stop the offending wizard, but he missed by milimeters as Pettigrew chose that moment to transform back into a rat. Dumbledore swung his wand over his head and then pointed it towards the rat but missed due to a bad angle when the rat dove underneath the desk.

With a frustrated growl, Severus flew away from the bookshelf with his wand drawn and pointed his wand towards the desk, not caring the slightest that he might damage the headmaster's belongings.

"Fulmenicos Extremos!" he roared and for a moment, everything seemed to slow down as the tip of his wand began glowing with a white shine and the sound of sparks filled the room as the powerful curse charged up. And a moment later, the energy was released in the form of a lightning bolt that shot out of Severus wand and hit the desk with full force, before it went on to the destroy the window behind the desk. Minvera screamed in surprise and Pettigrew yelped in fright as the bolt passed just over his head.

The entire office was shaken from the power of the Bolt Curse Severus had performed and they couldn't even hear the glass splitter or the cracking from the destroyed desk as it was tossed out the window from the force of the curse. Feeling the drain of using such a power-consuming curse, Severus had to steady himself against one of the tipped over armchairs that they had been sitting in just a few moments ago. He cursed as he saw Pettigrew turn back to human and grabbed one of the parchments that had been left behind as the desk was destroyed and sent flying. Severus cursed under his panting breath as he realized that it was the Marauders' Map. Of course a magical object such as that would be charmed to be extremely difficult to destroy, or Filch would probably have done it when he first got into possession of it all those years ago.

As soon as he had layed hands on the parchement, Pettigrew vanished it and transformed back into a rat, barely avoiding the Stunner that Dumbledore had sent his way, before he darted towards the exit. With a furious growl, Severus took off after the rat with his wand at the ready, desperately hoping that the dizziness that layered in his head after the Powerful Elemental Curse he had performed would not affect his ability to cast spells. Not a second later, he was joined by Minerva and Albus as the three most powerful inhabitants chased after the rat.

-:-:-:-

Harry and his friends had just decided to make a pact, as neither of the teams seemed to be able to get an advantage over the other, when suddenly their attention was drawn to the castle as a loud thundering noise echoed over the grounds. It sounded like thunder from a big storm, causing Harry, Ron, Hannah, Susan, Daphne, Tracey, Blaise, Fred and George to cover their ears as to not go deaf. Harry looked up towards the castle, just in time to see a bolt of lightning shot across the sky from... Dumbledore's office? As the lightning died out, he saw some kind of object sailing through the air from the window, but it was too far away to see what it was. When the sound had died down, Harry swirled around to face his friends. All of them were looking back at him with the same, shocked expression.

"What the bloody hell was that?!" Ron exclaimed.

Though not all of them would have used Ron's choice of words, all of their friends nodded their heads in agreement with the young Weasley. Harry cast a worried look up towards Dumbledore's castle again, then turned back to his friends.

"I don't know, but something here is very wrong. Let's find out what!"

With that, he turned back towards the door and darted towards the castle over the grounds. Shocked by his reaction, not having expected him to run back towards the castle, his friends stared at him for a moment as if he was crazy, before Ron took off after him, followed by Fred and George, then Blaise, Hannah, Susan, Daphne and Tracey. The gryffindors, all being taller than Harry and with longer legs, was just about to catch up with their friend as he was half way to the door. Even from out on the grounds, one could hear the muffled noises and shouts coming from inside the castle and a second later, the large doors burst open in a shower of sparks. Out raced a grown man, about 30 in age, who was dressed in tattered clothes and had a bald spot on top of his gray hair. He looked up to see the group of youths running towards him and his eyes widened as they settled on Harry.

"Harry! Watch out!" came a shout from behind the man.

Harry was quick to react by pulling out his wand, just as Severus appeared from within the castle, with Dumbledore, McGonagall, Quirell and Sinistra on his heels. Seeing that Harry had pulled his wand rather than jump out of the way, Pettigrew felt that he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He was surrounded, with 5 Professors behind him and a group of children in front of him. His magical reserves had become pretty weak and unstable after having spent a decade as a rat so that Reverse Gale Hex he had used earlier had taken a lot out of him so he would most likely not be strong enough to perform another one of those. And even if he managed it, Dumbledore and the others would be expecting it this time and so it would lose its effectivity. Last time, he had gotten a lucky shot because neither of the professors in Dumbledore's office had expected it. With all that in mind, there really was only one option. With a determination that few had seen in his face, Pettigrew pointed his wand at the son of one of his former best friends at the same time Harry waved his towards Pettigrew.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry called the only dueling spell he had learnt so far.

"Avada Kedavra!" Pettigrew shouted.

A ray of green light shot out of the wand Pettigrew had stolen from Voldemort after his former master's defeat and clashed with the ray of red light that had shot out of Harry's. For a moment, the two spells seemed to be fighting for dominance as sparks and flashes was spit out of the sphere that had formed where the two spells had connected, then the air was filled with a strange song. It was a sad song, filled with pain and suffering that all the people that heard it could feel. But at the same time, it made all of them relax and stop their advance towards Pettigrew and Harry. Even Severus came to a stop as he listened to the song. It was the song of a Phoenix!

Behind Harry, all of his friends had stopped as suddenly, some kind of forcefield began materializing around the two wizards that had locked wands. Pettigrew's eyes grew wide with fear as this was not something he had expected. Opposite to him, Harry felt his chest constrict in shock and fear as his eyes danced around the sphere that had formed around him and Pettigrew. In his hand, his wand was shaking as if it was feeling the same pain that could be felt through the song. Or was it the wand that was singing?

The thought that this sound, this strange song that echoed across the grounds might be his own wand that was singing fascinated Harry and made him temporarily forget that he was currently in a duel, but he was soon brought back to the situation at hand as his wand gave off a screech as the sphere that had formed between him and Pettigrew began to come closer.

Behind Pettigrew, Severus had shaken himself out of his trance-like state that he had been put in when he heard the Phoenix Song. Seeing that Pettigrew had gotten over his shock and was trying to take down Harry, Severus gritted his teeth and lifted his wand.

"Stupefy!" he called and sent a ray of red light towards Pettigrew but when it reached the barrier, it bounced off and was sent back the way it came, causing Severus' eyes to widen. He was saved by Dumbledore, who held out his hand in front of him and managed to project a wandless protection barrier, similar to a Protego charm.

"It's useless. We can't do anything as long as they are in there." he said as he looked at the fascinating phenomenom in front of him. If he hadn't been so worried about Harry, he would probably have wanted to examine the sphere to see if it would be possible to project something similar at will through a yet unknown spell. To think that Harry had been a Priori Incantatem from getting hit with another Killing Curse made Dumbledore's stomach twist painfully. And in his school on top of that! He was supposed to protect Harry, but so far that had failed pretty badly and two times already had Harry found himself on the recieving end of a Killing Curse and both times, he had been saved by luck.

Inside the barrier, Harry was starting to feel that he was losing it. The sphere was getting closer and he felt himself struggling to hold it back. He was too inexperienced. He was not strong enough. But as he thought it, he felt something awaken inside of him. He felt a cold, yet heating sensation build in his chest and he felt himself grow stronger, causing the sphere to stop its advance on him and begin to drift towards Pettigrew, whose eyes widened in shock. Harry suddenly felt like he knew what this was. Priori Incantatem. He didn't know when or where, but he had read about it somewhere, a long time ago... It felt almost like that time during the flying lesson, when Malfoy had provoked him. He felt like he had known this before... in another life. And just like that day, if someone could get close enough to see it, Harry's eyes shifted from emerald green to a sickly yellow color as he felt a rage that was not his own enter his mind. Drawing on that anger, Harry pushed the sphere back towards Pettigrew and fast.

And then, Pettigrew's wand began shaking before letting out a sound like from a huge explosion, along with what appeared to be a projection of some sort that appeared from the tip of the wand. The projection showed the explosion as if it was shown on a bad television. From behind Pettigrew, Severus eyes narrowed as he recognized it as the same explosion he had seen when he was looking through Pettigrew's memory. Was Harry's wand forcing Voldemort's to project the spells it had cast beforehand? But if that was the case and Pettigrew hadn't used it before he faced Black, then...

Harry felt his eyes widen as another projection made its way out of Pettigrew's wand. But this time, it took the form of a human. A woman to be exact. As the projection landed on the ground and rose in her full height, Harry found himself staring at a young woman, about 21 of age, with long auburn red hair. If he didn't know better, he would almost have thought that he was looking at a Ginny from the future. That was until he met her eyes. They weren't the chocolate brown orbs that he had come to assosciate with his best friend. They were green. Emerald green. Just like his. Yeah, just like his... As he looked into his mother's eyes, he felt the strange rage receed back into the back of his mind where it had come from and the yellow in his eyes disappeared so his eyes took on their natural green color to match the woman in front of him.

"Mum?" he whispered in shock.

The projection of Lily Potter nodded her head. She looked him over for a second, taking in the appearence of her son, the son she never got to raise. Her face filled with sorrow as she walked over to Harry and put her hand over his to help hold the wand.

"Harry, hold on a little longer. Your father is on his way, he wants to say some words to you. Don't give up, I know you can do it!" her voice echoed, as if she was shouting her words from far away.

All around the dome that had formed between the two combatants, people was gasping and the female population had covered their hearts with their hands. Dumbledore's eyes widened when he heard the Astral Projection speak. He hadn't thought it possible for anything from the dead to be so... real, except through the use of the Ressurection stone. McGonagall had tears in her eyes as she looked at one of her favourite students, one of the friends she had lost during the war... It felt like a dream.

Behind Harry, people was starting to realize who the woman was. None of them had any idea of what was happening and Hannah had even taken cover behind one of the twins for protection. Ron was the first to realize who it was that had been summoned and his shocked gasp brought out many whispered questions from his friends. When he put forward his theory, most looked like they thought he had gone nuts, but then they heard Harry's whispered "Mum?" and turned around to see the beautiful young witch nod in confirmation. Susan's eyes widened and tears started to run down her cheeks. Hannah too was crying and Ron was staring wide eyed at the scene. The twins was gaping at the woman. This shouldn't be possible! The three slytherins felt a little out of place, but Blaise, after shaking himself out of his shock, decided to do what he could to be honourable and pulled of his cap. Taking his example, Daphne and Tracey did so too and once the others caught up with their trail of thought, they followed suit.

"LILYYYY!" came a scream that startled everyone present, including Harry. Who would have thought that Uncle Sev could produce such a sound?

The auburn haired woman in question looked up from her son to find a familiar face staring at her from the other side of the barrier. Severus Snape had rushed down to the magical barrier the moment he had seen his childhood friend and later love appear. His hands were pressed against the golden energy that was surrounding his surrogate son and his opponent. The barrier was sending shocks of painful energy, similar to electricity, through his body to try and repulse him, but he didn't let go. He pressed himself towards the barrier in desperation, tears streaming down his face as he locked eyes with Lily.

"Sev..." she said as she looked at him.

Severus took note of her calling him by the nickname she had used as a child instead of the less popular "Snivellus" that she had began using after their argument in 5th year. His chest constricted even more, if that was even possible, and his throat felt strangely dry as he tried to speak. There wasn't words to describe what he was feeling right now, but he had to try. He had to get through to her what he had failed to say all those years ago.

"I... I know I have no right to ask for forgiveness after what I did, but I just want to say... I'M SO SORRY!" he practically screamed the last part.

The surrounding people stared at him. They had never seen Severus Snape break down like this. But he didn't care. Right now, the only person he had eyes for was the projection of Lily that was standing next to her son inside the barrier that the Priori Incantatem had created.

Lily watched her childhood friend with sad eyes. Back when they had been children, Severus had been her best friend. And when they had come to Hogwarts, he had been the only person she knew. He had done some awful things since then, both during their time in school and after they graduated, things a normal person would never be able to forgive. And originally, Lily had thought even she would never be able to look at Severus as a friend again. But since then she had seen... seen how much Severus truly regretted his past actions. She had seen how Severus layed down his life to help raise Harry and how much he had done to help the Wizarding World recover from the chaos he had once been part of spreading. She had seen him in his office at night, sitting through the night just staring at old photos of them as children, happy together and she had seen him crying in his sleep over the mistakes he had made and the result of those mistakes. Now as she looked into his black, tearful eyes, Lily had to take a deep breath before she opened her mouth to give him an answer.

A/N: And Boom! Bet you didn't see that coming. Now, I know Peter is a little... ok, VERY different from canon but I thought, why the hell not? It's not like everyone is like they were in canon *cough*Severus*cough*, that would be boring! And to be honest, I actually expected Wormtail to show us some kind of hidden darkness or something in the last book. I mean, he was able to cast Avada Kedavra succesfully after all so that must mean he had some kind of hatred and power inside of him, somewhere. And also, he got the draw on Sirius Black, who was an extremely skilled duelist and on top of that blew up an entire street, killing 14 people! It just didn't make any sense in my mind that a man that could do that was a cowards. Sure, a little lame and faint-hearted maybe, but he must have been at least decently strong in a sense to have performer these feats.

Now, I want to answer some FAQs. I have recieved countless reviews asking about how I will tackle Sirius and Severus trying to take care of Harry at the same time and I just want to say that you have to wait and see. It is all still hanging in the air.

Aside from that, a lot of the reviews were positive, though I did recieve one saying that Sev was too OOC and that the story was Sh*t because of it. To that, and people who think similar, I can just say I'm sorry you don't like my story, but really why are you reading it if you don't like it? There are like 400k HP stories on this site so if you think this one is sh*t, just go read something else.

And as usual, to Sisno2200, I can understand why it rubs you the wrong way with Harry giving Ron Chocolate and Ginny a Golden Locket, but that's how it is now. Perhaps he will give Ronniekins something better next year, who knows? And yeah, I might have made a few more mistakes last chapter because I tried to get it up with all this sh*tty school work and stuff that I got up my neck right now and the same goes for this one. Also, I managed to lose about 2k words of this chapter so I might have been frustrated at some point.
I can tell you that yes, different years can go into each other's dorms, as Ginny was able to enter Harry's dorm when she got back the diary in canon and Oliver Wood have entered Harry's dorm more than once to wake him up for early quidditch practice. Aside from that, I'm glad you're still with me and hope you still will be after this kind of extreme chapter. And since your profile picture is a Pikachu, why don't you go and check out my new Pokemon Story, Serene Phoenix?

And with that, I thank you for reading this 13th chapter and I really hope that this isn't the unlucky chapter where I mess up the story (yes, 13 is an unlucky number for me). I kindly ask all of you to leave a review so I know what you think of the first real "action" chapter and how I did on the fighting part. And even if you don't have anything to say about the fight, just leave a review to let me know what you think, ok? This is Mr Oakzzz, signing out for now! =)