Cat, Rat and Dog (PA)
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Whomping Willow
Ron, Harry and Hermione are shocked at the execution of Buckbeak. They hear a loud howl; Harry tries to run to Hagrid, but Ron prevents him. Hermione is choking with tears. It is already nighttime.
Ron tries to keep Scabbers steady despite its wriggling. The rat bites Ron's finger, and tries to break free of the boy's grasp as hard as he can. Harry's attenion is caught by something else: Crookshanks' wide, yellow eyes. Hermione tries to send the cat away, but Scabbers runs first, with a now entirely visible Ron close in tow.
Harry and Hermione run after Ron. The rat is safely in the latter's pocket again. Hermione pants that Ron has to return to underneath the Cloak, for fear that Dumbledore or Fudge will leave the cabin. Before they do so, a familiar black figure with glinting eyes appears—Harry believes that he saw the Grim again.
Suddenly, the dog attacks them, pushing Harry aside; it easily drags Ron away by the arm. Something out of nowhere hits Harry and Hermione; he uses Lumos and realises that chasing Scabbers led them to the Whomping Willow. The dog is dragging Ron down into a gap in the roots.
The tree attacks Harry and Hermione; she is cut across the shoulder. Ron makes one last-ditch effort not to be led away: he hooks his leg under a root. A loud crack soon follows—Ron's leg breaks, and he vanishes. Hermione wants to run and get a teacher, but Harry refuses, claiming that there is no time.
The pair desperately tries to find a way to follow Ron. Crookshanks places one of its paws on a knot on the trunk, and the tree stops moving. Hermione is stunned; Harry says that the two animals are friends, and he's seen them together (PA15). They enter the gap in the roots, following Crookshanks.
Shrieking Shack
The gap leads to a slope, which ends in a very low tunnel. Harry remembers seeing this passageway in the Marauder's Map (PA10). The tunnel rises, and soon afterwards it twitches; then Crookshanks disappears. The two students arrive at a dusty, messy room, full of broken furniture. Its windows are boarded up. A side door leads to a hallway. Hermione guesses that they are in the Shrieking Shack.
Harry notes that ghosts are not to blame for the state the house is in. They follow the hallway and go up a staircase, following a trail of a wide, dustless stripe on the ground. They whisper, "Nox," and the lights at the tip of their wands go out. When the pair approaches a door, they hear movement inside, and purring; Harry kicks it open.
Crookshanks lies on a four-poster bed with dusty hangings. Near him, on the floor, is Ron. "Not a dog," he moans, clearly in pain, and staring at someone behind Harry, "Harry, it's a trap — he's the dog... he's an Animagus..."
The man in the shadows closes the door. He looks corpselike, with waxy skin and yellow teeth; but his eyes shine in their deep, dark socks. Sirius Black grins. He Disarms both children with the use of Ron's wand. Looking at Harry, he says, "I thought you'd come and help your friend. Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful... it will make everything much easier..."
The taunt makes Harry furious, and for the first time in his life he feels the need to attack, to kill. He starts to move forward, but his two best friends prevent him from doing so. "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us, too!" Ron says, growing paler as he makes the valliant effort to stand up.
Sirius glances at him and orders him to lie down, so that his leg won't be more damaged. Ron insists on defending Harry, and Black grins. "There'll be only one murder here tonight."
"Why's that? Didn't care last time, did you? Didn't mind slaughtering all those Muggles to get at Pettigrew... What's the matter, gone soft in Azkaban?"
The boy breaks free of his friends' graps and lunges forward. Sirius fails to raise his wand in time: one of Harry's hands forces the wand tips away, and the knuckles of another collide with the side of the convict's head. The wands send a jet of sparks that barely miss Harry, who keeps punching Sirius as much as he can.
Black's hand grasps Harry's throat. "I've waited too long," he hisses. Hermione's foot swings out of nowhere, and Sirius lets go of the boy. Ron throws himself against the man's wand hand. Harry spots his own wand rolling cross the floor.
Crookshanks sinks his claws into Harry's arm. The boy shakes him off, but the cat then tries to get the wand. Harry kicks him away, and snatches it. "Get out of the way!" he shouts to his friends. Hermione fetches both wands and scrambles aside. Ron falls onto the four-poster bed.
Harry approaches Black, pointing his wand at the man's heart.
"Going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius whispers.
"You killed my parents," the boy replies, his voice shaking.
"I don't deny it. But if you knew the whole story..."
"The whole story? You sold them to Voldemort! That's all I need to know."
"You've got to listen to me. You'll regret it if you don't... You don't undestand..."
"I understand a lot better than you think. You never heard her, did you? My mum... trying to shop Voldemort killing me... and you did that... you did it..."
All of a sudden, Crookshanks leaps onto Sirius' chest, and settles above the man's heart. Black tries to tell him to get off, but the half-Kneazle doesn't obey. Hermione lets out a dry sob. Harry raises his wand.
Remus
A new sound—footsteps from below—interrupts them. Hermione yells, "WE'RE UP HERE! WE'RE UP HERE — SIRIUS BLACK — QUICK!"
The door bursts open in a shower of red sparks. Remus enters, and takes in the entire scene. He Disarms Harry and Hermione. The boy feels disappointed in himself for not having killed Black.
Lupin turns to the escaped convict and says, in a tense voice, "Where is he, Sirius?"
Sirius' face was expressionless for a moment; a second later, he points a finger at a very bewildered Ron.
"But then... why hasn't he shown himself before now? Unless," Remus' eyes widen. "— unless he was the one... unless you switched... without telling me?"
Black nods slowly. Harry asks what's going on, but he is rendered quiet by the unbelievable scene before his eyes: Remus has walked to Sirius and pulled him to his feet.
The pair embrace like brothers. Harry's stomach sinks. Hermione is outraged. "I've been covering for you!" she shrieks at Remus.
"I trusted you," Harry shouts at his teacher, "and all the time you've been his friend!"
"You're wrong. I haven't been Sirius' friend, but I am now — let me explain..."
"NO!" Hermione yells. "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too — he's a werewolf!"
Everyone is silent. Remus calmly says, "Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione. Only one out of three, I'm afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don't want Harry dead. But I won't deny that I am a werewolf."
Ron tries to get up, and falls; Remus seems concerned and moves towards him, and the boy gasps, "Get away from me, werewolf!"
Lupin freezes. He then turns to Hermine and asks how long has it been since she found out. She replies that the essay comissioned by Snape made her realise it (PA9).
"He'll be delighted. He assigned that essay hoping someone would realise what my symptoms meant... Did you check the lunar chart and realise that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realise that the Boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?"
"Both," she replies.
Remus forces a laugh. "You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."
She claims to regret not having told anyone about his lycanthropy. Remus points out that the staff already know. Ron asks whether Dumbledore is mad. Lupin says that it was very hard for the headmaster to convince certain teachers that he was trustworthy.
"AND HE WAS WRONG! YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!" Harry yells.
Sirius sinks into the bed. Crookshanks goes to his lap. Remus begs for a chance to explain himself. He returns the Trio's wands back to them and announces, "You're armed, we're not. Now will you listen?"
Harry furiously asks how Remus knew Sirius was there, if they haven't been working together. Remus replies that he used the Marauder's Map. The boy is suspicious that the teacher should know how to use it; Lupin impatiently says, "Of course I know how to work it. I helped write it. I'm Moony — that was my friends' nickname for me at school."
"The important thing is, I was watching it carefully this evening, because I had an idea that you, Ron and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed. And I was right, wasn't I?"
Remus guesses that Harry was wearing James' Invisibility Cloak. The boy is shocked that he knew about the object. "The number of times I saw James disappearing under it, " Lupin waves his hand impatiently. "The point is, even if you're wearing an Invisibility Cloak, you still show up on the Marauder's Map. I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut. Twenty minutes later, you left Hagrid, and set off back toward the castle. But you were now accompanied by somebody else."
Harry says that they weren't. Remus doesn't mind him, and continues, saying that he could hardly believe his eyes to have seen that name on the Map; then another dot—Sirius—collided with them, and pulled two people into the Whomping Willow. He turns to Ron, and asks whether he can look at the rat.
"What?" Ron asks, flabbergasted. "What's Scabbers got to do with it?"
"Everything. Could I see him, please?"
Ron restrains Scabbers with difficulty: the rat keeps thrashing wildly. Crookshanks hisses. Lupin approaches the rat and stars at it.
"What's my rat got to do with anything?"
"That's not a rat," Sirius intervenes.
"What d'you mean — of course he's a rat —"
"No, he's not," Remus replies. "He's a wizard."
"An Animagus," Sirius clarified, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."
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