The embrace was brief—it only lasted a moment, really, and Black seemed as stunned by it as the other people in the room. Neville looked deeply hurt. Hermione opened and shut her mouth several times. Harry was shocked.

But when the embrace ended, Black looked at Lupin and choked out “Remus?”

The man nodded. “I wanted you to have that,” Lupin said, and he swallowed and the wand flew out of Black’s hand and into Lupin’s. “Before the Dementors get you.”

Black’s face paled and twitched into a horrified mask. “The—no, Remus, not them—“

“Yes.” There was a fierce, vigilante form of justice in Lupin’s eyes, but also a deep, lingering pain. “Yes.”

“Remus—no, you don’t, you don’t understand—he’s alive!”

The words hung in the air, dangerous, and Harry let himself believe for a minute they were true. That his father was alive—it was all a trick, a trick on Voldemort, and his father was alive, and his mother—

But he had said ‘he’. ‘He’ is alive. And that meant his mother wasn’t part of that.

Lupin seemed to wonder for a moment as well. “James? James is dead, Sirius.”

“No,” the man rasped. “No, no, not James—Pettigrew! Petey! He’s—“ Black launched into a detailed account of what had happened, babbling and plucking at the front of Lupin’s robes desperately. Lupin looked skeptical, at first. But then Black lunged forward, desperately clutching at the front of the man’s robes, and said “Look—look at him. In the corner—the cat has him. Just look at him—if, if it’s not, I’ll go, I’ll—but the finger—the—look, please—“

Lupin looked skeptical and suspicious. He sighed, keeping his wand steady. “For—for our friendship—please, Remus, for—for James and Lily—“

And Lupin walked to the corner, backwards, his wand still aimed at Black, and he took a quick look at the ground where Crookshanks and Scabbers was, then looked back at Black. But his eyes widened, and he looked back down, then he knelt and plucked the rat by the tail and lifted it into the air.

He then dropped the rat with a mix of hate and disgust—emotions which seemed a bit strong for a rat, Harry thought—and he went back to Black and looked at him for a long moment. The man’s eyes were pleading, and his hands were plucking through the air nervously, and his hands were crushed into his body when Lupin put away his wand, grabbed the man’s shoulders, and pulled him into another embrace.

Harry and the others watched for a moment, wondering if this was the same as the first. It proved immediately different, though, when both men emerged with tears on their faces, smiling, and the wand didn’t come back out.

“But you—“

“James—it was Peter, he planted ideas in everyone’s head, how we couldn’t trust you—“

“Him—him all along?”

Black nodded, and he leaned back in, weeping. “So—so long, it’s been so long—I never thought you would—oh, Remus, it’s—“

Lupin patted the man on the shoulder, and that was when the three realized that Lupin wasn’t faking it. It wasn’t some plan to get them lose.

Hermione jumped to her feet and screamed. “HOW COULD YOU?!”

Lupin turned. It was the first time he had acknowledged the three since he had entered the room. He seemed startled by Hermione’s shriek.

“Hermione—“

“I covered for you! I—I told Professor Snape I didn’t know! I lied to him for you! And all this time you’ve—you’ve been his friend! How could you?”

“Hermione, this isn’t at all that—“

“It is so that! It is so! I—I did that essay he set and, and when the others asked for help, I told them everything they needed for the essay and I protected you! Even from Harry and Neville!”

“And I appreciate it, Hermione. You’re—you’re completely off base here, let me explain—“

“How—I kept your secret! All year, all since—I kept it, even when Professor Snape—and you’ve just, the whole time, you’ve—I can’t believe you!” She turned to Neville and Harry, who both felt rather in the dark. She flung an accusatory finger out at Lupin, who flinched like she was aiming a wand. “He—He’s a werewolf! That’s why Snape’s been calling him all those things, and he’s missed all those class. He—He’s been helping Black into the castle, he’s on his side!”

“Low points on that, I’m afraid, Miss Granger,” Lupin said in a falsely cheerful voice, though he looked rather upset around the eyes. “I haven’t spoken to Sirius before this in almost thirteen years. And I’m on Harry’s side, here, I promise you that.” He fell quiet then, and gave a bitter grin that made his face looked terribly off center with his upset eyes. “As for the werewolf—“ he said, and he turned his hands palms up and offered something that might have been a shrug.

“You—it’s true, then?” Neville whispered. “You’re—you’re a werewolf?”

Lupin offered a brief nod, his eyes focused on Harry. “Harry?” he said quietly, and he took a step towards the boy, hand offered out.

“That’s why Snape calls you a monster,” Harry said. “You—you are a monster. I thought he was just being—being Snape, but—“

“I’m not a monster, Harry.” Harry didn’t move a muscle.

“You’re—You believe him!” This time Harry flung his finger out and Black flinched. “You—even if you weren’t a werewolf, that would make you a monster!”

“Harry—you don’t—“

“I UNDERSTAND!” Harry yelled, jumping to his feet. “He KILLED my PARENTS! He killed your best friends, and you don’t even care! You don’t even CARE!” Harry threw himself at someone for he second time that evening. This time, however, Professor Lupin caught him by the arms before he could do any damage and all he could do was scream. “He killed them! He did it, he said so!”

“Harry, Pe—“ Lupin started, only to be cut off by a wail from Harry.

“PETTIGREW’S DEAD! THEY’RE ALL DEAD AND IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!” Harry yelled, and he tried to twist free of Lupin and kicked his legs at Black, who looked enthusiastic to the point of mania.

“No, no, that’s what everyone thought,” Lupin soothed, and Black broke in.

“Everyone was wrong! I didn’t kill Lily and James, but it was—“ here the man choked up a little before moving on. “It was my fault.”

“Who killed them, then? Pettigrew? And who killed him, huh, McGonagall?”

“No, Harry, remember? Remember what I told you, about Pettigrew? The biggest part of him they found was his—“

“Finger! What has that to do with anything?” Harry roared, and he pulled away from Lupin. Hermione touched his shoulder.

“Harry,” she whispered, her eyes wide and set on Crookshanks and his prey. “Scabbers…Scabbers is missing a toe…”

For a second, Harry’s mind clamored and rung and screamed. Then it all went silent.

“Are—Are you saying that Ron Weasley’s rat—Ron’s rat is Peter Pettigrew?” Neville looked incredulously at the cat, who was batting the rat back and forth between his enormous ginger paws.

“How is that—that’s impossible,” Hermione said, and Lupin gave her a small smile.

“Ah, come now, Hermione, surely you can see how it would be possible?” Hermione bit her lip. “Come—share with the class. Top ways that this situation would be possible.”

Hermione chewed on her lip, than hesitantly said “Well…if, if Black is an animagus…”

Black let out a rough guffaw and Lupin’s smile increased marginally. “Right on one, Hermione. Fifty points.”

“In that paper for McGonagall, though—I looked it up, he wasn’t listed! There are only seven Animagi in this century—he’s not on the register!”

“None of us were,” Black rasped. “It was…was our very best secret. The only one all of us kept.”

“They worked for years on it,” Lupin said. “To…to help me.”

Harry heard Hermione’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh. Because you’re—oh.”

“Yes. Animals are fit company for—“ here Lupin’s face twisted and he attached his eyes to Harry’s face pleadingly, “—for the beast.”

“I was bitten when I was very young, you see. And I—even though I showed magical talent, my parents never thought I would be able to attend Hogwarts. But then Dumbledore became Headmaster and—well, you can’t see a little thing like lycanthropy stopping Dumbledore, can you? So the impossible happened there as well—I was accepted to Hogwarts. I was sorted into Gryffindor, where I met the best friends of my life, Harry—your dad, Sirius, and Peter Pettigrew.”

Harry felt the man’s eyes pleading with him, and instead he stared at Black. Black, who seemed to be getting impatient.

“Hurry, Remus—it’s been too long—twelve—too long, I need—“

“Hold on, Sirius,” Lupin said. “Patience, Harry needs to understand—“

“I’ve been patient!” the man yelled, and the brightness in his eyes returned. “Azkaban is all about patience! But I escaped and came here and I can’t wait much longer, Remus! I can’t!”

Lupin turned turned to the man, put both his hands on the man’s shoulders and looked into his eyes and whispered “You’ve got to wait. Just a minute more.”

The man shuddered and disengaged from Lupin’s eyes. He watched Black a moment, then turned back to the Gryffindors.

“When they found out about the beast they never cared. They found out rather quickly—James was always very good at that sort of thing. But once they found out, they told nobody. They kept my secret, and they—They helped me, the way that Neville and Hermione would help you. They learned to transform so that I wouldn’t be alone.” The look on Lupin’s face was desperate. He took a step forward, letting go of Black and resting his hands instead on Harry’s shoulders. “They were my dearest friends.”

“Was hard, I’ll tell you,” said the bedraggled man. His eyes shone with a different sort of light, a remembering light, and his voice was hoarse and gruff. “Figuring out how to transform, keeping it a secret from the teachers and the other kids—only one who ever caught on at all was Snivellus—“

Remus jumped in quickly. “In our fifth year they finally managed it. They could each transform into an animal at will.” He smiled and touched the side of Harry’s face very gently. “Your dad was a stag, Harry.”

A stag. Harry thought about what a wonderful stag his father would have made, and he allowed a momentary smile to cross his face. “Really?”

Lupin nodded. “Yes.”

Black spoke again, his voice gravelly from no use and supressing tears. “He’d gallop you ‘round the living room sometimes, you holding his antlers and your mum screaming so loud it’s a wonder the neighbors didn’t hear…”

Harry wished he remembered, and the smile left his face as he remembered that this man was the reason his father couldn’t still gallop him anywhere.

Lupin seemed to realize the moment had passed and continued with the tale.

“Sirius is a dog, as you saw. Peter—“ a spasm of hate twitched over the man’s face “was the rat. We never told anyone about it.”

Hermione finally interjected. “That was terribly irresponsible of you! What if you had bitten somebody, or if you’d been injured? It’s illegal not to register!”

Lupin nodded. “We were young, and we were stupid. I feel like we all might have registered after we realized how reckless it was not to—but we never reached that point. Not together, at least.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them and fastened them to Harry’s. “Do you understand now, Harry? Pettigrew—he did it all himself. The betrayal, cutting his own finger off, framing Sirius. It was all his own plan.” Lupin looked at Harry’s still not sure face. “Sirius is innocent, Harry.”

“What—what’d you do to Snape?” Harry asked suddenly. Lupin stiffened and Black let out a raucous, rough bark of laughter.

“So, he is his father’s son, isn’t he?”

Lupin paled. “Sirius, no—“

“What’d you do to him?” Harry asked, this time of the crazy man.

“Gave him what he wanted, that’s all. Gave the greasy git what he deserved. Never—he never knew when to stop pushing, the sod, did he, Remus?”

Lupin was talking right to Harry. “We were very young, Harry, we were young and stupid, no one knew the plan but Sirius and we were all just very young—“

“What happened?”

Black grinned an awful, yellow toothed grin. “He was always snooping where he didn’t belong, trying to get Remus in trouble. He’d have been expelled if anyone knew. So one night—“

“We were young and it was a mistake, Harry, please—“

“One full moon, I just gave him what he wanted.”

There was a horrible hanging silence, and Black gave an odd sort of grin.

“Always on about ‘What are you keeping in the tunnel, Black?’ and ‘Where’s Lupin, Black?’ and ‘Heard some funny howls last night, Black.’ Always with the ‘How d’you get into the Shrieking Shack, Black?’ So I just gave him what he wanted.”

Harry’s ears felt funny and his veins were like ice. “You—you made him go into the tunnel when Professor Lupin was transformed.” The noise in his ears grew. “You—You tried to kill him.”

Black shrugged—a careless, horrible way to refer to a human life. “Wouldn’t’ve been any loss. Snivelly bastard.”

Harry, Harry who was never violent, who was rarely angry, Harry Potter leapt through the air for the third time that evening. He crashed into Black’s chest, heard the man grunt in surprise and pain, but from there he was overtaken again. Lupin was yelling and so was Hermione, Neville was screaming for Black to let him go, and Black just seemed confused as he pinned Harry. That was all he had time to do before a soft voice broke through the crowd like a knife.

“Get your hands off him, Black.”

Black loosened his hold in surprise and Harry took that opportunity to wriggle free. He would know that voice anywhere. That was the voice he heard in every Potions lesson, in most of his detentions, whenever he needed to talk. That was the voice that had soothed him when he was scared, that gave him small noises of approval, that had said he was proud of him. It was Snape. He ran to him and he buried his face for a moment in the comfort of Snape’s robes, robes that smelled like pewter and cupboard and spicy herbs, and he let himself for a moment clutch the man and he felt the man clutch him back.

“Snape—He—I don’t—“ Harry couldn’t get the words out and he just tightened his grip on the man. “Sirius Black—“

Black had an ugly look on his face. “Let him go, Snape.”

“Professor!” Hermione cried out in relief. “Professor—Neville, sir, he’s hurt—and Black’s innocent, sir—“

“Granger, be quiet,” Snape snapped, and he pushed Harry out of the embrace, his wand before him and a terrible look on his face. He pushed Harry behind him and Harry twisted a hand in the man’s robes and tried to breathe. It was over. Snape would make it all right.

“So,” Snape said, that terrible smile on his face. “I had hoped, Black, to be the one to find you.”

“Let go of him, Snape.”

“Who’s holding him?” Black looked confused. “I’ve dreamt about this day, you know, ever since I was Sorted. Dreamt about the day that the great Sirius Black would be revealed to the whole world for what he really was—nothing but a common liar and murderer. Oh, I’ve waited and bided my time and now I’ll get my reward.”

Lupin cleared his throat. “Severus—Severus, you don’t understand, Sirius—“

“And I did so hope I’d catch you in the act of it, Lupin.”

“The act of what?”

“Of letting him in. I knew, I knew that no matter how much Dumbledore swore your innocence that he’d be wrong. You’re nothing but a beast, Lupin. You don’t know the difference between right or wrong.”

Harry felt a hot stab of shame. This was Professor Lupin, kind Professsor Lupin who had given him chocolate and taught him how to fight dementors, who had told him a little about his parents, who had worried about him and cared about him, and Snape was—

Was telling the truth. A cruel kind of truth, maybe, but a truth all the same. Because Lupin was a beast. He was an animal. He was kind and nice and good, yes, but once a month he was a monster. A part of him cringed in fear of what claws and teeth could do to him.

Lupin looked pained. “Severus, you must listen to us—“

“I must do nothing.”

“Oh, no, there’s something you must do,” Black broke in angrily. “You must get your bloody hands off my godson, that’s what you must do!”

“Sirius,” Lupin whispered, “That isn’t going to help.”

Snape’s eyes glinted and he reached back and took hold of Harry’s wrist almost painfully tight. “Him? You want me to take my hands off of Harry?”

“Don’t touch him, you filthy, slimy bastard! Don’t!”

“Don’t you two do this!” Lupin said angrily. “Don’t you both fight over a boy! Don’t do that to him!”

Snape seemed incapable of hearing, his eyes fixed firmly and maliciously on Black’s. “He doesn’t want you, Black.”

“He doesn’t want you either, you greasy git, get off him! He’s my godson, get off him!” Black advanced, only to be met by Snape’s wand to his throat.

“Give me a reason,” Snape said, his eyes lit up with a fanatical gleam. “Give me one more reason on top of all the ones I have already, Black.”

The man glared at Snape, then turned his gaze pleadingly to Harry. “Harry—Harry, get away from him, he’s—“

Harry leveled a fierce glare at the man, one he’d learned by watching Snape. “I know what he is! He’s—He’s my teacher, and– you’re—you’re a killer! I don’t—“

“Harry, no, it was Pettigrew—“ Lupin interjected.

“If it was Pettigrew, where is he?” Harry yelled. “Say it’s a rat all you can, but the only rat I see here is him!”

Black stagged back as if the words were rocks. Snape sneered and said in his silkiest, most dangerous tone “Come now, Black, I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave. Face the Dementors like a man.”

Black lunged forward, then, and Snape jumped backwards, wand still outstretched and a curse out of his mouth. With a movement like a cobra, Black ducked the curse and tore the wand out of Snape’s hand and spun, spun to the corner where Crookshanks was still playing with Scabbers, words flying from his mouth. Snape lunged after him and regained his wand, knocking the man to the ground, but Black didn’t seem to care. He had eyes on for the cat, for Crookshanks was letting the rat run away from him, then easily pulling him back in by the tail. Suddenly, though, he went in to put his paw down on the rat’s long tail, and instead of a tail, swiped his claws through the back of a short, pudgy, sweaty man.

When Harry had heard the name Peter Pettigrew, and the story behind it, he had imagined someone brave. Someone who had given his life for his friends—who had squared his chest and thrown back his head when Black went mad and blasted him to smithereens. But this man was nothing like that at all. He was short and stubby, almost, and he seemed pinched around the face. His nose was slightly pointed, his eyes watery and darting from person to person in the room nervously. Even if Harry had not just seen him transform from rat to man, the first word to come to mind with this man would be ‘rat’. It was in everything about him—the set of his shoulders, hunched slightly forward, the dart of his eyes, the way his teeth slightly protruded from his mouth. And the air about him, the slick, greasy air of a person who cannot be trusted.

No, this was not the man Harry had imagined giving his life for the cause. And rightly so, it seemed, because Peter Pettigrew was alive, well, and sitting rather stupidly on his bottom in the corner.

00000000000000000000000000

Severus Snape was charged with the most difficult choice of his life thus far. He remembered the choice of whether or not to join the Death Eaters—simple. This was different, this meant everything, this choice, and he had only a few seconds to make it. That was the worst part. Severus was the sort of man who carefully prepared all his ingredients, who could spend hours arguing the pros and cons of different cauldrons to himself without starting. He was not a man for quick action, but here it was and he could not escape it.

Choice one: He could pretend Pettigrew wasn’t there and let him escape. Let him escape and let Black take the blame. And oh, it was wrong, but oh it was tempting. Black was the one who had constantly mocked him, the one who’d pushed him down the stairs and tripped him and tossed things in his potions, Black who had taunted and teased and pranked and pounded on him until he thought seriously about hurling himself off of the Astronomy Tower. Black, who never stopped. Black, who had to be stopped now, when Severus had the power, when Severus had the chance. Of killing Peter Pettigrew he was innocent, yes, but of killing of bits of Severus Snape? Oh, he was guilty.

But then there was choice two: He could bring Pettigrew back to the castle and let Dumbledore take care of it. Let Black’s name be cleared and let the world go to adoring him and praising him and let Pettigrew be Kissed and let the only good thing he had vanish. HHhHh Black would regain his house and his funds and his life, and that meant Harry too. He’d regain Harry and Snape didn’t know if he could take that. It would be Black finishing the job he had started in Hogwarts, and one morning some pitiful Ravenclaw would run into breakfast yelling that the Potions Master had finally lost it, finally cracked. And Harry would not care, because he had Black.

And Snape would not let that happen.

Everyone was staring at Pettigrew and Pettigrew was staring at everyone else, licking his lips and breathing nervously until a nervous sort of smile broke across his face.

“R-r-remus! S-s-sirius! My old f-f-friends!”

He had to make a choice and the moments slowed to hours and he thought. He thought and thought and he knew, he knew that lossing Harry was the one thing he could not do, so he was about to cast the strongest rope spell he knew on Black when he felt something happen to his free hand.

He looked down and saw that a small, thin hand, a child’s hand with bitten fingernails, was clutching at his as hard as he could. Harry was squeezing his hand almost to death, really, the boys eyes fixed on Pettigrew and Snape could feel the trembling, through Harry’s hand into his already shaking one, and he realized he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let the murderer of Harry’s parents go free. Not for James or Lily, not for Lupin or Black or even for Dumbledore, but for Harry. He couldn’t let that man go free because that would break Harry’s heart.

And even if it meant losing Harry, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do that to Harry, and Snape let his binding curse fly at Pettigrew, pinning the man to the floor. He gave Harry’s hand one last squeeze and hoped the boy would someday appreciate what he had done for him.

0000000000000000000

Pettigrew looked like a trussed pig, his hands and legs tied elaborately with ropes that didn’t need knotting. The tightened until the man was unable to move an inch, but they did not bind his mouth, and all the while he was yelling. Harry still gripped Severus’ hand.

“Remus! Remus, you must believe me, I didn’t know! It was Sirius, it was Sirius and his only aim is to frame me—Remus, you must believe me! Remus!”

“I think I have believed in you all I can, Peter,” Professor Lupin said in his most quiet voice. “I believed in you for twelve years. Now I think it’s time to believe in Sirius.”

Black was crying. There were tears dripping down his face, but his mouth was twisted into an outraged ‘o’. “You—you killed James. You betrayed them!”

“No, no!” the man wailed. “Remus—it was S-s-sirius! S-sirius was the Secret-Keeper! Sirius was the s-spy!”

Black’s face turned ugly and he almost lunged for the man, but Lupin put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Now, tell me, Peter,” he said in a terribly calm voice, though Harry could see how hard he was gripping Black’s shoulder. Almost as hard as Harry was gripping Snape’s hand. “That doesn’t really sound like Sirius to me.”

“The—the B-blacks have been Dark since the c-c-creation of magic!” the man whined. “H-he was the obvious c-c-choice!”

“Ah, but Sirius never did like to conform to the obvious now, did he, Peter? Bit of a Black sheep, isn’t that what we used to call him?”

Pettigrew’s face grew terribly panicked. “R-r-remus, you—you can’t possibly believe—“

“As I said before, Peter, I have believed in you for too long.”

The man started to frantically pull at the ropes. “No! No! It was—“ He seemed to realize that tactic was getting him nowhere. “They were d-dark times, Remus! P-p-p-people were always scared—I was f-f-frightened. I f-f-fought him!”

“You liar!” Sirius yelled. “I went to your home, went to check on you—you’d locked the door! You’d folded out your funeral robes, the ones you wore to the Prewett’s and the Bone funeral—you knew what was going to happen!”

“No—“

“You knew! You betrayed them, Peter, you betrayed us all!”

“But the Dark Lord!” Pettigrew whimpered. “He was very powerful! He—he’d have killed me if I hadn’t—“

“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED! DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!” The look on Black’s face was fiery and terrible and made Harry shiver just looking at it.

The man cast his look desperately around the room. “I—haven’t—girl, please, they’re bewitched! They—they’re servants—“

But Hermione backed away from his look, turned to face Neville on the bed instead, which brought Pettigrew to him.

“You—you’re the Longbottom boy—he—he’s just like his cousin, he’ll torture you all until you’re too mad to speak—“

Neville’s face went a shade paler and his gaze shot up to Black’s face for a moment, utterly terrified. Then he shook his head and averted his gaze.

“Severus! He—Sirius, you always knew better than the rest of us—a killer, from the start! A killer! He—he tried to kill—help me!”

Snape sneered. “A killer, yes. They should lock him in Azkaban for what he did.”

Pettigrew looked hopeful. Then Snape went in for the kill like he did in class.

“I would say share a cell, but they keep the Demented prisoners in an entirely separate wing…”

The man’s face paled and he set his eyes on the only remaining person in the room. Harry, who still had not spoken, who had his eyes fixed on Pettigrew’s head as though he would very much like to tear it off.

Pettigrew didn’t seem to pick up on that. “Harry—please. Your father, he wouldn’t want me Kissed—he would forgive me. Forgive me—“

“How dare you talk to Harry!” Black spat, and Snape muttered a few words and the ropes tightened. Harry just stared at him. Then, very deliberately, he dropped Snape’s hand, took a breath, and took a step forward.

He didn’t hear how Snape’s heart fell with the loss of contact.

“You—“ Harry took another shaky breath and swallowed. “You—you said that my dad would have forgiven you?”

The man nodded frantically. “He was forgiving, James, a forgiving soul—you look so much like him, like James—he would forgive me, Harry—“

Harry swallowed again. “You’re saying that,” he said. “But—but the only reason you have to say it, the only reason I don’t know for myself is because they’re dead.” He paused a second and all the hopeful color that had filled the man’s cheeks left again and his lips started to tremble. “Because you killed them.”

Pettigrew burst into tears, pleading, but Snape snapped a spell and a gag suddenly appeared. Harry turned away from the man and wiped at his face self-consciously. Snape put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed hesitantly. Then he addressed everyone else.

“Lupin, as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, perhaps you would bear charge of that thing?“

Lupin nodded and removed his wand, leveling it at Pettigrew’s head. “Surely.”

Hermione finally dared to speak. “P-professor? Could—Neville really is hurt, sir, his leg—“

Snape was by the bedside in moments, prodding the leg expertly with his hands. Neville started to whimper.

“Hm. Broken, I suspect.” He shot a nasty glare at Black, who had the decency to look ashamed. “Are you in much pain, Longbottom?”

Neville whimpered once more. “Er—what’s much, sir?”

Snape resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Are you able to walk?”

Neville started to push himself up. “I—I can try—oh, ouch—bugger…” His face was pale and drawn and he left himself fall again onto the bed. “Er—I guess not, sir.”

“Five points for language, Longbottom,” Snape said in a way that made Hermione look at him reproachfully and Harry and Neville laugh because they couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Black was gritting his teeth in the corner. “Ferula.” Bandages began to spin around Neville’s leg until it looked like his leg ended at the knee and below that was a big, fluffy white pillow. Neville tested it again and winced.

“I—it’s much better, sir, I could walk—“

“Are you daft, Longbottom? Have you inhaled poisoned fumes from one of your many failed elixers?”

“N-no, sir. I—er, no.”

“You never attempt to walk off an injury—especially not one where shattered bones are concerned. We’ll levitate you.” Snape muttered a charm and Neville was floating above the bed. He attempted to swim his way to Harry, but Snape grabbed hold of his good ankle. “That’s enough. Granger!”

“Yes, sir?” Hermione had herself quite under control, and she stepped forward. Snape attatched the two with a piece of rope at the wrists.

“You’re in charge of Longbottom. See to it he doesn’t break the other leg.” Snape turned then, to Harry, who was standing rather awkwardly next to Snape.

“What about me?”

Snape considered him for a long moment, then sighed. “You’ll end the line. I’ll lead it. Longbottom in front of you, Pettigrew behind me.” He leveled a liquid poison glare at Black. “I don’t care where you go as long as I can pretend you do not exist. Am I quite clear?”

Black looked a bit sulky. “Don’t expect me to snap off a sir to you. You’re still nothing but Snivellus to me.” He saw Snape’s wand start to twitch, and he quickly added “I’ll take the back with Harry, then.”

Snape gave a tense nod, and the group made their way down the stairs and into the tunnel like some sort of odd parade. Behind them, forgotten, Crookshanks hopped off the bed, pattered down the stairs, and squeeze himself through a hole in the wall. The night was still young, after all, and it was no longer any of his responsibility.