Peter's Story

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

No one knew how long passed before a rat crawled out from beneath the bed, scampered onto the table, and began tearing open snack wrappers, greedily devouring the treats Harry and Ron had brought back from Honeydukes Sweetshop.

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

That dietary preference had something to do with Scabbers having once been human.

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

Though he had lived in a rat's body for more than ten years, he had once been a wizard—a wizard named Peter Pettigrew.

That was right. He shared the name of Peter Pettigrew, the man Sirius Black had supposedly blown to pieces and who had posthumously received an 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 called mad.

Everyone believed Black was mad. Peter also hoped his former friend had gone mad.

Yet Black had not only escaped being driven mad by the Dementors, but his mind was exceptionally clear—clear enough to spot Peter's trail in a newspaper.

After Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, Peter knew Black was not mad. In particular, from the information he had heard from Mr. Weasley, the signs before Black's escape suggested that Black had discovered he was still alive. That was why he had risked everything to break out of Azkaban and tried to enter Hogwarts Castle to kill him.

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

Hogwarts Castle, despite its seemingly tight