There were some nights when the castle didn't sleep.
The torches dimmed, the portraits nodded off in their frames, but the stones — the stones still whispered.
Harry had learned to listen.
In those murmurs he could almost hear the rhythm of fate itself — the soft pulse of the world deciding which stories to repeat and which to change.
And tonight, he intended to change one.
⸻
It had been nearly two weeks since Dobby's visit, and Hogwarts had returned to its golden autumn routine: crisp mornings, enchanted leaves drifting through courtyards, the smell of pumpkin pastries and parchment.
But Harry's thoughts had grown sharper.
Every laugh, every cheer at breakfast, every house rivalry that flared up and vanished — all of it reminded him that somewhere among them scurried the man who had betrayed his parents and condemned Sirius to a living death.
Peter Pettigrew — alive, breathing, sleeping in a boy's dormitory, tucked into Ron's pocket.
Harry knew that truth as certainly as he knew his own heartbeat.
But he also knew the limits of the Law of the Unspoken.
It wasn't merely a curse; it was an ancient law of magic woven into time itself. Directly speaking of future events bent reality's threads, creating fractures that could unmake magic around him — he'd seen the first shimmer of it during his talk with Dumbledore last semester.
The world resisted being told its future.
But it didn't resist being led toward it.
So Harry began to plan — not as the boy who lived, but as the strategist he'd learned to become.
⸻
He started small.
Subtle glances during breakfast.
Moments when Ron left his rat unattended.
Casual conversations that seemed to go nowhere.
Each detail added to the rhythm of Pettigrew's behavior — his sleeping patterns, his absences, the faint tremor in his whiskers whenever loud noises erupted nearby.
It was eerie, watching a man masquerade as a pet.
Harry sometimes wondered how much of Pettigrew's consciousness survived beneath that disguise — if he ever dreamt, if he ever remembered the night he betrayed his friends.
Sometimes, late at night, when the dormitory was dark and the other boys snored softly, Harry would stare at the small bundle of fur on Ron's pillow and whisper, too quietly for anyone but magic to hear:
"Not long now."
⸻
When Harry finally went to Dumbledore, he did not knock. The office knew him well enough by now to open when he arrived.
Fawkes trilled softly from his perch. The phoenix's flame-colored wings glowed faintly, casting warm shadows across the shelves of trinkets and tomes.
Dumbledore looked up from his desk, half-smiling. "Harry. You have that look again — the one you wear when you're about to speak in riddles."
Harry grinned faintly. "I thought you liked riddles."
"Indeed I do," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling. "Though I prefer them solved before bedtime."
Harry hesitated only a moment. Then, deliberately, he drew a folded scrap of parchment from his pocket — the same parchment he'd written by candlelight the night before. On it were six lines, written in careful script:
A rat who isn't,
A friend who never was,
A secret in fur and shadow,
A debt older than guilt,
When truth bites,
Chains will break.
He slid it across the desk. "Something's been living too long under false skin," he said quietly.
Dumbledore studied the riddle for a long time. His face gave nothing away, but the light in his eyes sharpened. "You're certain?"
Harry nodded once. "As certain as I can be without saying what I shouldn't."
A brief silence followed — the kind that vibrated with unspoken understanding.
Then Dumbledore folded the parchment carefully, as though it were something sacred. "There are things," he said softly, "that must be discovered rather than told. And there are truths that choose their own hour."
"I know," Harry said. "I just want to make sure the hour isn't too late this time."
Dumbledore's eyes softened with pride — and something like sorrow. "Then let us make sure it isn't."
⸻
They agreed on subtle action.
Nothing rushed. Nothing reckless.
Dumbledore would begin quietly monitoring the Gryffindor Tower wards for unusual magical signatures — faint shifts that might betray an animagus form.
Harry would observe from the inside, waiting for the moment Pettigrew's disguise wavered.
Together, they would let the truth surface naturally — as though the world itself had chosen to reveal it.
But Harry's preparation didn't end there.
He began testing the limits of the Law of the Unspoken, carefully.
He discovered he could guide events without punishment — suggest paths, create coincidences, move fate gently instead of tearing it open.
It wasn't about control. It was about cooperation.
If magic was a river, he was learning how to swim with its current rather than dam it.
That understanding would one day make him the greatest wizard alive — but for now, it made him patient.
⸻
That weekend, the Gryffindor common room buzzed with chatter about the next Quidditch match.
Ron was in high spirits, laughing and tossing Bertie Bott's Beans at Seamus, while Scabbers slept contentedly on his lap.
Harry watched, calm but attentive.
Then, with the lightest flick of intent — not even a spell, just will — he nudged the magic around the room.
A faint draft stirred the curtains. A book tumbled from the shelf behind Ron's chair, startling Scabbers awake. The rat bolted, squeaking madly, dashing straight toward the fireplace — before freezing mid-step, nose twitching violently.
For a moment, the illusion faltered.
Harry felt it — the sharp, shivering pulse of human magic buried under fur.
It lasted only a heartbeat before vanishing again.
He let the air settle.
No one else had noticed.
But Dumbledore, somewhere in his tower, would have felt the same echo through the wards.
Harry smiled faintly to himself.
The threads were moving.
⸻
That night, lying in his four-poster bed, Harry stared up at the canopy, thinking.
He thought of Sirius — the hollow-eyed man he'd once seen through prison bars.
He thought of Dumbledore's faith, of Hermione's curiosity, of Ron's loyalty.
And then he thought of Peter Pettigrew, sleeping in false innocence only feet away.
Harry's jaw tightened. "This time," he murmured, "you don't get to run."
⸻
(End of Chapter 50– "Threads of Justice")