Caged.

Author's note:
This will include the following pairings: Mainly Peter/Ron, with a short Ron/Remus affair. Some Snape/Ron/Peter. Mention of Hermione/Percy and perhaps Harry/Sirius. And anything you might suggest.
This will include the following warnings: Chan, dub-con, angst, bestiality (animal assisted wanking), hints of D/s and bondage, somnophilia, fluff, perhaps bloodplay... and anything you might suggest. But it's really just sweet and romantic.

THIS STORY STILL NEEDS A BETA! Help me? Please?

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When Ron moved back to the dorm just before dinner, Snape still hadn’t woken, which was just fine by him. He levitated Pettigrew’s cage all the way, partly out of fear of being bitten by the now rather active rat, and partly because he wanted to keep as much distance as possible from him. He couldn’t keep it up when entering the Gryffindor common room, though, as several people asked if he got himself a new rat or if Scabbers had returned. Ron tried to sound cheerful about Scabbers’ reappearance, but wasn’t sure if he managed to be convincing. Nobody mentioned the events of last night, which was strange, as Ron was sure he had seen two Gryffindor second-years among the ones who’d seen them with Black and Pettigrew. Nobody asked how he broke his leg, either, but Ron didn’t plan to offer any explanation. He tried to escape the happy chatter to the solitary of his dorm, but found Harry was already inside. He let the cage clatter to the ground and flopped onto his bed.
“What a day!” he exclaimed heavily.
“Hmm-hm. I’m surprised Dumbledore didn’t give you the Werewolf Talk.”
“The what?”
“He made Hermione and me promise not to tell anyone about anything of that evening. Especially not about Professor Lupin being a werewolf.” He snorted. “As if we would! He’s the only one we can confide in, with all that’s happened. I can’t even tell Hagrid, and he’s all ‘beware of Black’ and ‘don’t get into trouble, Harry’”
“That’s a bit late now. I like to think trouble’s over for now. Though with him here, one can’t be sure … I hate him.”
“I hate him, too. He killed my mum and dad.”
“And to think I’m supposed to feed that bastard.”
“And to think you did so for years without knowing about him.”
Ron shuddered. “Better get it over with now. I don’t even keep anything for him anymore, I’ll have to go down to the kitchens before dinner.”
“I’ll come with you.” Harry said sympathetically, “We’ll have to hurry, though, dinner’s in ten minutes.”

When they returned from lunch with Hermione, Pettigrew was gone.
“Dumbledore must have been up here already.” Ron stated a bit disappointed.
“Well, it would have looked conspicuous had he come up here personally to have a look on Ron’s rat, wouldn’t it? He wasn’t at lunch, haven’t you noticed?”
Ron hadn’t, but agreed with Hermione’s reasoning.
“But how will he bring him back, then?”
“No idea … perhaps he’ll send house-elves.” Hermione said, frowning.
Ron was not in the mood to argue about her attitude, after all, she had brought him a whole bag full of Honeydukes’ sweets.
“Perhaps.” He agreed, freeing a chocolate frog from its wrapping and biting its head off.
“That reminds me. Here!” Harry said and pulled out a small bag from under his bed, throwing it to Ron. It was [insert stuff from Zonko’s here].
“Great! How’d you get that? I thought you weren’t allowed to go?”
“Dumbledore said he’ll contact Sirius about the form, but he implied I would go anyway. So I did.”
“It’s not implying to smile when putting you off until next year, Harry.” Hermione said, but she wasn’t really angry. In fact, Ron thought her smile was implying she approved of Harry’s behaviour.
“He said ‘I think you will manage fine until then’, and not only did he smile, but he winked. You know he knows about the cloak and passages. And he knows me well enough to know I was thinking about them. If that encouraging wink wasn’t implying …”
“I’m not your teacher, Harry, I can’t forbid you to do as you think is best. And perhaps you noted I didn’t rat on you!”
Ron flinched at the reminder of his new dorm mate, though Harry apparently didn’t notice.
While Hermione stopped bickering soon to get out her holiday homework and enjoy the freedom of taking crookshanks up into their dorm, the boys spent the rest of the evening digging for werewolf jokes (Ron knew loads, having grown up with wizards) and trying to decipher whether they would insult or entertain Professor Lupin, which managed to take Ron’s mind off his new responsibility. But when Hermione finally left for her dorm, the other boys came in, chattering about holiday plans, and Harry and Ron got ready for bed, Ron found his thoughts straying to Pettigrew again. What were they talking about, anyway? They should just force him into confessing. But how? Ron wondered. A confession will land him into Azkaban, and what could be worse? Dumbledore won’t kill him, whatever he does. Why should he get himself into prison? I wouldn’t. That last thought bothered Ron to no end, and he shook it off immediately. He just has to. It’s his own damn fault, betraying his friends and murdering a street full of muggles. Dumbledore’ll sort it out. And with that, he decided to stay awake until Dumbledore returned Pettigrew. However, when a house-elf entered the dorm with a small pop barely an hour later, Ron was fast asleep.

The next day, Harry got a letter from Sirius.
“What does it say?”
Harry, still engrossed in his reading, pushed a scrap of parchment over the table that turned out to be his permission to visit Hogsmeade.
“That’s great, Harry. Next year, we can go together without sneaking around.”
“Yeah, and if he gets a pardon from the ministry, I could meet Sirius there. He says he expects Dumbledore could convince the ministry of anything if need be. Pettigrew won’t stay with you long.”
“That’d be great. He’s getting on my nerves already.”
That, Ron had to admit, was not really true, as Scabbers had been quiet and he wasn’t even taking care of him (he forgot to feed him today), but on the other hand, the mere idea of his presence was enough to make him angry, and being angry generally got on his nerves soon.
“But Dumbledore said there might not even be a trial! He can’t just make people see the truth. If he could free Sirius that easily, he would have done so already.” Hermione said.
Harry glared at her.
“How do you manage to shatter hopes within seconds and be so damned right about it?”
Ron, who had thought along the same lines, sniggered. Hermione sulked.
“Obviously, I can just make you see truth. It’s not my fault truth is unpleasant.”
“Couldn’t you do the same thing with the ministry?” Ron suggested. “Just walk in there and reason with them? I’ve yet to see anybody successfully contradicting you.”
“Yeah. Pity there are no lawyers in the wizarding world, you would make a pretty good one.”
Harry folded the letter into his pocket without offering any more comments on it. That irked Ron for a moment, as he normally shared everything with his best friends, but then again, he didn’t read out letters from his parents. This would be similar for Harry.

Classes dragged on. As the end of term was approaching and exams were over, Snape’s classes were a free period, as well as Lupin’s for as long as he was ‘ill’. Hermione tried to convince them to use the free time to do their holiday homework, but instead, they settled for playing exploding snap, visiting Hagrid, roaming the grounds or playing a quick game of quidditch. Hermione was friends enough to do her history of magic essay in the spectator stands, while Harry and Ron, along with some classmates, had a fun match with only two chasers per team and no beaters or seekers. They even let two Slytherins join in – Theodore Nott and a girl whose name Ron didn’t remember.
Ron found he was a not-so-bad keeper when not under pressure, and Harry, whom he expected to excel in every position, switched from chaser to keeper for the other team after discovering he was much better catching balls than throwing them. Nott, they had to admit, was playing chaser reasonably well, he certainly beat Dean to it, who, though not a bad flyer, was mostly fooling around and trying out moves far above his abilities. Seamus, the Slytherin girl and [insert some Gryffindor girl from their year here] were not overly talented, but clearly ambitious and fun to play with. They were the ones trying to keep track on the points, but they lost count several times and it remained unsolved who won, as the teams were well balanced and nobody really cared anyway. Hermione called it a great way to socialize, as opposed to encouraging competition, rivalry and house enmity. She even mentioned considering to join, were they to do it again some other time, which made Ron enter the shower in tremendously high spirits.
Until there, it happened again.
Ron had grown up with five older brothers, and he had showered with others before. He also had a growth spurt over the year, which made him feel older and a lot more self-conscious. So when Harry, being used to this from Gryffindor team practise, undressed, Ron had to force himself to just get it over with. He managed just fine, until Dean walked by. Dean – dark and beautiful, muscled and compactly built. Dean, Ron just knew, would grow into a tall, broad man, with smooth skin and those big, brown eyes framed by a strong-jawed, masculine face. There it happened – blood pooling where it had no right to be outside the safety of his bed. He was growing hard, and fast, and in the presence of several naked, third-year boys. Think about Snape, he ordered himself, no, not Snape, wait … Filch! Filch, naked. That did it. He was still blushing from head to toe, but he was no longer in danger of being caught with a hard-on. Ron fled the showers and hurried into the castle.
He was the first to arrive for Defence against the Dark Arts, and the door was still locked. He sat down on the floor, reviewing his notes to prevent thinking about his penile issues again.
He was halfway through his notes on Kappas when Professor Lupin opened the door from the inside.
“You’ve got no class yet, you know. Were you waiting for me?”
“Er … no, I just got nothing else to do. Are you still ill?” Ron realized he’d forgotten all about not having DADA for two more days, and that he’d never waited for class to begin outside the classroom; normally, he’d arrive just in time when teacher and most students already were inside. The door had been locked, but Lupin must have noticed him trying the door.
“In a manner of speaking, I am. You didn’t fight with your friends, did you?”
“No, sir, why?”
“You never miss a free period, and you never show up early for classes. So what brought you here?”
“Just … I’m a bit disorganised, I guess. Well, er … I’ll better be going, then,” Ron said and got up, feeling awkward.
“You could come in, if you have nothing to do,” Professor Lupin said. Ron sensed he believed Ron might have come to him with problems and was now losing his nerve. On the other hand, he had questions, and better ask them when invited.
“Yeah, okay then.”
Professor Lupin led him through the classroom and into his office.
“Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Ron looked around the room while Lupin prepared tea. [insert description from book 3 here].
“So, what confused you so much today?”
Ron felt his face growing hot again and settled for close-to-the-truth.
“I got Scabbers back. I mean, Pettigrew, and I don’t really manage to think of him as human. He didn’t behave as one either in the shrieking shack. I don’t know what to do with him. I want to let him starve to death, but he’s – he was – my rat. I go to breakfast and save a little something for him. Then I throw it away when I remember who he is. How did you ever end up friends with that scum? Sorry. With him. How?”
Lupin stared into his tea, thinking.
“That’s a very personal question, and not an easy one.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer, you know.”
“It’s okay. As he’s staying with you, you have a right to know. First, you do realize you’ve seen him at his worst? Begging for his life, still disoriented from the change? He always had problems thinking clearly after the animagus transformation. Sirius and James had, too, but they got much better on it over time. Peter had spent 12 years as a rat and didn’t transform voluntary. That would have made it worse. He always was a bit selfish and whiny, but never like that.”
“From what I’ve heard, he liked having big friends looking out for him.”
“He did. And he looked out for us, too. He went to great lengths to keep us out of trouble, as long as it was risk-free for him.”
“Big deal.” Ron grumbled and remembered too late that it might be disrespectful.
“You might call it cowardice, to keep out of trouble, but he was merely cautious. If he wants something, he’d go through all kinds of dangers to get it. He must have gotten unsure in what he wanted – he can’t have valued our friendship and views much or he wouldn’t have changed sides. I don’t understand him myself.”
“Then I probably shouldn’t try.”
At that, Lupin actually smiled.
“Why not? An outsider’s view often is more accurate on those things. I’ve got a history with him, and I’ve only found out about his betrayal three days ago. And my memories on our friendship will always make the man he’s become more incomprehensible to me.”
“I’m not good at understanding people. ‘Mione is, she could try. She’s the logical one.”
“Perhaps. But people are not logical. You, for example, are a mystery to me.”
“Me?” Ron asked astonished. He always thought of himself as a bit simple. Not stupid, but simple. Life was friends and quidditch and family – he didn’t need to hide from murderous maniacs and save the world every year like Harry, or make a scientific experiment out of the easiest things like Hermione (the time she spent dissecting her food, trying to find out what was in it and making up rules what to eat first …)
“Yes, you. I remember you saying ‘get away from me, werewolf’ few days ago, yet here you are, talking with me completely undaunted and much more naturally than anybody I’ve met who knows about my condition. It’s not like you are not prejudiced, but you simply seem to forget about it. Tell me, how do you do that?”
Ron regretted following Lupin’s invitation, as his shame of saying that hit him in the stomach at full force. He tried to give an honest answer.
“I didn’t mean that. Really. I had no idea how – I have no concept of werewolves. They’re the monsters in fairy tales, not humans. When Hermione told us, it was as if all I knew about you was rendered irrelevant because of that dark secret. As if everything you said or did was just a farce to prevent us from finding out you’re a monster that’ll eat us limb by limb. Now that I know you won’t – you’re no werewolf to me, anymore. It’s just a condition that makes you ill several times a month. Like now. Er … that’s just terribly rude of me, but when exactly does the moon rise, today?”
Lupin chuckled, but tensed visibly.
“Oh, it’s no full moon today. I’m just still tired and sore from my transformations, especially the one where I took my potion late. Had it not been so cloudy and had we been outside longer, I could have killed all of you. That mustn’t happen again. Dumbledore set up a new set of rules for Snape and me to make my presence here absolutely secure. Obviously, I can’t be relied upon.”
Ron had never seen him so tired and sad. He groped for something nice to say.
“But it was a matter of life and death, seeing us run around with Pettigrew and Black. How were you supposed to stay in your rooms and wait for the potion?”
“It’s not coming after you that was reckless, it’s telling no one what was going on and where I was going, and it’s staying in the shack so long – that’s not the way things should be sorted out. You know Sirius asked me to kill Peter together?”
Ron remembered.
“Yeah.”
“Had we done so, Sirius would have had close to no chance to ever come out of hiding. It was a rash decision, and yet I’m sure I would have done it.”
He looked at Ron with the face of someone trying to get something very important across.
“I’ve never killed anyone in my whole life. I don’t think I could have lived with that, and yet I was stupid enough to get very close … I’m not showing responsibility for anything at all. I tried to resign, but Dumbledore won’t let me. Said I should help him work with Peter again.”
“Resign? Sir, you’re the best teacher we ever had! We need you.” Ron was shocked.
“And Dumbledore needs you, too. As a teacher, and whatever you’re doing with Pettigrew. What are you doing with him, anyway?”
“Talking, mostly. Negotiating. He transforms when we let him, so we hadn’t used the spell you saw in the Shrieking Shack. Doesn’t talk much, though. He seems willing to give us information, but he doesn’t know much of use. And he absolutely won’t confess to the ministry.”
“What about Veritaserum?”
“That’s only used when people are caught by the ministry. There are antidotes to it, and spells such as Imperius or memory charms interfere with it. A good occlumens can fight it, too.”
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
They spent a while drinking their tea, mentioning the weather, classes and next year’s curriculum, but didn’t return to the subject of Pettigrew. Ron very nearly missed the start of the next lesson and had to leave in a hurry. At least, he thought, I have stuff a lot more important to think about than my genitals.