Chapter Warnings: Mild Adult Language
Authors Note: Hello all, I realize that it has been a long time since I updated, but real life takes priority over writing. I've had stuff to deal with for university and in my personal life. But now I have a chance to write and I have pumped out another chapter for you. There is an allusion to a line from one of the books, about Hogwarts a History. The passageway that Pettigrew uses is actually mentioned in the third book. And as for the last line, well hopefully you recognize it as a reference to the first story, "Heir to the Serpent." So read and review….
Chapter 8: Calling All Cats
There was someone shaking Draco awake. The blond lifted his head and squinted his eyes open to see that a House Elf was at his bedside, shaking him in an attempt to wake him up, He squinted at the elf. It looked very familiar.
"Dobby?" Draco asked. "What's going on? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Dobby works here master Draco. But that is not important. You must get up and go right away sir. An intruder is in Hogwarts sir."
Draco leapt up out of the bed and raced into Hermione's room only to find that she was already awake.
"You are wanted in the Great Hall." Dobby said. "They are meeting there."
Draco sprinted out of Hermione's room, out of their quarters and down to the Great Hall. All of the houses were assembled there. "What's going on?" Draco asked panting of McGonagall, who was talking to Harry. The teen was holding a piece of parchment that was very old but as far as Draco could see, did not have any writing on it. Draco wondered vaguely what the parchment was all about before his mind turned to more pressing matters. "I heard that there was an intruder in the castle."
"Peter Pettigrew is here somewhere." Harry said.
"How do you know?" Draco asked. "Are you sure?"
"Mr. Potter assures me that he is quite sure, but he will not tell me how it is that he knows this." McGonagall told Draco. Hermione came up behind Draco at that point, panting from shortness of breath. Presumably she had run after Draco. Draco caught Hermione glancing at the piece of parchment in Harry's hand and her resolve seemed to stiffen. At this point Draco was sure that there was something suspicious about this paper, but he had no idea what it was so he said nothing about it.
"We have to get Pettigrew out of the castle." Hermione said. "But Professor he can turn into a rat. How will we find him?" Draco had a feeling that the paper would have helped in this task but it didn't seem like Harry was going to use it, at least not in front of so many people. Draco contemplated the situation. How did one find a rat in a giant castle? A specific rat mind you, not just any rat. His question was answered for him in the form of Blaise suddenly behind him saying, "Calling all cats, calling all cats."
"Wait, that's actually not a bad idea," Draco said. "We round up all the cats of the castle and send them after him. There's got to be enough cats in this place to catch him."
"I was joking Draco." Blaise insisted. "Besides even if we did manage to round up all the cats in the castle, how do we get them to do what we want them to do?"
"I believe that would be my job," McGonagall said and turned briefly into a tabby cat, just long enough to make her point, before turning back into a woman.
"So what are we going to do?" Blaise asked, "put out an ACB?"
"An ABC? What are you talking about now Blaise?" Even though Blaise's original joke had turned out to be a good idea, Draco didn't really think it was the time for Blaise to be joking around. It was a serious situation that there was a Death Eater in the castle. Draco knew who Peter Pettigrew was. Draco had never been part of Voldemort's inner circle; he had not been with the Death eaters long enough to get in deep. His family however was part of the inner circle. His aunt Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy were very close to Voldemort. There were some people who though tthat Voldemort and Bellatrix were lovers. The idea would have been laughable if it weren't so disturbing to Draco, and if it weren't so close to the truth. But Pettigrew was extremely close to the Dark Lord. Bellatrix and Lucius both mocked the man, but he was the reason that Voldemort had risen to power once more nad he could be said to be the one who lost him his powers in the first place. Pettigrew might not seem dangerous to most people, but Draco knew that he held a lot of power over the Dark Lord.
"Not an ABC," Blaise said, "An ACB, an all cats bulletin. You know, get all the cats in the castle on guard for this thing? This person or rat or whatever?"
"Again how do we round up all the cats in this place?" Draco asked. "And we need more than cats on this thing. We need to get people here."
"You're right," Hermione said "We need to call the Order in on this."
"What about the Ministry? The Aurors?" It was Flitwick. Draco turned to McGonagall, feeling that it was her duty to decide whether they could trust the Ministry right now, but Draco for one did not.
"Leave that decision to Kingsley," McGonagall told Flitwick. Draco cast about for his Defense teacher but couldn't find him. Presumably the man was already searching the grounds for Pettigrew.
"Harry" Hermione said, pulling them aside from the teachers. "We have to let them know where Pettigrew is." Then conspiratorially she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Draco could just barely make out her question as to why he hadn't just gone after Pettigrew himself. Draco raised his eyebrow at Harry. He had been wondering the same thing.
"I needed backup" Harry said. "I immediately sent Dobby to get you and Ron was already with me. Still I need," he bent his head in so that only Hermione, Draco, Ron, and Blaise could hear him. "I need Pettigrew to be scared and I need him to know that we know he's here. I need to see what route he takes to leave. I need to know if other Death Eaters can get in the way that he got in."
"So basically you're waiting for him to leave." Draco said. "How do you know he hasn't already left?"
"Charmed his name," Harry said, "put a tracking charm on it. If it goes off the radar, I'll know."
"That makes no sense" Draco said "What radar? What do you mean you put a tracking charm on his name?"
Harry smirked up at Draco, "We have a map" Draco looked again at the parchment in Harry's hands. Up close he could definitely see that there was nothing written on it.
"What are you on about Potter?" Draco asked. "There's nothing written on that bit of paper in your hand."
"Nothing written on it now." Harry said. He looked around them at the crowd. "We need to get to someplace more private to figure out how to lead the charge without seeming like we're the ones doing it."
"Head's common Room?" Ron asked.
"No, we need to get into McGonagall's office." Draco said "Then we've got the floo network and the Order on our side."
"We need to get in contact with Remus Lupin" Harry told them.
"Why?" Blaise asked.
"Two reasons," Harry said. "First of all, he was friends with Pettigrew in school. He knows how he operates and how to identify him in both forms."
"I could do that" Ron said, somewhat bitterly. Draco raised an eyebrow at him.
"Second of all" Harry continued, ignoring Ron, "He's the one who made the map."
"What map?" Draco asked.
Harry looked between him and Blaise and then to Hermione and Ron. "We need to get somewhere secure first."
Harry walked back, over to McGonagall, who was now conversing with Shacklebott and Flitwick. Draco watched him, not able to hear what he was saying. How the hell did Potter think he was going to commendere the Headmistress' office in order to use as a base of operations to secretly lead a mission or whatever this was in order to capture Pettigrew, but only at the right time? And how was he going to get everyone to go along with this crazy plan not knowing he was behind it, especially when the cover that he was using was something with an army of cats that Blaise had come up with as a joke? And how was he mgoing to know where Pegttigrew was and which way he was going and if he was even still here with only an unspecified charm, a radar system the Draco doubted even really existed, and an old bit of parchment that in Potter's delusional mind was actually a map made by Remus Lupin.
"We're in" Harry said as he came back over to them. Damn Potter. How the hell did he do that? "McGonagall is going to send out the bulletin as a cat and hopefully all the cats in the school will respond to it. She agreed with me to have Mrs. Norris and Crookshanks as her Lieutenants in this operation."
"What? Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris are Lieutenants?" Blaise asked in disbelief. "You do all realize that I was joking right?" How are Mrs. Norris and Crookshanks going to be helpful as cat Lieutenants?"
"Well Mrs. Norris knows the secret passageways around the castle and Crookshanks knows Pettigrew. They're our best bet at capturing him with cats. Or at least getting close enough to him to scare him. Now come on, McGonagall;s going to go elsewhere to give the announcement so that the whole school doesn't realize that we're using their cats. That would cause uproar. Meanwhile, Shacklebott will be flooing into the Auror department and bringing back Tonks and other people he thinks we can trust. As for us, we've got to have someone floo to Grimmauld Place and get the rest of the Order or as many of them as we can."
"I'll do it" Ron said. "That way you can start to lead the charge Harry."
"They won't be able to come through here they'll have to come from the village. The fireplaces in the castle can be used to send messages but not for transportation." Hermione said.
"Why not?" Ron asked.
"Because then anyone could get in. Honestly, you all have got to read Hogwarts a History."
"Why do we need to read it if you know it by heart?" Ron asked. Hermione rolled her eyes at him.
"Great, now we have to go.: Harry insisted and he herded them out of the great Hall and up to McGonagall's office, where Hermione gave the password and Ron hurried to the fireplace to floo to Grimmauld Place.
"Come over here" Harry called to them and Draco turned from Ron to approach Harry. Spread out on the desk before him was a map of Hogwarts with little moving dots that showed all the residents of the castle. Draco's eyes widened as he wondered at the map. He now knew what that old bit of parchment had been.
"Where did you get this?" he asked Harry.
"From Fred and George Weasley, but that's not important. Help me look for Pettigrew." He said scanning the map. Draco couldn't take his eyes off of it. He scanned the map for Pettigrew as best he could, but he was half distracted by the novelty and splendor of the map.
"There!" Hermione exclaimed, pointing at a spot down the History of magic corridor on the fourth floor. The dot labeled Peter Pettigrew was hurrying down the corridor as a loud mewing sound was heard amplified throughout the halls. McGonagall was calling the cats to the hunt and Pettigrew was obviously getting nervous hearing the loud sounds of cats. Draco didn't know how many cats were in the school, but there were about 300 students in the school and quite a few of them had cats. There should be a decent number of them now after Pettigrew.
"What do we do now Harry?" Ron asked. "How are we going to let the cats know where Pettigrew is?"
"We're not" said Harry, "Like I said, we want him scared and we want him to run. We're trying to figure out how he got in and if other Death Eaters could get in after him."
Draco rolled his eyes. "Why not just use Veritaserum?" he asked. "Then we could find out what he's up to and we wouldn't have to go to all this trouble of making it look like we're trying to find him when we're not and letting him possibly get away."
"Because we're not the only ones he'll talk to" said Harry, "and we're not the only ones with an agenda. If we capture him, they'll send him to Azkaban. If he does end up there, then Voldemort knows he was captured and will change his plans, so we'll have captured Pettigrew essentially for nothing. And if Pettigrew escapes after we capture him, then he goes back to Voldemort and either he tells Voldemort what happened or Voldemort forces it out of him through torture and Legilimancy. The only way for him to go through with the plan of using this particular way that he's found to get in, is to let him escape."
"You're serious about this?" Draco asked, already knowing that Harry was.
"Definitely" Harry said. Draco knew he had thought this out, but he still didn't like it. "So we're putting on this big show to make out like we're going to catch him, getting the Order and the Aurors and the bloody cats involved just to scare him so that we can let him escape?" Draco ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "But why? Why are we making all this fuss if we're going to let him just escape? If we get him scared won't he just go tell Voldemort what happened and his plan will change anyway?"
"No," Harry said, "It'll tell them how little time they have to put the plan into action. Really they'll have less time than that. I watched Pettigrew for a while before I sounded the alarm. That way when a real attack happens, we'll have that much more time to assemble out forces. We need them to know we're prepared, it'll stave off their attack for a bit, but we also need them to think that they'll have more time than they do to catch them off guard. And as I've been telling you all along, we need to find out where he goes. We need to know how he got in and how others might get in. Besides, we need to be ready to deploy our forces in case more Death Eaters than just Pettigrew get in. Look" He exclaimed, pointing at the post of the map that was Pettigrew. It was going into a passageway. Draco hadn't noticed before, in the castle, nor on the map of it. The passageway was on the other side of the fourth floor, behind a mirror.
"I thought that passageway was caved in." Hermione said "You told us that years ago; that's why we've never used it."
"We'll he's gotten in that way." Harry said. "That's how he'll be getting the Death eaters into the castle. Everyone who knows about that passageway thinks it's been blocked off for years, but he's found a hole. It may not be big enough for a human now, but it will be."
"Wow Potter, when did you get so strategic?" Draco asked.
"What do you think I've done since Dumbledore died?" Harry asked "Knit?"