Crookshanks | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 44

"Peter Pettigrew's dead!" said Harry. "He killed him twelve years ago!" He pointed at Sirius, whose face twitched convulsively.

"I meant to," he growled, his yellow teeth bared, "but little Peter got the better of me!"

"Everyone thought Sirius killed Peter," said Remus, nodding. "I believed it myself — until I saw the map tonight. Because the Marauder's map never lies... Peter's alive. Ron's holding him, Harry."

"But Professor Lupin," Hermione started in a shaky voice, trying to sound calm. "Scabbers can't be Pettigrew. It just can't be true, you know it can't... the Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals. There are only seven in the country, and Pettigrew's name wasn't on the list —"

"Right again, Hermione!" Remus laughed lightly. "But the Ministry never knew that there used to be three unregistered Animagi running around Hogwarts."

Crookshanks and Sirius shared a look, before turning their gaze back on Remus, wondering where he was going with this, because they were both growing impatient.

But just then, there had been a loud creak behind them. The bedroom door had opened of its own accord. All of them stared at it. Then Remus strode toward it and looked out into the landing.

"No one there..."

  "This place is haunted!" said Ron.

"It's not," said Remus, still looking at the door in a puzzled way. "The Shrieking Shack was never haunted... The screams and howls the villagers used to hear were made by me."

     Jenna had many flashbacks at those words. She could remember the first time she had followed those three up to the Shrieking Shack in her fifth year, discovering the truth about Remus.

     Jenna didn't always used to accompany the Marauders on the full moons back then, but in those few times that she did, they'd all had the time of their lives.

"I received the bite when I was a little boy, turning into a werewolf every full moon," Remus started explaining. "I thought there was no hope for me to have a normal life. But Dumbledore said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn't come to school. So once a month, I was smuggled out of the castle, into this place, to transform."

     Jenna moved her eyes toward where Ron sat. She could hardly wait anymore. But she just let Remus go on. He was right. Harry had to understand the whole story. He above all others had the right to know that his godfather was innocent.

     "My transformations in those days were — were terrible. But apart from that, I was happier than I had ever been in my life. For the first time ever, I had friends, three great friends. Sirius Black... Peter Pettigrew... and, of course, your father, Harry — James Potter."

     Harry automatically lowered his wand slightly at the mention of his father's name. The look of confusion was noticeable on the boy's face, and he had no idea what to believe as Remus continued with his story.

      "Now, my three friends could hardly fail to notice that I disappeared once a month. I made up all sorts of stories. I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was. But of course, they, like you, Hermione, worked out the truth... And they didn't desert me at all. Instead, they did something for me that would make my transformations not only bearable, but the best times of my life. They became Animagi."

     "My dad too?" said Harry, astounded.

     "Yes, indeed," said Remus, smiling. "It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. Your father and Sirius here were the cleverest students in the school. Finally, before our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will and accompanied me on the full moons."

      Jenna was grateful that Remus had left her out of the story and had decided not to mention her. She wanted to meet Harry at the right moment, but now it didn't seem right in the middle of this chaos.

     "Soon we were leaving the Shrieking Shack and roaming the school grounds and the village by night. And that's how we came to write the Marauder's Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."

     "What sort of animal — ?" Harry began, but Hermione cut him off.

     "That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you'd given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?"

      "A thought that still haunts me," said Remus heavily. "And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless — carried away with our own cleverness. I sometimes felt guilty about betraying Dumbledore's trust, of course. He never knew I had led three fellow students into becoming Animagi illegally."

     Just then, Jenna finally came to understand why Remus hadn't told Dumbledore about Sirius being an Animagus. It was because he still felt guilty and couldn't possibly confess to it.

     "Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me," said Remus, looking down remorsefully. "He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it... so, in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

      "Snape?" Sirius said harshly, taking his eyes off Scabbers for the first time in minutes and looking up at Remus. "What's Snape got to do with it?"

     And it was at that moment when Jenna realized that she had completely forgotten to tell Sirius that Snape was now a professor at Hogwarts.

      "He's here, Sirius," Remus explained. "He's teaching here as well." He then looked up at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Professor Snape was at school with us. You see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me —"

     "It served him right," Sirius scoffed, causing Crookshanks to shot a glare at him, but he ignored her. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to... hoping he could get us expelled..."

     "Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Remus told Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we — er — didn't like each other very much."

     That's an understatement, Jenna thought to herself bitterly.

      "He especially disliked James. Sirius thought it would be — er — amusing, to tell Snape how to get inside the Whomping Willow. Well, of course, Snape tried it — if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf — but your father, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life... Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was..."

     "So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Harry slowly, "because he thought you were in on the joke?"

     "That's right." They all jumped when a cold voice sneered from the wall behind Remus.

     When they turned to look back, they were all startled to see that Severus Snape was now pulling the Invisibility Cloak off him, his wand pointed directly at Remus.