Here's the newest chapter for the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord", enjoy!
I'm sure you all know about the mess that started a week ago. I know that this is a really weak excuse for not updating my stories according to the schedule I set myself, but... well... that stunt the admins pulled had killed my inspiration for days, as well as forced me to concentrate on saving my favorite read before it got deleted. Anyway, somehow, I managed to finish the 50th chapter of the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord", and now I present it to you.
On the side note, as this story technically violates the ToS of this site, it can be deleted at any time. But don't worry, maybe even today, I'll copy it over to yourfanfiction .com, so, if it disappears from this site, you can continue reading it there. The link to my account can be found in my profile.

* Review response:
Naginator, ElementalMaster16, reven228, Penny is wise, Impstar, god of all, 1337box, Dusk Ado II, Drake0x, OverPowered, thanks for your reviews, folks!
The Swordslinger, sorry, but the rat is not dead yet.
Awsomeness7, well, sometimes quantity is enough to compensate for quality. And fighting against 40+ opponents is not likely to end in a good way for the single warrior.
Joe Lawyer, Harry is going to get 'awesome' over the summer, though Sirius will have nothing to do with this. And, no, I'm not giving any spoilers to what is going to happen yet. Actually, I will only tell about the events of the summer '94 in flashbacks...
Zarosian Chaos, well, show me one not-time-travel story where Harry goes looking for Wormtail? I can't really recall any.

* Poll: There is a new poll in my profile. The question this time is the following: do you want me to write a snip-off (likely, lemon-ic) one-shot to this story with the pairing of Harry/Violet? As usual, the options are 'Yes', 'No' and 'I don't care'. At the moment, majority has voted 'yes'

* Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" and its characters in any shape or form.

"human speech"
"wraith speech"
'human thoughts'
"powered speech / true prophecies by the seer"
"spells / parseltongue"

This chapter is not beta-read yet.

chapter 50: Sirius confrontation

Harry felt himself being jerked away from the unconsciousness and back into the real world by someone's magic... Before even opening his eyes, the dark-haired teen quickly checked himself: he was in one piece and aside from some bruises – it looked like he was dragged to wherever he was, instead of being levitated there – he was fine. Even his wand was still in its holster, though the young Potter was quite positive he couldn't be able to use it at the moment as his body was tied up with some magical ropes, preventing him from moving.

Finally opening his eyes, Harry surveyed the place where he was... It was a very disordered and dusty room with paper peeling from the walls and many stains on the floor, some of which looked like old blood. And every piece of furniture in the room was damaged in some way; good deal of it was actually more or less completely destroyed. Finally, with all of the few windows there boarded up, little to no light came from the outside, making it rather hard to tell what time of a day it was now... Actually, the young Potter thought, with the claw marks and old locks of ripped fur scattered everywhere, this house would fit quite well in some horror movie...

Shaking his head, the green-eyed wizard tried to think up where he was. Since it looked like there was some sunlight coming through the boarded up windows, he concluded that it was an early afternoon now. Not that it really helped him in determining his location... Making a wild guess, the young Potter marked this room as a part of the Shrieking Shack in his mind – knowing how illogical the wizarding world was most of the time, his kidnapper wouldn't think of dragging him too far from where the attack commenced.

Then Harry looked in other direction and finally saw the man who had abducted him from Hogwarts. The said man looked sick and filthy with his matted hair hanging to his elbows and waxy pale skin, which made an impression that he hadn't being out in the sun for decades... The man looked really thing with his bones clearly visible, but despite this his eyes shone quite brightly from the dark sockets of his skull-like face...

"I'm sorry, Harry..." The man, whom Harry now finally identified as Sirius Black, said in a raspy voice, while baring his teeth, so yellow and unhealthy that any self-respecting dentist would force him into the chair and keep him strapped there till all those abominations were white and shining. "But this was the only way I could think of to make you listen to me." Then there was a pause during which the young Potter wasn't sure what he could say to the Azkaban escapee. "Anyway..." Sirius Black finally continued. "This rat is the reason for this whole mess." He said, gesturing towards the cage that stood on the partially-broken table next to him. In the cage there was a rat that trying really hard to escape... And it was doing it clearly in a way that a human would do.

"So..." Harry finally spoke, his eyes focused on the rat. "I take it, this is Peter Pettigrew?" He asked, shocking both Sirius and the rat speechless. Well, Peter just froze in place, forgetting about his attempts to free himself from the cage he had been forced into. After a couple of seconds, the Azkaban escapee recomposed himself.

"H-How did you know that?" He asked, looking straight into Harry's eyes, as if trying to read the answer straight out of the teen's mind. The green-eyed wizard shrugged as best as the ropes allowed him to – while to the anyone it would look like he was fine with being all tied up, in reality he was just trying to keep Black's attention off his attempts to free himself from the bindings...

"A couple of the students I know possess a very detailed map of Hogwarts that shows where everyone is." Hopefully, this answer, while completely truthful, will not get the Weasley twins into any trouble... Hearing the answer, Sirius paused for a second, before starting to laugh in a not-completely-sane way.

"Hahaha, guess, our little map wasn't as lost in the Filch's office as we thought! I'll have to meet with these new Marauders after this whole mess is cleared up!" This wasn't the reaction that Harry was expecting. "But we're getting sidetracked here." Mr. Black continued as he calmed down a bit from his laughter. "Yes, this rat is indeed Peter Pettigrew in his animagus form. And this little bastard is the reason you don't live with your parents, Harry... Though I myself can be blamed for their deaths almost as much." The young lord Potter – still tied up well, though he already managed to loosed the magical ropes more than quite a bit – growled at the Azkaban escapee in front of him.

"Explain." It wasn't a request, it as an order, no matter how strange that would seem. And despite his apparent dementor-caused insanity, Sirius followed it.

"Um..." He paused, not sure, where he should start his explanation. "Well, as you should know, at time of your birth You-know-who was terrorizing magical Britain, and your parents, along with many other good wizards and witches were fighting against him. And, because they were quite good at it, they were near the top of his to-kill list, so when you were born, James and Lily had to go into a hiding... At first it was alright with the wards they already had, but as the time progressed, the Dark lord was getting more and more power, and by the time you were one, the existing wards around the cottage in the Godric's Hollow were no longer enough to keep you three safe." Harry was looking pointedly at Sirius, waiting for the man to confess what part in his parents' deaths he had played. "So Dumbledore proposed the idea of using Fidelus charm to hide them... You know what it is, right?"

"Yes, continue." The young Potter said as he sent Mr. Black his glare... Meanwhile he was finishing working on the ropes; a minute or two and he will be able to free himself. What would happen after that largely depended on what Sirius had to say.

"Well, anyway, since I was the best friend of your father, I was the prime candidate for being the secret keeper for them. But with how many people knew about how close friends we were, I was kind of obvious, so, instead, I suggested that they choose another secret keeper, while I will act as a decoy... They didn't want it to be like that, but after hours upon hours of arguing, I managed to convince them to switch the secret keeper's role on to Peter... We didn't knew that the bastardy rat was a Death Eater... In a way it was me, who killed you parents, Harry." Sirius said with a sob. "What kind of godfather I am if I couldn't even let my godson have his parents with him!.." This declaration made the green-eyed teen pause for a bit in his attempts to free himself:

Sure, even according to him himself, Sirius was indirectly at fault for his parents' deaths, but... the man didn't really knew that the secret keeper he made them choose was an enemy, so faulting him... Well, not enough vigilance had being paid to safety, but was it really Black's fault? Harry didn't know... And, of course, as someone who had spent twelve years around the dementors, Sirius couldn't be called sane, so, even if it didn't make Harry any less angry with the man, he decided that, maybe, he shouldn't be just so harsh at judging him and what he was doing at the moment now. So Harry found himself in a quite unpleasant situation where he didn't really know how he should act... Meanwhile the Azkaban escapee, who stopped his self-pitying for the past mistakes, continued:

"But enough about that." He said. "We've a rat to deal with." Once these words were said, Peter all but doubled his efforts to escape the cage he had been forced into. Of course it didn't work as the layers of magic were too strong for him... Opening the cage, Sirius picked the scared to death rat by his tail, holding the animagus in such a way that he couldn't bite him, and pulled him out of the cage. Then the last male Black pointed the wand he had on his person – he was holding it in his other hand – at Peter and muttered something under his breath, causing a whitish-blue beam of magic hit the rat.

In an almost grotesque show the rodent started transforming into a human: first legs, then body, then arms and finally the head... Peter Pettigrew was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry himself was. His thin, colorless hair was unkempt and there was a large bald patch on top. He had the shrunken appearance of a plump man who has lost a lot of weight in a short time. His skin looked grubby, almost like Scabbers's fur, and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose and his very small, watery eyes. He looked around at them all, his breathing fast and shallow, likely because he knew that he had been captured and had no way to escape now...

Peter opened his mouth to say something, but before he could say even one word, he was hit with another spell, which created shackles around his arms and legs with pretty long chains attached to the cuffs on his wrist. And before the rat animagus could do anything, Sirius tapped each of the cuffs with his wand.

"Now, I may be a bit rusty, Peter, but I still can put up anti-animagus wards for long enough to pass you to the DMLE." The Azkaban escapee said, while still pointing his wand at the rat-like man. "I'm sure they will want to listen to your fascinating story about how you sold your best friends to Voldemort to save your sorry ass." Sirius growled. Pettigrew looked around frantically, searching for anything that could save him from Black's wrath. And his eyes landed on the young Potter, who was still making an appearance of being tied, even though the rope were now loose enough for the teen to escape them in a matter of seconds.

"Harry... Harry... you look just like your father... just like him..." The green-eyed wizard was about to tell him what he thought about him – despite the strangeness of the situation, there was no doubt in Harry's mind that Peter was the one who sold his parents to Voldemort – but Sirius was faster:

"How dare you speak to Harry?" Roared Black. "How dare you face him? How dare you talk about James in front of him?" Pettigrew shrank away from the furious Azkaban escapee, but still continued shuffling towards the green-eyed teen with his hands outstretched, doing this best to ignore the glares the said teen was sending his way. "You've sold Lily and James to Voldemort!" Sirius continued, shaking with rage. "Do you deny it?" Peter burst into tears, something that was a horrible to watch scene, like an oversized, balding baby, cowering on the floor.

"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord... you have no idea... he has weapons you can't imagine... I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you or James. I never meant it to happen... He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me... -" Here he cried out in pain as Sirius had hit him with a rather painful and nasty jinx.

"Shut up, traitor!" The Azkaban escapee growled, while his arms were shaking like he was restraining himself from killing the man on spot. "You were his spy. You sold Lily and James to him willingly! I... I don't know what I will do with you... Be thankful that I need you alive, or I would do something that would see me back to Azkaban."

"But Sirius, old friend..." Peter pleaded, only to receive a silencio charm to his face from Black.

"I have no desire to listen to you anymore, traitor." He said, before pointing his wand at Harry and making the ropes that had the teen 'tied up' disappear... Originally, the young Potter planned on stunning both men and then letting the DMLE operatives sort through this mess, but now the things have changed a little bit and he decided that it might be better let them both stay conscious. At very least these two will be mostly occupied with each other, and, even more, he wouldn't have exert himself to transport them to anywhere he could call the aurors from... "Now then, Harry, let's bring this bastard to Hogwarts so that Dumbledore can hand him over to the aurors." Sirius said then, while throwing him the end of one of the chains that connected to Peter's shackles. The green-eyed teen caught it.

"But I'm taking the rear." He said. "I'm still not trusting you and I'm sure as hell not trusting this rat." Black paused for a moment upon hearing this, but then nodded.

"Very well then, let's move." The Azkaban escapee said, picking the other chain that was attached to Wormtail's shackles and, pulling it roughly to make the said man move, headed out of the room. Harry followed them with his end of the chain in one hand and his wand, trained at the two's backs in his other. This way, at least, he had a real chance to do something to protect himself, should they decide to attack him...

~/ *** \~

This day didn't start well for Peter, when he discovered himself locked up in a warded cage in the Shrieking Shack – apparently whatever had attacked him yesterday was a predator. Instead it was Sirius Black in his animagus form... And it was just the beginning as a couple of hours after the noon when Sirius returned with the Potter spawn – even if the boy was knocked out, it couldn't fool Peter into thinking that the other Marauder was a dark wizard too. After that Black spilled out the truth behind what had happened on that fateful Halloween night twelve and a half years ago, while also revealing him to be a rat animagus.

And now Peter found himself shackled and led to Hogwarts and towards his doom... Forcing himself to remain as calm as it was possible in this situation, Pettigrew tried to think of anything that could let him escape from these two, but it looked like there was nothing he could do. Or was there?.. While Sirius had sealed his animagus transformation away, Peter was sure that his shackles didn't have any wards that would prevent him from disapparating on them... But could he exploit this? - both the Shrieking Shack and the Hogwarts castle grounds were under heavy anti-apparation wards. Then it hit him: while indeed both ends of the tunnel Potter and Black were going to use to bring him to Hogwarts were under those wards, the part that was under the streets of the Hogsmeade village wasn't, so he could escape from them there... Peter sighed, now he needed to think of a way to make both of his 'escorts' drop the chains they used to convoy him...

~/ *** \~

As Sirius was leading them through the underground tunnel leading towards the Hogwarts grounds, Harry noticed something that made him uneasy: Peter Pettigrew stopped doing his best to slow down his 'escorts' and, instead, was actually catching up with Black... And the green-eyed teen didn't have to wonder what caused the rat animagus to behave like this for long... Finally piecing his plan together, the young Potter shouted to warn Sirius, who seemed to be completely unaware of what was happening behind him, but it was too late:

Peter turned around sharply, while pulling the chain that connected him with the Azkaban escapee as hard as he could, and Sirius, who wasn't expecting this, let his end of the chain go. As soon as this happened, Pettigrew dashed towards Harry, who was actually ready to unleash the power of his implanted eye upon the traitorous rat... But as Peter was actually keeping his eyes shut for some reason, and Sirius was in danger of being petrified as well, the young Potter hesitated with uncovering his basilisk eye. So, Pettigrew managed to close on him and delivered a strong hit with his shoulder to the teen who had no chance to dodge this attack in the narrow tunnel. This caused the green-eyed youngster to drop his end of the chain as well and Peter, pulling the chains closer to him so that neither of his escorts could tag along, disapparated with a resounding crack.

"Fuck!" Sirius swore as his chance for easy freedom disappeared pretty much right through his fingers. Of course, if he was to be given a trial, the truth would be uncovered, but knowing how corrupted the Ministry of Magic was, it was likely that he would be given a dementor's kiss right away...

Still, it looked like Peter's assault managed to harm Harry quite a bit, and having learned something from his past mistakes, Black decided that bringing his godson to a healer was more important than starting a new hunt after the escaped rat animagus. So, immobilizing the green-eyed teen in case he had some bones broken, Sirius continued walking down the tunnel while levitating Harry just behind himself.

~/ *** \~

Unfortunately for the Azkaban escapee, the disappearance of the young Potter from the Hogwarts grounds, even if the boy himself had lost his status of a celebrity, didn't go unnoticed. And when a student of Hogwarts disappears, things tend to get ugly for the one who is behind it. Thus, when Sirius and immobilized Harry emerged from the hole among the roots of the Whomping willow, they were 'greeted' by an assembly of the school professors and several aurors led by Madam Bones personally.

Sirius wasn't given a chance to say even a single word before a volley of spell him him. And while most of these spells were relatively harmless stunners, some people – like Severus Snape – used much darker magics to subdue the Azkaban escapee... Too bad, some of the casters were a bit overzealous and continued sending spells even after the first valley had connected with the intended target. Thus, because Sirius was no longer shielding Harry with his body, some of the magics hit the green-eyed teen as well, dealing enough damage to knock him unconscious as well...

That's all, folks!
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