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A simple wave of my hand, like I'd done when I was a child, and a film of bloody shield appeared in front of me, taking on the spell. I immediately formed thick needles of blood and, with all my willpower, sent them at Peter, aiming at his shoulders, elbows, and knees. The speed of the flight was too great. With a simultaneous squelching sound, Peter Pettigrew's elbows, shoulders, and knees literally exploded, as if in Japanese animation, and he began to fall to the ground, without realizing what was happening.

I immediately sent Stupefy into him and ran up under the acceleration.

"Ahhhhhh!" yelled Peter, finally getting the pain signals to his brain. The pain seems to have been so intense that it partially threw Stupefy off. But his death is not beneficial to me now, which means:

"Vulnera Sanentur," I uttered, pointing my wand at Wormtail. The blood stopped instantly, and some of it went back into my body - just as much as it needed to.

"Max!" Peter discerned me through the tears of pain. His face became even more terrible, distorted by a grimace of anguish and despair. "Max, you are such a good boy ... Argh ... You won't kill me, will you? S-s-s-s ..."

I was taken aback for a moment by this speech but immediately pulled myself together - you never know what the enemy would say during a fight. I sent a couple of Stupefy into Wormtail's wounded body and put him to sleep. That wasn't enough, so I cast a Stasis spell, thanks to the Hogwarts library for its insane collection of knowledge. But it wasn't enough - I couldn't leave a rat in the Chamber of Secrets a second time. Who knows what he can do without arms and legs? After all, he somehow found the wand. The grimoire had a rather simple spell for turning one's enemies into beautiful trophy statuettes in the style of the German porcelain masters. Such light-colored statuettes are obtained, with very crisp but vanilla colors of lighter tones.

A wave of a wand, visualization of a complex geometric structure of broken lines of different thickness and a dozen symbols similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and instead of Peter Pettigrew's stump, a porcelain-looking, light figurine appeared on the mountain of bones. It just smelled like beauty, style, and antiquity from this. But the longer you stare at it, the more you are imbued with the misfortune of the depicted man. With broken legs and arms, traces of wounds, disease, and undisguised horror in his eyes, and a face distorted by a silent scream. Creepy. I must hurry to hide it in the bag.

"Whoo!" an owl gave signs of life, its yellow eyes flashing in the dimness of the hall.

Without wasting time, I took a notebook and a pen out of my bag, tore out a piece of paper, and began to write a note for Black.

Thoughts crossed my mind on the go, but I ran them through the lens of critical thinking at least twice this time. The first and obvious thought was that things wouldn't happen like they do in canon, and Black might not get Ron into the Shrieking Shack. He wouldn't get help from Crookshanks, who was still hanging out at the pet store. In general, everything is not so, which means I need to create the circumstances I need. The note to Black was short and read: "I discovered an animagus rat in our bedroom pretending to be Ron Weasley's familiar, and I have a vague doubt that you would be interested. I propose we meet at the Shrieking Shack on December thirtieth." No signatures, of course.

"Can you pass on another note?" I said to the owl. "And I'll be waiting for you in the owlery with the meat."

The owl fluffed up a little but took off and sat on my hand that had been set aside.

"To Sirius Black, the animagus dog. Black Grim," I muttered, handing the note into the owl's paw.

The owl hooted and flew through the entrance tube, and I didn't hesitate to pick up Peter's wand, slipping it into my bag, and headed for the exit, clinging to the surface of the pipe with a Spider Legs spell, making my way up. In general, during all this time, I could have looked for a normal passage here. Still, I liked this kind of movement - both a physical warm-up with an explosive release of power and a magical one because the Spider Legs spell must be held by a willful effort, which quite easily gets lost during physical movements.

Already standing in the bathroom, with the noise of the closing doorway, I reapplied the cloaking spell to myself and thought, "That's what I should have done with Peter in the first place. Suppose I could hide him in the spatial distortion that is the bag with the invisible extension, and also in a state of stasis and transformation into an object. In that case, I think it is possible to avoid detection on the Marauder's Map by ninety-nine percent. And in general, the bag is a pretty safe place because it is always with me.

With these thoughts in mind, I got to the owlery at almost the same time as the nameless school owl. I called the house-elf with the meat and treated the owl, which began to eat the neatly sliced and convenient pieces with obvious happiness and a sense of accomplishment under the envious glances of other birds.

Back in the common room and then back in my room, I found that Potter was not yet there. Now I had to think a little harder about the trap for Black, in case he showed up here in a rush to get his hands on a traitor. I thought that option was even more likely because, in the canon story, Black was literally raving about this idea. This idea was obsessive and seemed to preserve what was left of his sanity. And what was not preserved might well encourage Black to break into the common room in a frantic and desperate way. Perhaps he will not even hesitate to interrogate someone...