AN: And here's the next one. Finally, starting to see that actions have consequences. Anyway, enjoy.

Chapter 6: The Rat of Gryffindor

Narcissa Malfoy frowned as she looked at her nephew.

She hated seeing him like this. Like he was dead, but it had been necessary for many reasons.

The first and foremost being his health. Several of his organs needed to be regrown. And they had to wait until he was stable enough to take the potion.

Drought of Living Death. It also made for the perfect opportunity for Harry Potter to "die" and transfer him to her clinic with no one being the wiser.

She shuddered. Even though she knew the boy wasn't dead, just seeing him this way was almost too much.

"Cissy,"

She turned to see Andromeda come through the floo.

"His numbers are starting to settle." She said, "Hopefully, I can try to give him the regrowth potions in a day or so."

Andromeda nodded. "I finished my official report for St. Mungo's. I'm sure Dumbledore will be sniffing around soon enough."

"He has no right." She said sure her hair was sticking up. She hadn't even looked in the mirror since arriving here a couple of nights ago. She knew she must look like a fright even with the shorter hair, but there had been initial complications when they started giving him the organ regrowth potions. Whatever Lily Potter had stuffed down his throat to turn him into Harry Potter had reacted poorly with some of them and as a result she had given him a bezoar stone before giving him a flushing solution in an attempt to fix whatever she had done.

If that didn't work, they'd likely need to look into doing some sort of ritual. A simple cleansing combined with a strengthening one would likely suffice The solstice was coming up. It would make an ideal time…Potter probably knew nothing about how powerful family blood rituals could be. She was a mudblood after all, even if she was a fucking know-it-all.

She vaguely recalled Potter working at St. Mungo's roughly around the same time she was there. She thought she specialized in mind healing, which made sense given how she and Severus 's own skill in the mind arts. They had always been thick as thieves. She had…

Wait.

"Do you remember that he was a healer?" She suddenly found herself asking Andromeda.

"What?" Andromeda said and then looked at her. "I am still not getting used to this. There was no way it was never in his personality…yet."

Yet, Harry's father had worked at St. Mungo's with them. She could see it clear as day. In fact, she remembered being interested in blood disorders in part because of Sirius. A Sirius that was very different to them one she had thought she knew.

"I really could use some fire whisky." Narcissa said though knew the last thing could do right now was to drink.

"Why would we forget something like that?"

It had to deal with Potter. Or at least she thought it had to deal with Potter even though Andromeda thought she was crazy for blaming the woman.

She had to have done something, Narcissa thought.

"How is Bella doing?" She remembered asking Sirius after her sister's latest miscarriage.

Three.

Three that year alone.

Then there were all the others from years of previous attempts. She had seen their little garden. She knew what each rose bush represented.

She knew how broken Bella was. And it didn't help that Mother was Mother.

He looked at her, "Not great, Cissy. Your parents aren't exactly helpful."

She knew the feeling. Lucius and her had also been having their own issues. However, it had been with conceiving not failing to carry a child.

She bitterly laughed, "And neither are yours."

"I told Bella it didn't matter but our parents keep saying our marriage will be invalid without an heir and neither of us want that."

How ironic considering that neither of them had at first wanted the marriage.

"There are ways." She murmured.

"I'm am very well aware. But…I don't know if she'd want to try any of them. I keep asking her but…"

"What are you two talking about?"

Inwardly, Narcissa groaned. There was no way she was talking about her sister's or her own fertility issues with Lily Potter. What was she doing here anyway? This wasn't the mind damage unit. "I've got to get back to a patient."

But what if Potter had talked to him about?

"Bella had fertility issues." She found herself telling Andromeda.

"I remember some of the miscarriages." Andromeda said with a frown. "She visited me. Mother and Father were upset…"

"The marriage contract required an heir." Narcissa said. "Harry wasn't born until they would've been married for at least seven years. I remember talking to him and he was worried about our parents' enforcing the fertility clause."

"He was worried?" Andromeda said. "But he gave him to the Potters, didn't he?"

"That's what we suspected," Narcissa said. "I mean it makes the most sense. He was Potter's best friend. But…"

"But what?" Andromeda said.

"He seemed to care for her when he told me about their problems. It seemed like he wanted the child." Narcissa said, "I almost think he wouldn't have sold his child. Almost."

"I really don't even know what's real anymore." Andromeda said shaking her head as she looked at Harry. "I think his features are starting to change."

So, they had or what they could see of him. The boy was starting to look less and less like a miniature Potter and more like a Black. The changes were slight, but they were more apparent than they had been since they had began to accelerate the use of flushing potions. A day ago he looked just like James Potter.

"Let's hope the next time he opens his eyes they're grey and not mudblood green."

"Cissy, I really don't understand your disdain for that woman. She did die for him."

"She stole him." Narcissa stated. "She stole him and I am going to figure out how."

"I don't know what good it will do anyway at this point. She's dead and has been dead for years now."

"It's probably a good thing she's dead because if she wasn't I'd kill her now."

"Cissy…you're acting like her."

Andromeda thought she was irrational when it came to her disdain for Lily Potter and maybe she was, but she couldn't help but think that the woman had some involvement in all of this.

"You need to take a break," Andromeda said.

"She knew they were having issues," Narcissa said. "She overheard us that day we were talking about it at St. Mungo's."

"She was his friend, I'm sure she knew." Andromeda said.

"Bella couldn't stand her…" Narcissa said.

"I remember they got into more than once on the battlefield. Lily was a pretty formidable witch herself."

Narcissa just rolled her eyes. She knew the green eyed mudblood was somehow responsible for all of this, but how?

"Narcissa…" Andromeda voice brought her out of her thoughts, "He's crashing again!"

Amelia Bones frowned when she received a formal request from a prisoner in who had requested a trial after ten years of sitting in a holding Azkaban. That was just what she needed today another fucking crisis.

It was bad enough she was still dealing with fallout from the troll incident at Hogwarts still, and whatever the hell Dumbledore had going on at that school. There had been two deaths as a result of that incident and one of them was the bloody Boy Who Lived.

She frowned as she brushed back a strand of her graying red hair. She was in half a mind to pull her niece out of that school, as she knew many other parents in the ministry were. Hell, she knew Lucius had even talked about pulling his son out and her was a bloody school governor.

Lucius. The prisoner had requested counsel. She might as well assign the bastard to said case. She at least owed whoever it was who had been shackled there for at least a decade a decent attorney. And Lucius was that if nothing else. It was going to be such a fucking mess. Depending on what the crime and charges were, she might even try to convince Cornelius to drop them altogether.

A fucking decade in Azkaban without a trial.

She shook her head.

"You look peeved, Amelia."

Speak of the fucking devil.

Amelia didn't know how the bastard was able to appear out of nowhere so silently and for that matter not look like a fucking wreck when he had been dealing with this shit for the past few months too.

"You've seen the fucking papers, Lucius."

"Language…" The blonde said taking a seat across from her.

She rolled her eyes. She knew Lucius had just as big if not more of a potty mouth than her.

"I'm assuming Cornelius had a stroke after finding out that Potter didn't make it. I know Augusta almost did."

"I think we're all about to have a fucking stroke here, Lucius. I don't get how you're so calm."

"Calming droughts and fire whiskey." He said, "You should really try it."

She glared at him. She was in no mood for cheekiness if you could call it that.

"Occlumency also helps as well as being a Slytherin. We're more apt to hide our emotions."

About fifty percent of her conversations with Lucius involved how Slytherin House was the best house in some form of fashion. She'd disagree any day of the week. Hufflepuff for the fucking win!

"It's unnatural not to be upset at this point." She stated in response to his so-called tips. Fucking robot.

Not that Lucius would know what a robot was. He could be such a fucking bigot when it came to muggles.

He shrugged, "You asked."

"Cornelius is now up in arms. He's talking about starting a special committee with Delores in charge of all people. Fucking Delores."

"Delores? Really?"

He understood that Umbridge was Cornelius's bulldog, but the woman was an idiot and couldn't investigate anything.

"I know, she's a fucking idiot. But I will say she's tenacious enough to make Albus's life a living hell, which he sort of deserves right about now."

"It still won't solve that no one in the school knows what's going on."

"It's ridiculous we haven't figured out anything in almost two months. And now with Potter dead…"

"That's the real reason why the investigation is escalating, isn't it?" Lucius asked.

"Of course it fucking is. It's a PR nightmare. Rita has been all over the ministry's ass since St. Mungo's released that report on Potter's cause of death and the abuse he suffered."

"How surprising, since she usually kisses their ass." Lucius smarted off. "I saw that Fudge is trying to have the situation by demanding the muggles Potter was with be arrested."

"Ugh, yes, he is. You don't know how much red tape we are going to be cutting to arrest muggles."

"Well, they abused him."

"Oh, I agree they need to be arrested and thrown over the fucking veil as far as I'm concerned, but they made life about a hundred percent harder. Like it wasn't already with Troll Gate … I'm taking it the board hasn't made any new finding since we last talked ."

"No," Lucius said. "We have made the same conclusions as you have. We can't prove anything, but we have suspicions about the third-floor corridor and that still doesn't lead us to why the troll was in the school in the first place."

Amelia shook her head, "Cornelius isn't fucking going to like that. I'm not sure if I can't talk him out of Delores getting involved. Especially since we have another fucking crisis erupt this morning."

"Oh?"

Just then Albus Fucking Dumbledore's head appeared in the floo. "Ameila?"

"Oh what the fuck is going on now?"

Albus winced at her use of language. Probably remember all those fucking times he took points off for cursing in Transfiguration class. It hadn't exactly been her favorite subject either. She still didn't get how changing a fucking matchstick into a needle accomplished anything.

"It's difficult to explain over the floo," Albus said. "But I'll need you to come with a couple of aurors. Lucius, your presence is not needed at this time."

He then disappeared.

Lucius shook his head now he was the one to curse.

Amelia smirked. "Welcome to my fucking life."

When she arrived in the floo the first thing she saw was fucking Peter Pettigrew.

She hadn't seen the son of a bitch in over ten years but it was quite obvious who the rat like man in Albus's office was.

The years had not been kind to him. He looked more rodent like than he did in the past. His skin seemed sallow, his mouse colored hair looked like it had been thinning, and his beady little eyes were even more folded in fat much like the rest of him.

She never could understand why Potter had been friends with him. Black and Lupin she understood, both of them were competent, but Pettigrew…that guy was a disgusting piece of shit that was a borderline squib.

"He's supposed to fucking dead." She said to Albus while the auror she brought with her Trainee Tonks's eyes went wide.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Tonks, pull it together."

"That's…that's…"

"Peter Pettigrew, I know. What's fucking going on Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore sighed heavily. "It's a long and complicated story, Ameilia."

"Try me."

"There was an incident in the Gryffindor common room earlier that's still under investigation."

"One that resulted in fucking Peter Pettigrew being tied up in your office." She said before turning to Pettigrew, "How are you fucking alive?"

"He's stunned, boss." Tonks said stating the obvious.

"I can see that." She said rolling her eyes as she looked at Dumbledore, "Are those ropes secured?"

"Seriously, Amelia? You question my skills."

"I have to ask since somehow a fucking troll got in here."

He ignored her little remark. "Severus brought me some truth serum earlier."

"Well, that's fucking handy dandy, but I don't trust that Death Eater to make my truth serum. Tonks and I have some as well. Ministry standard issued."

She then muttered the counter curse before opening the Pettigrew's mouth and placed three drops of the Potion until his mouth. "What's your fucking name…"

Albus Dumbledore sat there is horror as he heard Peter Pettigrew revealed the truth of what really happened the night Lily and James Potter died. That he was their secret keeper. He never did he imagine that they had switched secret keepers at the last minute.

Then again, James and Lily always tended to do things on their own. Despite what some people may have thought, he wasn't exactly a puppet master, especially when it came to the two of them.

Then he heard about how Peter had faked his own death and framed Sirius Black.

Hearing that Sirius Black had spent ten years in Azkaban as an innocent man was yet another heart wrenching moment for him. There had been many in the hours since his Harry's passing had been announced.

Finding out Pettigrew had been alive had not exactly been a pleasant surprise by any means.

He frowned as he thought about what had happened in Gryffindor tower earlier. The monitoring charms that Minerva had set up in the common room had gone off when he was in mid mead stupor. He was alarmed when he saw that a disarming curse, multiple cutting curses, and the worst a transfiguration curse to turn a human into a rat had all apparently been fired in the common room.

Of course, the first thing he had tried to do was locate Ms. Granger to return her to human form. Since no one was talking, he had summoned all the rats in the tower. Which was just one mercifully enough. He didn't really give much a look to it only muttering a quick Finite only to find out that the rat he had been holding was a man who had been dead for over ten years.

It had made an already awful situation even worse.

How had he condemned Sirius to ten years in prison? The man would never get to see his godson again.

Amelia muttered an expletive breaking his thoughts.

He always hated that habit of hers, he was just relieved that Susan didn't seem to curse near as much or at least he hadn't been told about it if she did. Though in this case, the cussing was justified.

"I'm taking it you realize the same thing I did," he said.

"It makes the fucking mess we came aware of this morning even worse," Amelia said glaring at Pettigrew who had been stunned again.

"Oh?"

"Black didn't have a trial." Amelia said with disdain. "We finally became aware of it this morning. He sat there for ten years. A fucking habeas corpus disaster."

"No trial?"

"Apparently, not. I don't know how one never questioned that he was in the holding cells rather than in a cell next to his bat shit insane cousin, but here we are."

"Cornelius wasn't minister then." Albus hinted.

"Oh, I'm aware he wasn't. I have to get him processed, Dumbledore. But I'm not done talking to you about how you found him."

"It's school business, Amelia." He really did not want to get her department involved in all of this, even though he knew ultimately they probably would be.

Hopefully, they could find Ms. Granger.

She must be so scared. He had collected enough evidence to have a good idea about what happened and felt bad about having his office closed.

How was he suppose to know though that his former house would take advantage of Minerva being gone to take their vengeance out on the poor girl?

He frowned thinking about the meeting he would be having with Percy Weasley and Emmett Waller later.

He was sure Molly would jump all over him, but the girl had been terrorized. Anything could happen to her as a rat. She might not even recognize herself. Transfiguring someone into an animal wasn't the same thing as an animagus. It could have very dangerous complications. You lost your sense of self very easily with that sort of transfiguration which was one of many reasons they needed to find her sooner than later if she hadn't already been killed.

He had to hope that she was alive somewhere that he did not fail again. That he did not kill another innocent. There was too much blood on his hands from this year alone.

Speaking of innocents, "How long will it take to get him out?"

Him meaning Sirius.

"I imagine it will be sooner rather than later between Cornelius wanting to right a wrong with a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and then there's the fact I appointed a fucking barracuda of an attorney for him."

"Who…"

"That's none of your fucking business. "And by the way, we are not fucking done here. I'll be back. I want to know what happened for this fucking shit bag be discovered.

He rolled his eyes. Though he was halfway tempted to turn both the culprits over already even if they did find Ms. Granger.

Fred and George Weasley weren't exactly the remorseful kind.

However, they knew when to fold.

And Percy should've folded after McGonagall had taken his badge. Most of the house had backed off on the Rat of Gryffindor. They had made their message known she knew she was unwelcomed and they knew understood.

They had thought it had been a bit ballsy changing the password today after Harry died, but they didn't blame him for that. No one got hurt. However, what he and Waller and a couple of the other prefects had done last night had maybe taken it a little too far.

They hadn't been there when that happened. However, they had heard from a couple of fourth years what occurred.

Apparently, the Rat of Gryffindor actually wasn't just a know-it-all she had been smart enough to be able to cast a disillusionment charm as a firstie.

They'd have been impressed if it hadn't been the rat.

Honestly though, the twins did wonder about Ronnikins death. Their brother wasn't exactly the white knight type, and it seemed weird to think that he would've stuck his neck out for the rat.

Ron had been deathly scared of spiders, he would've wet himself over the troll, but maybe he had been trying to impress Harry.

Poor kid.

Everyone in the house had been devastated when they heard the news. Professor McGonagall had to leave—there was a rumor that had been close to Harry's father. There was even a rumor that the bat in the Slytherin dungeon had locked himself up last night too, though that one was probably just a rumor. And if he had locked himself in his dungeon it was probably to have a party.

The school just felt off.

Even they didn't feel like doing much yesterday. They hadn't really paid that much attention that the rat had been locked out. They just hung out in the dorm room for most of the day and then went to dinner sort of late.

It was when they came back that they saw Professor Dumbledore there with a stern look on his face throwing all sorts of spells around the common room before summoning Scabbers.

Scabbers.

They had almost all forgotten about the rat. Both of the twins felt a little bad about it since the guy had been Ronnikin's pet after all. But it was Scabbers.

They let the pinhead have him, that should've said everything you needed to know about what a lame pet he was. But there was nothing lame about Professor Dumbledore waving his wand and their pet turning into a creepy looking man.

They almost felt bad for thinking that Granger looked like a rat after seeing this guy.

And to think that man had been in their house and in Percy and Ron's bedrooms…ewww!

Needless to say, no one got any sleep that night. Professor Dumbledore had disappeared and everyone was talking about the man and the resident rat of the dormitories.

That's when they heard about what happened to the rat.

Apparently, Dumbledore had thought Scabbers had been her because the head boy (Percy's BFF) had turned her into a rat. And rumors were that their pinhead brother had thrown a couple of cutting curses her way once the girl had been transformed.

That was a little…harsh.

They hadn't wanted the rat to get hurt and told Percy as much.

"You cursed her teeth." Was their brother's response.

"She could get those shrunk." They said, "Also, if she played it smart it would help her appearance."

"Nothing could help her appearance." Percy snarled. "Besides, you gave that tonic to Lavender."

"Hair grows back." They said, "And we told Lavender to dilute it. It's not our fault she didn't. But a cutting curse? Seriously, Perce, that's some dark Slytherin shit."

He sighed, "It barely nicked her tail."

"So she is a rat then?"

Neither he nor Waller had said as much thus far.

Percy shook his head, "Not one word"

But everyone knew.

They had to find her.

It was the only way Percy might get off without getting expelled or thrown in Azkaban. They weren't sure if there were laws about turning people into animals. They remembered reading that one of their ancestors had gotten thrown into the stocks a long time ago for changing an Octavius Malfoy into a ferret but that was just family lore.

Imagine Malfoy as a ferret. Now that would have been a hilarious sight.

Neither of them were that keen on reading the law books either, but based on Dumbledore's face they knew it was bad. And they knew how much Percy was their mum's golden child. She could not handle another blow.

Gin Gin had been writing them that Mum had gone between crying and screaming all day since Ron's funeral. They weren't surprised. They saw her at the funeral. She usually never lost it like that. Oh, she lost it but the way she went off on the rat was not like her.

But even they knew Mum would disapprove of what Percy had done.

Which was why they were currently walking towards the kitchen with the map in one hand and a cage in the other.

"Hopefully, she stays here." George said with a sigh. The dot labeled Hermione Granger had been darting over the lower levels of the school all day. It seemed like she had been desperate to get out of the school, but couldn't quite figure out how to get outside.

That had at been sort of a relief. She could easily get picked up by a hawk or something else outside. And it was freezing out there anyway with all that snow.

Still though, it was dangerous enough in the castle with Ms. Norris or if one of the elves spotted her in here. They would view her as vermin—which she sort of was, but not that sort of vermin.

"Here, ratty, ratty, ratty…" George called causing Fred to scowl.

"That's not going to work. Must I remind you what happened near the dungeons an hour ago.

Fred sighed. They had almost caught her then and she had scurried off hearing their voices. She was truly scared and it was their fault.

"Then what do you suggest, brother mine? Both of us suck at the summoning since we're only third years."

Fred sighed, "I hate to say it, but we may have to hand Dumbledore the map in exchange for Dark Percy."

"Dark Percy."

"Well, he's not acting like a pinhead throwing curses at defenseless rats." His brother said, "That's quasi animal abuse."

"She's not an actual rat." George said.

"Hence, why I said quasi. Did you read anything about animal transfiguration?" He asked, "Your mind apparently gets lost pretty quickly. She really might as well be a rat."

"That just sounds messed up…wait, you read?"

"Uh, I was curious at what could happen to Percy last night and what that Scabbers was. Animaguses are different they keep their mind. Apparently, being transfigured is different. Probably why Dumbles is so upset."

"Or that she had been tormented half to death."

He sighed, "So then you really think giving him the map is our best option."

"It may be our own option because we're never catching the rat."

Chapter 7 Preview: Fallout from rat gate continues. Amelia meets with a certain prisoner and we get an update on Hermione's condition.