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To conserve energy for tomorrow's exam, the dormitory was filled with unusually loud snores and the faint smell of something burnt. Scattered across one of the tables were some leftover bones—a telltale sign that someone had likely brought back a chicken leg from the Great Hall for a midnight snack.
Several charred bits and bones lay in a pile, apparently the result of a poorly controlled heating spell. Thankfully, though the food was burnt, no fire had broken out in the dormitory. Only in Gryffindor, thought Harry.
As the trio entered the dormitory, the room fell into a peculiar "stillness," likely due to some spell cast upon it. Although the snores persisted, everything besides the four sleeping students appeared magically frozen in place.
Beds silently rose into the air, as did nearby cabinets and tables, with small objects drifting along in midair under the control of magic—a thorough search that would leave no stone unturned.
After a while, Dumbledore shook his head slightly. "He's not here. Besides them, there's no other living creature in this dormitory. House-elves clean the dorms daily, and I didn't find so much as a cockroach."
"Is that so?" Harry frowned. Perhaps in this world, Peter Pettigrew hadn't decided to take up residence as a rat with the Weasleys. Still, Harry planned to ask the twins about it tomorrow. Not finding him here didn't necessarily mean the rat, Scabbers, was nowhere to be found.
Just then, something caught Harry's eye. He instinctively reached out, and there in his hand was a family portrait of the Weasleys taken in front of the Burrow several years ago. Bill, the eldest son, and Charlie, who had graduated last year, were still in the photo, smiling. When they noticed Harry looking at them, they waved cheerfully. Wizarding photos moved, but unlike portraits, the people in them couldn't hop into other frames.
Dumbledore noticed Harry's intense focus on the photo and, following his gaze, saw a beady-eyed rat peeking out from young Percy's pocket. The photo froze mid-movement, and Grindelwald, his finger outstretched, pointed directly at the tiny, inconspicuous figure.
"You guessed right," Grindelwald remarked, a faint smile crossing his lips. "Look, we've found him."
The rat in the picture clung to the edge of the pocket with its tiny paws, one of its left foreclaws missing a small toe.
"While we might have been off in our search, we've hit upon the right target."
"What an odd twist of fate—perhaps destiny is smiling on you too?"
"Maybe." Harry nodded slightly. "I brought Veritaserum."
He pulled a thumb-sized glass vial from his chest pocket, containing a few drops of clear liquid and marked with a handwritten label.
"Severus certainly—"
Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He knew the background, but giving such a thing to his godson seemed a bit much.
"Legilimency will suffice," he said. "Save the Veritaserum for Pettigrew."
Dumbledore wasn't keen on Harry using the potion on one of the Weasleys' children. Despite Snape's skillful brewing, with no lasting effects, the potion's awful taste might spare the kids from unnecessary trauma.
"As you wish, Professor."
Harry tucked away the bottle, though his steady gaze projected an odd sense of pressure that almost demanded the urge to run.
"If Peter's rat form is Percy's pet, then getting close to him would be simple. With a scapegoat proxy, his risk of exposure is low. Cowardly yet clever—a good rat indeed."
Grindelwald chuckled; it seemed he rather enjoyed this twist.
If Peter Pettigrew had orchestrated everything, he'd certainly fooled everyone. Without Harry's bold suspicion, his identity might have remained hidden, even after Voldemort had taken the fall for him.
Leaving the dormitory, the trio found Percy, then doubled back to the dorm, still filled with the lingering scent of roasted chicken. Percy's pet rat had been passed down to Ron after Percy started school, as Percy had wanted a new pet.
Dumbledore, a master of Legilimency, started with his well-practiced spell. As the search turned inward, he found it easier to pull information from a sleeping mind.
"We're too late."
Dumbledore shook his head with a resigned smile; it had been an unfortunate night.
"That rat did make it to Hogwarts with Ron. But at Christmas, after Ron had his scapegoat, the Weasleys bought him a reward—a pet owl Ron had always wanted."
"A month ago, Ron's owl finally arrived, and he brought it back to the dormitory with him, while the rat that Peter had transformed into…"
Dumbledore's lips twitched as he recalled the memory he had read from Ron's mind. It seemed that Peter's luck had taken a severe downturn.
Since becoming Ron's pet, Peter had found life far more comfortable. Unlike Percy, who saw the fat, gray rat as an unappealing pet and confined him to a cage in the dormitory, feeding him only bread and water, Ron's inattentiveness allowed Peter to live a carefree life. For years, Percy had provided ample but unappetizing meals that nearly made Peter sick from the monotony.
But with Ron, things were different. Although Ron also found rats to be unexciting pets, he wasn't strict about caring for Peter, giving him freedom Percy never had. Most gratifying for Peter was that Ron was a foodie; after polishing off his own chicken leg at dinner, he often brought leftovers back to the dorm. Those fragrant chicken bones were a far cry from Percy's dry bread and served as both a meal and something to gnaw on.
Long-term use of the Animagus form had left Peter with a few rodent habits—an inevitable consequence of staying in his transformed state for so long. For weaker-willed wizards, prolonged transformations could even lead to forgetting one's human identity. Although Peter was cowardly, his spirit was hardened from years of surviving close calls.
But Peter's peaceful life came to an abrupt end with the arrival of that blasted owl. As a reward for Ron, the Weasleys had scraped together enough money to buy him a wand, but due to limited funds, the owl came several months later. An overjoyed Ron, who practically wanted to run naked through Hogwarts with excitement, promptly brought the owl back to the dorm and opened its cage.
As Peter lay sprawled on a textbook, nibbling on yesterday's leftover crisps and humming to himself, disaster struck. The owl, ravenous after its journey, set its sights on the fat rat in front of it, its eyes gleaming with hunger.
The owl swooped down in a hawk-like dive, its talons sinking into Peter's soft belly. Peter felt a piercing pain and nearly lost consciousness then and there.
If it hadn't been for the layer of fat he'd accumulated from recent indulgent meals, that first attack would have likely been his last. His shrill squeals finally penetrated Ron's slow mind. Though a bit dim-witted, Ron didn't abandon his pet; he grabbed the owl and pulled it away, sparing Peter from becoming the bird's dinner. Had he hesitated a second longer, the owl's sharp beak would have ripped open Peter's stomach to feast on the fresh meat.
Blood trailing behind him, Peter hastily escaped through the door, fleeing as fast as he could.
"He may not have left Hogwarts," Dumbledore mused thoughtfully. "Peter's injuries, though not fatal, will take some time to heal. He can't use magic, but an Animagus-formed animal is still more resilient than an ordinary one."
"Turning back into his human form wouldn't heal him completely—the physical injuries remain. Without magical treatment, Peter will need time to recover, and he wouldn't want to leave Hogwarts. He knows this place well and can find food and shelter more easily here than anywhere else."
"So now we're stuck in a frustrating game of cat and mouse?" Harry said, suppressing his growing irritation as he frowned.
"Perhaps there's a clever way to find him?"
An idea sparked in Dumbledore's mind. "Hogwarts is vast, large enough to house thousands without feeling crowded. Not even I know how many rooms there are; the interior space is magically expanded, and countless hidden nooks exist all over."
"Let's go," Dumbledore said, leaving the dormitory and leading the way through the common room and out into the corridor.
"Hogwarts holds an overwhelming number of secrets," he continued cheerfully, his good mood somehow calming Harry as well. "Although I'm the Headmaster, even I don't know all the castle's mysteries."
Once, I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and stumbled into a rather curious room filled with luxurious chamber pots of all kinds. When people have a pressing need, a hidden door will appear on the wall before them. We don't need to rely on luck this time, however. That door, which can appear anywhere in the castle, actually has a fixed entrance."
"Look—we're here."
Dumbledore stopped in front of a blank wall, opposite the tapestry of the troll clubbing Barnabas the Barmy. This hallway, one of the few at Hogwarts without portraits, was empty and silent.
"As long as Peter is hiding somewhere within Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, pointing to the blank wall ahead. "Simply walk past this wall three times, focusing on your desire. The Room of Requirement's door will then open to you."
"Give it a try, Harry; you may find exactly what you're looking for," Dumbledore said, stepping aside to let Harry approach the wall. Harry closed his eyes, silently repeating, "I need to go to Peter Pettigrew's hiding place," while pacing back and forth three times in front of the blank wall. When he opened his eyes, a standard wooden door, familiar throughout Hogwarts, stood before him.
Initially, Harry had planned to borrow the Marauder's Map from Fred and George, not intending to keep it for himself, though it had been his father's creation. The map would have been incredibly useful, showing everyone's location and name within Hogwarts. If searching blindly proved too challenging, he'd also considered asking Lupin, one of the map's creators, for tips, thinking Lupin might know some tricks the twins didn't.
To his surprise, however, Dumbledore had discovered an even more efficient method. Apart from conjuring food and gold, the Room of Requirement could meet nearly anyone's needs. Its name was certainly fitting. It was even capable of opening new, hidden passageways within Hogwarts—a feat no ordinary wizard could achieve.
Perhaps one of the school's founders had left behind this powerful magic. As Hogwarts' creators, they each wielded unimaginable strength.
With a mix of anticipation and nervousness, Harry gripped the doorknob, hoping the Room of Requirement would grant his wish. Though it seemed bizarre, it also felt completely magical.
As the wooden door slowly creaked open, a musty smell of aged wood wafted out. Illuminated by the glow of hovering light orbs, the dark room was revealed—a cluttered space resembling a storeroom, filled with broken sofas and chairs, each one in various states of disrepair.
"Peter~ Peter~ where are you~" Harry hummed, his voice laced with a cold, eerie tone. Shadows, dark and ominous, radiated from him, spreading a chaotic and malevolent aura throughout the room. Though these shadows lacked the despair-inducing presence of Dementors, they seemed to chill the air nonetheless.
Suddenly, the silence was shattered by a flash of red from Harry's wand.
"Diffindo."
Under the spell's force, the already decaying sofas and chairs were shredded into splinters, collapsing into heaps of debris. Dust billowed up, only to be swallowed by a small vortex that cleared the air.
"Come on out~ Let's play a game~" Harry's voice, growing ever more sinister, echoed throughout the room. "If you keep hiding~ refusing to meet me~"
"When I catch you~ I'll peel off your skin~ pull out your tendons~ slice your flesh~ and feed it to you~"
The increasingly menacing tune seemed to bring out a twisted side of Harry, and watching him, Dumbledore glanced over at Grindelwald, who wore the same unsettling smile as Harry.
'Quite entertaining, isn't it?' Grindelwald's eyes glinted. 'Games are best played with a smile.'
Covering his forehead in exasperation, Dumbledore could only sigh at the sight of the two mischief-makers. But in the next moment, Harry's singsong taunt reached a fever pitch, laced with a snarl.
"Gotcha~"
The ear-splitting squeak was like nails on a chalkboard. Hiding amidst a pile of scraps and leftovers, Peter, the fat rat, had his beady black eyes wide with terror. The shadow-like figure loomed over him, reaching out a dark hand that filled him with suffocating dread.
(End of Chapter)