This chapter and the two that follow are among those I loved the most to write so far.

RON V

"Time to wake up, Weasleys!"

Ron groaned. "Dad! We just got to bed."

"No, Ronald. It's been six hours since you went to bed. It's dawn now."

He opened the curtains of their room, letting a yellow light brighter than it had any right to be blind them. Fred and George stirred in their sleeping bags next to Ron's. They all slept in sleeping bags. Despite the prize their father won, they didn't have the means to rent proper bedrooms in order for everyone to sleep into a bed. As a result, the only one to sleep in a bed was Ginny. Ron's parents had decided it would cost less to take a chamber with a single bed than a king-sized bed, and Ginny got the privilege of sleeping in this one available bed. Their parents slept in sleeping bags, just like Bill and Percy.

"Now, time for breakfast, boys. Dress up. We must be at the pyramid by seven o'clock," their father reminded them.

It was true. Visits in pyramids always took place early in the morning, when the heat was more tolerable. Ron nonetheless stayed into bed a few minutes longer, until Fred and George, who had managed to get out of bed, threatened to start fireworks under his sleeping bag. Ron left it before his bottom ended up on fire.

In the hotel's dining room, breakfast was all ready. At least, food was as good as it was at home. If his parents and Ron never made any compromise, it was on food quality and quantity. They could live without money, even without beds, but good meals were essential.

"What are we visiting today?" Ron asked as he took some bacon.

"The Pyramid of Djoser," Percy answered immediately. "Also called the Step Pyramid. It is the most ancient pyramid of Egypt. Apparently, the wizards in the service of Pharaoh Djoser..."

"Okay, Percy. That's fine," Fred interrupted him. "You're not going to tell us everything about the pyramid before we even visit it. Let us discover by ourselves."

"I was just trying to give you some context."

"By reciting a history book?" George asked, a big smile on the lips. In the meantime, Ron gave a piece of cheese to Scabbers.

"Calm down, boys. We have the whole day to discover the mysteries of this pyramid," their father said. "And Percy, please let Bill tell us a little about this pyramid while we visit it. He's the expert here, after all."

"I don't mind if Percy provides some information," their elder brother said. "If you make a mistake, Percy, don't worry. I'll be there to correct you."

Percy didn't seem happy with their brother's reassurance. Ron was glad to see Bill again. It had been quite a few years since the last time he saw his oldest brother. Egypt left him a little tanned, but otherwise he was just like when he left home after the goblins hired him. Ron had been very young back then. He remembered that Ginny cried the day he left.

Ron looked at his little sister. She seemed to have recovered quite well from last year's ordeal. She was her usual self again. Maybe she was a little less talkative than before, though it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But she was her happy self again, which was quite refreshing from how she looked like last year. One other good thing was that she avoided talking about Harry. It had become too annoying last summer, as she blabbered about him all the time. Now, however, whenever his name was mentioned, she blushed. It was annoying as well, but not as much.

Ron thought about it. Harry and Ginny. Well, he didn't really imagine his best friend dating his sister, truth be told. Ginny was always so shy around him. There had been a few days, after they got her out of the Chamber of Secrets, when she seemed able to hold a conversation with him, but it didn't last long. She was back to square one at the end of the term. Ron thought that even if Harry ever asked Ginny out, she would turn so red and stammer so much that she would never be able to actually accept with comprehensible words. And in truth, Ron wasn't sure that he liked the idea of Ginny and Harry being together. It would be too weird. It would feel just as weird as the thought of Harry and Hermione together. He was glad that the rumors about them no longer circulated in Hogwarts' corridors last year. It was way too awkward to hear them during their first year at school, especially while Ron and Hermione were not really friends yet. Ron was very glad that this period was over.

"By the way, Percy," Fred asked, "how does it feel, waking up as Head Boy?"

"Fred!" both their parents told him on a warning tone.

"What?" George said. "We asked him how it felt to eat as Head Boy, how to dress as Head Boy, how to walk as Head Boy. We even asked how it felt to relie..."

"George!" This time, their mother's voice was cutting like a sword, and George couldn't finish.

"Okay, sorry. What I meant is, we asked him about how it felt to do anything normal as Head Boy, except for waking up."

"You already asked him how it felt to stand up, to sleep, to fall asleep, to open the eyes, to blink, to dream, to remain still, to lie down, and to sit down while being Head Boy," Ginny then listed, which brought muffled laughs from Bill, Ron and their father. "I think it covers waking up as Head Boy."

"Oh no. We still have many questions for our Head Boy," Fred said.

"Stop with that," their mother said. "You should be happy for your brother. He's the second Head Boy in the family, after Bill."

Indeed, Bill had congratulated Percy very enthusiastically when he received his letter with the badge, though he was far from making a ton out of it like their mother did.

"We are happy," Fred and George said together. "More reasons to laugh about it."

It mostly went this way for the rest of the breakfast. They left the hotel at around half past six. Ron brought Scabbers with him on his shoulder. He was still eating a piece of cheese.

"Such a sad thing that Charlie couldn't come with us," their mother said.

On that, everyone agreed. When was the last time that the whole family was reunited? Ron sometimes envied his older brothers, even Fred and George, but he liked them all the same. Though, when he thought about that, maybe he didn't have to envy them so much. He did go deep into the dungeons to stop He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named from getting the Philosopher's Stone, and into the Chamber of Secrets. None of his brothers could take that away from him. Though sometimes, especially when Fred and George taunted him about being unconscious most of the time he was down in these places, Ron wished he had not only come back alive from these places, but could also boast about actually fighting You-Know-Who and the Basilisk. Instead, he felt like he somehow played the second role all the time.

The small hotel where they stayed was in the desert, far from Muggles' living zones. They had to walk to reach the pyramid. It didn't take very long. They arrived at their destination about ten minutes before seven o'clock.

Ron had seen many pyramids and tombs ever since they began to travel through Egypt, but he had to admit that this one was particular. He understood why it was called the Step Pyramid, for it really looked to be made of five steps, built upon one another. It wasn't as impressive as those on the Giza Plateau, but it was great all the same. Bill led them to the secret entrance that Muggles couldn't see, travelling through a trench in the sand that was invisible. Bill said they didn't even need to use magic to keep the trench hidden, since the sands of the desert hid it very well on their own.

"Okay, just a few more steps. The entrance is around this corner," Bill told them as they turned the corner in question.

They found themselves in front of a downward slope. Stairs led to a square entrance down there. From where they stood, at the top of the stairs, they couldn't see anything inside.

"Okay," Bill said. "Now, each one of you, take someone else's hand. You must not fall."

Their mother immediately seized Ginny's hand, while Ron had his hand taken by his father. Fred and George took each other's, and Bill took Percy's. They then proceeded to slowly walk down these stairs. Scabbers remained still on Ron's right shoulder as they descended. The wind of the desert quieted as the walls surrounding the stairs protected them.

"Only two at a time," Bill told them as they reached the pitch-dark entrance. "Lower your head. We must not hit the doorframe."

For Ron and Ginny, the advice was useless, but it proved necessary for their parents and Percy. Fred couldn't stop himself from faking hitting his head hard. Once inside, all adults lit the way ahead using the Lumos spell. They kept going down, and down, and down, leaving the light of day and walking deep into darkness. No one said a word, not even Fred and George. Bill had been very clear about the fact they were not to speak unless necessary, and then only in whispers, to not trigger old curses the ancient Egyptian wizards left behind and that Bill and his colleagues could have missed.

They seemed to be descending a slope without end. The stairs were gone. They were covered by sand at this place. Ron thought he remembered Bill explaining that old curses prevented them from casting charms that would keep the stairs clean on a long-term basis. The older the curses were, the harder it was to counter them, sometimes because they barely had any idea what these curses were, and the more dangerous it was to use modern magic on them.

They finally reached another doorframe, where the slop ended. It gave on a straight corridor that went on their left. They all followed Bill, who had released Percy's hand. Fred and George had also released each other, but their father and mother kept Ron's and Ginny's respective hands tightly in their own. Ron found it annoying. He was thirteen now. He was no longer a little boy. They soon arrived at a point where the corridor went forward, but where there was also an opening in the wall on their right. Spider webs still clung at the frame, and Ron shuddered at the thought that real spiders could be close. Despite spending so much time this summer around spider webs, he couldn't not be afraid of them.

"This entrance was blocked for a very long time. Curse-Breakers could only break through it a dozen years before I arrived, and after centuries of efforts," Bill explained in whispers. "We will be going down there but be careful."

Ron no longer counted the number of times Bill told them to be careful. Again, they found themselves following a downward slope, though this one was far shorter than the first one. They arrived at a junction of three passageways. Bill led them to the passage right in front of them.

"The first Curse-Breakers who came here found the way to this chamber completely blocked, except for a tiny space on the ground level, which you could only get through by crawling. It was unblocked the year before my arrival. Imagine how disappointed they were when they only found a few common vases. Everything of value was already gone. We believe it was looted about two thousand years ago. Let me tell you that the goblins were not happy about it."

Indeed, the front passage gave on a simple chamber that was now empty. Bill led them on the right then, down another slope. Ginny almost slipped at one point, but their mother held her strong enough to keep his little sister on her feet. They arrived at a plateau, kept walking forward, then turned left and followed another downward slope. Bill looked on their right once they completed the descent. There was only a thin opening in the wall, barely allowing someone very thin, like Harry or Parvati for example, to get through it by walking sideways. But Bill just walked through the solid wall and disappeared on the other side. His head then reappeared.

"Come. There's no risk," he said, then disappeared again.

Two by two, they walked through the thick wall. When Ron emerged on the other side with his father, who wouldn't let go off his hand, he found himself staring in wonder at shining golden writings on another wall right in front of them.

"Written curses," Bill explained. "Only targeting Muggles, not wizards. That's why we can see them, but Muggles can't. We broke the curses all the same, in case a Muggle would find his way into this place. The curses were quite dangerous for them. In some way, this is the most ancient precursor to the Muggle-Repelling Charm. And this barrier we just crossed," he added, pointing to the wall behind them, "is the most ancient example of what we have at King's Cross that gives on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."

Ron couldn't stop himself from smiling. With the kind of historical information Bill was providing, he would have more than enough to make Hermione jealous for the rest of the year when they would meet in September.

They progressed across chambers. Ron stayed away from spider's webs and actual spiders as much as he could. He had to suffer the silent laughter of Fred and George, and even Ginny's fun at seeing him afraid of such tiny creatures. Almost all curses had been lifted in all of them, given how old this tomb was and for how long the goblins had been scavenging it. They stopped moving downward. They must have reached the bottom of the tomb. Hieroglyphs and other strange symbols, none of them Ron could understand, lined on the walls. Bill explained that before, these walls were painted in bright colors, just like in other tombs. In more recent pyramids, Ron had been able to watch colourful scenes on the walls, depicting the lives of Egyptians some millennia ago, both wizards and Muggles. It looked like comic books, but in full size. Here, the drawings and symbols carved in the stone looked bland, stale, lifeless. Bill explained that wizards of the Old Kingdom, unlike those from the Middle and the New Kingdom, didn't deem necessary to cast spells to maintain the integrity of drawings. Only in later periods of Ancient Egypt did wizards started to cast spells and charms to prevent paintings from degrading. They did not do so in the pyramid they were currently visiting.

They travelled far and deep into the pyramid. They went as far as the heart of the tomb, where a huge stone, smooth, carved, rectangular, with very complicated and refined symbols written on it, stood in the center of the room.

"I participated to the clearance of this room," Bill proudly said. "You have no idea how many serpents we had to deal with before we finally got to this stone."

Ron immediately thought about the Basilisk as his brother spoke of serpents. He asked him if he ever came across one of those. Bill replied that he never did, and he hoped he would never meet one face to face, for this would probably be the last thing he would see in his life. Though Bill had asked questions to Ron about how he and Harry defeated a Basilisk, Bill was always careful and made sure Ginny was never around and could not hear them when he asked Ron questions about it. Ron wished he could give better answers to Bill, but the truth was that he was unconscious the whole time Harry fought the King of Serpents. There wasn't much he could tell Bill, only what Harry himself told Ron afterwards.

He looked at Ginny, who didn't seem affected by the mention of serpents. Ron always kept an eye on her these times, just like almost everyone in the family.

"We believe it was filled with great magical powers before, but it seems that centuries of looting robbed the stone of everything it contained. We believe the last magic was taken about two millennia ago. What's strange is that it doesn't seem to have been taken by a wizard."

"Who took it then?" Ron asked.

"No idea. We're still searching. The goblins think it might lead us to something valuable."

They took the way back to the surface not long afterwards. They had been down for almost two hours now, and the temperature had probably increased significantly. Ron could already feel the sweat falling down his forehead. Bill led them outside. They couldn't cast any cooling or freezing spell, out of fear to trigger some eventual long forgotten curse. The climb back to the surface was much more arduous than the descent. Ron just hoped it would be over soon. As they climbed though, he also had the distinct impression that the heat was increasing, but he hoped it was only because of the effort he provided.

Finally, they saw the light of day after they turned a corner to the right. It was the slope by which they arrived. They climbed it this time. Ron was breathing heavily.

"Come on, Ron," Fred whispered. "Don't tell me you're exhausted."

He could talk. Fred and George didn't look in any better state than their little brother, judging by the way their hair was clinging wet to their foreheads. They climbed again, and again, and again, each step forward bringing them closer to the end of their morning visit, but also making them more tired. Ron's father released his hand, taking a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his own forehead, but also from his head in general.

They reached the exit of the tomb, followed the two walls demarcating the slope that led to the tomb whose height was decreasing with each new step, and finally made it to the surface level... only to fall upon a group of six wizards.

These men were blocking the exit from the tomb. Ron barely had time to notice the foreign allure of the clothes they were wearing that his father exclaimed. Ron stopped so abruptly that Scabbers almost slipped over his shoulder. Ron caught him just at the right moment or else he would have fallen in the sand.

"Kingsley!"

One of the men stepped forward. He was black of skin, tall, bald, and wore purple and blue robes. He crossed his hands in front of him.

"Hi, Arthur," he said on a grave tone. The expression on his face was just as grave as his voice was.

Their father stepped forward. "What are you doing here? Has there been a problem at the Ministry?" he asked, sounding concerned.

"No, Arthur. We are here for something else."

In Ron's hands, Scabbers kept twitching in all directions. "Hey, calm down, Scabbers!" he said loudly.

"Ron, what's going on?" his mother asked.

"It's Scabbers! He doesn't want to stay still."

His rat never struggled in this way. Most of the time, he was so sluggish that it was hard getting him to move or do anything at all.

"Ron, Father is talking with an Auror of the Ministry. It's no time to complain about Scabbers," Percy berated him. Ron wished it was Percy who tried to keep Scabbers calm.

"Hi, Ron."

A voice that Ron thought he heard before addressed him. He looked up, still trying to keep hold of Scabbers who seemed like he was trying to run.

"I'll give you some help."

The man with long and lustrous black hair waved his hand, and immediately Scabbers raised into the air, but the rat kept moving in all direction, fighting against the invisible magical force. Ron had to admit that he was relieved. Scabbers really looked about to run away. He was about to thank the wizard, but then he realized where he saw that man, and when he heard this voice before.

"Sirius Black!" The British wizard looked at Ron. He was wearing Egyptian wizard robes, but otherwise he was impossible to miss. Ron remembered him very well.

"Glad to see you too, Ronald," another man who came to stand next to Mr Black said. He had greying brown hair and deep lines on his face. Ron took a little more time to recognize him, but he remembered after a few seconds Remus Lupin, a friend of Harry's mother he met for Christmas about one year and a half ago, at the same time he met Sirius Black.

"Ron, you know these men?" Without waiting for an answer, his father turned to the man he called Kingsley. "Kingsley, who are they?"

"It's Sirius Black, Dad," Ron answered. For once, he could provide an answer himself. "He's Harry's godfather."

His father looked at the man with black hair, then his face seemed to light up a little. "Oh, yes. I remember now. But what are you doing here?"

Sirius Black didn't seem to give any attention to Ron's father. Remus Lupin didn't seem to notice him either. They were both looking at Scabbers, who was still turning on himself while hanging in the air. Harry's godfather then looked at Remus Lupin.

"The index of his right hand is missing," Sirius Black said. Ron frowned at the comment.

Lupin nodded. "That's him." He turned and looked at the man with black skin. "We got him."

Ron's father asked the question his son had in mind. "Kingsley, what's going on?"

But Kingsley only turned and said something in another language, probably Arabic. Ron had heard it a lot since the beginning of the holidays, though he still didn't understand any of it. He turned to Bill, who understood the language.

"Bill, what did he say?" But his brother looked stunned and didn't seem to have heard Ron. "Bill?"

But Ron soon didn't care about his brother's lack of responsiveness. The three other wizards who didn't speak so far, obviously Egyptians, moved forward and positioned themselves in front of Ron's family. Ron was unceremoniously pushed away from Scabbers.

"Hey, what are they doing?" Ron asked, panicked. Ginny looked to be in quite an upset state as well.

"Kingsley!" their father said, obviously outraged now. "What is going on?"

"Excuse me, Arthur, but we got to verify something," the black wizard said.

"Verify something? But to verify what?"

"This."

He pointed his finger towards Ron's rat.

"Scabbers?" Ron didn't understand. "What do you want with my rat?"

Kingsley looked at Ron. "You're Ronald? This is your animal?" Ron nodded for both questions. "My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt. I'm an Auror. Your father and I have worked together in the past. And we still work together."

Ron stared with big eyes. This man was an Auror. Well, he had to admit that he had the looks of it. He was well-built, broad-shouldered, very tall.

"Look," the man continued, "you have nothing to worry about. If this is really a rat, nothing will happen to it. But if he is who we believe he is, then prepare yourself for a big shock."

Kingsley Shacklebolt then walked towards Scabbers.

"Kingsley?" Ron's father seemed at a loss of words.

The Auror raised his wand and pointed it on Scabbers. "Remus, can you help me?"

"Of course."

Ron watched in horror as both wizards targeted Scabbers.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

He rushed to help his animal, but the Egyptian wizards stopped him, blocking him in his rush. Then a bright blue-white flash blinded him. He saw his parents and most of his brothers raising their arm to cover their eyes. When Ron looked at his rat again, he was frozen in the air, barely twisting. Ron yelled and tried to get past the Egyptian wizards, but their hold on him was too tight. Then Scabbers fell on the ground, unmoving. Ron yelled even stronger. They had killed Scabbers. They killed his rat.

Or so he thought. A moment later, Ron's despair and shock turned into complete stunning. Ron was as frozen as Scabbers, as a head, then hands, arms, a torso, legs, and finally feet took shape. On the ground, Scabbers was gone. Instead of him, a very small man was lying, face down. Ron stepped back, looking in horror at the almost bald man who raised his head. Ron realized that his eyes and nose bored a striking resemblance with Scabbers'. Ron looked at the rest of his family, who looked just as shocked as he actually was.

"Well, hello, Peter. Long time, no see," Remus Lupin said, looking at the man down in the sand. The man in question looked back at Lupin.

"S... S... Sirius. Re... Remus. My... My old friends..."

Right when he said the word friends, a boot collided with his face, sending him back in the sand.

"Friends! Friends?" It was Harry's godfather who was yelling, and he kicked the small man on the ground again and again, under everyone's eyes. "You dare to call us friends after what you did? You, worm!"

He was stopped by Shacklebolt who seized him by the waist and held him back. "That's enough, Mr Black. We got him. He's going to Azkaban."

"Well, that's not enough," Sirius spat. "He deserves much worse."

"Sirius." Remus Lupin talked in a much calmer voice than Harry's godfather. "I want to see him suffer as well. And he will. But James wouldn't want us to become murderers like him."

This seemed to calm Sirius Black. Shacklebolt released him, then turned to the man in the sand. He gripped him by the arms and put something that looked like bracelets around his wrists.

"Peter Pettigrew, you are under arrest under multiple charges of murder, complicity to murder, complicity in attempt to commit murder, and high treason. You will be held prisoner by the Egyptian Ministry of Magic until your transfer to Great Britain is ready, when you will face trial for the crimes you are accused of."

"No. No. No. Please, Remus, Sirius. Don't let them," the small man was begging, but no one lifted a little finger to help him.

"We're coming with you," Sirius Black said as the man they called Peter was handed to the Egyptian wizards. "He's an Animagus. You don't know what he's capable of."

Kingsley Shacklebolt spoke in Arabic again. An Egyptian wizard nodded, and he made a sign for Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to follow them. Only Shacklebolt remained behind and looked at Ron's father.

"Arthur, we've got to go back to your hotel. We need a quiet place to discuss."

About a half-hour later, they all sat down in the dining room of the hotel, which had been emptied on Shacklebolt's orders. He just showed a piece of paper to the man at the reception, and he immediately gave them the room for all of them. Ron was still trying to recover from what just happened, and also trying to understand what went on after they left the pyramid. Was he struck by some kind of ancient curse that made him confused?

Their mother remained close to Ginny, a hand on her shoulder. She asked a lot of questions on their way back, but no one wanted or knew what to answer. Fred and George looked as clueless and talked in hushed tones, which was very unusual for them. Percy remained silent. Ron could tell he was trying to look like he controlled the situation and wasn't affected, but it was obvious he didn't know what was going either. Only Bill and their parents seemed to somewhat understand something. They all looked very serious and concerned, but also upset and even angry. Kingsley Shacklebolt first addressed all of them together.

"I want to apologize to all of you for this. But when we discovered that a dangerous criminal was hiding within your family under the disguise of a rat, we had no choice but to intervene as quickly as possible," he said.

"Wait, a criminal?" Fred asked, completely not understanding.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked. "What happened to Scabbers? Where is he?"

Shacklebolt intently looked at Ron. "This is the name you gave to your rat?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Yes. He's been my animal for two years now. What have you done with him? And who's this man you took prisoner?"

Ron didn't understand. How could Scabbers vanish, and then a man appear right where he was a few seconds before?

"Ronald, I understand that it must be quite hard to understand for you, but your rat was an Animagus," the Auror told him. Everyone else in the room, except for Ginny perhaps, seemed quite surprised.

"A what?" Ron asked.

"An Animagus. A wizard who can turn himself into an animal at will."

"But... That's ridiculous! I mean, Scabbers has been in our family for ages, right. He cannot be an Animagus."

"Arthur," the Auror asked his father, "for how long has this rat been in your family?"

Ron's father didn't answer immediately. "Well... I found it in our gardens perhaps a month or two after You-Know-Who was defeated. Ginny had just been born, and we didn't have enough money to buy an animal, so I took the rat in. I never thought that it could be a wizard who morphed into a rat."

"I never saw him change his appearance," Percy said. "Is it possible to remain under a rat's appearance for twelve years?"

"It is," Shacklebolt said. "Though there can be long-term effects. Still, Arthur, you never wondered how this rat could live for twelve years? Rats never live longer than three years."

Ron's father looked dumbstruck. And Ron realized something too. Scabbers had been Percy's rat for years before he gave it to Ron, when their parents bought him an owl. If rats could only live for three years, then how... But it didn't make any sense.

"I don't know," Ron's father said. "I never... I never thought about it. And like I said, we didn't have money to buy animals for our children. So we kept Scabbers. But... is it true? Is this really Peter Pettigrew?"

Their parents and Bill were all looking intently at the Auror. "Yes. That's him." The three looked horrified.

"Who is Peter Pettigrew?" It was the first words Ginny said. The Auror, their parents and Bill looked very surprised at her.

"Yeah, who is he?" Ron asked. It was his turn to be looked at with surprise.

"Yeah, who is he?" Fred and George said together. They got their own share of surprised looks. Only Percy didn't ask, but he looked as clueless as to who that was as Ron, Ginny, Fred and George.

Bill seemed to recover the first from his surprise. "I guess... I guess you were too young at the time. Even you, Percy. Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater."

Ron jumped. He almost strangled himself with the revelation. "What?" Did he really sleep with a Death Eater for two years? The realization that Scabbers was in fact a wizard was beginning to sink into him.

"A supporter of You-Know-Who," Kingsley Shacklebolt uselessly specified. "In fact, he was a spy. He worked for a secret organization led by Albus Dumbledore, consisting of people who fought against You-Know-Who. Pettigrew betrayed Dumbledore and his allies, and he provided information to Voldemort on the identity, the movements, the living places, and the missions of the members of the organization." The Auror looked at their mother. "We suspect that he had a hand in the murders of Fabian and Gideon Prewett, among others."

Their mother almost screamed, but it was muffled by the hand she placed on her mouth, but her shocking expression was more than revealing. Ginny held their mother's hand more tightly in support. Ron knew they were their uncles, their mother's brothers, who died before he was born, but... Ron wanted to vomit at the mere idea that he kept as a pet a man who played a role in the death of his uncles, even if he never knew them.

"I can't believe we kept that scum with us all this time, and we never saw anything. How does it come that you only find him now?" his father asked aggressively to the Auror.

"We knew that Pettigrew was an Animagus and that he could turn into a rat, but we had no way to know where he was, or that he remained under this appearance for this whole time. We couldn't check all the rats of Great Britain in the hope to find him. It was a great luck that we found him. Someone who knew Pettigrew's appearance as a rat very well saw your family's picture on the front page of the Daily Prophet and recognized him. He contacted us, then we tracked your location, and came here as quickly as we could."

Ron's father seemed to calm down. "I'm sorry, Kingsley. I know you worked hard to find this man. I still... I can't believe that he was right under my eyes this whole time. Is that… Is that really true?"

"Wait." It was Ginny who spoke. She seemed very worried all of a sudden. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Didn't even have time to answer their father. "If Scabbers was a Death Eater, and he went to Hogwarts with Ron... That means he spent two years next to Harry! He could have killed him anytime!"

Ron hadn't thought about this. This horrified him as well.

"Another reason why we moved so quickly when we discovered who this rat actually was," Kingsley said. He sighed. "We're lucky he didn't harm the boy."

Everyone seemed more than shaken. The Auror didn't leave them much time to reflect on all this. He told them he had questions for each one of them. He apologized to their parents but explained that it was the procedure in that kind of cases. Their father was the first one to accompany Kingsley Shacklebolt in a separate room to answer his questions. This left Ron with his mother, brothers and sister to ponder about everything they just learned.

"Are we in trouble?" Ron asked after a moment.

"I..." Their mother struggled to answer. "I don't think so. We didn't know… I mean, how could we know that we were harboring a..."

It seemed like she didn't know how to call that thing anymore. Ron, on his side, could not believe that he kept as a pet a criminal, someone who supported He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And that this criminal remained a rat for all this time. How could Ron not see that it was a wizard? The problem was, Ron could dig in his memories as much as he could, he couldn't find any time or circumstance when Scabbers looked like anything else than a poor, lazy, passive, sleepy rat. He turned to Percy, asking if he ever saw something. He had owned Scabbers for far longer than Ron, after all. But Percy was adamant that he never saw even an ounce of clue that could indicate that Scabbers was more than a rat. Well, it seemed like he was a rat, just not the kind they all thought he was.

"Ron," Ginny asked after a moment. "Scabbers... I mean, whoever it was... He never tried to hurt Harry, didn't he?"

"No. The only time I saw him hurt someone was when he bit Goyle's finger in the Hogwarts Express, before my first year," Ron remembered. It was one of the rare times when Scabbers did something else than eating or sleeping.

"Well, we can consider ourselves lucky that he didn't try anything on your friend, Ron," Bill commented. "I wonder what stopped him from harming him."

"Probably the same thing as Malfoy or all the other former Death Eaters," Ron mocked. "They would go to Azkaban if they did anything to Harry."

"Probably," Bill said. "Though, for Peter Pettigrew, things are quite different."

"How so?" Fred and George asked together.

"Well, Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters who are now free didn't play any role in what happened on Halloween in 1981," Bill said, sounding irritated.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

Bill looked at him as if he came from another world. But then his expression softened as he saw almost everyone didn't seem to understand what he meant. "Sorry. I always forget that you were not old enough back then. Peter Pettigrew is the man who helped You-Know-Who when he tried to kill Harry Potter."

The sentence had the effect of a bomb among the Weasleys.

And Peter Pettigrew officially enters the story, but in a much different context this time.

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Next chapter: Harry