There was a ringing silence.
"Oh," Hermione gasped. Her eyes were wide. She looked at Sirius, then looked to Remus, her mouth open just the tiniest bit. "Oh." She bit her lower lip, holding it between her over-large front teeth and her eyes softened and she teared up slightly. "Oh."
Ron and Harry looked at one another. Then Ron put his hand on Hermione's arm and their eyes met for a moment, while Harry turned back to Remus and said, "It - it must've been very hard... believing your, erm - your husband was - was the murderer of your best mates.... yeah?"
Remus stared into Harry's eyes. "Excruciatingly hard."
Harry nodded.
Peter whimpered and looked between Sirius, Remus, and Harry - a sort of scowl on his face a, and he twitched uncontrollably, his eyes darting then back around the room - to the windows ad the door.
The silence fell over the room again.
"Er - Mr. Black? - I - Sirius?"
Sirius whirled to look at Hermione with a look of surprise on his face and looked at her with a sort of wide-eyed wonder - as though shocked to be addressed politely.
"Y-yes, Hermione?" Sirius asked.
"If you - you don't mind me asking.... how did you... get out of Azkaban? Without using Dark Magic, I mean?" Hermione flushed.
"EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!" Peter gasped, "Thank you - thank you that's - that - is - that's an excellent - excellent question! It's precisely the --"
Remus glared at Peter and he stopped talking mid-sentence.
Sirius considered the question, his mouth twisted in a frown, brows come together, struggling to piece together his answer - it had been years since someone had asked him a question so important, so deserving of his full attention. "Honestly... I - I don't know how I did it," he answered. "I - I never lost my mind because... because I had somebody that believed me that I was innocent."
Remus looked at him with confusion.
Sirius kept his eyes trained on Hermione, though. "I stayed sane... I mean, barely, sure, but I did it somehow... and... when it got to be too much, I - I was able to transform into a dog and the Dementors aren't as aware of dogs. They sensed something was different, that I had lesser emotions at times, but they thought I was just losing my mind slowly, like so many other prisoners." He paused for a very long moment, staring sadly at the floor as though remembering something that gave him chills, and he finally closed his eyes and shook his head, discarding whatever thought had come over him. He took a breath and continued, "I - I was very, very weak. I couldn't escape. There was no way I could escape without my wand."
"But you have your wand," Hermione said quietly.
"Yes," Sirius murmured, "I do."
"How --"
"I rarely had the energy to do anything, even as a dog, besides lay about and concentrate on keeping myself breathing... But sometimes, when I'd had a particularly good day, when I'd received a letter --" he paused, "This letter, actually --" he held up the heart that held the newspaper clipping with the photo of the Weasley family in Egypt.
Remus's face lit with understanding.
"I slipped out of the bars of the cell. I found my way into one of the guards rooms - left over from when witches and wizards patrolled the island, before they had dementors as full time guards... and I - I found my wand. I couldn't believe it." He looked it over. "They burned it with these ridiculous prison numbers identifying whose wand it was, but there's no mistaking it was mine." He paused. "With my wand, my powers grew stronger, only bolstered knowing that - that if I could just find a way out, then I could avenge James, just as I'd intended to all those years ago." He looked at Peter.
Peter shivered.
"I snuck out one night, I had to jump through a window - I used the carpe retractum to rappel down to the ground... and - and I - I swam --" he paused, his brow furrowed. Something lit in his eyes then, and he looked at Remus, started to say something, then shook his head, as though putting a mental pin in the thought, and continued, "I woke up on the mainland and I - I journeyed North, to Hogsmeade, and I slipped into the Shrieking Shack and through the tunnel. I've been living in the Hiding Room on the seventh floor ever since then, going in and out through a sort of portal, I guess, that lets me out tunnel into the green houses. I've been in hiding on the grounds the whole time... not being seen by anyone... well... aside from a couple brushes with - with you." Sirius paused, looking at Remus. "And also the day that I snuck out to the Quidditch Pitch to see you, Harry." He smiled, "You are an excellent flyer, by the way! You fly as well as your father! Merlin -- he would've been so fucking proud of you.. I - I can't tell you how much he loved you! How proud he was already of you - how --" Sirius's voice was trembling.
Harry smiled back.
Sirius could feel his heart swell at the sight of it. "Believe me, Harry," he said thickly, "I never betrayed James and Lily... I would have died before I betrayed them."
Harry's face crumpled and he nodded, tears welled up in his eyes so that the entire world went blurry.
"NO!" Peter Pettigrew wailed in despair from the floor where he was kneeling in the dust still, as though Harry's nod had signed his death sentence. "Sirius - S-S-Sirius, I - I'm your friend! Your old friend, don't you remember? How many things we got up to back then? How many shenanigans! Remember when - when we were - we were Super Sirius and Ratboy? Don't you remember? And how many cups of tea and midnight talks - and licorice wands! Every time I went to Hogsmeade - and through Grunhilda to Honeydukes, I always brought you the licorice wands you so loved -- I --" Peter fell forward and grabbed onto Sirius's legs the way he'd done Remus before, but Sirius kicked and bucked away.
"Stop that!" he shouted, "There's enough filth on these ridiculous prison pyjamas without YOU touching them!"
Peter looked panicked. He turned to Remus, desperate. "Remus - how - how many chocolate bars? I - I got you so many of them - I - I helped James! I helped James with the - the book!"
Remus looked surprised, "You what?"
Peter paled. Then, skipping answering, he said, "I - Wait - no wait, Remus, wouldn't Sirius have told you? Told you if you changed the plan? You were married!"
"We are married," Remus said firmly.
Sirius looked over at Remus quickly, his eyes wide.
Hermione's eyes were all goey at the pair of them through this exchange.
"He wouldn't have told me. We -- we had our own things going on at the time and... I wouldn't have expected him to tell me, honestly, looking back on all that we were going through then. I - I actually rather respect the choice." Remus looked at Sirius and their eyes locked.
"Forgive me, Remus," Sirius whispered.
Remus shook his head, "No... Sirius, it's I that should be asking you for forgiveness."
"You had it long ago," Sirius answered.
Remus smiled tremulously.
"B-b-but --" Peter whimpered.
Sirius's mouth twisted then, a grin flitting across his mouth. "Shall we kill him together?"
Remus sighed heavily, "I take no pleasure in it, but I think we must."
"You wouldn't!" Peter gasped, his jaw slack as he watched Remus shrug off his tweed jacket and fold it. "You - you c-couldn't! You couldn't!" His eyes widened in horror - Remus was rolling up his sleeves methodically and Sirius was grinning at the sight of it. The desperation poured into a whole new source. He crawled across the room to grovel at Ron's feet. "Ron! Ron, my friend - my best friend - m-my my protector! Haven't - haven't I been a - a good pet? You won't let me k-kill them Ron? Will - will you? You're on my side... aren't you?"
But Ron's face twisted now with revulsion. "No! I'm not!" Ron answered.
"Kind boy... k-k-kind master!" Peter pleased, "I - wasn't I a good rat?"
"You were no rat!"
"I was a good rat! I - I listened to you, I. - I was l-loyal!"
Sirius laughed loudly, "You were a better rat than a human, is what you're saying? That's bloody terrifying! If you made a better rat than you do a human -- that's not much to boast on about, Peter!"
Peter looked horrified, then whirled about on Hermione, who stood there next to Ron. "Sweet... s-sweet cl-clever g-girl!" he began. "You - you wouldn't let them kill me would you?"
Hermione took a step back, looking horrified.
Peter trembled as she recoiled and his eyes teared up.
"Harry - Harry, Harry... you look just like your father!" Peter started, and he crawled across the floorboards to Harry, grabbing onto Harry's robes. "You look so much like him! But your eyes -- your eyes are just like ---"
"HOW DARE YOU TALK TO HARRY ABOUT THEM!" Sirius suddenly screamed, launching himself into the space between Harry and Peter. "Don't you fucking dare let their names cross your faithy traitoring lips! How are you even LOOK at him!"
"Harry," Peter whimpered, ducking to look at Harry around the blockade of Sirius's gaunt frame made. He stared up at Harry. "P-p-please! James wouldn't have wanted me killed! James would have understood, Harry! James would - would have shown me m-mercy!"
Remus came forward now, grabbing onto Peter's shoulder and shoving him backward onto the floor. He aimed his wand and Sirius did too, as Peter lay on his back, his entire body twitching with nervousness.
"You brought Voldemort to Lily and James!" Sirius shouted, shaking nearly as badly as Peter himself was. "DO YOU DENY IT?"
Peter stared up at him, incredulous, his mouth flopping open and closed like a fish, as though he couldn't get words out and suddenly - he simply burst into tears.
"You were working for him for over a YEAR before they died, Peter! I heard them talking about it in their cells, all those death eaters who would give their right hand to kill you for betraying them!" Sirius scoffed, "You were a SPY!"
"I - I - You don't understand!" Peter sobbed. "He was going to kill me, Sirius!"
"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" Sirius roared, "YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS! AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"
Remus nodded and he and Sirius were shoulder-to-shoulder, wands raised ---
"Goodbye, Peter," murmured Remus, his wand arm trembling. He didn't know if he could do it. He didn't know if the magic would even flow through him properly, he was so scared - he looked at Sirius, but Sirius kept his eyes fixed on Peter, though Remus could see the tears threatening to fall over the ducts.
"ONE!" Sirius shouted.
Hermione squealed and covered her hands - Ron looked away --
"TWO!"
Peter let out a wailing cry like nothing Harry had ever heard before --
"THREE!"
"NO!" Harry bellowed and he leaped forward, stepping between the raised wands of Remus and Sirius and spreading out his arms wide as he blocked Peter Pettigrew's body with his own.
Hermione screamed. "HARRY!"