Harry heard footsteps on the other side of the door and a moment later, the door cracked open a little, Sirius’ head poked out, looking rather irritated.

“What?” he asked.

“I need to talk to you about something important. Privately, please” replied Harry, not minding the irritation in his godfather’s voice.

Sirius grunted and moved to the side, letting Harry into the room. Once he was inside, Sirius closed the door behind him.

Harry walked in and saw Buckbeak lying down in his corner. The hippogriff just raised his head and called out softly to Harry prompting him to walk up to Buckbeak and start stroking his head and neck.

“So? What was so important?” asked Sirius’ irritated voice from behind him.

Harry took a seat near Buckbeak, using his body like a pillow as he spoke to Sirius. “I know why you’re irritated Sirius”

Sirius immediately snorted, “I’m not irritated”

“Sirius, please” said Harry, exasperated. “You wear your heart on your sleeve”

Sirius just looked away. “Say I am irritated, what does that have to do with anything?” he asked.

“Well, I have just the solution for it!” said Harry in a chipper voice.

“What solution?” Sirius turned to Harry and asked suspiciously.

“You know how Mr Weasley and I met Lucius Malfoy right after my trial?” asked Harry.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“See, the thing is, when we met him, I asked him where Pettigrew was hiding” said Harry with a smile.

“So what?” asked Sirius, seemingly even more annoyed than earlier. “It’s not like he’ll tell you where he’s actually hiding”

“I know he won’t, I never expected him to” replied Harry. “However, there is one thing I never mentioned to anyone”

“What’s that?” asked Sirius.

“A while back, I had some help to learn Legilimency and I managed to get rather good at it” replied Harry, his smile growing even wider. “Now, I don’t know the address but I clearly saw the shack Pettigrew is hiding in. I plan on going tonight to nab him”

“What!?” Sirius yelled.

“Shh! Quiet down! Do you want Mrs Weasley coming up here and sending me off to bed or something?” asked Harry in exasperation.

“Oh sorry” said Sirius. “Do you really know where wormtail is?”

“Of course! Would I lie to you?” Harry asked.

“Good point” replied Sirius, with a serious expression, he fell deep in thought.

A few moments later, he said, “I’m coming with you”

“Sorry Sirius but that would never work” replied Harry apologetically. “It would be hard not to notice you missing and the others would get rather annoying about it”

“Urgh” groaned Sirius. “That’s exactly what I’ve been hearing all summer”

“Don’t worry though, I won’t have any troubles getting Pettigrew back here and then you can beat him a little to take some stress out” Harry laughed.

“That does sound nice” replied Sirius with an evil glint.

“On that note, do you know of any way to restrain an Animagus?” asked Harry.

“That’s easy, just enchant any item with an Animagus revealing charm and stick it into your target or bind them with it and they’d be secure” replied Sirius.

“Brilliant! Now we need to discuss what to do after we get Pettigrew” said Harry.

“Just have him handed over to the Ministry through Kingsley, that should help me get the trial I need”

Harry thought about it for a few minutes but then shook his head.

“That wouldn’t work” said Harry. “Fudge would delude himself into thinking this is a conspiracy and Lucius Malfoy would go through Fudge and somehow kill Pettigrew”

“That does sound like something they would do” said Sirius with another groan.

“The best case scenario is to replace Fudge with someone from our side, legally that too” said Harry.

“You make that sound so easy” laughed Sirius. “If we could do that, we would have done it already”

“Getting Fudge out of office isn’t really the hard part, the hard part would be getting one of ours into the office” said Harry, “I spent the better part of the last two days spying inside the Ministry…Don’t tell Mrs Weasley”

“Hahaha! I knew you wouldn’t just sit around doing nothing but spying on the Ministry isn’t what I thought you might do” Sirius seemed much happier now, with the prospect of finally going free.

“Well, the main problem we’re facing right now is how rotten the Ministry is” said Harry. “The Minister refuses to look at reality, instead cooking up conspiracy theories. There are a ridiculous number of Voldemort’s spies in the Ministry and then you have people like Rufus Scrimgeor who aren’t on Voldemort’s side but are just like Fudge”

“I’d wager, Amelia Bones or Scrimgeor would be the best bet for Minister if Fudge leaves office” said Sirius.

‘Considering I already took care of Scrimgeor, it would probably only leave Madam Bones. I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t die this time around though.’ thought Harry.

“We can think about that in the future” said Sirius, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “Thanks a lot, Harry. You doing this really means a lot to me”

“Don’t worry about it. You are my godfather after all!” said Harry with a smile. “I do need your help for something”

“What would that be?” asked Sirius.

“After this whole acquittal thing is over with, I plan on taking the fight to Voldemort” said Harry.

“Are you insane!?” asked Sirius in exasperation. “You want to take the fight to the greatest dark wizard of our time?”

“Oh please, he’s like a kid throwing a tantrum” sneered Harry. “Anyway, I won’t be fighting him head-on from the get-go. I need to slowly chip away at his assets. For that, I need your help”

“My help? How exactly?”

“I need information. Information about death eaters, to be precise” said Harry. “Names, crimes, locations etc. Dumbledore, nor any of the order members would ever give such infor-”

Harry trailed off as he recalled something, causing him to clench his fist in frustration. ‘God damnit! I could have just used Legilimency against Macnair!’

Harry felt like hitting himself over the head. ‘I seriously need to start thinking about what I do!’ he berated himself.

“What happened Harry?” asked Sirius, seeing him go quiet all of a sudden.

Harry snapped back and looked at Sirius for a moment before replying, “Ah, no, nothing. Just thought of something”

‘I’ll make sure to think a little more before I do something from now on’ thought Harry with a sigh. ‘Such a brilliant opportunity lost’

Sirius nodded his head, still seeming a little concerned but then he continued the earlier conversation.

“What good would knowing all that do?” asked Sirius.

“There are some things I can’t tell you right now but believe me, I’ll be able to handle things as long as I have information” said Harry. “If you can get that for me, I’ll be able to end Voldemort’s reign of terror before it even starts”

“Haah” sighed Sirius, “Fine, I’ll see what I can get for you”

“Great! I’ll see you later tonight” said Harry, “Once I’ve got Pettigrew, I’ll bring him over to Buckbeak’s room so someone will always be here to watch over the rat”

“Fine, just be careful Harry” said Sirius.

“Thanks, see ya!”

Harry made his way out of his room, grabbed his invisibility cloak and made his way to the empty room he had started to use like his base.

Once inside, Harry securely bolted the door and after donning the cloak, he apparated to the shack he had seen in Lucius Malfoy’s mind.

A moment and a loud crack later, Harry found himself in a rather dingy shack. The walls had peeling and faded wallpaper and floor boards were broken in several places.

The roof had a noticeable piece missing from it which seemed to have been haphazardly boarded up, leaving a few gaps in between boards.

Harry walked around as quietly as he could, trying to make sure he didn’t make any noise.

The shack itself wasn’t very big, it only had, what could be taken to be a living room with a kitchen attached to it. A bathroom to the side and one other room, presumably a bedroom.

Harry checked the kitchen and bathroom but finding no one, he made his way to the bedroom. Luckily the door was ajar so he slowly made his way into the bedroom and noticed it had a broken down wardrobe and an unstable looking bed, with a moth-eaten mattress. Atop that mattress, slept the man Harry had come to kidnap.

Looking as rat-like as Harry remembered, though considerably more gray with a large bald spot on his head, Peter Pettigrew slept with arms and legs spread out. Harry took the invisibility cloak off and pointed at Pettigrew throwing a stunning spell at him.

Though he didn’t seem to have changed much so Harry went up to Pettigrew and broke one of his fingers to see if he was awake. Though Harry saw Pettigrew’s body shudder a little, there was almost no other reaction.

‘Seems like he’s really out’ thought Harry. ‘Time to do that Animagus revealing charm enchantment’

Harry looked around to see what he could use, if anything, other than the ropes and chains he, himself had brought.

While looking around, Harry noticed an earring he never noticed on Pettigrew’s ear. ‘That should work nicely’ thought Harry happily.

He carefully removed the earring and enchanted it and placed it back on Pettigrew’s ear. He also made sure to cut off Pettigrew’s silver hand.

However, the moment he cut it off, the stump started bleeding profusely. ‘Oh damn! I can’t have him dying on me just yet’ Harry thought in a panic.

‘Incendio, that should help to staunch the bleeding’ thought Harry, casting the spell. The next moment, a huge flame burst out instead, scaring Harry.

“What the hell!” yelled Harry. “That wasn’t a bloody Incendio!”

The ferocity of the flame did end up scaring Harry a little. ‘I can’t exactly use that if I don’t know how to control it. It’d be rather stupid if I set fire to Pettigrew instead’ thought Harry.

A moment later he calmed down. He quickly wrapped part of Pettigrew’s shirt onto the bleeding stump and thought about how to staunch it properly.

‘If I did indeed get some powers from Fawkes, then there should be some healing ones in them’ thought Harry.

He remembered how Fawkes had used tears and he wondered if he should do the same. ‘Would I have to use tears or could blood work as well?’ thought Harry.

Harry found a small ornate knife lying next to Pettigrew’s head, along with his wand. Harry grabbed the knife and stuffed the wand into his pocket.

Harry removed the make-shift bandage off Pettigrew’s arm and, making a cut in his palm, dripped a few drops of blood onto the stump. The bleeding stump immediately sizzled and slowly closed up.

However, the next moment shocked Harry. His blood continued to drip onto the stump, as Harry had cut a little too deep and moments later, the stump grew into an actual hand.

‘This is way beyond simple healing’ thought Harry looking more and more dumbfounded.

‘Urgh! Let’s forget this for now, I have work to do’ thought Harry, making a mental note to test all this out later.

Now that he had put the charm on Pettigrew, he woke him up. Pettigrew immediately started yelling in pain, grabbing onto his left hand, holding the finger Harry had broken.

“Calm down Peter, it’s just a small scratch” said Harry from the side.

“A small scratch!? My finger’s broken-” said Pettigrew but soon realised that there was someone else in the room.

He whimpered and held onto his finger as he looked towards the person who spoke. With the moonlight streaming into the room, he saw the face of a man he really did not wish to ever see again.

“H-harry…wh-what are you do-doing h-here?”