Fear of a Name

Chapter Sixty-Three: Explanations

A/n: everyone who commented on the author's note wanted me to update every day, so I'mma be doing that 🙃🖤
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"Pettigrew? Peter Pettigrew?" Lupin said, snatching up the Marauders map and looking at it. "No, it can't be, it's impossible! Peter died, Sirius killed him!"
"No," I said shortly.
"No?"
"Sirius didn't kill anyone, sir."
"He did, he blew up a whole street, killing twelve Muggles and Peter," Lupin said, though he sounded a little doubtful as he got to the bit about Pettigrew.
"He didn't. He was never the Secret-Keeper. He was never a follower of my father. He never killed anyone."

"He wasn't Secret-Keeper?"
"No. From what I've overheard, Sirius convinced James and Lily to switch to Pettigrew at the last minute, believing it to be the perfect cover. Naturally, my father would think Sirius was the Secret-Keeper and go after him, but no matter what he would do..."
My voice trailed off as I thought of what this meant, the lengths my father would've gone to to get the information out of Sirius.
"No matter what he would do, Sirius wouldn't be able to reveal their location," I finished.

"They never told me that," Lupin said quietly, looking a little hurt.
"They believed you to be a spy," I explained quickly. "They were almost certain that someone who was very close to them had been feeding information to my father. Sirius was ruled out almost immediately of course, he was like a brother to James, which left you and Pettigrew. They decided that Pettigrew was too weak, too cowardly to leave his only friends and approach someone who would almost certainly murder him, so they came to the conclusion that it must have been you."

There was a short silence as Lupin tried to come to terms with this new information.
"That's why he was part of the Boggart," I said finally. "I spoke to him, said a load of dog puns, gave him some waffles, then cut my own face so he could escape that day he attacked the Fat Lady."
"You—" Lupin seemed at a loss for words. "You made those cuts on your face?!"
"I did. I also did the spell that knocked me unconscious," I said.
"And then pretended it was Sirius so you weren't suspected," Lupin added.
"Yep."

"But why? Why did you help him?" he asked, sounding utterly perplexed.
"Because I knew it wasn't him who'd told my father how to find the Potters," I said. "I knew he hadn't killed Pettigrew."
Lupin frowned.

"You knew he was innocent all year?" he questioned, his tone slightly accusing.
"I have known since I was six," I replied quietly.
"Yet you didn't tell anyone?"
"When my father found out that I knew, he was furious," I said, my voice trembling as I remembered the pain that had come with his anger. "He forbade me to speak of it to anyone, or else be put through pain so great it would have me begging for death. He is not one to go back on his word."

"But... you just told me," Lupin said, sounding both confused and worried. I nodded.
"I did."
"Then surely he's going to..." his voice trailed off.
"Only if you say that's where you got the information from," I said, shrugging my shoulders slightly. "If you act like you've worked it out yourself, then I think I'm fine."
Lupin nodded.

"Wait, you helped Sirius on Halloween too, didn't you," he said suddenly. "You weren't cursed, you were just acting like you were!"
"I was pretty proud of myself for that, actually," I confessed, smiling slightly. "I even managed to convince Madam Pomfrey."
Lupin just frowned again.

"If Sirius wasn't trying to kill Harry, why was he in the boys' dormitory with a knife?"
"Did you hear whose bed he went to?" I asked, answering Lupin's question with another question.
"Ron's, wasn't it?" he said.
"Yes. Everyone thought he'd got the wrong bed, but he hadn't," I said. "He wasn't trying to kill Harry, he was trying to kill Pettigrew. Or — more accurately — Wormtail."

"He's in his rat form?" Lupin muttered.
"He is."
"He's replaced Ron's rat with — with himself?"
"Yes. No. Well, kind of," I said. "He's been Ron's rat from the start. Well, technically Percy's to begin with, but... you get the point."

Lupin looked like he was thinking about something.
"So you helped Sirius escape from the school one time, and helped him get into the school another time... I still don't get how that would make Sirius part of your Boggart, though," he said eventually.
"Well, I wouldn't say that's why, exactly..." I said. "More like the start of it."
Lupin looked confused, so I tried to explain.
"Did you hear that I suddenly showed up outside the Great Hall on Christmas day, covered in cuts and stuff?" I asked.
"I did," he said slowly.

"Well, that was because my mother had kidnapped me, obviously," I said. "But do you know how I got out?"
He shook his head.
"Because Sirius was the only person who was actually worried about me enough to try and help me out," I said firmly. "I was sitting in the dungeon at the Manor, basically freezing and bleeding to death at the same time, and nobody except Sirius even tried to help."

"That's because none of us knew!" Lupin said. "We all just thought you'd changed your mind about staying here for the holidays!"
"Yeah, because I'd definitely willingly go back to the Manor when there was the option of staying at Hogwarts instead," I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "And I'd definitely have chosen being tortured multiple times every day over being with my friends. Of course I would."
Lupin sighed.
"Ok, I'm sorry. I should've done something."

There was a silence that stretched on for a few minutes, then Lupin said, "So twelve years ago, it was Peter who blew up the Muggle street?"
"Yes," I said, nodding. "He had his wand behind his back, and he exploded the street when Sirius had got his wand out. Then he cut off his finger and transformed into a rat, the coward."
"And then what did he do?"
"He went to find my father."