Branches whipping at his face, snow dragging at his legs, ice raining on his head, Remus barreled through the wood. The spell's trail shot red-hot through the forest ahead of him, whipping around trees, snaking over gulleys, brilliant and glittering, impossible to lose.
He hoped.
"You go," Remus panted at Padfoot, who was running along beside him. "You're—faster—but when you find him, wait for me!" he shouted as the dog outstripped him.
Padfoot was the same color as the shadows of the forest, and Remus quickly lost sight of him. But the trail burned fiery bright, and he ran after it.
Severus waited until Lupin was gone to move. The worst of the backlash had passed, but it had left him weak and nearly helpless. Occasional tremors still wracked him, and his bones felt turned half to water.
Still lying on his back, he fumbled from his pocket the crude map he'd drawn of the grounds, Hogsmeade, and the surrounding forest. With a shaking hand, he scooped the still-hot ashes out of the dying fire, and blew them as best he could across the paper.
The trail blazed to light on the parchment, snaking from his point in the forest, through the trees. . .
To Hagrid's hut.
He dumped the rest of the ashes across the ground and pushed himself to his feet. His head spun and his body ached like fuck. He fell over four times getting out of the circle, and had to support himself, once he was out of it, by leaning on the trees.
He probably wouldn't beat Lupin, but at least he knew where he was headed.
Harriet couldn't believe it. How could she have been so bloody blind?
"I'm so sorry—" she said. "I should have asked—"
"Nonsense!" Hagrid said bracingly, but his eyes were leaking tears as he said it, and he had to blow his nose before he could go on. "It ain't yer fault, love. Why do yeh think I never mentioned it none? Yeh got yer own business to think about, and Merlin love a duck, yeh got more'n enough of that."
"But Buckbeak—"
"There's nothin' yeh could've done, and serves no purpose to be worritin' yeh," Hagrid said, mopping at his eyes. "'Sides, it's me own ruddy fault. Teachin' hippogriffs in a firs' lesson—"
"I did just fine with Buckbeak—"
"An' I was a bleedin' fool to let yeh even try," Hagrid said gruffly. "I forget—interestin' creatures—they en't so dangerous to me, but ter little ones like you lot. . ."
Harriet couldn't honestly deny the truth of this: Hagrid's love for "interesting creatures" had included vicious, fire-breathing dragons, man-eating spiders, and three-headed dogs, the last of which had tried to gore her two years ago. She'd never met the Acromantula, and she didn't want to. She knew enough of what Hagrid liked to supply the rest.
"Malfoy was the only one in the whole class who got hurt," she said stubbornly, "because he thinks he's too good to listen to what people tell him."
Hagrid's sniffle sounded like a car puttering. When he suddenly burst out howling, Harriet upset her jug-sized teacup, slopping ice-cold tea across her own lap.
"L-look at h-him!" he wailed, making her think of Dobby grown to fifty times his size. "P-poor Beaky! How c-could anyone think he's a danger!"
Harriet glanced to where Buckbeak was curled up on Hagrid's bed. She only hoped he hadn't gone up before the Board of Governors while he was chewing on something matted and bloody, the way he was doing right now. Since Hagrid clearly didn't see anything in this picture that would unnerve anyone, she had to hope Buckbeak had finished his lunch before the hearing.
"You said there was an appeal," she said desperately, while Hagrid continued to sob so loudly, it was a miracle thatch wasn't shaking loose from the ceiling. "There's still hope he'll get off—"
"Yeh don't know the Board!" Hagrid sobbed. "They've got it in fer interestin' creatures!"
"We can try," she said. "What do you need to do, for an appeal?"
But Hagrid couldn't speak. He only wailed into his handkerchief, slumping over the table. Harriet rubbed his arm, wishing she'd invited Hermione along. She'd know what to do about the appeal, if nothing else.
After a time, Hagrid recovered himself. "Thanks, love," he said thickly. His handkerchief had become so sodden that he had blow his nose on his coat sleeve. "I worrit about him, that's all. If anythin' happens to him, it's me own fool fault, and that's the worst thing to know yeh've done."
Harriet didn't know what to say to this. "I'll make some more tea," she offered feebly. (Whatever Hagrid had done to the first batch, it had been stone cold from the first. She suspected he hadn't even heated the water.)
She stood up, and it was a good thing she did: as soon as she moved, a fiery bolt of magic shot in through the wall, across the table, passed straight through her chair, and through the door of Hagrid's kitchen cabinet. Behind the closed door, something clattered.
"Wha' the devil?" Hagrid said blankly, while Harriet knocked her mug over a second time.
The thin line of fire hung in the air like a taut wire, not disappearing.
"What is that?" she asked.
Hagrid grabbed her arm and stood from the table, pulling her bodily away. "Don' touch it!" he said gruffly. "There's no tellin' what it is!"
"Don't you know?"
"Haven't got a clue. Never seen the like before—and now that I have, I don' like it. Stay behind me, love."
He reached for his crossbow with one hand and his pink umbrella with the other, and Harriet got out her own wand. Pointing the umbrella at the cabinet, he spelled the door open.
Nothing happened.
Hagrid bent down and peered into the dark. Then he reached inside and hauled out a stone pitcher, the side of which the fire-line had shot straight through without coming out the other.
He dumped the contents of the pitcher on the tabletop. The fire-line went with it—wrapped securely around the body of a terrified rat.
"Scabbers?" Harriet said.
"Ron's rat? Yeh sure?"
She nodded dumbly. She'd recognize Scabbers anywhere, though she'd never seen him looking so sick and thin or terrified, even when Crookshanks was after him. "What is that thing?"
"Dunno." Hagrid poked his umbrella at the table, but the fire-line didn't fade or do anything at all. Scabbers was trembling, his eyes were bulging, but he didn't seem able to move or even make a sound. "Some kinder binding spell, though I've never seen the like, nor hearda one that works on animals."
"Is it hurting him?"
"Can' really tell. We'll have ter get a professor to look at 'im, I don' know enough about magic to be able to—wha's that?"
Before Harriet could say What's what? she heard it: a growl, like from an angry, half-mad animal. It made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle like porcupine's quills.
Scabbers' eyes popped even wider.
Buckbeak stood on Hagrid's bed, trying to stretch his wings and knocking everything off the bedside cabinet. Harriet jumped when the front door rattled as if a great weight had crashed against it, shaking the wood, growling and snarling and scrabbling.
"Wha' in the name of Merlin?" Hagrid said under his breath. He banged on his door with the parasol; the door flared golden-bright, and with a yelp and a thud the thing on the other side fell back.
"Get over there with Buckbeak, Harry," Hagrid said, hefting his crossbow.
Harriet darted over to Buckbeak, bowed quickly, and then slipped behind the protective span of his wings.
Hagrid started to open the front door, but caught it in the chest when it was suddenly flung open, a flurry of snow and icy wind hurtling in, along with—
"Professor Lupin?" Harriet said, staring.
"Oof!" said Hagrid.
Buckbeak hissed and ripped a furrow in the bed, scattering stuffing.
Professor Lupin looked like he'd been running some sort of dirty obstacle course in the forest. His robes were smeared with slush and mud, his hair was streaked with wet, there were small cuts all over him, and his face was wild. He was panting slightly, his eyes wide and a strange, almost inhuman sharpness in his face.
He looked straight at the fire-wire, following it to the table, to Scabbers, and his eyes narrowed to slits, with an expression that flashed a chill down Harriet's spine.
"Professer Lupin?" Hagrid repeated when he only stood there, breathing heavily, his eyes fixed on the table—on Scabbers on the table.
Buckbeak was making a hissing, spitting noise in the back of his throat, his wings flexing; Harriet tried to get down from the bed and he shrieked, his wing snapping back and clipping her in the shoulder, slamming her against the wall.
"Buckbeak! Down!" Hagrid turned from the door, tossing his parasol and crossbow onto the floor, and taking Buckbeak by his collar so that Harriet could get free.
Then Professor Lupin did something even more strange: he strode up to the table and grabbed Scabbers.
"I'm sorry to trouble you," he said to them in an odd voice. "I've been looking for this."
"That's Scabbers," Harriet said, scrambling over to the table.
"I'm afraid it can't be," Professor Lupin said, still in that odd voice. Only it wasn't the voice that was odd; it was the calm tone paired with the wild expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Harriet, but this rat belongs to me."
"It's Scabbers," Harriet insisted, "there's been some mistake—"
"The spell here was to find a very particular rat," said Professor Lupin, still quite calm, though his eyes made that chill wrap tighter around Harriet's spine. "And it's found him. I'm sorry, Harriet—Hagrid—but I have to go now."
"Wait!" she said desperately.
"Harry, maybe yeh mistook the rat," Hagrid said, still hanging onto an angry, hissing Buckbeak. "Yeh said that Scabbers—"
"That is Scabbers!" she said hotly.
"Harriet," Professor Lupin said, his voice now sounding strained.
"I'm coming with you," she said stubbornly. "That's Ron's rat. I can prove it—he's missing his smallest toe on his right paw!"
Lupin looked down at her for a long moment, almost as if he were looking at her from very far away.
"Very well," he said at last, slowly. "We can discuss this in my office. All right? Hagrid, I'll take her back up to the school. . . You've got your hands full—I apologize for upsetting him—"
"Weren' yer fault," Hagrid said, looking worried. Harriet thought this was an odd thing to say, considering it was all Professor Lupin's fault that Buckbeak was thrashing and shredding Hagrid's only bed.
"Come on, then, Harriet," he said, pushing the door open for her.
She slung her cloak on and followed him out.
Outside, it was bitterly cold, and quite dark for being only three o'clock or so in the afternoon. The sky was solid with clouds, making the grounds look like they already lay in twilight. Hagrid's hut was so close to the forest that it seemed to sit on the edge of a great darkness.
The snow in front of his door was all churned up, and there were claw marks on the wood.
In the deep shadows, something growled. A pair of eyes gleamed in the dark—
"Snuffles?" she said shakily. It looked like Snuffles—but it didn't. This dog looked half-mad.
"Padfoot," Professor Lupin said. He didn't sound scared, but Snuffles didn't seem to hear him. He was taking slow, measured steps toward them, his teeth bared, his hackles raised, his eyes glittering. Harriet's heart beat fast and hard.
"He attacked Hagrid's hut," she said.
Professor Lupin turned and put his free hand on her shoulder. "Harriet, I need you to do something for me, all right? I need you to go up to the castle and leave the rat with me. This is very, very important," he said when she tried to protest. "I'll explain it to you later, but right now—"ˆ
"She has a right to know."
Harriet did not recognize this voice. It was hoarse, like it hadn't been used in so long, and was filled with a depth of hatred she'd never heard. Whoever it belonged to, the voice shocked Professor Lupin, straight to his heart—and then he closed his eyes, like he'd been afraid this would happen.
Harriet looked around his shoulder and was always proud of herself later that she hadn't screamed.
If Sirius Black looked less dead now than when she'd seen him for the first time on the Muggle telly, it was only because he now had such an expression of rage and hate twisting his skeletal face to life.
"Just what do you fucking think you're doing?" Professor Lupin demanded in a tone of voice that made Harriet jump.
"She's got a right to know what that fucking piece of shit did," Black said, his voice low and snarling, like the growl of a—of a—
"Where's Snuffles?" she asked, battling a feeling of terror and something else. . .
Professor Lupin's hand gripped her shoulder and then relaxed, though it still rested on her. And then she realized what that "something else" feeling was: the sense that something was very, very wrong here. . .
"Remus," Black said.
Professor Lupin looked at him for a long moment, not speaking.
Then he grabbed Harriet, lifting her right off the ground, and she screamed with a sudden jolt of terror; except he must have been expecting that, because he'd put his hand over her mouth before she made a sound. She thrashed as he carried her into the trees, but even being so thin and frail-looking, he was still a great deal bigger than she was.
Over her shoulder she heard the door to Hagrid's hut opening, and she thrashed harder and tried to bite Professor Lupin's hand so she could call out for him.
"I'm sorry," Professor Lupin whispered, shouldering aside low-hanging branches. "It'll all become clear—we aren't going to hurt you—"
Harriet didn't believe that for a second. She tried kicking him, tried being angry, because she didn't want to start crying, because she was so scared—
She heard the whine of a dog, and thought Snuffles with an elation so sharp it pierced—saw him scrambling along beside Lupin, and willed him to bite him—
But then Snuffles changed into Sirius Black right in front of her and hissed, "Fucking Christ, Remus, put her down, you're scaring the shit out of her—"
"You're the one who transformed into a mass-murderer in front of her," Professor Lupin snapped, sounding angrier than Harriet had ever heard him.
"She wasn't going back up to the castle, no one in their right bloody mind would've. She deserves to know—"
"And if you get caught, the only thing you'll know is the Dementors' fucking Kiss!"
"At least put her down," Black said, "or let her breathe."
Harriet held quite still, hardly daring to breathe. Why did Black care whether she was scared? He was supposed to want to kill her.
Nothing happening here was anything like what she would have expected.
It was still fucking scary, though.
"I'll be good," Harriet promised as soon as Lupin slowly withdrew his hand.
"I doubt that," he said—almost like he was trying not to laugh, but in such a sad way. "You'll hex us both at the first opportunity, I'm sure."
But he set her on her feet nonetheless. Harriet didn't recognize where they were. All trees looked the same to her, especially in the near-dark, and in the Forbidden Forest they looked dead and menacing. She tried not to shiver, but it was so cold, especially now that Professor Lupin had put her down. He gave off as much heat as a space heater.
And he'd brought her into the forest, alone, except for a mass murderer who'd killed her parents and wanted to kill her. And Scabbers.
She forced herself to look them in the eye.
Professor Lupin was wary and still cradling Scabbers in the fiery rope. And Black. . . there was an expression on his face that reminded her of Snuffles: hungry and lonely and yearning and so, so sad. Even his matted hair and filthy robes made her think of Snuffles' fur.
Her knees felt wobbly. They might not look it, but they were going to kill her. Black was clearly mad, and so was Professor Lupin, if he was helping him. And she'd sort of trusted him. And Snuffles—
She wobbled, groping for something to sit on.
"Harriet," said Lupin, as if he was worried, and she wanted to scream at him to shut up.
"I—" she choked, teetering away from them to lean against a fallen log. She sucked in lungfuls of air, bracing herself.
Then she leapt over the log and took off running as fast as she could.
She heard one of them swear. She ripped off her cloak, dropping it behind her, so she could run better—ducked a low-hanging branch, jumped over a fallen tree, swerved around a trunk—
And ran smack into someone, knocking them both off their feet and her glasses off her face.
"Miss Potter?" hissed Snape's voice. His hand clamped down on her shoulder like iron, probably bruising, but for the first time she understood what it meant to be so relieved to see someone that you wanted to cry.
"Sirius Black!" she gasped.
Snape shoved her glasses onto her face, missing one of her ears and scraping her nose. In focus, he looked—ill. And enraged, like he had at the Dursleys—no: like in the Chamber of Secrets, when he'd come out of the gloom with his eyes glittering and his teeth bared, like he was hanging onto sanity by the jagged tips of his fingernails. There was a wild look on his face, like Lupin's, like Black's, anger and madness and something she didn't understand.
"Are. You. Injured?" he hissed, and she got the impression that he was clenching his teeth so he wouldn't scream at her.
"I—" she started to answer, but then she stopped, her heart, too, when she heard the growling of a dog, the snapping of the underbrush close by.
Snape dragged himself to his feet using the trunk of a tree, and hauled her up with him. He jerked her underneath his cloak and stared fixedly the way she had come blundering through the dormant wood, a sharpness in his eyes that would have made Neville faint if it was aimed at him. His whole body seemed to be shaking, and his clothes were damp.
"He's the dog," she whispered, digging her fingers into Snape's robes, as Snuffles' gleaming eyes and teeth shone out of the shadows, "he's an Animagus—"
Snape hissed, a long-drawn out sound that reminded her of a snake, though it wasn't Parseltongue; just a meaningless hiss of rage.
Black-the-dog stalked closer, almost as angry as he'd been when he was fixed on Scabbers.
"He and Professor Lupin are in league together or something," Harriet whispered frantically. "They did some spell on Scabbers—"
"Scabbers?" Snape said in a slightly louder voice, though he didn't take his eyes off the slowly advancing dog.
"Ron's rat."
"You know him by another name, though, Severus," said Lupin's voice.
He brushed out of the trees, still holding Scabbers in his hand, the fire-rope wrapped around the rat's little body. Lupin's face was eerily calm, but Snuffles snarled.
"You remember Peter Pettigrew," said Lupin, like he was introducing an old acquaintance.
"You had me do that spell to find a fucking rat," Snape said in a voice shaking with fury, his arm suddenly so tight around Harriet it almost hurt.
Snuffles had turned into Sirius Black again. "We haven't got time for this shit," he snarled at Lupin.
"I should think we have nothing but time," Lupin said to Black. Then to Snape, "I had to tell you it was Sirius I wanted to find because you'd never have believed the truth." Then he looked down at the rat. "I haven't even had the proof yet."
An odd expression passed over Black's face—almost like hurt—and then hatred crushed it out of sight.
"Then let's do the fucking spell," he spat.
Harriet realized Snape was trying to get her attention.
"Take that," he said, his voice barely more than a breath, and pressed something into her hand, still beneath the cloak. She clamped her fingers around a piece of parchment.
Lupin nodded at Black and bent to set the rat on the ground.
A violet-colored bolt of light shot out of Snape's wand and hit Lupin in the chest, slamming him back several feet onto his back. Snarling, Black started toward Snape, who hexed him with a spell that shot ropes around him, wrapping him up so tightly that he overbalanced and crashed to the bracken.
Snape shoved Harriet out from beneath his cloak. "Get going!" he hissed.
"But you're hurt!" she said, as he almost fell over. He would have if he hadn't grabbed the tree to stay upright.
"Do as you're fucking told, for once—"
"Watch out!" she cried, as she saw Professor Lupin raising his wand and pointing it at them—
A flash of blue-white light erupted from his wand and enveloped Scabbers lying on the frozen ground. It made him bulge in size—and then keep growing, to the size of a small dog, a child—
Then the spell-light faded, and lying where Scabbers had been was a man, a look of terror on his face, and the fiery rope still wrapped tight around him.
They were all frozen: Harriet, Lupin, Black (still trussed up), even Snape.
Who then really did fall over. Harriet darted over to him. He looked exhausted, but his glare could have gutted a rhinoceros. He tried to push himself up, but he couldn't manage it without her help.
He slumped against his earlier tree, panting, sweat glistening on his face, apparently too drained to stand. Harriet crouched next to him.
Lupin climbed to his feet, looking down at Scabbers—the man—almost as if he'd forgotten anyone else was there.
"Hello, Peter," he said.
Scabbers only stared up at him in heart-freezing terror.
Every part of him wrapped in the ropes, even his mouth, Black thrashed.
"Can I let him out, or are you going to hex me if I try?" Lupin asked Snape.
"Fuck you, you lying piece of shit," Snape said, like he'd been waiting a hundred years to say it, and again he tried to stand, but he collapsed again. In frustration, he broke out with a wave of cursing so creative Harriet didn't even know what half of it meant (though what she did understand blistered her ears).
All Lupin did in reply was to put his wand away and hold out his hands, as if in surrender.
"What's going on?" Harriet asked. She'd have taken an answer from anyone, with or without cursing. "Who is that?"
"It's Peter Pettigrew," said Lupin. He wasn't making a move toward either Scabbers-the-man or Black, or even toward Harriet and Snape.
"But who is that?" Harriet demanded. The name, though, was niggling at her. . . where had she heard it?
"Don't you recognize him, Severus?" asked Lupin.
Snape just swore at him, which Harriet took for a yes. Lupin must have, too, because he nodded and then said to Harriet, "How much do you know—"
Black, trussed up in Snape's spell-rope, made a noise that sounded like his own version of Snape's swearing-storm. Lupin made as if to move toward him, but Snape raised his wand, hand and voice shaking, and snarled, "You fucking stay where you are, werewolf."
Lupin's eyelids flickered. If it hadn't been for that, Harriet might have been too distracted to notice.
"Werewolf?" she repeated blankly, looking from Snape to Lupin, who seemed to shrink away from her. "You're a werewolf?"
He only closed his eyes. Bewildered by this reaction, she looked to Snape for understanding, but he was glaring at Lupin with undisguised loathing.
"If we can get back to the matter at hand," Lupin said, like he was trying to be calm, though it seemed to be costing him more of an effort than anything before. "This is Peter Pettigrew, whom Sirius supposedly killed twelve years ago. Like Sirius, he's an Animagus, and has been posing as your friend Ron's rat."
Harriet stared. Black's eyes were slitted with hatred, fixed on Scabbers-the-man. His eyes were rolled back in his head, like it was all he could do, trapped and terrified and apparently voiceless. She looked to Snape for help. The expression on his face echoed Black's, down to the last millimeter of hatred.
"Did you lose a map, Harriet?" asked Lupin. "Around Christmas?"
Harriet blinked.
"There is so much to tell," he said, "I don't know where to begin or what all to cover." He glanced down at Black. "The Map, as you no doubt saw, Harriet, will show the location of anyone in Hogwarts. Sirius and I thought to use it to find Peter—whom Sirius broke out of Azkaban to find—but by the time we were able to get the Map—to steal it from you, I'm afraid—Peter had faked his own death and vanished off its edges. I believe Hermione has a cat who was accused of eating him?"
"I told you that," Harriet whispered.
"Yes. And that Peter's blood was found on Ron's bed sheet," Lupin said. "Dobby got that bed sheet for me, and I gave it to Severus, for a powerful locating spell—and it's found him."
A dangerous traitor-wizard—Harriet Potter's Snuffles—he and Moony are hunting—his friend Moony, who he is not seeing for many, many years—
Harriet's head felt so heavy. She was confused—if she were cleverer, like Hermione, she'd surely understand—but she wasn't clever, and it was all too much.
"What are you saying?" she asked. "What does that even matter?"
"It matters because if Peter is alive, then Sirius wasn't the man who betrayed your parents. Peter was."
"The fuck he was," Snape snarled suddenly.
"Severus—" Lupin tried.
"Dumbledore gave evidence he was their fucking Secret Keeper! The Dark Lord had a spy following them, shadowing everything they did, they'd never have placed their faith in that—" He made a savage swipe with his wand toward Pettigrew, whose eyes rolled with terror. "—when there was Black, who Potter worshiped to the ends of the fucking earth—"
"Severus," Lupin repeated.
"Even after we knew there was a spy, the Dark Lord was still getting all the information he could ever fucking want! It had to be someone they trusted blindly, someone whom they couldn't keep their fucking mouths shut for love of, and that was Black, not Pettigrew—"
Harriet stared at him, at his face petrified with grief and rage. Some understanding was building in her chest, as strongly pressing as the anger-weight, but very, very different—something so big she was struggling with it, as she'd struggled with the truth—simpler, yet incredibly complicated at the same time. . .
"They thought the spy was me," Lupin said, and Harriet heard the pain in his voice, like she could see it in Snape's face. "They—all—did."
Snape was breathing heavily. It was the only sound in the clearing.
"And why should I believe you now," he said in a deadly voice, "when all you've done since you set foot in this school is fucking lie to everyone?"
Lupin tossed his wand over. It landed on the frozen ground near Harriet's foot.
"If you'll take the spell of him so he can speak, we can interrogate him together."
The silence stretched and stretched, until she didn't see how it couldn't break. The look on Snape's face hurt to look at, and yet she couldn't look away.
"Miss Potter," Snape said at last, like miles of ice, with something burning underneath. "Help me up."
Almost too numb to be astonished, Harriet did. On his feet, braced against her shoulder, Snape took unsteady, staggering steps toward the triangle of Lupin, Black, and Pettigrew. He looked down at Pettigrew just the way Lupin had in Hagrid's hut: as if from a far, far distance.
Pettigrew didn't seem to know which of them to keep an eye on. His frenzied gaze rolled from Lupin to Harriet to Snape and around again. Black lay bound, still, and silent.
Then a light, like a little burst of flame, flared in Snape's eyes, and a gold-black shimmer flowed over Pettigrew's whole body. The fiery rope disappeared, and he sucked in breath, gasping and squeaking, sounding like his rat-self.
"Hello, Peter," said Lupin again, this time deadly cold.
"R-remus!" squeaked Pettigrew. He cringed on the ground, his gaze still rolling over all three of them. "I-it isn't true! Wh-whatever h-he's been telling you, it i-isn't true!"
"What who's been telling me?" Lupin asked patiently.
Snape had not moved or said anything. Though that flare of spell-light had faded from his eyes entirely, a different kind of light was taking over his face, one that made Harriet shiver.
"S-sirius Black! He tried to k-kill me twelve years ago, and h-he only wants to do it again!"
"Why should he want that, Peter?"
"Because—because—" But Pettigrew did not seem to have a reason.
Snape made a jab with his wand. Pettigrew squeaked and flinched, but it was the ropes holding Black that vanished like steam thrown on a hot stove.
Black climbed slowly to his feet, and Pettigrew looked even more terrified than ever before, more terrified than Harriet could have imagined anyone looking. She wouldn't have been surprised if his heart stopped from terror.
"I'll tell you why, Wormtail," Black said, menace pouring out of him. "I want you dead because you fucking sold Lily and James to Voldemort."
Like little flashes of light, the thoughts streaked through Harriet's head:
Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud to present the Marauder's Map—
He is saying Harriet Potter is being just like Prongs—
He and your dad were friends—
Potter worshiped Black to the ends of the fucking earth—
Did you lose a map, Harriet?
"It wasn't me!" Pettigrew was squeaking. "It wasn't me! Everyone knows it was you!"
"That was certainly where all the evidence pointed," Lupin said conversationally. Snape hadn't said a word, hadn't even moved except to free Black. "All evidence, of course, except your survival. . . it's curious to me, Peter, that an innocent man would be in hiding—as a pet rat—for twelve years."
"Because I put the Dark Lord's spy in prison!" Pettigrew panted, still cowering on the ground. "Th-there are still Death Eaters out th-there, and they would have been after my blood, same as he is!" Was it Harriet's imagination, or did his eyes flicker to Snape then?
Black barked a laugh, sounding like a dog again. "Oh, you're right there. Azkaban is full of people who'd fucking love to cut your throat—but not because you put me away: because the information you gave twelve years ago took Voldemort down. They think the double-crosser double-crossed them. . . nobody likes a traitor, Wormtail, and that's. Not. Me."
"R-remus," panted Pettigrew, his teeth chattering. "Y-you can't believe him—"
"The more I hear, Peter, the more I find myself doing just that," Lupin said coldly.
He glanced at Snape, then. "Severus?" he asked, a bit warily. "What do you think?"
Black gaped at him, but Lupin continued to look at Snape, who had been staring down at Pettigrew the whole time. Pettigrew regarded him with a terror as great as any for Sirius Black.
When Snape spoke, his voice seemed to come from someplace very deep and dark and cold:
"None of the Dark Lord's followers would have dared call him by his name. And they are the only ones who refer to him as the Dark Lord."
Lupin and Black both looked surprised, Pettigrew shocked and frightened. Then, in a panic, his eyes landed on Harriet.
"H-harriet," he squeaked. "Y-you don't believe it—h-he's tried to k-kill you, but I—"
"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HER!" Black roared, making Harriet jump, badly startled; Snape gripped her shoulder, painfully hard. "AFTER WHAT YOU FUCKING DID TO HER—"
"I've never tried to hurt her in twelve years!" Pettigrew squeaked.
"When there was nothing for you to gain," Lupin said.
"No, no—"
"You don't have any right to her pity," Black snarled, panting, his face somehow both livid and heartbroken. "You don't deserve to live."
"He was taking over everywhere!" Pettigrew gabbled, sobbing. "Wh-what was to be gained by refusing him?"
"What was to be gained? Only innocent fucking lives!"
"You should have known that if Voldemort's followers didn't kill you, Peter, we would," Lupin said almost gently, though there was nothing gentle in his face.
Pettigrew started hyperventilating, his eyes hugely wide. The whites gleamed in the dark, for night had fallen entirely, though the moon had not yet risen. He shook his head from side to side, mouthing soundlessly. Harriet felt sick and dizzy.
"Together?" Lupin was saying to Black, who nodded, looking more than ever like death walking.
Snape suddenly pressed Harriet's shoulder, like he was trying to pull her away. "Miss Potter," he said, "this way."
"No," she said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud.
"Miss Potter, you are not to witness this," Snape said in a voice that would not be argued with.
"I mean, they can't kill him."
Everyone stopped. Even she was a bit surprised to hear herself say it—but as she did, something painfully tight in her chest seemed to loosen.
"Harriet. . ." Lupin said, though he didn't seem to know how to go on.
"You can't," Harriet said, more firmly now, because she knew she was right. "You can't do this—like this. It's not right."
"Holly-berry, this piece of fucking shit is the reason you've got no parents. He sold them to Voldemort for less than a song, and you with them. Your whole family meant less to him than his own worthless fucking life."
"I know," Harriet said, refusing to let her voice shake. "But it's not—killing him, it won't make anything right. It'll only make it worse."
Lupin and Black stared at her, and then at each other. Pettigrew was still curled up on the ground, whimpering.
"It's never a good idea to show mercy to those who have shown you none," Snape said.
"You're as fucking cheerful as I remember," Black said.
"Says the man who's planning murder in front of his thirteen-year-old goddaughter," Snape snarled, violent red sparks dropping from the end of his wand as he gripped it.
"In front of his what?" Harriet said.
Lupin winced.
"You knew!" Harriet accused, face burning.
"Please, Harriet, you can be as angry with me as you like, later; right now, we need to get this taken care of. She's right, Sirius—from a moral standpoint, and from the practical. His corpse won't clear you half as well as his testimony."
". . . Fine." Black stared down at Pettigrew with absolute hatred, his chest rising and falling quickly. "You owe your life to the girl you tried to kill. You think about that, you worthless shit."
Lupin spelled familiar-looking ropes around Pettigrew and handed the ends to Black. "I'll let you do the honors."
"Gladly." He hauled on the ropes, dragging and bumping Pettigrew across the cold, uneven ground. Harriet winced.
"Severus," Lupin said. "Do you need—?"
"Sod the fuck off," Snape said.
They started off, Black in the front, dragging Pettigrew, who whimpered as he thumped along; then Lupin, since Snape wouldn't move until he started walking first; and lastly Snape, bracing himself against trees. Harriet stayed with him in case he needed to lean on her (though he ignored her help). His breathing was heavy and harsh, like every step hurt him.
Lupin was clearly trying not to outstrip them, but Black was getting ahead, even dragging Pettigrew behind him.
"Sirius, hold up, would you?" Lupin called after him.
"Don't linger on my account," Snape snarled.
"I'm not leaving Harriet to deal with all the trouble, should any arise," Lupin said dryly.
"And your testimony will have more credibility if I'm with you."
"There are still the Dementors," Lupin said quietly.
"And you're still a fucking barefaced shit of a liar."
"I know," Lupin sighed, rubbing at his neck.
Harriet squinted up at the branches overhead. She wished the moon would come out—then they could see better. . .
Full moon. . . full—
She gasped.
"Harriet?" asked Lupin.
"You're a werewolf!"
"Yes," he said, in a strained voice.
"It's a full moon."
"Oh. Yes." He kept rubbing his neck. "I'll transform soon. The moon's almost up. . ."
"But—um—" She didn't know how to politely say 'Won't you rip us to shreds?' She glanced at Snape, whose gaze had suddenly become arrested, fixed on Lupin.
"Lupin." Snape's voice made all the hairs on Harriet's neck rise. "You said you took your potion."
"I did." But he seemed to be shivering, an odd light in his face, and he looked almost frightened. "I know I did, Severus—"
"You said you mistook it for your tea. Do you put sugar in your tea?"
Lupin blinked. Then heartsick horror dawned on his face. "Oh, God—"
Without another word, he turned and ran. "Tell Sirius!" he shouted over his shoulder.
The forest snapped and cracked around him and swallowed him in the dark.
"What's that mean?" Harriet asked, clutching Snape's cloak.
"He takes a potion to make him sane during the full moon," Snape said, raising his wand, his whole arm shaking. "But sugar makes it useless."
A stream of red-orange light shot from his wand like welding sparks, first straight up in the air and then straight along the way Black had gone.
"Miss Potter, for once in your disobedient career, you are going to do what I say."
"Not if it involves leaving you here by yourself," Harriet said immediately.
"It is up to me to decide what it involves, not you," Snape said, menacingly, "and that is exactly what you're going to do."
"No!"
"What use do you imagine you'll be against a fully grown werewolf?" Snape hissed, grabbing her by her collar and giving her a little shake. "You'll be less than none, Miss Potter, you'll be a dead weight to me. I will be better off without having to worry about you, so you will go with Sirius fucking Black if I have to transfigure you into a dormouse!"
Black crashed back into sight, thumping Pettigrew behind him. "The fuck?" he panted. "Where's Remus?"
"He's transforming, idiot, what night do you think it is?" He shoved Harriet toward Black; she stumbled. "Take her and get the fuck gone!"
"He said you were making him a potion," Black said sharply, looking round at the solid blackness of the forest broken only by the tint of the moon shining through the branches.
Off in the distance, in the darkness of the forest, a howl rose, a sound that seemed to thread its way out of somewhere deep and dark inside Harriet's heart.
"Earlier he negated it," Snape snarled. "Get her out of here!"
"I'm not leaving!" Harriet said heatedly.
"Miss Potter, don't be a fucking idiot!"
Black swore as good as Snape did (including an order not to fucking talk to his bloody goddaughter like that, you prick).
"Transform him for me," he said, kicking the whimpering Pettigrew in the side. "My control's gone to shit, I can't do it myself."
Snape aimed his wand at Pettigrew, froze him, and with another spell-flash turned him back into a rat.
"You can't leave him here!" Harriet said to Black.
Off in the forest, but far, far too close, something snapped and crashed and snarled, shaking her bones.
Black grabbed the rat and threw it at Snape, who caught it with a blank look.
"It's not the way I'd've chosen to make up for being twelve fucking years in prison," Black bared his teeth, "but the broom didn't make it. Hobble faster, you tosser." And he transformed into Snuffles and crowded close to Harriet's hip.
"Miss Potter," Snape panted, "give me—your wand."
Confused and frightened, she pushed it into his hand. He shifted it so that he was holding his wand in one hand and hers in the other.
"This way," and he dragged her off to the left. They stumbled down a rocky slope, slipping on tree roots.
When the howl came again, it was much, much nearer.
Snape tripped; Harriet tried to help him, but she misjudged her footing and fell, hurtling down the bank, banging her hip and shoulder into roots, scraping her hands, only just managing to stop herself before she slid off the edge of a ravine. Scrambling crabwise, she pulled her feet back from the edge of a dark drop; but just ahead, she could see the moonlight gleaming off a frozen wood lake far below.
Snuffles leapt down beside her, whining, and Snape half-fell, half caught himself on the root-strewn ground just a little out of arm's reach.
"I-I'm okay," Harriet said shakily.
"You can. . . stand? Walk?" Snape panted. When Harriet nodded, he shot more red sparks high into the air above them.
Snuffles' ears pricked, and a growl built low in his chest.
An answering growl rumbled on the slope above.
Harriet raised her head. The wolf's shoulders would have been taller than her head if she were standing next to him. His front paws rested on the lower slope and his teeth were bared, his fur tinted heartless silver by the moonlight.
Her heartbeat felt very faint and faraway inside her.
Snuffles launched himself up the slope at the same moment the wolf lunged toward them, and Snape surged up from the root where he'd been resting, grabbing Harriet by both arms.
"I need you to trust that I know what I'm doing," he said in one breath.
He twisted round so he could keep the wolf in sight, just in time to see Lupin fling Snuffles into a tree. The dog yelped and flopped to the ground, at least partly stunned, and with a rumbling, snarling growl, the wolf turned on them.
Snape picked Harriet clean up off the ground and tossed her away from him.
She landed with an agonizing jolt, head rattling, and then realized it was the whole earth shaking as the wolf bounded down the slope.
A thick, fiery lasso looped round the wolf's head and jerked it round, when its claws were so close to her that they scored the ground next to her head and its breath passed hot over her face. Snarling, the wolf rounded on Snape, who gripped the other end of the rope, and lunged toward him, eating up the slack.
With his left hand—with Harriet's wand—Snape pointed at the earth beneath his feet and blasted it away. Earthy debris and rocks and roots exploded into the air; the ground rumbled and shook; and with a yelping snarl the wolf disappeared from sight. Harriet clung to the nearest root, feeling the earth crumble away from beneath her right shoe.
When everything stopped shaking, an eerie quiet swallowed the wood.
She heard a whine and pulled her head up, shaking, to find Snuffles nosing her. hair He turned into Sirius Black, who said, "Motherfucking shit," and knelt on the thin strip of ground between her and the new drop. "You hurt?"
"I-I don't know." She clenched her teeth on a huge sob. "W-where'd Snape go?"
Black peered over the drop. He turned back into a dog and cocked his head. Then the man was back again. "I think Moony took off. I can't hear anything. Shit."
He strode along the edge of the ravine, finally spotting a way down.
"Holly-berry, maybe you should stay up—"
"No," Harriet said, shaking all over but absolutely determined.
"All right. . . hang onto me—I'll get down easier—"
She clung to his shoulders as he climbed, which was all she could do; she was too short to make the drop on her own. When his feet touched the bottom of the ravine, he let her down and transformed back into Snuffles, sniffing his way along.
When Harriet saw Snape, she tripped rushing over to him. He was lying half-buried beneath a mound of rubble, motionless, one hand stretched limply out, her wand lying beside it.
"Professor?" she said in a shaking voice, but he didn't move. She groped frantically for a pulse and sagged with relief when she found one. But relief vanished when she pushed his hair off his face and her hand came away streaked with something dark and sticky. "He's bleeding—"
Snuffles whirled, barking, pressing his nose to the earth, pacing savagely back and forth.
"Wh-what is it?"
Black transformed back into a man. "Peter," he said, white faced. "He's gone. Snape's Immobulus cut off when he was knocked out. Motherfucking SHIT. I've got to—"
Then he stopped. A look came over his face that Harriet would never forget, that she felt echoed in her heart, as a drowning cold fell over her. . .
The moonlight rippled.
"No," Black whispered.
Harriet looked up. Through a clear patch in the trees overhead, she saw their cloaks streaming across the face of the moon.
She gripped Snape's hand. From far away, like a voice calling from the other end of the forest, she heard it start. . .
Snape's fingers flexed weakly in hers. She looked down, but his eyes didn't open.
"Holly-berry," Black croaked—and then he took staggering steps away from her, stumbling down the bank to the lake.
Harriet saw the Dementors bleeding down through the gap in the trees, so many of them, moving like ink through water, their skeletal fingers unfolding, their sightless hoods darker than the darkest part of the forest.
"No," she whispered, or maybe she didn't, because all she could hear was Not Harriet, please not Harriet, and maybe she said that instead.
Black sagged to his knees, clutching his head. Harriet wanted to go help him, but she couldn't leave Snape, she couldn't move—
Lily, take Harriet and go! I'll hold him off—
—if only she had learnt the Patronus, if only she'd been clever enough to figure it out—
Not Harriet, please, I'll do anything—
She stretched out her hand for her wand, but she couldn't see it; the world was filling with icy fog, the color of rotting light, and all she could see was the Dementor flowing to hover over her, its cloak bleeding down around her, its scabby, festering hands lifting to lower its hood. . .
Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now.
The Dementor had no features, only dead skin stretched over bone, empty eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Something foul and cold as death passed out of it, across her face, like the breath of evil and despair, and her mother's voice was going to be the last thing she ever heard—
Have mercy, have mercy—
And with a soundless explosion, the world was filled with blue-white light.
The Dementor reared back, and Harriet collapsed onto her back, shaking all over. She saw a brilliant, glittering, silver ball of light cantering down the bank in a wide circle, and the Dementors surging away from it as if burned. The brilliant thing made a full circle, until all the Dementors had fled, and then it turned back toward her.
Now Harriet knew what a Patronus looked like.
The silver doe's calm, gentle gaze was the last thing she saw before she passed out.