An Opus Alchymicum Vol 4: The Dæmon's Crucible

The Broken Barrier

Sirius was livid, far furious than Harry had ever seen him. He stormed around the living room of the flat in such a rage, his anger so swollen it seemed to fill the entire room. And it was all aimed in one particular direction.

"Molly did this! I can't believe she did this!" Sirius fumed. "She's been protecting Peter for all these years! That foul, bothersome old wench!"

"Paddy, calm down," James tried, not for the first time. "I think you're getting carried away here."

Sirius pirouetted towards James and shot him a stinking look. "How can you say that, Prongs? Peter damned Pettigrew was mere inches from your children less than half an hour ago! Do I really need to remind you how dangerous he is? Or what heinous things he might have done if his rat-teeth had gotten anywhere near Harry or Seren?"

"No, of course not. I know Peter as well as you do. I was just saying -"

"You were just saying I should calm down, when our old friend might have just hurt our kids," Sirius riled back. "And for that reason, no ... I wont calm down. Not until I've got Peter quivering under the end of my wand."

Harry felt a slithery prickle run along his shoulder blades and stab icily along his spine. He squirmed with the coldness of the sensation. He looked first at Hermione, sat protectively close to him on the couch, though quite who was doing the protecting was unclear. Perhaps they were taking turns to look after each other, because at times Harry felt both like the protector and the protected. It was a strange dichotomy.

And then Harry looked up at Sirius, still restlessly pacing, that vein in his temple dangerously close to popping and showering them all with his angry blood.

"Is Pettigrew dangerous then?" Harry asked quietly. "I thought you all said he was quite rubbish as a wizard."

James smirked weakly at him. "And what a fine cover performance from our old buddy that was. He always came across as slow and bumbling, never did especially well in class and seemed happy to be the butt of our teasing and ribbing. Looking back, that should have been a red flag for us ... we could be quite relentless with our banter, to the point of being unintentionally cruel, even to our friends."

"But Pete put up with it," Sirius took over. "You might say he played up to it, even encouraged it in some ways. It made us unsuspicious of him, which was a perfect cover for his later treachery and betrayal."

"Though he was always more powerful than he let on," James continued. "No wizard who can achieve a full Animagus transformation could ever be considered weak or powerless. I suppose we just accepted it at the time as Pete finally achieving something if he put his mind to it. He didn't want to miss out on being part of our gang, so he worked hard and managed the transformation just like the rest of us."

"But why did you all learn to change in the first place?" Hermione asked. "From what I understand, the Animagus process is both difficult and painful. So why do it?"

James and Sirius swapped loaded looks and hesitated to reply, but Lily stepped up into the silent void.

"They had a valid reason," she began, inclining her head when James and Sirius turned warning eyes on her. "What? The other day you were advocating total honesty, so I think we ought to tell the kids about this, too."

"About what?" Harry demanded. "What new secret have you been hiding from me?"

"We have good reason for this one, I promise," James replied. "But this isn't a secret to do with you ... at least it wasn't, until our other old friend started teaching at Hogwarts."

"Professor Lupin?" Harry frowned. "What's this got to do with him?"

"Well you see," Sirius took over. "Remus has a very unique ... er ... medical condition. It affects him physically, about once a month, and makes him quite dangerous."