Disclaimer: So, today's double update, and the final chapter will be released tomorrow.
Read, enjoy and review!
Posted 9-2-2024
Chapter Thirteen
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs and Ruby
"Follow my lead, alright Evan?" Aludra whispered as they headed for the tunnel entrance. "I get why you're freaking out, Pettigrew's the reason you lost Aimee and now he's threatening Iris, but he's spent the last twelve years surrounded by dementors, and has been on the run for a year. He's insane and desperate. There's every chance his demands will be completely irrational. We have to keep our heads clear if we want to get Iris back safely."
She heard him swallow as she dropped down into the opening, landing neatly with a crunch of some old branches before stepping out of the way for Evan to enter.
"Okay," he agreed softly once they were both inside the tunnel. "Okay. I'll follow your lead."
She nodded back and lit her wand, Evan copying her a second later. The soft lights illuminated an old, dirty tunnel made from the earth. Aludra wondered how Pettigrew had gotten away with hiding here. She knew her father and the Aurors had checked this tunnel and the Shack on multiple occasions. Unless he was only using it for holding Rose, and hiding out in the Forest the rest of the time, like the Aurors suspected.
"This tunnel is on the Map," Evan whispered as Aludra carefully led the way forward. "I saw it. I think it leads to the Shrieking Shack."
"He must be holding her there," Aludra murmured back.
"Do you think she's alright?" Evan asked anxiously.
"Yes," Aludra answered as confidently as she could. "He needs her alive for bargaining power. He won't hurt her as long as we cooperate."
They stepped out of the tunnel into the Shrieking Shack. The entrance was a room, a very messy, dusty room. Paper was peeling from the walls; there were bloodstains all over the floor; every piece of furniture was broken from Remus smashing it years ago. The windows were all boarded up to keep anyone seeing inside and realizing the truth. It made Aludra sick to see the signs of Remus' suffering before the other Marauders came into the picture.
It broke her heart a little, too. The three Animagi Marauders had once put their lives and safety at risk to give Remus comfort during his worst moments. Now, only Padfoot and Moony remained of those four friends.
And the collapse of their friendship had started with Pettigrew's decision to turn against the others. Now, the children of the Marauders were going to confront the traitor in the place the former friends had once frolicked during full moons. There was something oddly poetic about it.
The room was deserted, but a door to their right stood open, leading to a shadowy hallway. A mixture of rat and human footprints (some of which were too small and dainty not to be Iris, so at least she had been conscious when brought to the Shack) made patches in the thick layer of dust, leading to it.
"Ghosts didn't do this," Evan said slowly, looking around with a frown.
"The Shrieking Shack was never haunted," Aludra murmured in response, feeling strangely tired despite the familiar feeling of adrenaline pumping through her veins. "Just a prison for a good man under a terrible curse."
Evan was silent for a moment. "It was Remus, wasn't it," he stated, not asked.
"Yes," Aludra agreed sadly.
Before Evan could respond, there was a creak overhead. Something had moved upstairs. Both of them looked up at the ceiling. They glanced at each other and nodded determinedly. Aludra took the lead again.
Quietly as they could, they crept out into the hall and up the crumbling staircase.
They reached the dark landing.
"Nox," they whispered together, and the lights at the end of their wands went out. Only one door was open.
Aludra looked at Evan. He nodded in understanding. Pettigrew would be expecting them to rush in headfirst, like Gryffindors. They needed to act smarter than that. Evan went first. He would distract Pettigrew, and Aludra would act from the shadows.
Just like with Quirrell and Voldemort in first year, she thought darkly. Hopefully this turned out better than that occasion. She didn't fancy a fourth coma in three years, and she wasn't sure her father would be able to take it.
Evan carefully edged forward into the room, wand held in front of him. She heard him cry out in a relieved voice, "Iris!" and then there was a flash of red light and a clatter as Evan was disarmed by Pettigrew.
"Where's Black?" Pettigrew demanded in a hysterical, cracked voice. "She was with you! I saw her! If she doesn't come the girl dies, you hear me?!"
Aludra slipped into the room, seeing that Pettigrew was distracted by Evan, who had run to put himself between his sister, who was bound and gagged on a broken and dirty four-poster bed, tears streaming down her face, and the madman.
"Expelliarmus!" Aludra cried, slashing her wand and pointing it at Pettigrew. Evan and Iris' wands fell to the ground with a loud clatter as he turned to her in shock. Evan rushed forward and snatched the foci up, so both she and Evan had wands pointed at the rat.
"Peter Pettigrew," Aludra spat in disgust. "We should've known you'd go after Iris. Attacking children is what you're good at, isn't it?" Even aside from Evan and Aimee, seven of the twelve Muggles he'd killed in November '81 had been children under the age of ten, out shopping with their mothers.
She just wished they'd had the foresight to protect Iris, instead of focusing on Evan. Poor Iris might've been spared the terror she was clearly going through.
"Sirius' girl," Pettigrew muttered, looking shocked. "But those eyes...I know those eyes...I've seen them so many times...It's impossible..."
Aludra scoffed at him. "He's completely insane," she said in distaste. "We need to stun him and get him to the Aurors."
"Yeah, but Ir-" Evan began to say, only to cut himself off with a yell of "No!" As Pettigrew suddenly turned back into a rat and began darting across the room towards him.
Aludra tried to stun the rat, but he dodged between the spells she sent at him, and she mentally cursed herself for being not stunning him straight away instead of just disarming him. Didn't her father drill the Stunning Spell into her for a reason? Better to stun first and ask questions later, that was Sirius Black's Auror motto. She was an idiot not to have followed his wisdom. If one of her friends was hurt because of her stupidity, she'd never forgive herself.
Pettigrew reached Evan and turned back to his human form, snatching the wands from Evan and holding them to her friend's head threateningly. "Drop it!" He shouted shrilly at Aludra.
Reluctantly, she placed her wand on the floor and held her hands up in a surrender motion. Their best hope now was to stall Pettigrew and hope Susan and the boys would come through for them.
"What do you want from us?" Aludra demanded, masking her fear for Evan (who still had the wands held to the side of his head) and Iris (who was still tied up and crying) with a disdainful, haughty pureblood sneer.
"The Dark Lord...he promised, only the twins..." Pettigrew muttered. "He agreed...kill the grandparents and the babies, but leave Prongs and Lily...He promised..."
"Are you an idiot as well as insane?" Aludra snapped in disbelief. She didn't like the Potters, but she knew they loved their children. "Do you really think they would've ignored the murders of their children and Lord Potter's parents? They would have dedicated the rest of their lives and resources to hunting Voldemort down."
Pettigrew flinched, then pointed the wands at Aludra. "Shut up!" He demanded wildly. "You don't know what you're talking about!"
"But I do!" Evan exclaimed, struggling furiously in Pettigrew's grip. "Mum and Dad hate you! You're the reason Aimee is dead, and they want you to rot in hell!"
"No!" Pettigrew cried furiously, again aiming at Evan's head. "It was all your fault! You ruined everything by doing whatever you did!"
"Please!" Iris wept, startling Aludra, who had been too focused on the madman with two wands to one of her best friend's head to realize the younger girl had managed to escape the gag. "Please, leave him alone. Nobody knows what happened that night! Not even Professor Dumbledore knows why Evan was healthy and Aimee wasn't! Please, just leave us alone!"
"You lie!" Pettigrew snarled at her. He pressed the wands harder into Evan's head. "Tell me what you did!" He demanded. "Tell me where the Dark Lord is and how I can find him!"
"We don't know!" Aludra exclaimed. "If Albus Dumbledore himself doesn't know, how do you expect us to? We're just teenagers!"
"You're lying! I know you saw him two years ago! I heard the guards talking about it!" Pettigrew briefly slapped the broken bedpost with the hand holding the wands. Aludra used the brief moment of distraction to meet Evan's gaze and briefly made an elbowing gesture. His eyes widened, before he gave a faint nod.
Pettigrew put the wands back against Evan's head, but the Gryffindor boy was ready for him. He elbowed Pettigrew right in the ribs, causing the Death Eater to release him instinctively in order as to gasp for breath and clutch at his chest. Aludra dove her wand and rolled back to her feet, already casting. "Stupefy!" She yelled. A jet of red light hit Pettigrew straight in the stomach, and he toppled backwards onto the bed beside Iris, unconscious.
"Incarcerous," Aludra said firmly. She'd never performed the spell before, but she'd studied it, and it worked perfectly, tying Pettigrew in tight ropes. Evan was at his sister's side, tugging the ropes off her. As soon as she was free, Iris threw herself into Evan's arms, sobbing hysterically. He hugged and rocked her, muttering "You're safe now, you're safe, I promise," over and over again.
Aludra heard a creaking sound from below and sighed in relief.
"We're up here!" She called. "Pettigrew's unconscious!"
Remus was first through the door, heading directly for Aludra, followed closely by Lord and Lady Potter, who ran to their children and hugged them tightly. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Annabelle Proudfoot were behind the panicked parents, and they hurried over to Pettigrew to start securing him better.
"Thank the Lady you're all safe," Remus said shakily as he patted Aludra all over in search of injuries, face paler than after a full moon.
"What happened, Iris?" Lady Potter asked anxiously. "How did he get you?"
"I remembered I had library book due back today," the younger girl explained, sounding a mixture of shocked and dazed. "I told the others to go ahead to dinner while I ran back to get it so I could give it back afterwards. Pettigrew, he must have stunned me when I was about to go upstairs to the dorms."
"Did he hurt you?" Lord Potter inquired urgently. "Any of you?"
"No, I'm fine," Iris stated.
"I'm fine too," Evan added.
"He didn't hurt me either," Aludra finished.
"Thank Hecate for her mercy," Lady Potter said in a tearful voice.
Reassured that his children were unharmed, Lord Potter released his tight grip on Evan and walked over to loom over his former friend, glaring at him with a dark look in his eyes and his wand clenched tightly in his fist.
"I need to speak with him," Lord Potter announced.
"James, I don't think that's a good idea," Remus said warily.
"I need to do this, Remus," Lord Potter insisted. "It may be my only chance to find out why. He was one of my best friends, and yet he's the reason my parents are dead. The reason I lost my daughter. I need to understand why."
"Me too," Lady Potter agreed, though she stayed away from Pettigrew, her arms wrapped protectively around her children.
Remus pursed his lips in disapproval, but he bowed his head in acceptance.
The two Aurors sighed, exchanging grim glances. Aludra had a bad feeling about this, but she stayed quiet after a glance at a grim-faced Remus.
Kingsley waved his wand, and Pettigrew came back to consciousness. His eyes widened in fear when he saw the people glowering down at him.
"Hello Peter," Lord Potter spat. Aludra couldn't help noticing that he was shaking, his face flushed with rage and a wild look in his eyes.
"J-James," Pettigrew stammered. His eyes flicked around the room before going back to Lord Potter. "M-my old f-friend."
"Friend?" Lord Potter yelled. "Friend? After what you did, what you took from me, you have the nerve to call me friend? How dare you?!"
"I s-saved you!" Pettigrew cried fearfully. "I con-convinced the D-Dark Lord to s-spare you and L-Lily! To attack on a d-day when your par-parents were babysitting! I s-saved you! Be-because y-you're my f-f-friends!"
"Because of you my parents are dead!" Lord Potter raged. "Because of you my baby girl spent years in pain, slowly dying! You think trying to doom Lily and I to a life where our babies were both slaughtered was a mercy? You know nothing of love, otherwise you would have understood that I would have died for Evan and Aimee!"
Aludra bit her cheek worriedly. The room was shaking from the force of Lord Potter's rage. And not just his rage, she realized, glancing at Evan whose face was filled with fury, and Lady Potter who looked like the only thing keeping her from strangling Pettigrew with her bare hands was the children in her arms.
"W-what was I s-supposed to d-do, J-James?" Pettigrew wailed. "The D-Dark Lor-d is t-too p-powerful, so powerful he e-even defeated d-death itself! Wh-what else c-could I have d-done?"
"Died!" Lord Potter screamed, a window shattering with the force of his visibly roiling magic. "You could have died, like I would have done for you!"
Pettigrew looked stunned, which Aludra didn't understand. What else could he expect after what he had done to the Potters?
"James," Remus spoke up. "This is pointless. Peter is too selfish to understand that some things are worth your life. He's sentenced to the Kiss. Let that be enough."
Lord Potter turned away from a shaking Pettigrew bitterly, going over to his family and pulling them into his arms, while Annabelle and Kingsley secured Pettigrew for transport.
Aludra looked away from the Potters, instead watching as her father's teammates levitated Pettigrew from the room. It didn't feel right for her to witness the Potter parents' grief. Bad enough that she could hear their soft weeping.
Remus ushered her out of the room, and she went eagerly. They reached the first level of the Shack when the Potters caught up to them, Evan and Iris' parents looking worn and tired, their faces damp and eyes rimmed with red. Aludra couldn't help but feel sorry for them. She didn't like them, but it was clear that a piece of them had broken irreparably when Aimee Potter and Lord Potter's parents had died due to the actions of a man they had loved as a brother and trusted with their family's lives. Knowing that their child, that the late Lord Charlus and Lady Dorea had died because Pettigrew was a coward had to be devastating.
They left the Shack and climbed through the tight tunnel silently. It was as they were approaching the exit that they heard shouting and sounds of a struggle. Aludra's stomach dropped in panic.
"Pettigrew's getting away!" Evan exclaimed, jerking towards the entrance only to be stopped by his mother.
"No, Evan!" She cried.
"Stay here!" Remus barked, raising his wand and rushing out of the tunnel, the Potter parents at his heels.
Aludra and her friends waited tensely for several minutes, listening to the sounds of spellfire. Then, Aludra heard a familiar scream that swiftly turned into a howl, and horror filled her.
Remus hadn't taken his potion, and tonight was the full moon, she realized. The Wolfsbane dampened the pain of the change. He wouldn't be crying out like that if he'd drunk it. Without thinking, she ran out of the tunnel, Evan and Iris racing after her.
They found Lady Potter, Kingsley and Annabelle shooting stunners at Moony, who was ignoring them as if they were flies. Lord Potter, who was between the tunnel entrance and the angry werewolf, was yelling, trying to calm Moony down.
"It's me, Moony, it's Prongs, remember?" He exclaimed. "Remus, remember who you really are! Don't let the wolf crush your spirit!"
Moony snarled, lunging at him, and he jumped out of the way. Aludra wondered for half a second why he didn't change into Prongs to distract Moony, but pushed the thought aside in favour of running forward.
"Aludra, stay back!" Lady Potter cried. "It's too dangerous!"
"It's me he wants, he can smell his cub's scent and thinks your threatening me!" Aludra argued, trying to dart around Lord Potter, who had rushed to block her from her uncle. "Let me passed! I can draw him away!"
"It's too dangerous!" Lord Potter insisted.
Aludra growled in frustration. She could tell that Moony was getting ever more rabid, preparing to attack the man blocking him from his cub. She made her decision. If there was ever a time to reveal her secret to her friends, it was now. They'd be able to understand why now, anyway. She shifted, shrinking and spouting feathers, until a red-tailed hawk was hovering where Aludra had stood seconds before.
Ruby flew past Lord Potter, who to his credit quickly overcame his shock in favour of trying to grab her from the air, but she avoided his grasp and flew to Moony, batting his snout with a wing. Moony barked and grabbed her out of the air. His grip was too tight, grinding her delicate bones, and his nails dug into her chest, but Ruby didn't struggle, letting out a reassuring caw to try and calm him down. Moony turned to begin running for the Forest.
"No!" Lady Potter cried, jerking forward. Moony snarled at her, making her flinch back, before turning and loping away, Ruby still in his grip.