Disclaimer: Remus Lupin belongs to JK Rowling.

A/N: The previous two chapters have been substantially rewritten since they were first posted. In particular, I changed it so that Snape read the previous chapter instead of this one because the original reading order just wasn't working. You'll want to go back and reread those before continuing on, but I posted all three of them together to give you some actual new content. The final Shrieking Shack chapter will be next week.

Chapter 18: Slughorn

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

If the revelation that the dog was Sirius Black put the Great Hall in an uproar, the idea that Scabbers, of all pets, was an Animagus—an Animagus who was supposed to be dead—defied sanity. (Albeit it wasn't exactly coming from a reliable source.) But on the other hand, they had just seen that Sirius was also an Animagus, which no one had expected. Everyone had a big reaction to that. Harry looked around, and he blinked when he saw Luna Lovegood was frantically taking notes of her own. He remembered the Quibbler article about Sirius from the beginning of the year. That should be interesting. And as for Percy, still sitting up at the high table, he had suddenly turned an unhealthily pasty shade. "No…there's no way…" he gasped.

"Wait…if the rat was a wizard…" Goyle said slowly at the Slytherin Table. "Does that mean a wizard bit me? That's just weird."

That was surprisingly intelligent for Goyle, and Harry was forced to agree it was weird. He suddenly wondered how Wormtail felt about the other Death Eaters. Barty Crouch Jr had hated the ones who had lied their way out of Azkaban. But then again, Wormtail had done a lot of weird things to pretend to be a common rat.

"I'm still confused," said little Natalie McDonald. "What does Pettigrew being alive have to do with anything? Doesn't that just mean he escaped the explosion?"

Dean nodded along. "Yeah, it's like I said. Black admitted he did it."

Harry shook his head. "Sirius had…issues. He blamed himself, and with the dementors…but he wasn't the one who did it."

"They really weren't explaining it very well, then," Natalie griped. "It sounds like a bad soap opera."

"What's a soap opera?" Lavender asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes: "I'll explain later, Lavender."

"But yeah," Harry agreed. "I forgot how drawn out this conversation was. It felt like it took forever for them to get to answers that made sense."

"Plus, Sirius wasn't very interested in explaining," Hermione pointed out.

"And Harry wasn't keen on listening," Ron added. Looking to Harry he added, "I get why, but it's true."

It took some time for the teachers to get the students back under control so they could start reading again. By the time they had, Snape had already handed the book off to Professor Slughorn, and he looked thoroughly glad to be shot of it.

"Merlin's beard!" Slughorn mused as he flipped to the correct page. "This whole thing is becoming much more dramatic than I expected."

"Imagine being here when it happened, Horace," Snape grumbled.

"Well, I suspect we'll be finding out soon enough," he said. "Now, Chapter Eighteen: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs…"

Harry relaxed. The greatest danger with Snape was over, although he could still be a problem if he reacted to things as poorly as he had yesterday. Counting off the chapters again, Harry determined that Professor Flitwick would get the next chapter, with the big fight with Snape in the Shrieking Shack. That shouldn't be a problem. Professor Sprout would get the dementor attack. (There was no way to make that pleasant.) Sinistra would get the Time Turner. And Professor Vector would get the fight in the Hospital Wing and the end of the story. No big issues there.

Slughorn read the opening paragraphs of the chapter, where Harry and Ron were trying to refute the idea that Scabbers was Pettigrew. Meanwhile, Remus and Sirius were fighting over whether to tell Harry the whole thing or just get on with it: "'Sirius, NO!' Lupin yelled, launching himself forwards and dragging Black away from Ron again, 'WAIT! You can't do it just like that — they needtounderstand —we'vegottoexplain—'"

"They weren't explaining it to begin with," Natalie repeated.

Ron loudly insisted that Scabbers was really just Scabbers (which now that they knew the truth was starting to sound a little ridiculous, but hadn't then). Harry pointed out that there were witnesses to Pettigrew's death, but Remus wasn't deterred, insisting that the Marauder's Map must be correct.

"Which shows a great deal of overconfidence in their handiwork," Snape cut in.

"But it was right, wasn't it," Flitwick pointed out.

"I would say the point stands, Filius."

But in the story, Hermione had another argument against Sirius's and Remus's claim: "'…I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register, and there have only been seven Animagi this century and Pettigrew's name wasn't on the list—'"

Slughorn stopped as Snape interrupted again: "Miss Granger, I thought you were supposed to be the logical member of your little group. You trusted the Animagus Registry to be right about Pettigrew even though you had just found out that Black was an Animagus, and he wasn't on the list?"

Hermione turned bright red as everyone looked at her. A few people laughed. That had been a pretty silly slip on her part. And then, when the silence stretched, it became clear that Snape wanted an actual answer, and she spoke up, saying, "Well, Professor, Black was a criminal—or he was supposed to be, I mean. And Pettigrew was supposed to be law-abiding. I thought he would have registered if he could."

"Of course. Which only goes to show how little you knew about the Marauders," Snape replied acerbically.

Hermione crossed her arms. "I think I've learnt to watch out for Animagi, now," she grumbled to herself.

But Slughorn went back to reading.

"Lupin broke off. There had been a loud creak behind him. The bedroom door had opened of its own accord."

Harry, watching the High Table, was sure he saw Snape flinch at the same moment the pieces fell together in his own mind. He hadn't even caught it last night. He sat bolt upright. "Bloody hell! That was Snape!" he hissed.

"What?" said Hermione and Ron in confusion.

"The door opened on its own. Remus thought it was weird. We know there weren't any ghosts there. And then a few minutes later, Snape shows up? That bastard was listening in the whole time!"

"Blimey! Are you sure?" Ron asked.

"What else could it be?"

"It could be a coincidence," Hermione suggested. "The wind…"

Harry shook his head forcefully. "Remus knew it wasn't normal."

"The the building had been empty for years—"

"It was him, Hermione."

"Shush! I'm trying to listen!" Ginny snapped.

In the book, Remus told his story: how Dumbledore had allowed him to attend Hogwarts despite being a werewolf as a student. (A few people gasped at that. Everyone knew he had been a werewolf as a teacher, but his childhood wasn't as well-known.) The Shrieking Shack had been set up for him to ride out his transformations in (relative) safety. (A lot of people were disappointed when they learnt the Shrieking Shack wasn't really haunted.)

"The only sound apart from Lupin's voice was Scabbers's frightened squeaking."

Dean blinked in surprise. He turned to Ron and said, "Wait, was Scabbers still trying to get away from you that whole time?"

"Yeah?" Ron said.

"How did he not chew your fingers off or something?"

"Oi! He bit me pretty good!" Ron protested. "You didn't see my hands after. They were all bitten up. Madam Pomfrey spent just as long on them as my leg. Even gave me a potion against rabies even though I told her he wasn't really a rat."

"Yikes," Dean said, wincing.

"How did you even hold onto him that long without breaking his ribs or something?" Ginny asked.

"It wasn't easy, Ginny!"

"Rats are very flexible," Hermione pointed out. "It's probably harder to break their ribs than it looks."

The rest of the school, however, was horrified by Remus's story, even the parts Harry had left public. He'd had to leave most of the parts about the werewolf transformation for the bit with the Marauders to make sense, but it was brutal. Werewolf transformations were recorded in various places, including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but rarely from a firsthand account. And the more quick-witted among the students were even more horrified to remember that Remus had been suffering that pain as a young child, even before Hogwarts.

"'The Potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery. It keeps me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform—'"

"Pfft, and did the fool remember then that he hadn't taken it that night?" Snape interrupted.

"An unfortunate mistake on his part, Severus," Dumbledore cut in, "but he did take responsibility for his actions—actions done, I might add, under a great emotional shock. I have little doubt that he would have resigned his position in response to that error even if his status had not become known."

Harry was surprised by that, although now that he knew Remus better, maybe it wasn't surprising. That did feel like his style. And he was impressed with Dumbledore. The man hadn't even hinted about who had leaked Remus's secret.

Regardless, in the story, Remus recounted that his three friends, James, Sirius, and Peter, found out what he was, and, far from abandoning him, they became Animagi to help him, all of them achieving it in their fifth year.

"Harry's dad was an Animagus, too?" several people asked.

But before they could explore that, McGonagall sighed loudly and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I suppose I should have seen this coming," she said. "Students are not to attempt to become Animagi at Hogwarts, and they are especially not to attempt it without supervision under any circumstances. Any books that tell you how to do it are already in the Restricted Section of the Library, but in the event you find out by other means, do not do it! It is very dangerous should you not have someone on hand to fix mistakes. And I will add that the Marauders were already better off than most would be in that situation. James Potter was a transfiguration prodigy like few others I have taught, and I still would have said it was too dangerous for them had I known."

"Quite right, Minerva," Slughorn said before continuing with the reading. Sirius was getting impatient, while Remus's story grew more and more alarming as he spun his tale, especially when he admitted that with his new Animagi friends, he left the Shrieking Shack.

"Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack…Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check…Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."

Harry had left in as little detail as possible, even omitting the specific connection between the Marauders' "adventures" and them writing the Marauder's Map, but it wasn't hard to piece at least some of it together.

"They roamed the village with a werewolf?!"

That was Madam Bones, and the sentiment was echoed by many of the students. After all quite few of them lived in Hogsmeade, although none of the current students had been born during their "adventures."

"They did, Madam Bones," Snape said with a triumphant sneer.

"That was extremely dangerous and reckless."

"Well, it seems that no permanent harm was done, Madam Bones," Slughorn said, more cheerfully than was really warranted. "Certainly, there were no records of any bites when Mr. Lupin was a student."

"Sheer dumb luck," said Snape.

"It sounds like they had a system in place to keep him under control."

"I reiterate—"

"I think that will be enough," Dumbledore stopped them. "Remus has since confessed to his past indiscretions to me. For myself, I consider the matter closed. If there are more concerns, we can address them later, but for the moment, we should continue the reading."

Harry said a silent thanks to Dumbledore. It wouldn't surprise him if the old man had guessed what he had been up to and was trying to cover for him—or maybe he was trying to cover for Remus for his own reasons as a loyal Order member. Either way, it was a help.

"'All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn't do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly—'" There were a few whispers from the Gryffindor Table. Admitting to cowardice was one of the worst things a Gryffindor could do, for many people. "'—It would have meant admitting that I'd betrayed his trust while I was at school.'"

"You see, Albus?" Snape interrupted again. "Clearly, he wasn't trustworthy, by his own admission."

"Severus, I believe we have already had this conversation," Dumbledore said warningly. Snape grumbled, but said nothing.

When it was revealed that Snape had gone to school with the Marauders, the students were surprised. Many of them had thought Snape was older than that. Some suggested much older. (Although those with older siblings or parents the right age to know might know better.) On the flipside, it had gone over Harry's head at the time that Sirius hadn't even known that Snape was teaching at the school until Remus told him. He supposed Sirius hadn't had much opportunity to learn what was going on that year.

"'…you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me—'"

Harry watched Snape intently. Would Snape protest this part of the reading? He came off looking relatively good here, so maybe not. And he must know what was coming in the later chapters, if not exactly what the book would say. No, the next chapter was where the real trouble would start.

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Lupin told Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked , I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field—"

"Excuse me?!" Snape cut Slughorn off indignantly. "Quidditch? If the wolf thinks that—"

"Severus…" Dumbledore warned, and Snape shut up again.

"'So that's why Snape doesn't like you,' said Harry slowly, 'because he thought you were in on the joke?'

"'That's right,' sneered a cold voice from the wall behind Lupin.

"Severus Snape was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak, his wand pointing directly at Lupin."