Chapter 10: Confronting the Past
"It will happen tonight." Professor Trelawney declared as Harry pulled himself free from a vision of an Illithid dominated earth. The professor was rigid, her tone dead and serious, all of her usual mannerisms were gone as if they had never existed. "The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless. His servant has been chained these past twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and rejoin his master. Together the Dark Lord and his servant will rise again. Greater and more terrible than ever. The order may falter, but the cult shall arise glorious and terrible as the dawn. Tonight, before midnight…. The servant… will rejoin…. His master…."
Harry had no idea what to make of this dark declaration. The idea that Voldemort would rise again seemed to confirm his own vision of a dark and terrible figure rising in a graveyard. Harry questioned the professor, but she didn't recall having spoken and thought the idea she had foretold Lord Voldemort's return impossible to believe. So, Harry was left to ponder these things on his own as he retired to Gryffindor tower.
His first thought was that this meant that Sirius Black would soon give up on trying to murder Harry and move on to trying to restore Lord Voldemort. He matched the description of a servant bound in chains these past twelve years. But Harry had no idea where Black might be and so had little hope of catching him before midnight when he would make his fateful decision. Though this begged the question: why hadn't Black already made for Albania where Professor Dumbledore believed the spirit of Voldemort was trapped trying to regain the power to remake his body?
Perhaps he can't get out of England. Esharry suggested. It is an island, there are only so many ways to leave. The muggles know what he looks like, and the ministry might be watching the major exit ways like the new channel tunnel, as well as the ports and airports. Harry sort of doubted that most wizards would even believe that muggles could make a tunnel under the ocean, let alone that Black might be able to sneak across it along with its construction crews. But Esharry had a point. But then what could have changed recently to allow Black could make the attempt?
Perhaps it won't be Black at all who manages it. Esharry wondered. Perhaps he told another of Lord Voldemort's followers in Azkaban how to evade the guards and they're finally ready to make their own escape attempt? Perhaps Hagrid is going to win his appeal and that will enrage Lucius Malfoy so much he'll decide it's finally time to unleash his old master once more. Harry could only hope it would be that last one.
Hope failed him though. No sooner had Harry made it back to the common room than Hermione threw her arms around him while crying softly and Ron read him a letter from Hagrid confirming that the appeal had been lost and Buckbeak was doomed. Hagrid told them to stay away since he didn't want them to see the execution, but they all agreed they couldn't leave their friend alone at this time to wallow in his grief.
So, Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak. The light was already fading, and Hogwarts students would soon be restricted to the castle, they would have to sneak out to see Hagrid. They reached him easily and found him in a complete mess. He was blubbering and whining and trying to tell them off for taking the risk to come see him.
Hermione and Ron did their best to try and comfort Hagrid, trying to see if there were any last efforts they could make to save the hippogriff that was tied up behind the house. Harry would've helped them, but he was distracted. There was a mind hiding out somewhere behind the hut. And it was a mind much like his own.
Harry could sense the presence of a great cluster of psychic energy. Power that was reaching out from a single mind, grasping, feeling, seeking and searching everything around it as it filled the area it moved through like a thousand tiny psychic hands. Harry had never felt its like before. He wondered if perhaps this was an Illithid, sent by the Elder Brain to check up on his progress.
Harry reached out for the mind to try and get a better feel of what it might be. If it was an Illithid he would need to convince it to hide out until tomorrow. Then he could sneak out and to see it and find out what it wanted and what it would take to send it away. But the mind did not allow him to make contact with it. Every tendril of energy Harry reached out towards it was turned aside and deflected away.
Then the mind Harry had been looking at vanished completely. No, not completely. It was still there, still pushing his energy away from it, still hiding itself. But Harry could no longer perceive its energy with his own ESP. Now that was a little frightening. A mind as powerful as his own and he had no idea where it was anymore nor what it was doing.
"Ron!" Hermione suddenly shouted. "It's Scabbers!"
Those utterly unexpected words tore Harry's mind away from his efforts to locate the other alien mind and turned his attention back to the hut. Hagrid had offered them tea earlier but had dropped his milk jug because of how badly he was shaking with grief. When Hermione had fetched the spare to finish making tea for them, she had found none other than Ron's pet rat in the spare jug.
The poor rat looked awful. It was scrawnier than ever, balding in several places and looked absolutely panicked. Ron quickly grabbed his wayward pet, but Scabbers seemed to be trying to escape from him, wiggling in his grasp and squeaking in terror. It was all astonishing, Harry had believed like Ron that the rat was dead, and Hermoine was looking incredibly smug at being proved right.
"Well, it looks like I owe you an apology Hermione." Ron said a little dumbly.
"You do." Hermione responded but when she saw Harry giving her a disappointed look she added. "But I don't need it. I'm glad he's alright. And I'm sorry that he must've been so afraid of Crookshanks that he ended up taking shelter with Hagrid."
"It does make me wonder where all that blood came from though." Ron wondered absently. "It really did look like he had been killed."
"I think someone's coming up the path." Hagrid announced as he arose to look out the window. "It's Fudge and the ministry people along with Dumbledore. Ya all need to get out of here right now."
"But Hagrid maybe we can help-" Hermione offered.
"It's too late for that." Hagrid rejected. "You'd only get in trouble fur being here and couldn't do any good. Please just go. I couldn't stand it, losing Buckbeak and getting you lot in trouble too. And ya shouldn't be here to see this. No one as young as ya all should have to see something die by beheading."
Harry looked up the path as well and saw the group approaching. Professor Dumbledore was a beacon of psychic power himself. Hagrid said he could wandlessly and wordlessly cast the legilimens spell to read minds. He must do so constantly, Harry thought, to be aware of the minds of those around him at all times like Harry was. This meant that Harry had to restrict his own powers back into his mind, less Dumbledore see or feel him in some way, actively repressing his ESP and empathic perception.
This made Harry feel strangely vulnerable. He had grown quite comfortable being able to feel other minds around himself and now he felt blind without it. Plus, now he had no way to track the presence of that other mind he had sensed earlier. And so, the thought of getting out of here seemed very attractive. Plus, he agreed with Hagrid. There really wasn't anything else he could do to help Buckbeak anymore, and they had already given Hagrid what help they could.
"Well come back tomorrow." Harry promised. "We won't leave you to go through this alone."
"Bless ya fur saying that Harry." Hagrid accepted with a warm smile. "But ya gotta get out of here now."
Switfly, everyone piled in under the invisibility cloak and slipped out the back. They made their way back toward the castle away from approaching ministry officials. The sun was almost down past the horizon and the long shadows made it difficult to find their way. Hermione was on the verge of breaking down, and Ron looked like he wanted to rush back to the hut to give someone a piece of his mind. But Harry remembered seeing that poor woman in the Illithid colony lose her soul and the feeling of powerlessness that had gripped him knowing he couldn't save anyone that had been trapped in that place. He didn't want his friends to experience the same, and so he urged them all on.
They were almost back to the castle when they had to stop as Scabbers was going mad in Ron's pocket. The rat was desperately trying to escape from him and even went so far as to bite at Ron's fingers to escape his grasp. The committee members had gone into the hut not long ago and now Harry heard them come out again. Then suddenly they heard a heavy thunk resound out across the grounds, slicing through the silence of the night like- well like a great ax slicing through the air. All three of them froze still as it seemed that it was suddenly over. Buckbeak the hippogriff must've just been killed.
Hermione pulled Harry and Ron close in a desperate hug. Ron was frozen in shock. Harry desperately and truly wanted to reach down with his mind and offer some comfort to Hagrid, to soothe the pain that he must be feeling at that moment, but he dared not to with Dumbledore so near. And in that stunned moment everything seemed to happen at once.
Scabbers finally freed himself from Ron's grasp. Crookshanks came out of nowhere and leapt at the invisible trio likely lunging after the sounds of Scabbers frantic screaming. The cloak was pulled off of them and they were left exposed in the rapidly growing twilight.
Ron took off after his Rat. Hermione took off after Crookshanks, desperate to prevent her cat from doing what Ron had accused it of months earlier. All Harry could think to do was to light up his wand with the lumos spell to light the ground so his friends wouldn't trip and hurt themselves.
Luckily they both caught their pets before too long. However when Harry caught up with them, his wand light caught another creature bonding towards them. A large shaggy black dog, almost the size of a small bear was charging towards them. At first Harry's mind jumped to the thought that the Grimm Professor Trelawney had warned him about all year had finally arrived. Then he recognized it as the same dog he had seen at the Hufflepuff quidditch game and even before that stalking him briefly back in Little Whinging just before the Illithids nabbed him. Then the dog slammed into him and knocked him to the ground.
I think that was a newfoundland. Esharry commented idly as Harry scrambled for his wand and tried to get back to his feet. He arose just in time to see the great dog grab Ron by the leg and drag him off away from them. Hermione yelled in panic, dropping Crookshanks as she and Harry took off after them. Harry was just about to reach for the dog with his telekinesis when something slammed into the side of his head and knocked him to the ground.
"Lumos!" Hermione said, lighting up the night and revealing that they were standing right in front of the whomping willow tree. Its great branches had formed into fists and were trying to beat them all back and away itself. The great black dog kept low, skillfully avoided the branches and was trying to drag Ron into a hollow area near the roots of the willow. Ron had hooked one of his legs around a root trying to hold himself in place, but with a horrible crack something in his leg broke and he was pulled free and down under the tree.
"Where did they go?" Hermione wailed.
"There's a secret passage under that tree." Harry recalled from his time studying the Marauder's Map. "I don't know where it goes though it runs off the map's edge."
"We need to go get a teacher!" Hermione cried.
"There's no time!" Harry responded, "That dog is big enough to eat him." Harry raised his wand and shouted: "Negra Ignis!" Shooting a wave of black fire up into the branches of the whomping willow. He could almost hear the tree cry in pain as its limbs began to beat at each other to put out the fire. The fire didn't really burn the wood though, just stopped it from moving, it would go out as it stripped away bark and leaves.
"Follow me and keep close." Harry ordered as he made his way over to the spot where the dog had vanished. As they approached the occasional branch would come down after them, but Harry vanished them with cries of "Caronesco!" So the branches ended well short of reaching them. Before they reach the spot though, Crookshanks leapt onto a knot on the tree right near the base, paralyzing the tree and keeping Harry from having to do more damage to it.
"How did Crookshanks know to do that?" Hermione wondered as they slipped down into the narrow tunnel beneath the tree.
"Maybe he's been working with the dog." Harry suggested.
"Don't be silly." Hermione rejected the notion.
"You have to admit the timing of everything that happened is suspicious." Harry pressed. "Your cat is very, very clever and it showed up just in time to drive us away from the castle towards this tree?"
"To what end?" Hermione asked. "Crookshanks doesn't hate Ron, it's only Scabbers that he seems to have a problem with. You aren't suggesting that dog is after Ron's pet rat too?"
"I don't know." Harry said back. "I sort of hope it is, Ron might be safe then."
The thought that their friend might be under attack from that giant dog right now shut them both up. They redoubled their efforts to make their way through the tunnel. It wasn't a quick journey; this tunnel was at least as long as the one that ran to Honeydukes and went in roughly the same direction. Harry wondered if it was also going to lead them into Hogsmead.
How does a dog know about a secret passage out of Hogwarts for that matter? Esharry wondered. That dog knocked down the one person in our group who had their wand out and then went after Ron. And dogs don't usually drag people away, if they mean to attack them, they get on with it as soon as they can. This creature is thinking tactically.
Several thoughts began to click in Harry's head. Old questions suddenly seemed to have answers. The possibility that he was walking into a trap occurred to him. And Harry hoped it was so, hoped he might have a chance to thwart Professor Trelawney's prophecy after all. He began to reach out with his mind once more and readied all his psychic power and magical might for a fight.
Eventually they emerged into a very run down and boarded up building. There were long gashes running down the sides of the walls, and the trapdoor they entered from looked as if something had tried very hard to break through it to no avail. There was an old stout lock on it that looked like it could hold that door closed against an army trying to break through. Harry senses one mind on the floor above them but could feel no others.
"I think we're in the Shrieking Shack." Hermione guessed. Harry agreed but urged her to be silent. They dispelled the light spells on their wands and slowly made their way upstairs. A trail had been left for them, a clean wide line through the dust where something had been dragged. Slowly they made their way towards the one mind that Harry could sense. He might have been very worried about the fact that he could only sense one mind, but he recognized it as Ron's, and while he was in pain it was the amount of pain Harry would've expected from someone who had broken his leg.
Gradually they approached the door that divided them from Ron and slowly opened the it. When they saw Ron seated on the floor safe and sound, they both rushed towards him in relief. But when Ron saw the two of them, he despaired.
"Harry no!" Ron shouted in warning. "It's a trap, he's an animagus!" But it was too late.
"Expelliarmus!" A voice shouted from behind them and the wands in Harry and Hermione's hands flew out of them, arched through the air and landed in the hands of Sirius Black who was wielding Ron's own wand.
Harry turned to face the man who had been hunting him all year. He looked just like his wanted posters, hagged, worn, sleep deprived and more than a little mad. Harry could see him, but he couldn't see his mind. The man was a total blank spot psychically, no different from the wall behind him. Nor could Harry touch his mind, any mental power he pushed towards Black's head just slid right off, as if a sheet of glass was covering it. Perhaps a mind blast of pure telepathic fury would shatter that shield and hit his mind directly, but that would consume a lot of Harry's mental power, so he hesitated for a moment. Besides, Harry had things he wanted to say.
"Sirius Black." Harry named the man with barely restrained anger in his voice.
"Harry Potter." Black responded, and he sounded both glad and sad to see Harry, as if he both longed for and dreaded this moment.
"You're an unregistered animagus." Harry stated and Black nodded in confirmation. "You were the large shaggy dog I saw back in Little Whinging and at the Hufflepuff game."
"Well spotted." Black answered with an odd hint of pride in his voice. "I'm sorry if I gave you a bit of a fright, I couldn't keep myself away from you."
"Quite a neat trick." Harry complimented him, it was a very difficult ritual after all. "Animal minds aren't like human minds the dementors must have a devil of a time keeping track of you. Little wonder you held out against them so well or that you managed to escape."
"It wasn't so easy." Black said humbly. "You can't spend all your time in an animal form, you run the risk of forgetting that you're human. Luckily, I had other means of sustaining myself in that place."
"Yes, I can see you've developed quite the unique style of occlumency." Harry said, still trying to wrap his thoughts around Black's mind to no avail. "A shield they can't latch on to is one they can't pry away."
"You can see all that?" Black questioned, wonder in his voice. "You're a legilimens? In just your third year? Amazing. Even your father could never get the hang of mind reading magic, though Lily was better at it, I think, than anyone might've guessed. Certainly, she always seemed to know when I was lying to her."
"Except, of course, for at the end!" Harry shouted his anger rising. "Neither of them saw your betrayal coming, did they?! Your best friend and his wife, you got them both killed even though they trusted you!"
Sirius Black looked like he had been slapped. His eyes were downcast, and he shrank back into himself. Did he feel sorry about what he had done? That wouldn't be enough in Harry's book.
"No, neither of them ever thought they shouldn't trust me." He said quietly almost to himself. "Neither of them ever saw the betrayal coming." Then in a louder voice he spoke to Harry again. "You blame me for their deaths and you're right to. You have the right to your anger certainly. But I cannot let you stop me, Harry! Not now! Not when I'm so close!"
"Don't think that just because I don't have a wand that you're in control here Black!" Harry shouted back as he gathered all his strength. "I didn't ask for this power, but I will use every scrap of it to fight evil like you!"
And then Harry struck! If he could not find a way into Black's mind, then so be it. He could see the man's body and that was enough. He and Esharry struck as one and a thousand pounds of telekinetic force slammed into the man and threw him back against the wall.
Sirius was fast on his feet though. He could not see the blow, but he reacted as best he could. He turned into the hit and tried to roll around it. He was still slammed into the wall, but he wasn't pinned there as Harry had hoped.
Harry struck again, trying to wrap Black up and pin him in place. But Black struck back, slashing with Ron's stolen wand and a cry of: "Viscedo!" He cast the counter spells to the knockback jinx and it worked to slice apart Harry's telekinetic force allowing him to slip past the attack.
"Incarcerous!" He followed up conjuring ropes to try and bind Harry up. Esharry grabbed the ropes with his power and knocked them away while Harry pressed the attack trying to bind Black up again.
"Vis Finite!" Black cried again trying to dispel Harry's powers. The two of them became locked in battle for a moment, Harry pushing out more and more telekinetic power and Black trying to vanish it all away. But Black had forgotten there were two other people in the room. Hermione suddenly threw a stool into Black's side disrupting his concentration at the same moment that Ron tackled him despite his broken leg.
The two of them went down in a tumble, Ron grabbing at the wands in Black's hands while Black tried to throw him off. It was all the distraction that Harry needed. He grabbed both of Black's arms with his mind and slammed them back against the ground. In moments Ron took the wands out of his fingers and threw Harry and Hermione back their own.
Black laid there on the floor, powerless and beaten with three wands trained on him. Harry dragged him up against the wall and held him in place, slightly slumped back, part on the ground part on the wall with his hands in the air. A deep anger had swelled in Harry's mind as he had fought and now he was one step shy of seeing red.
"Are you going to kill me now?" Black asked, voice full of despair. "You'll regret it if you do."
"Shut up!" Harry ordered as he prepared himself to do just that. A lightning shot right to the heart would do it. He could end all here and now and no one would blame him. But before he could, Crookshanks leapt on to Black's chest to block the lethal spells. And Harry hesitated. He had been half joking when he proposed to Hermione that her cat was in league with the dog, but this seemed to confirm it. But the odd thing was that Black was trying to shoo the cat away.
"Get off, you mangy furball!" He said, trying to cast away the one thing that was making Harry hesitate. "No one asked you to try and help me."
It struck Harry as very odd that someone heartless enough to kill thirteen people would care about a cat. And it made a number of other odd things occur in Harry's mind. If Sirius Black had been the big dog who found him alone and wandless wandering in Little Whinging, why hadn't he struck then? He could've easily killed Harry back then; nothing could've stopped him.
And during their fight, why had Black tried to just tie Harry up rather than blast him with his spell that could kill thirteen people at once? Why had Black tried to break into Hogwarts for the first time on Halloween night when there wouldn't have been anyone in Gryffindor tower? Why when he did get into Gryffindor tower had he gone after Ron and not Harry? Why when he had knocked Harry down in his big dog form, had he turned back and dragged Ron away?
Why had Sirius Black betrayed his best friend to his death?
"Open your mind." Harry ordered.
"What?" Sirius Black asked.
"Lower your mental shield." Harry repeated. "There are things I need to know from you. You will let me see your memories and thoughts or I will cut you down here. A fulmitten blast to the skull will kill as surely as one to the heart."
Black lowered his head as if dreading what was coming next and did indeed lower his mental shields. Harry saw the mind of Sirius Black for the first time, and it surprised him. He had expected to feel hate from the man, or at the very least frustration that he had lost. But instead, there was an overwhelming sense of pride in Harry. Sirius Black was proud of the man Harry had grown into, as proud as any father could be of a son who had done great things and stood for what was right.
Then Harry saw his memories. He saw Sirius astounded by Harry's display of power and happy that he had found friends who braved such danger for him. He saw Sirius glad that Harry was the kind of man who wouldn't abandon a friend to danger. He saw Sirius excited to finally confront something that had nothing to do with Harry but with Ron. He saw how proud Sirius had been to see Harry flying. He saw how enraged Sirius had become when he saw something in the Daily Prophet newspaper back before he broke out of Azkaban. And he saw that Black had broken free from Azkaban because that thing he saw was a danger to Harry.
He looked further back into his memories. He saw Sirius coming to a wrecked home utterly and completely heartbroken to see his closest friend dead. He saw a famous fight that ended in a way completely different to how everyone else thought it did. And he saw Sirius speaking with his father and mother, convincing them to make a plan that would even pull the wool over the eyes of Albus Dumbledore and perhaps lead the Dark Lord into a trap.
Harry was totally astounded by it all. It couldn't be true. This was absolutely impossible. Everyone knew that Sirius Black was an infamous murderer who had betrayed everything to help Lord Voldemort. Harry had spent so much of the last few months hating the man so intently, it couldn't all be a mistake.
We need proof. Esharry said. And we must look for it. If we don't accept proof, then we're no better than the Malfoys judging everyone and ignoring reality.
But how? How could he prove the truth? Then Harry remembered a conversation he had once had with Professor Lupin, about spells that had more uses than it seemed.
"Ron?" Harry asked hesitantly. "Can I see Scabbers? Just for a second. I need to check something."
"Don't you think we have more important things to do right now then check on my pet rat?" Ron asked.
"Yes, we need to get a teacher or an auror or something." Hermione added. "We can't kill him, but we have to turn him in to the authorities. Ron can't go, he's got a bad leg, and to be honest I don't know if I could stand to either leave the you two here alone with him or be left here while Harry gets help."
"Please Ron." Harry insisted. "I wouldn't bring it up if it wasn't important."
Ron shrugged, and without taking his wand off Sirius, he reached into his robes and pulled out Scabbers. The moment the rat was out in the open, Sirius's eyes turned on him with laser focus and his mind filled with an almost all consuming anger. Hermione took a step back from the man, since the look in his eyes startled her so badly.
With one quick motion Harry switched his wand from pointing at Sirius to pointing at Scabbers. "Riddikulus!" Harry intoned. There was a small cracking noise and suddenly Scabbers was wearing a small red cowboy hat and blue jeans vest.
"What are you doing?" Ron asked in utter bewilderment as the whole room froze stunned at the spectacle.
"Riddikulus." Harry said again, this time aiming the spell at Hermione who was completely unaffected by it. Then once more Harry repeated the spell on Sirius dressing him in a white tuxedo, complete with top hat, which surprisingly made the man chuckle. Finally, Harry explained.
"Professor Lupin told me once." He said with deathly seriousness. "That the riddikulus spell doesn't just affect boggarts. It works on any kind of shape shifter. Even an animagus for instance."
And then Harry turned his wand at Scabbers and added. "Sirius didn't break out of Azkaban to come after me. He broke out to come after Peter Petigrew who's been disguised as your pet Rat Scabbers for the last seven years."
"But that's impossible!" Ron exclaimed then looked down at the little cowboy rat in his hand. "Isn't it?"
"It is!" Hermione insisted. "Animagus have to register with the ministry. I looked up the list of every living animagus back when Professor McGonagall first showed us her cat transformation earlier this year. I would've remembered seeing a name as famous as Peter Petigrew on it."
"I imagine you would've remembered seeing a name like Sirius Black on there as well." Harry responded. "I think we do need to call someone at this point. Someone who can shed more light on everything that's happened."
Without thinking Harry cast the patronus charm, recalling the time Hermione had lied about a troll attack to cover for Harry and Ron breaking the rules and so became their friend. He fed the charm a mental message and sent it off to Professor Lupin, whom he trusted and according to Sirius's memories might have a pretty good idea of what was going on. The spell formed and vanished in a second, before Harry had a chance to get a look at it.
"Was that a patronus charm?" Sirius asked, quite amazed at what Harry had done. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised seeing as you're talented enough to practice wordless legilimency. Who'd you send the message to?"
"Professor Lupin." Harry said simply.
"A good choice." Sirius agreed. Then a small but growing feeling of hope swelled in Sirius's mind. "Does this mean you believe me?"
"I've seen your memories." Harry answered. "And there's at least some proof. I'm not the sort to ignore the truth when it's in front of me."
"You sound conflicted though." Sirius noticed.
"I've been angry at you for a while now." Harry admitted.
"I don't see why." Sirius suddenly joked. "Didn't you like the Christmas gift I sent you? It was such a shame to see your nimbus get destroyed in that quidditch match, I just had to replace it."
There was dead silence in the room for about five seconds before Hermione shouted: "I knew it! Your Firebolt did come from Sirius Black!"
"But how?" Harry wondered. "What did you just waltz into Gringotts bank and arrange for a bunch of mail orders?"
"Of course." Sirius answered feeling incredibly smug to himself over it. Harry glared at him. "It was simple. No one questions the comings and goings of a dog. All I had to do was follow someone into the bank and then wait in a private room until a goblin came to shoo me away. Then I just revealed myself."
"And they didn't tell anyone?!" Harry demanded angrily.
"Why should they?" Sirius shot back. "Goblins don't care about wizard criminals. In their minds if the ministry was stupid enough not to behead me when they caught me then it's their own fault that I broke out later."
"And the money? It's not exactly a cheap broom." Harry pressed.
"Barely an issue." Sirius dismissed. "I am the last male heir of the most ancient and venerable house of Black. I've got more money than I could spend in ten lifetimes. Really the only difficult thing was making my way on foot from Scotland to London in time for the holidays. Took me four weeks both ways."
"You bloody git!" Ron exclaimed.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"We were arguing over that broom for more than a month." Ron all but shouted. "Almost ruined our friendship with Hermione."
"What? Why?" Sirius demanded to know.
"She thought you had hexed it." Ron explained. "Demanded that McGonagall run all kinds of tests on it to make sure it was safe."
"How could I have hexed that broom?" Sirius said exasperatedly. "I don't even have a wand."
"That's what I said." Ron said now looking snuggly at Hermione.
"He might have stolen one." Hermione shot back.
"You can't just steal a wand and expect it to work for you." Sirius explained. "Wands choose their wizards, not the other way around. A wand that didn't accept me would never have allowed me to channel enough power to affect a magical piece of equipment as expertly made as a Firebolt. I could get away with using Ron's wand since I defeated him in a fight and it's a fairly new wand for him. Wands will switch masters if they feel a better one comes along. But if I tried to steal a wand from a wizard in the countryside who's been using their wand all their lives then it probably wouldn't have submitted to me even if I killed him. Pointless to even try. I was tempted to try and sneak into the ministry to retrieve my old wand, but the ministry gave it to Dumbledore for safe keeping so I couldn't."
Harry almost laughed to himself at the absurdity of it all. Half an hour ago he had been planning how to kill this man. Now he was joking with him like he was a favorite uncle or much older brother.
He sort of is family. Esharry noted. Your father named him your godfather. I don't think a conviction in Azkaban can cancel that.
Harry was so flummoxed by this idea that he had an actual living family member that he only barely noticed a new pair of minds rush into the building. But moments later he couldn't ignore it as first Severus Snape and then Remus Lupin rushed through the door with their wands drawn.
"Where is Black?!" Snape roared before turning and seeing him still pinned to the wall.
"Harry what did you mean you've found Peter Petigrew?" Lupin asked as he also pointed his wand at Sirius. Harry pointed at the rat still held in Ron's hand, which was once more desperately trying to escape. Lupin studied the rat for a moment and then suddenly his eyes lit up in recognition. "By God it is him."
"Don't be stupid Lupin." Snape dismissed. "It's clear that Sirius has confounded these students in some effort to get his name cleared. Petigrew died twelve years ago, and if he hadn't, he would've revealed himself long since, he's practically a national hero."
"I would recognize that rat anywhere Severus." Lupin insisted. "The pudgy cheeks, the drooping nose, the way his head looks like it's prematurely balding. He's even missing one of his toes on his front left paw."
This got Snape's attention. He took his eyes off Sirius for a second to more closely study the rat in Ron's hands. After a moment he asked, "Why is it wearing a little hat?"
"I tested to see if it was a shapeshifter with the Riddikulus spell." Harry explained. "That's also the reason why Sirius is in a tuxedo."
"I had been wondering about that, clever Potter." Snape said under his breath, "Are you sure Remus? Are you really claiming that Peter Petigrew was an unregistered animagus that you are familiar with enough to recognize his animal form on sight?"
"All of us were." Sirius chimed in. "Me, James and Peter. Figured it out in our fifth year. Didn't see any point in registering, it wasn't like we were planning on committing any crimes with it. We just did it to help Mooney out."
"Mooney?" Harry asked, thinking that name sounded familiar.
"Remus I mean." Sirius clarified.
"Help him out with what?" Ron asked.
"Does it have anything to do with you being a werewolf?" Hermione guessed and left the room whole room silent.
"It does as a matter of fact." Lupin stated. "How did you figure out my secret Hermione?"
"It's not that hard." Harry put in. "Snape's been brewing you wolfsbane. That's pretty much the only potion I can think of that someone would have to take every month and still get sick. It was either wolfsbane or Snape was slowly poisoning you."
"Plus, boggarts change into the full moon for you." Hermione added.
"How do you know about the wolfsbane potion, Potter?" Snape demanded. "Dumbledore made me remove it from the syllabus this year to safeguard Lupin's secret."
"It's still in the book." Harry explained. "I thought you might spring it on us as part of vengeance campaign for standing up to you, so I read up on it."
"You did not stand-" Snape started, but Lupin interrupted him.
"Yes, I am a werewolf." He said getting things back on track. "I was attacked by Fenrir Greyback when I was just a child. Dumbledore let me come to Hogwarts anyway to learn magic. The wolfsbane potion didn't exist back then, so Dumbledore had the house ghosts spread rumors that this shack was haunted by some very dangerous spirits. Then once people had given up trying to sneak into it, he dug a tunnel here and planted the whomping willow overtop of the entrance. I would spend the full moons locked away in here where I posed no threat to anyone."
"My inner wolf hated being trapped." Lupin continued. "It would try and tear its way out and when that failed it would tear up my body instead. I healed quickly so no lasting harm was done but I still felt the pain. It all would've been miserable, but I was learning magic and making friends, so my life was actually very good most of the time. It didn't take long for James and Sirius to realize what was going on with me, that I vanished from the dorm every full moon. Eventually they became animagus to help me."
"Werewolves only attack humans, not animals." Sirius explained. "So long as we all remained transformed, we were safe. James tried it first to make sure it worked and assumed his natural animal form of a large buck. I experimented with guiding the transformation and was able to change into something like Lupin to make him more comfortable which turned out to be a large dog. And Peter Petigrew made sure to change into something small enough to get under the branches of the whomping willow and safely reach the knot that would paralyze it, and so became a rat."
"Alright, so what if Peter were an animagus." Snape conceded, "Why did he go into hiding after he confronted Black? Why would he have disguised himself as a pet for all these years?"
"It can only be because Peter and Sirius switched who was James and Lily's secret keeper." Lupin surmised.
"Impossible." Snape rejected. "Dumbledore himself cast the fidelius charm on their house and he said that Sirius was the secret keeper."
"Of course he did." Sirius said. "Trickiest part of the whole plan, deceiving even Dumbledore. Had to be done though. We knew that the other side was doing its best to always keep an eye on Albus. There was a danger that if Peter showed up in my place looking like himself the enemy might've been watching and caught us out. So, I complained to Dumbledore about feeling violated whenever he accidentally read my mind and started taking occlumency lessons passing on what I knew to Peter. Once he could do a decent job guarding his mind I gave him some polyjuice potion to change into me and sent him off to Dumbledore to receive the charm instead of me."
"But why?" Lupin demanded to know. "And why didn't you tell me?"
"To lay a trap for Voldemort of course." Sirius declared. "Dumbledore and I were the obvious choices to be James's secret keeper. Voldemort never would've gone directly after Dumbledore, but he might've tried his luck against me, if it also would get him the Potters. So, I convinced James to use Peter instead, no one would've suspected him after all, he had spent the whole war just trying to keep his head down. Then I spread the rumor that I was the secret keeper to lure Voldemort into attacking me. Little did he know, I had a special vial on my person that contained a captured patronus charm. All I had to do was wait until I was attacked and then break the vial. The patronus would take a message nearly instantly to Dumbledore telling him I was under attack and where I was. I knew I could hold Voldemort off long enough for help to arrive and I was confident that me and Dumbledore together could've taken Voldemort down."
"That might actually have worked." Snape said under his breath. "Going after pure bloods was against the dark lord's professed ideology. He always handled such cases personally while pretending to be regretful that it had come to such an end."
"I didn't tell you Lupin," Sirius continued sounding very sorrowful, "Because I thought you might be the traitor. We knew Voldemort had made a very good offer of equal rights and better treatment to the werewolves to get them on his side, and that Fenrir was in talks with him to make that very commitment. I thought you might have gone to the other side to get better rights for your kind."
"But it turned out Peter was the traitor." Sirius said with burning anger building in his voice. "I may as well have signed James and Lily's death warrants when I convinced them to trust him. When I saw what had happened and realized the only way that the charm could've failed, I rushed off to find him. I meant to kill him to avenge James, but he caught me off guard. He accused me of having betrayed James and Lily, which confused me. Then instead of striking at me, he blasted the ground, hit a muggle gas main and caused a terrible explosion that killed all those people. In the confusion he cut off one of his fingers, and then turned into a rat and escaped into an exposed sewer tunnel. I was left stunned by what had happened and then I realized that soon aurors would arrive. They would examine the memories of the muggle witnesses and conclude that Peter had been the one confronting me, accusing me of the crime they likely already thought I had committed. They were going to blame that explosion and all those deaths on me just like I was going to be blamed for James and Lily's deaths. So, I broke down and just started laughing."
"I let them take me." Sirius concluded now sounding hopeless and full of despair. "I had hoped for my day in court. That I could take veritaserum or some other kind of truth serum and then perhaps convince people to at least investigate Peter's disappearance and maybe catch him. Certainly, I thought, Dumbledore might have seen the truth if he had been allowed to question me and read my mind. But Barty Crouch was in charge of the department of magical law enforcement, and he was trying to restore order. He didn't want my trial to cause a commotion with the violence of the attack and make people think the war wasn't done yet. So, I never got a trial. They threw me into Azkaban and left me there to rot."
"But you didn't rot." Harry noted, as he stopped holding Sirius against the wall and allowed him to pace the room. "You survived Azkaban and then broke free twelve years later."
"Yes." Sirius admitted. "At night I changed into my dog form so the dementors wouldn't notice me and I could at least sleep peacefully. During the mornings I focused on the fact that I was an innocent man wrongfully accused. It gave me strength to hold on, and the dementors couldn't take it away from me since it wasn't a happy memory. Eventually I developed a kind of occlumency that would keep them out of my mind. And that let me think, let me plan and let me gather news. Then one day the minister of magic shared a newspaper with me. In it was a story about how the Weasley family had won a cash prize and we're going to Egypt. It came with a picture, and in that picture, perched on Ron's shoulder was a rat. A rat I recognized. And I figured, well I've done the time, it would only be fair if I actually did the crime. Plus, that rat was close to Harry. I couldn't risk it."
"So that's your story." Snape said at the end, sounding highly skeptical. "It does make some sense, but it requires proof. All we do know right now is that the rat is a shape shifter of some kind. It might be a kitsune or a true coyote. Or even some other animagus who happens to be a pedophile with a thing for redheads. We need better evidence than that Remus thinks he recognizes a rat."
"You're right Severus." Professor Lupin agreed. "Do you know the counter charm to revert an animagus?"
"Do you think I could've taught in same place as McGonagall all these years if I didn't?" Snape shot back. "Let go of the rat Ron, this won't hurt him…. yet."
Ron dutifully released the rat which immediately made a mad break for it trying to slide under the door out of the room. It only got halfway to the floor before Snape and Lupin swirled their wands and declared: "Amatus Recursio!" And suddenly there was a rather short, overweight and somewhat balding man lying on the floor. With small beady eyes, he looked around the room in stark terror.
"Remus…. Sirius…. My old friends." The man said lamely.
"By God it really is him!" Snape exclaimed.
"Hello Peter." Remus said politely. "It has been a long time. Would you mind explaining to us why you've been pretending to be a rat these last few years?"
Petigrew tried, but Harry didn't need to be a mind reader to know he was lying through his teeth. Then he tried begging people for his life. First Remus, then Sirius, then even Ron and when at last he came to Harry, he felt the urge to back away from the man as if there was something unclean about him. Harry didn't want to touch him and hated that he could feel Peter's thoughts.
He was one of the most unpleasant minds Harry had ever come across. He was full of stark terror and dread, but the only regret he felt was that he regretted getting caught. Harry had never seen such a selfish and self-centered mind in all his days. Even Draco Malfoy often spared a thought for his cronies and how they might be feeling, or fondly recalled his parents with genuine warmth in his mind. Peter had no such thoughts for others, only for himself.
He saw himself even now as the victim of terrible circumstances. The idea that the others were right to hate him for betraying Harry's parents never occurred to him. He didn't think he had done anything wrong, because anything that was even slightly good for himself was right for him to achieve no matter how it might affect others. And he thought everyone else believed the same. The man honestly believed that the only reason why he had betrayed Harry's parents and Sirius hadn't was because Peter had been smart enough to see how he could benefit from being Voldemort's spy and Sirius was too stupid to realize the same.
Despite how much Harry hated touching Peter's mind, he felt himself compelled to dig into his memories to find some reason for why he was the way he was. He looked for some trauma, some evil that had been done to Peter that had twisted his mind, but he could find none. Peter Petigrew had grown into such a self-centered person because it was easy and convenient to.
Peter wasn't very clever, very strong nor did he like to work through any kind of difficulty. And he had quickly learned that he didn't need to. Early on at Hogwarts he had realized that the two cleverest boys in class, Sirius and Harry's father James, were both highly vulnerable to outrageous flattery. He could get Sirius to do his homework just by offering to do him small favors and agreeing with him whenever he ranted about his awful parents. And he could get James to teach him impressive spells and tricks just by paying him compliments about how easily and effortlessly he could do them already and begging to learn. So, Peter had coasted through his school years without ever having to put in much effort.
Even better James and Sirius had protected Peter from others, leaving Peter free to abuse that protection to lord himself over his schoolmates. He had got himself plenty of dates with girls far more attractive than he was by promising to put in a good word with James and Sirius for them and blackmailed a few others by threatening to ruin their reputation with two of the most popular boys in school. He had mocked far more skilled and hard-working students, sabotaged projects, stolen homework and pulled nasty and painful pranks on people secure in the knowledge that the favored friend of Potter and Black would never have to face the consequences of his actions.
When he left school, he found the same strategy of a brown noser could let him climb high in the ministry. He flattered his bosses and always fought on their side in any matter of office politics, proving he was a valued and loyal ally. Then once he had been promoted to a place where his old boss could make the most use of his supposed loyalty he would sell out his old boss to his new boss and repeat the process. He lied, backstabbed, and made every use of every dirty trick he could learn until he found himself in a position that demanded very little effort to keep, and which could extract large supplies of cash and favors by selling his loyalty and cooperation to the highest bidder. It was just so easy, he assumed everyone else must be doing it too.
"You sold out James and Lily!" Lupin accused.
"I had to! I had to! The Dark Lord would've killed me if I didn't!" Peter lied. Harry could see him in his memories seeking Voldemort out and selling his loyalty to him. Just one more betrayal in a long list of them. He sold out the people around him for gold, some powerful spells he could only barely cast and the promise of future power. The only thing that put him in any danger from Voldemort was that the information he could provide wasn't very good, since Peter wasn't brave enough to actually join in any of the fighting that Voldemort's enemies planned against him. All Peter could do was offer his home as a safe house and try to pick up the odd piece of gossip that he could overhear. When he was made secret keeper, he rushed to Voldemort to give him the news that was surely worth a high position in the new order he was making. He never even paused to think that if Voldemort acted on that information, it would out him as a traitor to Sirius.
"Enough of this!" Sirius shouted, putting an end to the questioning as he pulled a long knife from his belt, which had reverted to its old form as the Riddikulus spell finally wore off. "I've waited for this moment for twelve years. It's time to die, Peter. For those twelve people you've killed, for Lily and most of all for James."
Sirius rushed forward with the knife raised. Hermione shut her eyes; Ron turned away. Remus looked on with detached apathy. And Snape had an odd gleam of satisfaction in his eyes and was clutching his wand as if he wanted to be the one to strike the final blow. Harry was sorely tempted to stand still, to allow this absolute waste of human flesh to be swept away. But he couldn't. He stepped into Sirius's path and caught hold of his knife hand. Sirius made no effort to push past him, but he looked in Harry's eyes and spoke.
"Let me go, Harry. He deserves it. He killed your parents."
"He does deserve it." Harry agreed. "He deserves it and likely many times worse still. But how does that make the world any better? You'll still be a fugitive of the law. The world will still think him a hero. And anything he might know about Voldemort and his old plans will die with him. We'll take him up to the castle and hand him over to the Minister of Magic."
Harry turned to Peter and spoke again. "And you will tell him everything. You will confess the truth, because the worst they will do is send you to Azkaban. Otherwise, you will die here now."
"I will! I will!" Petigrew swore. "Thank you master Harry, thank you for your mercy! I'll clear Sirius's name and I'll go to Azkaban, just so long as you promise I will live."
And that settled it. Snape wrapped Peter's body up in chains while Lupin made it levitate through the air. Ron handed his wand over to Sirius for a time so he and Lupin could keep a close eye on Peter to make sure he didn't escape. Snape helped Ron walk while keeping pressure off his bad leg and they all started their way back to the castle through the secret passage. Along the way a few questions occurred to different people.
"How did you break into the castle, Sirius, while avoiding the dementors?" Harry asked.
"I came through this tunnel of course." He answered.
"But surely the Shrieking Shack is sealed up on the other end." Harry pointed out.
"It mostly is." Sirius clarified. "It was very tightly sealed when Lupin was being kept in it, but I imagine Dumbledore hasn't had to keep another werewolf student up there since the wolfsbane potion has been invented so it's fallen into disrepair. Some of the window boards can be worked open with a knife and some effort."
Snape nodded in the gloom cast by their lit wands. "Yes, I've gotten very adept at brewing wolfsbane over the years. I might be the best at it in the whole nation. We've had at least eight werewolf students during my tenure. There's been a few close calls and two cases when other students, both of them muggle borns, actually asked them to spread the curse. Idiots. As for the shack, I'm surprised it hasn't completely fallen to pieces yet. Sometimes Nearly Headless Nick and the Bloody Baron scare Peeves into taking a spoiled bottle of wine down to the shack and then they spend the night giving the place a thorough haunting, rattling the windows and shouting at the tops of their lungs. I don't know why they do it. Probably because they must spend the rest of the school year being well behaved and not frightening the first years."
"And how did you get the passwords to Gryffindor tower?" Harry pressed as he still somewhat doubted that even Neville could be irresponsible enough to just leave those passwords around where anyone could find them.
"That cat brought them to me." Sirius explained.
"Crookshanks?" Hermione said, startled.
"Yes, that one." Sirius confirmed. "We've been on the same side for a while. That cat is incredibly clever, perhaps the smartest cat I've ever known. It must be at least part kneazle. He recognized that I wasn't a real dog when he first saw me sneaking about the school grounds. Once he realized I was after the rat he started helping me. He must've sensed that the rat was dangerous to you all. I think he's been getting pretty frustrated that you all didn't understand his warnings."
"We just thought it was a regular cat chasing a regular rat." Harry said.
"That should've been your first clue." Sirius declared. "Cats don't hunt rats. They hunt mice which are small and run away. Rats are big, live in swarms and will fight back. A cat has to be very desperate to go after a rat. Dogs will hunt rats. Some breeds of dogs do nothing but hunt rats, they're called ratters and are usually terrier breeds. Ferrets and minks will hunt rats too. But that's not surprising. They're vicious little fuzzy snakes with legs, bloody murderous things."
"Sirius's brother had a pet ferret." Lupin explained as everyone was looking at Sirius in stunned surprise. "It used to sneak into his room and chew the edges of his Gryffindor wall hangings."
The conversation remained fairly casual as they made their way down the tunnel. Sirius offered to let Harry come and live with him once his name was cleared. Harry loved that idea as it would finally allow him to escape the Dursleys once and for all. Snape revealed that Sirius had once almost killed him by tricking him into making his way to the Shrieking Shack one full moon night. Harry's father had saved Snape at the last second. Remus said that Harry's father had known nothing of Sirius' prank and tried to save Snape out of the goodness of his heart. Snape insisted he only did it to save his own skin.
When they finally emerged into the open air and we're almost back at the castle another question occurred to Harry. He asked why Snape had even come to the shack in the first place, Harry and only sent his patronus message to Lupin after all. Professor Lupin answered him.
"He was there with me when the message arrived." He said.
"I was delivering a fresh batch of wolfsbane." Snape clarified, clearly a bit annoyed having to explain himself to Harry. "Remus had forgotten to drink his latest dose."
"Ahh. Makes sense." Harry said, then he looked up into the sky and shakily added. "You did remember to drink that dose of your potion before you came down here, right?"
Lupin stopped and froze. Snape whipped around and looked up into the air. The night became so tense the atmosphere could've been cut with a knife and then the full moon slid out from being the high clouds that had covered it.
There was a horrible snapping sound as Remus's bones began to realign. He jerked back and forth as if fighting with something. His skin began to split in places and patches of fur appeared all over his body. Long repressed by the wolfsbane potion, Lupin's inner wolf was eager to get out and assuming its most powerful form to make the most of what it could do in the time it had. Harry felt a terrible hunger building in Lupin's mind, a longing for a pack of others like itself, a hatred of wizards that had made life so difficult for its other half, and a terribly familiar desire to possess an old friend and keep them close forever.
The final result wasn't anything that looked even remotely like an actual wolf, but more a hulking misshapen man. Long and red in tooth and claw, eyes full of madness and hunger, limbs full of strength and savagery. It roared and reached for Snape with near lightning-like movements.
"Confringo!" Snape shouted and blasted the werewolf back. It writhed on the ground for a moment but then was back on its feet no worse for wear and took another swipe at the potions master.
"Harry run!" Sirius yelled. And in a moment, he had assumed his big black dog form. He tackled Remus, knocking him off course. He barked madly at the werewolf and seemed to catch his attention. Snape grabbed hold of Ron and backed him quickly towards the castle entrance.
"You two grab Petigrew and get over here while the werewolf is distracted. We don't have much time." Snape declared. But when Harry looked to where Peter's body had fallen when Lupin began to change, he only saw a pile of chains. Peter had changed into a rat and escaped.
"He's gone!" Harry cried. He reached out with his mind looking desperately for any sign of the wayward rat. He caught a glimpse and took off running in pursuit.
"Harry where are you going?" Hermione shouted as she followed him.
"Get back here boy!" Snape ordered but Sirius and Remus were now lunging back and forth at each other and were in the way. Snape had a choice to make, he could go after the others and perhaps draw the werewolf's attention to himself and the injured Ron at his side, or he could get Ron to safety first and then come back. Snape couldn't leave Ron alone while he was defenseless and had no hope of escape, so he turned back to the castle and ignoring Ron's protests and dragged him inside.
Meanwhile Harry tried to reach out with his telekinesis to grab hold of the rat but found his power all but exhausted. He had used too much struggling with Sirius when he started vanishing Harry's psychic power away and then spent what he had left keeping him pinned for so long. He hadn't had time to restore himself. In fact, with everything that had happened, Harry himself was almost completely spent. He could only keep running like this thanks to Esharry feeding him what little power he had in reserve.
He chased after Peter as best he could. He ran hard, his long legs eating up ground as fast as he could, hunting down the rat mind he could just barely make out hidden in the grass and the dark. Peter scurried as fast as he could, juking and twisting as he ran trying to lose Harry in the twists and turns as they thundered into the woods. Harry only barely noticed the sight of werewolf Lupin rushing away from them making for the forest, the giant black dog that was Sirius going after him, driving him away from then school full of children and from where Harry and Hermione were currently running. Peter made a sharp turn and took off after them both hoping the children would be too scared to follow the path of a werewolf. But Harry didn't falter.
They were nearing where the edge of the great Hogwarts' Lake met the Forbidden Forest when Peter's mind suddenly focused enough to recall what he had heard in the shack. That Harry could see his thoughts and his mind. Harry could see it when Peter realized that this was how he was being tracked even when he was so small and nimble in the dead of night. And Harry could do nothing but watch in mounting anger as Peter recalled what Sirius had taught him of occlumency all those years ago.
Peter couldn't make his mind completely vanish like Sirius could. Instead, his mind slowly darkened as it focused only on a single thought of not being seen. It grayed and blurred, and between that, the dark gloom, Harry's tiredness, the distance between them and the fact that Peter's mind was just that of a rat as small and insignificant as his body was and Harry lost track of him.
Harry howled in frustration as he cast about with the light of his wand desperately looking for any kind of trail he might follow. But a rat didn't exactly leave a trail of debris in its wake, so Harry found nothing. He had failed when it most mattered. He had lost the one witness who could prove his godfather's innocence. All he could do now was try and sneak Sirius in to see Dumbledore and hope the old great wizard believed Harry's testimony and could think of some way to talk the ministry around. As Hermione caught up with him, he had to admit that he had lost Peter and all they could do now was turn back.
As the two of them made their way back to the castle they drew near the lake shore and spotted something down by the water. A figure in a large cloak hovering over a downed man. Harry realized that the air around him felt cold and a terrible thought filled his mind. Hermione had it too because without a word they both rushed down to the figures. It was Sirius caught by a dementor with his mental shields down, curled up like a child desperately clinging to his head, covering his mouth as the dementors lowered his hood and tried to pull his hands away.
Harry lashed out with what telepathic power he could muster, slamming into the dementor's mind with all the hate, anger and frustration he had ever felt. The dementor jerked as if it had been struck with tremendous force, screaming in pain. Harry threw himself between the specter and his godfather and cast the patronus charm. A wide white wall of silvery mist expanded between them and drove the dementor further back.
Hermione tried to get Sirius to his feet, but they didn't have the time. Across the lake dozens and dozens of hooded figures began to appear. Perhaps over a hundred dementors, every one of them that had been assigned to guard Hogwarts appeared and began to silently glide across the lake's surface closing in on Harry and the others.
"Hermione you have to help!" Harry cried as the first figures reached his shield and began to wail and scream as they pounded their fists on it and tried to force their way through. "The spell is Expecto Patronum and you have to think of the happiest thing that you can."
Hermione was a genius and a master at learning new spells, but the patronus charm was an advanced piece of work. The first few times she tried to cast it only a thin, tiny little bit of mist arose from her wand. Harry tried to force a feeling of happiness into her wand which helped, but even then, the wall she conjured wasn't even a quarter the size of the one Harry had made.
Perhaps if Harry hadn't been so tired, perhaps if he had more psychic power available to batter at the dementors they might have held out. It was all Harry and Esharry could do to sustain the charm. They couldn't spare any strength to keep the dementors out of their minds. Harry heard his parents dying in his head. Heard the screams of father and mother, and Voldemort laughing as he struck them down. It was all Harry could do to stand up right. Hermione faltered and fell. Without her his own shield weakened.
"Give in, living child." A dementor spoke as it lowered its hood and revealed a fade without eyes, only sickly lifeless flesh from cheeks to bald head. "Embrace the peace of the void. You should've died long ago, in your cradle, in the cupboard under the stairs, before the mirror, before the ghost of your killer, before the Mind Flayer masters. Living on has brought you nothing but suffering and pain. The only joy in your life is a pair of children who will grow apart from you in the fullness of time. Let us take away your pain. Let us have the Ulitharid, let us make him into an Elder Brain who will repay this world a thousand-fold for what it has made you suffer."
And Harry and Esharry saw it. A vision of doom, of fate that could not be escaped or defied. An Elder Brain seated on the highest tower of Hogwarts Castle surrounded by dementors, empowered by enslaved wizards. A sinkhole in the psyche of the world into which all happiness, joy and satisfaction was pulled across the world and devoured by the demons that stood before him. A shadow cast on the minds of billions of people, filling their lives with fear, pain and despair, until one by one they came to the castle and allowed the dementors to feast upon their souls.
And Harry knew how it was that he might bring hell upon the world.
Shocked and horrified by what he could be Harry's concentration faltered. His spell broke. The shield fell. The dementors closed in as did the darkness in his mind.
But across the lake, Harry just barely made out a figure standing tall and proud, with black shabby hair and features much like his own. It raised its wand, cried out words Harry couldn't make out, and a shining white beast leapt across the lake and barreled into the dementors. As Harry and Esharry slipped into unconsciousness they could just barely make out the screams of dementors in pain.