Sirius Black's slow-clapping echoed in the room. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked down at him where he lay on the floor, having been blasted back to trip over Remus Lupin, who was still bound on the floor beneath Sirius, whose legs hung over Remus's prone form. "Well, I think this may just have been James's proudest moment of his entire life - if only he'd been here to see it!"

Harry, stunned at what happened, looked to Severus Snape.

Hermione was still shaking. "We attacked a TEACHER. We're going to be expellled!"

"Yeah... you probably shouldn't have done that," Sirius said, "You should've left him to me..."

"You don't even have a wand on you!" Ron said.

Sirius pulled himself up from the floor, using the same bed post Ron was clinging to and Ron recoiled slightly - though not as dramatically as he would've done before - and Sirius snorted, "I don't need a wand to destroy Severus Snape!"

Really, though, Sirius was so gaunt and thin that Ron rather reckoned Sirius would struggle at it if he had six wands, but he didn't say as much.

Remus was struggling against the bindings on the floor and making whining, pleading sounds from the floor. Sirius quickly knelt down, "That snake, that vicious snake, look at you... look at you..." he started untying the ropes as quickly as he could, biting at a particularly nasty knot and clearing the bindings away from Remus's arms. He yanked the ropes from Remus's mouth and got up, helping Remus to his feet.

Remus rubbed his arms where there were dark red marks and indentations from where the cords had been pulled so ridiculously tight, cutting into his skin. "He can certainly cast a good incarcerous, damn."

Sirius said, "Hate to think what he uses it for."

Remus looked at the students, his eyes staying with Harry's. "Thank you, Harry," he said, "That was really very brave. Your father and mother would have --"

"I'm still not saying that I believe you!" Harry retorted. "This is all very -- very much a lot." He looked sickened, glancing from Severus to Sirius and back to Remus. "Just because Snape is wrong doesn't automatically mean that you lot are right! And he - he disrespected my father. I -- I couldn't let --" his eyes met Sirius's.

Something about Sirius's expression, the way Sirius stared at him, the... the pride... in his eyes... Harry felt his heart seize up a moment.

"Then it's time we offered you some proof, Harry," Sirius said firmly. He turned around. "You boy --"

"R-Ron," stammered Ron.

"Give Peter to me. Now."

Ron clutched Scabbers to his chest protectively.

How many times had he been stuck at home alone in his room with no friends and his brothers all busy playing quidditch together, not letting him join in because they were older and made the team uneven (unless he could somehow talk Percy into coming outside to play too, then they'd be obliged to let him play to even the teams back out again)? How many times had him and Scabbers spent playing with little mazes and blocks of cheese and bits of strawberries and rat treats? How many times had Ron confided his worries in Scabbers? He said all the time he was a shoddy rat, sure, but - but hadn't he actually been a - a good rat?

"Come off it," Ron said weakly. He didn't WANT to believe that all those times with Scabbers had been a hoax. He looked to Harry sadly. "Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers?" Ron looked to Hermione, then back to Harry again. "Okay, say - say Pettigrew could turn into a rat - there are - there are millions of rats, aren't there? How's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?" Ron pointed at Sirius with his free hand, then returned it to cup Scabber's fat round body.

Remus blinked thoughtfully, then turned to Sirius, his eyes crunched up. "You know, Sirius, that's actually a fair question. How did you find out where he was?"

Sirius laughed. "You aren't going to believe this." He reached into his robes, into a pocket on the inside, and withdrew a folded up bit of paper. It was oragami-folded into the shape of a heart and written on hot pink paper that seemed to glow in the dark. He unfolded it carefully, preserving the special tucks and folds so he could return it to it's shape when he was done and from inside the heart dropped a bit of black and white paper. He bent down and plucked the paper up from the ground, held it out to Remus.

Remus couldn't believe his eyes. He was staring at a photograph cut from a copy of the Daily Prophet. It was a photograph of the entire Weasley clan - Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny, and there, perched on Ron's shoulder, was Scabbers. The way he was clinging onot Ron's shoulder, one could clearly see the missing toe on his front foot and, unmistakably, the markings and watery eyes that were Peter Pettigrew's.

"How did you get this?" Remus asked and he held the clipping out to Ron, who took it, and stared in disbelief. Hermione hurried over and looked, too.

Sirius lokoed to the hot pink letter in his hand and cleared his throat, reading, "Dear Sirius, It's been an awful long time since I last wrote, I'm really sorry. It's been busy around the Ministry. Did I tell you I got the job? I'm really excited to be finally working in the department and I'm a junior auror --" he paused here, "Blah, blah, blah - she's on about personal stuff for a paragraph... duh-duh-duh, let's see, somewhere - where's she start in about it? Oh here we are. My friend Cha-Cha - You remember Charlie, don't you? I've told you about him loads of times! - he was really excited, his family won a contest and they got loads of galleons - enough for the whole family to go and visit his oldest brother, Bill, in Egypt and he got to go and see some rare desert dragons at an observatory there. Here's his picture, I thought you might like to see it! They were in the paper and all.... da-da-da.. more personal stuff... Your favorite cousin, Nymphadora Tonks." Sirius looked up.

"My God," Remus said slowly. Then he paused. "Oh my stars. It's so simple." He looked at Sirius. "He cut it off himself?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at Remus. "What now?" Ron asked.

"His finger," Remus said without looking away from Sirius.

Sirius nodded, "Yeah. Just before he transformed. The creepy bastard looked me stright in the eyes and said 'I'm giving you the finger' and lobs it off - then yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James... all those students... and before I could curse him, he blew apart the entire street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself, and - and transformed before my very eyes and sped off down into the sewer with the other rats and piles of shit."

Hermione's eyes were wide. She covered her mouth.

Harry looked at Scabbers, who was suddenly laying quiet against Ron's chest, but his heart was fluttering so fast that even from a distance Harry could see the little rat's body throbbing from it as he panted. Ron's hands were a mess from rat bites and scratches.

"Look, Scabbers probably had been in a fight with another rat or something! He's been in my family for ages, right --" Ron was desperate, tears in his eyes.

"Twelve years in fact?" Remus murmured. He paused. "Didn't you ever wonder why he was living so long?"

Harry looked at Ron. "That witch - that witch at Eeylops. She - she said rats only live three or four years."

"We've been taking good care of him!" Ron pleaded. Tears were on his face.

"He's not looking to good at the moment, though, is he?" asked Remus and he stepped over and held out his hands. Ron turned, clutching Scabbers all the tighter. "I'm guessing he's been sickly ever since he heard about Sirius being on the loose again?"

"He's been scared of that mad cat!" said Ron, nodding toward Crookshanks, who was purring merrily on the bed as though watching a favorite telly program.

Harry's face was screwed up with thought. "No. No actually, Ron, he was sick before. Because Hermione got Crookshanks at Eeylopes when we went to get the rat tonic, remember?"

"That cat is not mad," Sirius snapped defensively. "He's a very good cat - for a cat!" he added when Crookshanks looked at him with glowing yellow eyes. He reached over and stroked the cat. "He's been helping me. I never appreciated him before - but -- blimey, he's a good cat. James was right."

"What do you mean?" breathed Hermione.

"His real name is Rodger," Remus said.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at Remus as Sirius bent down and made kissy sounds in Crookshank's face.

"Excuse me?" Hermione asked, glancing nervously back at Sirius.

"I don't know how -- Sirius do you --?"

"Not a clue, he's never told me."

"Well... he - he's James and Lily's cat, Rodger."

Harry stared at Remus, then at the cat. "Thats impossible."

Remus shrugged. "Honestly this whole thing has a lot of elements of improbability to it, which is really what you mean by impossible."

Hermione nodded, "Exactly. Proper English!"

Remus laughed, recognizing her appreciation for the correct word usage as though looking in a mirror.

"Alright, assuming that's true," Harry murmured... he felt like his brain was exploding. It was absurd. All of it. "But Crookshanks... Rodger... I -"

"Rodger Crookshanks," Sirius intoned. "He likes that." The cat rubbed it's head against Sirius's palm lovingly. Hermione stared in disbelief. That cat had never acted like that with anyone. Even her half the time.

"He faked his own death once, thought it would work again, the little rat..." muttered Sirius, "Giving us the slip yet again, trying to get out of justice being served yet again! Too much of a coward to own up to what he's done!"

Harry squinted at Sirius. "And why did he have to fake his death? Because he knew YOU were coming after him - just like before! Just like you killed my parents!"

"No, Harry --" Remus said patiently, but Harry was on a roll.

"And now you've come to finish him off!"

Sirius grinned a wide and wildly hungry grin. "Yes I have." He looked evilly at Scabbers.

"Really Sirius, if you didn't word it so creepily then maybe they'd have caught on by now!" Remus said, turning to him. "You're so bloody dramatic you can't just speak like a human being."

"Dramatic!  You want to talk about dramatic - let's talk about you, Mr. Telling Your Entire Bleeding Life Story to Make A Point. Merlin's left nipple --"

"WHY DON'T ONE OF YOU EXPLAIN? PLEASE? IN ENGLISH! NOT IN THESE NONSENSE RIDDLES AND LONG WINDED STORIES, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" Harry blew up. "I MEAN COME OFF OF IT YOU LOT!"

"Bickering like an old married couple," muttered Ron, "LIke my mum and dad having a row of it. Bloody hell."

"Don't you see, Harry?" Remus said,, "All this time, everyone thought that Sirius betrayed your parents and Peter tracked him down -- but it was the other way around. Peter betrayed your mother and father and Sirius tracked Peter down!"

"THAT ISN'T TRUE!" Harry said hurriedly, "Peter couldn't. They - they had the Fidelus Charm! He was their secret keeper! He said so before you turned up. He said that he killed them!" He pointed at Sirius. "HE SAID IT."

Sirius's eyes were shining, overbright, the sort of look on his face that came just before a crumbling. Slience fell in the Shack and all eyes were on Sirius, who swallowed, trying to gain control over his emotions. Twelve years of guilt and weight and regret hung on him then, and he staggered slightly. Remus caught his arm, bracing him.

"Sirius --" Remus started.

Sirius shook his head. He murmured, "...I... I as good as killed them." His voice was weak, quiet, and trembled with all that weight from the terrible past. "I persuaded Lily and James to use him as the secret keeper instead of me." And the tears suddenly were leaking out, flowing down his cheeks without stopping, his jaw trembled as he fought it, "I'm to blame and I know it... I know it.. I know they - they never would've chosen Peter if it hadn't been for me... and... if... if they'd just had me as the secret keeper... I - I wouldn't be here but - but they would. They would."

Remus's palm was on Sirius's arm. His heart was breaking for Sirius... shattering...

Suddenly, just like that, all the past months made sense. It was the key - the key that Remus had told Tonks he knew would unlock all the confusion. It was the key that answered what had been going through Sirius Black's mind all this time as he spoke about it being his fault that James and Lily were dead, and the reason why Sirius was breaking apart at the seams, why the cracks in the strong, courageous man that Remus knew and loved all those years were growing, racing through him like breaks in glass.

It was a wonder, Remus thought, that Sirius was holding together at all.

"I went to check on him on Halloween... and his hideout was... he was gone and... and I felt so sick to my stomach. I just... I knew... and I --" he stopped. "I went to their house straightaway... and... it was all... it... destroyed..  and - and their bodies --" he couldn't speak, his voice stopped up and he shook his head violently.

Remus closed his eyes, overcome, and looked down, his eyes welling up, too, and Harry could feel it rising up in him too.

There was no denying the sincerity in Sirius's face.

"I knew what must've happened. What he must've done. What I --I knew what I - what I did --"

He turned away, completely overcome, and he slipped to the floor, to his knees. And suddenly he was murmuring, "No... no.. no stop... stop... pl-pl-please. I-I said- I -- I know-  I know, my fault, I Know it - I know it, I know, I know... go away, go away, go away..." he was shaking.

Remus stepped up behind him, put his hands on his shoulders, and leaned in close to him, pulling Sirius's back into his chest. "Tell her to fuck off, Sirius," he murmured into Sirius's ear so that the three children could not hear him. "Achlys is wrong. It is NOT your fault."

"My fault, my fault, me.. I did it.. I ... me..."

"No," Remus whispered heavily. "No you didn't. You didn't know. You couldn't have known. You did what you thought was for the best. That's all any of us could do. That's all any of us can ever do."

"I - I - they'd still be -- they -- I killed -- James --" he whimpered shaking.

"James would not hold you to blame, and if he would not, then no one else should. Lily would not hold you to blame. Achlys has no right. She speaks lies to you, Sirius. She speaks lies.... Listen to me. Listen to me and not to her."

Sirius quaked.

Remus drew a deep breath. He stood and turned to face the others. "Enough of this. You're right Harry. We're talking in circles and riddles and it's time to finish this off - for all our sakes," he added, glancing at Sirius. "Ron. Give me the rat."

"NO!"

"Ron," Harry said quietly.

"If I do - if I do, what are you going to do to Scabbers?"

"We will force Peter to reveal himself by magic. If Scabbers really is a rat, Ron, the spell will not hurt him, and Sirius and I will go with you up to the castle and accept whatever fate my come to us." Remus paused. "I swear on James's honor." He looked at Harry. "Which is an awful lot to swear on."

Ron looked at Harry, who nodded.

"Go on, give him over, Ron."