Darius headed off early the next morning. He didn't want to be late for his meeting. He reached the neighbourhood well before time and after putting on his rune-glamour and disillusioning himself, started walking towards the library.

Sirius had been waiting a while already. He had slept under the library awning and managed some food from the bakery down the street to tide over his hunger.

He had been hiding near the library with a clear view of the entrance. He wanted to see who was the mystery helper before showing himself to them. It wouldn't do to fall into a trap and get caught this late in the game. He was still thinking about his mystery helper when he caught the whiff of a new scent and realised there was somebody nearby. Before he could react though, there was a disembodied voice behind him.

"Enjoying your freedom, Sirius Black?"

He was so startled, he nearly turned and ran but finally managed to calm down with an effort. He realised it was someone with an invisibility cloak or under a strong disillusionment charm.

"I would prefer you not transform here. Any sighting of you would raise hell and we can't afford that kind of heat. So, what I'll do is to clean you up a bit, so you don't look like a rabid dog and we'll head to a safehouse. Bark twice if you agree."

Sirius thought about it and shrugged. He was wandless and at the mercy of an obviously strong wizard, he could only hope for the best. And if anything goes wrong, well, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"Woof!Woof!"

"Tergeo! Tergeo! Tergeo! Scourgify! Scourgify! Aguamenti!"

"My god, you had a lot of muck on you! That should take care of it for now. Let's head on. We will be using muggle transport. I need you to act entirely normal and quietly follow me for now. We will head to the safehouse immediately."

The two of them quickly made their way and headed off towards the Tonks' house. They made their way by bus, followed by subway and then a taxi. It was quite difficult to hold in the laughter when Sirius behaved the same way as a regular dog by sticking his head out the window. Finally arriving at the Tonks house, they made their way towards the house and felt the subtle tingling that signified the strong wards around the property.

Sirius, in dog form, yelped when he saw Andromeda open the door and was about to turn tail when Darius petrified him. Thank Merlin for his new wand not having the trace. They made their way inside, Sirius being levitated by Darius and sat down in the sitting room.

"Sirius, calm down! This is Andromeda, your other cousin. Not Bellatrix, she is still in prison. Now, I'll release you, but you need to calm down."

He used the counter-curse and Sirius was freed of the body-bind curse. He did seem calm ad then transformed into his human form.

"Sorry Andi, but you know the family resemblance."

"That I do. Though after Bellatrix' years at Azkaban, I believe I can confidently claim to be the better-looking sister."

That got a few laughs from everyone present and everyone calmed down after that quip. Sirius was informed briefly of Harry's life and he had to be stopped physically from rushing off to wring the neck of the Dursleys. He was also quite displeased about Snape's post as potions professor and made his dislike of the situation amply clear.

But he calmed down significantly after talking about Harry. Hearing he was safe and alive. though not as hale and hearty as he might have hoped, must have been a great tonic for him. Andromeda began talking about remedying the condition Sirius was in and Darius mentioned his plan for Harry's Christmas gift and they both were all for it. In fact, Andromeda offered to stock up on all the potions that may be required and send them in shrinked form to me a few days before Christmas.

We also managed to get the true story of the fateful night of 31st October, 1981 from Sirius, Darius already knew it of course. Ted was taking notes of the entire story with a dicta-quill. He said he wanted to go over the whole thing so that there are no unforeseen questions or trip-ups that could ruin Sirius' chances of getting free after the trial.

Darius took his leave after that. Sirius was safe and would recover nicely on Andromeda's capable hands but he had a rat to catch. The Weasleys had been off for a month-long vacation and they had just returned a couple of days ago from Egypt. He had already written to the twins about having to visit them for a day and they had sent a letter in agreement. They probably though it was something to do with the Weasleys Wizard Wheezes or product planning.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully though his mother was a bit curious about his regular outings these days. He assuaged her by telling her that it would be all out in the open in a few days anyway.

The next day he took the floo to the Weasleys and saw the twins waiting right there. Percy was in the kitchen too, reading some book, sitting on the table. He took the twins aside and told them he had to speak to them in private. Hey took Darius to their room and he immediately charmed the room with everything he could think of to prevent eavesdropping.

The twins stared in open shock at the rampant show of magic and goggled at him.

"You used-"

"magic freely-"

"despite the restrictions-"

"of magic outside the school."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

And then in unison.

"Teach us, oh great master."

The twins were always a laughter riot but it was not the time for that now.

"What I'm about to tell you is rather shocking and absolutely has to be kept a secret. On no account can it be leaked anytime soon. Do you swear to keep the secret? It concerns the very safety of your families."

They got dead serious at that. Whatever else you may say about the twins, when it came to family and friends, they were loyal to a fault.

"Anything that concerns the safety of our family is serious business. Say what you have to, we will not speak to anyone about it unless you give us leave to do so."

"The thing is, the rat that has been in your family for years, Scabbers, is actually a death eater in his animagus form. Your family has unwittingly played host to a death eater for nigh on 12 years now."

Both recoiled hard at that and looked horrified at that piece of information. They seemed to have instantaneously grasped the risk their family had been at and didn't have any clue about. The next instant both their expressions turned into identical expressions and they asked."

"Well, if you know that-"

"and still come here-"

"and told us about it-"

"then you must have a plan-"

"in place already."

""What can we do?""

"I don't need your help much. I am already in contact with people who can take care of the next steps. I just need to get a hold of the rat. You two need to head off any searches for him or put it off. This needs to be handled carefully. If you feel you can handle it, you can even take a common field rat and place it in Ron's cage to fool him temporarily."

""We'll do that. Let's go. We have a rat to catch.""

They all headed to Ron's room, who was snoring away to glory and noticed the fat rat snoozing on the bedside table. Darius got it with a silent stunner and quickly placed it in a conjured cage which he grounded with a permanence rune. The cage was then layered with everything that might be need de to keep the rat in. An imperturbable charm to keep Peter from transforming and anti-apparition jinxes to keep him from apparating.

Darius thanked the twins for co-operating and they in turn were grateful for getting rid of the Death Eater in their house. Neither of them had any suspicions about the rat's suspicious nature after back-counting the number of years it had lived. They promised to hold of all inquiries for later.

Darius left immediately via floo powder and headed to Madam Bones office, whom he had set an appointment with today. He had yet to tell her about his plans for catching Peter and didn't think she would give the go-ahead if she knew. Well, now he had Peter all nice and caged for her.

Emerald-green flames whooshed into existence in her fireplace and she held her wand at the ready for any unwelcome visitors. She had not got to her present position by being lax. Whatever else may be said about her, Madam Bones was uniquely suited to and excelled in the post as Head of DMLE.

The only visitor she was expecting today morning was the Icarus boy. She had to admit, that was a young man who would go places. The cunning, smarts, foresight and skills he displayed were amazing for his age. Adding to that his formidable reputation as a duellist among his peers and she was tempted to snap him up for the aurors.

The boy in question appeared in the flames, in his usual disguise as counsel-at-law, Nova Arcanum. He dusted of his clothes casually and turned to her. She was surprised to see him carrying a cuboidal object draped with a black cloth draped on it.

"Good morning, Madam Bones. I have two significant pieces of information for you. I know you may be incensed to learn about it only now but I can tell you, I only did it with the best intentions."

Uh-oh, she didn't like the way this was going. He must have done something rash on his own but at least he seems unharmed.

"Go on, what do you have to say?"

Oh, how she regretted those words a second later. He laid it to her straight and now she had a headache to deal with.

"The first is that I have tracked down Sirius Black and convinced him to take refuge in a safehouse for the time being. I can get him to the court on the day of the trial. He will of course be under a rune-glamour until the moment of the trial. The second is that I have the person responsible for the betrayal of the Potters, murder of 12 muggles and framing of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew himself."

And Darius threw of the cover, showing the rat, still passed out cold. It was rather fun to see the usually serious woman's mouth drop and see her monocle fall right off her face and dangle at the end of its chain.

"He has been hiding in his rat animagus form for the last 12 years. I caught him just today morning. He has been masquerading as a common rat the entire time, ready to move back to his master's side the first chance he gets. I am sure you know the spells to verify this personaly."

She nodded to a slight nod, still stunned at this turn of events. Both the people critical to the trial had been found and gift-wrapped for her. She did check the rat though, and though there was no way to tell his identity for certain without forcing him to reveal his form, she could easily tell it was an animagus. That's it, she was definitely going to try to drag this kid to join thee auror forces when he graduates. With the traitor and Sirius both at hand, she could move u the trial to the day after tomorrow. She wanted this to be done with as soon as possible.

"I can definitely tell that's an animagus, though I will have to force him to reveal himself with a spell. Anyways, I believe you and I think I can arrange the trial to be arranged for the day after next. Let Ted Tonks know that, won't you? I am certain you guys are all over this but I need you two to be at your best when this trial comes around. I won't have my Sirius return to prison again."

"Laying claim on him already, huh? At least you are proactive."

She blushed at that and looked away for a second before turning to face me again.

"I already turned away from him once and then lost him to those soul-suckers for 12 years. I'm not going to let him get away again."

"Anyways, feel free to take away the rat and test him. He shouldn't be able to escape from the cage. It has quite a few charms on it. And I suggest keep him somewhere secure with no information going out. I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but I'll do so anyway, there are a lot of people who would not let him take the stand. He could doom a lot of people by taking names out there and I'm sure Barty Crouch wouldn't appreciate his judicial oversight being aired out in the open like that."

"Thanks for that anyway. I hadn't even considered Barty yet. I have no idea what lengths that man might go to. Also, you may not know this but Fudge was also involved in the arrest. He was a junior member of the Magical Department of Accidents and Catastrophes at the time and lately he has been taking more and more credit for the original arrest of Sirius. The political fallout from this will be enormous and he won't like that. He will do anything to stop this from coming into the light, including ordering an immediate kiss. I hope you can pull off as good a Patronus as my nice has claimed in that case."

"Of course. Does that mean I can leave the rest of the matters over to you for now?"

"Yes, you can. I'll get Mad-eyes involved in this one. Pettigrew won't have a chance to escape from that paranoid old man. And once again, thank you so much for everything you have done."

"No problem at all. Owl me when the trial date and timings are finalized so that we can plan our end of the operations."

"Yes, I will. Good day."

"Good day, Madam Bones."

Darius went home after the end of that long day. Everything was coming together beautifully. Now he only had the trial to look forward to. And if Madam Bones was to be believed, that would be in another couple of days.