Wolf 1
"What the bloody hell was that, Lupin?" Mad-Eye growled as Remus raced back down the shores of Azkaban towards the only boat on the island.
"I-I don't know" Remus answered honestly, "I didn't expect- I didn't think-"
"No bloody shit" Mad-Eye grabbed Remus by the scruff of his collar, "Now watch your next words carefully. Are you or are you not working with Black"
"What?! I- No! Obviously not." Remus felt bad about the lie, but right now the pair had extremely different definitions of 'working with Black'.
"Forgive me for my suspicion," Moody snarled, "But you and your former lover seemed pretty chummy back there."
"Moody I-I promise I'll explain everything as soon as it's safe, but I don't trust you-"
"Oh, you don't trust me do you?"
Remus debated how likely his next words were to land him in a cell next to Sirius. He intentionally kept his voice measured, "I don't trust you right now with what I learned because it might be used against us until I can get the situation under control."
"And who exactly is us." Moody unsheathed his wand and pointed it directly at Remus.
Well, shit.
"The Order of the Phoenix." Remus enunciated every word, hoping it would get Mad-Eye to lower his wand.
Moody narrowed his nonmagical eye, "And how exactly is the Order involved in this?"
"There was a...a different traitor in our midst. I only just learned about it from Black. I need to catch him before he can wreak any more havoc. Moody, I promise I have not been working with him."
Mad-Eye stared at him for a long moment. After an eternity later, he lowered his wand. "And who is this different traitor?"
"I can't tell you that."
"What can you tell me?"
"This has to be kept a secret. If word gets out about this traitor, he'll just scurry off. Then, anything I try to do will be useless. I need to catch him myself, alone."
Moody stared at him for a long moment, clearly calculating the risks involved in allowing Remus to go free.
"Please, Moody. I did tons of work like this with the packs under Dumbledore's orders. I promise I know how to handle it. And I would never turn traitor. I-I would never betray James and Lily."
At this, Moody seemed to come to a decision. He grabbed Remus by the collar again and dragged him back to the boat, forcing him to stumble alongside the Auror. "You better not make me regret this Lupin"
Peter Pettigrew's house was clearly abandoned.
None of the magical signatures seemed to be new. A thin layer of dust coated every surface and made Remus sneeze. It was the day before the full, so Remus' senses were practically vibrating at any trace of magic he could find. Peter's house was almost abnormally quiet in this regard. Even muggle houses usually felt at least slightly more by comparison. Remus closed his eyes, sniffing for any trace at all of the iron-rich scent of wizard magic. Nothing.
Then, he smelled something, so faint he could have imagined it. Following his nose, he walked past the kitchen and into Peter's bedroom. It wasn't wizard magic, it felt too Earthy and natural, much more like...it was made by an animal. Remus pressed his face to the floorboards and dragged his nose towards the underside of the bed.
"Wingardium Leviosa" He cast, barely even flicking his wrist.
The bed floated out of the way and there, at the very back centre, was a small hole. It was the kind that a rat could feasibly sneak through to make a clean escape. Remus peered through the hole, wondering how embarrassed he should be if someone were to walk in on a grown man crouching on the floor with his face pressed into the wall. The magic was coming from there, but it was almost as old as the rest of the magic around the house. The only difference was a singular, fine rat hair that sat about a foot deep into the hole. Remus picked it up and dropped it into a vial, searching for any other magical signatures he could sense.
If Remus could just get a hold of Peter's wand, then he could track him probably across the other side of the world. Alas, part of keeping this a secret from the Ministry meant not being able to use any of their assets, including Peter's ripped-off finger and his wand. Remus also knew that Peter wouldn't dare to leave Britain. Not if there was a chance that his newly deceased master decided to show up again.
Remus also managed to find a fingernail clipping, one of Peter's non-rat hairs, and a spot of blood on the kitchen cabinet. Peter had tried to make himself difficult to track, not that anyone not trying to track him would know. He had also found one of Peter's particularly well-worn Gryffindor scarves. This last item made Remus want to vomit.
He still didn't know with certainty which one of them had committed the act, but either answer was just as bad. Was Sirius lying to him, or was Peter? Remus didn't know what he would do if he actually found Pettigrew. He knew he couldn't kill him, but there were punishments worse than death. Remus tried not to think about what he would do if Sirius was lying. He tried not to think about it too much. Remus would much rather focus on completing the task at hand.
He apparated back to their flat and dug around the eclectic objects he had stolen from Pettigrew's house, trying to see which ones had the strongest scent. At the end of his magical sounding, he found that the rat hair and the Gryffindor scarf were the most potent for tracking Peter. However, neither of them were particularly strong. He would probably have to wait for his transformation to actually do any tracking.
Remus had planned out every precaution he could imagine, starting with a muzzle and ending with a map of all of the wizarding villages in Britain. Remus knew that Peter wouldn't bother to hide out in Muggle England, keeping an ear out for any wizarding news. He probably wouldn't skip town either because Portkeys for international travel were hard to come by, especially if you are supposed to be dead. Remus figured that if he popped around wizarding neighbourhoods each moon for long enough, he could check the entire country and slowly douse out Peter's location.
The scariest part of this plan was how many moons it would take to accomplish. Despite the Wolf's heightened senses, England was still an extremely large country and it would probably take him years to get through all of it. It was probably going to take four months to get through London alone. He just hoped that the Wolf was as on board with this plan as he was. They had never really had a reason to work together on finding something, and Remus was terrified that the Wolf might get preoccupied with the smell of human wizards and accidentally go on a bloody rampage through town. He had decided to start with Godric's Hollow because every story starts at the beginning. Remus knew that there was a slim chance that Peter wanted to stay in the area of the people he betrayed, but he had no other leads, and it had been less than a week since his trip to Azkaban. Remus knew he needed more time to research, but every moon he waited was another chance for Peter to prolong his inevitable suffering.
As the moon rapidly approached, Remus became more and more anxious about his plan. Godric's Hollow was relatively quiet and had only become less populated after the War ended. Remus was terrified that it wouldn't be enough. As he tied the muzzle and fitted himself with a nice body-bind spell and a nice set of handcuffs and chains, he hoped that it would be enough to deter the Wolf from trying anything. As the sun went down, Remus closed his eyes and tried not to scream.
The Wolf did not know where he was. He pushed experimentally against the jinxes and chains holding him down, but they held fast. Slowly, his mission started to creep back into his mind. Find the rat. The piece of cloth that had been laid out for him smelled like the rat. He sniffed it absentmindedly. Nothing. The Wolf didn't like this mission very much. There were much easier missions that involved eating wizards and biting them. Perhaps though, he would be allowed to eat the rat if he found him.
The Wolf pushed again against his bindings. This time, they did not hold. The Wolf picked up the fabric as best he could through his muzzle, and started to sniff the air. It was away from the sea. Farther inland. More, West?
Remus awoke in an unfamiliar place. The scarf was laying a few feet away from him and the muzzle on his face was still fastened. All of his other bindings had come undone, however. With a rush of adrenaline, Remus checked his body for blood that wasn't his own. Luckily, he was relatively clean, just a little dirty and bruised. He breathed a sigh of relief and racked his brain desperately for memories of last night. West? Was that what the Wolf had thought? Remus didn't remember attacking anyone, so he probably hadn't gotten sidetracked as the Wolf. How far had the Wolf gotten in one night?
Remus silently conjured clothes that he had saved in case something like this ever happened. He didn't have his wand with him, and it was still extremely cold for a spring morning. He limped into the nearest town, sense of smell still buzzing from last night. Luckily, the Wolf had left him relatively close to civilization, with a small village within a kilometre of his excursion. He passed a churchyard and a few houses before finding a sign that read, "Welcome to Caddington".
Remus wondered where Caddington could possibly be. He hoped he hadn't gone too far.