"Hello, Harry, Neville, Luna, Daphne, Hermione, Tracey. Professor Babbling mentioned that you had something to tell me?"
"We do, Professor." Harry glanced around to make sure that everyone was more or less back into a serious state. "Might as well just rip off the band-aid. We're almost certain that Sirius Black is innocent and was wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit."
Lupin rocked back in his chair and sucked in a breath. His eyes widened and he turned to Shiva. She nodded in response. "Yeah. The teenagers figured out in less than four months something the rest of us dropped the ball on for over a decade."
"That's not possible." Lupin shook his head and his eyes narrowed in rage. "Sirius turned on us all. He betrayed us. He betrayed James and Lily. He is worse than his family ever was! It's not – "
"Professor Lupin," Harry's voice cut through the older man's rant. "Sir, you said you were friends with both him and my parents. Let me ask you just one question: who was more likely to betray my father, Sirius Black or Peter Pettigrew?"
Lupin's mouth snapped closed with a clack. Shiva had to repress a sigh. She may not have liked the man but she didn't relish him being put in a position of realizing his hatred for a friend for the last decade was most likely based on a lie. "It's not possible. Peter died. They recovered…"
"A perfectly separated finger," Hermione said calmly. "A finger so clean that it might as well have been…cut off."
"No…" Lupin sagged back. "He set him up. Merlin, he set him up didn't he? How did you figure this out?"
"We'll walk you through everything later, Sir. Right now we need a bit more from you," Harry said gently.
"Of course. Anything you need. But wait, Sirius would've defended himself at the trial! This can't be – "
"A trial the Heir Black never received," Neville said shaking his head. "We have friends in the Aurors who searched for the records when we first suspected something was off. There never was a trial, Professor. Director Bones has been trying to get the manhunt called off or at least to remove the Dementors from the equation. So far it hasn't worked. We're being blocked at several levels. What we need to do is find Sirius himself and get him to come in under our terms so that we can get a trial. It's too dangerous to risk letting him stay out there and get caught by someone who simply thinks he's a murderous madman."
"No trial?" Remus appeared to age a hundred years in an instant. "I should never have pulled back," he muttered. Scowling he turned to the group and spoke louder, "How can I help?"
"Do you know how Pettigrew might have managed to escape?" Daphne asked. "That's the main sticking point we keep coming back to. We think we've got the rest sorted but we have no idea of how he managed to get away since there were anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards already in place."
"I keep telling them he got smaller and ran away, but no one believes me," Luna said airily with a small shrug.
"That's because it's not possible for a human to shrink like that, Luna," Hermione explained in a strained voice. "I keep telling you, the laws of magic don't work that way."
"Professor McGonagall does it all the time. Every first class of the year in fact I'm to understand." Hermione was about to reply when she and everyone else in the room except Luna froze and just stared at the blonde. She looked back at them and cocked her head. "Did I say something odd again?"
"Luna…you…I can't…why didn't you say that before?!" Hermione got out before grabbing two fistfuls of her hair and pulling hard.
Tracey shook her head in wonder. "Wow, I told you, Harry, I am definitely keeping her."
"Professor Lupin…" Harry asked turning to his teacher with an exasperated look.
"Yes," Lupin nodded still staring at Luna slack-jawed. "Peter was an animagus. As was James and Sirius. Lily was still working on hers, but had almost succeeded."
Shiva chuckled. "Harry, you draw in some of the smartest, strangest folk, you know that, kid? Congratulations, Luna, you just figured out a secret that Lupin and his buddies here kept for ten years!"
"Ten? Try twenty."
Now it was her turn to stare in amazement. "Twenty?! But that would've put you in school still!"
"Exactly," Remus smiled at her with a genuine pride in his face. "James, Sirius and Peter all learned to be animagi in order to accompany me."
"Because werewolves can't infect other animals, only humans," Neville said nodding. "That makes a lot of sense. Talk about a show of support; animagus transformation is one of the hardest magics you can learn."
Lupin gaped at the boy as did Shiva. Like she had thought, Daphne wore a small pleased grin and Hermione was nodding approval. Luna and Tracey however stared between Neville and Lupin. Tracey was the one who spoke first. "Wait, you're a werewolf, Professor? Well I guess that answers why Snape was a bastard the other week and gave us that essay."
"Do you howl at the moon or is that just a myth?" Luna asked curiously.
"Guys, later. Neville, cool. Sir? What animal could Pettigrew turn into?" Harry asked taking charge and recentering the group.
"A rat. A white rat about this big," Lupin commented holding up his hands dazedly. "James was stag, approximately 18 hands at the shoulder. Sirius was a large black dog somewhat resembling a Grim."
"Okay so we are looking for a Grim and a white rat. Yeah because those are so easy to find," Harry said sighing. Why did that sound so familiar? Something was tickling at the back of his mind just like with Dobby and 'Moany' from last year. "Where the bloody hell are we supposed to start?"
Spring blossomed on the Hogwarts grounds though one group of students and two Professors were not feeling the levity a shift of seasons was supposed to bring. In fact most of the castle's population was still subdued. The Dementors were a continual feature, prowling around the edges of the grounds and wandering Hogsmeade. The Minister had been brought under increasingly heavy fire by the population over the Dementors and Sirius Black. It had leading to a stymieing of every effort by both Amelia Bones and Tonks to get Black's Kiss On Sight order revoked. The group had been trying to determine hiding locations on the grounds for either a rat or a large dog but every spot turned up nothing.
Desperate measures were beginning to be considered.
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