When I got into my dorm, I found a hoard of books on my floor except for one. I'm sure you can guess.
I began picking up each book, eying Hogwarts: 1971-1972 until they were all on my trunk.
"Did you see who did this?"
"No!" Mandy sobbed as the fear of someone breaking into our dorm flooded her.
I got onto my bed and noticed that the page the book was turned to was now all Gryffindor students with last names starting with P - the very page that the dog had attacked.
Who's important on here?
My eyes landed on a very familiar face with an even more familiar name. "James Potter," I whispered so Sue and Mandy couldn't hear. "I'll figure out who broke into our dorm, I promise."
I hadn't realized it, but I skimmed over a name that was far more important.
•••
The next Hogsmeade visit came around. "I can't go," I said as my friends gathered their coats and scarves.
"Why not?" Sue whined. "It better not be because of that break-in."
Mandy began picking at the scratches left by her cats back home and Morag took her hands. "Sue!"
"Sorry, it's just- Don't you think that you shouldn't let something like that keep you from doing things that are fun?"
"I find investigating things very fun," I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I do every morning.
I followed them to the courtyard and bid them goodbye before leaving for the library.
"Hey, Y/N!"
I heard two voice simultaneously call me and I knew of only one pair that could be so in sync.
"Hey George, Fred." I smiled at the two as they appeared before me. "I thought you were at Hogsmeade."
"Well, we've assigned ourselves a mission and you're a very vital piece of this step," Fred proclaimed.
"You need the Marauder's Map?"
"We nee- Wait, how'd you know?"
I laughed and reached into my bag to pull out the piece of parchment. "I don't really think I have anything else that's important to you. Here."
George chuckled. "Brilliant! We're planning on giving it to Harry so-"
"So he can go to Hogsmeade?"
"Right again!"
"Just tell him not to go down the one under the Whomping Willow."
I could've told them to tell him that he just needed to somehow press the knot at the bottom of the trunk, but Harry couldn't go down that way. That's where I was going.
"Hey Crookshanks," I greeted the small cat as it came to a trot beside me. "Nothing to do with Hermione at Hogsmeade?"
We went outside and he maneuvered through the Whomping Willow's branches and pressed on the knot at the base of the tree.
Once the branches ceased in thrashing, I followed Crookshanks into the opening and down the passageway.
When we got there, I was pleased to see the black dog seated on the dusty bed. "Hello again," I said when he ran up to me.
I opened my bag and held out a slab of meat, which he took gladly.
He and Crookshanks sat beside each other while I sat on the ground with a notebook spread on my lap.
With the book appearing in my room at the beginning of the year and it being the only one that has its pages turned without me knowing, the person that keeps entering my dorm and the person that left the book there are probably the same.
It's someone that has access to the Ravenclaw dorms, so it's someone smart enough to answer the riddles.
The pages turned to are always in relation to what's going on in the school, so it's someone that's aware.
But the pages turned to are also in relation to personal things, like with Professor Lupin.
Somehow, they know when no one is in the room - but no one is notably missing often from classes, are they?
I groaned, rubbing my eyes. There was nothing coming to mind. As far as I was concerned, no one knew about the book that magically appeared in my room.
Crookshanks landed himself on my notebook and curled up while the dog lied on his stomach beside me with his head rested over his crossed paws.
I pulled out the mysterious book from my bag and the dog perked up.
"Was it him?" I asked, opening the book to the Gryffindor students that started with P and pointed at the photo of James Potter.
He looked remarkably like Harry, except for his eyes, which weren't the brilliant green that Harry's were.
The dog looked largely irritated - how, I'm not sure, I could just tell.
"Well, sorry I don't speak dog, but that's all the important people I could fi-" I stopped when I turned back to the page. "Was it... him?" My finger dragged along the page and stopped on another name: Peter Pettigrew.
The dog definitely nodded, and I refuse to take any allegations of insanity.
I had read the name once before on the Marauder's Map. I didn't think much of it, but now I was wondering: who was Peter Pettigrew?
•••
I went to search for Professor Lupin in hopes of figuring out who Peter Pettigrew was, as they were in the same year, but I was stopped by the sound of sobbing. A grown man sobbing.
Following the sound, I found Hagrid seated on the steps of his hut.
"Hagrid, what's the matter?"
He looked up from his hands and began sobbing louder.
I sat beside him and he pulled me in a rib-cracking hug. "It's Buckbeak, Y/N! They're gonna chop off his head!"
"What?!"
"He's getting a hearing - they'll put him on trial!"
"Then we still have a chance! We can gather evidence to show them that Buckbeak's innocent!"
But Hagrid was inconsolable. I sat with him for what felt like hours but his cries didn't die down.
I returned to the castle for dinner, completely forgetting to ask Professor Lupin about Peter Pettigrew.
"I get you like reading, Y/N, but..." Roger's eyes, along with everyone else's, were glued on the pile of books that took up my eating space instead of food. "Isn't this a bit much?"
"Not at all." I shut another book on hippogriffs and put it to the side.
Padma moved aside a pile as if it were a screen door. "What's with all the books on hippogriffs? Don't you have three?"
"Yeah, you're the expert," Michael mentioned with a mouth full of chicken.
"Gross, and this isn't information on hippogriffs. I'm looking for information on hippogriffs that had acted out."
I noticed Draco on the other side of the room with a proud grin, the sling around his arm. I clicked my tongue and slammed my book, making my classmates on either side of me flinch.
"I'm leaving," I said, putting all the books into my bag like crumbs onto a hand and storming out of the Great Hall.
Does he realize that his stupid mistake could cost an innocent hippogriff's life? And he's just smiling there like he's just committed a grand act.
I walked into the library, the slam of the doors making Madam Pince hiss at me, and I sat down, reading vigorously for a while.
"Now it's hippogriffs, hm?"
I looked up and grinned. "Professor Lupin!"
"I thought you owned three hippogriffs," he said as he sank into a chair beside me. "What's with all the books?"
"I'm looking for incidents where a hippogriff was put on trial for misbehaviour and if there's any where the side supporting the hippogriff won. I want to see what evidence they used."
"Ah, for Hagrid's hippogriff."
"Yeah." I sighed and closed the book, holding it up for the shelf to return. "But I haven't found anything yet. Nothing useful, anyway."
"I see. Are you going to the Shrieking Shack?"
"Don't you need it?"
"I've come to get used to my office. I just rest there in my wolf form until the full moon ends."
"After taking the Wolfsbane Potion?"
"Yes, that's right."
"So you haven't used the Shrieking Shack since..."
"My first transformation as a teacher here at Hogwarts."
I furrowed my brow. How did that black dog know who he was then? Was it just a coincidence that the dog nudged his nose when I pointed at Professor Lupin's photo?
"Was there a black dog in the Shrieking Shack when you first went?"
He furrowed his brow. "A black dog?"
"Yes, one that doesn't really bark and maybe seems to understand you."
A look of realization reached his eyes as his mouth went agape, but he shook his head slowly. "No... No, there wasn't one."
"Oh... alright then. One more question."
"I've come to like your questions, Y/N, no need to announce their arrival."
"Right," I said with a laugh. "Um, do you know someone named Peter Pettigrew?"
That was when his brows shot up, the shock of my question hitting him so obviously in his face that even I recoiled.
"I'm guessing that you do."
"Indeed, I do." He stood. "Come on. Let's go to my office."
•••
Professor Lupin sat down with his fingertips pressed together and held at his mouth. "So, tell me, where did you hear the name 'Peter Pettigrew'?"
I hesitated. My original hearing of it was from the Marauder's Map, but I couldn't reveal that. My second was the record of Hogwarts students and professors from 1971-1972, which wasn't in the school library, so that was a no go as well. What kind of outlandish theories could go to his mind if I told him about a mysterious book that may as well not exist?
"The Daily Prophet?" he asked.
"Right, yeah. My... dad was reading it. I only know the name."
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, reminiscing.
"What's... he up to now?"
"Nothing. He's dead."
My hand went to my mouth. "I'm sorry-"
"Think nothing of it. It was years ago." His eyes went glossy and he rubbed his forehead. "Still hurts, however. Not even a child to his name. Unlike James."
"You were friends with James?"
"Oh, yes, the three of us were close."
I frowned. While I was sorry for his grief, I couldn't help but question: what was Peter doing on the Marauder's Map? My doubts of it lying were at an all-time low; the map even picked up ghosts and Animagi, how could it lie about one thing that is so crucial?
He couldn't be a ghost, I knew every single one, from the Bloody Baron to Nearly-Headless Nick. He couldn't be a student, he died without children to call junior.
"What is it?" Professor Lupin leaned towards me. "Is something troubling you?"
"It's just... I had really believed that he was alive, is all."