Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 25

We put a wrap around Ron's leg so that he would be able to walk back to the castle and we made an agreement that if Pettigrew tried to escape that Lupin and Sirius would be allowed to kill him. There was only one problem.

"What are we going to do about Snape?" Ron asked as he looked at his body on the ground.

"We'll come back for him later…" Sirius said. "I'm sure that he won't mind…"

Although I felt bad about just leaving him there, I knew that there really wasn't much point of dragging him along with us. I'm sure that we would be able to make it back to him after we proved that Sirius is innocent.

Lupin and Ron both dragged Pettigrew out of the tunnel together while Harry, Sirius, and I walked together behind them. We had a lot of talking to do.

"You know what this means Sirius," I smiled at him. "Once we turn in Pettigrew, you're a free man."

Sirius had a huge smile on his face as he looked at the two of us. Although I had seen this man happy in the past year that I had known him, he had never looked happier than this. I guess the thought of being a free man after all of this time had that kind of effect.

"I was thinking…" Sirius said as we walked further on. "Maybe…the two of you could…you know…come live with me…I mean, I am your godfather…unless of course you want to stay with your aunt and uncle…"

Harry and I looked at each other, both of us a look of disbelief and excitement.

"Are you serious?" I asked him excitedly. "No pun intended…"

"Of course," Sirius laughed. "Only if you want to though-"

"We don't want to live with the Dursleys-" Harry said.

"Do you have a house-?"I said.

"When can we move in?" we both asked simultaneously.

Sirius started to laugh and I could tell that he was the happiest that he had been in about twelve years. I couldn't imagine being hunted by dementors and running from the Ministry could really allow you to really be happy.

Once we were out of the tunnel, I noticed how late it had gotten. The sky was completely dark, but it was filled with so many stars and the full moon shined brightly. Wait a second - the full moon.

"Professor Lupin!" I shouted and pointed at the full moon.

"I didn't take my potion tonight," he said with wide eyes.

Then, all of a sudden, his entire body began to shake as he stared up at the full moon that lit up the sky. I knew that whatever was about to happen was going to be really bad and we had to get out of the area as soon as possible.

"Everyone get away from here," Sirius said in a low voice. "Now - RUN!"

No one ran though. Each one of us was transfixed on what was happening right in front of us. Sirius ran over towards Lupin and tried to restrain him and attempted to talk to him so he could keep his sanity a little longer, but it didn't work…at all.

Then I turned to see that Pettigrew had managed to get a hold on Lupin's wand that had already dropped from its owner's hands.

"Expelliarmus!" I yelled.

It was too late though - he had already transformed and was now running off quickly into the distance. I went to run after him, but Harry stopped me and shook his head. He was right - it was too late and their was nothing that we could do. After all, what were the odds that we would be able to find a rat in the forest?

As we watched Lupin, his entire body started to lengthen and his shoulders hunched over and hair was sprouting out all over his body. When Lupin stood upright, Sirius was thrown far off to the side and out of sight. Before long, he had finished his transformation and there was a fully grown werewolf standing in front of us all.

Slowly, we all started to walk backwards quietly so the werewolf wouldn't notice us, but it looked up slowly at us and started to whine. Hermione, trying to be the brave, sensible one, decided to take the initiative to see if Lupin was at all sane and she stepped forward slightly.

"P-professor Lupin?" she asked with a shaky voice.

"Hermione, get back," I said under my breath so that she could here me.

Then, suddenly, Lupin made a loud howl into the sky and began to move towards us. Ron grabbed Hermione's arm and pulled her back so that she was with us. Soon enough, both Ron and Harry were standing in front of both Hermione and me in attempt to protect us.

Even though I was largely distracted by the fact that there was a huge werewolf in front of me, I heard footsteps coming from behind us and they were moving pretty fast. Next thing I know, Snape is standing in front of us and is trying to guard all of us from being attacked as Lupin moved ever closer to us.

Then Lupin made his first strike and knocked all of us down and making both Hermione and me scream. While we stood back up and started moving away faster, I saw a black dog running out of the forest and directly at Lupin.

Sirius jumped right at Lupin and knocked him right over, distracting him from attacking us. The werewolf didn't hesitate to strike back either and before too long, they were both biting at each other and attempting to hurt - if not kill in one case - each other. Then, right when Lupin turned back to us, Sirius bit into one of the werewolves legs and there came a loud, pained howl from Lupin.

The werewolf spun around and started running at Sirius at full force and I knew that Sirius wasn't going to be fast enough to get to him.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled and started running after them.

"NO POTTER!" Snape said and made a grab for him.

I went to run after him, but I was stopped when Snape grabbed onto my cloak. I spun around and started hitting him in the arm in attempt to get past him, but it wasn't really effective.

"Stop that!" Snape yelled at me. "You can't go after them - don't act stupid! They'll tear you to shreds!"

"I'm not going after them!" I yelled back. "I'm stop my brother from getting himself killed!"

Finally, I managed to throw him off of me and I sprinted after Harry, knowing that Severus wouldn't be able to catch up to me at this pace. It was true that I was worried about Sirius too, but I knew that he had more of a chance of escaping Lupin than Harry would - besides, he's my brother, so naturally I care more about his wellbeing. It took me a minute before I caught up to them, but when I got there, Lupin had already turned on Harry and Sirius was nowhere to be seen.

Without even thinking, I jumped in between the two of them and tried to block him from getting bitten at all. I would rather die myself than see my brother harmed in any way - especially if I could have prevented it.

Lupin moved quickly and jumped on me, knocking me onto the ground. He jumped at me again and managed to claw me right in the face and I felt the blood begin to ooze out of the large cut that he had made across my face. It burned really badly, but I was only glad that he didn't bite me.

"EMILY!" I heard Harry yell.

Then, to my immediate horror, I saw the werewolf jump at me again, but this time I knew that he was going to try to bite me. I threw my arms in front of my head out of instinct and braced for the pain that I was about to receive, but nothing happened. Instead, I heard a giant thud in front of me. I looked up and saw that Harry had jumped onto Lupin and was now beating him in the head with a giant rock.

I jumped up as Harry was thrown off of Lupin without much effort. Just as Lupin began to run at Harry once again, he stopped suddenly. I then heard a howl that was coming from the forest. Without much hesitation, Lupin began to run after the noise that we had heard from the forest.

It was silent for a moment, then I heard footsteps coming from behind us.

"Where are they?" a voice came up behind me.

I spun around and saw Hermione running towards us. Harry didn't answer her though and just took off in another direction that appeared to be in the direction of the lake. I assumed that this was were Sirius was and I started to panic. Had he been hurt that bad? Was he even still alive?

When we got there, Sirius - in human form - was laying at the edge of the shore and I could see him breathing deeply, but there was a lot of blood that was surrounding him. Quickly, I ran over towards him to see that he was still slightly conscious but I could tell that it wasn't going to be that way for long.

"Hold on Sirius," I said in panic and feeling a little ill from all the blood that I was loosing. "I'm going to help you-"

"Emily," Harry said next to me.

I started performing some spells on him that cleared up some of the wounds that he had on him and tried to ignore Harry as he continuously called out to me and the fact that I felt as though I was just thrown into a giant freezer - when had it gotten so cold? Maybe it was because I was bleeding so much…I was starting to get a little light headed.

"What?" I asked irritably as I wiped aside the large amount of blood that was running into my left eye. "I'm kind of busy at the moment!"

"Look…" he said in a low voice.

I looked up and was horrified at the saw at least a few dozen dementors closing in on us. I felt myself starting to drift off, not sure whether or not it was the blood or the dementors.

"Hermione…" I said, feeling my head spinning. "Y-you have…to think of a…h-happy thought…j-just listen to H-Harry…"

Everything was becoming blurry and out of focus. I could hardly tell where I was and briefly heard Harry and Hermione trying to make a Patronus, but that was all I heard before everything went black and I couldn't see anything any longer.

It felt like an eternity before my mind actually returned. Was I dead? Maybe I was, that wasn't really concerning. I wonder if Sirius and Harry were okay, I don't remember seeing them escape the dementors…maybe we're all dead…

Then I started hearing voices around me and I knew that I wasn't actually dead. The voices were oddly familiar, but I couldn't really make out what they were saying. They sounded concerned, almost business like. Then I heard another voice come into the mix. It was more familiar than all the others - maybe it was Harry. Yes, it had to be. He sounded worried. What was the matter? Oh dear, now he seemed angry. What am I missing? Maybe I should try to concentrate…I kind of liked this feeling of nothingness though…it was rather boring though. So, I began to concentrate and things began to get clearer. Harry wasn't just angry - he was furious. Then the voices came in clearer to the point that I could now understand them.

"YOU'VE GOT THE WRONG MAN!" Harry was yelling.

My eyes flew open. I instantly knew what was being talked about - it couldn't be anything else. I had forgotten what Pettigrew's escape had meant at the moment, but now that I actually thought about it, I realized what his escape did to Sirius. He wasn't going to be free.

I sat up quickly and within a second I took in the whole scene. On my right was Harry who was red in the face from anger that was directed at two other people in the room - the Minister of Magic and Snape. Ron and Hermione were also in the room, but Ron was unconscious and had his leg propped up in a cast. When I sat up quickly, they all turned in my direction, though I did notice that Snape still refused to look me in the eye and he quickly turned back to Harry, a look of hatred covering his face.

"Where's Sirius?" I asked. "What are you doing to him?"

"They're taking him to the dementors," Harry said furiously.

"But he's innocent!" I shouted at them. "There are several witnesses - we all saw Peter Pettigrew!"

"Well, there really is no proof," Fudge said.

"NO PROOF?" Harry and I both yelled.

Fudge looked absolutely astounded by the way that we were talking to him, but at this point I really didn't care. How could they just kill Sirius? As I had said, there were several witnesses that Pettigrew was alive - did that count for nothing?

"You see what he did to them Minister?" Snape sighed. "He confunded them both-"

"We were not confunded!" I said angrily. "You know that we weren't!"

The door opened up and someone else entered the room. It was Dumbledore, just the man that I wanted to see - maybe he would believe us.

"I was wondering if I could have a word with Miss Granger and Mr. and Miss Potter, Poppy," Dumbledore said to Madam Pomfrey.

Everyone went silent for a moment and turned to Dumbledore.

"Well, Miss Potter received a pretty terrible injury to her head-" Madam Pomfrey started.

"I'm fine," I said abruptly.

Though, now that she mentioned it, I had a rather terrible headache and the scratch on my face was stinging a little bit, but that could wait - there were more important things at the moment.

Madam Pomfrey nodded and both the Minister and Snape left. Just as Snape left, I saw him glance at me sideways, but quickly look away. There was no doubt that he hated me right now - I couldn't really blame him. However, as soon as the door slammed shut, it was as if my mind snapped right back to what we were dealing with.

"Sirius is innocent-" I said.

"You've got the wrong guy," Harry said. "Pettigrew is still alive-"

"He's an unregistered Animagus-he's been in the Weasley's home for twelve years-" Hermione said.

"We weren't confunded!" I said.

Dumbledore held up a single finger and silenced us all. We knew that he wasn't angry with us, it's a rare occasion to see him mad at all.

"I am sorry to say that there really isn't any proof that you are telling the truth-" Dumbledore said.

"But Professor-" Harry started.

"It's your turn to listen to me Harry," he said calmly. "As of the current moment, Professor Snape's version of the events that happened tonight are a lot more convincing, the Minister is not prepared to listen to four thirteen year olds."

"But, you believe us, don't you?" I asked.

"Yes, but I do not have the ability to convince the Minister of anything," he said. "I just don't have that kind of power…if only we just had a little more time."

Then Dumbledore looked directly at Hermione with a small smile on his face as if he was hinting at something.

"OF COURSE!" Hermione said with a huge smile on her face.

Both Harry and I were completely confused, but we kept quiet, hoping that they were going to get us in on what they were talking about. Yes, we did need more time, that was obvious. How could we get more time though?

"Now, pay attention," said Dumbledore quietly. "Sirius is locked in Professor Flitwick's office on the seventh floor. Thirteenth window from the right of the West Tower. If all goes well, you will be able to save more than one innocent life tonight. But remember this, you must not be seen, not a single one of you. Miss Granger, you know the law - you know what is at stake... You - must - not - be - seen. Now, three turns should do the trick, okay?"

Now I really had no idea what was going on. The dementors were going to show up any second now to take Sirius - how were we going to make it there before them?

Then Hermione reached into her robes and pulled out a small golden chain that had a small, sparkling hourglass on it.

"It's five minutes to midnight," Dumbledore said with a look at his watch. "Remember that time. Good luck!"

He smiled as he shut the door and left both Harry and me completely confused. Hermione walked over to both of us and threw the golden chain around us and took a close look at the hourglass.

"What is going on?" I asked.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Ready for what?" Harry asked.

She didn't answer us, instead she turned the hourglass over a total of three times and everything around us looked as if someone had clicked the rewind button on a remote control. Once everything stopped, I looked around to see that the entire room was empty of people. Where had Ron gone?

What had just happened?

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