you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 58

»»————-　song:　————-««

my blood

★ by twenty one pilots★

if you find yourself in a lion's den
i'll jump right in,
and pull my pin

and go with you.

♢ ♢ ♢

Half an hour ago, Snape's eyes had narrowed at this same declaration made by Lupin as they ran out of Hogwarts toward the Whomping Willow, mind whirring as he desperately tried to make sense of the situation. Peter Pettigrew? An Animagus? 

"James cared more about hiding the fact that we were illegally Animagi than making the map completely accurate," Lupin panted as they ran across the grounds. "We placed a "hide the Marauders" charm on it that would become engaged if someone other than us got ahold of it... I assume Filch... I disengaged it when you gave the map back to me. And if the map is correct, it means..."

As each thought in his head broke off and crumbled into dust as soon as they formed, one stood out in his head in a bout of nonsensical hysteria.

Snape was about to be the snake in the lion's den, a Slytherin surrounded by Gryffindor lions, every single one of them a predator he despised. 

You're forgetting Harry, a voice whispered in his head. And don't forget, a snake is a predator too.

Snape shook these thoughts away. The whole thing was absurd. And anyway, the saying was supposed to insinuate that the snake was the danger to the lions, not the other way around. A spy, an infiltrator who had tricked everyone, lulling the lions into a sleep of complacency as the snake bided its time before it struck. 

And if Remus Lupin and Sirius Black weren't completely batshit insane, if their words were truth, it would appear that Peter Pettigrew was never a lion at all; he was the snake in a lion's den. A snake. A mole. 

A rat.

Snape dubiously looked from the rat in Weasley's hands back to Black, eyes narrowing even further. He couldn't do anything rash. He couldn't outright dismiss Black and be on the receiving end of both his and Lupin's ire, or worse, have Harry be at the receiving end. A quick brush of eye contact allowed Snape to look into Black's mind for just a second. Although Black wasn't a half bad Occlumens, it was enough for Snape to conclude that he was telling the truth... or at the very least, believed he was telling the truth. And Lupin... well, in some strange way, Snape felt no need to Legilimize him to verify if he was telling the truth. 

Snape made his choice. "Prove it," he said.

Black sneered at him, evidently affronted by the fact that he was being ordered around by Snape. "I'll ask again, Moony, what the hell is he doing here?" he rasped to Lupin. "I don't really fancy all our secrets being aired to a known Death Eater."

Harry bristled. "Shut up," he snapped. Snape internally winced as Black blinked at Harry in surprise. Harry seemed to realize that this was an odd thing to say in front of Weasley and Granger, and he quickly added, "Stop wasting our time. Either you can prove it or you can't. How could it be Peter Pettigrew? There were witnesses who saw him die. A whole street full of them."

"They didn't see what they thought they saw!" Black said savagely. 

"We were friends: James, Sirius, Peter and I," Lupin said heavily. "Perhaps this is where I should start the story." He took a deep breath.