Peter pulled a strained face as though he were trying to do something, but Julian only scoffed at him. "You're wasting your effort. That bit of metal around your neck forces you to remain human," he said, and horror immediately filled Peter's face as he finally understood that escape was now nearly impossible. "I'm... innocent... please believe me," he said slowly, as if his muscles were no longer responding the way he wanted them to, and his visible confusion made that clear. Julian bared a vicious grin. "And that would be the weakening curse built into it, to stop you from trying to grab a wand or make a run for it," he said, snuffing out the last of the man's hope.
"You neglected to mention it would do that," Moody said, clearly caught off guard by the unexpected addition. Julian raised an eyebrow at the scarred man. "Are you seriously going to complain about something that makes your job easier?" he asked. Moody shook his head and let out a rough chuckle. "No, but the plan might have looked different if I'd known," he said in a tone that might as well have been a complaint even if it technically was not.
"Will someone explain what in Merlin's saggy robes is happening right now!?" Ron burst out, obviously rattled by everything unfolding in front of him. Arthur looked ready to step in and comfort his son, but Julian stopped him. "Let me handle them. You need to talk to the rest of your family about this," he said. Arthur let out a sigh, but he agreed. Looking over at Ron and Harry, both of whom were stunned by what had just happened, though for very different reasons, Julian sighed. "Both of you, follow me. I'll explain once we're far enough away from here that neither of you does something stupid," he said before leading them away from Moody and Pettigrew, who was currently being restrained in several different ways by the old auror.
Once they were out in the field beyond the house, Julian finally spoke. "What exactly do the two of you know about the night Harry lost his parents?" he asked seriously, catching them off guard. "His family was attacked by You-Know-Who, and he was the only one who survived, right?" Ron asked, not understanding what any of it had to do with what had just happened. Julian shook his head. "I'm afraid it's a lot more complicated than that," he said with a sigh.
"To explain the whole picture, I need to go over a few details that were important to that night. Harry's father had three people he considered his closest friends from their Hogwarts days onward, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. At the height of the war against the Dark Lord, they were on the front lines fighting him and his followers when a prophecy was given about the man's downfall coming in the form of a newborn child. Harry was that child, and because they knew the Dark Lord would stop at nothing to kill him, those three friends put a plan in place to keep him safe." Julian paused to let the information settle.
"That plan involved a very special kind of spell known as the Fidelius Charm, which made it impossible to locate their hiding place as long as the one chosen as secret keeper did not reveal the secret to anyone else. Keep in mind that becoming the secret keeper was basically the same as painting a huge target on your back for the Dark Lord, so it was a heavy burden. But contrary to what many people believed, the strongest of the group, Sirius, refused the role so he could act as bait for the Dark Lord while the real secret keeper stayed hidden." Julian stopped again.
"Unfortunately, the one chosen in his place was Peter Pettigrew, whom Sirius believed he could trust with that responsibility. What none of them knew, though, was that Peter had already been informing for the Dark Lord for quite some time and had been feeding him all of their plans. So not long after becoming the secret keeper, Peter led the Dark Lord directly to the Potters' hiding place, and what happened after that is well known," Julian said seriously.
"Driven insane by grief and fury, Sirius hunted Peter down with every intention of killing him, and Peter framed Sirius for the betrayal, for breaking the statute, and for murder by using a blasting curse on a group of muggles while cutting off one of his own fingers to make it look as though he too had died without leaving behind a body. In reality, he escaped after losing that finger and hid as the Weasleys' pet rat until now, thanks to the fact that he was an Animagus whose animal form happened to be an ordinary rat," Julian finished with a sigh.