Peter's Story

The dormitory door slammed shut. Harry and Ron's voices gradually faded away, and the room fell into dead silence.

After an unknown amount of time, a rat crawled out from beneath the bed, scampered onto the table, and began tearing into the snack wrappers, greedily devouring the treats Harry and Ron had brought back from Honeydukes.

Compared with food prepared for rats, Scabbers preferred human food.

That eating habit had to do with the fact that Scabbers had once been human.

Yes, the rat named Scabbers had once been a human, not a rat.

Though he had lived in a rat's body for over a decade, he had once been a wizard—a wizard named Peter Pettigrew.

That was right. He had the same name as Peter Pettigrew, the man Sirius Black had supposedly blown to pieces and who had posthumously received the Order of Merlin, First Class. Or rather, Peter Pettigrew was who he had once been.

If anyone said such a thing, they would surely be considered mad.

Everyone believed Black was mad. Peter hoped his former friend truly was mad as well.

However, not only had Black not been driven mad by the Dementors, his mind was remarkably clear—clear enough to spot Peter's trail in a newspaper.

After Sirius Black escaped from prison, Peter knew Black was not mad. Especially after hearing information from Mr. Weasley: all the signs before Black's escape indicated that he had discovered Peter was still alive. That was why he had broken out of Azkaban at all costs and tried to break into Hogwarts Castle to kill him.

It was all utterly insane. Sirius Black had already tried once, and though he had failed, Peter knew him well. That man would never let him go so easily.

Hogwarts Castle, though seemingly heavily guarded,