Padfoot heard Katherine's body hit the ground with a muted thud and looked over to see if she was alright. Mooney took the opportunity to swipe the troublesome dog away with his massive paw. He landed near the girl he had been trying to protect, pain shot through his entire being. How could he protect her now? He did the last thing he could think of. He crawled as quickly as his bruised and broken body would let him and covered her body with his own and whimpered when he smelled the salty tears on her cheeks. He had hurt her once, he wouldn't let anything hurt her again.

Mooney drew nearer. His stench filled Padfoot's senses, his blood-lust was palpable.

Finally, the sound of galloping hooves could be heard, quickly getting closer. Finally, Prongs had caught up.

The stag wedged himself between the werewolf and the pair on the ground and pounded its front hooves on the ground, shaking his head and snorting his challenge. The wolf had other ideas. The stag put his head down and forced the wolf back with his menacing antlers. Mooney inched farther and farther away from his prey.

They continued like this until they were at the Whomping Willow. Wormtail quickly shot over to the knot-hole and into the opening that appeared. Mooney followed, and Prongs brought up the rear.

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Sirius changed back into his human form once he thought it was safe enough and cradled the girl under him close to his chest.

"We need to get you inside." He whispered. He put one arm under her shoulders, the other behind her knees, and carried her, with much difficulty, into the castle.

"Madam Pomfrey!" He kicked the closed door to the hospital wing. "It's an emergency, open up!"

The disheveled healer opened the door and looked at them through half-lidded eyes. She took in Katherine's unconscious form, and Sirius' tattered robes and quickly woke up, ushering them in to some empty beds.

Sirius waited patiently for the healer to finish checking over Katherine and telling him how she was. He was already in a sterile bed, and sterile hospital pajamas, with his head and sides bandaged. Madam Pomfrey had flat-out refused to heal him magically because (as she said) he was always getting himself into this kind of trouble and maybe a little pain would finally snap him out of it. (How little she knew about the great and wonderful Sirius Black.) she would come around though, he was sure of it, it would just a little pain and a lot of waiting. Or was that a lot of pain and a little waiting? He wasn't sure which sounded more promising at the moment.

"Are you still awake?" She looked surprised as she peeked around the corner and met his gaze.

He bolted up in the bed. The he slowly lay back down, hissing, because of the searing pain that went through his whole body.

"How is she?" He winced.

"She'll be fine. Just over-tired and under-nourished. It was probably just stress that pushed her over the edge." Her motherly demeanor quickly changed, however, and the inquisition began. "What were you two doing on the grounds at such a late hour? And what did you meet to cause you such bodily harm?"

"I-I can't tell you that, ma'am. You'll probably have to talk to Dumbledore, he'll need to know that we're here anyway, right?"

"Um-hm." She tutted, gave him a look (one that meant "I am not pleased with you, young man.") and left the wing, her shoes squeaking as she went.

Sirius turned over and stared at the curtain that separated them, willing himself to see through it. He felt that this was all his fault, and knew that even if it wasn't he would still blame himself. He had to apologize again. If only she would wake up.

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Sirius had no idea when he had drifted off, but he was very surprised to wake up face to face with the headmaster.

"Good morning, Mister Black. I hope you slept well." Dumbledore said kindly.

"Good morning sir. Yes sir, thank you sir." Sirius stuttered back.

"My, my, Sirius, since when have you been at a loss for words? You've been sent to me often enough to get over that, haven't you?" His eyes twinkled in amusement.

"Yes sir, it's just-" He sighed and looked at the bland white sheet that covered him. "-I did something incredibly stupid last night that put quite a few lives in danger."

"Yet we are all alive and kicking, so to speak. I have already spoken to the rest of your friends, and they wanted to come in and speak to you, but they were all rather tired, so I sent them to bed. They are perfectly fine. Mister Lupin is in here, however. It seems his shoulder was hurt during an encounter with an animal of some kind." Sirius looked down once again. "I'm sure he would like to speak with you. Miss Keaton is still sleeping, and it has been requested that she be able to wake on her own accord."

"Yes sir." Sirius nodded vigorously.

"Good. I probably have some head-masterly thing to be doing at the moment, so I shall take my leave. Good day Mister Black."

"Good day, sir." Dumbledore left the hospital wing, humming a little ditty to himself.

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Katherine groaned and rolled over. The feeling was strange to her, this 'sleep' thing that she had been experiencing. It left her feeling groggy, dopey and lethargic. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked around the barren, white room, then she hid under the barren white sheets. It didn't help.

"So, you've finally come around then?" A familiar voice said. "I was getting rather worried about you."

She turned to look at him and smiled despite her burning retinas.

"Hey Sirius. How did you get here?"

"I brought you here last night. It's the afternoon now." He looked at her "Do you remember anything that happened?"

"Yeah. There was a werewolf, I think."

"You think?"

"Well, I try not to make a habit of being personally aquatinted with nocturnal beasties that could tear me limb from limb."

"Fair enough, what else do you remember?"

"There was a dog, it protected me." She bolted up and looked around the wing frantically. "Do you know what happened to it?"

"He'll be fine. He just had a concussion, two broken ribs and a few bruises." He poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the table next to her. "Here, you must be thirsty."

"Thanks. Why aren't you in class?" She accepted the glass and took a drink.

"Well, my dear, I have a few bruises, a couple of broken ribs and a mild concussion."

She stared at him, wide eyed. He was afraid she was going to choke on her water. He was even more worried that she would do like at the year's first feast and spit it all over him in shock.

"Are you legal?" She asked quietly. He laughed at how that phrase could be misconstrued. "A legal animagus, you...I thought I said no dirty thoughts!"

"How did you know I was thinking something dirty if your mind wasn't in the gutter as well?"

"Regardless." She waved her hand in a dismissive manner. Sirius chuckled a bit, but then he remembered the circumstances of his visit (and the reason he got to skip had to miss his classes that day).

"Merlin, Kitten! What the hell were you doing, trying to get yourself killed?! Do you have any idea what could have happened? You could have been killed, or even infected! Or KILLED!!!!!"

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know there was a werewolf running around on school property. Hell, I didn't even know it was a full moon!" She huffed and crossed her arms angrily. How dare he blame her for what had happened.

"Why were you even outside?" He asked, his time in a calmer tone.

"I needed to clear my head. There were plenty of things to sort out, believe me."

"Like what?"

"Like how odd it is that I love a nice cold rain on my face." She looked away sadly. "Like how my mother and I used to be so close, but we've been losing touch because of school, and me constantly being mad at her for moving us around constantly. Like how my brother gave me a talk the other day about handing assignments in late, when he was the one that thought that me going to two schools was a brilliant idea. Like how a very good friend of mine hurt me and then had the audacity to apologize out of the blue." She looked at him. "Then saved my life. Thank you Sirius."

"So, does this mean that you've forgiven me?"

"I forgave you when you apologized, I just didn't know it." The sparkle returned to her eyes and he swore we had never felt so light in his entire life. "Besides, I had to act like I didn't so that you wouldn't think that I was a push-over, thus taking advantage of my wonderfully kind nature."

"And modest too." He joked. He was so relieved that she had chosen to forgive him he felt like his heart was going to burst with the feeling.

"What happened after I passed out?"

"A stag and a rat saved us by forcing the 'nocturnal beastie' into a tree." He thought for a moment, did hearts normally burst with relief? Well...they did for Sirius, because any other option was too drastic for him to think about.

For the moment.

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Author's Note!

Special thanks to those who reviewed last chapter, all of you get a potato cooked to your specifications (scalloped, baked, mashed, b-b-q-ed, whipped, fired, hash-browned, deep-fried, ect.)

That means you:

Snuffles-sweetie

fastfashiondispatch

Keisha.cl

anyavioletta

Sirius-Baby

I hope I haven't dashed you hopes too much with this chapter, I had to write it over a couple of times. I just couldn't get everything in the way I wanted. 8( Not happy about that. Tell me what you thought. And if you happen to be a reader who's name is not on the above list, just review and you can be on the next one! (If you don't like potatoes, don't worry, I hand out other stuff on request! lol)

Please review before you go, it's only polite after all.