Chapter Text
The screams never ended as Remus tied Pettigrew up. More than one person seemed to be having a heart attack, and even Harry was bewildered himself: the man had thin, colourless hair, and still bore high resemblance to a rat even when he changed back to his original form; he peeked at Remus with timid, watery eyes, stuttering about something as he propped himself up with a huge effort.
So this was Peter Pettigrew, the traitor who sentenced his parents to death and Sirius to Azkaban. As if just remembering this, Harry boiled with rage and launched forward to kick the plump man, only to be pulled back by Mrs Weasley who had been treating his injured hand.
‘Calm down, Harry! Hold him back! Don’t …’ With his wand still pointed at Pettigrew, Remus raised a hand trying to stop Harry. No need for him to speak more, two three pairs of hands were already dragging Harry back. Everyone was backing off from Pettigrew who emerged from thin air except for Harry, kicking down and trying to launch forward again.
‘HE KILLED MY PARENTS!’ shouted Harry, to which Molly shrieked again, ‘What?’
Everybody seemed to be yelling and raising questions. Those standing behind kept pushing forward, stirring up a chaos at the door that knocked over the shoe racks. Remus raised his wand to shoot something silvery from its tip, and bent down to tie Pettigrew up even more tightly. It was not until Harry quietened down from exhaustion and Mr and Mrs Weasley managed to hold up all the redheaded children, that the first audible question was posed by Mr Weasley.
‘Who is this, Remus?’
‘This is Peter Pettigrew,’ said Remus, pausing when multiple screams broke out. ‘For the last six years we’ve thought he was killed by Sirius Black —'
‘Sirius didn’t!’
‘Of course he didn’t, Harry, I’m just explaining to everyone,’ the werewolf said calmly, raising his voice over cries of disbelief and Pettigrew’s pleading whines calling his name. ‘Pettigrew is an illegal Animagus, something only known by a few including me. I knew him well.’
‘How come he’s at our place?’ asked Molly.
‘He may have hidden here as a rat for a while, perhaps even for a few years —'
‘He is Scabbers!’ cried Harry again.
‘Scabbers?!’ Percy’s mouth was wide open, his horn-rimmed glasses almost slipping off his nose. ’That’s impossible! You mean Scabbers is …?’
‘Percy’s pet rat?’ said Bill, also astounded.
The chaos revived for a while, although Madam McGonagall arrived before long. She spoke shortly with Remus and evacuated the crowd from the doorside to the living room to make explanations, while Remus and Mr Weasley were stationed at the door to keep an eye on Pettigrew. The living room was not large enough to accommodate so many people comfortably, either. Harry dragged behind to stay on the outskirts, so he could keep looking back to make sure Pettigrew didn’t break loose. Ron and Ginny followed suit and started another round of shouting when they spotted Pettigrew. Being so short and blocked behind everybody else, a moment ago they couldn’t see what was happening at all.
A few people arrived as McGonagall was explaining the Secret Keeper swap, taking away not only Pettigrew, but Remus as well. Coming in, Mr Weasley said those were Aurors from the Ministry, and Remus needed to go to give his statement. Harry wanted to follow them, too, but was pushed back.
When finally everyone understood the situation, two more Aurors came to question the rest of them one by one about what they had seen. They were also quite polite to Harry, though Harry felt they didn’t believe a single word of what he said, that Sirius was innocent. It was late night when everything was over. Unable to send Harry back to the Dursleys, McGonagall asked if it was okay for him to stay at The Burrow temporarily. Molly agreed instantly, telling Ron to lend a pair of pyjamas to Harry and share a bed with him, in the same room as Percy. The moment Mrs Weasley was gone, the three children huddled on Ron’s bed and whispered well through the night. Percy and Ron were horrified to have lived so long with a criminal. Only when the sky started to brighten up did the redheads fall asleep soundly from weariness.
Harry merely dozed off and woke up again, feeling extremely anxious. Gradually, the bed seemed to become covered with thorns that it felt uncomfortable to lie in. He sneaked out of the bedroom, crossed the deserted living room, and circled around The Burrow a few times, kicking the small stones and bushes irritably.
Now that Pettigrew was caught, they should believe Sirius’ words, shouldn’t they? When would Sirius be released? Would Pettigrew be sent to Azkaban? Thinking over all this, Harry was almost in tears of worry. He mentally blamed himself for not insisting to follow the Aurors the night before, but there was no use to worry now when he didn’t even know the location of the Ministry.
Molly essentially sprinted here to snatch him back into the house. She had the habit of doing a head count in each bedroom quietly before going to bed and after getting up, and got even more nervous after the discovery last night of a murderer living in their house. Seeing one little head missing came as such a fright. Harry barely accepted the bread and pancakes from her. Restless, he glanced around several times a minute from the kitchen, hoping for McGonagall or Remus to show up the next moment, and begged Mr Weasley to bring him to the Ministry when he went to work. But Professor McGonagall left instructions for Harry to wait for her at The Burrow. Besides, it wouldn’t give reassurance to Mr and Mrs Weasley that Harry was so young and hadn’t used the floo network before.
He waited and waited … until eventually Professor McGonagall showed up. Harry felt she must have stayed up all night. She didn’t reply to his long series of questions until she took him back to her own place. They had contacted Mr Garcia to be the defence lawyer for Sirius, but the procedures would need to be followed so Sirius couldn’t be set free tomorrow. Moreover, at the moment it was hard to predict the outcome. Pettigrew being alive only proved Sirius hadn’t killed him, but couldn’t prove it hadn’t been Sirius who’d murdered those muggles.
‘He doesn’t admit it?!’ Harry was in both fury and disbelief. How could anyone be this shameless?
‘He insists Sirius was the Secret Keeper, killed those muggles, and wanted to murder him,’ McGonagall replied with a trace of contempt. ‘He said he had hid at the Weasleys all these years out of dread.’
‘How could he — how could he!’ Harry jumped off his chair but was held back promptly.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to find Pettigrew!’ he yelled. ‘To reason with him! HOW COULD HE?’
‘Pettigrew is a dark wizard and may try to harm you —'
‘I’ll beat him up!’
‘Sit down, Potter!’
Straightening his neck, Harry stood off against her. With a sigh, McGonagall summoned a pack of biscuits for him, and promised in a gentler tone that they would all try their best to expose the truth. Harry managed to accept her explanation in the end, but still felt quite dismayed, all his excitement blown away. He felt the world didn’t make any sense. His parents died, Sirius was wrongfully accused as traitor and murderer and got sent to prison, he’d tried so hard to catch Pettigrew (the bitemark was still there), and still Sirius couldn’t be let out! The Ministry would rather believe the sort of person like Pettigrew than Sirius and Remus.
McGonagall sent Harry back to the Dursleys later, where she was furious to find the Dursleys did not care whatsoever about what she was saying and only emphasised their compensation shouldn’t be reduced as this wasn’t them neglecting Harry. As a way to cheer him up, Harry was brought to The Burrow to celebrate his eighth birthday a few days later. There was a grand dinner, a huge birthday cake and a pile of presents. Sirius sent him a toy broom, saying he had got the same thing from his godfather when he’d turned one year old. Before blowing out the candles, Harry made his wish several times for Sirius to be free at once.
Harry spent about half of August at The Burrow. He became best friends with Ron, who could always cheer him up and was exceptionally good at wizard chess. Being questioned by Harry diligently, Remus revealed some latest progress, such as Mr Garcia had persuaded the Aurors to visit Peter’s mother, retrieving the wand of her son — it had been returned to Mrs Pettigrew together with Pettigrew’s finger and the Order of Merlin medal — to find out the last spell cast from it. But he kept away from making promises, just saying they were trying the best they could.
So the summer holiday passed in a gloom, the anticipation always met by disappointment. Harry kept writing to Sirius. Having likely learnt what was going on from Remus, Sirius always consoled Harry in his replies, but was oddly indifferent to whether he could get out and never mentioned a single word about Pettigrew, which worried Harry a lot. Madam McGonagall had said illegal Animagi could be sentenced to prison, so he suspected Sirius would stay at Azkaban on purpose for an opportunity to kill Pettigrew. Honestly Harry would rather have Pettigrew dead himself, but he didn’t want Sirius to become a murderer. He wanted Sirius to be out and live with him.
Following Sirius’ persistent advice, Harry tried to focus on school when the new term started, but his performance was not as good as before. The few times when he got a stern word because of it, Harry thought in anger, with Pettigrew caught, if they still wouldn’t release Sirius, I’d never attend school anymore, I’d go to the Ministry and shout swear words, I’d … but he wasn’t really sure whether he would be ready to give up school (especially Hogwarts), and Sirius would not be happy about it.
Some other times, Harry daydreamed in class, imagining his new home with Sirius. Sirius would take him to the Diagon Alley, fly with him on the motorbike, and come pick him up at school. Everyone would envy him for such a cool godfather.
Over a month had passed, when the midterm was approaching, Harry finally returned to the state before capturing Pettigrew and could concentrate again in class. One day the school caretaker came calling for him when he was playing football. At first he thought he had carelessly messed up some homework. Reaching the school gate where Remus and Sirius were waiting, Harry almost felt this was his hallucination.
‘Did we interrupt? Were you having fun?’ Sirius waved at him. He was no longer in prison uniform, but a formal-looking suit, and clean-shaven. He looked so handsome.
‘SIRIUS!’ Harry screamed and raced over. His godfather crouched down a bit with open arms and took him into a full embrace, while being knocked slightly off balance.
‘Oh, you are much heavier than the last time I hugged you!’ Sirius was laughing, rubbing his nose and chin against the messy hair on top of Harry’s head, like a great happy dog. ‘They agreed to release me first, though Pettigrew hasn’t been sent to prison yet, the trial —'
‘Never mind it, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care …’ Harry buried his face in the chest of his godfather, pressing against the bulging ribs. He had so much to say, but all the words were lost in his throat as he choked up. ‘You are out, you are free …’
‘Yes, that’s right …’
Sirius held Harry more forcefully, and kept saying yes, saying thank you, saying sorry, while Harry barely listened. He just clung on more tightly, even more tightly, to his godfather, his family. In the end he burst out crying, until his voice turned raspy and his head dizzy.
He didn’t care how many people were looking as he could finally do this. He had reached the warmest and safest place in the world.