Time was moving faster than usual. Much too fast, Sirius thought as he sat on the same moth-eaten bed, in the same dilapidated shack and in a position he was beginning to fear he would never get out of.

It had been, Sirius estimated, at least three, perhaps four months since he had broken into the castle and he had made no further progress. To be perfectly honest, he had made his situation worse as it would now be totally impossible to enter the castle again.

Not that that really mattered, however, Crookshanks had informed Sirius that the rat had faked his own death again. He had bit himself, to leave spots of blood on the sheets of his owner's bed and then ran away. The red-headed boy was convinced it was Crookshanks that had killed him. Well, now he and Crookshanks were truly in the same boat, they had both been framed for the murder of the same person. Sirius spat on the ground, bitterly.

The sun was setting now and Sirius rose to look out of the window up to the castle towering in the distance.

As though he had lost his mind completely, he transformed into Padfoot and ran down through the passage.

He had no idea what was driving him to do this, all he knew was that he needed to get to the castle. He didn't know why, he didn't know what he would do when he got there; he just needed to be there.

By the time he arrived in the grounds the sun had sunk and it was almost pitch black in the grounds. He ran into the shadow of the great castle, out of the light from its' many windows, and padded along silently.

He stopped when he heard voices. He squinted around in the darkness, but could see no one. He sniffed the air, he could smell four people, he could hear three voices, but he could not see them.

Something small and ginger with bright yellow eyes streaked past him, making him start, Crookshanks. Padfoot backed up as he heard a loud squeak and a rat appeared out of thin air and scurried along the ground. His snarl was cut off as the red-haired boy emerged from nowhere after him, racing to catch Crookshanks and the rat. Then two more figures materialised out of the darkness, a bushy haired girl and, Harry. Trailing behind him was James' old invisibility cloak.

He saw the red-haired boy catch the rat and when the other finally caught up with him, Sirius began to run towards them. Sirius noticed Harry draw his wand and had to change his target at the last minute, and leapt into the air. He landed hard on Harry's chest, harder than he'd intended. He rolled off Harry and looked around for the boy who had the rat. He pushed past Harry, who had just stood up, and aimed for the squirming lump in the boy's pocket, but he moved and Sirius' jaws caught his arm.

Harry grabbed Padfoot's fur, but Sirius was far too strong and pulled the boy away easily. He dragged him towards the centre of the Whomping Willow, right as Harry and the girl were hit by its' flailing branches. He pulled the boy through the gap, but his leg caught on one of the roots of the massive tree. Sirius tugged, trying to free him, but, with a sickening crack, the boy's leg broke.

Sirius dragged the boy along the dark tunnel. He whimpered in pain as Padfoot heaved him over increasingly rough ground, which was starting to slope upwards. He was getting tired now and the taste of the boy's blood from his arm was making him feel queasy.

Finally they reached the Shrieking Shack; Sirius hauled the boy over to the other side of the room and dropped him on the floor next to the bed.

The boy's teeth were gritted in pain, clutching his leg. Sirius transformed back into himself, the boy's eyes widened in shock.

"S-Sirius B-Black!" He spluttered.

"Quiet!" Sirius hissed, listening carefully as he thought he heard something downstairs.

Sirius bent down and picked the boy's wand up off the floor, it must have fallen from his pocket. Suddenly, the door banged open and Harry and the girl rushed in.

Hidden behind the door, he watched them run over to the boy, whose name turned out to be Ron. Once he heard Ron tell them he was an animagus, he shut the door. Harry and the girl whipped around.

"Expelliarmus!" He croaked, their wands flew into the air and Sirius caught them, smoothly. Oh, how he'd missed doing magic! He had to control himself not to grin and start conjuring bubbles and sparks.

Focus, Padfoot. You have the rat.

Sirius spoke to Harry, he needed to explain, tell him he was innocent.

"I thought you'd come and help your friend." Wow, now he was in proper company he realised how little he had used his voice, it even hurt a little. "Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful… it will make everything much easier…"

He saw that he'd made Harry angry, he hadn't meant to, but Harry tried to walk forward. Sirius knew that look; Harry wanted to rip him into shreds. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned James. Fortunately, Ron and the girl held him back. Sirius did not want to have to hurt Harry.

Ron stood up, and spoke nonsense about having to go through them to get to Harry. Not that that would be particularly hard, but that was not what he needed to do. He noticed how Ron went even paler as he stood; his leg was causing him tremendous pain.

"Lie down. You will damage that leg even more." He told Ron.

"Did you hear me?" Ron continued, leaning on Harry for support, "You'll have to kill all three of us!"

"There will only one murder tonight." Ah, murdering Wormtail. What a thought. Sirius grinned.

Harry began to spoke, but Sirius wasn't really listening properly. He was lost in fantasies of blasting Pettigrew into thousands of pieces. Which, was probably why he didn't see Harry lunge towards him, screaming "HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!"

He grabbed Sirius' wrist, pushing the wands away from him and punched him hard in the face. They staggered backwards. Harry was punching Sirius, he had no choice. "No." he breathed "I've waited too long-" he clasped Harry's throat.

Suddenly he felt a hug pain in his shoulder. The girl had kicked him, hard. Then, Ron landed on the hand that held their wands and the three of them fell to the floor.

Harry seized his wand and stood up, pointing it at Sirius. He yelled at Ron and Hermione to move. The girl grabbed her and Ron's wands as Ron fell onto the old bed, holding his broken leg, his face contorted with pain.

Harry's wand was pointing at Sirius' heart as he advanced.

"Going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius murmured.

Sirius's eye was throbbing, painfully and he could feel a trickle of blood falling from his nose.

"You killed my parents." Harry replied; his voice a little higher than was usual, but he held the wand steady.

Sirius looked him in the eye. He needed to explain…

"I don't deny it," he rushed, almost whispering, "But if you knew the whole story-"

"The whole story?" Harry cried, his eyes were wide, as if he was going to cry but had no tears to do so and his bottom lip was shaking. He was certainly no murderer. "You sold them to Voldemort, that's all I need to know!"

"You've got to listen to me," Sirius pressed, starting to panic slightly. What if someone came looking for them? "You'll regret it if you don't… you don't understand…"

Sirius closed his eyes as Harry talked about his mother. It was too painful, far too painful for Sirius to listen to.

Out of nowhere, something landed on his chest. Crookshanks was lying right over his heart, trying to protect Sirius.

"Get off." He muttered, trying to shove the cat away. But, Crookshanks was holding on tightly, Harry paused for a moment, but seemed to come to the conclusion that he didn't care about the cat.

He raised the wand in his hand. Sirius looked him in the eye, as did Crookshanks. He didn't believe that Harry could kill someone. He didn't think that he could be murderer. Sure enough, Harry stood there for what seemed like an eternity, until, through the silence, as new sound started down the stairs.

Quiet footsteps could be heard. All of a sudden, the girl shrieked at the top of her voice "WE'RE UP HERE! WE'RE UP HERE- SIRIUS BLACK- QUICK!"

Sirius jumped and almost knocked Crookshanks off his chest, he knew that he was about to be carried off to the dementors any minute now…

The door burst open and there was… Remus.

He surveyed the room for a fraction of a second before disarming Harry and the girl.

Sirius had several strong urges, one was to run and hug the scarred man that had just arrived, another was to break down in tears at the sight of him, the others were far too complex to try and explain.

"Where is he, Sirius?" Remus said, his voice was full of an emotion Sirius couldn't quite place.

Without taking his eyes off the man, he pointed at the rat, which was in Ron's pocket.

Then Remus started muttering, the way he always used to when he had just figured out some complicated Aritmancy. He came to the correct conclusion. That he and Pettigrew had switched and the rat had become the Potter's secret keeper.

Remus walked slowly over to him, helped him to his feet, and then pulled him into a hug.

This was what we had needed. Nothing else in the world mattered now, he had Remus back, and Remus believed him innocent again. That was everything.

He finally found Moony.


Okay guys! Thanks for reading this far; though this isn't the end, I was originally going to have another, almost five chapters on this, but I decided to put them in another story all together, so look out for that! Yeah, but thanks for reading this the whole way through, I've found it challenging to write, but enjoyable. Reviews are lovely!