The chase lasted an age, and then some. The passageway seemed to go on and on, so much so that Lyra began to worry that they would pop up in England once they reached its end.
Harry tried to bombard her with another interrogation into where she went as they ran but neither of them had enough spare breath to get through even the simplest of back and forths. Lyra's knees cracked with every bound and her lungs spluttered as though she had inhaled a mouthful of lake water, but she never stalled once. The ominous yelling from their party echoed down the tunnel as the ground sloped upwards and Lyra forced herself to go faster. A rat could easily slip through any crack the passage had to offer, Peter had a greater chance now than ever to escape their flailing grips.
Grey light broke the damp darkness above their heads in the shape of a broken trapdoor and they tripped onto the bottom steps of a flight of dodgy-looking wooden stairs. Lyra didn't protest when Harry insisted on going first but she pestered him to go faster when they heard the inevitable crashes and bangs above them.
At first Lyra jumped to the worst conclusion when she emerged into what appeared to be an abandoned house. They were in Hogsmeade, the neighbours were going to overhear them and come storming round at any second. But as she grew accustomed to what she was actually faced with, her fight or flight senses simmered down.
Through the boarded windows and shutter doors she could tell they were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by gnarled, leafless trees. And the house itself was beyond derelict, even a homeless person would turn their nose up at the inches of dust, shattered floorboards and browning wallpaper that had been sliced to smithereens. It resembled an old farm shack rather than a house.
Just as it clicked in her head they were in the infamous Shrieking Shack, Ron and Sirius came tumbling out from the adjoining room and sprawled out on the hallway floor in a tangle of scratched limbs and exasperated cries. Paralysed by the confirmation that the dog was the man he'd been most anxious to meet, Harry failed to move back in time and got caught in the crosshairs of their fight.
The rat wriggled free from Ron's now bloodied grasp and jumped over the fallen bodies. Remus and Hermione threw themselves in the rat's path, both shooting out spells to hinder his escape, but it was fruitless. He was too small, too used to slipping out of view.
"WHAT'S GOING ON?! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL SCABBERS?!"
Lyra ignored her cousin's bellows and tracked the slimy rat into the next room — the living room? There was a sofa and the remains of a splintered dining table in the corner. The floor looked like it had been the victim of a beast with claws the size of kitchen knives, but she ignored the disturbing interior design and locked onto the back door. The rat pawed at the splintered bottom as though searching for a crack—
"He's going outside!" She exclaimed and became a slave to her impulses. "Bombarda!"
The shuttered door exploded off its hinges and the rat was blasted backwards, away from the large hole where the door and half a wall once were. Through the cloud of dust, she saw a small enclosed courtyard. Sleepers choked with overgrown weeds lined the fence, half-smashed barrels stacked in one corner and spiked vines obstructed the garden gate in the other. The shack wall groaned at its newest injury, and the ceiling shuddered and creaked in warning. She may or may not have fucked the integrity of the building, but right now she couldn't have cared less. If it fell then she prayed it would take Peter out too.
"Incarcerous!"
Sirius reacted while everyone recovered from Lyra's improvised explosion. Merciless black rope pinned the rat against the floor like a sadistic mouse trap and the two adults nearly wept in relief as they stood over him. They'd done it. The chase was over for now but Lyra's body struggled to register their win, she couldn't stop shaking and she rushed to distract herself when she heard Ron's agonising cry amongst the mess.
"What—? Why—? Sirius—?!" Ron spluttered, fighting against Harry's tough grip around his shoulders. He tried to reach out to his pet, tears streaking his cheeks.
"I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry," Hermione repeated over and over, grabbing his face with both hands to steer him away from watching whatever the men planned to do with Peter. "We can explain everything."
"Just please let them have Scabbers mate, I know it hurts but trust us," Harry hated seeing his best friend in such a sorry state, and he successfully pulled him away. "It's for your own good, we're sorry."
"But…?" Ron locked eyes with Lyra and slumped, devastation dripping down his freckles, "Lyra, your dad… He's—,"
"Forget about Sirius. He doesn't matter, what matters is the truth about your pet, and we will get through this together," she said, full of determination and tears. She'd never seen him look childlike, so hollow. "Ron, we truly are sorry…"
A flash of white light lit up the living room and the four Gryffindors turned to watch as the caught rat transformed before their eyes. Lyra immediately fixated on the man's scrawny, filthy face and a high-pitched whistling played in her ears.
Blocks fell into place as she traced the face she recognised from Harry's photographs and the Daily Prophet articles, confirming that the story Sirius told in the forest was real. Peter's time as a rat had distorted some of his features, he was whiskery and haggard, he had saggy yellowing skin and patches of missing fair hair on his scalp and beard. And his clothes… He wore same stained baggy blue trousers, torn waistcoat and brown shirt that the kidnapper wore that day in the chamber… That was really him.
Sirius was innocent, it was a cold, hard fact in her mind now and she accepted it with ice in her veins and pain in her tightening chest. Don't react. Don't give in to that feeling.
Yes, contain the darkness.
Now is not the time to explode.
Ron fell to his knees, dumbstruck, and the trio stood tall in formation around him. Lyra held her wand firmly by her side with her gaze on the men and sensed her friends match her stance.
"Hello Peter," spat Remus, greeting his old friend with the perfect amount of hatred in his chilling low voice, "long time, no see."
"What happened to your arm, pal?" Sirius snarled, pointing his wand at the deformed stump he was holding up as though in surrender. "What's the matter? Cat's got your tongue?"
CRASH!
"YOU!"
Everyone turned to look at the hole in the wall and froze, startled by the appearance of a dishevelled and exponentially ravenous Severus Snape who appeared in a fit of curse words and rage. The very last person any of them wanted to see. His robes were shredded and splattered with mud, a couple of twigs stuck out from his greasy hair, and he was panting — no, seething at the sight of them.
The hair on Lyra's neck stood straight when she realised he wasn't glaring at anyone else, just her. She gulped.
Snape didn't even acknowledge the others, Sirius and Peter may as well have been in Animagi form for all he cared, because his crimson veiled gaze was set on Lyra and Lyra only. He clamoured through the hole in the wall and set off toward her, and she stiffened when she noticed the Marauder's Map and Harry's cloak balled up in his fists.
Lyra patted her pockets, her sensitive stomach hurtling down to her toes. Harry copied and swore, eyes equally as manic. The map wasn't on her. How?!
"This time tomorrow… You will be expelled," Snape announced, tossing Harry's cloak aside and revealing his wand that he pointed squarely at her face. Pure terror rolled down her spine and she backed away from her delirious teacher. He wasn't thinking straight. "I mean it, Black, you're out of this school. I'm done pretending that you're not a danger to society. You contemptuous, spawn of evil—,"
"Woah, hey now! What the hell have I done?" Lyra exclaimed, her confidence souring by the second. "Don't come bursting in here uninvited and bully me for no reason—,"
"SHUT! UP! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!" Snape roared.
"HEY!" And like a violent chain reaction, so did Sirius. "STEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!"
He stormed over, leaving Remus to restrain their hostage by himself, and forced himself in between Lyra and Severus. Enlivened by the opportunity to lose it, practically glowing in the presence of his ex-nemesis despite his grim exterior. "Well, well, well, look at you Severus! Some things never change, ey? I heard you've made quite a name for yourself here bullying children, you must be so very proud."
Momentary astonishment caused Snape's face to spasm but his infamous sneer replaced any fear he may have had. Snape gawked at Sirius, and then at Remus, but he took a shaky step back when he recognised who was cowering at Remus's feet. Lyra saw a multitude of questions come and go from his onyx eyes, but his anger never dissipated. Permanently sewn together, he couldn't compartmentalise his feelings toward the men he loathed. He refused to, and her hopes sunk into her pit of darkness. Her defences spiked, ready for him to attack.
A part of Lyra genuinely hoped she was wrong, she prayed that she was just being stubborn and that Snape would do the right thing. She wanted him to prove her wrong so badly.
So it came as a vicious, perspective-shifting revelation when Severus Snape threw Sirius aside and lunged after her, his wand raised high. Assaulting her trumped being hailed as the hero who captured Sirius and Peter, hurting her was more important than him helping his students. He wasn't her teacher anymore, he was her enemy.
"Protego!" Lyra threw the shield behind her as she dove into the hallway and out of Snape's wrath. In a panic, she winded herself when she crashed into the loose bannister hanging off the crooked staircase so she braced, ready for his curses.
Her shield failed.
"EXPELLIARMUS!"
"STUPEFY!"
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"
Snape's spell never left his wand, in a chorus of screams a blinding trio of light struck him in the back of his skull and he blasted down the hallway as though a bull rammed into him. An ear-splitting clunk reverberated against the flimsy wall he smashed into and the entire shack trembled from the combined power of the three emotional teenagers that poked their heads around the frame to see their results.
Massaging the soon-to-be purple bruise on her abdomen, Lyra stumbled back into the living room to thank her friends just as the joists supporting the ceiling shrieked. The shack swayed, threatening the integrity of the room, but the adults were two steps ahead.
"Up the stairs, quickly," Remus ordered them, dragging Peter with him as they relocated to the safer part of the shack. Sirius herded the children away from the unstable storage room above the living room and into the less dusty, sturdier bedroom. He neglected to fetch Snape's lifeless body but when Remus snapped at him, Sirius begrudgingly heaved him up the stairs, pretending not to notice that his head clipped each step.
Peter's entire demeanour changed when they relocated, something about being in the bedroom unnerved him and she figured it was because his chances of escaping were dwindling. Besides the door that Sirius was now blocking, the only other exit was the window and so Lyra and her friends guarded it with their lives.
"Now that your old Death Eater pal Severus has been dealt with," Sirius began, dramatically wiping his hands on his sullen uniform to clean off the grease as he scowled at the body in the corner, "the spotlights back on you, Pete. Where shall we begin?"
Hang on a damn minute, Snape is what now?
Lyra sensed Harry's outburst but she grasped his arm, urging him to stay quiet. He side-eyed her initially, surprised she wasn't as verbally reactive as she ought to be, but the men continued and he settled down.
"S-Surely you don't believe him, R-Remus?" Crackly and hoarse, Peter first attempted to pit the men against each other, but Remus laughed heartily at his audacity. Hermione sensed Ron's next dizzy spell from the realisation that his rat was, in fact, a real human being that had a secret life and agenda, so she held him steady.
"You ain't got a chance in hell, mate, not a fucking chance at convincing me otherwise!" Remus laughed, cold and absent of any humour. "But that doesn't mean we can't have a conversation."
"Yes… A friendly, cordial conversation between friends… between family," said Sirius in a calm, unassuming tone that caused the four Gryffindors to shiver. He may not have been the mass murderer they once thought but he was putting on a terrifically scary mask. It seemed he had plenty of practice playing the bad guy.
"Why did you betray James and Lily? You were their Secret-Keeper, you took a vow and promised to protect them. And you threw it all away because, what? You were threatened? You knew the risks going into this!" Sirius continued, stealing all the air from the musty room. The teenagers watched with bated breath, their pounding hearts thumping in their ears.
Lyra shifted from Harry's arm to his trembling hand and tightened her wand grip when Peter began his tirade of lies. He was full of them, she wondered if he even knew what was true anymore.
"It was a mistake, a stupid m-mistake," he stammered, "I was tricked, you don't know the power that the Dark Lord has—,"
"Oh don't give us that cock and bull story, you knew exactly what you were doing!" Sirius interjected, unable to let him get a full sentence out before unleashing years worth of aggression onto him. "You took advantage of the only option we had left and you handed them over to Voldemort the second you had the chance—! YOU KILLED THEM!"
"I DIDN'T MEAN TO!"
"YES YOU DID! You proved your malicious intent a few weeks ago, you monster!" Remus erupted and pointed at Harry and Lyra, distraught at what he was about to say, "You've been working for Voldemort long before you betrayed James and Lily, you're still following his orders now. Why did you kidnap them?"
Sirius' mean facade cracked and Lyra couldn't meet his wide eyes. Not yet. Peter's reaction was far more priceless, she was trained on him like a predator tracking its prey. She was a lioness and he was the lamb she was about to feast upon.
Something icy flashed over Peter's twitchy face, she saw the wheels turning, working out how best to save his arse in the long run.
"Please tell me I misheard that," Sirius growled. He jabbed his wand harder into the side of Peter's head and revealed a crazed smile. "You… kidnapped them?"
"Y-You don't understand!" Peter gulped like a fish out of the ocean, grasping for a lifeline as sweat poured down his slimy face, "I did that for a good reason! To protect Harry!"
"You broke into the Chamber of Secrets to protect me?" Harry couldn't hold back that time and joined in with the fake laughter, invigorated by his audacity to try and play the hero. "You threatened me and tried to force me to open the chamber! How in the hell is that protecting me? You're the reason my parents are dead, the reason why Voldemort keeps trying to kill me?!"
"What the hell? When was this?" Ron exclaimed, looking just as baffled as Sirius, but Hermione began to mutter into his ear, catching him up to speed.
Peter gulped, his nervous eyes darting all over the place. Looking for a way out. Lyra was amazed he was still trying, but he sensed her intrigue and chose a new path of violence when his gaze landed on her.
"I was protecting you from her," Despite the rope still tied around his good hand and his stump, he managed to single Lyra out with a pointed finger, and she scoffed. She expected Peter to drag her into his mess considering the information he'd soaked up from being around them… But still, she didn't want to do this right now.
"Excuse me?" Sirius scoffed too, offended on her behalf. She wished he didn't.
"You don't know what she is, you don't know what I know," Peter begged, somehow deciding to play to both sides. Was he trying to turn them against her? Really?!
Hmm, yes so I've decided that this man needs to die?
That's too extreme! Don't kill him.
No it's not! He's a threat!
Lyra was seconds from exploding, she had to laugh it off.
"How dare you try and shift the blame onto Lyra…" Sirius hissed, shoving Peter lower onto the ground, despising everything about him. "You low-life, pathetic excuse of a man."
"That means nothing coming from you," Peter snapped back, baiting him with a muttered accusation, "you're the reason Giselle is dead—,"
Sirius threw his wand aside and attacked Peter without a second thought; he connected two punches to his face before Remus had the chance to rip them apart.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE ACCUSE ME OF KILLING HER!" Sirius was incensed, triggered by the mere mention of the senseless crime he was charged with. "YOU'RE THE REASON WHY I LEFT MY GIRLS THAT NIGHT! YOU LURED ME AWAY AND HELPED THAT… THAT FUCKING DEMON DESTROY OUR LIVES! YOU MURDERED HER JUST AS MUCH AS I DID!"
Breathe…
"Who did it? Who killed my mother?" Lyra asked as bluntly as possible, nauseous for the answer she was about to receive. She stared her father and Peter down, holding her own as a commanding force. "Tell me the truth. Now."
"Junior killed her," croaked Sirius. He couldn't deny her his version of the truth, though he was ashamed of how feeble and full of holes it was. It was all he had, all he clung into for twelve years. She had to believe him. "I don't know for certain, but I know… I felt it. Deep down, I knew it was him who killed…"
Sirius couldn't finish so he collected his wand and retrained it on Peter's shiny temple with the calmness of a true killer. Peter didn't move a muscle, his eyes bold in anticipation of his death as blood trickled from his nostrils.
Remus looked devastated and weakened his wand's grip. Guilt. Mountainous amounts of guilt weighed on his shoulders and he gazed at Sirius in a way Lyra thought she'd never see. With a feeling Remus promised he didn't feel anymore.
"Junior…? Merlin's beard…"
"Who is that?" Lyra asked. "Who's Junior?"
"Your uncle, my brother-in-law," Sirius answered as though the relation sliced his tongue, "his name is… was Bartemius Crouch Junior. You wouldn't know him, he died in Azkaban."
Ugh! The image of her hateful grandfather popped up in Lyra's mind and she cringed, recoiling from the irony. It cut deep, like a sword it tore her in two. As if she couldn't hate her grandfather more, now she knew his son murdered his daughter. She bet Crouch knew, that's why he was so defensive.
Your uncle was there that night.
A blood relative. It matches.
And he's dead so we don't have to worry about him. That's good, really good actually.
Lyra ignored the voices in favour of her pettiness. She still couldn't believe it.
"Oh my God, like father, like son! I knew I hated that old man for a reason other than the fact he hates me," she huffed, regretting ever visiting him. "He was in charge of your sentencing, wasn't he?! Vile arsehole."
"Wait, darling, you've met Barty?" Sirius backtracked in concern of her welfare, his brow deep set and fierce. Remus looked horrified, he clutched his invisible pearls.
"We sort of tracked him down over the summer and she shouted at him a bit," Harry confessed when Lyra only nodded in response. Something changed in Sirius' demeanour, he looked more like the handsome man from her photographs as he beamed at his daughter, immense pride welling in his bright eyes.
"So you had absolutely nothing to do with what happened that night?" Lyra needed to hear Sirius say it in plain English, she bared her teeth and stared into his soul. "Don't lie, I need to know."
"I promise you, Lyra, I wasn't involved in any of it," Sirius insisted, his voice catching in his throat, "it is all I have thought about for the past twelve years… Every single moment of every single day I'm plagued with the regret that I was not there that night to protect you and Elle… My beautiful baby girl… I spent eleven of those years believing you were dead and I wanted to…" he exhaled and willed himself to continue, his knuckles pure white. Lyra didn't feel the tears pouring down her cheeks until she heard them splash on the dusty floorboards.
"It should have been me. I'd rather die an excruciating death than betray my loved ones, my family… I would never hurt you or your mum, Princess… She was the love of our lives…"
Heart-wrenching emotion washed over her as the criminal she saw vanished and her loving father appeared in his place. A huge part of her broke and guilt riddled her like a ferocious burst of ice. The shadows festering around the shack shivered and wriggled, creeping closer to console their weakened master like black snakes made of smoke.
"See! Look at her! Look at what she's doing!" Peter noticed the shadows first and scrambled away from the tendrils circling him, daring him to try something. "She's not what you think she is, she's more dangerous than I am! Than any of us!"
It wasn't his continued accusation that caused Lyra to flinch. It was the fleeting glances of fear that appeared on Sirius and Remus' faces, the doubt.
"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH! YOU BETRAYED MY PARENTS! THAT'S WAY WORSE THAN ANYTHING THAT LYRA CAN DO!" Harry exploded in a fit of disbelief as he stood in front of Lyra and defended her, wand raised and face distorted with rage. He meant well, she knew he did, her heart swelled at the intensity of his passion. He was her most ardent defender and she always marvelled at his bright existence in her dark life.
But she just wished he didn't confirm Peter's insinuation. The shadows scurried back into the corners of the room, afraid of the adults' judgement.
"What are you talking about?" murmured Sirius warily, unnerved by what had just happened.
"What can you do? What was that?" Remus asked her, "is it something to do with the ghosts? I know you four have been up to something all year, you know."
Uh oh.
Lie.
I can't.
Lyra meant that. She didn't know if she could lie to them, Peter was just going to call her out anyways. She loathed the smug little glint in his gaze, she hated that she was giving him some sort of satisfaction that may prevent Sirius from following through with his impending desire to kill. After they handed Peter over, of course, Sirius needed to be pardoned first.
"You've got a lot of nerve bringing that up, what Lyra can do is irrelevant to all of this."
Lyra jolted in surprise when Ron broke the tense silence. He glared at his former pet with venom in his teeth and fire in his eyes. He gently pushed Hermione out of his way and stalked toward the coward kneeling before them, looking more like his mother than ever. He spoke in the same patronising timbre Molly used whenever she had the upper hand in an argument, when she held secret information against her squabbling opponent (nine times out of ten it was one of her children), and it really suited him.
Hermione happily moved away and watched Ron in awe.
"Lyra didn't pretend to be an injured rat that tricked Percy into taking her in. Lyra hasn't been living under my family's roof for the past twelve years, taking advantage of us, spying on us…" he growled, and the two men standing over Peter nodded along, validating his feelings. "Lyra isn't the reason why Harry's an orphan, she's not the reason why her dad was falsely convicted — I LET YOU SLEEP IN MY BED WITH ME?! I CRIED FOR MONTHS OVER YOU AND YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A FUCKING TRAITOR! YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, YOU… SICKO!"
Lyra hid her smile as she watched Peter bow his face in shame, as though he was the victim in this situation. He didn't have a response. She applauded her cousin's fury and slapped him on the shoulder.
"I couldn't have put it better myself," she sighed, joining his side.
"You haven't looked me in the eye once this whole time," Harry spat as he came up next to her, looking more disgusted than any of them. "Seriously, Peter," the traitor flinched at the sound of him saying his name, "you're still working for Voldemort, aren't you? You're not sorry it happened, you're sorry you got caught and you're just trying to shift the blame."
"And if you're thinking about how to score yourself an audience with an Auror or Fudge himself to talk about Lyra, don't bother because no one will believe you," Hermione joined Ron's other side, her voice unusually stern as she challenged him. "How much is the word of a Death Eater who's been masquerading as a rat all these years? Fudge won't believe a single word you say."
"Who says it's Fudge I want to talk to?" refuted Peter, loosening his slippery tongue but he tightened his lips and refused to say anymore.
The damage was done, that singular question pushed Sirius and Remus past their patient boiling point. They allowed the teenagers to chew him out for long enough but time was of the essence. None of them knew how long they'd been away from the castle, were the Ministry finished with their investigation? Were the Dementors gone already?
"We need to find Albus," Remus took charge as Sirius took pleasure in bounding and gagging Peter as tightly as possible. "We need to speak to him first."
"Are you sure we can't kill him first and hand over his fresh corpse?" Sirius suggested without a flicker of humour in his expression.
"I wouldn't mind," Ron answered on behalf of the group, and Sirius gestured at him as though his word was final.
"We mustn't disappoint the kids, Remus," he shrugged.
"Don't kill him," Harry started without meaning to but his back straightened when he continued, "that's the easy way out. Hand him over and let him suffer because the Dementors will do the job better than any of us could."
Lyra seconded his idea and let her instinctual grin curl as she casually leant against Harry's shoulder. She liked his thinking, she would happily torture the man who betrayed his parents for him.
"Yeah, I have a feeling that the Dementors aren't going to be too happy with you," she chuckled.
Peter looked terrified by that idea, blood drained from his pasty skin even further. He looked like a ghost already, a shell of a human being.
"N-No! Please, wait!" He protested despite his gag, though he never fought against his ex-best friends manhandling him. They yanked him into his feeble feet and ignored his grotesque sobs. The rest of his cries were lost to the fabric sealing his mouth shut.
"Nope! You betrayed Harry, Harry chooses how you die. Them's the rules!" Lyra sang, glad that she would have a direct hand into the man's agonisingly slow death. She couldn't wait to talk to the Dementors!
"Um," Hermione raised her hand and reminded the group about the unconscious teacher crumpled in the corner of the room. "What about Professor Snape?"
"Can't we just leave him here?" Lyra groaned, remembering the reason why they had to tread very carefully through the shack. "We can't wake him up, he'll ruin everything."
"Your call," Sirius sighed, looking at Remus who immediately cupped his weary face and muttered a few curse words under his breath. He continued, "But I can't deal with him, I'll crack if he goes after Lyra again." Peter let out another muffled exclaim but Sirius shoved him toward the door and shook his head. "Ah, ah, ah! You forfeited your speaking privileges, remember?"
"I suppose we better leave him here then," Remus decided, although he wasn't satisfied with his choice. "Merlin knows what will happen in our staff meeting tomorrow."
"If he makes it to your meeting, that is," Lyra corrected him and approached the heap of black robes that was Snape. She pulled a face and inspected the dark bruise bleeding through his forehead. "You guys really did a number on him, eh? Thanks again for saving my arse."
"As much as I want to ask you all about your delightful teacher, let's discuss everything once we get back to Hogwarts," Sirius instructed the kids to follow him, Remus, and the traitor squashed between them out into the hazardous landing. He began to point out which planks to avoid stepping on— but Lyra didn't follow.
Through the folds of muddy robes covering her unconscious Potions Master, the faint sheen reflecting off a potion vial caught her eye and her bones tingled. Danger. It couldn't have been what she thought it was. No it's not, you're overreacting. Maybe he keeps antidotes on him out of habit, maybe it's something else?
"Lyra?" Harry noticed her drifting attention and hung back, one brow arched.
She hadn't heard him, she was already pawing at the heavy potion bottle attached to Snape's belt, fumbling over the cork with extremely sweaty fingers. No! No no no no no! This can't be happening!
"Remus?!" She screamed, eyes wide in horror as she flicked the cap off and took a whiff. Tangy, woody, strong. Very strong. She'd smelt something like this in his office before.
SHIT!
"REMUS, GET BACK IN HERE!?" Lyra let out a strangled yelp and lurched after the group lingering in the hallway in confusion, her arm stretched out to pass her godfather the Wolfsbane Draught. "DRINK!"
Realisation struck them at different times but unfortunately for them all, Peter clocked onto what was about to happen first. He saw his chance and he seized it with everything he had left.
In a blaze of hysteria and adrenaline, Peter snapped the ropes imprisoning him and lunged at Lyra, knocking her and the Wolfsbane Draught to the floor. The potion bottle shattered and the oozing mauve Wolfsbane Draught stained the planks, steaming and potentially harmful to anyone who came into contact. But no one noticed, their unravelling thread of problems was only just beginning.
The moon had taken its place in the night skies far above them, silvers of the full moon's milky beams shone down on the chaos taking place in the shack's bedroom. Remus began to convulse and the shack rumbled too, both of them moaning in agony as their transformations took over. The Shrieking Shack was about to collapse and a bloodthirsty werewolf was in their midst.
"FUCK SAKE! GET BACK!" Although it pained him to choose, Sirius pushed everyone back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. He refused to let them witness the gruesome transformation, subjecting them to the collapse of the shack was the better deal. They would survive the fall at the very least, the idea of Remus attacking them sickened him to his very core. It was what Remus would have chosen too.
But the teenagers had their own problems to worry about, the shack was far from their first concern.
Lyra rasped for air as her friends dragged Peter off of her and she aimed a kick at her attacker's stomach for good measure. His dirty claw marks around her neck stung but she ignored the open wounds and attempted to replicate her father's powerful rope spell.
"You bastard!" Ron barged into Peter before she could stop her ropes and he tripped over them, bringing Harry and Hermione with him.
The floors tilted, the shack swayed from one side to the other. Sounds of Sirius and Remus brawling on the stairs grew louder, closer, more vicious. Lyra steadied herself and aimed her wand at the man staring her down.
Come on, think of a spell! ANY SPELL!
"Expelliarm—,"
Lyra saw black, then a burst of silver stars that cried out to her. Her skull rattled, glass sliced her arms, and the fresh night air slapped her across the face as she struggled against Peter's tackling embrace, but everything came to a screeching halt when the pair crash-landed in a tangled bed of weeds and thorns. All oxygen was violently slammed from her body, she couldn't breathe. She wanted nothing more than to writhe and reel from being thrown from a first-floor window, but Peter wasn't finished with her yet.
"LYRA?!"
Lyra ignored her friends' screams from the window above and blindly staggered out of the bush to meet her woozy opponent. She winced as she put weight on her ankle but it wasn't debilitating. She could still run if she needed to. And judging by Peter's twitches, she really needed to.
"Try it, I dare you," she growled, extending her wand arm to show she wasn't kidding, and she flashed him her most charming smile, "go on, run away. Let's play a game of cat and mouse, Wormtail, isn't it?"
"There she is," Peter flashed his yellowing teeth and scuttled closer, not quite brave enough to call her bluff. He still had questions. "There's the girl you truly are. You can't kill me, I'm valuable to you."
"No you're not, you can't talk your way out of this," Lyra shook her head then immediately regretted it as her bad shoulder seared in protest. She'd love nothing more than her bed and a cup of tea. "I don't care what you know."
"Perhaps right now you don't," Peter smiled, "but even then I don't believe you, I don't think you even believe yourself. You don't think Daddy and Remus will care that their little girl is harbouring a dark secret? That maybe she isn't as innocent as they think? We both saw their faces in there, you can't hide from what he made you. Everyone will find out, it's only a matter of time."
"What Riddle made me?" Lyra clarified, and stalked toward him with every intention of hurting him clear in her crazed smile. Peter backed away but still, he didn't run.
They were surrounded by trees, shrubs, and all kinds of foliage that a rat could easily use to disappear. A girl her age should have at least been put off by the shadows of the forest and the dangerous adult in front of her — but not Lyra. They were in her arena now, in her domain.
"Perhaps," she drawled, mimicking his hiss, and her shadows stretched their limbs getting ready for their hunt, "but you seemed to have forgotten that what Riddle made me is someone you shouldn't underestimate. Legilimens!"
Emotion surged with Lyra's quick spell as she blasted the rat man between his eyes. And for a split second, she was worried that she had accidentally killed him as he keeled over in the dirt like a dying animal. In a flash of dark matter only she could see she slipped into his mind as though she was made from ribbons of neurotic energy.
Peter's mind was just as she suspected; cold, dank, and severely depressing. Each thought was coated with slimy sweat, each word was feeble and struggling to form, but she swatted his pathetic self-pities aside and dug her nails into his memories. Combing through them without any care for their preservation. Show me the real reason why you kidnapped us, show me why you wanted to see Tom's corpse.
Images of her and her friends attempted to wriggle into her grasp. Flashes of their time in Egypt, snippets of them playing with him at the Burrow, warm, colourful memories of Peter enjoying the Gryffindor quartet's company and the lazy back scratches they gave him — but Lyra punched those memories into a pulp and cast them aside in a fit of rage, hating how much her heart was hurting. DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU CARED ABOUT ANY OF US, BASTARD! SHOW ME VOLDEMORT RIGHT NOW! SHOW ME!
The increased rush of emotion gave Lyra enough power to seize the memory she yearned for most and she ripped it from deep within Peter's soul. He couldn't fight her off and the satisfaction of scaring him into total submission was tastier than any morsel she'd had so far.
A dark archive, too small to be a library, too large to be a study. Indigo and peach summer clouds lit up the sky beyond the uncovered arched window, only the hoots of distant owls could be heard over the quiet mumbling and crackling of wood in the grand fireplace. A peaceful summers evening. There were less than ten people in the archive, all of them mulling around the shelves that held leather tomes and metal statues, waiting for someone to speak. A meeting was taking place, that much was obvious.
Lyra found Peter amongst the shrouded faces immediately. He was the shortest, and the most terrified. He was hiding by the exit as though debating whether he should stay or not, shrinking his posture to show he wasn't a threat.
And standing there in front of the grand hearth, draped in black robes and a thick cloak darker than any fabric she'd seen before, stood the man she was here to see.
Well, she assumed it was him as the majority of the room bowed their heads in his direction, but his hood covered his features. She couldn't see the thin scarlet eyes or the Cheshire Cat grin she remembered from that day under the trapdoor. Was he as reptilian as his parasitic counterpart? Or was he still hauntingly beautiful like his teenage self? He must've been way over six feet, for some reason she didn't expect him to be so tall.
"Do any of you have news concerning your special mission for Lord Voldemort?"
His voice was stronger, icier than she remembered. He wasn't Tom anymore, the velvet sheen had long since left his tone and Lyra shuddered as its familiar chill scuttled down her spine. He was a parasite indeed. This was the man the entire Wizarding world was afraid of, the myth, the legend. The great wizard who failed to kill a baby.
"My Lord," a brave spokesperson stepped into the fire's amber glow and Lyra was dumbstruck by their freckled face. She recognised him from Molly's childhood photos but she couldn't quite comprehend that it was actually him. He looked so young…
"Thanks to a letter I found at my great aunt's residence, we have narrowed down our hunting grounds. My sister, her husband and their spawn live near the Dorset coastline. The werewolf is absent, he will be gone until November. It shouldn't take us more than a couple of weeks to comb the beach towns for them."
Bartemius Crouch Junior was the epitome of smugness and Lyra couldn't stop staring at him. Like a horrific road accident, it was mesmerising. Murderer. Life destroyer. The reason her mother was buried six feet under was standing before her grinning ear to ear and she pleaded with the universe to travel back in time to this very memory so she could kill him herself. He must have been roughly nineteen years old, barely an adult. Barely old enough to understand the real world. How could he…?
"Excellent," said Lord Voldemort, calculating the silent looks he knew were being shared under hoods and out the corner of eyes, "once again my trust in you has not been misplaced, Crouch. Everyone should look to you as an example, this is why you are my most trusted—,"
The memory vanished with a pop. Lyra was catapulted from Peter's mind and she snapped back into the very real present she'd somehow forgotten they were in, bewildered by how fast the atmosphere had changed.
Terror. Screaming. Howling, wood splintering from the collapsing shack behind her. The ground trembled as the front of the shack imploded from two feral animals tearing through its hollow skeleton, the vicious snaps echoed like shotgun blasts but they weren't loud enough to drown out what sounded like her best friends' life-threatening cries from somewhere within. Lyra's instincts were begging her to go back to them and leave Peter to run away — but then she spotted the wand in the rat man's remaining hand and she hesitated, frowning. Was she so exhausted that she was imagining it?
Where the fuck did he get that from?
"Nasty little bastard, your uncle Barty was," jeered Peter, pleased that he kept his weapon hidden well enough to gain a slight upper hand against her. "It's surreal, sometimes you remind me of him—,"
"REDUCTO!" roared Lyra.
Peter blocked her attack with a quick transfiguration spell. She swore and rushed to protect herself as the jagged rocks and broken branches that formed a deformed shield around him exploded into a thousand razor shards. Everything stung, like tiny fanged wasps buzzing all over her arms and face. Lyra spat out the fresh blood and cursed him for the hundredth time. Motherfucker!
"I don't know why you're fighting me, you should be coming with me, Lyra," said Peter, shuffling away now. He was done, he wanted to go. "You'll be ruined if you stay here, once the truth comes out no one will trust you."
"What, because I'm Death?" she laughed, matching each of his shuffles with strides of her own. He wasn't going anywhere and neither was she. "No, actually, that's not true. No—one—will—believe—you. Did you not listen to Hermione? And it's not like you need to tell Voldemort what I am, he's the reason why."
Peter's mask slipped only for a second but he shoved it back in place with a lip-rippling sneer. "I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about your inappropriate relationship with the Dark Lord. You're ruined. I know what you are."
Like a sucker punch, Lyra absorbed the unexpected blow and let her body slump forwards, stars popping up in front of her. His words chewed at her confidence like a ravenous rodent finding a succulent block of cheese. Oh…
Peter finally grinned, jubilant at her pained realisation.
"Oh yes, Lyra. What I did to James and Lily was unforgivable, I understand that, but what you've done is monstrous. What you did to James and Lily's son is worse than my betrayal. Imagine the mass panic that will erupt when the world finds out what you did? The public will demand to see you in Azkaban. You resurrected the Dark Lord, his bones and blood lie there in that chamber for you… Waiting for you to make him whole again. I saw Death leading you to him, I heard Death in the shadows waiting for you to reunite with the Dark Lord you still love. I know that's what you want too, you don't have to lie to me," he rambled on and on, spouting lies Lyra could never have imagined.
Her heart clenched, hatred festered deep within but she remained cool on the surface. He had some nerve bringing this up.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" She scoffed, shaking her head, "I didn't know what I was doing, he tricked me—,"
"You don't have to pretend in front of me. I can help you. I'm most likely the only person who supports you, I understand why you helped the Dark Lord," said Peter in earnest, still backing away. He truly believed this. "Please, I will serve you too if you come with me to him. Death appeared to me and told me to help—,"
Fuck.
That's really bad.
Does that make him a Thief?
This sounds a hell of a lot worse than Peter just being a Thief, my love.
We're screwed.
Panicked sirens blared in her head as the voices tried to make sense of what they were hearing but Lyra struggled to fight against the chaos she was drowning in. She clutched her head and willed the tears not to fall. She couldn't crumble now, he was driving her insane on purpose so he could escape.
Guys, please shut up!
"The only similarity between us is the air we're breathing, don't you dare compare me to you, you perverted, self-victimising, conniving loser," laughed Lyra, "Death hasn't said shit to you, and if they have then you're either losing your mind or your death is imminent."
"Then I guess I'm going crazy," Peter answered almost too casually. He flicked his wand and a deep blue jet of light missed Lyra's ear by millimetres. "Your acting abilities are astounding, I should've given your uncles more credit. They knew what they were doing when they promised you to the Dark Lord in the first place—,"
Lyra saw only crimson as she dove at his legs and knocked him into the gravelly dirt. She felt him transform beneath her, he shrunk into his rodent form and tried to scamper away from her frantic clawing motions, but her shadows sprung to life and snatched him in one clean swipe. The rat couldn't escape the darkness' vice grip, he squawked and squirmed against the tendrils until he had no choice but to transform back.
"N-No! Please!" He begged, frightened by her power, but Lyra strangled him even tighter. She pushed back her overgrown fringe so he could see the glint in her bright eyes as her smoky shadowed claws shoved him into the dirt. A cat staring down at her next meal.
"I don't think so!" She sang, enjoying her dark advantage for all of three seconds.
CRASH!
The party had finally come to them.
"MOVE!" Harry screamed as he appeared from nowhere and dragged Lyra to the ground, his arms shielding her head before they slammed into a pile of rocks hiding in the brush. She tried to move but he refused to let go. "DON'T!"
The shack wall exploded behind them and Lyra held in her screams as she realised he'd saved her from ending up as the landing mat for Remus and Sirius' brawl. The werewolf and black dog were still locked in a deadly wrestling match, both of them caked in blood, mud, dust and wood shavings as they snapped their jaws. Lyra refused to linger on where the blood came from as she staggered out of their path of destruction and back toward Peter, dragging her best friend with her.
They're fine, don't think about it! Dads dealt with him before, they'll be ok!
"Locomotor Mortis!" Harry shot first, attempting to strike Peter in his back as he made a break for the fences circling the Shrieking Shack's outermost boundary. The ground sloped faster than they anticipated, Peter slipped on his arse and rolled under the rickety fence with unintended grace, avoiding his spell by dumb luck.
The chase was on.
"DON'T TRANSFORM, YOU FUCKING COWARD!" Lyra sacrificed whatever precious air was left in her lungs to roar at the fleeing figure.
The pair vaulted over the fence and raced down the hills after him, shooting the occasional spell so they kept track of where he was. Lyra felt the traitor knocking against her shadows as though she'd trapped him in a kids marble run and she tried to forge them into a cage around him. If he attempted to shrink into his rat form then he was going to get a nasty surprise.
"Well done on keeping him here," Harry rasped between their sprints, and Lyra took a second for her own sanity to make sure Harry was alright. He looked as though he'd been brawling too, his clothes were as spoiled as hers, but then she noticed his dressed face wounds and two thoughts collided into one.
This wasn't Present Harry.
"We're going to lose this fight, aren't we?"
Defeat tried to trick her into abandoning the chase but Harry shook his head, grabbed her hand tight and forced her to run faster. His eyes were nothing but sage fire and she used his flames to refuel her engine, he hadn't given up yet so she wasn't about to either. With him at her side she was unstoppable.
"Not on our watch, Black. We've got this," he promised and she believed him.
White moonlight peeked through the maze of trees up ahead and Peter stumbled and lost his footing as he entered a large clearing the size of their school Quidditch pitch. Instead of trimmed grass, however, the clearing looked like it was full of black glitter and ribbons of silver —the floor was a giant mirror?
Lyra and Harry burst through the shrubs and skidded through the pebbled shore of a shallow lake, blindsided by their new surroundings. The surface rippled and revealed its inky depth as Peter began to stagger around its edge. He was limping and Lyra immediately forgot all about the potentially deep waters in her presence, her eyes lit up in sick satisfaction.
It was the mist rolling off the lake that sparked the tension in her chest. Her bodyguards were close here, she could taste them in the vapour.
It's time to feast, everyone. Come to me…
"Give up already, Pettigrew, you're not going anywhere," Harry challenged him, matching Lyra's eager pace as they cornered him near a scattering of slick boulders green with algae. He levelled his wand and smiled. "Expelliarmus!"
Lyra's stomach knotted with anticipation as Harry successfully disarmed Peter and forced him to his knees despite the water. The temperature plummeted and both males glanced her way, sensing the dark creatures' arrival in the form of unseasonal frost and moist decay in the air around them. They knew what she was doing.
"Not the Dementors, please," Peter wept, coming to terms with what was about to happen, and he tried to search for his wand but Lyra swiftly kicked his good arm away and raised her wand to the centre of his forehead.
The surge of murderous intent swelled in her veins but she resisted its pull. Just a few more minutes, he will be a shell of his former self in less than five minutes and this will all be over.
"Harry, protect yourself," she advised her best friend without meeting his eye and her heart swelled when he stepped away to oblige. No questions asked. She didn't like how quickly his tremor developed and she knew it was her doing, but it was for the greater good. Harry knew that and he accepted her methods with a commanding nod.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Peter couldn't stomach the sight of the spectral stag guardian that appeared before them, but Lyra certainly could. It was enchanting, magnificent, but also rather intimidating and domineering in a way she'd never seen before. If the stag was real then Lyra would've assumed they were a carnivorous breed by the way it was dragging its hooves through the pebbles and aimed its horns at Peter. It stood its ground before the traitor and growled, daring him to try something.
Peter almost passed out.
"I told you it wasn't a horse," croaked Harry, catching Lyra's adoring gaze for a split second, and the stag burned brighter when she let slip the faintest of giggles.
WE ARE HERE…
LET US HAVE HIM…
IT IS TIME TO FEAST…
Hundreds — no, thousands of Dementors bled out from the trees encircling the lake, the hems of their tattered cloaks creeping out of the darkness as though they were one and the same. Harry edged closer to Lyra, nervous at the huge turnout, but she couldn't turn to comfort him yet. She refused to look away from Peter's petrified eyes. He was frozen solid and pure white like the lake around him. His time was up.
But then Harry lurched toward something behind them and she lost control.
"Sirius!"
Her father was on the brink of death, he emerged from the trees and collapsed on the pebbles, unable to defend himself from the torturous rattle of the darkest creatures known to man. He suspected they were here because of him and he pleaded with them in feverish whispers to leave the children alone. Harry refused to leave his side and attempted to close the deep gashes along his torso with the very basic healing spells he'd heard Hermione natter about once.
"He's really hurt, I can't… I can't help him!" He shouted and she winced, fighting against her innate desire to run to them. Peter was waiting for her concentration to slip, he began faking his whimpers the second Harry left.
GIVE HIM TO US…
HUNGRY, SO HUNGRY…
Lyra lured the cloaked creatures away from Harry and her father while the glowing stag protected them, his antlers grazing them every now and then to assure them he was still present.
Darkness closed in on the lake, thousands of parasites came in their hundreds to feast on the flesh of their master's newest enemy. The tears pouring down Peter's face were delectable, she breathed in their saltiness and beckoned the Dementors to come even closer. They formed a circle around the pair, it was just her and Peter now and she blinked down at him, silver eyes as dark as her soul.
"LYRA!"
"STOP! I'M BEGGING YOU! I'LL DO ANYTHING!"
But Lyra never found out how delicious Peter's final moments tasted against her tongue. Exponential heat exploded from the side of her face as though someone had punched her with a fist full of flames. Deafened and confused, she lost consciousness the second she flew across the night sky and sprawled across the shores dipped in the darkest shadows.
Lyra's eyes snapped open as her heart jumped back to life.
Her head felt as though it had been split in two, was she missing part of her skull? Agony was a kind word to describe the pain pulsing through her numb body. She felt as though her nerves and veins had been peeled from her, like a gutted fish she lay limp and lifeless on the butchers chopping block waiting for the next stage of her torture.
She blinked and tried to rub the dirt from her eyes, hoping to make sense of the dimly lit blur around her — her stomach vanished and she groaned. She couldn't move her arms. The rattling of her manacles echoed throughout the cavernous room she was in, her wrists were shackled to the bed she was lying in. She couldn't breathe.
Don't panic. Lighthouse.
That's not a good sign though?!
Shit, what if someone saw—?
Lyra shut the voices up before they triggered a panic attack.
"What's going on?" She tried to speak coherently but her sandpaper tongue stumbled over most of her words. The metal handcuffs weren't blunt and she gasped at the pink sore skin underneath them as she tried to slip free. "Son of a bitch!"
"How are you feeling?"
Lyra calmed when she heard Hermione's broken voice, she managed to sit up and squinted through the gentle darkness of the infirmary. Of course, why did she expect to wake up anywhere else? Memories of last year flirted with the idea of showing their faces but Lyra slammed the door shut and turned them away. This was different, she didn't do anything bad this time.
You literally called for the Dementors!
"I can't feel half of my face and I'm handcuffed to the bed, so yeah I feel just peachy," she answered and turned to flash a sarcastic smile at Hermione. But she dropped it in a heartbeat.
Her best friend was lying in the bed to her left, looking just as dishevelled and half-asleep as she felt. Her blouse was ripped, she smelled quite strongly of wood chips, and her bloody cardigan lay at the foot of her bed.
Lyra shot up straight, suddenly alert. Her cardigan was soaked in blood.
"What the fuck happened?" Lyra growled but Hermione covered her blank face and turned away, her shoulders bobbing as though she were trying to eat her own tears.
"I-It's b-bad," she hiccuped, crying into her knitted blankets, "it's really, really bad, Lyra, I didn't know what t-to do!"
Hermione broke down and Lyra fought harder against her restraints, desperate to jump up and console her. Her reaction was scaring her and she frantically looked around for the rest of their gang for further explanations. The last thing she remembered was the Dementors enclosing in the lake shores around her and Peter, and the effervescent fear in the traitor's eyes as she embraced her darkness.
I knew I should have gone back to the shack to help them! I should have just let Peter go! Idiot!
More dread gushed into her system along with adrenaline. She barely felt her bruises anymore.
"H-Harry's still asleep," Hermione wheezed as she emerged, pointing at the sleeping boy in the bed opposite them. He looked just as battle-scarred and fatigued, but he was in one piece. Lyra weakened her struggle and sniffled, sending silent prayers into the universe.
But that relief withered away the moment she realised they were the only ones in the hospital's main wing. The weak oil lamps took pity and flickered, further showing Lyra that every other cot was neatly made and completely empty.
Her gut wretched.
No.
"Where's Ron?"
Lyra watched in despair as Hermione shakily raised an arm and pointed at the closed private ward doors. Where the critically- damaged patients were emitted, where she spent a couple of the darkest weeks she'd ever experienced. She fought the crawling of her skin and pressed her lips together, speechless.
She didn't want to know. If she didn't know then it wasn't true.
The girls jolted at the sudden muffled cry that came from behind the private ward doors, solidifying that this was all very real. They fucked up big time.
"What…?" Lyra swallowed the lump in her throat and turned back to Hermione, convincing her best friend to breathe, "Hermione, look at me — deep breaths, tell me what happened."
Scraping her frizzy hair out of her puffy eyes, Hermione steadied her hiccups and followed her instructions. She took an extensive deep breath and licked her busted lip, her bleak brown eye contact twisting like daggers into Lyra's heart. Hermione was beyond devastated and she couldn't stop the flow of tears as she finally said it out loud.
"Remus bit Ron… And Snape, he… he did what he could but there's n-no cure… Oh Lyra," she broke down and wept for their best friend as though she was experiencing Ron's pain too, "he's going through his first transformation. Ron's a werewolf and there's nothing I can do to help him…"