The room had stumbled on a deafening silence after Hermione's words as everyone looked at Lupin to see his reaction.
"I know it seems as if I'm this big bad monster that's out to get you, but I promise, it's not like that.", Lupin said wiping his face with his hands.
Raising his hands behind his head, Lupin looked at Sirius and suggested he copy him too.
With both of them holding their hands above their heads Lupin spoke, "We'll take steps backwards until we reach the end of the room, all while Professor Snape here keeps his wand trained on me."
"...and what do you want us to do?" Harry asked.
"The rat that's hanging around in his pocket.", Sirius said quickly pointing at Ron but then put away his hand so that they wouldn't think he was attacking them.
"Scabbers?" Ron asked with confusion as he pulled out the rat from his pocket and into his hands. "What did he ever do to you?"
Lupin looked at Professor Snape and then spoke, "How about you do the honours, Severus?"
"Blaming your defection on rats? What more could I even expe-" Snape started but was interrupted by Lupin.
"Please, Severus. This is important. Wouldn't you like to know who actually betrayed James and Lily?"
Snape's eyes instantly widened and raged with anger, but he kept calm and held himself as he found the right words to speak.
"...what do you want me to do?" Snape asked but instead of Lupin responding, it was Loki who spoke first.
The room fell into a confused silence once again as everyone looked at Sirius and Lupin. Follow current novels on 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾·𝗇𝖾𝗍
"You'll know when you see it yourself. Now why don't you place him in the centre of the room, Ron?"
All of a sudden, Ron shouted, "OUCH!!!!!"
Everyone saw the rat jump out of his hands and rush towards the exit under Snape's feet.
Just as Snape raised his wand to capture the rat, a fairly large gate appeared in the centre of the room. It had a bone frame while an ethereal white veil appeared in its centre.
The gate had incredible sucking power.
The wooden floorboards tore out of the ground and were sucked into it, the roof caved in and tore away revealing the full moon outside.
Everyone held onto the closest thing they could to prevent themselves from being sucked into whatever gateway had just appeared.
Sirius and Lupin dove towards the students and held them down since they weren't strong enough to hold their own.
Fortunately, Loki held onto the door that he had used to get into the shack and closed it just in time before the rat could escape outside.
But under his stunned gaze the rat jumped into the air, completely unaffected by the suction of the gate that looked like it led to the underworld and began to transform.
Much like his own transformation from a baby to a man in a few seconds, the rat transformed into a short, petite, bald man whose teeth were all crooked.
During the time the man transformed, Loki looked around trying to search for something that would help him, but to his misfortune, he only saw Lupin's body mutating.
'Is he losing control!?!? Because of the fullmoon outside!?"
The rat had finally finished transforming and he dashed right at Loki in an attempt to push him away but just in time as the man was about to touch Loki a blinding flash of darkness caused everyone to stop.
The shadows cast by the full moon outside grew and wrapped around the small bald man.
But to everyone's dismay, the bald man immediately transformed into a rat again, sprinting in a completely different direction.
The extensions of shadows immediately vanished as Professor Snape broke into a cloud of bats that all crashed into the rat and lifted it entirely off the ground.
The pain that came from being pinched in a Bat's mouth must've startled the rat because the door that was sucking everyone and everything into it, vanished.
Professor Snape's body reformed holding the rat but just before everyone could calm down they heard a threatening *growl*.
Out of fear, everyone looked at Professor Lupin or rather the Werewolf who was now drooling above Hermione's hair.
Hermione, Harry and Ron waited with bated breath as Loki wondered, 'Did he lose control?'
But to everyone's surprise, Professor Lupin was growling at the rat.
Seeing it firm in Professor Snape's grasp, the werewolf started to recede and soon only the man who Professor Lupin was, remained.
Everyone let out an audible *sigh* of relief.
"Do you believe us now Snape?" Lupin asked as soon as he was back.
".....yes." Snape said, but everyone could see how angry he was.
"Who- who is that man, Professor?" Harry whispered in horror.
"Did my rat just turn into a bald man?" Everyone heard Ron mumble, clearly traumatised given how he was close to puking.
"Peter Pettigrew. The man I'm accused of killing and the man I will make sure I kill today." Sirius growled with anger as he immediately pointed his wand at the rat that was trembling in Snape's grasp.
"But- but I thought you killed him. Wasn't that why you were sent to Azkaban?" Hermione asked.
Sirius looked at her and turned away, pointing the wand at the rat once again. "I'll answer your questions later. Throw him down Severus. I want to kill him. I want to do the one thing I've been dreaming of doing all this time. I want to remind the rat that snitches get stitches."
Snape remained calm under Sirius's barking and then looked at Peter too.
Both their eyes were gleaming with anger and untold pain, each having lost one of their closest companions to the filthy rat.
But a voice suddenly interrupted.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Can someone tell me why you are hell-bent on killing him!?"
Sirius looked at Harry and controlled his anger.
He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths and spoke with caution.
"Because he killed your parents, Harry."
"...but I thought you were the secret keeper!"
"....*sigh* I might've as well killed 'em." Sirius sighed.
Everyone's gaze was now focused on Sirius who was looking off into the distance as if he was remembering something painful and after a little bit, wiped away a tear that escaped his eye.
"I wasn't the Secret Keeper that night Harry. I went against Dumbledore's words and made James change it to Peter. Thought no one would predict it was him and they'd all come after me. Thought it was quite funny too, since no one knew he was a Sequence 5 : Gatekeeper other than us. So it would help him digest his potion too."
Sirius looked down as more tears escaped his eyes, then he shook his head and laughed, it was out of self-pity and contained much pain.
"Too bad, it turned out he really was a rat. A snitch that sold the location of your parent's house to that freaky bastard. Took him right to it."
Sirius wiped away his tears and pointed his wand at Peter Pettigrew once again, his eyes more resolved than ever and his anger burning more fiercely than it ever had.
"And now I want to kill him."
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