Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.

Chapter 16- Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, & Prongs

It takes a few seconds for the absurdity of this statement to sink in. Then Ron voices what we are all thinking. "You're both mental."

"Ridiculous!" says Hermione faintly.

"Messing with life and death is nothing to trifle with." I comment unsurely. Hermione glances at me, and comes over to stand beside me, raising the bloody cloth to my head again which, is still bleeding unfortunately.

"Peter Pettigrew's dead!" says Harry. "He killed him twelve years ago!" He points at Black, whose face twitches convulsively.

"I meant to," he growls, his yellow teeth bared, "but little Peter got the better of me ... not this time, though!"

And Crookshanks is thrown to the floor as Black lunges at Scabbers; Ron yells with pain as Black's weight falls on his broken leg.

"Stop it!" I shout finally starting to feel a little bit like myself again. Terrified but still capable of thought and speech.

"Sirius, NO!" Lupin yells, launching himself forwards and dragging Black away from Ron again. "WAIT! You can't do it just like that — they need to understand — we've got to explain —"

"We can explain afterwards!" snarls Black, trying to throw Lupin off. One hand is still clawing the air as it tries to reach Scabbers, who is squealing like a piglet, scratching Ron's face and neck as he tries to escape. That rat seriously is having a bad night.

"They've — got — a — right — to — know — everything!" Lupin pants, still trying to restrain Black. "Ron's kept him as a pet! There are parts of it even I don't understand! And Harry — you owe Harry the truth, Sirius!" This is interesting.

Black stops struggling, though his hollow eyes are still fixed on Scabbers, who is clamped tightly under Ron's bitten, scratched, and bleeding hands.

"All right, then," Black says, without taking his eyes off the rat. "Tell them whatever you like. But make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for. . . ."

"You're nutters, both of you," says Ron shakily, looking round at Harry, Hermione, and I for support. "I've had enough of this. I'm off."

He tries to heave himself up on his good leg, but Lupin raises his wand again, pointing it at Scabbers. This isn't going to end well.

"You're going to hear me out, Ron," he says quietly. "Just keep a tight hold on Peter while you listen."

"HE'S NOT PETER, HE'S SCABBERS!" Ron yells, trying to force the rat back into his front pocket, but Scabbers is fighting too hard; Ron sways and overbalances, and Harry catches him and pushes him back down to the bed. Then, ignoring Black, Harry turns to Lupin.

"There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die," he says. "A whole street full of them . . ."

"They didn't see what they thought they saw!" says Black savagely, still watching Scabbers struggling in Ron's hands. For a simple old rat Scabbers sure seems to sense that something is going on and its focused on him. Maybe there's something to this claim.

"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," says Lupin, nodding. "I believed it myself — until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's Map never lies . . . Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."

We look down at Ron. Then Hermione speaks, in a trembling, would-be calm sort of voice, as though trying to will Professor Lupin to talk sensibly.

"But Professor Lupin . . . Scabbers can't be Pettigrew . . . it just can't be true, you know it can't . . ."

"Why can't it be true?" Lupin says calmly, as though we are in class, and Hermione has simply spotted a problem in an experiment with grindylows.

"Because . . . because people would know if Peter Pettigrew had been an Animagus. We did Animagi in class with Professor McGonagall. And I looked them up when I did my homework — the Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals; there's a register showing what animal they become, and their markings and things . . . and I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register, and there have been only seven Animagi this century, and Pettigrew's name wasn't on the list —"

Wow I still don't know how Hermione can hold all this knowledge in her head. I have barely had time to marvel inwardly at the effort Hermione puts into her homework, when Lupin starts to laugh.

"Right again, Hermione!" he says. "But the Ministry never knew that there used to be three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts."

"If you're going to tell them the story, get a move on, Remus," snarls Black, who is still watching Scabbers's every desperate move. "I've waited twelve years, I'm not going to wait much longer."

"All right . . . but you'll need to help me, Sirius," says Lupin, "I only know how it began . . ."

Lupin breaks off. There is a loud creak behind us. The bedroom door has opened of its own accord. All five of us star at it. Then Lupin strides towards it and looks out into the landing.

"No one there . . ."

"This place is haunted!" says Ron.

"It's not," says Lupin, still looking at the door in a puzzled way. "The Shrieking Shack was never haunted. . . . The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me."

He pushes his graying hair out of his eyes, thinks for a moment, then says, "That's where all of this starts — with my becoming a werewolf. None of this could have happened if I hadn't been bitten . . . and if I hadn't been so foolhardy. . . ."

He looks sober and tired. Ron starts to interrupt, but Hermione says, "Shh!" She is watching Lupin very intently.

"I was a very small boy when I received the bite. My parents tried everything, but in those days there was no cure. The potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery. It makes me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform. . . . I am able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again."

"Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me."

"But then Dumbledore became headmaster, and he was sympathetic. He said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn't come to school. . . ." Lupin sighs, and looks directly at Harry. "I told you, months ago, that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. The truth is that it was planted because I came to Hogwarts. This house" — Lupin looks miserably around the room — "the tunnel that leads to it — they were built for my use. Once a month, I was smuggled out of the castle, into this place, to transform. The tree was placed at the tunnel mouth to stop anyone coming across me while I was dangerous."

"The life of a werewolf is never easy. The inflicted are hunted, persecuted, and treated like second-class wizards. It's not right but it's the way the law is now. Someday we will change it." I say mostly to myself but apparently Lupin is listening.

"Right you are Jamie. I thank you for being an idealist when one such as myself cannot be." He tells me softly focusing his gaze back onto Harry.

"My transformations in those days were — were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf. I was separated from humans to bite, so I bit and scratched myself instead. The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought they were hearing particularly violent spirits. Dumbledore encouraged the rumor. . . . Even now, when the house has been silent for years, the villagers don't dare approach it. . . ."

"But apart from my transformations, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black . . . Peter Pettigrew . . . and, of course, your father, Harry — James Potter."

"Now, my three friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories. I told them my mother was ill, and that I had to go home to see her. . . . I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course, they, like you, Hermione, worked out the truth. . . ."

"And they didn't desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi."

"My dad too?" says Harry, astounded.

"Yes, indeed," says Lupin. "It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school, and lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong — one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius. Finally, in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will."

That is probably one of the sweetest things I've ever heard, not to mention one of the coolest.

"But how did that help you?" I ask still puzzled.

"They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals," says Lupin. "A werewolf is only a danger to people. They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's Invisibility Cloak. They transformed . . . Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow's attacking branches and touch the knot that freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them."

"Hurry up, Remus," snarls Black, who is still watching Scabbers with a horrible sort of hunger on his face. If this story is anyway true then I will feel bad for the poor man. To be sentenced and locked away for a crime you did not commit must be dreadful.

"I'm getting there, Sirius, I'm getting there . . . well, highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did. . . . And that's how we came to write the Marauder's Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."

"What sort of animal — ?" Harry begins, but Hermione cuts him off.

"That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you'd given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?"

Oh well that is definitely a downside to this story, if there ever is one. "A thought that still haunts me," says Lupin heavily. "And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless — carried away with our own cleverness."

"I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore's trust, of course . . . he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others' safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month's adventure. And I haven't changed. . . ."

Lupin's face has hardened, and there is self-disgust in his voice. "All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn't do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I'd betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I'd led others along with me . . . and Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using Dark Arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it . . . so, in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

"Snape?" says Black harshly, taking his eyes off Scabbers for the first time in minutes and looking up at Lupin. "What's Snape got to do with it?" Oh so there is some sort of rivalry between the lot of them. I guess that Kingsley was wrong when he said that school time rivalries would end once we become adults.

"He's here, Sirius," says Lupin heavily. "He's teaching here as well." He looks up at Harry, Ron, Hermione, and me.

"Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons . . . you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me —"

Black makes a derisive noise. "It served him right," he sneers. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to . . . hoping he could get us expelled. . . ."

Wow no of blood loss between them.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month," Lupin tells us. "We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field . . . anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be — er — amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it — if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf — but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life . . . Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was. . . ."

"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," I say slowly, "because he thought you were in on the joke?"

"That's right," sneers a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin. Severus Snape is pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin. Oh Merlin, this looks like its going to be an interesting night.

"Hello professor, what brings you out to a sketchy shack on a night like this?" I stutter attempting humor to break the tension in the room.