Chapter 28: "Where are you? And I'm so sorry."

Circe had to close her eyes as she felt way too much time pass by around her. Day and night came and went and there was little she could do as she watched the rapid movement of people in the street as the sun came up and went down. The small piles of snow melted away, rain came and went, the streetlights flickered on and off like twinkling fairy lights. She saw a group of Professors and other people she didn't recognise moving about the alley in which she stood, searching and chatting together in huddled groups with deeply hunched shoulders. They were moving too quickly for Circe to keep up, but she saw a smudge of green and purple here and there; Minerva and Dumbledore must have been among them as well as the bobbing bowler hat of Fudge and a thick blackness that could only have been Severus... Their noise was at the same time a deafening roar and as futile and fleeting as a whisper. They passed around her and through her like ghosts and Circe was powerless to stop it. No, she was the ghost. Standing in her own grave watching the ones she loved looking helplessly for something. She realised with growing alarm that they were searching...for her.

When she finally came to a stop she had counted the sunrise and sunset four times, and for her it had whizzed by in a matter of moments. The gathered crowds that had pooled into the back alley in which she stood had dissipated long ago and it was quiet once more. It was dark, early evening and Circe felt the stillness of the village around her. But it suddenly felt like she had stepped off a merry-go-round and a wave of dizziness hit her. No one was meant to travel that much forwards or backwards in time... Dawning awareness hit her of just how far forwards she had gone, and this awful realisation combined with her nauseous spell had her retching into the bins in the back alley.

"Oh my god… oh my god…" she repeated over and over again as a panic attack gripped her.

Her stomach wanted to be rid of everything in it: it was four days old after all. And she heaved and heaved until she was left shaking and sore. When it was over, she began to sob, and she slowly sank to her knees, tugging at her hair.

They must think I'm dead. Or missing. They were looking for me. Severus and Minerva, they were searching for me here. You fucking stupid, cack-handed meddler! Why didn't you just leave the damn thing alone?!

She retched again into the gutter and she began to cry.

She heard the clatter of the bins further down the alley and gasped as she sensed movement.

Then, there was a hand over her mouth. She screamed but her noise was smothered. Whoever it was, he stank and she retched anew as she felt their body press against her.

"Where the fuck did you come from? " they hissed into her ear. A man's voice. He had a beard that scratched against her neck skin. His other hand held her arm behind her back. "One second this alley was empty, then you show up out of thin air!"

Circe mumbled, and he let his hand slip from her mouth a touch. "Please… don't hurt me." she whispered. "Sirius."

She felt Black flinch at the mention of his name. He wheeled her round by the shoulders and pinned her against the wall with all his strength. She whimpered as his forearm pressed against her collarbone harshly. In the dim light of the alley she could see him now. His hair was a tangle of deepest, dark black, all the way down to his waist. The dark tendrils hiding a similarly filthy face, almost corpse-like in its gauntness. But through his withered, sharp and hollow cheeked countenance, his eyes were mad and wild. His teeth a yellowing snarl. He smelt of dog.

"You!" he said hoarsely.

His vicious snarl turned into an unsettlingly manic smile as he watched Circe's frightened face imploringly gazing at him.

"Hello, "honey"." he laughed, deep and guttural.

Circe remembered that's what she had called him, through the bars of the portcullis and she felt herself blush.

"You're the one they've been searching for. Prowling every street and back alley round here, forcing me to hide in the shadows, away from them. I haven't fucking eaten for three days because of you!"

"I'm… I'm sorry." she stuttered breathlessly.

"Remus is fucking beside himself with worry…"

"Remus? You've met with Remus?" she asked.

Sirius responded by pressing his arm harder into her collarbone and she yelped in pain.

"The last time I saw him, he was trying to find Peter Pettigrew!" She said desperately.

This was all happening so fast. It had been moments ago she had been sitting with Lupin in the pub, finishing their hangover breakfasts. Now, she was a dead woman walking. Trapped in an alley with a madman. Four days forever lost to her, as she was too scared to ever entertain the idea of using the timeturner again. If she tried to go back, how far into the past would her ignorant fingers take her? A week? A month? A year?

Sirius's look softened and he lifted his hold on her. Circe took a deep breath as Black backed away from the wall, a deeply troubled look on his face.

"What did Remus tell you?... Of Peter I mean." Sirius asked, his body shaking in his filthy rags.

"Tha-That he was your friend. That he was dead… that he saw him on the Map, but the map lied I guess." Circe replied, rubbing her neck.

"The Map? He showed you the map!? Why did he trust you with it?" He spat.

"Excuse me?" Circe asked indignantly. "Remus is my friend. I know all about you and him, Padfoot ."

Sirius flinched as the noise of someone walking in the street, beyond the shadows of the alley, startled him. Circe gasped and she moved towards the conversing wizards, eager to tell someone she wasn't missing, she wasn't dead. Black grabbed her wrist and yanked her back into the alley with a surprising show of force for his painfully skinny body. He covered her mouth again as she cried out.

"Pettigrew isn't dead!" he hissed. She could feel his fear, his base desire to just survive driving him onward. "If Remus trusts you, then listen to me!...Pettigrew is alive. The map never lies." he echoed the exact words Lupin had used.

"Well that would be awfully convenient for you, wouldn't it." Circe said cynically, whispering though his fingers.

"I am an innocent man! He was the one who betrayed Lily and James to the Dark Lord, not I. I would never. I would rather have died than betrayed them!"

Circe sighed, casting a cautious look out into the Hogsmeade streets. People were hurrying home under the rapidly advancing twilight dusk. She looked back to her companion in the dark alley. Could he be right? If so, Black had borne the weight of twelve years in Azkaban falsely. Were Remus's doubts about Black's guilt founded after all?

No wonder Remus flew to him when he thought he started spotting Pettigrew's name. Circe thought; It was his vindication. His love and trust for Sirius finally reaping rewards despite the world's assistance that he was mad for holding it within him still .

"Please, Circe…" Sirius pleaded. "I know you're a kind soul. You swerved to avoid me on the road and fed me food when you thought I was no better than a stray… Can you not show the same kindness to a man? Trust me? A human being protesting their innocence? You know what being around a Dementor is like. Now imagine it, day after day, year after miserable year... Surely you wouldn't wish that upon any soul?"

Black let her go and the hardened criminal faded away before her, until standing in front of her was nothing more than a scared, emaciated, frightened man.

She raised a finger at him, pointing harshly into his face.

"You…" she started.

You are a murderer. A criminal. Sentenced in a court of law. I can't trust a word you say!

All this she had been about to say, but she couldn't. Black could have killed her then and there in the alley. Yet he hadn't. They stared at one another, Sirius's dark eyes still sparkling mischievously in his pallid, grey face. And in those eyes, in that moment, Circe saw why Remus loved him.

"...You owe me a new car." She finished weakly.

Black smiled a wicked smile at her and winked roguishly.

"If I can prove my innocence after tonight, I shall owe you much more than that."

He moved to leave, but Circe grabbed him swiftly by the tattered remains of his shirt.

"No! Wait! Where is Pettigrew then? If I'm aiding and abetting an Azkaban escapee, I need to know you're telling the truth!"

"I meet with Remus tonight." Sirius replied, gazing out cautiously into the Hogsmeade streets. "Together we will find Pettigrew… and kill him."

"What?!" Circe asked wide eyed. "You want me to believe that you're innocent of the crime of murdering Pettigrew, and in the same breath tell me you plan to kill him anyway?! Does Remus know of your plan?"

"Remus lost just as much as me that night!" he snarled, stepping so close to her face he stopped mere inches from it.

His anger was palpable. He burned with the thought of revenge. Circe knew she wasn't the one to talk Black down from this ledge.

"Where is Remus?" she asked, thinking that the person who might be able to talk sense into Black was Lupin. "Where are you meeting him?"

"Where he transforms." He turned from her.

"But where's that?!" she called after him.

"He didn't tell you?" Sirius scoffed to himself and smiled. "I guess he didn't want a repeat of the "Snivellus incident"." he laughed, craning his head up into the darkening sky.

Oh God, Severus… Circe thought, his name sending an electric shock through her very soul. The bacon buttie in her pocket seemed to grow heavier. The buttie that she'd had made up for him. He thinks I'm missing too. Good lord, he must be absolutely manic.

"Where, Black?" she demanded again.

"Through the Whomping Willow!" he shouted back at her. "And on to the Shrieking Shack."

And in front of her eyes, before she could ask any more questions, she watched as Black twisted and morphed and shrank down. In the blink of an eye he was a dog, panting up at her with those same deep, mischievous eyes. Then he was gone, bounding off into the streets without a backwards glance.

-----

Circe kept to the shadows, not willing to cause a stir that her otherwise inexplicable reappearance would cause if she were to be seen. It was hard. Even as most people were now in their homes now darkness had fallen. She was watchful of a curtainless window or a door swinging open at the wrong time. But somehow she managed to steal her way out of Hogsmeade.

As soon as she'd put the last cottage behind her, she ran headlong up the path to the castle, and on towards the Shrieking Shack. She ran up the hill, feeling the slickness of the grass beneath her foot, and she turned around to peer down into the village. It was so hard to believe that this was several days after she had ambled down into it by Remus's side.

God, what a monumental fuck-up of a hangover. She thought to herself. She wheeled around to run the rest of the way to the Shrieking Shack. Sod the Whomping Willow, I'm not going anywhere near that thing. I'll just enter it here.

But as she turned around, she ran headlong into the thick barreled chest of a Giant.

"Oof!" the wall of flesh said.

The breath was knocked out of her as she was sent sprawling to the floor. A spinning glass lantern swung in the darkness above her head.

"Circe...?" the lantern swung on its handle and she felt so dizzy she thought that time must have been moving in the wrong direction again. "Circe!" the voice boomed.

They leaned forward into the lantern light and Hagrid's face was illuminated in the darkness.

"Where the bloody 'ell 'ave you been, you devil!?" Hagrid said, on the edge of tears. He scooped her up as he began to blubber uncontrollably, taking her into a bear-crushing hug. "Where the bloody 'ell 'ave you been…" he repeated, his shoulders convulsing in massive sobs of relief.

"Hagrid…" Circe wheezed with the small breath left in her.

The half-Giant set her down and wiped his face with a huge red hankie.

"D'you realise the whole bloody castle and half the bleedin Ministry's been lookin' for you!" He said, pausing to blow his nose. "You've been gone fer four bloody days. We thought summit terrible had happened to ye… That Black had got ye, or summit..."

His bottom lip began to tremble again and Circe was genuinely touched by his concern. She took him into a gentler, comforting hug again and he patted her warmly on the back.

"It's complicated. So complicated, Hagrid." She muttered into his chest.

"God, I don't care 'ow it's 'appened, but this day's gone an' delivered another bleedin miracle!"

He drew her back to look at her again, not quite able to believe that she was here. He shook her shoulders in delight, smiling from ear to ear.

"Oh, the others up at t'castle will be over the moon!" he grabbed her by the wrist again and Circe flinched at the old bruises Black had inflicted there only moments ago. "Come on!"

"No, Hagrid… Wait!"

Hagrid yanked her down the path with a forceful but earnest tug. Circe groaned as she cast a longing eye to the outer facade of the Shrieking Shack. Her plan now totally in tatters.

Shit shit shit shit… What do I do now?

She thought of Black and Remus, possibly in there already, a mere stone's throw away. But Hagrid was so happy to see her, and if he told anyone that she was back then the whole evening would be shot and she'd be spending it in Dumbledore's office explaining herself.

On the walk up to the castle, Hagrid regaled her with the story of Buckbeak's mysterious disappearance, right from under the executioner's axe it seemed. He hadn't let go of her hand the whole walk up. Circe barely had time to register what he was saying. All she could think of was how to escape from the Giant's literal clutches without garnering any suspicion. The Whomping Willow was all the way over on the other side of the castle, but that'd be her best option for finding Remus and Sirius now.

"You shoulda seen the look on Malfoy's bloody face! Ha! I'd 'ave paid to 'ave that look photographed, keep in on me mantlepiece forever!"

"Wow, that sounds amazing…"

"I suspect Dumbledore 'ad somethin' to do with it. But o'course he couldn't publicly say t'me what he'd done."

"No, no. Of course."

"But still, 'ad to make a show of pretendin' to search the grounds and go lookin' for 'im. And that's where I ran into you! Gah, you go out lookin' for one dissappearee and you find another, eh?!"

Hagrid gave her a hearty thump on the shoulder that almost had her on the floor again. She smiled demurely as he continued pulling her past his hut. The castle was in full view now and Circe's heart dropped. She had to think of something fast.

"Hagrid… Hagrid!" she said suddenly, pulling back and forcing him to come to a standstill.

"What is it?" he asked, turning around and seeing her worried expression.

"It's just… before we go back to the castle…" she grappled in her head for any excuse that might buy her time. "Can… can I have a cup of tea?"

The giant blinked in confusion. "What?"

"The last few days have been so…. traumatic." she feigned a little quiver of her lip and forced her eyes to squeeze out a few tears. "And with all that happened with Black. The attack…"

"So that rogue did get ye!" he grumbled, his face lined with sympathy.

Circe knew that she'd grabbed his attention and she leaned into her act.

"Can I… just have a minute to compose myself before I have to…." she acted the emotion rising up in her voice and was rather pleased with herself when she managed to make a tear roll down her cheek. "...before I have to recount the whole horrible thing again?"

"Of course! Silly me… come in and I'll make ye up a brew."

The giant led her by the arm into his modest hut. Circe wiped her face with her sleeve and settled down into one of his armchairs. Hagrid busied himself with the kettle and the mugs whilst Circe thought desperately about what her next move was. She rested her arm against the shelf of the armchair Hagrid had deposited her in and she tutted as she accidentally pushed off a book that the giant had been reading and placed there face down for safekeeping.

Scottish Folk-Tales for Children. She thought as she read the book's cover.

Opening up the page, she saw what Hagrid had been reading before his search for Buckbeak had begun.

"Brigadoon: the disappearing village that time cannot hold on to. The highland settlement only materialises once every hundred years before vanishing again under the waning moon and the rising sun."

She sighed and placed it back on the armchair.

There came a sudden and pained noise from outside the hut as Circe and Hagrid both snapped their heads towards the Giant's broken window. It sounded like a exclaim of surprise. From an animal? No, it sounded too well formed.

"Wot the 'ell was that…?" Hagrid asked in bemusement.

He walked over to his window and peered cautiously through the broken pane. When he could see nothing out of the ordinary in the rapidly descending gloom, he sighed and went back to the kettle.

"Someone smash your window, Hagrid?" Circe asked, equally as confused.

"Yeah, 'appened just before Buckbeak escaped. No clue who dunnit. D'ye want somethin' sweet? That's good for settlin' nerves ent it? I think I 'ave some battenberg around 'ere somewhere."

"That would be great, Hagrid. Thanks…".

The giant smiled kindly at her as he handed over a steaming mug of tea to her. He went back to rifling through his cupboards as Circe stood up and strode over to the window. Her head was racing with ideas. And all were falling short when she saw them through in her head. Her eyes settled on a smashed pain of glass, scattered across the windowsill and she found herself wondering when kids had thrown stones at Hagrid's windows? It was a wonderful patchwork of stained glass, taken from old Hogwarts windows over the years. The shard on the windowsill was a brilliant peacock blue and Circe thought of how much the colour reminded her of the robes Gilderoy used to wear. She shook her head as she grumbled quietly, frustrated that her mind had wandered from the task at hand.

Fuck sake! Think… Think! Then she got an idea as her mind lingered on thoughts of Gilderoy. A memory charm…Could I? Cast a forgetting charm on my friend?

The thought tugged at her, the idea of doing something like that to a friend that had wept when he discovered she was alive and well. It was horrible, deplorable… but what other option was there?

Circe curled her fingers around the wand in her pocket and slowly turned to Hagrid. His back was facing her as he looked diligently in his cupboards for a sweet treat for Circe.

I'm sorry, my friend. I wouldn't do this if the situation weren't desperate. I'll just take fifteen minutes or so. Just enough so you forget that you saw me.

Hagrid turned around suddenly and Circe hid her wand frantically behind her back.

"I 'ave a few scones 'ere and there, or I think there's a fruitcake leftover from Christmas time somewhere at the back of these cupboards."

"Oh, fruitcake would be marvellous…" she said hurriedly.

The giant turned back to his rifling and Circe fidgeted the wand at her back, having lost her nerve for the charm she was about to perform. She scrunched up her face and looked to the roof with a pained expression.

I can't… I can't… What if he turns around again and sees me. I couldn't stand to see the look in his eyes if he-

But her thoughts were halted as a smash of glass ricocheted around the tiny cabin. Circe shouted out loud and jumped as a stone wrapped in something papery came jutting to a stop by her feet.

"It's 'appenin again!" Hagrid shouted, striding over to the window once more. "Where are you, ye devil!" he roared into the space outside. "I ain't leavin' this window until ye show yerself!"

Circe gathered herself and summoned up the last little bit of courage she had. Whatever had happened with the mysterious stone thrower, it presented her with the opportunity she needed. Hagrid was distracted, his back to her….

"Confundus…" she whispered.

And as the spell hit him, the giant stopped what he was doing and stood up straight. He looked vacantly about the room and Circe led him into the armchair by the fire.

"There you go, sit down." she cooed to him.

He did as she said compliantly and looked into the fire's flames with a vacant stare. Her foot kicked the stone that had come through Hagrid's window only a moment ago. She noticed that it was indeed wrapped in paper, and a word on the crumped outer wrapping of the stone caught her eye.

"Brigadoon…"

Wait, no… it can't be…

Circe bent to the floor and picked up the stone, peeling off the page as she read it in the dim light of the hut.

"Brigadoon: the disappearing village that time cannot hold on to. The highland settlement only materialises once every hundred years before vanishing again under the waning moon and the rising sun."

That… that can't be!

She leaned over the befuddled giant to the book that still sat face down on his armchair and held up before her the exact same page that she had read in the children's book. Something fishy was up. Surely there was a reason why this little tale about an appearing and reappearing village had come flying at her through Hagrid's window, the very thing that had given her a distraction…

Appearing and reappearing. Just like I did…

"Hello?" she called out into the gloom.

This all felt very familiar. Like it was a message. No noise came back and Circe hastily tore the page from Hagrid's children's book, holding it side by side with the piece of paper that had been wrapped around the stone. They were identical. An unnatural feeling settled over her and almost without conscious thought, she found herself throwing the crumpled page into Hagrid's fire and the page she'd freshly torn out the book into her pocket.

Circe shook herself from the odd feeling and moved to stand at Hagrid's back. She pointed her wand again at his head.

"Obliviate." she said, hoping that she'd not taken too much of his mind.

After the giant was lulled to sleep by her spell, she stole away outside and waited under the window, listening out for any stirrings of life from Hagrid. After a while she heard the rustle of movement as he stood up, great thunderous steps moving about the hut's interior.

"Buckbeak…" she heard him mutter. "Where 'ave you run off to, Buckbeak?"

Circe sighed, satisfied that she'd erased just enough that he remembered the hippogriff's escape, but none of her. A few seconds later, the giant strode from his hut, carrying the lantern that he'd found her with in his hands, off to search the forests for his pet.

When Circe was sure the giant was long gone, she took a deep breath, pushing away the horrible feeling in her stomach over what she'd just done, and she ran as fast as she could to the Whomping Willow. As she crested the hill near the site of the violent tree, she heard a voice on the breeze and a flash of light. Being still some sixty or seventy yards from the tree, she could not see clearly who it was, but she saw the tree come to a shuddering halt and the lone figure pass unmolested under its boughs. She ran closer, as fast as she could, but the figure did not become clearer as she grew nearer, it became darker…

Severus!

She was about to call out to him as he disappeared under a particularly large and knawed root. Gone. Out of sight. Circe gasped, realising that that must be where the path to the Shrieking Shack was.

"Severus!" She called out, but her cry was muffled by a great creak in the boughs of the tree as it began to shake back to life again.

She ran for dear life, trying to follow Severus into the boughs of the tree. The branches and roots creaked and moaned as the Willow tree flexed its muscles. She didn't have time to look up, just run… Hoping for dear life that she could make it on time. She could see the tunnel, hidden under the tree's roots where Severus had disappeared through and she laughed aloud. She felt like she would make it. Then, her feet were swept from under her by a wriggling root and pain bloomed out from her right ankle. She landed with a wrenching thud in the grass, face down. She cried out, clutching at her ankle and turned over onto her back just in time to see a huge branch descending on top of her.

She screamed, covering her face with her hands.

But the branch came to a sudden halt as it collided with a barrier of magic. She panted and cried out disbelievingly as a shield protected her from the barrage of branches raining down on her.

"Immobilus!" She screamed, pointing her own wand directly into the Willow's trunk.

After a few jittering seconds, the tree sat motionless once more.

"Who's there?!" she screamed out into the wilderness.

Somebody had saved her from being crushed to death by the tree. Someone had cast a protective charm. The suspicion she had held before from the stone and the identical pages now came into clear focus. It was too similar to before, those weird occurrences up in the clock tower that only made sense once she went back in time…

Is it… me again? More time travel?

Circe picked herself up and tested her ankle experimentally. She sucked in her breath sharply as a lightning bolt of pain shot up her calf.

Shit.

"Umm… than you…!" she shouted out presumably to herself, feeling like she was speaking to the wind itself.

Nevertheless, she hobbled on as quickly as she could out of the danger zone of the Whomping Willow's branches, down into the tunnel after Severus.

The tunnel was dark and cold, but she pressed on until she could hear raised, angry voices in the distance. Eventually light came back to her eyes and she found herself limping into the dilapidated remains of the Shrieking Shack.

"Remus?" She called out unsurely. "Sirius?"

She heard the voices halt the conversation. She limped onwards until she emerged into the room where she assumed everyone was, and she saw first Remus and Sirius, their attentions pointed at somebody just behind the door swinging on its hinges. Then she saw Harry, Ron and Hermione, huddled into a corner, Ron clutching his dear pet rat.

"You three again?!" she exclaimed, barely surprised that they were here too.

She increasingly realised that she had walked into something of a stand-off ...

"Circe…?" a weak voice called out to her from behind the door.

The sound of it made her heart tear in two. It was full of pain and reluctant hope. As rich as chocolate and deep as thunder. From behind the door emerged the sallow and aggrieved face of Severus. She gasped. He looked manic, and hollow, like he hadn't slept for..

Well, for about four days, Circe guessed.

His jaw hung open and she saw his eyes fill with tears as he beheld her. His pained, bewildered look sent her own eyes watering.

"What kind of cruel trick is this?!" he roared, turning back to Lupin and Black.

"Severus, it's me. I'm safe. I'm alright."

Circe limped forward, grabbing on to his sleeve. He turned back to her with the expression of one who has seen a phantom. All he could do in that moment was keep himself from collapsing into uncontrollable sobs at her feet.

"Expelliarmus!" came a sudden shout and Severus's wand went flying from his hand as he himself catapulted into the opposite wall.

When he fell to the floor, he was out cold. Circe looked around the room wide-eyed for whoever had done it, and she found Potter pointing his wand in the general direction of where Severus now lay in a clump on the floor. He'd seized on the moment and had taken advantage of the distraction Circe had caused to Snape's attention.

"Bloody hell, Potter! Was that really called for?!" Circe shouted, her emotions finally catching up to her as she descended into rapid-breathed sobs.

"I'm afraid it may have been, Circe. Remus called out to her. Professor Snape was threatening to summon the authorities and have Sirius carted back to Azkaban."

Circe hobbled forwards into the room and Remus took her into a tight embrace.

"Oh my friend, it's good to see you safe…" he muttered, the hint of rising emotion in his voice.

"Oh come on, Remus. Lets get on with it!" Sirius shouted, almost pulling the two of them apart."Let's kill him!"

"No!" Hermione roared from her corner.

"Sirius, you promised me that he'd be here. Where is Pettigrew?" Circe asked, fixing him with a sharp glare.

Before he could answer her, Severus muttered and groaned. From beneath the crumple of black robes on the floor, she heard him stirring.

"Oh Circe, see to Severus whilst me and Sirius deal with him ." Remus said quickly. "Make sure he doesn't wake up for a while."

She didn't question Lupin's instructions and she hobbled over to Snape, kneeling down at his side. Circe watched as Sirius wrestled the rat from out of Ron's hands, all while the red-haired boy screamed in protest.

What the hell is going on? She wondered as Snape looked up at her with a bleary, disorientated expression.

"Stop it.. stop it… It hurts too much…" he muttered, almost in tears. "Don't pretend to be her. It hurts too much."

"Severus, it's not an illusion. I'm here." She whispered. "I'm safe." She repeated again.

Severus reached up and held her face in his hands.

"You're really alive?" He said hoarsely.

"Yes. Now go to sleep, my love." She whispered as she pressed her wand to his head. "Somnolentia."

And with that, Severus fell into a deep sleep, going completely limp as the hand slid from her face.

Circe looked up from Severus's limp, relaxed body at the chaos ensuing around her. She saw Remus and Sirius desperately trying to chase Ron's rat from place to place, all the while the Weasley boy shouted "Scabbers! Scabbers! Scabbers!" over and over again. Then suddenly, the scurrying rodent before her eyes melted away in a twist and stretch of limbs. Just like she had watched with Sirius in the alley, but in reverse. And all at once, where there once was a rat, there was now a man. A fat little dumpy man with a distinctly rodent-like face. Circe was speechless.

Remus and Sirius lifted the man to his feet, contempt and disgust in both their eyes.

"Peter Pettigrew…" she breathed.