Hello everyone!

I apologise for the incredibly long wait; I'm sure that you've all been wondering what will happen next. As always, I thank my readers who have followed, added to favourites or reviewed this story. Your comments are welcome here, so be sure to say what you think.

I owe you all several chapters, and there will be another to follow shortly – after I fix a few things, of course. Thanks again for all of your support, and I hope that you enjoy this to the end…

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Lake

Sirius stood in the waist deep shallows of the river, dumping a bucket of water over his head. He shivered as the icy water made contact, jolting him into alert wakefulness. It was his third day out in this strange new forest, and its tranquil environment still made him uneasy. He hadn't spoken aloud for the past twenty four hours, and when he'd been swearing violently earlier that very morning, his voice had come out as a hoarse croak, parched from disuse and lack of water. It had been difficult to keep hydrated when Sirius was focusing most of his attention on his surroundings, still paranoid about possible attacks. He figured this side of him had grown much worse after his constant association with the Order, especially Mad Eye Moody and his repetitive exclamations of "Constant vigilance!"

His luck had not been on his side since the moment he woke up a few hours before. Sirius found several of his newly conjured possessions missing, and all of his food was gone. Not only that, but his arms and legs were covered in strange rashes and itched like crazy. He was furious when the culprit had been discovered; a pair of small spiders had situated themselves on his hands. After brushing them off of himself hurriedly, he took a moment to commit their appearance to memory, in case he spotted them again. They looked fairly ordinary – a murky brown, with no real distinguishing features. Sirius was positive that this must be some sort of common forest spider, different to the similar looking arachnids back home - hence why he was currently dumping water over himself.

After he was finally satisfied with the effectiveness of the water – hopefully ridding himself of those pests – Sirius uttered the drying spell, waving his wand vaguely over his head. He waded out of the shallow water and repeated the process on the bank. Sirius sighed, exasperated with everything that had occurred over the past few days. Although he had attempted to deter from dwelling on those matters, Sirius found himself thinking back to the events that led him to this place. He frowned, casting his gaze up at the canopy above.

"I wonder how large this forest is," Sirius mused aloud.

Sirius flicked his wand yet again, watching as a rolled up slip of parchment materialized in his left hand. He unrolled it carefully so as not to damage it; the yellowed page crackled, protesting against Sirius' actions. His eyes flicked down at the parchment. He blinked.

"What?" Sirius croaked, baffled. It was blank. Turning it over, he discovered that the reverse side was exactly the same. Waving his wand again he repeated the spell, only to find that nothing had changed. Sirius glared at the object in his hands, frustrated.

"Everything else has worked so far," he muttered angrily. "But why this, why now?"

He doubted that there would be a prompt answer to that question, especially since he still hadn't run into anyone yet. Sirius' mind reeled. Maybe this new land didn't have people? What if this was an undiscovered part of the world, where civilization was too far away to notice? But, that made no sense! The strange being had assured him that there was someone here - that they would find him. How far did he have to go before said help would meet him? There were too many questions, and the answers to them had proven to be scarce, whereas the number of questions had increased exponentially with every new obstacle that he found.

"What spells will work here?"

Sirius surprised himself by saying this aloud, having heard his own voice only a few times that morning. Each time, it seemed to be stronger, and the croak that punctuated his speech was finally beginning to disappear.

"I guess now is the best time to find out…"

Sirius withdrew his wand for the umpteenth time, from its usual place in his sleeve. He had to wonder why it was always finding its way to his back pocket, but that mystery could be resolved later.

"Okay, let's try the disarming spell – wait!" His arm lowered as he hesitated. "No opponent, it will be difficult to replicate. Especially sine the only things nearby are trees."

Sirius ambled his way further along the river bank, muttering to himself as he went.

"So far, I know that I'm able to perform simple conjurations and possible house charms…"

As he continued along the bank, the river's far side sharply receded from view. Further ahead, Sirius could make out something similar to a small dock jutting out a short way over the water.

"A dock in the lake," Sirius murmured, a small smile threatening to show itself on his face. "That must mean that I'm close!"

The grin – that so quickly appeared – faded when several familiar shapes came into view.

"Merlin," He breathed, frowning. "Not those again…"

Their lumbering forms inched along the grasses of the forest floor, the same colouring as before. There was a larger number of them grouped here – with several huddled together, staring disinterestedly into space. Their groaning and gurgling could be heard even from his distance, which he guessed was approximately up to around half a kilometer at most.

Sirius gripped his wand tightly, wondering how to avoid them. He was so close to a settlement – he was certain – and figured that apparating back would only hinder his progress. He had to move forward, but how? Without a moment more of hesitation, Sirius started ahead, knowing that he would need to face something eventually, so why not now? The only problem to resolve at this stage was how to clear away a path for himself, without allowing any chance to be surrounded.

There was a slight raise of land forming to his right, which had increased in height by the time he had reached the dock. A rocky hillside now framed the north end of the lake, studded with clusters of trees and bushes, with the occasional gap revealing the green grass and purple wildflowers that commonly littered the forest floor. Birdsong became more prevalent here, as did the appearance of several recognizable animals including rabbits, deer and chipmunks. Sirius spied a grey and black striped cat – an apparent mix between a tiger and its ancient predecessor – the sabre toothed tiger. It prowled amongst the trees on one of the rocky outcrops of the hill.

Sirius picked his way along the river, this time hugging the rocky slopes of the hills beside him. He had found this to be surprisingly easy, since there were less of those tall, gnarly roots for him to trip over. These rocks were much smoother too. For the first few minutes, this strategy seemed to work well for him. Sirius noted that there was a certain distance he could maintain from those swap-like creatures, ensuring that they were unable to detect his presence. Upon discovering this, Sirius was relieved; he found himself thinking ahead, about the possibility of meeting people here at last.

Afterwards, Sirius found, it wasn't so lucky. Whist he was deep in thought, Sirius stepped too close to one of the creatures. Its beady eyes swiveled around to focus on the temporarily oblivious wizard, and lurched its way over to him. The sudden increase in volume startled Sirius, who spun around to find himself faced with one of the strange beings again.

Its arm swept the space ahead of it in a wide arc, forcing Sirius to dart backwards, nearly dropping his wand. He held it out in front of himself protectively once he had safely moved out of reach. The thing lunged at him again, and Sirius finally found an opening to respond.

"Stupefy!" He bellowed, aiming the spell at the creature's eyes.

Nothing happened, and it left the wizard wide open for attack. The creature swung out again, its arms clipping Sirius over the head, knocking him to the ground. Sirius glanced up at it, anticipating the final swing, but it never came. There was a bellow from behind him, catching the creature's attention briefly. Sirius scrambled backwards, attempting to raise himself to his feet. The thing spotted his movement and lunged for him a final time. The arm missed Sirius by centimetres, and the wizard overestimated his steps, falling to the ground yet again.

It loomed over Sirius, its gurgling at the loudest he had ever heard it. He briefly wondered if he was going to come out of this confrontation alive. Suddenly, a green light flared, hitting his attacker square in the chest. As it fell bonelessly to the ground, Sirius tried to turn to see out what had caused the creature's demise. He was never given the chance – he soon found his world going to black once again…

.

So, there you have it! Part four is now complete.

Don't worry Isangtao, I won't let Sirius have too much power. I had hoped that this point wouldn't be mentioned yet in a review, since I was planning on having his new weaknesses shown here when he faced one of these creatures again. Very good observation, though.

If no one is able to guess what it is after a couple more chapters, I'll let you guys know in my A/N at the end of one of my newer chapters. Although, I think that it would be fairly easy to guess now if you've played the game often enough. I can tell you this, next chapter will make everything blaringly obvious, and I'll leave it at that. You'll see fairly soon what I mean.

Peace out,

Shadowcaster01