Mercifully, none of the students had died, and only a few of the villagers had passed (as they were less magically capable and thus less responsive to magical healing). Harry was privately of the opinion that nobody on their side would have died if more of the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin students had come out to help. Grudgingly, their work in triage had been important. Maybe part of him was upset that those who'd stayed inside weren't having to grapple with whether they'd killed people—the marauders had left quite a few bodies behind in their flight.
Yet avoiding PTSD was one thing that warrior cultures did surprisingly well. Gryffindor was united by battle in a way the house hadn't been in years, and everyone Harry lived with understood what he'd been through. Even Fred and George lost the will to prank their housemates for a few weeks, and would subsequently never make a joke about someone's experience in the fight. Everyone knew how close they'd come to losing—probably dying—and was helpful in making sure everyone else was okay. That most of the enemies had been aliens and visibly different from the humans and near-humans was a thing that nobody really wanted to point out served to further increase emotional distance. It also helped that none of the students were completely sure whether they'd personally killed anyone: there had been a lot of spells cast, and it was reported that most of the bodies featured lethal wounds from the townsfolk's melee weapons, rather than magical energy.
That might have been a polite fiction that the staff decided on to limit student guilt.
The word was that the small army of marauders had been well and truly scattered into the wilderness. Several of the professors and still-functional upper-years had flown out on brooms to ensure they kept fleeing and didn't have an opportunity to regroup nearby. While Ronan's guard had been deep enough in the forest that they hadn't made it to the battle, they were up to the task of scouting and making sure that another such attack wasn't forthcoming. They were also attempting to determine how an army of that size had managed to get all the way to Hogwarts without warning (fearing that many small villages had been destroyed along the way for supplies and silence).
But, with the numbers that had assembled (even broken into smaller groups), it was a fact that they'd be causing problems across the rest of Vanaheim until Asgard could get Bifrost running again. This was exactly what everyone had feared.
It was hard to get an accurate idea of how the battle had gone inside the castle grounds, since the professors didn't seem as keen as the students to recount their bloody deeds—at least not outside of their own private reminiscences. The younger students and those that just hadn't been in Hogsmeade had all been barricaded in the great hall, so could speculate only a little more factually than those who'd been in the village. That obviously didn't stop Luna, who was certain that Snape had used his vampiric powers to teleport about the field drinking blood, that the headmaster had reanimated the spectral head of the Nidhogg serpent to sever their souls, and that a friendly Jotun that Hagrid was hiding in the forest had emerged to lock in titanic battle with the frost giant for the fate of Hogwarts.
Well, it was never absolutely clear when Luna was making things up to amuse herself, but she claimed to be certain of all of that.
They got confirmation that Sirius had gotten away okay when Ron's wand turned back up at Hagrid's hut the day after the battle. Privately, the redhead had been hoping that Black would keep it so he could talk his parents into getting him a focus that wasn't a hand-me-down. But at least he wouldn't be far behind on classes while he waited for a trip to the Market to get a replacement wand.
It took another couple of weeks for the Ministry to begin to show up. Word was that their resources were spread thin supporting the other nations of Vanaheim against more groups of marauders, though Hogsmeade had, by far, seen the largest. The Ministry brought not a garrison force, but more scouts and skirmishers to try to starve the enemy by trapping them in the deep magical wilderness before they could begin raiding in more populated areas.
Of course, the actual officials of the Ministry set themselves up a comfortable command post in Hogsmeade where they could direct the scouting efforts and meddle in the affairs of Hogwarts. There was already rumor from the town that Minister Fudge was trying to convince everyone that they had not been saved by Sirius Black and his trick with the Mindless Ones, but had instead gotten extremely lucky that the madman hadn't gotten everyone killed by bringing himself and his wardens into the town. Hagrid told them that the townsfolk he'd been drinking with didn't believe it for a moment, but that it meant it still wasn't safe for Sirius to move freely.
It also wasn't safe for Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak. Harry had almost forgotten about Draco's "maiming" earlier in the year, but Hermione, her roommates, and (somewhat surprisingly) Ron had turned out to be spending a lot of hours becoming experts on Vanir law, at least as it regarded animals. Despite their best legal efforts, they hadn't found a way out for the proud beast. Even in situations where a pet had been protecting its master, an animal that might attack a person (especially a wealthy, powerful, and connected person like a Malfoy) would generally be put down. At this point, it was probably only a matter of time before enough decision-makers gathered in Hogsmeade that they'd decide to march into the castle grounds and execute Buckbeak (at least Fudge didn't seem to be motivated enough to push for it by himself, so there was still a bit of time).
"Why don't we just get Sirius to take Buckbeak and fly away?" Hermione asked, the afternoon at Hagrid's house that they'd laid all of that out. It was obvious how frustrated she'd become with Vanaheim's draconian laws that she was suggesting breaking them so flagrantly.
"There's an idea," the big man considered.
"I think he's too obsessed with Pettigrew," Harry frowned. "He could have left months ago, if he wasn't hiding hoping to catch him."
"Pettigrew has to have gotten out by now," Dean figured. "He could have jumped on the train or in somebody's cart."
Hagrid shook his head, "We did a proper search o' the train fer rats. An' warned the traders about 'em bein' a real problem this year. Not that many've been able ter leave with the marauder dangers. Plus, the kitchen staff's sure food's still goin' missin' even after all the rats we caught. Some o' 'em've said they saw a fat gray rat that's too clever by half."
"Okay," Harry nodded. "I guess that means we need to get back on catching Pettigrew. We shove him in Fudge's face. Sirius flies Buckbeak off while they sort out how to call off the Mindless Ones. Just need to find that map." They really hadn't been thinking as much about it as they probably should have: teenage priorities were easily reset by a long holiday and then all the other crises in between.
"I did talk ter Argus," Hagrid nodded. At some point he'd gotten fully read in on their information about Sirius and Pettigrew, rather than just implicitly aware that Sirius wasn't a murderer. Harry assumed the others must have told him while they were doing legal research. "He remembers he took some kind o' parchment off Pettigrew when yer parents were still in school. But he don' know what happened ter it. Says it weren't in his trunk o' confiscated items."
Ginny piped up at that with, "A piece of parchment? Not a map? But, like, a folded blank-looking one?"
"Might've been," Hagrid agreed, clearly not sure why it was relevant.
"I think I know where it might be!" she grinned. "I'll let you know later!" With that, she hopped up and started to head back into the castle.
"Probably saw pixies nesting in it somewhere," Luna nodded. "I'll go with her. Thanks for the tea, Hagrid!" With the unpleasantness of the last two years, they'd all stayed in the habit of making sure everyone had a buddy when going anywhere outside of their dorms.
Dean raised a problem, "Even if we do find Pettigrew, as Scabbers he's tiny. What are we going to do if he just hides under something? It's a whole Tom and Jerry situation." The Vanir looked confused by that, and even the kids from Earth weren't totally clear on the reference to the old cartoon. "Comedy stories about a cat that can't catch a mouse that's really smart."
"I bet Crookshanks could, if we asked him," Hermione noted. "But it doesn't help us if he gets eaten rather than turned over to the Ministry."
"Plus," Harry realized, "he may turn back into a human when he dies, so you don't want to risk him telefragging your cat." Very few people in the room understood that video game term either, but they got the gist of it and made distressed faces at the vision of exploded feline.
"Right," she agreed. "You know… I bet there's a spell to force an animagus back into human form. We'll just ask Rector McGonagall to teach us when we have class on Wednesday."
By the time the rest of them got back to the Gryffindor dorms, Ginny was dragging the twins out of the doorway, Luna amusedly waiting in the hallway. "Let's talk about this somewhere a little more private," Ginny decided, ushering everyone to a section of hallway not far from the dorms that was fairly isolated, just featuring an odd tapestry of dancing trolls.
After checking to make sure they weren't being observed, one of the twins said, "First off, we had no idea we were hanging onto your family heirloom."
The other nodded, "Yeah. We'd have told you right away if we knew."
"I guess you got it from Filch's office?" Harry asked,
"Right," the first twin nodded. "It's been a huge help getting around and avoiding professors and prefects."
"It's a little erratic, though," the other cautioned. "Sometimes doesn't show everyone like it's supposed to."
Harry nodded, "Sirius said the enchantments might have been failing. But we're hoping we can use it to find Peter Pettigrew."
"Name sounds familiar," the first twin realized.
"Used to see him around our dorms, and maybe down in the kitchens lately?" the other recalled. "Assumed he was part of the castle staff."
"Perfect!" Harry said. "Can you show us?"
They nodded, and produced, as expected, what seemed to be blank piece of parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," they promised, simultaneously, before one tapped it with his wand. The study group watched as ink spread across the surface, transforming it into a map of the school. Most impressively, names began to appear in tiny handwriting, and many were slowly moving about the surface.
"The secret of our success," the first twin noted.
"You say 'Mischief managed' to revert it," the other explained. With only slight grudgingness, they handed it to Harry.
He nodded, "Thank you. Your return of this heirloom to the house of Potter will not be forgotten." He didn't really have a house anymore, nor intend to reestablish one, but the formality seemed to make them feel better about losing the cool magic item.
"I don't see him on here," Hermione announced, having been peering intently at the map, particularly around the kitchens.
"If it's glitchy, we may have to keep a watch on it for him to pop up," Harry figured.
"I guess we could take turns," Dean suggested. "But we're in class mostly at the same times…"
"And all of our evening stuff. And we have to sleep," Ron noted.
"Even if we saw him, we might not be allowed out of the dorms or into wherever he's hiding," Hermione mused.
"Lupin," Harry decided. "He already knows about the map. Maybe we can get him to watch it for us. He's a professor so he can go running off to the kitchens in the middle of the night if he wants."
"Is he going to want to watch the map all the time?" Dean asked.
"I'll persuade him," Harry shrugged.
That persuasion involved showing up with the map at his meditation session with Professor Lupin that evening. "I haven't seen that thing in a while," the professor noted.
"Fred and George stole it back from Filch," Harry explained. "A while ago. We just figured out today that they had it. We're hoping to use it to locate Pettigrew."
"Huh, yeah. Guess it could do that. I really am surprised Dumbledore hasn't found him yet," Lupin opined.
Harry rolled his eyes, "The way my last few years have gone, I bet he's leaving it up to me as another test."
"Could be," the professor nodded. "Always felt like he was setting us up for that kind of thing too. Hoping we'd do the right thing and become better people, or something. Guess it kind of worked, in a roundabout way, for most of us." He thought about it for a second, "I wonder if he knew that Sirius had sent Snape…" he trailed off.
"What?" Harry asked.
"Nothing," he covered. "Just a prank that went too far when we were in school. Severus could have gotten seriously hurt or died, but your dad managed to stop him in time. Might have actually won us some points with the guy, except it was Sirius that set him up in the first place."
"Meh," Harry shrugged. "Even if someone else had set him up, he'd probably be mad at you for knowing he almost fell for it and having to save him. Guy's got issues."
"Don't we all?" Lupin agreed. "So you're going to keep an eye out on that for Peter?"
"Well… we were kind of hoping that you would? He's probably out from wherever he's hiding mostly at night, so you'd have an easier time going down to the kitchens or wherever to find him." He took a beat, then suggested, "Well, try to catch him. We're hoping to learn a spell to force him back into human form, in case he just hides."
"Can't be too easy to chew mouse holes in stone walls," Lupin figured. "I bet if I bring a cage or something I could at least flush him out, since he can't actually hide. Kitchen staff might be mad if I break a cupboard, but I'm sure they'll… wait, did I agree to this?"
"Sounds like you have a plan, sir," Harry grinned.
"Fine," he sighed. "Give me the stupid thing. You'll have to turn it on for me." Once Harry had, he got to the subject at hand, "Okay, I want to try something else tonight. You're getting good at meditating, but you still can't project. I've been holding off mentioning it, because it seemed kind of woo woo and wasn't useful to me, you know, but might help you. And I found a reference in the library." He handed Harry a book purporting to be a primer on Eastern Midgardian mysticism.
Flipping through it, Harry said, "Oh, yeah, we've done a little bit of this at Kamar-Taj. You want me to try to use this somehow?"
Lupin pointed to a bookmark he'd placed and Harry turned to it to show a map of a human body with lit-up points. "Chakra theory. If I understand it right, when you're not just working on mindfulness, you're supposed to be able to use meditation to open up various nodes in your body. Or on your spirit, maybe? And I'm thinking you might need to, I guess, flip open the whole system to let your spirit out. I'm just spitballing here."
"Worth a shot," Harry agreed. "Yeah, this looks a little complicated. Might be why they didn't want to try to teach us yet."
It really was deep stuff, and it took a couple of weeks and Hermione's help for him to start to figure it out. That help was becoming increasingly tense, as their month and a half of dating wound down without any actual dating. Not that Harry noticed anything other than the slight tension in their interactions. He was basically waiting for Lupin to find Pettigrew, to see what new drama his time with Padma was going to bring, and hoping to have astral projection down before the next time the Mindless Ones showed up.
On the last night he should be dating Hermione, he was instead at another meditation session with Lupin. It was the evening of the spring equinox, and a new moon. Lupin was usually happiest to do the sessions at the middle of the month; he got a little hesitant around the full moon, often suggesting that he wouldn't really be in a meditative mindset.
Harry was busily trying to unlock chakras in a deep meditative state, when he noticed conversation in Lupin's office with them. He tried to focus and block it out, since being too distractible was a problem for meditation, but Snape's voice was grating enough that it broke through.
"You're opening your office up for students to take naps, I see."
"He's learning to meditate," Lupin brushed off the barb. Snape obviously knew what Harry was doing.
"And you're teaching him? I suppose that makes sense," the chemistry professor grudgingly admitted. "Better you than me." He set something on the desk with a thunk, and Harry opened his eyes to see a large decanter of the peppermint-smelling blue potion that Lupin was often drinking.
"Thanks. I was almost out."
"We're reaching the limits of how strong I can make it."
Lupin sighed, "And it's barely taking the edge off, some days."
"Is this going to be a problem?" the black-clad man asked, bravado hiding the fact that he'd taken a half-step back at the revelation. He glanced over at Harry, but didn't seem to notice that he was being watched.
Wait. Harry realized his vantage point was higher than it should be from where he was sitting. He glanced down and saw his own body, eyes still closed. Grinning to himself, he tried to move what must be his astral body, but felt stuck. Still! That was the most success he'd managed yet.
"I'm hanging on," Lupin corrected. "I don't think being back on Vanaheim helps. Something about the moon here bothers… him. Maybe it's all the magic or the electricity thing somehow, since I don't have the problem on Earth, but I've always had it here." He sighed and said, "I'm hoping to make it through the year, and I appreciate all the work you put in on this, but I think it's probably another dead end for me."
Snape, covering for his own lack of decorum, offered, "I reviewed your notes. Whoever 'Mr. Blue' was, he wasn't as clever as he thought. Organic chemistry is unlikely to provide you a cure."
"Yeah, I figured that out from all the tests I've run here with the local ingredients," the defense professor admitted. "He didn't know anything about magic, and I couldn't tell him it wasn't entirely gamma poisoning."
Harry didn't totally follow the conversation, but supposed it had something to do with the "condition" that the professor had alluded to. He must be looking for a cure with Snape's chemistry help. Honestly, based on him not wanting to meet on the full moon and his name, most of the study group was convinced he was a werewolf.
"Well, you can assume that I am second only to yourself in hoping you are successful in finding a cure," Snape said in a way that sounded more accusatory than caring. "If you become a danger to the public, have you considered… another option?"
"Will I kill myself, you mean? I tried it. Didn't take." Harry was shocked by the professor's admission.
"Perhaps you just didn't use a powerful enough means…" Snape suggested, clearly thinking of the various deadly spells he knew.
Lupin sarcastically noted, "Thanks, Severus. The next time I get so depressed I try to take my own life, I'll give you a call. Anything else?"
Realizing that he'd perhaps overstepped, the chemistry professor noted, "Equinox rituals tonight. The staff is meeting in the ritual room near your classroom. Not that you can contribute, but you're expected. I'm heading there now."
"I'll think about it," Lupin nodded, not agreeing.
"Then I shall take my leave," Snape acknowledged and strode out of the room, barely managing to cover his emotions at how the conversation had gone.
Harry thought it was kind of sad. Lupin knew a lot about science, and he suspected the two of them would have more in common than any other professors in the castle, if they didn't hate each other from school.
The distraction removed, the defense professor went back to grading essays and Harry continued trying to figure out how to release his astral self from his physical body. He felt like there was still something locking him in, perhaps a chakra he hadn't fully opened?
It was hard to keep track of time, meditating in the quiet, but he was next disturbed by Lupin going, "Huh." Harry turned his mental vision to the man, who was looking at the map, which he'd spread out at the side of his desk after Snape left. His finger stabbed down on a part of the map that Harry thought was the kitchens. "There you are, you little jerk," he whispered. "Hey Harry. Harry. I see Peter on the map. Woah. You're in deep, huh?"
Harry was slowly retracting himself, but even Lupin shaking him gently by the shoulder only slightly accelerated the process. He couldn't manage to talk from his astral form, but he'd gotten far enough out that getting back in wasn't instantaneous. Lupin scribbled a note on a piece of paper and shoved it in his hand, before hurrying out with the map and a small animal cage he'd had fashioned for the purpose.
What must have only been a couple of minutes later, Harry finally reeled himself all the way in and opened his physical eyes, feeling the note in his hand, which simply confirmed that Lupin had found Peter in the kitchens and was going to try to roust him.
As Harry stretched and stood up to go get his friends to join the chase, he couldn't help but notice the full decanter of potion, still on Lupin's desk. He briefly considered taking it, but it was quite large, and didn't look like it would hold up to being sloshed around the castle at speed. Hopefully it wouldn't be essential.
The hike from the defense office up to Gryffindor dorm had Harry wishing that they had some kind of communicators that worked on Vanaheim. On Earth, he would have just sent his friends a group text. He nearly stumbled jumping through the portrait, gaining the attention of the dozens of students doing homework in the common room. He spotted his friends and waved for them to join him outside the portrait. "Pretty close to curfew," Percy cautioned him. Harry just gave him a thumbs-up of acknowledgement.
As the Gryffindors of the study group piled into the hallway, Harry explained, "Lupin saw Pettigrew in the kitchens. I think he already went down there to get him."
"He won't be able to cast the spell, though. Maybe he'll catch him and bring him up to us?" Hermione figured.
"Probably faster if we go to him," Harry shrugged. "Maybe we'll meet him halfway. At least down is easier than up," he huffed.
Hermione looked hesitantly back at the door, worried about curfew, but saw that everyone else was thrilled about the adventure so nodded, and the eight third-years plus Ginny began moving.
"Should I go get Luna and Padma?" Ginny offered.
"Doesn't seem very Ravenclaw," Parvati shook her head. "And they're way stricter about curfew over there. Padma would just say no, and stop Luna." She rolled her eyes as the rule-following and danger-averseness of her twin.
"Fair," Ginny acknowledged, as they began pounding down the main stairway.
"Why didn't you go with him?" Dean asked when they were halfway to the ground floor. "Not that we mind being included…"
"I was meditating. Almost had it, I think," Harry explained. "I was too deep for him to wake me, so he headed out and left me a note."
They all nodded at that, most of them not understanding that he meant he was partially astrally projecting already, and not just basically unconscious. Half of them thought meditation was more or less sleeping sitting up anyway.
By the time they reached the kitchens, they hadn't run into Lupin. The door was hanging open, and the large room was in disarray. It looked like all of the kitchen staff had already gone home for the evening, but cleaned pots had fallen to the floor, boxes of foodstuffs had been kicked away from the wall, and the whole site really painted a picture of Lupin running around chasing a rat and removing its hiding places.
"I think there's an exit this way," Ron offered, working out the trail of destruction across the kitchen, where a sack of potatoes had been knocked over and rolled in the direction of movement. "He must have chased him out of it onto the lawn!"
The hunt on, nine children rushed down that hallway and found that, indeed, there was a service entrance not far away, spilling out onto the east side of the castle. A well-trod little path led toward the main road into Hogsmeade, and was probably the way the kitchen staff came in every day. It was already fully dark outside, but they saw a moving magical torch not far away. It and their lit wands were able to orient them as they charged across the grass to help Lupin trap what they expected to be a fleeing rat.
They were not expecting to stumble on a loud argument between two grown men. "That's all you have to say for yourself? 'It was them or me?' You're pathetic!" Lupin was shouting at the smaller man, who cowered before him. Lupin had the map clenched in his hand where he'd clearly used it to persuade Pettigrew that he wasn't going to be able to sneak away in the grass, and was managing the torch and the unused rat cage in the other.
"You weren't even here! You don't know! Not all of us could go hide on Midgard, safe from him," the smaller man clapped back, though continued slowly retreating. "I've heard about your defense lessons. Sounds like you've spent years hiding there, too. How are we so different?"
"I didn't murder my friends!" the professor shouted, only vaguely aware of the children running up.
Pettigrew was, though. In fact, he may have only started arguing because he saw them. "I did. I gave them up. I framed Sirius. I blew up a house full of innocents. And I'd do it again. My only regret, old friend, is that you were out of my reach to complete the set."
That admission seemed to have blown through the last of Lupin's self control. His only response was an inarticulate roar as he began to convulse, dropping his magical torch, the cage, and the map on the ground next to him. In the light of their approaching wands and the fallen torch, his skin started to turn green and his robes began to stretch and then rip as he grew. Pettigrew gave them a smug little wave and then promptly transformed even more quickly to a rat, all but disappearing into the grass.
Before they could think to cast the animagus-reversion spell or chase after him, they had to deal with the nearly-jotun-sized wall of green muscle that used to be their professor. The beast in his place was turning, looking for a foe to smite, and there were suddenly nine possible opponents shining lights in his face.
Before all hell broke loose, Harry had a moment to ask, "What the f–"
