Another great story! You write the character so well, it's wonderful to read! I've come across many stories with people's point of veiws before for this scene, and I must say, this could be the best. Great work!

I really have no idea who to root for here, Snape or Lupin. Because snape is mean and pretty vicious but Lupin can be nasty in his own little way, and snapes had it pretty rough really, when you think about it.

i feel bound to point out that severus's birthday is in September. But this is still a great story, covering my second favourite scene in all the books (first is snapes worst memory). You've got a great insight into the characters.

Wow this is great! lupin=perfect. and not completely unblamable. I love the relationship (for want of a better word) between him and severus, lupin's is the only marauder who gets a double whammy because not only does severus blame him, he blames himself.

Lovely ending.

Woohoo! This is my favourite part of PoA (I think lots of peoples) and i love your style of the three viewpoints, so can't wait to read this...

peters is great, perfect. You havn't made him mindlessly evil, but very realistic. I'll be interested to read lupins, because I have lots of my own ideas on what everyone's thinking at this point, and it'll be great to read yours.

Remus thinking such things with Cho in mind? Now he and Severus have something in common!
I think Snape highly developed his rudeness in this story.
He was "satisfied", I think -Sirius captured, the children safe and a possible reward- but he still lacks any kind of empathy. I love it because your Snape NEVER smooths, he's always (in one way or another) a bastard, even in the most dramatic point.
And Peter..."If there's life, there's hope" oh Lord! Although this fanfic is angst/drama I laughed with it, really!

Wonderful as always

Artful how you stop the story right before his big disapointment, and before he learns just how bad the things that has happend really are.

Despite it all, Snape's acts and musings in this chapter are more decent than anything else. He has hated both Lupin and Sirius so much for so long, so comming face to face with them doesn't really make any difference. He focus on the task at hand instead - keeping the brats safe.

Yet another wonderful story from you, showing yet another side of Snape in maybe the most critical of all turningpoints in the books so far. The rat is unleashed, Voldemort will follow.

"he wasn’t going to fail her again, he'd strain every nerve, every sinew, to save her child, even if the brat was the living reincarnation of his filthy father. And the boy was the weapon, the weapon against the Dark Lord."
- Harry is mine to trash...

"because Black had killed Lily - he'd been the one who’d put Lily in danger, but it was Black who had killed her."
- Well caught. Snape has not hated Sirius all these years ONLY because of their Hogwarts adventures. For all he knows, until Dumbledore tells him the truth, Sirius was the traitor who killed Lily. The suspicion that Voldemort promised Lily to Sirius doesn't help either...

"Not that he'd ever been in love with Lily Evans" (...) "any wizard who said he didn't want to get into bed with Lily Evans was either lying or queer."

" Slytherins knew to see him for treatment for their bumps and scrapes rather than going up to the Hospital Wing, Slytherin dirty laundry was not to be aired for the whole school to see ..."
- Very Slytherin!

"that was another entry in the ledger that he was keeping"
- Of course!

"it was disgusting how Lupin had used Neville Longbottom to get back at him, not that he’d eased up on Longbottom, the boy needed to be taught a lesson even if Lupin was the one who was really responsible ..."
- Snape isn't beyond shooting the errand-boy. Not at all.

"he knows that it’s all castles in the air, he’s feeling a bit euphoric now that the headache and the nausea are gone, but if he’s going to daydream, why not make a proper job of it? "
- I really like this part. One would have thought that after so many chapters filled by Snape's musings, you would have run out of new things by now, but this was a new and interesting perspective on him.

I really like the disposition of this chapter - how you piece by piece fill in the blanks in Remus memory - saving the last, horrible suspicion to the last paragraph. We readers know the answer, but Remus doesn't. The horror!

Hagrid and his relationship to the werewolf gives him all the credit he is due. "Hagrid wasn’t afraid of him – Hagrid was strong enough to break even a werewolf’s back if he had to." (...) “Did you eat anythin’ last night, Professor Lupin?”

Again, you prove your ability to write each character in a highly probable, highly canon way, but also to highlight the dirty and the shameful. Remus is nice, in the books and in this chapter. But he is not very brave, and he is definately not unbiased. He follows Sirius lead.

"It tells him more than he wants to know, especially about pretty Cho Chang" (...) "and it doesn’t make hair grow on the palms of your hands"
- Down in the gutter... and what a wonderful contrast to Snape, who despite all his other faults never allows himself to do just that.

"I had no friends, none at all ... but those Slytherin pure-bloods always stick together, he always had his little gang, Lucius Malfoy and the rest, most of whom turned out to be Death Eaters – half of them are still in Azkaban ..."
- Everything is in that sentence, if only Remus would be able to look at it from another angle and see how true friends Snape really has.

Oh true cruel fate! Oh the terrible twist! Peter joined Voldemort because he learnt that Snape was a spy, and he was choosen because of the prophesy; but in the same time, Snape changed sides to save Lily because of the very same prophesy - and Peter's simultanious switch doomed her just as sure as if he had never left the Dark Lord...

Great first line. Captures the situation Peter lived in these last twelve years in a magnificient way. I like the image of him snooping around in the Burrow after bedtime - the dirty rat. But of course he did...

I enjoy how you describe life as a rat - how he avoids the Weasley parents, garden gnomes, McGonagall, Mrs Norris... Not easy, but relatively safe. Until the map shows up (how comes the twins never saw him, one has to wonder?) and Sirius and Crookshanks unite their causes, of course.

His thoughts in the shack are well described. Focused as a knife towards one thing: Escape. Whatever the price. However, that doesn't stop him to note what goes on and aprechiate the kids bravery, Harry's recemblance with James and the familiar dynamics between the three "friends" Remus, Sirius and Severus. He growels, he lies, he pleads to his judges one after the other, and he never gives up.

"he was still caught between the devil and the deep blue sea."
- Jupp, that's our Peter's situation, and it will not change ver soon.

"from what he knew of Muggle females, they were no easier to get into bed than witches, not unless you used a Confundus Charm ..."
- Speaking from experience, Peter? Dirty rat!

"he hadn’t done anything, he’d only watched ..."
- You caught that one just on spot. The coward's mantra. When Harry catches him, at last, it will be "I just carried out my orders..."

"Poor sweet pretty Muggle-born Lily" (...) "Poor bloody Regulus" (...) "he was sorry about that, he really was ... and he hadn’t wanted to hurt James and Lily..." (...) "he had nothing against the kid"
- Poor cowardly, traitorus Peter, watching his friends die without trying to do anything about it.

"after all, he’d skipped the twins, who were, frankly, bad news."
- If they use a pygmee puff for bludger practice - who know what they would use a rat for?

"He might be a rat Animagus but that didn’t mean that he wanted to hump female rats, urgh."
- I'm glad that has been sorted out. There are enough weird fics out there as it is, without anyone getting ideas...

"Fang was harmless enough but that bloody Hippogriff wasn’t, and what kind of wizard lets a Hippogriff sleep on his bed?"
- You know, despite all, Peter has a certain kind of black humour. By this time I would say that he has decided that universe is after him in person!

"Ron won’t give him up, he’s a good kid, really, he won’t let anyone hurt his dear old Scabbers..." (...) "Harry’s been nice to him – fed him Fudge Flies ..."
- He isn't beyond recognizing a honest piece of affection, however undeserved.

"the Dark Mark used to hurt if that name was used, a little reminder from the Dark Lord of his power."
- Highly probable, and explains a lot.

"only the Dark Lord can protect him against this many enemies, and there's nothing else that he can do, nowhere else that he can go - he's got no other choices, no other options."
- This is the one decission Peter can never talk himself out from. If he just had left the country as a good rat so many things had never happend; and his chances for suruvival would have been far better than they are at present.

I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to this, although the premise interested me immediately. I think this is my favorite of your fics. Perhaps it's my Lupin love/hate, but this had so many juicy tidbits that I am just sitting here grinning from ear to ear. You take characters and reduce them to their weakest, most animal, most basic cores, and I love it. I have been trying to get my non-reader hubby to read fanfic for a couple of years now, and yours are the ones that I think will convert him.
Anyway, Bravo, as usual.

I was reading the reviews on this and noticed Mother of Tear's which made me think of something else. Both James and Sirius really were pretty arrogant about the Secret Keeper choice. James rejected not only the concerns of one of the wisest and most powerful wizards that a close friend might be betraying him, but he also rejected Dumbledore's offer to be the Secret Keeper; and then placed his own, and his wife and child's lives on the line by going ahead and using one of the group that Dumbledore had been concerned about. But even more arrogant was the idea that nobody would suspect Pettigrew. Why? Peter's so weak and insignificant that no one will suspect he'd be chosen as Secret Keeper. My, my, Sirius and James were two very arrogant guys, weren't they?

Great finish to the story. Interesting touch having poor snape catch the Clap on Lilly's wedding day!

I think Lupin persists in calling Snape by his first name, not because he thinks they are friends, but because he wishes to BE friends. Lupin seems to feel that by acting friendly now, he can erase all the hurts of the past. Perhaps he feels guilty, or sorry for Snape. But hurts don't heal that easily. Snape is the sort that even an apology might not be good enough. and he would resent the idea that an old enemy would treat him like he should be an old friend-- as if all that old pain was nothing.

Good idea Snape getting close enough to the werewolf to feel his awful breath and slobber. It would have made the experience in the Shrieking shack he had at sixteen to be all the more terrifying.

I don't know if you actually "roasted Lupin over a slow fire," but it was good. Poor guy can't remember what he had done. Did he eat somebody? Oh, no!

I love your turn of phrase," he shrunk from facing the malevolent genius who lurked in that gloomy office full of nasty things pickled in jars." Lupin always seems cool and confident around Snape, but perhaps it is all an act. Perhaps, inwardly, he is just as full of insecurities as nasty old Snape is. Good idea.

Yes! This is the story I was hoping you would write. Too bad, though, that you're only doing Pettigrew, Lupin, and Snape. Adding a fourth chapter from the perspective of Sirius Black would be excellent too. You wrote that you wanted to roast Lupin over a slow fire. I think Black deserves that royal treatment far more, but no matter.

Your portrayal of Pettigrew is very insightful. You've captured the miserable guilt, and desperate self-justification of the cowardly man who let himself be bullied into something he didn't want to do, but didn't have the strength to resist.

Rowling has Lupin and Black believing that Pettigrew went to Voldemort willingly in order to curry favor with the biggest bully on the playground. It doesn't seem to occur to them that he may not have felt he had much choice. They were bullies themselves and had no idea what it was like to be a victim. They had no concept of how helpless Peter would feel, how vulnerable. And they treated their friend with a certain amount of condescension and contempt.

How condescending and stupid was it to assign Pettigrew as Secret Keeper in the first place? They were so sure that he was so feeble and insignificant that no one would ever suspect it was him. But because he was weak and cowardly, wouldn't he be the first target for Voldemort and his cronies? Why pick your weakest link for your Secret Keeper? In their unthinking arrogance, they set him up. You nailed that idea perfectly.

Great Job!

This chapter was great! I couldn't help, but laugh out loud several times. I think readers forget that from Snape's pov, the Shrieking Shack scene is really very, very different from the pov of the reader. Funny to read this right now, as I'm involved in a discussion on the Lexicon Forum (Lupin thread) about how Lupin may be quite likeable, but he's actually dangerously untrustworthy, given his weaknesses for doing practically anything to hold on to the good opinion of people that are important to him.

Anyway, you did a super job with this.

It has taking me ages to review Snape's POV - okay, two days -and it is absurdly late now, so you will pardon my incoherent rambling. It took me two days because I feel that your portrayal is near perfection and I am speechless.

I am a little ashamed you are reading my silly attempts to capture some of the characters.

You used a different way to introduce us to Snape's POV this time, the same you used for Lupin and this is so effective. You make his train of thoughts so natural as he is trying to remember what happened: he touches this, grazes that, remembers Lily - that part was gorgeous - , tries to make sense of this, feels an emotion, lets it go, rationalizes...

Reading this is strangely moving: it's my job to listen to people and I almost found myself nodding and saying hmhms as I read. Man, I'm realizing I'd love to have this character in for a counseling session - don't be scared, I told you I was incoherent.

"He, Severus Snape, ex-Death Eater and a “person of interest” to the Auror Corps might even get a bit of recognition, that would be nice - and surely the Headmaster won’t refuse him the Defence position now that he’s saved the Boy Who Lived from a convicted murderer and a werewolf? "

That sentence did it for me. Need for recognition? Describes himself as an Ex-Death Eater? Loving the irony of it? This man will save himself. The next sentence makes it all crumble: you can see him gritting his teeth as he is scolding himself for feeling hope. This is so touching, I cannot even describe it.

The last paragraph is great: Snape listening intently to Trelawney - he's in all this because he believed her in the first place after all...

Wow. As a January native, I'll check my horoscope *tired wink* This one is definitly going in my favorites.

--MysticScribe--