Lyra Malfoy, a woman of thirty-four years, quickly felt transformed back into being sixteen and terrified. There was something so strangely familiar about having to run down to the Whomping Willow on a full moon to stop something stupid from happening and hopefully keeping someone from getting hurt because Sirius had most likely done something stupid. 

She just hoped Severus Snape wasn't involved this time. He was annoying enough when they were teenagers, but he was the exact same person as an adult. The fact that he hadn't changed at all was the most annoying part of him. 

Not that she thought much of him once her and Remus slipped past the Whomping Willow, using the same tricks from when they were back at Hogwarts to do so. She only held a lot of confusion, worry and rage. She wasn't quite sure where the rage was pointed to yet, but she was simply preparing to yell at someone. Or hex them. Perhaps even both if she got angry enough. 

Once her and Remus entered down the tight passageway down to the Shrieking Shack, Lyra could feel her heart pounding. Sirius was down there. It would be the first time she'd seen him in well over a decade. It would feel surreal. 

But Peter was there, too. She still didn't understand what the story there was, but she believed in Sirius. He had always believed in her, so she would have to return the favor, even if she hadn't been able to help him as much as she should have. 

"We're up here! We're up here! Sirius Black- quick!" the voice of a young girl called out as they hurried towards it. Lyra supposed that was Hermione Granger, the girl Draco had been complaining so much about, the muggleborn. 

They had finally reached to the door leading into the Shrieking Shack. Remus hadn't spoken a word as they had run towards them, but his face was pale and his wand out as he covered Lyra's line of sight into the room. He broke through the door, his wand held high. "Expelliarmus!"

Lyra forced her way through once she realized spells were being thrown. She could quickly see three wands coming into Remus's grip, one from Harry and two from the bushy-haired girl next to him, Hermione. A third child, a redheaded boy (probably the Weasley boy) was lying on the ground, his leg bleeding. 

Then there was Sirius, lying on the floor close to where Harry was standing. His robes looked like they hadn't been changed in years with holes and tatters throughout it. His skin was as white as snow, his once perfect hair had become long and tangled. She couldn't see him perfectly, but his teeth looked yellow. But that wasn't the strangest thing about him.

"Why is there a cat on your chest?" Lyra asked, watching as a strangely orange-coloured cat sat on him, meeting her eyes. It looked quite intelligent, and almost like it had been protecting Sirius. Still weird though.

"Seriously?" asked Sirius, scoffing. His voice was hoarse, quite obviously not used to talking much again. "The first time you've seen me in what, fourteen years, and you ask me about the cat?"

Lyra shrugged. She didn't know what else he was expecting. She knew he was out and free, she had seen on the map where he was and who he was with. The cat was a surprise. "Well, yes. I'm confused. Why is there a cat on your chest?"

"Let's not talk about the cat anymore, Lyra," said Remus sternly, giving her a strict look. She raised her hands in surrender as he stared at Sirius, a million different emotions behind his eyes at nobody but the three old friends could understand. "Where is he, Sirius?"

Lyra could see Harry frowning, confused as to who Remus had meant. Lyra knew perfectly well that Peter Pettigrew was their target. Him and Sirius together seemed to hold all the answers they were craving. Hesitantly, Sirius pointed towards the Weasley boy, who looked bewildered. 

"But then... Why hasn't he showed himself before now? Unless..." Remus muttered, trying to piece the puzzle together. His eyes widened in realization. "Unless he was the one. Unless you switched without telling me."

"Of course," Lyra whispered to herself as Sirius nodded slowly. They had simply switched Secret-Keepers. James would have thought it was brilliant, always too trusting of his friends to realize that Peter would have been too weak to withstand the Dark Lord. "Of course that's what happened. I knew you'd never do something like it."

"Professor Lupin, what's going-?" Harry asked, looking to the only adult in the room that he trusted. Sirius, he was sure had killed his parents. Lyra, he had come to the conclusion that she must have helped Sirius out of Azkaban, probably a Voldemort supporter herself. 

Harry was cut off in the middle of his sentence as Remus walked to Sirius, offering him his hand and pulled him up from the floor. It didn't take long before the two had pulled each other into a brotherly embrace, appreciating that they were reunited. 

Lyra wanted to cry. It was a sight she never thought she'd see. Those two being best friends again, together. She sniffled, becoming teary-eyed as she watched them. Sirius smiled slightly at her, pulling her in to share in their hug. They were the only three left from back in the day, after all. They needed to appreciate that they were all there, together. 

"I don't believe it!" the young girl in the room, Hermione (Lyra had to think every time she was remembering her name) kept yelling, even though Remus kept calling out her name and telling her to calm down. "You- you... You and him! I didn't tell anyone, I was covering up for you-"

"Hermione, listen to me. Please!" Remus tried to shout, but it was impossible over her teenage hysterics. Lyra frowned and wondered if she herself had been an equally difficult teenage girl at that age. Probably worse, she supposed. She had a flare for the dramatics, being a Black and all. 

Harry seemed equally angry. This was a man who had comforted him and been kind, who had taught him the bloody Patronus charm of all things. "I trusted you! And all this time you've been his friend!"

"You're wrong," the Lupin man shook his head, looking pained at the mistrust he was getting from some of his favorite students. "I haven't been Sirius's friend for twelve years but I am now. Let me explain..."

Hermione glared at him, trying to desperately scream at her best friend, who looked furious. "No! Harry, don't trust him. He's been helping Black get into the castle! He wants you dead too. He's a werewolf!"

Lyra squeezed her eyes together at the revelation. She was sure it wouldn't go down well. It hadn't when she had first been told the news, which were months that still haunted her, making her feel like she was a horrid person. 

Remus was pale, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "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."

The Weasley boy, Ron, tried to stand up on his wounded leg, wanting to protect his two best friends against a murderer, a werewolf and a potential former Death Eater. He quickly fell back on his butt, whimpering in pain. When Remus tried to approach to help, he only called out: "Get away from me, werewolf!"

Remus stopped in his tracks, obviously trying to hide the hurt on his face. He was used to the discrimination, of course. That didn't mean it hurt any less. He turned to Hermione once again. "How long have you known?"

"Ages. Since I did Professor Snape's essay..." Hermione trailed off. Lyra rolled her eyes, knowing that Snape would do something like that just because of an old school boy grudge that should have ended a decade ago along with everyone else's school boy grudges. 

"He'll be delighted." The werewolf clenched his jaw. "He set 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."

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione," Remus forced a small laugh, though it had no humor behind it. He supposed he should have suspected someone would figure it out. If anybody would, it would be her. 

"I'm not," Hermione said, her voice starting out in a low whisper only audible because of everyone else's silence. Her voice was quickly raised into a yell, though. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are!"

"But they already know," he said, seeing obvious surprise on her face. "At least, the staff do."

"Dumbledore hired you when he knew you were a werewolf? Is he mad?" asked Ron, gasping loudly. Lyra wasn't sure if the gasp was from the surprise or the painful-looking wound on his leg. 

"Some of the staff thought so. He had to work very hard to convince certain teachers that I'm trustworthy-" Remus responded. Lyra knew exactly which teacher (not plural) that had to have been. 

"And he was wrong! You've been helping him all the time!" yelled Harry suddenly, his face red and looking ready to explode in anger. He pointed towards Sirius, who once again seemed to be protected by the orange cat. 

"Harry, calm down," Lyra said sternly. She wasn't sure what authority Remus held over him anymore, so she supposed she was the best chance they had at getting him to relax. "You're not doing anyone any good by starting a screaming match!"

"You can't tell me what to do just because you're my dad's old girlfriend!" Harry hissed, finally throwing out the words he'd been waiting to spit at her ever since he had seen her earlier that day. 

"Rude. That was unbelievably rude. Who raised you to be so rude?" Lyra muttered to herself, though surprised that Harry knew about their relationship. "And don't talk about things you know nothing about."

"You lied to me. You said you didn't know him well," the Potter boy whispered, looking betrayed. "You were his girlfriend! They said you loved him. Didn't seem to be true with the side you've taken!"

"Don't, Harry. You know nothing about my relationship with James!" the blonde woman said strictly, though still feeling guilty. "I wish you would have. Maybe I shouldn't have lied to you. But it's a long, complicated story."

"You've helped him, haven't you? You helped him escape from Azkaban! You're how he escaped!" the bespectacled boy accused her, speaking out about the theory he'd had for over six months.

Lyra eyed him strangely. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I have no idea how break someone out of Azkaban. Why does everyone think I have something to do with it? First Lucius, now you."

Sirius perked up at the mention of his cousin's husband, though not in a good way. He groaned in disgust, his face scrunched up like he had smelled something nasty. "Ugh, you're still married to that git?"

"Unfortunately," she responded dryly, before turning to the Potter boy with a calming expression. "Harry, I loved James. I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain how much. If I could go back in time, things would be so different."

"If you loved him as much as you say then why did you break up, huh?" he asked, trying to poke holes in her explanation. "Didn't sound much like love to me if he wound up marrying my mother and you married a bloody Malfoy."

"There is a time and a place to tell this story but that is not today, not here," said Lyra. This wasn't supposed to be about telling Harry about all the drama that went down almost two decades ago. This was supposed to be about her getting to make Peter Pettigrew suffer. 

"I don't want to hear it unless it's today and here!" Harry retorted stubbornly. "That's why you've helped me... that time in Knockturn Alley. Why you were so nice to me when I was eleven. You saw my dad and you felt guilty for being a Voldemort supporter!"

"I have never been a supporter of him," she responded coolly, not wanting to hear such accusations with all she had done to escape the Dark Mark in her youth. "And I noticed you because you were James's son, sure. But I was kind to you because you deserved it. What happened between him and I was not easy. I think about it every day."

But Harry was still young and he didn't understand how love worked, at least in the romantic department. He had his opinions about what it was like, even if it didn't fit with the complicated reality. "If you'd have loved him, then you wouldn't have left him."

Lyra felt tears return to her eyes, though not happy ones. "You don't understand, Harry! I hope you never will. I hope you'll never feel the pain of being tortured by your own sister because you admitted to being in love with a man they'd never accept. To threaten to kill and torture him and everyone else around him. I'm sure you'd make a few difficult choices you might regret then."

Harry flinched at the revelation, he could see his Professor do the same. He swallowed a lump in his throat, instantly feeling a bit guilty for how he had been treating her. "You're still helping him. You and Lupin... together. He betrayed them. That's no way to honor his memory, no matter how you felt about him."

"I haven't been helping Sirius. Neither has Remus. I haven't seen either of them in over a decade," she said, wiping at her eyes from tears that had come as she thought back to a difficult part of her life.  "Just give us a chance and we'll all explain everything."

"Look," called out Remus, though still shaken from hearing Lyra's story and the students finding out about his condition. He threw the wands in his hand back to their original owners as he pocketed his own. "You're armed, we're not. Now will you listen?"

Harry looked hesitant, looking at the adult woman he had just brought to tears who had been nothing but kind to him. "If neither of you are helping him, or have been talking to each other... How'd you know he was here? How'd you both come here together?"

"I saw Remus for the first time in years while dropping Draco off before summer. I came by and saw him once after that, we didn't end it on good terms," the blonde sighed. "I came by today to make things right when I found him examining the map. The Marauder's Map, that is."

The bespectacled boy turned to his Professor. "You know how to work it?"

The Lupin man seemed to impatient to want to answer, but knew he had to anyway as he waved his hand. "Of course I know how to work it. I helped write it. I'm Moony, that was my friends' nickname for me at school."

Harry's eyes widened. "You wrote-?"

Remus started pacing, stressed. "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? That's when Lyra came to my office. You might have been wearing your father's old Cloak, Harry-"

"How'd you know about the cloak?" the Potter boy cut him off, eyeing him suspiciously. 

"We all know about the cloak. James loved using it for all kinds of different uses and purposes. Mainly pranks," Lyra shrugged. "Though we did sneak out to Hogsmeade for our first date with it."

The werewolf looked at her sternly. "The point is, even if you're wearing an Invisibility Cloak you 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 towards the castle. But you were now accompanied by somebody else."

Harry frowned deeply, looking at him like he was some sort of madman. "What? No, we weren't."

"I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought the map was malfunctioning. But then Lyra reminded me that the map never lies," said Remus, ignoring as Harry tried to interrupt once more. "And then I saw another dot, moving fast towards you, labelled Sirius Black. I saw him collide with you, I watched as he pulled two of you into the Whomping Willow-"

"One of us," Ron tried to angrily correct from his spot on the floor.

"No, Ron. Two of you." Remus finally stopped pacing, looking at the redheaded boy. He looked stressed and pale, seeing small movements within the thirteen-year-old's cloak. "Do you think I could have a look at the rat?"

"What?" asked the Weasley boy, clutching the part of his robes that had been moving. Lyra supposed that was the part where Peter was hiding in cowardice. "What's Scabbers got to do with this?"

"Everything. Could I see him, please?" he repeated politely, noting how Lyra was glaring at the boy's robes. Ron hesitantly pulled out his rat, who was nervously struggling as the cat hissed at him (Lyra was liking that cat more and more). 

The redhead seemed a bit freaked out as Lyra was glaring hatefully at his family rat and Remus only stared at him intently. He clutched the rat close to his chest. "What? What's my rat got to do with anything?"

"That's not a rat," Sirius spoke up hoarsely from his corner of the room. There was a strange mix of a toothy, yellow grin and a cruel glare as he finally saw their old friend in front of them again. 

"What d'you mean?" asked Ron, confused as he glanced down at his struggling rat, who looked like he wanted to run away and hide for the rest of his life. "Of course he's a rat..."

"No, he's not," Remus shook his head. "He's a wizard."

"A poor excuse for one, but a wizard nonetheless," spat Lyra, wishing she could just step on him with her heel and get rid of him once and for all. "He's an Animagus, you see. We used to call him Peter Pettigrew."

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A/N: The Shrieking Shack chapters are so long and so many that I can't fit them into just a few, so they'll be a stretched over a few chapters, mostly because they're so dramatic, which I love.