His love for Potions I ✔

Chapter 29: Pettigrew's escape

There was a scramble of sound from the head table, and out from under the cloth came a tabby cat with square eyeglass markings, with a large grey rat clutched firmly in her jaws. She hopped neatly up onto the head table, to survey the room.

"Er, Professor McGonnegall?" asked Ronald Weasley, standing up. "That's my rat."

Tail curved in a questionmark, she strode unhurriedly from the room, still carrying the large rat. Weasley hurried after her, with Granger and Potter a few steps behind.

Well. Events were moving faster than Draco liked, and that was the truth.

"I'll go see what's happening," he said unnecessarily, patting Greg's arm. "Stay here and finish eating, it can't be very important."

He was going to follow Potter, but he caught sight of a ginger cat in the entry hall and paused, considering. He glanced around - no witnesses. A flicker of concentration, and a white kitten padded over to the larger cat. They stared at each other as only cats could.

After a long few moments, both decided they were far too important to fight the other, and the ginger cat padded away downstairs, the white cat following.

#

That large black dog was back in the kitchens, Draco noticed.

Oh.

He concentrated, shifted human, and took a seat. A House Elf put a slice of cake down next to him, and he picked it up and started eating. Watching the dog warily.

Peter Pettigrew, an unregistered animagus. Well. This was a coincidence, wasn't it.

"They've caught him, I think," Draco said, and watched the dog's body language go from wary to angry, nearly snarling.

"Don't bark at me," Draco added more sharply. "Isn't this more efficient than two cats trying to cover an entire castle? They'll give him veritaserum and it'll all be sorted out, I don't know what you're complaining about."

The dog growled, low and dangerous. Draco defiantly had another bite of cake.

"What about the hippogriff?" Draco asked softly. "Any progress?"

It was amazing how disinterested a dog could look, if it tried.

"Don't give me that. I can leave it like this, and you never get a chance at blood for blood," Draco whispered. "You go near Pettigrew now and they'll have you. But I can go. I'll bring him out to you, but only if you take the hippogriff now. You only have a little while to decide, they'll be calling aurors once Dumbledore's had his turn to do an interrogation."

The dog's tail thumped once, twice, three times, before it heaved itself to his feet.

"Is that a yes?"

The dog nodded slowly.

"Good."

Thinking about it, Draco could see why Black would be so focused on his revenge - any reasonably hotblooded wizard would be, losing a bosom friend to betrayal like that. It just went to show that blood traitors or not, the old blood bred true.