"𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋," Ron said, clutching his rat.
"Ridiculous!" said Hermione faintly.
"Peter Pettigrew's dead!" said Harry. "He killed him twelve years ago!"
He pointed at Black, whose face twitched convulsively.
"I meant to," he growled, his yellow teeth bared, "but little Peter got the better of me... not this time, though!"
And Crookshanks was thrown to the floor as Black lunged at Scabbers; Ron yelled with pain as Black's weight fell on his broken leg
"Jesus!" Raya exclaimed, putting forth her wand and levitating Sirius Black with a simple non-verbal spell. Ron crawled off the bed, clutching Scabbers as Black wriggled uselessly in the air.
"Let — me — at — him!" Sirius' face contorted as he reached for the rat, stuck in the air.
"I can do this for as long as it takes you to calm down," Raya grinned, sounding bored. "You can't just attack Ron's rat—"
"—not a rat—"
"—Ron's rat that's not really a rat," Raya amended, "without explaining everything. They deserve to know the truth, and you deserve to have your name cleared. Especially in front of Harry."
At the mention of his godson's name, Sirius stopped writhing. He froze, still suspended in the air, before flopping miserably.
"Make it quick," he said. "I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for."
"Well don't say that in front of people," Raya rolled her eyes.
"Let me down," Sirius said, still floating in the air.
"Fine," Raya pursed her lips, letting him fall to the bed. She lifted her wand in warning as he tried to make a move towards Ron. Sulking, he fell back onto the bed.
"You're nutters, all of you," said Ron shakily, looking round at Harry and Hermione for support. "I've had enough of this. I'm off."
He tried to heave himself up on his good leg, but Lupin raised his wand again, pointing it at Scabbers.
"You're going to hear me out, Ron," he said quietly. "Just keep a tight hold on Peter while you listen."
"HE'S NOT PETER, HE'S SCABBERS!" Ron yelled, trying to fore the rat back into his front pocket, but Scabbers was fighting to hard; Ron swayed and overbalanced, and Harry caught him and pushed him back down to the bed.
Then, ignoring Black, Harry turned to Lupin.
"There were witnesses who saw Pettigrew die," he said. "A whole street full of them..."
"They didn't see what they thought they saw!" said Black savagely, still watching Scabbers struggling in Ron's hands.
Raya kept her wand trained on him just in case.
"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," said Lupin, nodding. "I believed it myself — until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's map never lies... Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."
Harry and Ron met eyes, and Raya realized they both thought they were crazy.
Raya realized the story wouldn't make much sense to her either, not if it weren't for the voices and the fact that she was good at puzzles.
"You're a werewolf," she turned to Lupin suddenly.
He smiled thinly, "I believe we've established that, yes."
"And you went to Hogwarts," Raya continued thinking aloud. "With James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. You — they must've known. And if Sirius and Peter are Animagi, so was..."
"James," Lupin nodded. "He was one too."
"They became Animagi to help you out," Raya realized. "They — you were alone every full moon. But no one could have known because you have to be registered. And the three of them weren't registered. They would've put a search out for Sirius' Animagus form — the dog."
"That's correct," Lupin smiled, and Raya almost expected him to say five points for Ravenclaw.
"The three of them became unregistered Animagi for you," Raya said in no more than a whisper. "Sirius was a dog. And Peter was a rat."
"Hurry up with the story," Sirius growled, still focused on Scabbers.
"All right... but you'll need to help me, Sirius. I only know how it began..." Lupin broke off. There had been a loud creak behind him. The bedroom door had opened of its own accord. All six of them stared at it. Then Lupin strode toward it and looked out into the landing.
"No one there..."
"This place is haunted!" said Ron.
Raya's instincts were on high alert. Something was wrong.
"It's not," said Lupin, still looking at the door in a puzzled way. "The Shrieking Shack was never haunted.... The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me." He pushed his graying hair out of his eyes, thought for a moment then said, "That's where all of this starts — with my becoming a werewolf."
"I was a very small boy when I received the bite," Lupin said. "My parents tried everything, but in those days there was no cure. The potion that Professor Snape has been making for me is a very recent discovery. It makes me safe, you see. As long as I take it in the week, preceding the full moon, I keep my mind when I transform.... I'm able to curl up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane again. Before the Wolfsbane Potion was discovered, however, I became a fully fledged monster once a month. It seemed impossible that I would be able to come to Hogwarts. Other parents weren't likely to want their children exposed to me."
Raya waited, wanting to hear the whole story.
"But then Dumbledore became Headmaster, and he was sympathetic. He said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn't come to school...." Lupin sighed, and looked directly at Harry. "I told you, months ago, that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. The truth is that it was planted because I came to Hogwarts. This house—" Lupin looked miserably around the room, "—the tunnel that leads to it — they were built for my use. Once a month, I was smuggled out of the castle, into this place, to transform. The tree was placed at the tunnel mouth to stop anyone coming across me while I was dangerous."
Raya ignored Scabbers' squealing, half tempted to slap a Silencing Charm on him.
"My transformations in those days were — were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf. I was separated from humans to bite, so bit and scratched myself instead. The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought they were hearing particularly violent spirits. Dumbledore encouraged the rumor.... Even now, when the house has been silent for years, the villagers don't dare approach it...."
"But apart from my transformations," he continued, "I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black... Peter Pettigrew... and, of course, your father, Harry —James Potter. Now, my three friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories. I told them my mother was ill, and that I had to go home to see her... I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course, they, like you, Hermione, worked out the truth...."
"They stuck by you," Raya muttered.
"They stuck by me," Lupin agreed. "They didn't desert me. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi."
"My dad too?" said Harry, astounded.
"Yes, indeed," said Lupin. "It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school, and lucky they were, because the Animagus transformation can go horribly wrong — one reason the Ministry keeps a close watch on those attempting to do it. Peter needed all the help he could get from James and Sirius. Finally, in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will."
"But how did that help you?" said Hermione, sounding puzzled.
"They couldn't keep me company as humans, so they kept me company as animals," said Lupin.
"Werewolves are only a danger to people," Raya said.
"That's right," Lupin agreed. "They sneaked out of the castle every month under James's Invisibility Cloak. They transformed... Peter, as the smallest, could slip beneath the Willow's attacking branches and touch the knot that freezes it. They would then slip down the tunnel and join me. Under their influence, I became less dangerous. My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them."
"Hurry up, Remus," snarled Black, who was still watching Scabbers with a horrible sort of hunger on his face.
"I'm getting there, Sirius, I'm getting there... well, highly exciting possibilities were open to us now that we could all transform. Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night. Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check. I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did.... And that's how we came to write the Marauder's Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."
Raya wanted to yell at him to stop speaking. Something in her made it feel like he was giving too much away to the wrong people
"What sort of animal—" Harry began, but Hermione cut him off.
"That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you'd given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?"
"A thought that still haunts me," said Lupin heavily. "And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless — carried away with our own cleverness. I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore's trust, of course... he had admitted me to Hogwarts when no other headmaster would have done so, and he had no idea I was breaking the rules he had set down for my own and others' safety. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally. But I always managed to forget my guilty feelings every time we sat down to plan our next month's adventure. And I haven't changed..."
Lupin's face had hardened, and there was self-disgust in his voice. "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. It would have meant admitting that I'd betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I'd led others along with me... and Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it... so, in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."
"Snape?" said Black harshly, taking his eyes off Scabbers; for the first time in minutes and looking up at Lupin. "What's Snape got to do with it?"
"He's here, Sirius," said Lupin heavily. "He's teaching here as well."
He looked up at the four students, "Professor Snape was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons... you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me—"
Black made a derisive noise.
"It served him right," he sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to... hoping he could get us expelled...."
"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Lupin told Harry, Ron, Raya and Hermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field... anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be — er — amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it — if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf — but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life... Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was...."
"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Raya 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.
"Holy fuck!" Raya muttered, pointing her wand at Snape.
"I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow," said Snape, throwing the cloak aside, careful to keep this wand pointing directly at Lupin's chest. "Very useful, Potter, I thank you...."
Snape was slightly breathless, but his face was full of suppressed triumph. "You're wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here?" he said, his eyes glittering. "I've just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight, so I took a gobletful along. And very lucky I did... lucky for me, I mean. Lying on your desk was a certain map. One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."
"Severus—" Lupin began, but Snape overrode him.
"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin, and here's the proof. Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout—"
"Professor Snape, you don't the whole story," Raya stepped forward. "Sirius isn't the threat. It's—"
"Two more for Azkaban tonight," said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically as he ignored Raya. "I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this.... He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin... a tame werewolf—"
"You fool," said Lupin softly. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?"
BANG!
Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape's wand and twisted themselves around Lupin's mouth, wrists, and ankles; he overbalanced and fell to the floor, unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black's eyes.
"Give me a reason," he whispered. "Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will."
Black stopped dead. It would have been impossible to say which face showed more hatred.
"Professor Snape," Hermione stepped forward, "it — it wouldn't hurt to hear what they've got to say, w — would it?"
"Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school," Snape spat. "You, Potter, Newbrooke, and Weasley are out-of-bounds, in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue."
"But if — if there was a mistake—"
"KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!" Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. "DON'T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
A few sparks shot out of the end of his wand, which was still pointed at Black's face. Hermione fell silent.
"Vengeance is very sweet," Snape breathed at Black. "How I hoped I would be the one to catch you...."
"You're making a mistake," Raya stepped forward. She'd turned her wand back into a charm, knowing Snape could beat her using magic easily.
Her bright grey eyes began to glow a faint gold as she forced Snape to calm down. This was an incredibly taxing power gifted to all of Apollo's children, and Raya tried not to use it often.
Snape's grip on wand loosened momentarily.
"The joke's on you again, Severus," Black snarled. "As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle—" he jerked his head at Ron, "—I'll come quietly...."
Raya swayed as Snape broke out of her Serenity Inducement. She was breathing heavily as she forced herself to calm down. The fact that she hadn't had nectar and ambrosia since Camp didn't help.
"Up to the castle?" said Snape silkily. "I don't think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They'll be very pleased to see you, Black... pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay... I—"
What little color there was in Blacks face left it.
"You — you've got to hear me out," he croaked. "The rat — look at the rat—"
But there was a mad glint in Snape's eyes that Raya had never seen before. He seemed beyond reason.
"Come on, all of you," he said. He clicked his fingers, and the ends of the cords that bound Lupin flew to his hands. "I'll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a kiss for him too—"
Raya turned to see Harry blocking the door.
"Get out of the way, Potter, you're in enough trouble already," snarled Snape. "If I hadn't been here to save your skin —"
"Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year," Harry said. "I've been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn't he just finish me off then?"
"Don't ask me to fathom the way a werewolf's mind works," hissed Snape."Get out of the way, Potter."
"YOU'RE PATHETIC!" Harry yelled. "JUST BECAUSE THEY MADE A FOOL OF YOU AT SCHOOL YOU WON'T EVEN LISTEN—"
"SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!" Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. "Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would have been well served if he'd killed you! You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black — now get out of the way, or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!"
Raya raised her wand with what little energy she had left.
"Expelliarmus!" she yelled — except that her voice wasn't the only voice that shouted. There was a blast that made the door rattle on its hinges; Snape was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, then slid down it to the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from under his hair. He had been knocked out.
Raya looked at Harry, Ron and Hermione. All four of them managed to blast the spell at him at the same time.
"You shouldn't have done that," said Black, looking between them. "You should have left him to me...."
"And watch him hand you off to the dementors," Raya muttered, taking a step forward. She managed two whole steps before the world swayed and she stumbled to the ground.
"Raya, shit!" Harry abandoned trying to untie Lupin, rushing over to her again.
"We attacked a teacher... We attacked a teacher..." Hermione repeated, somewhere in the background. "Oh, we're going to be in so much trouble—"
"Hey, hey, you good?" he asked.
Raya blinked. Harry had somehow helped her up, his arm under hers, supporting her.
"Fine," she muttered. "Haven't had any ambrosia in a while. Gotta practice that power. Or not, since it's so fucking draining."
"What?"
"Thank you, Harry," Lupin said, getting up as Sirius untied him.
"I'm still not saying I believe you," Harry told Lupin.
"Then it's time we offered you some proof," said Lupin. "You, Ron — give me Peter, please. Now."
Ron clutched Scabbers closer to his chest.
"Come off it," he said weakly. "Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers? I mean..." He looked up at Harry, Raya and Hermione for support, "Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat — there are millions of rats — how's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"
"You know, Sirius, that's a fair question," said Lupin, turning to Black and frowning slightly. "How did you find out where he was?"
Black— who had been staring at a partially conscious Raya — put one of his claw like hands inside his robes and took out a crumpled piece of paper, which he smoothed flat and held out to show the others.
It was the photograph of Ron and his family that had appeared in the Daily Prophet the previous summer, and there, on Ron's shoulder, was Scabbers.
"How did you get this?" Lupin asked Black, thunderstruck.
"Fudge," said Black. "When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me his paper. And there was Peter, on the front page on this boy's shoulder... I knew him at once... how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts... to where Harry was..."
"My God," said Lupin softly, staring from Scabbers to the picture in the paper and back again. "His front paw..."
"What about it?" said Ron defiantly.
"He's got a toe missing," said Black.
Raya gasped lightly, the story finally making complete sense.
REY WRITES!
thanks for reading!
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