Brave

Peter Pettigrew

Aurora let out a high-pitched scream at the sight of her father. With the shock that came with seeing him and the fact that her head was still bleeding, everyone in the room thought that she was going to faint. 

Without thinking, Harry charged at the man, attempting to hurt him in any way he could. He wanted Sirius to pay for the pain he caused Aurora. 

"You betrayed them!" Harry yelled. "You betrayed Aurora and Professor Lupin and my parents! You're the reason my parents are dead!"

"I did kill them," Sirius croaked out.

Aurora had never seen her best friend so angry. If it was any other time, she would have laughed at the fact that Harry was yelling and trying to fight someone much stronger than him, but she figured that it wouldn't help the situation.

Harry eventually stopped trying to hurt Sirius and walked back to where the rest of the Gryffinfour were. 

The group heard footsteps and immediately yelled out for whoever it was that was there. "It's Sirius Black! He's up here!" Hermione yelled out desperately calling for help. 

The door burst open and Professor Lupin was there, looking tired and out of breath. Aurora sighed in relief, knowing that her papa would help them.

"Sirius, where is he?" Remus asked, walking over to the other man. The Gryffinfour watched in confusion, wondering why the professor wasn't scared or mad at Sirius Black like the rest of them were. 

"He's over there, Remus," Sirius replied, motioning over to where the Gryffinfour were standing.

"So it's true?" Aurora's papa asked her father. They seemed to have a conversation just by using their eyes. Nobody else knew what was going on. 

Suddenly, the two men walked to each other and hugged. Aurora couldn't believe what was happening. Why would her papa hug the man that betrayed them and his best friends? 

"What are you doing?!" Harry yelled.

"I knew it! I knew we couldn't trust you!" Hermione screamed at the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. 

"H-hermione... what are you talking about?" Aurora asked.

"He's a werewolf!" Hermione announced. The professor immediately paled.

"Get away from me werewolf!" Ron shouted at Professor Lupin, who was previously trying to help the boy with his injured leg. Aurora glared at Ron looking like she was about to attack him, despite being mad at Remus for acting like Sirius wasn't the cause of Harry's parent's death. 

"Sirius is innocent," Professor Lupin told the Gryffinfour after Harry almost charged at Sirius Black again. 

"No he's not!" Harry shouted back. "He's the reason my parents are dead! He even said so before you came!"

"I'm the reason they're dead!" Sirius agreed. Remus' eyes softened and he turned to his husband.

"Siri, it's not your fault...."

"What do you mean it's not his fault?" Aurora asked, speaking up for the first time since her papa got there.

"Harry, I wasn't the one who sold your parents to Voldemort. When your parents were asked to go into hiding, they needed a secret keeper," Sirius explained.

"Yeah, I know. You were the secret keeper, so you were the only person who could have told Voldemort where my parents were!"

"I originally was the secret keeper. I told James that we should switch it to someone else, considering everyone knew I was one of James' closest friends. So, we switched it to someone else. Peter Pettigrew," Sirius told them, spitting out the other secret keepers name. "He was the one who betrayed Lily and James, but I'm the reason they're dead.

"What about the 12 muggles?" Hermione asked.

"When I heard about Lily and James dying, I couldn't think straight. I chased after him that night, and when I went to hex him, he cast a spell that blew up the street, killing the muggles in the process."

"Where's Peter Pettigrew?" Harry asked. Sirius pointed a boney finger at Ron.

"Me?!" Ron sputtered out. "He's crazy!" 

Ron stood up and began attempting to walk to the door. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm off," Ron said. Before he could get to the door, Sirius blocked it.

"Sit down," Remus snapped. "You'll hurt your leg even more." Ron scoffed, but sat down anyway.

"It's not you. It's your rat," Sirius told him.

"Scabbers! How could he have done it!" Ron asked, clearly thinking about how crazy Aurora's parents were and realizing that was where she got it from.

"Scabbers isn't a rat. It's a man. By the name of Peter Pettigrew."

Ron, along with the rest of the Gryffinfour, gave the men looks that showed that they didn't believe what they just said.

"When I was in school," Professor Lupin began to explain. "I had three great friends. Sirius, of course your father James, and Peter Pettigrew. No matter how much they stood by me, I was still afraid that they would leave when they found out I was a werewolf. But when they found out about my lycanthropy, they wanted to help me."

"How did you become a werewolf?" Hermione asked, inturrupting the story.

"When I was a young boy, a known werewolf named Fenir Greyback was mad at my father. Fenir was known for biting small children on the full moon and turning them into werewolfs. When Greyback was mad at my father, he decided to bite me one night while I was asleep. Anyway, the only solution that my friends could figure out to help me was to become an Animagus."

"There's no way they legally became one! You have to get registered, and when I looked at the list in the library, their names weren't on it!" Aurora exclaimed.

"That's correct. They did it illegally. It took a long time to figure out, but they finally did it. Sirius was a dog, James was a stag, and Peter's was a rat."

"Scabbers...." Harry muttered, finally putting the pieces together.

"That's correct. Little Pettigrew decided to hide as a rat for the past 12 years," Sirius said dramatically (Ron made another connection, realizing where his friend got her dramatics from, too).

"You're saying Ron's been sleeping with an old man this whole time and nobody knew!" Aurora realized. Ron turned red in embarassment, even though he still thought his rat was Scabbers.

"Come little Peter, come out to play!" Sirius creepily said. 'Scabbers' ran around the shack, trying to find a way to escape. Sirius and Remus pointed their wands at him.

"No!" Ron yelled. "Don't hurt Scabbers!"

"The spell we are going to cast won't hurt him. If it's really Peter Pettigrew, the rat will turn into him. If it isn't nothing will happen and your pet will be fine," Professor Lupin explained. 

Scabbers ran across the piano keys, and eventually got to a dead end. Before he could find another way to run away, Sirius had already casted the spell.

A bright light shone, and suddenly a man appeared.

I don't own Harry Potter. The series belongs to J.K. Rowling. I only own Aurora and anything you don't recognize from the books or movies.