Tris had expected big news in the weekend editions of the Daily Prophet.
Wormtail's capture should have shaken the entire British wizarding world, no matter how you looked at it.
But it hadn't.
The Daily Prophet had been perfectly quiet these past two days, as though nothing had ever happened. What was going on? Tris didn't understand.
Surely Peter couldn't have escaped under those circumstances?
Tris refused to believe it!
In the original story, Peter had only escaped because Lupin had transformed into a werewolf, and Sirius had rushed to stop him and protect Harry, giving Peter an opening.
Otherwise, with his abilities, escaping from Sirius and Lupin would have been virtually impossible.
And with McGonagall and Flitwick, both even more capable than Sirius and Lupin, escorting him to Dumbledore, there should have been no possibility of escape at all!
Or had he escaped while the Ministry of Magic was transporting him?
That was possible, and it certainly sounded like something the Ministry of Magic would manage.
In Tris's opinion, the Ministry of Magic wasn't quite staffed entirely by useless people, but it came close. You might not be able to count its genuinely competent workers on one hand, but two would certainly suffice.
No matter how unreliable their actions were, Tris wouldn't have been surprised.
But even then, there should have been some news, shouldn't there?
Tris was full of questions, but he didn't ask any of them. He couldn't let anyone know that he knew about Peter. He wasn't even supposed to know the rat-man's true identity.
So he shouldn't have had so many questions right now.
At most, he could show some interest in who the rat-man was. But Ron had already asked Professor McGonagall that question, and her answer had been, "That will be announced when the time is right."
But when would the time be right?
Professor McGonagall hadn't said, and Ron hadn't dared ask. He was usually rather timid around professors.
"That's not very Gryffindor of you," Tris had said scornfully at the time.
Ron had treated his words as hot air.
As a poor soul with a mountain of unfinished homework, Ron wasn't actually that concerned about a rat he had little affection for.
Instead, he was planning to use the incident to guilt his parents into getting him an owl or a raven or something. Rats weren't entirely out of fashion yet, but their glory days had long since passed.
Ron didn't think much of them, really. He just found rats more acceptable than toads.
Now that he had a chance to get a replacement, Ron was happy as could be.
And so, with Tris's head full of Peter and Ron and the others' heads full of homework, they muddled through their first weekend at Hogwarts together.
Then, on Monday, things took a turn.
At breakfast, a gray eagle owl delivered that day's Daily Prophet. Tris stuffed a piece of bread dipped in meat sauce into his mouth as he unrolled the newspaper.
He hadn't expected much, but the instant he opened it, his eyes lit up, and he stopped chewing.
"This..." Looking at the photographs on the front page, Tris grew excited.
There were two photographs. One showed a filthy, shifty-looking man with a sloping crown, wearing shackles-Peter.
The other showed a thin, dark-haired man who still bore traces of his former good looks. Tris didn't recognize his face, but he didn't need to, because there was a caption beneath the photograph.
Sirius Black.
"What's this supposed to mean?" A puzzled voice came from beside him. It was Blaise, who was sitting next to Tris.
Blaise also subscribed to the paper and was opening his copy, reading the front-page article.
"Hero or fraud? The shocking judicial scandal of ten years ago"
Quite a few students from various years seated nearby subscribed to the paper, and many were now marveling at its contents. Most wizards of their generation no longer knew who Sirius was, nor did they recognize his name.
They could only learn what had happened from the newspaper.
Tris was an exception.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, Tris studied Sirius's photograph in the paper. It must have been taken recently. Sirius was painfully gaunt, clearly having suffered a great deal in Azkaban.
But it was rather different from the filthy photograph Tris remembered from the third film. Though thin, the Sirius in this photograph looked clean.
His face was clean and pale. He had clearly washed, and might even have been wearing makeup. His hair was a little long, but it had obviously been combed. He was also wearing clothes that were slightly loose, but clean and presentable.
That wasn't the sort of treatment a prisoner should have received.
Did that mean Sirius was no longer a prisoner?
Only after noticing all this did Tris turn to the article itself. But its contents were quite different from what he had expected.
Although the paper described Peter's relationship with Sirius and some past events concerning the Potter Family, it glossed over all of that. What it covered in great detail was Sirius's trial ten years earlier.
The article emphasized that the law enforcement officials and judges of the time had sent Sirius straight to Azkaban without following proper trial procedures, making it a failure of both procedure and enforcement.
Tris read it with a strange expression.
Although the article named no names, every point it made was aimed at Barty Crouch, who had headed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the time.
Now that was interesting.
It was common knowledge that the Daily Prophet was the mouthpiece of Britain's Ministry of Magic. Its purpose in publishing such an article at this particular moment warranted some thought.
Had Barty Crouch become a threat to Fudge?
Closing the paper, Tris displayed an appropriate amount of surprise, exchanged a few idle comments with his classmates, and headed to class.
But just as he reached the Charms classroom, someone called out to him.
It was Daphne, who had stopped him outside a classroom more than once before and apparently liked the location.
"Look, Greengrass," Tris said, staring at the girl in puzzlement, "why do you always stop me outside classrooms? We're in the same house. Can't you find me in the common room?"
"Do you spend much time in the common room?" Daphne raised an eyebrow.
"Um... a fair amount?" Tris suddenly hesitated.
True, he was usually either sleeping in his dormitory, completing system tasks outside the castle, or reading in the library. Over the weekend, he had gone through several hefty volumes on charms in the library and used the Thought Maze to memorize them all, intending to study them slowly later.
By comparison, he really did spend very little time in the common room.
Daphne didn't intend to argue over that. She asked directly, "What was going on with your family's rat? It actually had something to do with events ten years ago. Did no one in your family notice all these years? Or had you already noticed, and that was why you deliberately did that in class?"
"Who pays that much attention to a rat? Right? Do you pay special attention to your pet?" Tris spread his hands, wearing an expression of complete ignorance.
"If it were someone else, perhaps that would be true." Daphne was clearly unconvinced by his explanation. "But you're different. You're more observant and meticulous than most people. I don't believe you never noticed anything about that rat!"
She took a newspaper from her bag and tapped an underlined sentence.
It was a statement from Tris's mother, Molly. Apparently, the Daily Prophet had visited the Burrow for an interview over the past few days.
According to Molly, the rat had originally been her eldest son's pet before passing to her third son. He had been with the family for almost ten years...
"A rat living for ten years? I could believe other people failed to notice that, but you?" Daphne stared hard at Tris.
"People often struggle to notice anything unusual about things they've grown accustomed to." Tris still firmly denied it. Of course he couldn't admit to this.
"That rat had been in the family almost as long as I had. I was used to him, so I never noticed anything wrong. Besides, I don't know how long a rat can live."
"Really?"
"Yes!" Tris nodded firmly. "What are you thinking? If I'd known there was something wrong with that rat, would I have let him stay around my three older brothers?
"Come on. As far as I know, that rat slept right beside Ron's pillow. You don't seriously think I'd disregard my own brothers' safety, do you?"
"That's the part I can't figure out, either." Daphne frowned at Tris.
"Because you're imagining things in the first place." Tris waved a hand, trying to end the conversation. "All right, class is starting. I still need to find Ron afterward. This news will probably hit him pretty hard..."
But after turning away, Tris could feel her gaze lingering on his back.
Seriously, why does this girl seem to have her sights set on me?
"Hit me hard, my arse." Ron spread his hands, indicating that he was perfectly fine. "How many days did I even sleep with Scabbers? If anyone's got a problem, it should be Percy. He slept with Scabbers... oh, should I call him Peter? They slept together for five years. And Bill slept with him even longer..."
Tris was speechless.
That's Ron for you. Nobody takes things in stride quite like you do.
Compared with Ron, Harry seemed rather more unsettled.
"Scabbers... I mean that rat, that Peter, was the murderer who got my mum and dad killed?" Harry asked hesitantly.
The newspaper had been vague and hadn't clearly explained the exact circumstances back then. Whether the Ministry of Magic hadn't fully figured things out itself or had left out the details for some other reason, he didn't know.
In short, the paper offered only one brief statement: "Sirius Black, originally accused of causing the deaths of the Potters, has been confirmed innocent and wrongfully convicted. The true culprit is Peter Pettigrew, who was mistakenly hailed as a hero at the time."
"That's what the paper says." Looking into Harry's bewildered eyes, Tris nodded. "But we might need to ask someone who was involved to find out exactly what happened."
"Who should I ask?" Harry gave a bitter smile. "I already asked Hagrid, but he said it wasn't his place to tell me about it. I can't just go straight to Dumbledore, can I?"
Although Dumbledore usually seemed very approachable at school, Harry still felt that going to him with something so personal wouldn't be quite appropriate.
"I don't think you need to rush," Tris said. "Someone might come looking for you to talk about it very soon."
"What do you mean?" Harry immediately grew excited. He trusted Tris's judgment. If Tris said that, he must have had a reason.
"It's the newspaper again. You only noticed Peter. Did you forget that another close friend of your father's has just been released from Azkaban?
"I think there's a good chance he'll come to visit his old friend's son."