Before long, Hermione's ginger cat appeared.
He swept past Hagrid's hut and came running lightly over. His fur was ruffled, with a few willow leaves clinging to it. He was squinting towards Hagrid's hut with an inscrutable, unfathomable gaze.
"Crookshanks!" Hermione exclaimed nervously.
She called to him softly, but he did not respond as usual, twitching his nose as though pretending not to hear his mistress's call.
He remained motionless, like a stone cat guarding a pharaoh's tomb, staring intently at the hut.
Just then, they saw Hagrid stand up, lift the kettle of boiling water from the stove, and prepare to top up the tea for the others in the room.
"Peter Pettigrew!" Harry exclaimed, snapping out of his daze. "He is in the tea caddy! Let me go and get him!"
"No." Draco caught hold of him just in time as he tried to rush out, even pulling him back slightly. "I do not think you can appear in front of yourself. The other you will go mad, and might even draw his wand and try to kill you..."
"He is right," Hermione said quickly, a look of alarm on her face. "Interfering with time is dangerous; we cannot simply rush in like this."
"Then at the very least..." Harry stared at the window resentfully, gritting his teeth, "I have to warn us."
He grabbed a pebble from near the pumpkins and hurled it through Hagrid's window, knocking over the tea caddy on the table. Tea leaves scattered across the table, and the rat Peter Pettigrew had transformed into slid out of the caddy.
They heard Ron shout. A moment later, a small, dark shape darted out of the back door of the hut... it was Peter Pettigrew in his rat form.
Then Harry, Ron, and Hermione from the other timeline filed out as well, closely following the shadowy shape, and ran off into the distance.
Then the front door was hastily flung open, and Hagrid, exclaiming something about the runaway rat, hurried off towards the castle.
"Let us go," Draco said to Harry and Hermione. They set off.
In the deepening twilight, hidden by the shadows of the trees, they stealthily followed the trio ahead of them.
By now, Crookshanks had tired of playing statue. He obediently followed behind them, trotting along with great enthusiasm, his paws twitching.
As dusk fell, dark, ink-black clouds thickened across the sky.
They lay hidden behind a thicket at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, watching the movement near the Whomping Willow... the great black dog had already darted into the tree hollow with lightning speed.
"That is Sirius!" Harry's face finally softened, no longer filled with anger. He said with a hint of excitement, "I never imagined he would be an Animagus..."
Draco's eyes flickered slightly at this.
He had long suspected Sirius Black might be an Animagus. It had become almost certain after his mother, Narcissa, had learned from Sirius that an Animagus could withstand Dementors.
The only thing Draco had never worked out was his animal form... tonight had finally solved that last piece of the mystery.
"No! Harry, watch out!" At that moment, the other Hermione beneath the Whomping Willow was shouting in panic.
Just then, Crookshanks appeared beside that Hermione.
The three of them turned round in surprise, only to find no one behind them.
No one had noticed the cat slip quietly away from their side to join his other mistress.
"Crookshanks has a scratch," Hermione whispered, crouching behind the bushes and watching her cat.
Draco lay beside her. He watched quietly as Harry and his friends disappeared into the tree hollow, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
"Is this the way to the Shrieking Shack?" he asked Hermione, turning to her.
"Yes," Hermione said softly, her expression focused. "Peter Pettigrew has been hiding there recently."
"That explains it," Draco said. "The lights in the Shrieking Shack."
"Mm." Hermione stared at the tree hollow and nodded in agreement without thinking.
"Sirius Black and Professor Lupin said much the same," she added quietly.
Draco remembered the tunnel that had appeared on the Marauder's Map. The Weasley twins had never recommended he use it; they had said "probably nobody has ever used it," and that they did not know how to get past the Whomping Willow.
How did Sirius Black and Lupin know of such a secret way in?
Had they used this very Marauder's Map when they were young?
"I am curious, how did they know how to get into the Shrieking Shack?" he murmured.
"They say, besides Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, who else could get in here?" Hermione temporarily forgot her awkwardness with Draco once the topic turned to business.
She met Draco's gaze out of habit, her eyes thoughtful. "Is that some sort of nickname they have for one another?"
This was the first time Draco had received any real eye contact from her since the quarrel. It brought a small measure of joy to his heart, easing the unease and disappointment that had gripped him.
His mind, as a result, grew unusually active.
He realised the names Hermione had mentioned belonged to the creators of the Marauder's Map.
This is no coincidence. They must have a strong connection to the Marauder's Map, and might even be its very creators.
Interesting. Draco smiled and looked into her eyes, feeling pleased.
Hermione snapped out of her daze and looked away.
She hurriedly turned her head and began questioning Harry instead. "What exactly happened after you went to find Sirius? You mentioned Dementors attacked you?"
"Yes, they very nearly gave him the Kiss!" Harry became rather agitated at the mention of it.
"Those filthy Dementors! They seemed to have mistaken Sirius for an escaped Azkaban prisoner, after all, he was there for so long!"
"If that is the case, how did you all come through unharmed?" Draco interjected. "Did you conjure a Patronus?"
"It was not me," Harry said, a look of confusion on his face. "I think it was my dad and my mum."
"What? That is impossible!" Hermione exclaimed in surprise.
"It is true. Sirius fainted first, then Ron. I tried to conjure a Patronus, but I was already too weak..." Harry recalled the moment with difficulty. "Then, through the haze, I saw a stag and a doe running towards us from different directions... they charged past us and drove off every Dementor in the sky..."
He saw that Draco and Hermione wore the same puzzled expression, as though he were talking in his sleep.
He did not care for their expressions.
"Do you remember? Professor Lupin..." Harry continued, then shuddered, remembering Lupin's werewolf form, "he said my mum and dad's Patronuses were a stag and a doe."
"Harry, you were probably hallucinating." Hermione looked at him with a mixture of shock and pity. "Your mum and dad are... are dead."
"I know," Harry said, "but there was someone on the other side of the lake, and I think... that was my dad."
"Do you think you saw his ghost?" Hermione asked hesitantly. "But ghosts cannot cast spells."
"I do not know... no... he looked very real," Harry said stubbornly.
"Perhaps... you conjured it yourself," Hermione said cautiously. "You were casting a spell at the time, were you not?"
Draco nodded in agreement with her, looking rather meek.
"I could not conjure a Patronus then! I could barely hold my wand, how could I have conjured one?"
Harry said angrily. "I can prove it to you, truly! In a little while, you will see for yourselves! And then you will see my mum and dad!"
"All right. But Harry, you must remember, we cannot be seen, not even by ourselves. We cannot interfere with what has already happened," Hermione said seriously. "Our first priority is to catch Peter Pettigrew, so he can no longer go about hurting people, and to prove our innocence."
"Yes." Harry took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on the direction of the Whomping Willow.
The willow was now completely still, with two shimmering points of light upon it... those were the eyes of Crookshanks, perched on a branch.
"Once he turns into a rat and runs into the grass, away from everyone, I shall bind him with a spell." Harry thought for a moment, then decided, "Without anyone noticing, quietly."
"I agree. It is a good plan," Hermione sighed, glancing at her watch and then up at the clouds overhead. "However, it will be a long wait. I think it will be another hour or so..."
Harry nodded heavily, sat down on a patch of grass, and stared blankly towards the Whomping Willow.