章 42: C042 - Pettigrew's early reveal
AN: Welcome to a rare double chapter because I'm here to announce that I have not written a single chapter since releasing this on webnovel. I had 50 chapters prepared before, and it looks like it will likely end there before the second year starts.
I'm writing these fanfic stories to waste my time, work on my writing skills and not to finish some 500 chapter epic. And quite frankly, not that I begrudge anybody for it, the feedback I receive on this story is not enough to make me want to write more.
Some truly awful MTL fanfics, giga harem stories where none of the original characters behave anything like in their original story, or 5 chapter stories with word count fillers in them and two 1k word chapters a week receive more recognition (stones, collections, comments,...) than this story. And I'm not saying there's something wrong with it, I recognise that either my writing sucks or just isn't appealing to the audience on this platform. But it's also not encouraging me to work on something when I could just procrastinate in some other way.
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I just left the great hall surrounded by people when suddenly Percy Weasley stopped me in my tracks.
"Macnair, follow me. Professor Flitwick has tasked me with bringing you to him," he ordered in his usual uptight tone of voice.
Hilliard, the quiet fifth year Ravenclaw prefect along with Penelope, was with Percy, and together, the three of us walked to the hospital wing. Hilliard said nothing, like always, but Percy was uncharacteristically quiet as well. I knew that in canon he should be trying to get with Penelope this year, and this incident - if he knew all about it - should have been pretty upsetting to him.
But I still didn't know why Flitwick asked for me.
'I mean... I can guess why, but he's asking rather openly, which isn't his style... unless he completely disagrees with my methods and intends to hand me over to the DMLE.'
I entered the infirmary under Percy's urging and saw a whole host of aurors having set up camp in there. Most beds were occupied, and I even saw the pregnant Hufflepuff witch 'Jensen' here... I still didn't know her full name. But it looked like one part of my plan worked out, and they somehow learned what these bastard did to her?
"Talion, come here," Flitwick ordered in a deep voice, and I immediately knew he was losing it by the look of his face.
"Professor," I greeted solemnly as I stepped next to Penelope's bed, where the girl was hidden from view from most people here. "How can I help?"
Flitwick looked me up and down for a while and gave me an unperctible nod. I hoped that was him thanking me for protecting Penelope from these animals since he figured out it was me.
"Penelope here has fallen victim to a terrible crime. Five wizards tried to force themselves on her, and she understandably doesn't feel safe right now. I asked her what I can do, and she asked for your presence. She mentioned you have a calming aura and she came to think of you as a good friend, so work your magic as I help the aurors in their investigation."
I looked surprised because I was, and I saw Percy look like he ate a sour lemon, probably because his alleged future girlfriend asked for me instead of him. I also saw some of the aurors look my way, some with less than friendly gazes, and I didn't need to know more to judge that they were on the take. More specifically, they were funded by Malfoy and his ilk.
I memorized their faces, especially the ones that were orange or even red in the case of one them in my vision, as I sat on a chair next to Penelope's bed and felt Flitwick poke my knee to get my attention. He gave me a look that said 'we'll talk later' and left.
Eventually, one of the curtains was opened in the room, and I saw a scowling Head Auror Scrimgeour step out of it together with a frowning Dumbledore and a furious looking Snape. With my eagle vision, I confirmed it was the man I cursed with lie-induced paranoia to spill the truth on the bed there, but before I could gather more, Madam Pomfrey came to Penelope and closed the curtain. I wondered why it was open so that everyone could look inside, which was surely a terrible way to ease her nerves, and I let it be known.
"Good day, Madam Pomfrey. I know you don't have much room to spare, but is it truly in Penelope's best interest to be in the same room as these animals? Can't you put her literally anywhere else?"
"Miss Clearwater herself asked to be here to see and hear their suffering. You should not think her so weak," the medi-witch chided with a solemn tone, and I looked surprised once more as I turned to Penelope.
"Whoever it was that did them in surely was a bit heavy-handed. They'll need expensive healing far above what I can provide here at the school," Pomfrey explained with a deep sigh. She didn't hold much goodwill for these five after that one student started screaming all of their ill-reputed secrets, but her healer's oath still required her to treat them as best she could. "These curtains come with privacy charms. If you want to talk without anyone eavesdropping, do it when I leave."
"Uh, is Miss Jensen here for a similar reason as Penelope? Could you see if you can move her?"
"I'm not a callous woman. Of course, Miss Jensen will be moved. I had merely called her here and will tend to her now in my private office since I have the time," Pomfrey explained with thinned lips.
I watched the older witch cast a few more spells, give Penelope a reassuring nod, and then she left the two of us alone behind the curtain for her bed.
"Thank you," Penelope whispered, and I knew she didn't thank me for coming when asked. She knew it was me.
"I'm really, really sorry," I mumbled without meeting her eyes.
She leaned down from where she was sitting on the bed and placed her hand on mine.
"I know why you had to do it. You were right to do it," she said in a low voice and gripped my hand a little harder.
"Do you need money to buy a new wand? The second one costs a lot more," I answered with a wry smile, still feeling deeply apologetic about not stepping in sooner, and especially about having to snap her wand. As a halfblood witch, her family wasn't flush with cash like most pureblood families. And only the first wand bought at Ollivander's was as cheap as it was. Some of them were made with phoenix feathers, after all.
In Britain, there lived only one known phoenix. And when it wasn't Fawkes' burning day, the phoenix did not look like a red, literally bald eagle either. It stood to reason that a wand with a phoenix feather core would therefore be quite expensive.
"Flitwick already offered me the money. As an apology from the school," Penelope answered in a soft voice.
A silence hung in the air for a while, and I finally remembered the knocked out rat in my pocket. I already missed the perfect time to reveal Peter to the aurors, but Penelope's well-being had to come first.
"I was so, so scared," Penelope eventually said with closed eyes as tears started flowing.
"Yeah, I wish I had started sooner... but I couldn't risk them getting the better of me. Our fate would have been much worse, had I lost, I reckon..."
"You were perfect. Don't beat yourself up. I... I didn't tell anyone about you, by the way... but I think Professor Flitwick might have figured something out by me asking for you... I'm really sorry about that."
I shook my head and reassured the young witch, "There's no need. He would have suspected my involvement at the very least from their wounds. And, uh, I think by the looks of things, he'd rather award me a medal for stopping them and expelling those guys instead of reprimanding me."
"Oh, only three can be expelled because two of them are going to Azkaban," Penelope revealed after hearing my reassurance. "One of the aurors reassured me it was as good as a done deal."
"Truly?" I asked in a shocked tone of voice.
"Uhm, do you remember that 'stimulant' they wanted to feed Sykes? It's, it's a really illegal aphrodisiac," Penelope explained with a bright blush. "It's made with merfolk genitalia."
"And they'd ingest that willingly? Wow, their dedication to being disgusting human beings is really astonishing," I answered with an incredulous expression.
Penelope hummed in agreement with her rosy cheeks, and I only now noticed her hand was still on top of mine.
"Lay down, sitting like that must be uncomfortable. I'm not going anywhere," I suggested with a reassuring smile.
Like that, I opened the curtains so Penelope can hear their mourning moans of pain that according to her was like music to her ears, and moved to sit closer to her bed as she laid back down. We spent a few hours until lunch listening in and talking about charms and transfiguration to pass the time.
Just as lunch was about to start, Flitwick came back and closed the curtain behind him. He looked at me for a moment before looking at his prefect who was dozing off.
"She knows it was you?"
I nodded at his question that I noticed Penelope didn't hear.
Flitwick waved his wand again to erect what I believed to be a low-powered, small silencing ward, and gave me a grim smile, "Good job, Talion. Teaching you was not in vain. The aurors have no leads since Penelope here claims to have been put into magical sleep. And there's no need to suspect her of anything... you snapped her wand?"
I nodded again.
"You're going to chip in," he ordered, and I knew his goblin blood was urging him to haggle, but I didn't mind. It would ease my guilt a little for having to do it in the first place.
"You'll have to show me the curse you put on Bolin. He started off the interrogation by saying he was ambushed at the entrance to the Slytherin common room and woke up in the infirmary next without knowing anything. Then he said he was attacked in the bathroom after trying to attack someone else, changing his entire story completely unprompted. Ten minutes into the questioning, Bolin started admitting to crimes we didn't even know happened. These animals have drugged, abused, and memory charmed half a dozen witches at the school. And I fear that was only the tip of the iceberg because it was clear he wanted to say more, and something stopped him."
"The Slytherin oaths..." I mumbled, and Flitwick confirmed my suspicions.
"I and the aurors suspect the same. Which means that despite very likely being charmed or cursed into spilling the beans, he was speaking the truth. The oath would not stop him from revealing lies."
"Is Professor Snape finally going to be under review since something like that was allowed to happen under his watch?"
Flitwick gained a helpless smile and shook his head.
"If only, Talion. I know your dislike for Severus, but a head of house position still comes with a tremendous amount of political power. Having him investigated is close to impossible with just words. He'd have to literally curse a student in the Great Hall for there to be no uproar over him facing charges."
"It shouldn't, especially with something like that happening. And let's not forget the dramatic drop in potion N.E.W.T.s coming out of Hogwarts," I protested weakly, but I knew neither Flitwick nor I could do anything about it.
"Be that as it may, we have to get our stories straight. You were alone when you helped?"
I nodded again, not exposing Harry, and I saw Flitwick narrow his eyes for a moment before nodding.
"You stabbed them without magic?"
I blushed a little but still nodded.
"Good, at least you're embarrassed about it. As a man, I'd have to chide you if you started doing that again to anyone you dislike. Though, I do not begrudge you for these methods in this particular case. It was a fitting punishment. Did you clean up after yourself?"
I nodded again.
"You know you can speak, right?" Flitwick asked with in annoyance. "Okay, nobody suspects you. So nobody will read your wand's last spells. Will Harry match your story about you being in your room all night?"
"He will," I answered with a nod while grinning inwardly. He had to, after all. Lest Harry implicates himself.
"Good, good. I suspect you stalked them and didn't just randomly wait in a girl's bathroom at night. Did you learn anything else while they were talking?"
I looked to Penelope for a short moment before looking back at Flitwick and repeated everything they had discussed. From how they would open a betting pool on whose child Penelope would carry all the way to how they did it with Henrietta Jensen, as I have now learned was her full name. I also included this Bolin-guy's source for the 'stimulant' as they called it because they got it from someone in Hufflepuff, if I heard it correctly.
Once we were done, Flitwick was about to leave, but I stopped him.
"Uhm, professor. That curse, I'd like to show it to you right now."
Flitwick looked at me with a raised brow but told me to go on since he trusted me not to suggest either he or Penelope to be the practice target.
I took out the rat animagus and started to explain, "This rat belongs to Ron Weasley, but... and please hear me out... I learned this ordinary garden rat was over a decade old. I don't think the Weasley family was aware because they all grew up alongside this rat... but I was really suspicious. So I asked Fred and George for a favor and to give me this rat. I, uh, my suspicions were indeed correct. You know how I'm fascinated with the animagus spell? Well, go on, cast 'Homenum Revelio', professor."
Flitwick did as told, and in his vision, Scabbers showed a human presence. The rat was indeed an animagus. His eyes widened considerably before they snapped back to me.
"You uncovered an animagus at Hogwarts?"
"An illegal one. None of the known and registered animagi have the form of a rat. There's less than ten. It isn't a particularly hard list to commit to memory. Of course, this could be someone in the later stages of a 'Maledictus' curse... but I doubt it..."
"Fascinating. An illegal animagus living with the unsuspecting Weasley family for a dozen years. Alright, you chose a great moment to reveal this. Cast your spell, and I'll give him to the aurors outside," Flitwick suggested, and I complied.
Casting this curse once more and this time with my wand was a bit of a risky move if I somehow became a suspect and had my wand checked for some reason, but I chose to trust Flitwick and his judgment.
After I explained the workings of the curse and performed it on Pettigrew, I handed over the rat to Flitwick, who grandly opened the curtains and shouted.
"Aurors! To me! I uncovered an illegal animagus listening in on the conversation with my students!"
Flitwick immediately threw the rat in the air and cast an animagus reversing charm as well as 'Arresto Momentum' on the form midair as it changed into the unkempt, ugly form of Pettigrew still with his rodent overbite and clawed hands.
"That's Pettigrew! Peter Pettigrew!" One of the aurors shouted immediately. "I've worked with James Potter and that traitor Sirius Black often enough to know Peter's mug anywhere, even if it's been 15 years!"
"Hey, hey. Why is he alive? Didn't Black get put in Azkaban for his murder?"
"Yeah, that's right, he was! Wait, you're right!?"
Immediately, discussions were started among the dozen or so aurors who went exactly where I wanted them to go. Asking how it was possible that Pettigrew was alive if Black was imprisoned for his murder.
Flitwick looked back to me with furrowed brows, trying to see if I knew that this was about to happen, but he found nothing on my face. I purposefully didn't mute my emotions around my mentor so that I could act in front of him in truly important situations like these. Even he couldn't know that I was aware of Pettigrew's existence beforehand.
"Hey, is he dead? Why isn't he moving?" Someone suddenly asked because the unmoving body of the reversed rat animagus was still floating there doing nothing.
"Someone disarm him and cast 'Enervate'," Scrimgeour ordered with a frown.
Once that was done, Pettigrew started shouting in a high-pitch voice. "No, no, no. Fred! George! Please, Scabbers will be a good rat! Please, no more experiments!"
I had to stifle a laugh because I could vividly see the twins tormenting the animagus, unaware that their relentless pranks were inflicted upon a human instead of a garden rat.
"Sirius! No! No, no, no! Sirius! I had to betray them. The dark lord is too powerful!" Pettigrew shouted moments later, and I was stumped.
That was it? This paranoia spell was either way too overpowered or Pettigrew's psyche was almost entirely eroded after over a dozen years in a rat body.
What followed was Pettigrew listing all of his crimes like he was reading a shopping list. Completely on his own, caught in a random delusion where he had to spill the beans before his soul would get judged, Pettigrew described how he was made the secret keeper for the Potters, how Voldemort promised him power, how he cut off his own finger before blasting a gas line to kill the muggles and flee in his animagus form.
He continued on and admitted to taking secret pictures of a whole host of witches as they bathed in his time at Hogwarts. I saw some aurors starting to look competitive as they wanted to be the ones to find that particular piece of evidence and had to stop myself from facepalming. These idiots should just go to a muggle gas station and buy some nudie mags if they truly wanted to peak at boobs so much.
The most damning thing, at least to me, was that Pettigrew also had the wand of the dark lord that he stole from the Potter's home after Voldemort's fall in Godric's Hollow.
Different from canon, it wasn't with him because he stashed it 'somewhere safe' without saying where. And that was when Dumbledore entered the hospital wing with swift strides.
"Peter!" The headmaster shouted with a 'confused' expression. "Someone explain to me what is happening here?"
Scrimgeour stepped up and started to explain what Pettigrew had just started to admit to. Dumbledore's head was likely running at the highest speed possible, thinking about how he could change this situation to his advantage as well as keep his fangs in Harry, now that Sirius might enter his life... if Dumbledore couldn't keep him in Azkaban anyway on some technicality.
I wished I had a magical audio recorder because the muggle ones I kept in my expanded pouch as a test all stopped working after a long enough period in the magical bag, both the analog ones with tapes and the digital ones with the storage chip inside.
Nobody had a dict-a-quill running either, so I had to write down Pettigrew's confession from memory as soon as possible for the daily prophet.
I would think about getting it to Rita Skeeter, but she would have her hands full because of the assault cases. I was sure she would do everything in her power to make Dumbledore and Snape come out of this fiasco as dirty as possible.
Compared to that, Pettigrew's case was almost open and shut. Until Sirius was released for false imprisonment, there was no need for Rita's expertise in stirring up more... shit.
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