In Ink and Inheritance (Book 1)

Chapter 26 - The Truth with Teeth

Harriet Potter's POV

The Shrieking Shack was colder than I expected.

Not in temperature - in silence. A kind of dead space, full of dust and memories that didn't belong to me but somehow knew my name.

We found Ron first.

He was sprawled against the far wall, pale and dazed, his wand a few feet away.

Then we saw the dog.

Or... what was left of it.

Fur twisted. Limbs stretching. And in a blur of motion and magic, the creature became a man.

Gaunt. Hollow-cheeked. Hair like ink-spilled straw.

Sirius Black.

Every part of me screamed to move - to fight, to run, to destroy.

But I didn't.

Because he didn't attack.

He didn't even reach for his wand.

He just... looked at me.

Like he knew me.

Like he'd been waiting a lifetime to see me standing here.

"Harriet," he said hoarsely. "You have your mother's eyes."

Ron groaned from the floor. Hermione backed against the wall, wand raised and trembling. "You're-You're supposed to be-"

"I'm not here to hurt her," Black said, eyes still locked on mine. "Not now. Not ever. I'm here for the rat."

My heart kicked hard against my ribs. "What?"

He pointed to Ron. "Scabbers. He's not a pet. He's a man."

"That's insane," Ron rasped. "He's my rat!"

"No," said a new voice behind us. Calm. Measured.

Professor Lupin.

He stepped into the room like he'd always known this moment would come.

"He's right," Lupin said. "The rat is Peter Pettigrew."

"No," I whispered. "Pettigrew is dead. He-he was killed by Black-"

"That's what you were told," Lupin said. "It's what the Ministry believed. But they were wrong."

Black turned to me. "I would never betray your parents, Harriet. Never. James was my brother."

My hands trembled around my wand. "Then who did?"

They both looked down at the shaking bundle of fur in Ron's arms.

Scabbers was trying to run.

"No," Ron muttered. "This is mad-this is crazy-"

Lupin raised his wand.

"Revelio."

The rat twisted, screamed, shifted-

And then, crouched where Scabbers had been, was a man.

Small. Beady-eyed. Greasy.

Peter Pettigrew.

Alive.

My knees nearly gave out.

Black surged forward - not to kill him, but to grab him, to force him to speak.

And Pettigrew did.

He confessed.

To everything.

To the betrayal. To the Potters' location. To the night my parents died. To the years spent hiding as a pet. To letting Sirius rot in Azkaban for a crime he committed.

By the end, I wasn't shaking.

I was burning.

This wasn't just about history anymore.

This was about truth.

And for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to carry a legacy of power, pain, and magic soaked in blood.

But I also knew something else:

I wouldn't let it define me.

Not this.

Not the contract.

Not even the name Potter.

I was going to decide what came next.