A/N: FYI, Chapter 29 has been edited.

On Saturday morning, Ron said goodbye to Harry and Hermione in the great hall after breakfast and watched them turn towards the marble staircase. Lupin joined them, and took the time to pause and reassure them that there were plenty of fun ways to spend the day away from Hogsmeade. Ron, doubtful that Lupin had the animagus spell in mind, winked at his friends, before proceeding to the front doors with almost every other student from his year and above. Neville caught up with him before he left the school grounds, out of breath, explaining that he had forgotten to bring his scarf and had to go back for it.

The day was fine and breezy. Ron was enjoying being away from Hogwarts, walking along the village high street, looking at the little shops that had already become familiar. Fred and George invited him to come along with them on their visit to Zonko's, where they shared the spoils of their shopping spree. Once they started pushing him for more clues about the Marauders, he made himself scarce. Neville found him walking down the high street alone and, since he was also by himself, thought it would be nice to have someone to spend time with. They got a quick butterbeer with Dean and Seamus but Ron did not want to stay indoors for long.

Neville followed him outside, willing to go along with Ron's aimless wandering. However, Ron spotted a quirky character and managed to recognize Tonks on patrol, as he caught her changing her appearance. He lamented that he had no one to share his discovery with. Telling Neville did not even occur to him.

Ron decided to follow Tonks from a distance, but he had to lose Neville first. Quickly, he thought to claim that he had forgotten something inside the Three Broomsticks. They went back in, and in the crowded pub Ron found it easy to lose Neville. The disillusionment charm helped.

Once outside, Ron kept casting the spell. It took some time to identify Tonks again, as she seemed to be changing her appearance in regular intervals. Once he had, he began tailing her. Suddenly his made-up game was exciting. She was watching the students – in secret, she thought. Meanwhile, he was watching her – and he was pretty confident she was unaware of being observed.

Tonks was not doing anything altogether interesting, merely keeping watch, thus tailing her would have bored Ron very quickly, however the course of his plans was about to be derailed.

Tonks was passing along the small side street that led to the Hog's Head Inn, when Ron, still under the disillusionment spell, stumbled awkwardly. When he looked, he could not discover the reason for his clumsiness. He did not want to pause, was about to hurry to catch up with Tonks, but something – a sense of unnaturalness, like glimpsing something uncommon out of the corner of his eye – delayed him. He took a closer look at his surroundings.

Inobservatus – the disillusionment spell he was using – did not make him invisible, like more advanced disillusionment spells did. Instead, it encouraged others to ignore him. That meant that when he was under the spell, people often ran into him if he was not very careful. What he had experienced had felt just the same.

It was because of his momentary hyper-focus on his surroundings that he noticed it: the door to the Hog's Head being pushed in ever so slightly – just wide enough for a rat – by an invisible hand. Almost – but not quite – as if a strong breeze had forced it.

Almost at once, he heard the beginnings of a commotion coming from the front of the post office. When he turned to look, he saw a crowd forming. An argument seemed to have ensued. The students nearby seemed to think it a bit of fun, crowding around to watch. Several adults – including the patrolling aurors – began moving in that direction.

Ron ran. Frantically, he looked for Tonks. What had been a fun exercise before – tracking her changing shape – had become an unnecessarily tedious burden in that precarious moment. Finally, he caught up with her – almost collided with her. Remembering, annoyed at himself, he finally dropped the inobservatus.

"Tonks! Help! It's Pettigrew – at the Hog's Head!" he pushed out the words with each of his rapid breaths.

He did not even allow for the possibility that he might have misread the situation, until the words had left his mouth and thankfully, as if to prove him right, a shrill, whistling sound reached them from the direction he was pointing to. The auror trainee, to her credit, reacted quickly. She turned around and dropped her disguise at once, stumbled in her haste, but caught herself very quickly, and was running towards the Hog's Head with Ron an instant later.

~HP~

"—so some kind of hunting dog, perhaps a terrier," Hermione concluded.

"The words 'follow' and 'pursue' would indicate a hunter, and 'persevering' would imply gameness – so a terrier would be likely, yes." Sirius nodded.

Harry and Hermione had the book Magic of the Mundane Beast opened before them, with the talking mirror leaning against the wall on top of a pile of other books. Sirius had hand-written notes strewn in front of him, partly visible through the mirror. He no longer had access to the book, but had told them what information he remembered finding in it.

"And then there's the memory of my partial transformation," went on Hermione. "So a terrier with a rough, white coat—"

"Yes, you'll need to find a word that relates to that. The distinguishing features of your animagus spell should all correspond to one of your words—"

She went back to skimming through the pages of the book, looking through the fairly detailed section of different dog breeds. A moment later, however, she pushed it towards Harry. "Your turn."

Harry leafed through the pages, wondering if Hermione had wanted to finish talking about her animagus form before anyone mentioned the other word from her spell – 'fear'. The entries about songbirds were a lot more concise than the entry for dogs, where many breeds had their own paragraphs.

"I don't know…" began Harry. "There aren't that many black songbirds, you know. Especially native ones, which you said would be more likely, Sirius. There's the grackle, maybe—"

"Really?" Sirius raised his eyebrows. "I thought there would be a far more obvious choice."

"Are you really thinking a blackbird?" Harry scowled, staring at one of the longer entries in the book. "That's a really weird one. There's a whole back-and-forth argument about whether or not it was Merlin's animagus form, apparently—"

"Only the French think that," Sirius said dismissively. "We think it was a marlin. But anyway, the rest would fit, I think—"

Harry thought he might have preferred having a falcon as an animagus form, but set that thought aside. He rolled his eyes, indulging his godfather. "Fine. I guess 'I fly' would refer to a bird and 'polyphony' could refer to a songbird, and blackbirds do have black feathers – the, er, adult males do, anyway—"

Sirius nodded. "The singing – together with the golden beak – is associated with speaking truth—"

Harry nodded. "Blackbird feathers are an ingredient of Veritaserum, it says here."

"—which also ties in with uncovering secrets—"

"It also says here that blackbirds are not as lofty and detached as other birds," Hermione read over his shoulder. "Because they spend a lot of time on the ground. That does sound like you, I'd say."

"Now, if Ron were here as well, we might've tried to at least narrow down what his animagus form might be," griped Sirius. He had been rather annoyed to find that Ron had chosen to go to Hogsmeade after all.

Harry did not hide that he was rolling his eyes. He was well aware that Sirius had been trying to keep them away from the village that weekend because he was afraid Pettigrew might have something planned. It was the one day when the dementors were kept farther away from Hogsmeade, true. However, Harry doubted very much that there would be any danger to Ron in broad daylight, surrounded by so many teachers and students from Hogwarts – not to mention the patrolling aurors.

It was pure hypocrisy on Sirius' part, he felt. It was not Ron – nor any of them – but rather his godfather, who was hunted by the aurors – and dementors – and who had still risked approaching the village a week ago to plant his alarm—

Harry had just been thinking thus, when he heard a tinny, whistling sound from the mirror. The look of alarm on Sirius' face would have given away what it was, had Harry not guessed right away anyway.

"That sounds just like Harry's sneakoscope," said Hermione, trying to spot the source of the noise through the mirror.

Sirius stepped out of frame, but was back an instant later, holding an empty bottle whose label read Ogden's Old Firewhisky. Inside, there was no more liquid remaining, but a small marble seemed to be zipping round and round, apparently causing the noise.

"It's the homemade version of it, I suppose," said Sirius. "I used the Protean Charm on this bottle and the one I levitated over to the Hog's Head, which means—"

"Pettigrew's there right now!" concluded Harry, even though he had never heard of the Protean Charm.

Sirius nodded grimly.

"Oh no! Ron!" exclaimed Hermione.

"That's exactly why I wanted all three of you to stay at Hogwarts!" retorted Sirius. "Don't worry. He should be safe enough, surrounded by the hordes of students. I'll be off, to check up on him, and call you as soon as I know more—"

"Wait. What? You can't go there! The place is full of aurors!" said Hermione.

"If Pettigrew managed to be there, so will I—"

Harry nodded at Hermione, then faced his godfather with a look of determination. "No. We're going, not you."

"No, you're not! You stay put where you are—"

But Harry and Hermione were not listening. They hastily packed up their questionable reading material and proceeded towards their dorms. Harry and Sirius were keeping their argument going, while Hermione was checking the map to make sure they would not run into anyone.

Hermione kept all their extracurricular reading in her dorm. Her collection of books was so varied and so large that they did not rouse anyone's suspicion. She needed to go up the stairs to drop them off, but they noticed Ginny and a couple of other second-years walking down the stairs towards them on the map.

"I'll borrow your cloak, and you hide behind one of the sofas," said Hermione.

Harry watched her walk past Ginny on the map without any problems. He was well hidden in the otherwise deserted common room and the second-years left through the portrait hole without seeing him either.

Sirius kept trying to call him on the mirror, which he normally never did, until Harry finally got annoyed and answered.

"Do you want us to get caught!" he all but hissed at his godfather.

"If that's what it's going to take!" Sirius retorted none too quietly.

"Look, you said it yourself. There are too many people in Hogsmeade for us to be in danger!" Harry tried arguing. "As opposed to you! And we're not going to leave Ron by himself – even if there's practically no chance he's in danger—"

"Then you don't need to go, do you—"

"Look, Ron doesn't have a time-turner, foe-glass, or an invisibility cloak – or even a sneakoscope! It's just—" Harry shook his head angrily, breaking off his argument. Hermione was running down the stairs. It was time to go. "If only Ron had one of these mirrors…" He ended the call to Sirius' continued protests.

There was one further hold-up. On the way to the statue of the one-eyed witch, Hermione checked the map again. A tiny dot labelled Severus Snape was walking towards them. Harry did not even hesitate. He threw his invisibility cloak over both of them. Pressed behind the statue of the one-eyed witch, they almost held their breaths until Snape had walked past them. Then they were hurrying down the stone chute and along the tunnel.

It seemed to take forever to reach Hogsmeade – especially with the continued argument with Sirius, who had not listened to them and was already in the outskirts of the village. Passing through Honeyduke's cellar undetected was less of the exciting adventure it had been on previous occasions and more of an interminable delay.

Harry had to keep wearing his cloak. Hermione could not see him and had to trust that he would be able to stay close. She kept muttering out of the corner of her mouth so no one would notice her talking to what looked like empty air next to her. She was also holding Harry's foe-glass, showing a rat and the vague outline of a human, because Harry had given up on not answering Sirius and was holding his two-way mirror.

Harry and his godfather were keeping a heated debate going about which of them was more out of place at the moment, but Sirius still agreed, tight-lipped, that the human in the foe-glass was probably one of Malfoy's minions, who had helped Pettigrew on previous occasions.

While searching for Ron, Harry and Hermione noticed the influx of aurors and they could hear the people around them talking about the excitement that had just passed. They heard a group of older students distinctly mention 'Weasley'. There was no sign of Ron, however. Hogsmeade was small enough that despite the difficulties of Harry under an invisibility cloak they had seen most of the shops in a few minutes.

"Hermione, you need to ask people where they saw Ron last. Everyone's talking about him. Just ask anyone," Harry urged as loudly as he dared. He wished he was not wearing the cloak and could talk to the passers-by himself. It was not a task at which Hermione excelled.

"We could use the time-turner—" she tried to suggest.

"Absolutely not!" Sirius' voice came precariously loudly from the mirror. "Other versions of you running around, before I had any idea that you'd be in Hogsmeade – Returning to a past that you know nothing about – Don't even think about it!"

They acquiesced and Hermione began asking people that she vaguely recognised for Ron's whereabouts. Their friend had been prominent enough a moment ago that even so it only took a few tries to get directions – from Gryffindor prefects, Harry thought: towards the Shrieking Shack.

Harry was preparing for an onslaught of arguments from his mirror, but his godfather changed tack, suddenly urging them to hurry, much to Harry's surprise.

Ron's unmistakeable red hair came into view soon after. He seemed to be walking straight towards the Shrieking Shack. Hermione ran after him, shouting his name, making it difficult for Harry to keep up without bumping into anyone, but Ron would not respond.

"Pettigrew managed to escape, didn't he?" Sirius' voice came through the mirror with a note of urgency.

Harry nodded. They had deduced that from the snatches of overheard conversation of the people around them.

Sirius' expression grew even more grim. "If they managed to attack Ron somehow—" he broke off.

"You mean Ron might be confounded?" Harry's voice rose in alarm.

"Or worse. I'm heading that way as well," said Sirius, expecting his listener's protests. "No, I'll be careful, I promise. I won't come too close to Hogsmeade. But if Ron's being made to walk towards Pettigrew, then he'll have to get far enough away from the village that the aurors and dementors won't bother Pettigrew either."

Hermione caught up with Ron, tried to turn him around, but the boy was clearly unresponsive. Harry cast the counter to the confundus spell, but it had no effect.

"He's likely imperiused," said Sirius. "You can't counter that with a spell. You need to get him to snap out of it—"

Harry thought Hermione was doing just that – with little effort. Before that thought could scare him, there was a noise nearby. He recognised Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, talking about Buckbeak's trial, walking towards them. They saw Ron and Hermione and Malfoy turned on Ron with a malevolent grin, asking him if he wanted to live in the Shrieking Shack so he would finally have a room of his own. When Ron tried to walk away instead of responding, Malfoy turned to Hermione.

"What's wrong with your friend, Granger? One too many butterbeers?"

"I can't tell the difference," said Crabbe, and all three of them jeered.

"Leave us alone, Malfoy." Hermione tried to go after Ron, who had begun walking again, but found her way closed off by the three Slytherin boys.

"Not so fast, Granger. We were just talking about my latest letter from home. Did you know, there was a last-minute change in the Committee set to decide your friend Hagrid's hippogriff's fate. Some nobody got himself included in the hearing, and the most interesting part is that Father thought you might've had something to do with that inconvenience—"

Harry was torn between deciding which of his friends to help first.

Hermione was too angry to be sensible. "How dare you think of people as a nobody, how dare you send a poor animal to slaughter for your own stupidity you foul, prejudiced—"

Finally making up his mind, Harry crept behind the Slytherin boys, picked up mud from the road and splattered Malfoy's hair with it. The blond boy's fear and outrage were satisfying to behold. Harry continued thus, attacking Crabbe and Goyle next. Hermione, meanwhile, caught up with Ron again, and unflinchingly petrified him, before sending up sparks high in the air, then followed them up with shouts of help, the volume of her voice enhanced with a spell.

Harry was basking in the dumb, panicked looks on the Slytherin boys' faces and did not react quickly enough as they ran in his direction, to get away from Hermione's alarm. Crabbe stumbled, his huge flat foot catching the hem of Harry's cloak. His head appearing out of thin air seemed to scare the Slytherin boys even more, but the damage was done. Malfoy had seen Harry in Hogsmeade. Even though he did not know that Harry possessed an invisibility cloak, there was no explanation other than the obvious for what he had seen.

"Put your cloak back on!" chided Hermione as soon as the Slytherin boys had run off.

Harry did so, while running over to join her next to Ron's prone body.

"I'm sorry, all I could do was chase them away," Sirius' voice came through the mirror at the same time. "Too many aurors with their tracking spells. Pettigrew was not alone – just as we guessed – but I couldn't make out who was with him. Well done on the alarm, Hermione. The aurors are on their way—"

Harry had been about to tell his godfather about his blunder with Malfoy, to ask if there was anything to be done, but Sirius had ended the call. A moment later, they saw people running up the hill from the village, and soon identified a few aurors. They revived Ron, but were sceptical that there was anything the matter with him. It did not help that Ron was no longer unresponsive and trying to walk away from them, but appeared perfectly normal. The aurors were indulgent, put their reaction down to panic and escorted them back to the village. Harry walked behind the group, careful not to give himself away a second time.

The aurors would have left Ron and Hermione in Percy's care, but Percy wanted to get them back to the school at once. One of the aurors – a tall, black man with a friendly, reassuring presence, who introduced himself as Kingsley – then volunteered to take Hermione and the Weasley boys past the dementors back to Hogwarts – much to the twins' displeasure. Harry managed to whisper quietly to Ron that he was taking the tunnel back and parted from them. Once he had left Honeydukes' cellar behind him, he called Sirius again, expecting to talk about what was to be done about Malfoy. What he was not prepared for were more admonishments. He got angry. Had Sirius not understood that his presence had been needed? He said as much, but his godfather would hear none of it.

"You're fortunate that I'm on the run and can't send you a howler," Sirius said coolly.

Harry indignantly ended the mirror call then and there, without discussing what Malfoy had seen. He almost completely ignored good sense, so angry was he, but at the last moment the months – years – of practice in sneaking around reasserted themselves. He checked the map. Snape was loitering around the entrance of the tunnel. Clearly waiting for him.

Harry thought quickly, once again resisting the urge to ask Sirius for advice. Malfoy must have told Snape what he had seen already. Harry was not sure if Snape knew how to enter the tunnel – he hoped not – but he certainly knew Harry knew of a secret passageway in that location. Waiting seemed the safest option. Snape was bound to get distracted for a moment and Harry would sneak out – but leave his more questionable items stowed away in the tunnel – and then pretend Malfoy was making up lies.

After several interminable minutes, something even better happened. Harry saw the little dots representing his friends on the map headed his way, Fred and George in tow. Harry did not know what happened next – he could only follow the movement of the dots on the map. But whatever the twins did got Snape to walk away. Harry stepped out of the tunnel to see Ron and Hermione running towards him, urging him to hurry. Ron collected his map and cloak from the tunnel, Hermione returned his foe-glass and cleaned up the mud from his hands with a haphazard spell.

As fast as they could, they made their way to the Gryffindor common room, but they had barely entered and settled into a corner when Snape followed them in. He sneered when he spotted Harry, clearly not buying the boy's attempt at an innocent expression.

"Come with me, Potter," he said.

Harry followed him on the familiar path to the dungeons, his thoughts still on Ron. There had not been any time to ask his friend what had happened. Once in his office, Snape remained standing while Harry sat, his eyes boring into Harry's, recounting what Draco had told him.

Harry's friends had done a good job of divesting him of incriminating evidence, but Harry found himself wavering in his plan to pretend ignorance. "It's just Malfoy's word against mine, then, isn't it?" he said instead, defiantly.

Snape was not impressed by his response and made him turn out his pockets, but unsurprisingly there were no incriminating items to be found there – just his wand and foe-glass. He had not been to any Hogsmeade shops, after all. His teacher glared at his temptied pockets, clearly not convinced.

"What if I'd found out that Ron was in trouble?" Harry offered carefully. "Would that've been reason enough to go to Hogsmeade?"

"Perhaps because your father's old friend, Peter Pettigrew, decided to make a surprise appearance there? That's precisely why you were supposed to stay away from Hogsmeade." Snape snarled and leaned forward, a hand on each arm of Harry's chair, so that their faces were a foot apart. "And you wouldn't have known anything about Weasley's troubles if you hadn't been there already!"

It was so unfair. The one time when he really had opted to remain at school – and what was his reward? Had he not gone to Snape often enough over the years with a similar tale of trouble and found his teacher listening? Why was this situation different? He could – he should – mention that he had seen the rat in his foe-glass, he knew. It would be a believable explanation (and almost true). But something about the whole situation felt like Snape taking Malfoy's side over Harry's. He set his jaw and remained silent.

"So." Snape straightened up again. "Everyone from the Minister for Magic downwards is trying to keep you safe, but you can't be expected to keep to the sidelines. No, you have to play the hero – regardless that Hogsmeade was swarming with aurors today, all of whom are more capable of dealing with Black – and certainly Pettigrew – than you and your friends!"

"Ron was attacked despite all those aurors!" was Harry's livid reply. He knew it would be wiser to keep a level head, but his recent anger at Sirius on the same topic was exacerbating his response.

"Weasley was fine – the auror who brought him back told us your friends experienced a momentary panic, but were otherwise fine. Had Weasley not felt the need to play hero and ring the alarm when he saw Pettigrew – rather than confidentially report what he had seen to an auror—"

"You don't believe he was in danger?" The sense of hurt at not being believed was immediate.

Snape's response came after a momentary pause. "I believe your friends really thought themselves in danger. I don't believe Mr Malfoy's assertion that Granger sent the sparks up purely to get him in trouble—"

Harry should describe how Ron had acted, the very suggestion of the imperius curse ought to change Snape's mind—

"No matter whether Weasley was in real danger – or whether there were better, more qualified people, to deal with any such danger – you had to rush in, not heeding the consequences," Snape went on. "Did you even think what might have happened if, instead of Mr Malfoy, one of the aurors had seen you in Hogsmeade?"

It was a good point, Harry had to concede. He set his jaw.

The potions master glanced away before his eyes glinted, refocused on Harry. "How very like your father, Potter, to ignore such unimportant things as rules – to walk in and out of Hogwarts as fancy strikes you – to have the arrogance to think you can play hero against far more powerful adversaries – and to disregard sense where your friends are concerned—"

Harry felt his ire rise at what was clearly a reference to his father's death. He was aware that Snape was trying to provoke him on purpose, to get him to lose his calm and show himself to be immature, to prove that he had merely been amusing himself in Hogsmeade and ought to admit fault. But he could return the favour.

"Him playing hero wasn't so bad when he saved your life, was it?" Seeing his teacher draw back in unpleasant surprise, Harry went on, "Dumbledore told me all about that a couple years ago."

Snape's sallow skin turned the colour of sour milk. "The headmaster told you all about it, did he? Or did he consider the details too unpleasant for precious Potter's ears?"

He did not need Harry to admit to not knowing the circumstances, he could tell plainly that that was the case. He told Harry that his father and his friends had sent him to meet Moony on the full moon, but James had got cold feet at the last moment and pulled Snape out of the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack.

Harry tried making sense of the tale, knowing Sirius and Lupin, and could not. "I don't believe you! I don't believe a word of that!" he said vehemently.

Snape drew back, eyes glinting with some strong, suppressed emotion. His thin mouth curled into a caustic smile. "No, indeed? You may be excused for not actually remembering your father. However, after finding out that two of his three closest friends sold him out to his enemies, murdered a dozen people and are now on the run from the law, and that the remaining member of that illustrious group is a werewolf, you might have drawn a few conclusions—"

Despite his recent argument with Sirius, Harry had to restrain himself very, very much to not blurt out something entirely foolish with regards to his godfather's loyalties.

"You'd know something about that, wouldn't you?" he said heatedly. "About giving up on your friends and replacing them with powerful Slytherin allies?"

As soon as he had spoken the words, he wished them back. He had had no intention to bring up his knowledge of Snape's friendship with his mother – and whatever conclusions he had drawn about its end.

Snape froze. Colour came into his face in splotches, before fading again. "What are you talking about, Potter?" he whispered.

There was a pounding in Harry's ears. He did not have the words to defuse the situation.

"You will explain what you were referring to," Snape said emphasising every word. "Which of my friendships are you referring to, exactly?"

Harry lifted his chin. The cold dread he felt was not enough to defuse the anger entirely. "My aunt still remembers you, did you know? Calls you 'that awful boy' when she talks about the past—"

He stopped as Snape stumbled back, as if he could not get away from Harry quickly enough. Snape moved towards the fireplace in the awful silence that had fallen. Picking up floo powder from a jar sat atop it, he threw it into the fire.

"Lupin!" he shouted into the flames that had turned green. "I want a word!"

Seconds later, Professor Lupin was clambering out of the fireplace, brushing ash off his shabby robes. "You called, Severus?" he said mildly.

"I certainly did. Potter, here, was sceptical about the exact circumstances of a certain prank which you and your friends concocted, and which introduced me to your true nature—"

Harry's heart sank. Lupin looked taken aback. He clearly understood the reference and was not immediately arguing that it was a lie. Worse, Snape decided to tell Lupin about the reason for Harry's presence in his office – of Malfoy seeing him in Hogsmeade. Then he turned to Harry, without quite looking at him.

"I think it est if we keep our interactions to the barest minimum required in the future, Potter. As you won't believe me – as you won't listen to me even when your own safety is concerned – perhaps you'll listen to a teacher you profess to be fond of."

Harry was already beginning to feel guilty as he followed Lupin out of Snape's office and all the way back to the entrance hall. He tried to speak then, tried to ask about the prank Snape had told him about. But Lupin, looking more serious than ever before, had other matters to discuss first.

"I cannot make you take Pettigrew seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them – running recklessly into danger just so you can get one over Malfoy."

Harry was already feeling bad, and suddenly his arguments against Sirius and then Snape no longer seemed as water-tight. Lupin did not stop there, however.

"I wonder how much Sirius is trying to discourage you from such adventures – he always had a slightly different view of what constituted danger." Lupin sighed, glanced around the empty entrance and lowered his voice. "That prank Severus mentioned – it was instigated by Sirius as well. Severus used to be very interested in my monthly comings and goings. One evening, he saw me cross the school grounds with Madam Pomfrey as she led me to the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it – er – amusing to tell Snape how he could get in after me. If Snape had made it to the Shrieking Shack, he would have met a fully grown werewolf – but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life… Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was…"

He walked away, leaving Harry feeling worse than he could ever remember. Slowly, Harry walked back towards the Gryffindor common room.

His friends met him outside the portrait, looking excited. Before Harry could bring up any of his issues, Hermione held out a letter to him, almost bouncing on the spot in her happiness. "We just got news from Hagrid. He won! He's staying there for the whole weekend to celebrate. Oh, there's going to be an appeal, but there always is—"

They walked into the common room while Harry read the short note containing that information, which sported a sizeable stain which Harry suspected had come from firewhisky.

"That's not all," went on Ron. "Hermione and I both made progress with our animagus spells. In my case, it was after I extricated myself from the aurors. They kept asking me all sorts of tricky questions. I hadn't actually seen Pettigrew, of course, I just heard Sirius' alarm go off and saw the door open. Then everyone else wanted to hear what had happened as well – not much did, Pettigrew got away and all the aurors found was the mess he left behind and traces of his magic. So I walked away from them as well – but not soon enough, I guess." He grimaced, embarrassed. "I think my new word might be something like 'attention-seeking'…"

"Nonsense, Ron," said Hermione. "If only you hadn't tried to get away from everyone – then Pettigrew and his assistant wouldn't have managed to curse you. And I keep telling you, there's no telling what your word actually is – or refers to. Take my case, for example. I cast the animagus spell while the aurors were walking us back to school, Harry. And my new phrase is 'my loyalty overcomes fear' – which is entirely the opposite of the word 'fear' that I found so difficult to deal with before. Now it sounds more like bravery after all, doesn't it?"

It was obvious how happy she was with her new phrase. Her joy was infectious. Just like her words, Ron recovered his courage in response and nodded, reassured to keep working on his spell. He and Hermione turned to Harry, urging him to try the animagus spell as well. But he already had – and had found a word. He was pretty sure it was 'anger'.

After sharing that with his friends, he followed it up with all the other news he had to tell. While he talked, he was keenly aware how much he wanted – needed – to tell the same to Sirius. To hear his version of the prank, most of all. But even against his friends' urging he remained stubborn. That evening and on Sunday, he barely spoke to his godfather, merely let him know that he was well.

On Monday morning, Ron received a howler from his father. Mr Weasley only knew a small fraction of what they had been up to. But knowing about their wish to interfere in Buckbeak's trial and hearing that it had been Ron who had openly set the aurors on Pettigrew made for enough material for several minutes of continuous shouting. Harry had to admire how careful he kept his phrasing – not giving any information to the other listeners in the great hall – while sounding no less angry.

Harry, aware how much more Sirius knew, suddenly let go of all remaining anger at his godfather and was once again looking forward to have a real talk with him that evening – even at the cost of apologising.