Harry and the Pirates

The Dog and the Rat

Chapter 65

by Technomad

When Harry burst in, his friends behind him, he was horrified at what he saw. Ron Weasley was being gripped from behind, a wand thrust against his throat, by a small, squat man that Harry had never seen before. Ron's eyes were shut and he was shaking with terror, his naturally-fair skin white as new parchment. That was bad enough.

But what was worse was what was standing across the room, covering Ron and his captor…and now Harry and his friends…with a wand. It was a tall, cadaverous-looking man in ragged, stinking robes, with long, lank black hair framing a nearly-fleshless face dominated by two black, black eyes. As the Slytherins burst into the room, the strange man rasped, as though his voice was long-unused: "Petrificus Totalus!" All of a sudden, Harry, Dudley, Ginny, Luna and Hermione were paralyzed, unable to move a muscle. With them taken care of, the cadaverous man swung his attention back to Ron and his captor. "I won't say it again, Pettigrew! Put him down and face me! Or are you as much of a coward as you are a traitor?"

The squat man sneered contemptously. "You're as soft as you ever were, Sirius Black! You were so easy to lead around, back in the day! You and James!"

Harry's mind reeled. So this was the infamous Sirius Black? He had heard a good deal about Black, the infamous betrayer who had caused him to be orphaned. But if he hates me so much, why isn't he killing me? It wasn't as though Harry could do anything. This whole situation made no sense. And who in the world was "Pettigrew?" He vaguely remembered people mentioning someone of that name as one of Black's victims. Was this a relative, come for revenge? But where had he come from?

"You were always a rat, Peter, even before we became Animagi! I can't believe that we ever trusted you! Or that you were ever a Gryffindor! You're a cowardly little turd, Peter, and you aren't fit to use magic! I'm surprised that You-Know-Who would have anything to do with you!"

What? But Black was the Death Eater! Everybody knew that! Pettigrew was the hero who died trying to avenge my parents, just before they arrested Black! What is going on here? Harry struggled to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. Was it possible that the whole story was nothing but lies? That Black had been the good guy, and Pettigrew the real villain?

Just then, the door opened, and Draco Malfoy came in, along with Crabbe and Goyle. While Harry privately despised the blond wanker, and saw him as a tedious little turd coasting along on his family's money, he had to admit that this time Draco came through handsomely. When he saw what was going on, he yelled "Petrificus Totalus!" and both Black and Pettigrew were as Petrified as everybody else. Then he came over and un-Petrified Harry and his companions.

"What in Merlin's name is going on here?" asked Draco. Harry shook himself, trying to get the pins-and-needles out of his arms. Beside him, Dudley shook his head as if to clear it.

"I don't know, Draco. Ron came up here, and I heard him yelling in the common room. We came running as fast as we could, and Ron was being held by that pudgy little guy. The other one was holding a wand on both of them."

"Great Merlin! You mean I've captured Sirius Black?" Draco stared at the gaunt man, who stood there paralyzed, unable to do so much as move his eyes. "Yeesh! He really doesn't look good! Azkaban didn't agree with him, did it?"

"Let me look at his arm. I've never seen a Dark Mark before," said Luna. She stepped forward and rolled up Black's sleeves. "That's odd! I had always thought that a Dark Mark was on the forearm! His arm is as smooth as mine!" Harry came over to take a look, and Luna was exactly right. Black's forearms were white as a fish's belly and utterly pristine.

"If he isn't a Death Eater, why did he betray your family?" Dudley asked Harry.

Harry shook his head. "We've got plenty of wands on both of these two. Let's disarm them, tie them up, and get some answers. Is there any way to make people tell the truth? Short of the Imperius Curse? I want to know what's going on, but not enough to risk a lifetime ticket to Azkaban!"

Draco thought about it. "Well, there's Veritaserum, but that stuff's controlled and difficult to get. It's also a real challenge to make. Snape might have some around. I'll go ask him." He turned…and found himself facing their House Head. Snape had come in unobserved, and was now standing there, looking at the scene with the expression on his face that Harry associated with trouble brewing. "Eeeep!"

"I heard an untimely commotion, so I came up to see what was happening. And what do I find?" Snape purred, his voice gentle but ominous. Harry and Dudley glanced at each other. Harry knew that both of them were remembering the times they'd seen Balalaika playing cat-and-mouse with some fool who'd thought to cheat her. "I find a man who should be in Azkaban Prison, and another one who's supposed to be dead! My, Peter, you do look remarkably healthy for a dead man!"

"Sir, do you have some Veritaserum?" asked Hermione. "We want to interrogate these two, and find out how they got in here in the first place! There's meant to be Dementors around to keep him…" she pointed to Sirius Black… "at bay, after all! And I want to know who he is…" she pointed to the podgy little man who'd been holding Ron… "and how he got in here!"

"Those are all very good questions, Miss Granger," said Snape. "For that matter, I would like to know how Mr. Black got out of Azkaban Prison in the first place. If for no other reason than to ensure his re-incarceration."

"Pardon me, sir," Luna spoke up. "But my Daddy says that he was put into Azkaban without even a trial. No matter what he did, that was wrong. He should have had a trial, if only to establish what he did and who, if anybody, he was working with." Snape looked at Luna searchingly, raising one eyebrow as though she were some anomalous result of a potions experiment. Many students would have quailed, but Luna, as Harry had noticed, did not grok fear. She stood her ground, giving Snape look-for-look, and Harry was reminded of how she had stood up fearlessly to Balalaika.

"Much as I hate to admit it, you have a good point, Miss Lovegood." Snape finally said, speaking as though the words were being dragged from him against his will. "Very well. Disarm them, bind them, and take the paralysis off them. I shall be back with Veritaserum."

"But isn't that stuff controlled and difficult to get?" asked Ron.

Snape gave him a look that should have fried him on the spot. "To a Potions Master, no potion is out of reach. Remember that. Maybe it'll help you do better in my class!" He was gone, with a swirl of his cloak, and Harry and Dudley moved to obey orders.

They took the wands from both of the men they'd Petrified, and then swiftly tied both men up with an Incarcerous spell. "Thank you for teaching us that, Professor Flitwick," muttered Dudley. The cousins grinned at each other.

Once the men were both well and truly hogtied, Draco snapped "Finite Incantatem!" and they came out of their paralysis. Sirius Black shook his head hard, for all the world like a dog. The other man, whom they had heard Snape call "Peter," looked around wildly, as though he were a wild animal in a trap. Considering that he was surrounded by Slytherins, all of them with wands leveled and ominous expressions, Harry didn't think it was an inappropriate look at all. Again, he was reminded of Roanapur. He had seen that look before, on people surrounded by the men of Hotel Moscow, or staring down the wrong end of Revy Two-Hands' pistols.

"Harry!" the pudgy man cried out. "Ron! Dudley! This is all a terrible mistake! You've got to believe me!"

"Why should I believe someone I've never seen before? And, come to it, how do you know my name? Or my cousin's name, or our friend's name?" Harry smiled grimly. "I can't say I have the pleasure of knowing yours. Or is it 'Peter?'"

"Does he have a last name?" asked Ginny. She was looking at the pudgy little man narrowly, as though she thought she recognized him somehow. "He does seem familiar, although I can't place him."

"Oh, Ginny," the pudgy man giggled. "I know you so very well! So very well indeed!" He let out a wheezy, nasal laugh that put Harry's nerves on edge. The way he looked at Ginny, and at the other girls in the room, creeped Harry out. It put him uncomfortably in mind of the way Mr. Malfoy had looked at Luna, and later at Hermione, when they'd first met him, in Knockturn Alley at the beginning of the previous year.

"I'll just bet you do!" croaked Sirius Black. As Harry turned to look at him, Sirius nodded his head toward Peter. "Look at his forearm and see what you find!"

Ron pulled Peter's arm out of the bonds, and rolled up his sleeve. He gasped at what he saw there. Harry looked to see what it was, and shuddered. A crisp black tattoo of a skull with a snake issuing from its mouth stood out against the pale skin. "Merlin's beard! He's got the Dark Mark!"

"The Dark Mark?" gasped Hermione. "Only Death Eaters bore the Dark Mark! He's a Death Eater!"

"It says in the books that all sworn followers of You-Know-Who were Marked. It was so they could tell who was on their own side. Nobody not a follower of You-Know-Who would wear the Dark Mark." put in Ginny.

"So Sirius, here, does not have the Dark Mark, but Peter…whoever he is…does." Hermione was clearly thinking. "Somehow, people, I think this story is a little more complicated than what we've been led to believe."

"I think you may be correct, Miss Granger," said Snape. He'd come back in just then, and he pulled out a small bottle full of a cloudy liquid. "Here we have Veritaserum. I'm one of the few Potions Masters licenced to brew the stuff. The Ministry doesn't want it in the wrong hands." Snape leered at Sirius Black. "Let's start with Black, here. I would love to hear all about how my dear, dear old friend betrayed my other friend, James Potter!"

To Harry's great surprise, Sirius submitted quite willingly to being dosed. "Three drops, no more," said Snape, in his "teaching" voice. "This stuff can easily be overdosed. That's another reason our beloved lords and masters in the Ministry keep it tightly controlled. And be careful about getting it on your skin. It can soak through the skin and into the bloodstream, with embarassing consequences!"

Harry grinned to himself, already picturing the uses he could put that property of Veritaserum to. He imagined soaking something that an enemy of his was going to be touching with the potion, or maybe spilling it on that person's skin, then asking him a bunch of questions he really would prefer not to answer. He made a mental note to learn how Veritaserum was made. He did well in Potions, thanks to the meticulous approach that he had learned working for Balalaika, and even if the stuff was illegal or highly regulated in Britain, he lived in Thailand. And Roanapur was not famous for being the most law-abiding town in the world at its best.

Sirius Black's face went slack, then was wreathed in a silly smile. "Oooh, wo-o-o-w," he said, in a strange, rather abstracted voice. "Oooh, check out those colors! Wow! Your faces are all melting! Fa-a-a-r out, man!" Harry cut his eyes to Snape. Snape was rolling his own eyes in exasperation.

"I should have known he was a druggie on top of everything else," Snape snarled. "The Marauders were growing some of the finest ganja in Britain, after all."

"So your father was a criminal, too?" Draco asked Harry. At Harry's puzzled look, Draco explained: "Ganja is the Jamaican word for cannabis."

"Maybe I've more in common with my father than looks?" Harry thought about that, and quite liked the idea. "I wonder if I can find out their techniques? PD Enterprises could use a new product, since we've cornered the market on selling soft drinks to the wizards."

Snape snarled: "Would you two idiots kindly put a sock in it? Veritaserum can be tricky to use!" As Harry and Draco subsided, Snape turned back to Sirius Black. "Very well. What is your name?"

"Sirius Orion Black." Harry thought that probably meant that Black was a pureblood. That sounded distinctly like a pureblood sort of name.

"When did you join the Death Eaters?" Harry, Dudley and Hermione shared a glance. Harry knew they were holding back the temptation to ask "What is your quest?" but they knew that Snape would not appreciate them interrupting him.

"I never did. Ever." At this, Snape's eyes went as wide as Luna's. All of them stared at Black as though he'd sprouted a second head.

"Were you the Potters' Secret-Keeper?" That was Hermione. Snape gave her an exasperated glare. He had plainly planned to be in charge of the interrogation, but coming between Hermione Granger and knowledge was an iffy thing at best.

"No. That was the original plan, but we came up with another one." Everybody stared at Black, as he went on, his voice a monotone: "The plan was to let on that I was the Secret-Keeper, so that the Death Eaters would target me. They'd come after me, but I figured I was smart enough to keep one jump ahead of them. The real Secret-Keeper was the last person anybody would suspect." Even through the fog of the potion, Sirius gave Peter a look of pure, cold hatred. "We never did suspect you, did we, Peter?"

Peter shook his head in frantic denial. Sirius continued: "We were so pleased when you volunteered to be the Secret-Keeper, weren't we, Peter? You were the only one who could have led You-Know-Who to the Potters' doorstep! You were misnamed, Peter…you should have been named Judas!"

"No! It's a lie! He's lying!" yelled Peter. "You can't believe him! It's all lies!"

"Like the one about you being killed, all those years ago?" drawled Snape, turning his attention away from Sirius Black. "I must say, for an innocent man, you've done a good job of hiding!"

"And so he should!" snarled Sirius. "I heard things in Azkaban, Peter! Your old pals aren't happy with you at all! They think you double-crossed You-Know-Who and led him into some sort of a trap!"

"No! No! I never! I was never there! I'm not a Death Eater! And I was under Imperius all the time! Why would I betray James and Lily?" the pudgy little man wailed.

"Good question, that," drawled Snape. With a wave of his wand, he sent Sirius Black to sleep. "He'll stay out of this for a while. Now I want to have a talk with you!" Peter shook his head frantically. "Oh, come come! If you're as innocent as you say you are, this'll clear you! We've a whole room full of witnesses, and you know my skill with potions! Would I poison you, my dear, dear old schoolmate?"

Peter struggled in his bonds, but despite his struggles and howls of protest, Snape forced his mouth open and dropped three drops of Veritaserum in, then forced his mouth shut before he could spit the stuff out. After a few minutes, Peter stopped struggling and gave them all a rather spacey smile.

"What is your name?" Snape snapped.

"Peter Pettigrew. I wanted a middle name, but my parents thought they were too 'upmarket' and 'lah-dee-dah' for our family," Peter answered.

"How did you fake your death so convincingly?" This was interesting, and Harry noticed everybody was leaning forward, eager to learn every detail.

"I'm an Animagus, like Sirius and James. I let Sirius catch up to me, since he knew that I'd been the Secret-Keeper and was the only one who could have led the Dark Lord to the Potters, held my wand behind my back, yelled 'James and Lily! How could you?' set off a gas explosion, cut off my finger and left it, and jumped into the open sewer in rat form. The stupid Aurors bought the whole set-up!"

"So that explains it," Snape murmured. "Where have you been since then?"

Peter giggled nastily. "Oh, I got myself adopted by a boy as his pet. That was lots of fun! Got to sleep all I wanted, got all I wanted to eat, and at night I could get out of my cage, get his wand and do whatever I wanted!" His beady eyes flickered around the room. "I even got taken to Hogwarts, and living in the dorms was wonderful!"

"Why was that?"

"I could outsmart Mrs. Norris easily, or change back into human form for a few minutes if she did catch me, so I was in no danger whatsoever! And the wards that keep men out of the girls' dorm rooms and showers don't work against a rat!" The way he looked at Hermione, Ginny, and Luna made Harry's skin crawl.

"Are you saying you peeped on the girls when they thought they were in private?" asked Snape. His expression was even more ominous than before.

"Oh, yes! The other Marauders all thought they were so cool, but I was the first of us to see girls naked!" Again the nasal laugh. Harry glanced at Ron, and if looks could kill, Harry privately thought that Peter would have been dead on the floor.

"You little perv!" snarled Ginny Weasley. "You were my brothers' pet rat, were you?"

"Yesss…" Peter looked at Ginny with a smile that made Harry think of people he'd had pointed out to him in Roanapur as people he was to stay away from at all costs. "First Percy brought me here, then Ron! It was paradise! And I didn't just peek on the girls! No, that's not all!"

"What else did you do?" That was Snape. Snape looked like he was watching someone throw up. Revulsion showed in his face, but his voice was as steady as though they'd been discussing the weather.

"Oh, I could get into the girls' dorms, and they left their wands where I could reach them! It's amazing what a well-placed Obliviate will do! I got more action that way than all the rest of the Marauders combined!"

Sensing impending danger, Harry looked at the girls. All of the girls…Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Pansy Parkinson, and Millicent Bulstrode…had expressions on that he privately thought would have scared Revy Two-Hands, had they been directed at her.

"Professor, sir, would you excuse us? And ask the boys to leave? We want to talk to this man. At length. About what he did when he got into our dorms and shower rooms." Pansy Parkinson's voice was perfectly calm, but her mouth was working with the effort to suppress rage.

"Won't you let us in on it? Ginny's my sister!" Harry agreed with Ron. For that matter, had it been possible to get Gryffindors into the Slytherin common room, he wouldn't have half minded having Fred, George and Percy joining on in. The brothers disagreed on many things, but one thing on which they were utterly unanimous was that they would protect Ginny to the last drop of their blood.

"You're very sweet to want to help," Hermione said, her smile bright and brittle as broken glass, "but this is girls' business. This does explain some…phenomena…that we've noticed off and on over the years." Harry wondered what "phenomena" Hermione was referring to, but one look at the girls' faces convinced him that this was something best not inquired into very closely.

As Harry turned to leave, suddenly a commotion erupted. Somehow, Pettigrew had got loose, and had apparently thrown off the effects of the Veritaserum. Or else Veritaserum did not affect his ability to fight. He threw a vicious punch at the nearest girl, Pansy Parkinson, and grabbed her wand away. Then he pointed it at the ceiling and screamed "Dementia!"

"The Dementors! He's summoned them!" yelled Snape. Sure enough, the horrible specters began oozing through the windows and doors, hissing their hunger.