Just a reminder, chapters with (Read After) at the end are side chapters, often related to the plot, or sometimes just fun, standalone chapters. I’ll be posting the second part of April Fools side-chapter today.

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The rest of the term dragged by with nothing. No Pettigrew, no Sirius. The map stayed clean. Too clean. It was quiet enough to feel like a prank. Then exams crept in, dragging half the castle into revision panic, and Cassian almost started to believe they might’ve bolted for good.

One of those days, he strolled between rows of desks, hands tucked behind his back. The second-years were bent over their parchments, heads down, quills scratching, all trying not to look like they were panicking.

The exam was simple. His were always easy. Pick a basic spell, something from their level, explain where it came from, how it had been used cleverly in the past, and what they would’ve done differently. If they couldn’t manage that with Alohomora or Lumos, they probably deserved to be hexed by the furniture.

He passed Ginny Weasley, who was hunched over her parchment with the kind of focus usually reserved for defusing hexes. Her handwriting was neat, except for one blotch where she’d stabbed her full stop too hard. She’d picked the Disarming Charm. Solid choice. She was writing about a wizard duel during the Troll Raids where a witch disarmed a raider mid-charge and caught the wand out of the air with her teeth. Bit dramatic, but not impossible. Cassian raised a brow. The footnote read, She married him later. Allegedly. Merlin help them all.

Colin Creevey sat two seats down, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth as he scribbled furiously. He’d chosen the Softening Charm. There was a neat diagram of someone using it to save a cat that had fallen out of a second-storey window, followed by an extensive theory section on cushioning force, target surface, and magical friction. Cassian skimmed the last line, could potentially be adapted for use in Quidditch falls if paired with proper aim. Overachieving menace. He approved.

Cassian paused by the window for a moment, squinting at the sky. The air had been getting worse for weeks. Heavy, damp, as if the castle itself had caught a cold. Clouds never really moved anymore, they just sat there, sulking. He couldn’t tell if that was just Scotland being Scotland or if the Dementors’ very existence was enough to rot the weather. Probably both. He missed the sun, and he was British.

He shuddered. ‘Thankfully they’ve kept their distance since the last fiasco,’ he muttered, half to himself.

On the left, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were in various stages of existential crisis. One Ravenclaw had picked Wingardium Leviosa and was citing five separate rescue operations involving levitated stretchers and floating livestock. She’d written “mobility enchantments in emergency logistics” in block capitals.

Luna Lovegood, sat just beside her, had written three calm paragraphs on the Shrinking Charm. Her example involved a travelling merchant who shrunk an entire caravan during a bandit raid, then hid it in his beard. Spoke only in riddles after that, she’d added, like that explained the rest. It didn’t. But it was Luna, so the bar moved.

The clock chimed half past. He called the end of the exams. Quills scratched frantically in the final seconds, as many hoped that hurried thoughts, and even gibberish, might earn them a few mercy points.

Just as Cassian waved the last second-year out the door and leaned against the desk, thinking, briefly, hopefully, that maybe, just maybe, the two Animagi had actually decided to be someone else’s problem, the door slammed open.

Bathsheda burst in, hair windswept, scrolls clutched to her chest.

“Something strange is going on.”

Cassian stood up straight. “That’s not how I like to be greeted before tea.”

She shoved the map onto the table. “Look.”

He stepped closer, and the moment he saw it, his brow dropped. Snape and Lupin’s names were flickering near the edge of the map, right by the Whomping Willow. Then they vanished.

And they weren’t alone.

Potter. Granger. Weasley. Longbottom.

“What the?” he muttered.

Names, gone. Right off the edge like they’d walked out of reality.

Cassian sighed through his teeth. Every year it was something, curses, monsters, damned possessed professors. He used to think the castle bred trouble, now he suspected it simply attracted its own reflection. “One calm term,” he muttered, already reaching for his coat. “Just one.”

“These kids will be the end of me.”

Bathsheda was on his heels before he’d even finished cursing, map rolled under her arm, wand already in hand. The classroom door slammed shut behind them as they took off down the corridor, boots echoing off stone.

***

Cassian skidded to a stop as the Shack came into view. The front door creaked on its hinge, half-shut.

“Well,” Cassian muttered. “That’s not ominous at all.”

She grabbed his arm. “Wait. You don’t think he’s…”

“If Sirius is in there,” Cassian said, “he’s about to get four students, one werewolf, and the sloppiest ambush in recorded history.”

Bathsheda gave a tired sigh. “Brilliant.”

Cassian flicked two illusion bees through the half-hinged door. Nothing killed them for a full minute, so he kicked the door open and strode in, Bathsheda followed, runes unfurling in her wake. The Shack was empty but from somewhere beyond, voices could be heard. One shouted, one desperate.

They exchanged a glance and bolted toward the noise.

The clearing wasn’t far.

And it was a mess.

Snape stood dead centre, wand out, locked on Sirius and Lupin. Both standing still. Neither armed. Sirius held a small cage. Opposite them, Harry looked stunned, tears still fresh, jaw half-open. Ron wasn’t doing much better. Hermione and Neville flanked them, both holding their wands on Snape, nerves twitching through their grips.

Sirius was already mid-bellow, “Severus, I’m telling the truth!” when Cassian and Bathsheda stepped into the clearing.

Every head swung their way. The air was heavy, the sky pulling tight above the treetops, clouds gathering like an audience hungry for blood.

They’d walked straight into a three-way standoff.

Snape was the first to recover. “Assist me in apprehending Sirius Black and Lupin,” he barked, not lowering his wand. “And tell those imbeciles to put theirs away.”

Cassian didn’t so much as blink. “You could’ve disarmed a couple of third-years in your sleep, Severus. The fact you haven’t tells me even you’re not fully sold on this little pantomime.”

He flicked his wand. The cage Sirius held jerked into the air, gliding across the space and into his hand.

“Say hello to Peter Pettigrew.”

Snape stared at him. “You too?”

Cassian’s brow edged up. “Oh, so Black’s already laid it out for you? Great. Saves me the preamble. I had my doubts, but looks like we’re skipping to the ending.”

He turned slightly. “Love, containment runes. Small circle, tight weave. This little bastard’s not getting a second wind.”

Bathsheda was already moving, scroll unrolling mid-step. Her hands lit, tracing fast glyphs into the packed dirt.

Snape’s lips thinned. “You expect me to believe-“

Cassian crouched by the cage, tapping one of the bars. “I expect you to shut up and watch.”

He flicked the latch. The rat inside scrabbled back.

Bathsheda’s runes flared.

Snape’s eyes narrowed. “This is madness.”

Cassian raised a brow. “No, Severus. Madness is putting a rat on trial for treason and watching it slip through because nobody brought chalk.”

The rat flailed harder. Cassian gave the cage a light tap. “Stop squirming, or I’ll feed you to owls.”

Bathsheda drew the last glyph, sharp and mean-looking. “Ready.”

Cassian opened the cage. The rat tried to bolt, of course it did, but the runes lit up fast. Pale blue light snapped around it like a net, and then the squealing thing was locked dead-centre in the array, twitching.

Cassian stepped back. “Right. Everyone, meet the late Peter Pettigrew.”

Bathsheda flicked her wand, and the rat on the ground began to stretch. Bones cracked, limbs bent where they shouldn’t, skin rippled, rearranging in sick waves. Fur sloughed away into patchy clumps. The thing let out a low, human whine halfway through the shift.

Peter Pettigrew lay curled in the centre of the runes, breath hitching, face pale and clammy.

The kids stared like they’d just seen a corpse blink.

Snape stared, dead still. His hand was locked around his wand, clenched so hard that the colour was drawn from his skin, leaving his knuckles bone-white.

Sirius took a step forward, fists clenched, but Lupin caught his sleeve without even glancing.

Cassian’s lips curled. “Disgusting.”

Pettigrew twitched at the word. He tried to speak, but it came out as a gargle and a sob.

Bathsheda stood there, wand ready, suggesting she’d drop him again if he so much as sneezed funny.

Sirius was shaking. “That’s him. That’s the bastard.”

Lupin kept hold of him.

Cassian tilted his head. “Peter Pettigrew. Former Gryffindor. Registered as deceased. Hero, supposedly.” His eyes dragged down the man’s crumpled shape. “How’s that working out for you, Peter?”

Pettigrew’s mouth opened again. No sound. He looked between them, Snape, Lupin, Sirius, the kids, then dropped his gaze to the dirt.

Cassian coughed into his fist. “Severus, we will all turn away. In the meantime, please feed him some water.”

He tapped his nose. Snape looked moments away from hexing him, but dug into his coat all the same and pulled out a slim silver flask.

Cassian squinted up. “Wow. Look at that. Bright big full moo—”

His neck snapped toward Lupin.

“Fuck.”

The man was already swaying, breath coming fast.

Sirius swore, loud. “Lupin! You haven’t taken your potion?! Bloody hell, get it together!”

Cassian backed up two steps, wand out.

Lupin’s eyes were gone. No awareness left, just that bone-deep shake, like his skin had started to itch from the inside.

The kids stumbled back, fast.

The moonlight hit.

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