Chapter 22
"Sleep we-" Harry flinched at the look Rebecca gave him. "Sleep well, I did. That's all I was going to say."
Rebecca rolled her eyes at his amendment and turned her attention back to the books in front of her. "Good. That's all it should have been anyway."
"Should have been what?" Harry asked confused.
"All you were going to say!" Rebecca snapped. She stood up and closed her book with her finger in it to save her spot. "I'll see you in class, if you think I can manage that without fucking up!"
Hermione closed the book of her own at their table in the Great Hall, giving the boys a sad look. "Does that need to be the first thing you say to her every morning?"
"What else should I say?" Harry said shortly. "'Glimpse into the future last night?'"
Fred's head jerked back to them instead of from the door where it had wandered when Rebecca had left so abruptly. "Oi! Say it louder, why don't you?" Both boys looked around carefully, finding no one listening to them.
Harry looked down ashamed, he was wrong to have said that. "Damn. I didn't mean to say that. I just-I don't know."
"I know, mate." Ron bumped Harry with his shoulder. "Do what I do, don't ask anything."
"Or," Hermione offered with a roll of her eyes. "Just balance between the two of you: Asking too much and not at all. It doesn't have to be the only thing you ask, certainly not the first."
Fred nodded and beside him to see if George agreed, but he was gone.
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George had left the second Fred had turned to Harry, though not to evade his twin. No, George simply wanted to make sure Rebecca was alright and that the outburst had been just that: An outburst and nothing more. He saw someone sitting down an empty corridor between two suits of armour and knew exactly who liked to sit like that when they were avoiding something.
"Taking a pause on your rage to next class?"
Rebecca scowled up at him, though her expression lasted only a second before fading away into a sadness that seemed too old for her to even manage. "Something like that."
George sat next to her and scooted against her. "You know he's just worried about you."
"I know."
"And you know that he only asks so many questions because of where he grew up."
"I know that, too." Rebecca clenched her fists. "But it's not just about-I feel like I'm suffocating when he asks me so many things! I can hardly breathe without him asking me if it's whooping cough." The anger that she had begun with had long faded by the end of her thought. "And I know that that makes me a bad twin, too."
George gasped. "A bad-Are you mad?" George turned, crossing his legs in front of him so that he faced her entirely. "Rebecca, that is not true."
"It is!" She said quietly, wiping at her cheek before she had to add feeling badly about crying in front of George to the morning. "I know it is, you don't have to lie!"
George leaned a little closer, catching her eyes so she could see that there wasn't a single trace of dishonesty in him. "Not only am I not lying, you being a bad sister is the most untrue thing I've ever heard." He sighed, shaking his head. "It's-Neither of you is used to having a sibling, alright? He feels like he needs to...suffocate, in your words. Think about what little he's shared about your aunt and uncle." George grew more serious as he was forced to think of some of the things Harry had said.
Like how he didn't know that the Weasley children got to eat dinner if they didn't do their chores, or how they wouldn't ever, ever in their lives, dream of being shut in a cupboard because they had done something minor like put the broom back on the wrong hook.
Rebecca thought of some of the things he had told her and looked down into her lap. "You're saying that my before plays a role, too."
"Yes, yes I am." George remembered what his father would do if he had been growing upset, counting slowly as he breathed. It was impossible for a Weasley who had seen Rebecca the first night not to be gripped by emotion at everything that had been said and what they knew had not been. "You're not used to someone asking questions about how you are and it's something new to deal with on top of how hard you've been working on examinations and it's bubbling over on the last day because it always does."
Rebecca blinked away the stubborn tears. "But I should be able to change and take the questions if that's what he needs to do, shouldn't I?"
"You have changed!" George exclaimed. "You have changed so much these past few years! Remember the last night of summer?"
"Remember what?" Rebecca turned so she was facing him.
"What did you tell mum?" Rebecca shrugged, not remembering anything in particular. George smiled. "You said that you didn't want any beans, remember? That you didn't like them?"
"So?"
"Rebecca," George sighed. "You'd been eating them for two years and hadn't ever said anything because..." He didn't want to give words to why not. "Because. Harry too, he's changed as well." George laid his hand on Rebecca's knee and gave her a sad smile. "Getting upset at one another doesn't make you or him a bad twin. You can't think that."
Rebecca didn't say anything on it, but George could see a slight acceptance in the loosening of her shoulders. "Was Harry upset?"
George shrugged, pushing himself to his feet and motioning for her to as well. "You can ask him yourself before your exam. Are you ready?"
Rebecca wished the question upset her because she didn't feel ready, but if she looked in her textbook one more time she was going to scream. She was past the point of caring--Whatever would happen, would happen.
"That's a very reassuring look." George teased. "I'm certain you'll do fine, alright? It's the last one and then we're all meeting at Hagrid's, right?"
Rebecca nodded. "We'll be done first and will see you down there. Buckbeak's trial could be starting any minute now..."
"And it will be going fine." George nudged her. "Come on, no hippogriff has ever had a defense so hard-worked on. Fred and I have a late exam, but we'll be down as soon as we can."
"I just hope it's enough." Rebecca gave George a quick side hug and thanked him.
"Don't thank me." George called after her.
Rebecca waited at the bottom of the Divination staircase for Ron and Harry. Hermione wouldn't be meeting them at the classroom since she dropped the class, though she was still studying madly when the only exams left were that one and Runes which Hermione wasn't taking. Rebecca wasn't too upset by this, though. It was Harry who she owed an apology.
"Rebecca!" Harry said quickly, hugging her tightly as soon as he saw her. "I'm sorry."
"You're...sorry?" Rebecca asked into his shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"No, please." Harry looked at her desperately, needing to be the one in the wrong. "I shouldn't only ask you questions."
"I-" Rebecca caught Ron's subtle shake of his head and Rebecca nodded. "I accept your apology. Shall we head up?"
"Why not?" Ron muttered. "It's only another exam to fail."
"You're not going to fail anything." Harry and Rebecca said in unison, sparking a little laughter between them all. Ron brought up his Transfiguration attempt again--his mug which retained its rat tail--but they all knew that he was just being dramatic. They had all done alright so far, though they were mentally exhausted and the day was far from done.
"We're lucky." Ron grumbled, less upset as he remembered what Fred and George had told them about Divination exams. "We only have to make up a prediction, should be easy enough. Only been doing it all year."
The queue for Professor Trelawney's exam was a long one, stretching done the spiral staircase to the classroom. The three of them chattered as they managed to creep closer to the class, the students who had finished their exams laughing and warning those after them to predict something dark for 'extra points.'
Ron gave the Potter twins a grim smile, offering without speaking to go first among their three.
"Magnificent seer!" Professor Trelawney greeted Ron, calling to him from inside the room. "Enter!"
Ron opened the door too quickly, making a resounding bang echo down the stairs. "Sorry professor, didn't mean to do that."
"It's alright, child." Trelawney's response made Rebecca and Harry stifle their giggles outside. "I saw it coming."
Rebecca sat on the same step as Harry, opposite him and wondering about what she would say she saw in her exam.
"You're not worried, are you?" Harry asked, biting his tongue the second if fell out of him. He didn't mean to ask so many questions.
"No, not really." Rebecca shrugged. "I'm more nervous, I guess. Hagrid said he'd try to owl when he knew what was decided but it's getting late." Rebecca looked up after a second. "Did you mean about the exam?"
Harry smiled and nodded. "It's alright though, I'm a little nervous about later too. I want it to be over, but-I don't know. I feel like Hagrid would have written already if it had been-"
"My, my!" Professor Trelawney exclaimed, patting Ron on the shoulder as she escorted him to the door. "Miss Potter certainly has a trial to overcome, coming after such brilliance!"
"Guess I'm going next, Harry." Rebecca stood up and mustered a little smile. "See you in a few." Harry didn't have the opportunity to finish his thought, but it was wiped away by Ron beginning to relay the wild tales he had spun.
"Have a seat across from me," Professor Trelawney sat. "The examination is simple, peer into the depths of the crystal ball and scry a glimpse of the future."
"Simple." Rebecca said, taking her seat and finding that Professor Trelawney had already laid her hands flat on the table and closer her eyes. Rebecca turned her attention to the ball, holding her palms to the sides.
"What do you see, child?"
Rebecca narrowed her eyes, trying to decipher the milky swirls as anything more than nothing. "I see..." Rebecca grew more resigned; she was going to have to make something up. "I see Harry and I, we're older."
"Yes." Professor Trelawney nodded. "Your surroundings, what about your surroundings?"
Rebecca noticed a strange colouring of the crystal ball, hues giving way to others while shapes seemed to be forming. Rebecca pulled her hands away and shook her head. "Nothing worth noting. Just us in a train station."
"But no one's there." Professor Trelawney sighed and opened her eyes. "I had more hope for you, but a glimpse--while minute--is still progress."
"Brilliant, can I go?" Rebecca stood up, backing towards the door without even an answer. The room was getting smaller and Rebecca felt so suddenly hot, she could have sworn it was summer.
"Rebecca?" Harry asked, concerned by the look of her. "Are you-"
"Mister Potter? Looks like you're last."
"I'm alright, Harry." Rebecca nodded towards the door. "Go on then, I'll meet you on the walkway. I know you'll do well."
Harry went to ask after her, to know what had happened to leave her whiter than Hedwig, but Professor Trelawney called for him again and when he looked back to the stairs, Rebecca was gone.
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Rebecca didn't stop until she was outside, ducking down the beginning of the path to Hagrid's and pushing her hair off her forehead and crouching down. The cool air felt good, soothing even. There was weight in her chest that was unignorable after seeing whatever nothingness had been in the crystal ball.
"Rebecca?" Hermione asked, out of breath from both running and evading Ron's demands of knowing where she had been off to since she couldn't have been taking an exam. "Rebecca, are you ill?"
"No." Rebecca forced herself to stand straight. "Just got to warm up there, you know? Better now. Harry said he'd join us down here as soon as he's through."
"Good." Hermione looked down the path. "He never wrote, did he?"
Ron shook his head, changing the conversation. He had them distracted soon enough, saying how he predicted the Weasley name on a Quidditch banner just for laughs. Harry found that they all seemed fairly normal when he joined them, though a dark shadow seemed to be hovering over them as the time to get the results of Buckbeak's final trial loomed nearer.
"Oh look who it is!" Crabbe laughed loudly, stepping out from behind a curve of the path with Goyle and Draco between them.
"Going to watch the show?" Goyle asked lewdly.
"What show?" Rebecca demanded, glaring at the two bullies while Draco stared at the ground in front of them, refusing to meet any of their eyes.
"Didn't you hear?" Crabbe said as if it were obvious. "The beast's been sentenced, it dies."
Rebecca's heart hardened while Hermione's plummeted. Harry and Ron, though they had worked just as hard as the girls had, hadn't attached themselves to the cause with every fibre of their being. Rebecca and Hermione had found things that they needed in the trial: Distractions, unity, peace. And in the end, it hadn't even matter.
"Come on." Goyle motioned for the others to follow him, bored at their lack of reactions.
Draco said something softly as he passed them, opening up a pathway for Hermione's utter, desperate loss to turn into anger.
"Excuse me?"
Draco paused, his eyes flitting to the two boys on either side of him. "I said, Mudbloods have to care about animals. They're so much closer to them than we are, after all."
Hermione moved in a blur, her wand in hand instantly and her motion only halted when Draco's back was against one of the standing stones and her wand was against his neck. "You foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach!"
"Hermione!" Harry shouted, stepping forward in case Crabbe or Goyle thought it in them to intervene.
"He's not worth it." Ron said rather boredly. He wasn't all that concerned: If she obliterates him, she obliterates him.
"Hermione, this isn't you." Rebecca said quietly, firmly.
Hermione took a step back, nodding once. Her wand fell to her side as she took a slow breath. Draco visibly relaxed as Hermione turned her back to him. Then he found himself on the floor holding his nose that gushed blood fiercely.
Rebecca had no reaction to Hermione hitting Draco, he deserved it after saying something like that.
Hermione shook her hand out, watching a he scampered after the disappearing Crabbe and Goyle. "That felt good."
"Not good--Brilliant!" Ron said, in awe.
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In the hallway above, Crabbe looked at Draco oddly. "What was that? The animal thing? You didn't say that, you'd said you were sorry."
"Yeah, Malfoy!" Goyle latched on. "What you got to be sorry for?"
Draco only shook his head, gesturing to his still-bleeding nose as an excuse to not have an answer.
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"Oh my-"
"Bloody hell." Ron whispered, clenching his fists at the sight of the executioner sharpening his blade at the last stone before Hagrid's hut.
"Oh look at him." Hagrid mused, his voice thick. He'd invited them into his hut the second they'd knocked and Hagrid had hugged them each tightly in turn. "He loves the smell of the wind in the trees."
"We could set him free." Rebecca said quickly, grasping at any idea to save him. "I could set him free!"
"No, you can't." Hagrid bent his massive frame down so that he was on one knee, his back to the other three keeping Rebecca out of their sight momentarily. "I know that the work you lot did for him bought him more time."
"How didn't it work?" Rebecca asked, finding herself swept into a Hagrid-hug.
"They'd decided before our defense was even shown." Hagrid said with a dark tone that disappeared as quickly as it showed itself. "Dumbledore's coming down. Says he wants to be with me when-when it happens."
"We'll stay too." Harry said firmly.
Hagrid released Rebecca and patted the top of her head, before turning around with a scowl. "You'll do no such thing! You lot shouldn't 've even come out of the castle unaccompanied!"
"You didn't let us come to the trial, we'll be here with you through the end!" Hermione's tone showed no sign of relenting--They wanted to be there for their friend.
"You're lucky you had exams and couldn't go." Hagrid said. "Lucius Malfoy sittin' up there all high and mighty, knowing what was going to happen and smug! I wouldn't 'ave wanted you to go and see that bull-" A knock at the door silenced Hagrid and he clapped a hand to his mouth. "Bugger, that'll be the Minister and Dumbledore. You four--Out the back!"
They paused at the back door, realising that this was it. Their plan had failed and the inevitable conclusion to the case against Buckbeak being raised had arrived.
"Make your way around as we sign the papers." Hagrid said with a hint of finality in his voice. "Do not dilly dally, you get on up to the castle and stay there."
Hagrid called to the door that he was coming, shooing them out. Ron gasped and ducked down at the exact moment Harry grabbed the back of his head and turned towards the window to find out what had caused him a burst of pain.
"Scabbers?" Ron asked happily, not noticing Harry and Rebecca looking out the window. Finding his three-toed rat rooting around the bottom of a bag of corn in Hagrid's hut had taken all of his attention.
"Seems like you owe someone an apology." Hermione said smugly. "I don't know who though, who on Earth you've been an utter arse to."
"Think this was it?" Rebecca asked, picking up the little stone she had seen clatter on Hagrid's table below Harry's head.
"It had to be." Harry answered confused, creeping out the door behind her. Hermione led the way, she and Ron crouching behind the first set of pumpkins and waving for Harry and Rebecca to take their spot as they moved to the second. "Come on."
Rebecca followed Hermione's movements, ducking when Hermione motioned for them to as Cornelius Fudge, the Minster of Magic, looked out of Hagrid's window and saw Buckbeak tied up.
Rebecca hesitated beside Buckbeak, her throat blocked as she tried to manage an apology. "I'm sorry, Buckbeak. I tried--we all tried--our absolute hardest."
He let out a low hoot and nodded his beak towards Hermione and Ron, his eyes knowing and accepting.
Out of sight of the hut, the four children stood upright and began the defeated march back up to the castle. Rebecca froze at the clearing a quarter of the way up, stunned by how beautiful the Whomping Willow with the Forbidden Forest in the background could be on such a horrible evening.
Harry wiped at his eyes with his sleeve while Hermione had long given up as the second her cheeks were dry, another line of tears was made. Even Ron, stoic, oblivious Ron, had a mist in his eyes that was only kept away by the holding of his treasured pet against him.
Even at their distance, the thump of the axe could be heard and the reason for the screech of the birds frightened off their perches was known by every single one of them.
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They tried to pull themselves together, but the resounding pangs of failure kept them from being able to. Hermione had found a semblance of comfort with her arms wrapped around Rebecca and Rebecca had found one in comforting Hermione.
Ron's shout broke the silence, Scabers' squeaking joining his voice as Ron tried to simultaneously hold his finger and catch his rat. "Scabbers bit me! No, SCABBERS!" Ron had to release Scabbers entirely when the rat turned its head around and sank its teeth into the back of his hand viciously.
"Is that Crookshanks?" Rebecca asked, pointing at the orange shape following a much larger, darker one headed towards them. "Bloody hell..."
"It's the Grim." Harry breathed, a sinking feeling crossing over him. He may not be the Potter recently discovered to experience premonitions, but he felt most certainly that something bad was going to happen.
"Hermione, get your demon cat and I'll get Scabbers!" Ron demanded, the first of them to start running after the trio of animals. Scabbers' little brown form could be seen turning left and right on the grass ahead of them while the Grim and Crookshanks seemed to forget the children--as they were certain they had been after Harry and Rebecca--to chase the rat.
"Ron!" Hermione shouted, breaking into a run as the dog turned and looked at Ron with knowledge behind its eyes. "Ron, stop!"
Rebecca pushed herself harder, trying to catch up to Ron. He dove onto the ground, catching Scabbers and scolding him harshly.
"RON!" Rebecca screamed, her voice joining his wail of pain as the Grim snapped down on his leg and began to drag him backwards, closer to the base of the Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione dropped back as the Whomping Willow came to life, stretching its branches and seemingly studying the foolish children at its roots. "I'm coming, Ron!" He had disappeared into a hole previously unnoticed underneath a particularly bulbous knot in the roots, his screams echoing in the tunnel he was dragged through.
"Rebecca, wait!" Harry shouted, next to Hermione. "We have to-DUCK!" He had to close his eyes as the Whomping Willow took its first swing at Rebecca, though she hit the ground just in time to miss. She rolled to the side, the ground beneath her shaking as the tree tried to smash her into the dirt but continued to fail. "We have to do something!"
Hermione had her wand in her hand, the end tapping into her leg as she racked her mind for a solution. "I'm thinking!"
"Think faster!" Harry's heart skipped a beat as the tree clipped Rebecca on a particularly vicious swing, sending her sprawling to the ground with a hand pressed against her side.
Rebecca ducked again, staying on her hands and knees and throwing herself down the hole Ron had disappeared into. Hermione raised her wand above, "Arresto Momento!" The tree grew still momentarily.
Harry and Hermione raced to the bottom of the tree, sliding into the darkness with varying degrees of anger. "What were you thinking? What were you thinking?!" Harry demanded, shouting at Rebecca and grabbing her wrists tightly. "Are you hurt?"
"No." Rebecca said, pulling her wrists from his grip and turning towards the tunnel as Ron's howls reached a new pitch of pain. "I was thinking that Ron needs us, Harry."
"He needs us alive." Hermione said gently, pushing Harry back a step. He went to the opposite side of the tunnel, facing the dirt with his hand firmly against his mouth. "Let me see."
"It's just a bruise." Rebecca refused to lift her shirt. "Let's go." Illuminating the end of her wand, Rebecca walked as quickly as she could manage in the cramped quarters.
"Where are we going?" Harry asked, minutes into their walk.
"I have a hunch." Hermione said mysteriously, grimacing as both Rebecca and Harry turned to her. "But I hope I'm wrong."
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"Were you wrong?" Harry whispered, looking around the hatch the tunnel opened up into. They seemed to be in a house, though it was ragged and run down. Dirty as if it hadn't ever been cleaned.
"No," Hermione sighed. "We're in the Shrieking Shack."
"The most haunted house in all of Britain." Rebecca intoned, not pausing as they had to survey their surroundings. "Come on, Ron-"
"We need a plan." Harry said.
"The plan," Rebecca said harshly. "Is to find Ron. That's the plan. Follow me or stay here, Harry. There isn't-" Rebecca grit her teeth as a whimper echoed through the house, clearly coming from upstairs. "There's no time to waste with planning." She held her wand in front of her, taking the stairs as quietly as she could while Hermione and then Harry followed behind her.
There was a room at the end of the hall, the source of the cries. Rebecca went straight to Ron, leaving the others to make sure the surrounding was safe. His leg was horrid, mangled and bleeding steadily. "R-Rebecca!" He gasped, raising a hand and pointing into the shadows of the room. "It's a trap! He's an animagus!"
"Harry? Hermione?" Rebecca called over her shoulder, still paying her full attention to Ron. She undid her belt and gave Ron a quick 'sorry' as she tightened it as far as she could.
"Make sure he's alright." Hermione said, raising her wand as Harry already had. There was a figure behind the door, staring at them without movement. A figure that looked hauntingly identical to that of the demented, screaming mugshot warning of a prisoner's escape.
The figure of Sirius Black.
Hermione put herself in front of Harry and tilted her wand threateningly. "If you want to kill them, you'll have to kill us too."
"Only one will die tonight." Sirius hadn't moved more than a single step forward, his eyes darting between Harry and the now-standing Rebecca.
"Then it'll be you!" Harry shouted, charging through Hermione's outstretched arm and grabbing Sirius Black by his shirt front before throwing the emaciated man onto the floor roughly. Harry dropped to his knees, putting a hand around and his wand to Sirius' throat.
"Are you going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius Black asked, chuckling softly.
Rebecca shielded Ron as the door Sirius had closed moments earlier was thrown open again. "Expelliarmus!" Professor Lupin shouted, charming Harry's wand out of his hand. All four of the children stared at the new comer with wide eyes, Harry only moving to the side when Remus motioned for him to do so. "Well, well, Sirius! Looking rather ragged, aren't we?"
Sirius shrugged, not moving from the floor.
"Finally the flesh reflects the madness within." Remus said, a strange emotion clouding his tone.
"You'd know all about the madness within, wouldn't you Remus?"
Remus lowered his wand, pulling Sirius to his feet and embracing the man tightly. A conversation happened excitedly between them. Sirius frantically repeating that 'he'd found him' and Remus assuring the other that he knew.
"I trusted you!" Hermione shouted, moving ahead and shaking Rebecca's hand from her arm. Hermione would protect her friends as they had protected her, she would love them as she was loved. "All this time, you've been his friend?" Hermione looked over her shoulder, realising the others wouldn't know what she did. "He's a werewolf. That's why he misses classes, that's why he gets ill."
Remus tilted his head curiously, stepping forward between the children and Sirius. "How long have you known?"
"Since the essay Professor Snape assigned."
Remus nodded, a smile creeping around his mouth. "Well, well. You lot really are some of the brightest witches and-"
"Enough talk, Remus!" Sirius interrupted angrily. "Come on, let's kill him!"
"You'll kiss the queen before you get to Ron." Rebecca snapped.
"Ron?" Sirius repeated as if the word was foreign to his mouth. "Ron? I want-"
"Wait." Remus said, wanting to give an explanation where one was due.
"I DID MY WAITING!" Sirius screamed, his voice reaching a desperate pitch before falling into a broken, hurt tone. "Twelve years of it in Azkaban."
Remus stared at the man he had once loved more than life, far more than himself, and handed his wand to him. "Very well. But wait one more minute, one more. They deserve to know why."
"I know why!" Harry said. "You betrayed our parents! You're the reason their dead!"
"No, Harry." Remus corrected Harry as he had any student in any of his classes when they had come to the wrong conclusion. "It wasn't him. Somebody did betray your parents, but it was somebody who, until quite recently, I believed to be dead!"
"Who was it, then?" Rebecca demanded. "Who, if not him?"
"Peter Pettigrew!" Sirius spat. "Peter fucking Pettigrew, and he's in this room! Come out, Peter! Come out and play!"
"Expelliarmus!" Another entrance, another disarming. Sirius Black was immediately without a wand and staring at Severus Snape. "Vengeance is sweet. How I hoped I'd be the one to catch you."
"Severus-" Remus tried to explain, tried to get the wand leveled at Sirius' head lowered.
"I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle, and now here's the proof!"
Sirius snorted. "Brilliant, Snape. Once again you've put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and, as usual, come to the wrong conclusion! Now if you'll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to."
Snape lunged forward, jabbing his wand into the side of Sirius' neck roughly. Remus winced, a hand reaching out for him. "Give me a reason." Snape muttered, pushing his wand harder into the white flesh. "I beg you."
"Severus, don't be a fool." Remus chided.
"He can't help it, it's habit by now." Sirius quipped.
"Sirius, be quiet!"
"Be quiet yourself!" Sirius snapped back.
"Oh, listen to you two!" Snape smirked. "Quarreling like an old married couple."
"Why don't you run along and play with your chemistry set?" Sirius asked rudely.
Snape scowled, considering something before grinning. "You know, I could do it." His grin grew. "But why deprive the dementors?"
Rebecca jumped forward, ignoring the throbbing of her side and the haunting feeling that she would grow to regret this, and cast a spell with all of the anger and hurt and confusion inside of her. "EXPELLIARMUS!"
Snape was sent flying, crashing through the brittle, wooden furniture in the room and leaving a hole in the wall before crumpling into an unmoving pile on the floor.
"Rebecca, what did you do?!" Harry shouted, turning to look at her to make sure she hadn't gone mad.
"You just attacked a teacher." Hermione said, not to anyone in particular but almost as if to make sure it had actually happened.
"Tell me about Peter Pettigrew." Rebecca demanded, inching towards Remus and keeping her attention entirely on the men in case they had any ideas. Her wand bounced between the two of them slowly, making them entirely aware that she would not hesitate to use it.
"He was at school with us." Remus answered. "We thought he was our friend."
"No." Rebecca shook her head. "Pettigrew's dead. He killed him." Her wand moved to him quickly, bringing a slight flinch as Sirius remembered what had happened to Snape moments before.
"No, no he didn't." Remus said exasperatedly, moving between Rebecca and Sirius because he, too, was worried. "I considered it until Harry mentioned seeing Peter on the map."
"The map was lying then!" Rebecca countered.
"My map cannot lie!" Remus shouted, raising his hands to calm her and himself. "He's here."
"He's right there!" Sirius shouted, pointing at Ron.
"Me?" Ron asked. "He's mental!" He had retained a little bit of colour with the bleeding slowed. "I-"
"Not you!" Sirius said tiredly. "Your rat!"
"Scabbers has been in my family for-" Ron was cut off by Sirius again.
"Twelve years?" Sirius guessed, slowly walking towards Ron. "Curiously long life for an ordinary garden rat. He's missing a toe, isn't he?"
"All they found of him was a toe." Harry said under his breath, catching a slight nod from Rebecca.
"The dirty coward cut it off so that everyone would think that he was dead." Sirius was in front of Rebecca now, looking at the rat pointedly. "And then he transformed into a rat."
"Show me." Harry commanded, nodding to Ron to give Scabbers up.
"What are you trying to do to him?" Ron bellowed, trying to stand. "Leave him alone!"
Sirius lunged, trying to cast the spell on the running Scabbers with Remus' refound wand. He missed once, twice, three times. Finally, just as it seemed as if Scabbers would disappear into the house through a small hole, Sirius' spell made its mark.
Remus grabbed the short, round man by the back of his pants and threw him on the ground in front of Sirius. Ron was frozen, staring in disbelief.
"Remus? Sirius? My old friends?"
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Part one of two!
<3