Night lay over Hogsmeade, and moonlight spilled like water over the snow-covered rooftops.
Wormtail huddled in a shadowy corner outside The Three Broomsticks, his whole body trembling with cold and fear.
His rat form let him easily escape the notice of patrolling Aurors, but the faint magical pulses from those damned new detectors still terrified him.
I can't stay here too long... he told himself. I have to go now, before those damned golden eyes look this way...
His small, watery eyes swept warily over his surroundings, making sure there were no Auror patrols.
He became a gray blur, racing down the path along the edge of the village toward the Forbidden Forest.
The snow made faint crunching sounds beneath his tiny paws, each one sending his heart pounding wildly.
Fifteen minutes later, the dilapidated Shrieking Shack, surrounded by vines and thorns, finally appeared before him.
"Still... still the same..."
Wormtail stopped, studying the building before him with his small, watery eyes.
The dilapidated building looked even more sinister in the moonlight. Its windows were like empty eye sockets, and its broken roof presented a menacing silhouette. Wormtail stared at it for a long time, fragmented images surfacing in his mind-
An enormous werewolf, a majestic stag, a great black dog, and... and himself, that gray rat.
How many wild and dangerous nights had they spent here?
"We used to be... friends..."
There was a trace of bitterness in his voice.
"But so what? What did friendship count for before the Dark Lord? I just wanted to live... nothing more..."
He shook his head, driving away those useless memories.
This was no time for sentimentality. He needed that passage.
Circling the shack, he soon found the little hole at the base of a wall-an inconspicuous breach.
"Who dug this?"
Wormtail