It turned out that Harry was doomed to spend quite a bit of time waiting. Eventually, the Malfoys stopped speaking with the barkeep, apparently having been disappointed in their queries. They departed from the main room of the inn, presumably to go rest in their room. Even then, the barkeep continued to ignore Harry who was not shy about glancing at his timepiece often.
After a while, the dinner arrived. It was marked by the arrival of a few of the tavern's regulars and the Malfoys. Harry supposed that those who spoke Albanian had been informed as to what time dinner was served. He was beginning to feel somewhat resentful until the barkeep made a point of serving him first. Somewhat mollified, Harry eyed the plate of food and began to eat.
Harry was just about to pick up his fork to try an unfamiliar dish when silence fell over the room. Harry looked up to see that Peter Pettigrew was standing near the doorway of the tavern, his wand drawn and pointed at the Malfoys. Harry was surprised, but he mostly felt like an idiot. He should have been able to detect that Peter was close well before Peter could come into sight like this.
"My fellow servants," Peter wheezed, his face painted with fear. He backed away from Lucius and Draco as if they already had their wands drawn and were ready to kill him. The locals looked from the Malfoys to Pettigrew, confusion painted on their faces.
"Surrender, Pettigrew," Lucius said coolly. "You know the consequences will be worse if you don't."
"Please," Pettigrew cried, losing his composure. "Please don't kill me."
"We're here to capture you," Lucius barked. "Now put down your wand. We won't kill you."
"You don't understand," Peter said, literally beginning to break down into tears as the local Albanians, Harry, and the Malfoys watched in consternation. "Please, I swear I'll be good. Please don't kill me."
"No, you moron!" Lucius yelled as Draco alternated his gaze between his father and Pettigrew. "We aren't going to kill you! Now put down your wand and we'll talk about the situation."
Pettigrew shook his head and backed away from the Malfoys. Harry watched in confusion, his thoughts racing as he tried to understand what was going on. The conversation didn't make any sense. Why was Pettigrew talking and hysterically acting as if the Malfoys wanted to kill him when they had made it abundantly clear that they wanted to capture him? Surely, Pettigrew knew that Voldemort would want him alive.
Lucius stood up from his chair, his wand drawn. He walked slowly toward Pettigrew. "Just put your wand down and we can be on our way. You will be alive," he said in an even tone.
"No, no!" Pettigrew screamed.
Suddenly, it clicked in Harry's mind. It was a show-just like the show put on by the Peter of Harry's dimension as he killed several Muggles and disappeared, leaving Sirius Black to take the rap for betraying the Potters and murdering others. Clearly, Peter had noticed the Malfoys making inquiries in the Albanian villages. He had waited until they arrived in a village where none of the witnesses spoke English. Perhaps that had even been his purpose in fleeing to Albania. He would cast some spell that killed the Malfoys. The non-English speaking witnesses would assure later Death Eaters that Peter Pettigrew was dead and that he had been killed by the Malfoys. The Malfoys who would die would not be able to say otherwise.
Lucius was getting closer to Pettigrew. In a couple of seconds, he would be able to grab the wand away from his fellow Death Eater. Remembering that Draco was part of his wife's bargain with Narcissa Malfoy, Harry drew his phoenix feather wand and cast a summoning charm on Draco. Draco was yanked across the room just as Harry erected a shield between himself and the place where Lucius was approaching Pettigrew. Almost simultaneously, a blast exploded across the room, presumably from Pettigrew's wand.
Not even bothering to look at the aftermath, Harry shot a stunner at Draco and then raced to the street, crossing ground where there had once been a tavern wall. Unless he missed his guess, Peter would be in rat form and scurrying for the nearest hiding place-probably the forest. Coughing from the smoke that was now wafting through the air, Harry croaked out a spell, repeating it multiple times as if it were a tongue twister or limerick. " Serpensortia!"
Snakes began appearing from the end of Harry's wand. " Bring me the rat! " he hissed in Parseltongue as he began running toward the forest. " Bring me the rat! " Perhaps because Harry had conjured them or perhaps because parselmouths had inherent authority over snakes, the snakes obeyed Harry, racing forward, using their sense of smell to find Pettigrew's trail.
" Thisss way," hissed one of the snakes as it slithered rapidly in a diagonal slant toward the forest.
Several of the snakes also caught whatever scent the first snake had found and also began slithering toward the forest. Harry started running after them, and for a moment, he thought he could see Pettigrew in his rat form scurrying toward cover in the forest. However, Harry simply was not able to run fast enough.
Realizing that his tactics needed to change, Harry stopped, grabbed his shrunken trunk from his robes, enlarged it, and threw it open. Inside, he found a Nimbus 2001 that Bellatrix had acquired on one of her supply shopping trips. Initially, Harry had been annoyed that she had taken upon herself to select a broom for him-he would have rather had a Firebolt.
Now extremely grateful for Bellatrix's initiative, Harry mounted the broom and zoomed into the forest, hot on the trail of his snakes and Pettigrew. The snakes were hissing loudly enough that Harry was able to catch up with them, hindered only slightly by the necessity to weave in and out of the trees as he zoomed through the forest. Eventually, he was flying directly over Pettigrew who was desperately scampering across the forested terrain in an attempt to escape the snakes.
Briefly, Harry considered trying to stun him, but realized that a rat made a rather small target. Choosing to employ another strategy, Harry zoomed forward to ground that Pettigrew had not yet covered and began conjuring more snakes. " Bring me the rat! " he hissed loudly.
Now, with Harry's snakes surrounding Pettigrew. Harry swung around, arced through the forest and made his descent to the forest floor just as one of the newly conjured snakes lunged and grabbed Pettigrew in his jaws. " Bring him to me," Harry hissed.