Harry didn't speak for a long time. He sat in the window seat, the world outside the rain-streaked glass a meaningless blur. Ariana's revelations had shattered the very bedrock of his understanding of his own life. The man he had been hating was innocent. The friend his parents had trusted was a traitor. His now identified godfather was a suffering victim, not a villain.
Ariana waited with the infinite patience of a master strategist who knows the most critical part of any plan is the human element. She had provided the data; she had to allow him time for the emotional processing.
Finally, Harry looked up, his green eyes, so like his mother's, shining with a new, hard-won clarity. The grief and confusion were still there, but beneath them was a core of steel she had never seen before. "What's the plan?" he asked, his voice steady.
"The plan," Ariana began, her tone shifting from empathetic friend to focused commander, "is to avoid the mistakes of the past. A secret revealed in a dark corridor or a shrieking shack leads to chaos, disbelief, and the escape of the guilty. A truth revealed under the full authority of the law, with undeniable proof and unimpeachable witnesses, leads to justice."
"We're not going after Pettigrew ourselves," Harry realized.
"Correct," Ariana affirmed. "We are not vigilantes. We are informants presenting a case to the proper authorities. Our role is to provide the intelligence and the means of capture. Their role is to execute the arrest and administer the law." She leaned forward. "First, we assemble our own internal council. The people who have the most right to be present for this revelation. Professor Dumbledore, for his authority. Professor McGonagall, as your Head of House. Professor Lupin, as the defense professor. And," she said, her gaze steady, "Professor Snape."
Harry recoiled. "Snape? Why him? He hates Me! He'll try to stop it, especially if he finds Sirius related to me!"
"Professor Snape does note hate you, he did hate Sirius Black though," Ariana corrected gently. "He hated James Potter as well. But he loved your mother. His entire life since her death has been shaped by the belief that her best friend was responsible for it. He, more than anyone, deserves to know the truth of who actually betrayed Lily Evans to her death. His participation is not just strategic; it is a moral necessity."
Harry, remembering the flash of pure pain in Snape's eyes when she had mentioned his mother's name before, understood. It was a bitter pill, but he could see her logic.
"Once our council is assembled and informed," Ariana continued, "we will present the final, irrefutable piece of evidence: Pettigrew himself. We will then contact Amelia Bones, present her with the living, breathing traitor, and allow the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to take over."
The plan was brilliant in its simplicity and its respect for protocol. It was designed for maximum impact and minimum chaos.
"Okay," Harry said, taking a deep breath. "Let's do it."
That evening, a series of discreet, urgent messages were sent. One by one, the summoned professors arrived in a large, unused classroom on the seventh floor that Ariana had secured for the meeting. Dumbledore arrived first, his expression curious but trusting. McGonagall was next, looking stern and concerned. Lupin appeared pale and wary, clearly wondering what new crisis had emerged. Finally, Snape swept in, his face a mask of contemptuous impatience.
"What is the meaning of this, Dumbledore?" Snape drawled. "I have potions to grade."
"Ariana has something of critical importance to discuss," Dumbledore said simply, gesturing for them all to take a seat.
With Harry standing silently by her side, Ariana laid out the case. She did not tell it as a story. She presented it as a formal intelligence briefing, just as she had to Dumbledore about the Basilisk. She presented the inconsistencies about the missing trial transcripts. She explained the logic of the last-minute switch for the secret keeper of the Fidelius charm.
She detailed the evidence of Pettigrew's unregistered Animagus ability, a missing finger. And finally, she stated the conclusion: Sirius Black was innocent, and Peter Pettigrew, the true traitor and mass murderer, had been hiding for twelve years in his animal form.
Lupin listened, his face growing paler and more horrified with every word, the memory of his own suspicions and his guilt over believing his friend was a traitor washing over him.
McGonagall was utterly speechless, her hand pressed to her mouth in shock.
Snape, however, sneered. "An interesting and entirely fanciful fairy tale, Miss Dumbledore. You have no proof. Black is a murderer, and that is the end of it."
"The proof," Ariana said calmly, "is currently in the Gryffindor third-year boys' dormitory. In the form of a pet rat named Scabbers, who is missing a toe on his front paw, just as the largest piece of Peter Pettigrew found at the scene of his 'death' was the single finger."
She then turned her gaze directly to Snape, her eyes holding no malice, only a profound, quiet truth. "Professor Snape. Sirius Black did not lead Voldemort to the Potters. Peter Pettigrew did. Peter Pettigrew is the man responsible for the death of Lily Evans."
The name, spoken so plainly, so finally, shattered Snape's composure. The sneer vanished. His face became a ravaged landscape of shock, dawning horror, and twelve years of misdirected hatred crumbling to dust. He stared at her, speechless.
"The final phase of the plan," Ariana announced to the stunned room, "is to secure the target. Professor Dumbledore, with your permission, I suggest you summon Director Bones and a team of Aurors. Have them wait, Disillusioned, outside the Gryffindor common room. We will then go up, retrieve the rat, and bring it to them for a forced transformation."
Dumbledore, his face grim but his eyes blazing with a fierce energy, nodded once. "A sound and impeccable plan. Severus, Remus, Minerva, you will accompany me."
Minutes later, the Gryffindor common room was mostly empty, the students having retired for the night. Amelia Bones and two Aurors stood silently under Disillusionment Charms near the portrait hole. Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, and Lupin stood waiting as Harry and Ariana ascended the stairs to the boys' dormitory.
They found Ron asleep, and curled on his pillow, a fat, grey, and decidedly ordinary-looking rat. Scabbers. With a silent Summoning Charm, Ariana levitated the sleeping rat from the pillow. It squirmed, its eyes opening, and began to squeak in terror as it floated through the air. They brought it downstairs.
The moment the rat saw the assembled professors, particularly Lupin and Snape, it began to struggle with a frantic, desperate intelligence no normal rat possessed.
"Now, Director Bones," Dumbledore said calmly.
Amelia Bones and the Aurors became visible. She pointed her wand at the struggling rat.
"Revelio!"
A flash of blue-white light enveloped the rat. The creature convulsed in mid-air, growing and twisting. Its fur receded, its snout flattened, its limbs elongated. In its place, whimpering and trembling on the floor, was a small, balding man with watery eyes and a pointed nose. A man whose right hand was missing a finger.
Peter Pettigrew.
He looked around at the faces staring down at him—the sorrowful Dumbledore, the furious McGonagall, the grief-stricken Lupin, and the utterly murderous Snape—and let out a pathetic squeal of terror.
"Remus… my old friend!" he whimpered. "You can't believe him! Black is the one! He
was always the strong one!"
"Silence, traitor," Snape hissed, his voice trembling with a rage so profound it was almost silent.
"Peter Pettigrew," Amelia Bones said, her voice like the snap of a closing iron vault. "You are under arrest for the betrayal of James and Lily Potter, the murder of twelve Muggles, and conspiring with the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
The Aurors stepped forward, their wands raised, and bound Pettigrew in magical ropes before he could even think of transforming back. The lie, the great, festering lie that had shaped the last twelve years of the wizarding world, had been demolished. Not in a chaotic fight, but in a quiet, controlled, and utterly irrefutable presentation of the truth.
Ariana stood back and watched, a silent observer of the history she had just rewritten.