A/N: Um... so this is the edited one. Changes weren't that major, but some stupid things were removed. Some people said that I'm trying too hard to stay close to canon, but I just wanted Harry to fend off a dementor or two. Believe me when I say things are going to be far from canon in later chapters.

18. The Strange Reunion

The plan was quite straightforward. They would have to drop some dungbombs in the common room, after placing bubblehead charms on themselves, making sure that no one was present on the common room during the capture. It wouldn't be a much difficult feat, seeing that it was a Monday and people already were looking forward to go to bed early.

Then Harry would offer Ron the spiked chocolate fudge, which the other Weasleys assured he would consume before Harry could blink, and once he was having pleasant daydreams, they would look for Scabbers, (Harry would actually look in his map, but he didn't tell it to them) and hopefully catch him. Tonks was to accompany Harry to the dorms under a disillusionment charm and help him in catching the rat. The Weasleys were to take positions in the common room so that if it came down to a chase, they could help too. Scabbers was then to stay with Harry until he was used to coax Crookshanks out of the girl's dorm before the fight was to take place. They felt quite satisfied with the plan and went off to carry it out.

...

Ron Weasley was livid. It was bad enough that Scabbers was scared to leave his pocket for that damned cat of Hermione Granger, and now Harry Potter and his weirdo hair-changing friend have gone and kidnapped him to lure some cats.

And his own siblings have helped with him!

He was angry at the Boy-Who-Lived for tricking him with that chocolate fudge. When he took it, he felt like his brain was playing numerous pleasant fantasies one after another. He was totally enchanted by the one where Chudley Cannons were just about to beat Puddlemore United to win the league when he suddenly jerked back to reality. At first he looked around to see what broke his excellent daydream, but found none. It was just as something stopped working in his brain.

That was when he realized that he was given a daydream potion by someone. Then he remembered Harry offering him a chocolate fudge and that the visions started almost immediately. Scowling, he went down to the common room to find the twins bidding goodbye to Ginny, who was going to her dorm.

"Look Gred! Ickle Ronnie is here!" One of them said.

"Oh my! We have to improve our products a bit, Forge. They do seem short lived." The other replied worriedly.

"Where is Harry?" Ron asked, not in the mood for the twins' jokes. Not that he ever was.

"Ah, realized that he is missing?"

"Well done, Ron. We are quite proud of you."

"Shut it! He is not here; it's not hard to notice. Why did he spike my fudge?"

"Oh dear. He thinks we are talking about Harry. And here I was about to admit that he is related to me." Fred said with a long sigh.

"No, really? That idiot is related to you? We should start seeing other people, Fred. I don't want to be your friend anymore." George said in a remorseful voice.

"Who else is missing?" Ron asked with a frown. Then he remembered Scabbers. He wasn't in his pocket or in the dorm when he came down.

"Why did he take Scabbers?" he asked confusedly. Why would Harry be interested in Scabbers?

The twins shared an evil smile. Tormenting Ron was quite easy.

"Oh, he is to be used as a bait for the upcoming inter-Hogwarts cat wrestling about to be started tomorrow."

"We'll save you a front row seat for donating Scabbers."

"Maybe you can have unspiked chocolate fudge from Harry as the payment."

"We will even cheer for Scabbers at the fights."

"Where is he?" Ron asked with gritted teeth. His rat was ill and they were using him for a bloody bait?

"I believe they are towards the Hufflepuff tower." Fred supplied, sure that Harry and Tonks wouldn't have any troubles from his little brother. He would probably rant for a while and then go back to bed. It was what he did when he got mad. Rant a lot.

To his surprise, however, Ron bolted out of the common room and disappear from sight all within a few seconds.

"You think we should stop him?" George asked, feeling a bit worried.

"Nah, he'll come back as soon as he realizes that it is past curfew." Fred answered, though he wasn't sure he believed what he said.

The twins shared a troubled look, which was identical to boot.

...

Harry and Tonks were not in the Hufflepuff common room. They were heading back from the owlery. As soon as they caught the rat, they decided to write to the adults while they kept the cage containing Pettigrew safe. Harry wrote to Sirius and Tonks wrote to her mother. Obviously, Sirius would be the first to arrive as he was probably at the boundaries of Hogwarts.

They were discussing the possibilities once Pettigrew was questioned by the DMLE, when Harry had a sense of danger. He didn't have enough time to think over it.

"Expelliarmus!"

He turned around just in time to see the red beam of light streaking towards him, and instinct overruling his logical thoughts; he raised the cage in his hand to block it.

Tonks saw in horror as the cage flew from Harry's hand, and the lid opened as it crashed to the ground, and the rat running towards a red-faced Ron Weasley.

However, Scabbers slipped through Ron's waiting hand and before her head processed what was happening, Harry was already sprinting after the rat. Pushing Ron out of the way, he followed Pettigrew around the corner and disappeared from sight.

"Come back here-"

Before his voice could attract the attention of Filch, she stunned Ron and went after Harry, her height decreasing by a couple of inches. She found that she was far less clumsy when she was shorter and her centre of gravity was lower. She reached the Great Hall, but Harry's footsteps were not to be heard. Mentally cursing Harry for being so fast and Pettigrew for being a rat, she looked around as if expecting to find a clue.

She slapped her own head when she remembered the Marauder's Map in her pocket. She hurriedly pulled it out from her pocket and activated it. Harry was heading towards the main entrance and Pettigrew was already outside the gates.

"How did you get this?" a disbelieving voice asked from behind and she jumped a foot in the air before crashing down on her butt. Remus Lupin, however, didn't seem to notice that and was still waiting for an answer.

She remembered that the professor was a Marauder, and she pointed him one dot she knew he could not ignore.

"Stop him professor. He is escaping!"

However, the grey haired man just looked at the dot of 'Peter Pettigrew', who was running towards the Forest, with his eyes threatening to pop out in disbelief. He came to his senses after another urgent reminder from the violet haired student in front of him.

Running to the entrance, he pointed his wand at the forest and said, "Accio Pettigrew." Tonks almost groaned at the fact that she hadn't thought of that earlier.

A small figure was zooming towards Lupin's outstretched hand and Lupin caught the struggling rat easily. Looking at the creature in his hand for a long time, he casted the spell to force an animagus transformation.

Remus Lupin was not a fan of surprises. Most of the surprises he ever got were unpleasant to him, except for the surprises regarding the Marauders.

But surprise wasn't a strong enough word for what he felt right now. How were you supposed to feel when you see your friend pointing a wand at you, especially when the friend was supposed to have died twelve years ago? He didn't know what to think because he was too shocked to see Peter alive to think properly.

Slowly, Pettigrew started to sit up. Years of living as a rat made him disoriented in human form. He felt the need to walk on four limbs, but then again, it was uncomfortable. He looked at the old Marauder with terrified eyes, quickly trying to make a story before Sirius showed up. He heard the brats talking about writing to him when he was inside the cage.

"What are you doing here Wormy?" Lupin finally asked him.

"He... hello Re... Remus. You have to sa... save me from Bl.. Black, Remus. He would k... kill me." The watery eyed man stuttered. However, it was not Remus who replied.

"Now, ain't that a tempting thought?"

Everyone turned around to see Sirius Black standing behind them, with a fire in his eyes.

Pettigrew started to shout something, but a hex from Tonks shut him up.

"What are you doing here?" Lupin asked Sirius with a cold voice, which was infected with some doubt.

"Why don't we ask the rat?" Sirius replied evenly. Everyone turned towards the mentioned animagus, who was cowering under their gazes.

"How are you alive, Peter?" Lupin asked him.

"Care to show your right hand, Wormtail?" Sirius said with venom. Pettigrew looked horrified at the idea. Harry, who was standing beside him, grabbed the right hand and showed it to everyone.

"The only piece of Peter Pettigrew they ever found was a single finger." Sirius recited with a growl.

Lupin looked between his former friends and asked in a whisper, "You faked it? Of course you did, you are alive." He muttered the last part to himself.

"You... you can hardly b... blame me for trying to s... stay alive." The rat-man stammered.

"Tell him why I went after you, you bastard." Sirius sneered.

"You went after him? I heard it was the other way round? And why haven't you showed up earlier?" Lupin asked.

"You know, for a brilliant teacher, you are being quite slow." Tonks piped in. Lupin looked surprised to find her and Harry still there.

"Harry! You shouldn't be here. He is..." the professor started, but trailed off as he remembered that if Sirius wanted to hurt Harry, he had his fair share of chance in the last few minutes.

"I was h... hiding." Pettigrew managed as the werewolf looked back at him again. Harry muttered, "No really?" Sirius threw a smirk at him.

Pettigrew continued, "I was hiding from B...Black. I knew he would c... come after me when he knew I... was alive."

"But he was in Azkaban, or did you foresee him breaking out?" Tonks asked with disgust.

"Answer that, you son of a bitch." Sirius growled. Lupin looked at him for the answer too.

"You... you learned lots of Dark Arts f... from the D... Dark Lord, it was on... only a matter of time you b... broke out." The man looked pleadingly at Lupin, as if begging him to believe him.

"How dare you! I worked for my whole life to stand against so much as blood discrimination and you dare to say I joined Voldemort? What, afraid of your old master's name Peter? It was always you who used to hide behind the big boys, not me. You became friends with us because we could protect you from bullies. You joined Voldemort because he was on the winning side. YOU BETRAYED JAMES AND LILY YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Sirius bellowed at the man who looked ready to pass out from fear. Lupin's mouth fell open.

"I... I don't know what y... you are t... talking about." Pettigrew managed to say in a barely audible voice.

"LIAR! It was you they made the secret keeper at the last moment and it was you who gave that secret to Voldemort and it was you I had to spend twelve years in Azkaban for! Don't bother to deny it Peter. You'll just make it worse."

"It was him, not you?" Lupin asked Sirius. And when the escaped prisoner looked at him, he saw every second of the twelve years at Azkaban looking back at him. He stepped forward and embraced his old friend tightly.

"Forgive me Padfoot, for believing you were the traitor." He said in a cracked voice.

"If you forgive me for believing that you were the traitor who was causing the information leak." He replied with a similar voice. Then they broke up and looked at Pettigrew, who took the reunion of his old friends as his death sentence.

"Why did you do it, Peter? What made you go to Voldemort and betray your friends?" Lupin's voice was pained. Pettigrew looked down and sniffed.

"Y... you have no idea what the D... Dark Lord was capable of. He... he would've k... killed me if I didn't give him the secret." He said miserably. But no one felt any sympathy for him

"Then you should have died! Like we would have died for you. How come you got sorted to Gryffindor?"

"And you're going to die anyway."

Peter Pettigrew was the type who got scared easily. His friends just sometimes jumped at him unexpectedly to hear the girlish squeak or loud yelp he would give when they did that. However, when he looked at the green eyes of Harry Potter, which reminded him of Lily, he felt more scared than ever.

"Harry... sweet boy. P... Please forgive me. Y... Your parents would have f... forgiven..."

SMACK!

"Don't dare to talk with Harry about his parents, you scoundrel." Sirius said with venom as he clutched his face where Sirius slapped him.

"So what do we... oh!"

Lupin's expression suddenly changed in the middle of the sentence, like he was apprehensive of something.

"What's it Moony?" Sirius asked confusedly.

"It's full moon." When he registered the look of horror in Sirius' eyes, he hastily added, "Not to worry, I've taken the potion and I was heading towards the forest before I met Miss Tonks here. I'll go for now. Make sure the rat doesn't escape again." With that, he looked at the confused teens, gave a little smile and offered, "I'm a werewolf."

There was an uncomfortable silence where Harry and Tonks tried to process his words.

Professor Lupin.

A werewolf.

"Moony." Harry whispered in understanding and Lupin nodded with a tired smile and walked away to the forest.

Together, they watched the man disappear between the trees and Sirius sighed. It was all coming back to him. Hogwarts, the forest, werewolf friends.

Harry knew Pettigrew could escape easily if they were distracted. The advantage of having such a small creature as your animagus form. To make sure Sirius didn't suffer, he pointed his wand at the crying man and muttered, "Stupefy."

As soon as he cast the spell, he felt cold. At first he wondered why casting a stunner would make him feel cold, but then a strong sense of hopelessness came to him and he sensed them before he saw them.

About a hundred dementors, gliding towards their little group, no doubt attracted by the scent of Sirius Black's human form.

"My wand is too weak to cast a patronus, can you cast one?" Sirius asked in a frightened voice. He had twelve years of experience with those creatures. Every time they got worse. Tonks looked unsure of herself, but she put on a determined face and attempted the only spell she had troubles with in DADA.

Harry could faintly hear the screams of his mother, but this time he knew he could do it. He pictured a happy Sirius, with Andromeda smiling beside him. He thought of Susan, Hannah, Neville and Hermione. Most importantly, he thought of Dora. Her dimples when she laughed and her large eyes that were always so full of life. With his chest glowing with positive emotions, he whispered, "Expecto Patronum."

Suddenly there was a brilliant light and the dementor fled. One by one, all the dementors were driven away by the shining patronus which was in the form of-

"Prongs." The dog animagus thought with wonder.

On the grounds of Hogwarts, after many years and defying many odds, in a strange set up, the Marauders were reunited again.

That was what Andromeda saw when she arrived on the base of the Whomping Willow.

That was what James and Lily Potter witnessed, out of the reach of the world, yet closer to their son and their friends than anything.

"I'm so proud of him." Lily whispered, leaning her head on her husband's shoulders and with a misty eye.

"Not more than me, darling." James Potter declared, wrapping an arm around his wife.