Pity it a one-shot

very interesting

Now this would have repercussions... Peter alive and whole clears Sirius immediately, and when the story of what happened/who betrayed the Potters reaches the press the British werewolves are really going to catch it - unless he leaves the country Remus is likely to get dragged back into the war once Voldy returns - on the Dark side.

I suspect this Sirius us also going to need a ton of therapy...

Also Harry looked after, and trained by Sirius and *Peter* post Book 2 is not one I've read before...

That is a Beast of Caerbannog of a bunny.

Hmph. Makes a damn lot of sense, even if I wish it didn't.

Actually, Snape was knocked out by a blow on the head (and if Sirius had had his way in canon, might not ever have woken up again).

I wonder how far Remus is going to run that full moon night?

Although it would fun to think of Snape listening in...though I'm sure Albus would just chide him for being wrong about Sirius (as if he wasn't, too), and somehow cover up for Remus anyway (since he was willing to accept Sirius' bare word that he was innocent, with Peter gone).

A scenario I would never have envisioned, and damn entertaining and thought-provoking story, once YOU did so...
Rock on

I could believe in Lupin's explanation without difficulty. His honesty, though, was a bit harder to swallow. Even with a guaranteed escape, he'd always rather fudge than disclose. When canon-Lupin admits culpability, it's to distract from a stronger charge (for instance when he describes his silence over Sirius's Animagus abilities as self-deception, nobody thinks to ask why he didn't tell about the passages or the Map...)

To the poster who thought Sev was telling Lily his 'theory' after the incident - Sev could not have done so. Their talk in the Prince's tale happens a few days after the incident and yet it is the first Lily has spoken to him since it happened.

It is much more likely that Sev just never considered that the protections put in place would merely be the Whomping Willow and nothing else - especially if he believed that Sirius and James were going down that tunnel during the full moon. It just doesn't make sense that whomever is making the protections (in Sev's mind) would allow it to get all the way down the tunnel to the roots of this tree, where anyone could hear it.

In other words, he thought Remus would be caged. Or at the very least, that there would be a door at the other end.

Stupefy knocks a person out cold, rather than merely putting them to sleep, so Snape wouldn't have woken up.

The idea that Snape already knew Lupin was a werewolf is based on the Prince's Tale from DH. When Severus hinted to Lily that Remus was a werewolf, she told him she didn't buy his theories, and brought up how Potter had "saved" him near the willow. It really isn't clear on whether he started telling her those "theories," before or after the incident. I'm more inclined to say after because Snape going to confront a transformed werewolf seems so out of character.

Jesus Christ, enough of the "Sirius fed Snape to Lupin" bullshit. Snape went there of his own free will fully suspecting there was a werewolf there; you think he went there out of altruism?

Also, given that James financially provided for Remus after Hogwarts; this makes Lupin even more of a cunt than how you've portrayed him here.

Actually, they all are; Lupin trades away an innocent woman and her child, and Snape only gave a shit when Voldemort marked the bullseye on the woman whose ass he wanted to tap.

REMY HOW COULD YOU!

Interesting take. It always bothered me that the supposedly close friends were so quick to distrust each other. Remus and Sirius clearly had no problems suspecting each other and then Remus easily shifted to believing Sirius over Peter without really asking Peter for his side of the story. Torture, truth potion, using polyjuice to trick Peter into talking to someone he shouldn't because he thought it was somone trusted, the inperius curse; the list of resonable explanations is long and I think your fic shows that.

Too much of the Harry Potter books rely on the audience taking a single character's view of events as the absolute truth without challenge. The evidence was stacked heavily against Peter but I would think that a close friend would at least want to try to find an explanation, other than believing it was a malicious betrayal. The ease which Remus accepted what Peter did bothered me. And he jumped straight to wanting to help kill Peter. No talk of turning Peter over to the ministry for a fair trial, or even to clear Sirius' name. If Harry hadn't intervened both Sirius and Remus would have been guilty of murder. Vengence does not justify killing someone. And who is that willing to kill someone who was supposedly a close friend? Not someone I would consider a friend. And there was no indication that Remus was relieved or joyful (even for just a moment) at discovering that a friend he had supposedly mourned was not really dead.

Also, I always disliked Sirius' explanation for how things "really" went down in his final show-down with Pettigrew. The timeline never made sense to me. Peter blasted a street full of muggles behind him, cut off his finger, turned into a rat, and then ran away. And while Peter did all this Sirius was unable to stop him because he was too busy standing there twiddling his thumbs? He couldn't get off one stupefy while Peter worked an entire chain of spells? Either Sirius is utterly incompetent or he's lying about what happened. I think a more logical explanation would be that Sirius tried to kill Peter, but Peter dodged the spell and Sirius accidently blasted the muggles. Then Peter ran off during the confusion. (Although cutting his finger off implies forethought.)

That... fits canon, too. At least until book four. You're scarily good at these...