Onto his trail!

{Rigel's Room, Slytherin Dorm, Hogwarts}

{15th Sep 1991}

{3rd Person POV}

Rigel watched as Pansy walked out of the room. The little session had been fun, and he had gained several affinities from both Pansy and Rita.

'Who would have guessed that Pansy would have an affinity for Runes? That's quite unlike her,' Rigel thought, but then again, he didn't really know much about her. Making her obey him was a whim, and he didn't really have any problem with their deal. He was pretty sure she would break before she harbored any ideas about backstabbing him.

He turned to look at Rita, who had woken up moments ago, finally giving Pansy room to run away.

"You enjoyed fingering her didn't you," Rigel asked, he could see Rita's eyes glint at his statement. 

She didn't reply to him. Instead, she stood up and walked over to the wardrobe again. Several drops of cum dribbled down her thigh, causing Rigel to frown.

'I might need to bribe one of the house elves to make sure no rumors spread. My room is becoming something akin to a sex dungeon.' 

"Here, I was able to gather two things that you asked for," Rita spoke as she walked back to him with her handbag. It must have been enchanted with some charms as she pulled a rather large box from it, something that would not have fit in the bag otherwise.

The box had intricate patterns, and to Rigel's advanced mana senses, it was inscribed with numerous runes. Their effects are unknown, but considering what he had asked Rita to procure, he had a decent idea of what it could do.

"This is called a pandora's box." Rita started, "Named after the mythical object. It works a little differently than fiction, as it is essentially a prison. Quite a lot of Magizoologists use it to capture creatures that are smaller in size and have a hazardous rating of greater than XXXX."

"While the box is not especially enchanted to stop the animagus transformation, it won't allow anyone else in there to transform because it stops all kinds of escape magic." Rita finished.

Rigel nodded. The box looked like it was made of gold, and personally, Rigel thought that this was too good a prison for Pettigrew. If it can hold the rat, then it would have to do. She then pulled out a ring as well. This one looked a little more sinister. It was pure black, and the runes in it pulsed several times every second.

"This is an anti-magic ring, one of the original ways to confine prisoners before Azkaban. The ring would latch onto the magic of its wearer and send painful pulses through their mana network, disrupting any attempts at spell casting." Rita finished. She was a lot more silent, her voice barely a whisper as she extended the ring toward Rigel.

'Okay, what the hell... where did she get something like that, not to mention this should be pretty valuable.'

Rigel stared into Rita's green eyes for a moment before he took the ring from her. Logically he shouldn't expect something like this because the ring was clearly more expensive, and taking things like this would require some favors in return.

"Where did you get the ring?" Rigel finally gave in to curiosity and asked.

"...Ummm, I blackmailed someone for it," She gave Rigel a weak smile, but she didn't tell who.

"Alright, keep your secrets," Rigel shrugged; he looked at the ring again. It looked like it was made from black marble. It was a band with no stones or anything fancy attached to it except for the runes.

"So if I put this on someone, they won't be able to do magic and remove the ring?" Rigel asked.

"Yeah, the wearer can't remove the ring, but anyone else can. So it was mainly used in conjugation to confined rooms, dungeons and prisons." Rita replied. Rigel nodded and thought about putting the ring in his inventory. Rita's eyes widened as she leaned closer, trying to spot if the magic was a trick of the light or something genuine.

Not finding anything, she leaned back and looked into Rigel's eyes, her expression stoic as she probably tried to make sense of what she saw. Rigel ignored her for now. She could come to her own conclusions. If she believed he was able to do powerful wandless magic, then it would just reinforce her belief that she had chosen the right side. 

While the ring was good, the box was what he needed. All he needed to do was stun the rat and throw it into the box. Still, a bulk of the problem remained: how to grab the rat. Rigel had tried to look for the name Peter Pettigrew, but the rat never left the Gryffindor tower except with Ron. 

'Should I ambush Ron and grab the rat? 2 stunners would do the job, no?' The thought was pushed aside as Rigel kept thinking. He already had a couple of much simpler plans, something that could be executed because of Ron's greed.

'I could buy the rat from Ron for money, but there is no telling how that would go. But there is no other option. Could I sneak into Gryffindor's common room? Rita could sneak around the entrance and overhear a student speaking the password,' Rigel concluded.

"So are you going to tell me now who it is, the animagus who is hiding in Hogwarts?" Rita asked.

'Should I tell her?' Rigel debated. He could easily tell her, he was sure that she would keep the secret, but given her past tendencies to brag about secrets on the front page of the newspaper, Rigel wouldn't bet on it.

"I told you you could have the exclusive with him, didn't I." Rigel deflected, "Hmmm, what would be a good date? It would prove to be a good story for Halloween, don't you think? 'Ex-Death Eater, hiding in Hogwarts, the safest place in Britain.'"

The headline seemed to appeal to Rita as she nodded and dropped the subject. Seeing that she was in for the plan Rigel went on for the kill, it was always a good idea to have a backup plan just in case.

"Say, how would you feel about sneaking into the Gryffindor Common Room?"

...

----------------------------

AN - The Plan to catch Pettigrew is a go.

P.S- 42+ Chapters on P.atreon!