The Magic of Family

Chapter Seventeen: Answers Given=More Questions Asked

Suddenly the hollow thud of an axe burying itself in something solid rang through the air and the branches of the Whomping Willow fell still.

Harry's breath caught in his throat at the thought of what had just happened to Buckbeak and how Hagrid must be feeling in this moment. No matter how long Harry knew it would most likely happen, the actual event was still very upsetting. Poor Hagrid was so tender-hearted that even being prepared, this must be devastating to him.

Sephiroth's elbow to the ribs drew Harry's attention away from his depressing thoughts and back to the moment at hand-namely that he and Sephiroth were really quite visible in the slowly rising moonlight and his two, possibly former,friends were still audibly arguing about Scabbers. In fact, they were arguing so hard that the Cloak kept shifting and revealing different body parts. Now that the execution was finished, Minister Fudge and the other Council members were sure to begin heading back to the Castle to leave. Getting caught would be bad enough, but those two getting caught with his Cloak was sure to have it confiscated and never returned.

Before Harry could decide if a direct confrontation would be too noisy or if he should simply petrify the two thieves, an orange streak shot from the base of the Whomping Willow. Ron and Hermione stumbled apart at the surprise attack, dropping the Cloak to the ground between them. Harry was just able to catch a glimpse of Ron attempting to hang onto something that was apparently struggling fiercely in his hands.

The orange blur, now identifiable as an irate Crookshanks, launched itself at Ron, causing the red head to curse and stumble back toward the quiet Willow. Hermione was attempting to call Crookshanks to her in a quiet 'whisper' and Harry bit his lip looking toward Hagrid's hut. Hopefully they were at a far enough distance that no one would hear the commotion and decide to investigate.

Ron was dancing around with both hands clutching something above his head while Crookshanks lunged at his feet and Hermione chased her cat. The group was slowly being driven closer and closer to the Willow and Harry had the Perfectus Totalus spell on the tip of his tongue, ready to stun them all when they were in a good enough range that he was not likely to miss any of the rapidly moving figures, when a dark shape burst out from under the Whomping Willow and lunged at Ron's back.

Hermione's rapidly smothered scream was enough warning for Ron to fall to the ground, causing the creature to sail over his head. The snarling figure landed on all four paws and Harry and Sephiroth were able to clearly see the same pale-eyed, black, shaggy dog that had been with Crookshanks in the castle the night Sirius Black managed to get into Gryffindor Tower.

With a growl the dog launched itself again at Ron and managed to sink its teeth into the arm he had raised to protect his face. The creature may have been emaciated, but its sheer size still allowed him to drag Ron back toward the base of the tree. Crookshanks tangled himself in Hermione's legs, causing her to fall to the ground at the same time a sharp 'crack' and a muffled scream were heard from the base of the tree. Finally free of Crookshanks, Hermione too ran to the base of the tree and disappeared under it.

From the appearance of Crookshanks to the animal enabled kidnapping, only a minute had passed and Harry was happy to see his shock mirrored on Sephiroth's face when he thought to turn to the other. An insistent yowl drew their bewildered gazes to see Crookshanks standing against the roots of the tree, his front two paws braced on a knot. His tail was lashing back and forth so fast that Harry was surprised it was not working like the propeller of a helicopter and allowing the glaring beast to take flight.

Harry shrugged and sighed as he looked to Sephiroth, "Following a cat chasing a giant black dog that seems intent on eating my friend is unfortunately not the worst start of a plan I've ever had."

Sephiroth snorted a laugh and smirked, "Well, we did just say that something was about to start. Maybe the bat wasn't quite as batty as we thought."

A second yowl drew their attention back to Crookshanks who was giving his all to glaring at them.

"Yes, yes, we're coming, monster." mumbled Harry as he ran to scoop up the discarded Cloak, shooting a quick glance at Hagrid's hut as he did. He gave half a thought to running down there and collecting an adult to deal with this whole mess, but knowing his luck they would be more concerned with questioning why he was out after dark and not listen to a word he said.

Resigned to once again having to deal with something well out of his area of expertise, Harry joined Sephiroth at the base of the Whomping Willow. Finally they were able to get a clear look at the hole situated between two of the partially raised roots into which everyone had disappeared. The look of disgust on Sephiroth's face at the thought of entering the dirty hole made Harry laugh.

The tunnel was long and dark and Sephiroth was continuously catching his braid on roots and the occasional rock. By the time the tunnel began to slope upwards and they reached an open trap door, Sephiroth had his undone braid gathered in one hand to keep the ends from trailing in the dirt and Harry was snickering at the increasingly color language flowing from his friend in several different languages, for once perfectly all right with his short stature.

With a grunt, Harry lifted himself onto the dirty wooden floor and cautiously peered around at the broken furniture and boarded up windows. Harry had to hold the cuff of his robe sleeve over his nose to prevent a sneeze from escaping at the amount of dust swirling in the air, likely a result of the other's passage through the room.

Sephiroth pointed at the clean line through the dust that extended from the open trap door to the stairs located at the side of the room. Harry nodded before pulling out the Invisibility Cloak. Together they quietly snuck up the rickety stairs, Harry drawing on ten years of living with Dursleys to be as quiet as possible and silently envious of the way Sephiroth made it look easy, even with how closely they were pressed together to both fit under the Cloak.

At the top of the stairs, Harry and Sephiroth found a partially open door. Careful maneuvering allowed them to see the corner edge of a four poster bed with Crookshanks happily lounging upon it, Ron sprawled below the smirking cat-Harry knew that look was definitely a smirk, Kadaj often wore the same expression- one leg extended before him at an awkward angle and a struggling rat clutched to his chest with both hands. They could not see Hermione, but they could hear her yelling something about not being allowed to kill anyone at someone in the room.

Sephiroth pushed the door so that it swung a bit wider, allowing them to carefully edge their way into the room. Crookshanks was the only one to look up as the door creaked open, the others either too distracted or thinking a draft had caused the door to swing open.

Upon entering the room, they were able to see that the man Hermione was yelling at was a corpse-like figure with matted black hair falling in front of his face as he paced at the edge of the room, Hermione's quivering wand following his every movement. The flickering candlelight and his rapid turns and fidgeting made it hard to get a clear look at the man's face, but even still it was clear that the man was Sirius Black, and considering the lack of a giant black dog in the room, Harry could only guess that the man was similar to Professor McGonagall and could turn into an animal. Which meant that Crookshanks had been helping the mass murderer all year, and had wanted Harry here to see something if his insistence meant anything.

Taking a deep breath, Harry closed his eyes and attempted to block out Hermione's yelling and Black's insane muttering. Crookshanks had been with Black when the other had broken into Gryffindor castle, Crookshanks had also been with Black tonight when he had attacked Ron and Hermione. Sephiroth and Harry had been completely alone in the corridor when they ran into the two animals, no one had heard Professor McGonagall approaching yet. Harry and Sephiroth had also been outside without the cloak for much longer than it had taken Ron and Hermione to appear, and for all he was a menace, Harry could not make an argument that Crookshanks was unable to differentiate between Ron and Harry. Plus Sirius Black was supposedly Harry's godfather, even if he could not remember anything else about Harry's appearance; surely he would know that Harry had black hair not red. Yet Crookshanks had waited to attack until Ron and Hermione were close to the Whomping Willow, not Harry and Sephiroth who had been there longer.

No, he thought as he opened his eyes and caught sight of the struggling rat Ron was clutching to his chest, not Ron and Hermione. Just Ron. The same as he attacked Ron's bed that night. And the only thing Crookshanks has been determined to attack all year has been Scabbers. Which didn't get serious until after we arrived on the train.

He glanced back at Black who had Ron's wand clutched in his right hand and a knife clutched in his left. He was completely ignoring Hermione and her wand, instead muttering to himself and watching Ron with pale grey eyes, a glint of madness visible in their depth. No matter which way the man turned to pace through the room, his gaze did not leave Ron for any significant length of time.

Harry grit his teeth, he was obviously missing a piece of the puzzle, a piece that he was sure would make everything make sense, but both Hermione and Sirius were on a hair trigger, and were not likely to react well to Harry and Sephiroth suddenly appearing in their midst.

The sound of shuffling was barely audible from downstairs when Hermione yelled out, "WE'RE UP HERE! WE'RE UP HERE-SIRIUS BLACK-QUICK!"

Black whirled toward Hermione shooting off a quick Expelliarmus that she was unprepared to counter. As her wand landed in Black's outstretched hand and she stumbled back to stand beside a whimpering and rapidly paling Ron, Professor Lupin burst through the door.

With a quick glance, the professor took in the situation before throwing his own Expelliarmus at Black with enough force to throw the convict to the ground, the wands jumping to Lupin's outstretched hand and the knife skittering across the floor to slide under the edge of the cloak. Worried about someone noticing only half of the knife being visible, Harry carefully used his foot to pull it completely under, only catching the tail end of Lupin's question to Black.

The following conversation was cryptic and made absolutely no sense to Harry, but Sephiroth's quiet intake of breath let him know that something important had been mentioned. The only thing that Harry had been able to comprehend was that Black and now Lupin were looking for someone, someone that Lupin was apparently shocked to find.

Lupin helping Black off the floor and embracing him like a brother was a bit of a shock, but not so much as Hermione blurting out that Lupin was a werewolf and accusing him of helping Black into the castle.

Learning that Lupin was a werewolf was actually a relief for Harry. The man was unusually kind for an adult, and Harry had always felt a little bad that he was uncomfortable around him, after all the man had never actually done anything to make Harry uncomfortable. But if Harry had somehow been sensing the wolf side of Lupin, that might explain the uneasy feeling and made him feel much better that his instincts were picking up on things that he had missed and not just trying to drive him crazy. The accusation about helping Black into the castle was easily ignored since Harry had already figured out that Crookshanks was the one responsible for that.

He was a bit miffed that Lupin had taken the map away from him when he learned that the other had helped make it, but Ron and Hermione's confused faces were amusing as well as Lupin's shocked face that they had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently he had expected Harry to share everything with the two and that they would believe the fact that the map showed an additional person with their group without question. Harry and Sephiroth did to a degree but Hermione and Ron continued to argue.

Harry was getting ready to rip the Cloak off and demand for someone to just say a name already instead of being purposely vague when Sirius Black took a shaky step forward and pointed at Ron's chest.

"That's not a rat," croaked Sirius Black suddenly.

"What d'you mean-of course he's a rat-" answered Ron, clutching Scabbers even tighter.

"No, he's not," said Lupin quietly. "He's a wizard."

"An Animagus," said Black, "by the name of Peter Pettigrew."

Finally, thought Harry, watching Scabbers' wild struggles pick up a notch.

A.N.- First off the reactions to Ron and Hermione stealing the cloak have been hilarious and unanimously against the theft and for Harry's semi-violent reaction. I did not realize everyone would accept that so quickly/happily. Second, has anyone else found it odd that in the book/movie it's explained that the tunnel was used by the staff to bring Lupin to and from the Shrieking Shack? I mean you have all this magic, surely a portkey would work better and not have a way for Lupin to get out while in his werewolf form, plus I can't imagine too many of the teachers were thrilled with having to climb into a dirty tunnel that several probably had to stoop in and walk possibly a mile or two just to drop off a student. It makes no logical sense.

Reviews:

buterflypuss: Hello Little One.

Juxshoa: I'm kinda leaning toward including Neville more, not sure if they'll reach trio levels, but I feel like Neville brings out Harry's kind side and Neville helping Harry brings out his brave side. Plus he never gets enough credit.

Kyred: Wow, everyone really loved that scene didn't they. Glad you're enjoying it.

Scififan33: Going off of how they act in Order of the Phoenix, I don't think they ever consider how things will effect Harry, just what it will do to them.

deathbykitsune: Glad you're liking it, I'm giving myself till Order of the Phoenix to decide what is going on with Harry and Sephiroth's relationship, cause honestly at this point, I don't know...not a clue.

VioletZap: Glad you're enjoying it. Revenge will be sweet, but unfortunately will take a while to get to. And yes, Ron and Hermione have always struck me as entitled and self-serving. Later on when they grow up it's not as bad, but they started off pretty bad.

Enjali: Oh, I have so many plans for that trunk, it's going to be so good.

Tsumujikaze Yumi: Thank you! And you take care too! This is the start of the evolution; things will begin to pick up as everyone grows.

Me (guest): Yes, yes he is.

tocasia: Glad you're enjoying it and that you think it's fun!