MAGIANIMA // Hermione Granger

Behind The Monster

Every eye in the room was set on Scabbers, the rat squealing and clawing at Ron's hands, the boy doing an amazing job at keeping them clamped shut despite the assault. Atlas advanced on him and Ron immediately tried to crawl backwards, only getting a few metres at most before he ran out of strength and collapsed backwards. The girl stopped over him, bending down with her hand outstretched.

"Atlas! Atlas please!" Ron begged weakly, "Come off it! Are you trying to say your dad broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers? I mean..." He looked up at Harry and Hermione for support as Atlas just ignored him, "Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat -- there are millions of rats -- how's he supposed to know which one he is after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"

The words made her stop and she slowly turned to face her dad, eye cocked quizzically. It only took a second before Remus was asking the question on her mind. "You know, Sirius, that's a fair question," he said, turning to Sirius and frowning slightly. "How did you find out where he was?"

Mutely, Sirius pulled out something from his crumbling robes and took out a piece of paper, which he smoothed out flat to have it in its best condition to show. He turned it to them and Atlas stared at the picture of Ron and his - presumed - family standing in front of the Pyramids of Eygpt.

"How did you get this?" Remus asked, carefully taking it up in his hands, thunderstruck. Atlas moved away from Ron and over to the newspaper clipping, staring down at it in wonder.

"Fudge," Sirius said simply and Atlas looked at him with a cocked brow. "When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me his paper. And there was Peter, on the front page on this boy's shoulder...I knew him at once...how many times had I seen him transform? And the caption said the boy would be going back to Hogwarts...to where Atlas and Harry were..."

"My God," Remus said softly, glancing at Scabbers and then at the picture again, "His front paw..."

"What about it?" Ron said defiantly.

"He's got a toe missing," Sirius huffed and Atlas clocked on immediately. All they could find of Pettigrew was his finger.

"Of course," Remus breathed. "So simple...so brilliant...he cut it off himself?"

"Just before he transformed," Sirius nodded. "When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James...betrayed Amaya. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself -- and sped down into the sewer with the other rats...."

"Didn't you ever hear, Ron?" Remus asked. "The biggest bit of Peter they found was his--"

"--finger," Atlas finished, gaze now set back on the rat.

"Look, Scabbers probably had a fight with another rat or something! He's been in my family for ages, right --"

"Twelve years, in fact," Remus finished, "Didn't you ever wonder why he was living so long?"

"We -- we've been taking good care of him!" Ron tried, starting to look quite desperate.

"Not looking too good at the moment, though, is he?" Remus sneered. "I'd guess he's been losing weight ever since he heard Sirius was on the loose again...."

"He's been scared of that mad cat!" Ron argued, nodding towards Crookshanks who was sleeping soundly on the old four-poster, blissfully unaware of his surroundings.

"This cat isn't mad," Black refuted hoarsely. He reached out a bony hand and stroked Crookshanks's fluffy head. "He's the most intelligent of his kind I've ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me...Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he's been helping me..."