Chapter 10
Occlumency lessons continued to go well, Dumbledore was apparently too busy with the Sirius Black business to continue trying to brainwash Harry for the time being and two weeks after the Quidditch debacle, Hermione was confident that it was time to tell Harry and Ron what all this was about.
Unfortunately, nothing in Hermione’s life ever went as planned. She should have expected this.
The evening before the planned revelation, Hermione and Draco were in the library studying a short time before curfew, when Peeves decided to pull a prank on Madam Pince.
Hermione was outraged to see all books flying out of their places on the shelves and onto the ground, accompanied by Peeves’ manic laughter. Draco, who loved books almost as much as she did, shared that sentiment.
And therefore, the two of them volunteered to help Madam Pince to place the books back on the shelves and repair small damages they had suffered.
It was almost midnight when they were done. “I would have spent the whole night with that, if it hadn’t been for the two of you,” Madam Pince said while she wrote them a note in case they were caught on the way back to the Slytherin common room by Filch or a teacher. “Thank you. I can’t give points, but I will inform Professor Snape tomorrow and I’m sure he will do so in my stead.”
They thanked her, took the note and finally bid her goodnight.
They silently made their way towards the dungeons until they went around a corner and saw a familiar dim light going down the stairs.
“Potter? Weasley? You know you can be seen when you’re using Lumos, right?” Draco said drily and the light before them flinched so violently that Hermione feared they would both fall down the stairs.
They didn’t.
Instead, they pulled up the invisibility cloak and looked at them. “What are you two doing here?”
“We were helping Madam Pince and therefore have a permission.” Draco held up the parchment in his hand. “What are you two doing?”
“I saw my rat outside,” Ron said.
“Your rat?”
“Yes, I was looking out the window and there he was. Close to the light of Hagrid’s hut.”
Hermione took a deep breath. “You know there are more rats in the world than just yours, right?”
He looked offended. “I know. I’m sure it’s him.” Then he turned to Draco. “Wouldn’t you be worried, if your posh owl suddenly went missing?”
Hermione, well aware of how much Draco doted on Hermes, knew he could relate. And so could she, unbeknownst to the two Gryffindors. If Noodles went missing, she wouldn’t stop searching until he was found. However, she also had a personal interest in finding the rat, if it was indeed Peter Pettigrew. So, against her better judgement, she nodded.
“Alright, get back under the cloak. We’ll walk ahead. If someone catches us, we’ll just say I needed some fresh air before going back to the dorms. The work in the library was hard and dusty and I felt a little lightheaded.”
Ron seemed surprised, but then nodded gratefully. “Thanks!”
Their wands were also lit up and so they took the lead, quietly walking towards the main entrance of the castle, looking around once more before opening it. They held it open just long enough for Harry and Ron to follow them and then closed it. It was full moon so they packed their wands away and started looking around for the rat.
The longer they took, the less Hermione could believe she was doing this. It had probably been just a random wild rat running around, there was no way Ron could have identified his particular rat from such a distance.
Now the redhead was only a few steps away from her, whisper-yelling for “Scabbers.”
She would not tell her father about this, she decided. It was embarrassing.
“We should go back in,” Harry eventually said with an apologetic glance at his friend and pulled an old looking piece of parchment from his pocket, mumbling something that sounded like “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.” When Hermione stepped closer, her eyes widened. It was a map of Hogwarts and the grounds and it showed where everyone was. The only one still roaming the school was Filch. “Is this accurate?”
Harry grinned. “Oh yes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show pets, just Mrs Norris for some reason. Ron thinks she’s not a cat at all, maybe a Kneazle mix or whatever. The map does show Magical Creatures, like Dumbledore’s Phoenix.” He pointed at the small dot labelled ‘Fawkes’ in Dumbledore’s office.
“That’s fascinating. Where did you get it …?” She wanted to say something more, but then something came to her and her eyes found them, standing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy and … Noodles. Damn!
“Fred and George gave it to me. Wait, who’s Noodles?”
Draco, who had also been looking at the map, smirked at her. “Full disclosure, Granger?”
He had been calling her by her first name for quite a while, except for special occasions.
She looked at the map once more, no one was nearby or anywhere where they could be seen. Dumbledore was in what seemed to be his bedroom, that was the most important thing.
She opened her bag, and Noodles’ head immediately came into view. She held out her arm and he slithered up and took his place around her shoulders, eying the two Gryffindor boys, tongue flickering.
Thankfully, he was smart enough to not try to communicate with her now.
“Woah!” Weasley took a step back. “That’s not a regular snake, is it?”
“No, it’s a Magical Creature native in Japan.” If he didn’t already know, there was absolutely no need tell him how deadly Noodles was. “I have no idea how he came to Britain, I found him. He immediately took a liking on me and since he’s very well-tempered, Professor Snape allowed me to keep him.”
Draco grinned. “Also, my father wouldn’t have allowed him to stay at home without her supervision.”
“Yes, that too.” Hermione chuckled softly. “Please don’t tell anyone. He’s obviously not a pet I would usually be permitted to bring to school.”
To their credit, they both nodded in agreement.
“And he lives in your bag?” Harry asked sceptically.
“Well, part-time.” She grinned at him. “It’s an expanded bag and he has a little cave in there. His kind spends a lot of time in enclosed spaces, so he seems to be quite happy there. I let him out in the Room of Requirement and in the boys’ dorms.” At Harry’s questioning look, she shrugged. “Everyone in the boys’ dorms know about him, Draco, Theo, Blaise, Greg and Vince. Daphne and Pansy know, too, but there are two other girls in our dorm and I don’t trust them to keep it to themselves.”
Suddenly Ron’s eyes widened. “Wait, he doesn’t eat rats, does he?”
“No! Not in the castle or on the grounds anyway. Professor Snape takes him a bit further away once a week, so he can go hunting and won’t hurt pets. He definitely didn’t eat your rat, don’t worry.”
“Oh, good.” He looked relieved.
She held the bag up so Noodles could slither back in. “I agree with Harry, though. We should go back. I’m sorry, Ron.”
He nodded sadly.
Then there was a muffled scream, seemingly coming from the direction of the Whomping Willow.
All four of them froze.
“What was that?” Draco asked after a while.
Harry showed him the map. “There is another secret tunnel, leading from the Whomping Willow towards Hogsmeade, but we didn’t dare to try that one for obvious reasons and don’t know where it leads to exactly. I tried to stun the branches once, didn’t work at all.”
“Maybe we could all stun it at once,” Hermione mused.
Noodles reappeared from the bag, slithered down Hermione’s leg and towards the Whomping Willow.
“Noodles come back!” He didn’t react. “Noodles!” They all stared at her. “Yes, I can talk to him. Does it matter now? Noodles, come back!”
He still paid her no mind, slithered under the willow, skilfully avoiding the whipping branches and then examined the trunk. After a moment he either found the mechanism or activated it by accident because the branches stopped moving and when they slowly, carefully got closer, they saw that there was a gap between the roots with enough room for an average person to climb through. The entrance to the tunnel.
“Are we going in?” Draco asked.
“Well, it sounded like someone was screaming,” Harry said, but he didn’t sound fully convinced.
Hermione looked at the boys, then at Noodles. “Ok, we’re going in. You stay close but stay hidden, if something happens you go back and get Professor Snape.”
“How am I supposed to get into the castle without you, let alone into Snape’s bedroom?”
“Be creative.”
She had no idea how Noodles was supposed to get help, but climbed into the tunnel anyway. It was pitch-black, so she had no choice but to take her wand from its holster and whisper “Lumos”.
The boys followed and she led the way, although she could feel that Draco was staying very close to her. His wand was out as well.
They came out in a dusty, dirty room with smashed furniture and what looked like claw marks all over the place. That had to be the Shrieking Shack! The only building in neat little Hogsmeade Hermione could imagine to be so decrepit inside. People thought it was haunted, so no one got near it.
But that wasn’t their main problem now. They weren’t alone.
Sirius was there and a small, chubby man was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. And as if that wasn’t enough, a huge wolf was pacing back and forth, looking between Sirius and the other man.
“Moony, listen …”
“That’s Sirius Black!” Harry pushed past them, pointing his wand at Sirius.
“Harry, there’s a bloody wolf!” Ron shrieked and opted to point his own wand at the animal instead of the wanted criminal.
“That must be Professor Lupin! Professor Snape is providing him with Wolfsbane Potion, he’s probably no danger.” If he had been, he would have attacked them by now, so Hermione was reasonably sure she was right.
“Yes, it’s him,” Sirius confirmed, not taking his eyes off Harry.
“Professor Lupin is a werewolf?” Ron didn’t seem to be able to decide who to stare at – Sirius or the wolf before him. The wand was still on the wolf.
“Harry, please listen!” Hermione begged, ignoring Ron’s question to which the answer was, after all, pretty obvious.
“Listen to what? He killed my mum and dad!”
She flinched at the desperation in his voice. “No, he didn’t! Please, let us explain!”
“How would you know?”
“That’s all part of what we were planning to tell you tomorrow. Please. Can we all just …?”
“Chat?” Draco supplied with a wry grin in her direction. He was watching the chaos unfold from the entrance of the tunnel, leaning against the wall and waiting for everyone to stop yelling at each other. Hermione shot him a glare.
Lupin was looking at her now, too.
“I’d appreciate that,” Sirius agreed with his cousin. “I just wanted to tell Remus here what was going on. The more the merrier,” he tried for a joke, but not even Draco, who seemed to find the entire situation amusing, laughed.
“Why would I believe you? You betrayed my parents already.” The wand was trembling in his hand and she understood his anger, his hatred. She had the same feelings towards Dumbledore. But she couldn’t just go after him with a wand. And the main difference was that Dumbledore was guilty while Sirius was not. Harry just had to understand that.
“I hate to interrupt, but who’s that?” Draco pointed to the unconscious man. “Was he the one who screamed?
“Peter Pettigrew,” Sirius growled, then looked back at Harry. “He’s the one who betrayed your parents, Harry.”
“But Pettigrew died! You killed him, too!” Harry argued angrily.
“No. His body was never found, only one of his fingers. He killed all those Muggles as a distraction and to get me caught, turned into a bloody rat and escaped. He’s an Animagus, like James was, like I am. We became Animagi to stop him from hurting himself during full moon.” He nodded towards Remus. “That was before the Wolfsbane Potion was invented. Harry, I would rather have died than betray James and Lily.”
Hermione walked over to the unconscious man, holding her own wand at the ready, and lifted his limp hand up. “The right index finger is missing. That’s the one they found of Pettigrew. Please, Harry, please let us explain.”
He stared at Pettigrew’s hand Hermione was still holding up and finally came to a decision. “Alright, talk.” He did not lower his wand. Fair enough.
When Sirius opened his mouth, Draco interrupted. “I think we should tell the story from the beginning.” Hermione nodded in agreement and so Draco, like his father almost two years before him, told the story of Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle and the war.
Then it was Sirius’ turn to tell his side of the story, how he had not been the Secret Keeper of Lily and James Potter and how Peter Pettigrew had betrayed them all.
“So, Pettigrew was their Secret Keeper?” Harry whispered once everything was told. “He killed them?” He looked as overwhelmed as Hermione had felt the first time she had learned the whole truth. But he was in good company. Ron and Lupin didn’t seem to do any better. Especially for Lupin it had to be a shock, she guessed. He had been there during the war. Had he followed Dumbledore, too, believing it was the right thing to do? She didn’t believe he had been on her father’s side; Snape had never made any indication that that was the case, neither had anyone else. Maybe he’d been neutral, not really belonging to anyone during the war, like it was the case for most werewolves most of the time. There had been werewolves on her father’s side, though. He had told her when she had told him about her werewolf theory. He had, however, not mentioned knowing Lupin.
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised, if Dumbledore actually did the killing, but Pettigrew certainly made it possible,” Draco supplied helpfully.
Harry nodded, still in shock. “What do we do now?”
This time it was Hermione who had the answer to that. She had waited for that moment for months. “We’ll hand Pettigrew over to the Aurors. We will probably at least be able to prove Sirius’ innocence. And maybe then Pettigrew will give testimony against Dumbledore, too.”
Sirius snorted. “He’s a coward, I don’t think he will.” He turned to Harry. “But my case will be rolled up again, if he turns up alive and … maybe you would want to come to live with me.” He sounded almost timid, but hopeful. “I understand, if you want to stay with your relatives …”
“Are you mad?” Harry suddenly beamed at him. “When can I move in?”
With that Hermione understood why Harry had seemed so sympathetic for her situation at home. He wasn’t happy with his relatives either. She didn’t know how bad it was, but he obviously couldn’t wait to get away from them.
She tried to be happy for him, but Sirius’ words that Pettigrew was a coward and would probably not bear witness against Dumbledore had hit her hard. She still clung to the hope, but …
A shriek escaped her lips as she was suddenly pulled against a stinking body, a shard of glass, probably from a broken window, on her throat, cutting in and drawing blood. She froze. Pettigrew. No one had paid attention to bloody Pettigrew. How stupid. “I hate to interrupt that moving little moment,” an unpleasant, wheezing voice said from behind her. “But I will go now and if anyone tries to follow me, I’ll kill her. Drop your wands.”
Hesitantly, everyone did as they were told. Lupin was growling but he made no move.
“Let her go!” Draco demanded.
“Oh, I may, if you don’t follow me. I’ll …”
Suddenly the shard was dropped and the arm pressing Hermione’s body to Pettigrew’s let go. She stumbled away, one hand pressed on the shallow cut on her throat. Draco launched for his wand and stepped forward, pointing the wand at Pettigrew while pushing Hermione behind him with his free hand. But when she turned around, she saw what had happened. No wand would be needed.
Pettigrew was deathly pale as he stared at the Shinohebi who was still in a threatening stance, head high, fangs exposed, blood dripping from them.
And then there were blood-curdling screams as Pettigrew fell to the ground and those awful screams didn’t stop. She thought of Snape’s words when she had first met Noodles. “And if he decides not to be friendly any longer, your body will rot from the inside out within ten minutes or less. No antidote.”
That was what was happening. Pettigrew was screaming, begging for help, calling the names of his old friends, who didn’t seem too inclined to do anything. Or maybe they were just as much in shock as Hermione while Pettigrew’s exposed skin slowly turned black as he writhed on the ground, still screaming. A horrible stench came from him now, and after what seemed like forever, but was according to Snape ten minutes or less, the screams turned into whimpers and then he was quiet and eventually, probably when the rot reached his heart, he stopped breathing.
“Are you alright?” Draco’s voice was shaking as he turned to her, only now lowering his wand.
She didn’t trust her voice, so she just nodded. She slowly lowered her hand from her throat, the blood was drying, so the cut had already stopped bleeding.
Her gaze returned to Pettigrew, who looked like a long-decayed corpse now, his features unrecognisable. She thought of the joy on Harry’s and Sirius’ faces at the prospect of living together. Tears welled up in her eyes as she turned to them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice that he was awake,” she whispered, clasping her hands together to stop them from shaking. Because she had been so careless, Sirius’ innocence could not be proven now. Not with what lay there, still decaying in rapid speed. And her father …
“No.” Even Sirius was deathly pale. “I should have made sure he wouldn’t be able to move the moment he was one the ground. But then Remus here came … He probably saw me when I caught Pettigrew on the school grounds. I was a dog, he a rat, but Remus would have known it was us, of course.”
Said werewolf now started to growl again and as Hermione, still like in a trance, still in shock, turned back around, she saw that it was because Noodles approached her. “No! Professor, please don’t. He’s my familiar. He was just protecting me.” The wolf stopped growling and hesitantly stepped back and she bent down and let Noodles slither up her arm. He wrapped himself gently around her neck, avoiding the wound, and rubbed his head against her cheek.
“I’m sorry. I know what hopes you had with him. But I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
“It’s not your fault. I was standing too close. I should have been more careful.” A quiet sob escaped her and Draco stepped forward and pulled her into a hug.
“Sirius is right, it wasn’t your fault,” he whispered into her ear. “We all should have been more careful. What matters is that you’re alright. We’ll find another way to prove Sirius’ innocence and get rid of Dumbledore. Sirius can stay at Malfoy Manor or on one of my parents’ other properties. Maybe Potter can at least visit, if he tells his relatives that he’s going to the Weasleys or something.”
Ron nodded automatically, still staring at what was left of Pettigrew.
Harry looked disappointed, and she understood all too well, but when he saw that Hermione was looking at him, he gave her a small smile. “Malfoy’s right. It would be great, if I could visit. I …”
Suddenly the air grew cold around them and while she had been unhappy before, she now felt despair crawling in.
Dementors.
It wasn’t surprising that they had finally found them. While the people in the village would probably interpret Pettigrew’s screams as another proof that the Shack was haunted, Dementors wouldn’t be fooled quite so easily.
Shadows were moving in front of the Shack, past the windows, several of them, and the door creaked open painfully slowly. Noodles clung to her harder, probably feeling instinctively that his venom would not protect her against whatever was coming in now. The Dementor who now entered was fixated on Sirius. They couldn’t let them get to him; he would receive the Dementors’ Kiss, if he ever was caught. It had been in the paper.
It was hard after having just seen a man die and all her hopes him, but Hermione clung to the memory of last summer, Sri Lanka, a warm summer night, Mooncalves dancing, her father next to her. “Expecto Patronum!”
Her Mooncalf was joined by Draco’s dragon and then by a stag. Hermione turned around in surprise and Harry smiled at her. “I took your advice to heart.”
The three Patronusses were chasing the Dementors away and she turned to Sirius. “You need to leave before they come back! Apparate to the Manor gates and call for Bimsy. We’ll go back through the tunnel.”
He nodded, but before he left, he pulled Harry into a hug, whispering to him that the stag had been James Potter’s Animagus form. Hermione, still feeling horrible about the whole thing, slowly turned to the tunnel.
Before they entered the school, Harry looked at the map. “Everything is clear. Even Filch seems to be asleep by now.” It was probably close to morning already. She had never been so tired in her entire life, but at the same time, she didn’t think she would be able to sleep. Not with Pettigrew’s screams still ringing in her ears. Harry looked at Hermione and Draco. “Are we still meeting tomorrow?”
Hermione nodded. “Sure. You know everything now. Keep it from Dumbledore.”
“I will.”
They bid each other goodnight and the four students and one wolf each went to where they had been supposed to be all night.
“We need to ask Severus for something for your throat,” Draco said quietly as they went down the stairs to the dungeons. “The glass looked bloody dirty. You don’t want your head to fall off.”
She let out a quiet laugh. “That’s what I need tonight. Telling Professor Snape everything.”
“I don’t know. I’m bloody tired, but I don’t think I can sleep.”
“Me neither,” she admitted. “You’re right. We may as well face him now. Get it over with.” And therefore, instead of going to bed, they knocked on the door to Severus’ private quarters. Several times.
When the door finally opened, he was wearing black pyjamas and a scowl. “You two.” He eyed their dirty clothes, the blood on Hermione’s throat and wordlessly stepped aside to let them in.
While Snape applied some kind of tincture to her throat and afterwards healed the now clean wound with flick of his wand, Draco told the whole story, starting with their night shift in the library, meeting Harry and Ron and looking for the rat on the grounds. When he came to Pettigrew’s death, Snape, who was now sitting in an armchair, eyed Noodles, who had come out of the bag once more and was around Hermione’s shoulders, his head leaning against her cheek in a comforting manner. Draco closed the story with the Dementors’ attack and with Sirius’ return to Malfoy Manor.
Snape let out a heavy sigh, but then he turned to Hermione, who had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire time. “Are you alright?”
She nodded.
“It was not your fault. Whatever happened before you came, the moment Black knocked him out, he should have made sure he was unable to move.”
“He was distracted by Professor Lupin.”
“Yes, and while Draco was telling Potter, Weasley and Lupin the entire story of the war, he had enough time to stun him, bind him, or whatever else he could have done to prevent him from fleeing or hurting anyone. If anything had happened to you because of his carelessness, I assure you, your father would be back in England by tomorrow and the Dementors would be the least of Black’s problems.”
The mention of her father back in England finally made Hermione burst into tears. “I could have stunned him, too. Or at least kept more distance to him. If he was alive, maybe we would have been able to prove that Dumbledore did what he accused father of and father could really have come home.”
Snape looked at her thoughtfully before he spoke. “That is very optimistic thinking. For once in his life, Black was right when he said that Pettigrew was a coward. The mere fact that he was alive may have led to Black’s case being picked up again. But he never would have had the guts to testify against Dumbledore. Pettigrew was a whimpering fool who enjoyed having powerful friends. At school, it was James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, and after school he betrayed them because he found an even more powerful friend.” There was disgust in his voice and Hermione knew it wasn’t because he had liked any of the men he had just named or even felt particular sympathetic towards them and their fates, but she knew, whatever else he was, Severus Snape would never betray his friends.
She slowly nodded, wiping the tears away. Snape stood up, went to his cabinet, took out two vials, and handed one to each of them. “Dreamless Sleep Potion. You’ll need it after tonight. Get some rest. And if your friends ask any questions, tell them to leave you alone and send them to me.”
~tbc~