The four friends were apprehensive that evening as they made their way down to Hagrid's. It didn't help that as they passed through the Clocktower Courtyard they saw the executioner sharpening his axe. He smiled grimly at them as they walked past him a little faster down the bridge.

"I can't believe they're going to kill Buckbeak, it's just awful," Hermione said.

"It just got worse," Ron replied as they stepped out into the Stone Circle.

Malfoy and his friends sat with binoculars, laughing and talking to themselves. That sight alone made Hermione storm towards them absolutely seething, which only served to amuse Malfoy when he noticed them.

"Ah! Come to see the show?" he goaded, standing up.

"You - you foul, loathsome, evil, little cockroach!" Hermione shouted at him, pulling her wand on the boy. He backed against one of the stones whimpering.

"Hermione, no!" Ron called out. "He's not worth it."

Hesitant, Hermione lowered her wand and went to turn away to go back to her friends; however, she ended up decking Malfoy right in the face. Harry and Ron started to crack up, impressed with the fact she had just sent the Slytherins running straight back into the castle after that. Even Violet was pretty pleased, and she was usually of the opinion that Malfoy wasn't worth it.

"That felt good," Hermione admitted sheepishly.

"Not good - brilliant!" Ron exclaimed.

"Come on, let's get to Hagrid's," Harry said, getting them all back on track.

They carried on down to Hagrid's Hut, where Buckbeak was kept on a chain among the pumpkin patch Hagrid kept.

While speaking to the giant over some tea, they did insist on staying with him but Hagrid wouldn't have it as Dumbledore would be coming anyway, and none of them should have been out of the castle after hours.

Interestingly enough, Scabbers was still alive. Hagrid had found him and handed him back to Ron who was overjoyed to have his rat back.

"Finally…" Violet muttered to Harry. "They'll shut up about all this now."

He chuckled and went to say something, but was interrupted by the fact something smashed on the table. Hermione went to pick up a small pebble that had been the perpetrator of breaking the sugar bowl.

A moment later, a rock hit Harry on the back of the head prompting him to turn towards the window. Dumbledore, the Minister of Magic, and the executioner were all heading towards the Hut.

It had been a fleeting visit for the teens, but Hagrid appreciated it all the same as he ushered them out the back door. They hid behind the pumpkins until it was safe for them to actually run back up to the castle.

The four of them stood at the edge of the Stone Circle, watching as Buckbeak was executed; if they couldn't be with Hagrid, they would at least try and stay nearby for as long as possible. The thud of the axe coming down echoed through the grounds and Hermione clung onto Ron, crying. A rather stony expression on her face as she tried to hold in tears, Violet slipped her hand into Harry's.

"I can't believe it," she said.

"I know…" Harry replied.

"SCABBERS!" Ron suddenly cried out.

The other three looked at him to see his finding was bleeding and that Scabbers was running away as fast as he could. Obviously - once over the initial shock - Ron bolted after his pet rat with his friends not far behind.

The boy managed to grab his rat in the end, only-

"Harry… isn't that the Whomping Willow?" Violet queried when seeing how close Ron was to the dangerous tree.

"Ron, get away from there!" Harry shouted at his friend.

Except the other boy was more concerned by something else.

"Harry, look behind you - run! It's the Grim!"

The three teens turned to see a great, black, snarling dog. It charged towards them and leaped as high as it could over them, making its way towards Ron. It grabbed onto his leg and pulled him towards the base of the Whomping Willow.

Harry vaulted forward and landed flat on the ground in an attempt to try and grab Ron but it was too late - he was dragged into the depths of the tree.

As Hermione and Violet joined Harry to help him up, a tree branch whacked them all backwards.

They dusted themselves off and tried to make their way towards it again, only for the branches to come down between them. Hermione dived to one side with Violet, while Harry dived to the other. On recovering, another branch came swinging down to whack them out of the way.

Hermione managed to duck, but - in a vain attempt to pull him down with her - Violet was walloped upside the head, the force of it knocking both her and Harry further away from Hermione. His glasses went flying off his face, and Violet was half conscious as she tried to help him look for them.

Screaming from overhead told the pair of them that Hermione was up in the air clinging to one of the branches as she was flung around.

Meanwhile, the whole trunk of the tree came hurtling down towards Harry and Violet, where he managed to get the both of them out of harm's way and not crushed. A few moments later, Violet handed him his glasses and he put them, helping her up after. She was wobbly so held onto him once they were back on their own two feet, which was when Hermione called out for them and grabbed onto Harry's shirt.

Now all three of them were airborne.

Thankfully that didn't last long as soon enough Hermione had let go of Harry's shirt so that he and Violet went falling through the air and tumbling down the hole at the base of the Whomping Willow, roughly bumping into each other in the process. They lay in a heap on the ground inside the tree, unable to get up as Hermione shortly followed thereafter.

The three of them lay there groaning as they attempted to recover.

Hermione was the first to get up and help Harry. The pair of them got Violet to her feet; she looked rather put out by the fact she had been the bottom of the pile.

"I am… really sorry," Hermione told her. She waved it off, wincing as she gently rubbed the side of her head. There was a lovely lump forming from where the tree had hit her.

"Where do you think this goes?" Violet then asked about the tunnel they were in.

"I don't know," Harry replied, as the three of them started walking. "I have a hunch - I just hope I'm wrong."

A few minutes later they came up into the ground floor of a dilapidated house that creaked with every step they took. There was a fresh blood stain on the floor that they cautiously followed up the stairs.

"We're in the Shrieking Shack, aren't we?" Hermione whispered. Harry nodded and allowed both his friends to hook an arm around each one of his. They stuck close together until they got to the landing where they saw Ron on a mattress in the corner of the room clinging onto his very wriggly rat.

"Ron! Are you okay?" Hermione asked as the three of them let go of each other while rushing over to him.

"It's - it's a trap, he's the dog, he's an Animagus!" Ron was fretting and pointing over to the other side of the room.

They all turned to see where he was pointing.

Out from the shadows stepped a man with a gaunt and waxy face, his black hair all tangled in a matted mess, his prison robes in tatters.

Sirius Black.

Hermione and Violet instinctively stepped in front of Harry.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Only one will die tonight," Black said in a hoarse voice.

"Then it'll be you!" Harry charged out from between Hermione and Violet to tackle Black to the ground and train his wand on him. All that served to do was make the escaped prisoner laugh and goad Harry about killing him.

Something unexpected happened after that.

Harry was disarmed and his wand went flying.

Everyone looked towards the door to see Lupin picking Harry's wand off the floor.

"Well, well, Sirius, looking rather ragged aren't we?" he asked the man on the ground, wand pointed at him at all times. Harry got up and backed away towards Hermione and Violet. "Finally, the flesh reflects the madness within."

"You'd know all about the madness within wouldn't you, Remus?" Black chuckled.

Lupin lowered his wand and helped Black off the ground before embracing him. As they had a hushed conversation, Violet's expression was stony. She glanced at Harry who looked as equally annoyed as she did.

"We were right," she muttered.

"What do you mean, you were right?" Black asked her. The two men had broken apart and were staring at her quizzically.

Violet swallowed, the lump on her head felt like it was starting to thump as if the situation at hand was making her head injury worse.

"Before Christmas… Harry and I suspected that you two had been friends at school - if you were both friends with James Potter, then… you would have been friends too," she explained shakily.

"Clever girl, and clever Harry," Black said, amused, before he frowned at her. "You have a familiar face, why is that?"

"That is Thomas and Genevive Merryworth's daughter," Lupin answered. A wave of recognition swept over Black, and he smiled faintly as he became lost in a moment of nostalgia.

"Funny boy, Merryworth. Excellent at Quidditch if I remember correctly - two years above us? And Genevive Oaks… you two were such bookworms together-"

"Stop!" Violet cried out, tears streaming down her face. "Stop it! I asked you once - Uncle Remus - I asked you how could I trust you, and now look where we are! I can't trust you, can I?"

"And I can't either - not anymore," Hermione said to him. "I covered for you… he's a Werewolf!" She told Harry and Ron. "That's why he's been missing classes."

Lupin seemed rather impressed. "How long have you known?"

"Since Professor Snape set the essay - well, that's when it was confirmed. I started to suspect when I noticed your Boggart was a moon. Violet and I both figured it out at the same time."

"Well, Hermione, you really are the brightest witch of your age-"

"You knew?" Harry turned to Violet. He sounded as if he was angry with her, and when he realised that was how it came across he shook himself back to sanity a little bit. "You knew he was the thing you feared the most? And you still chose to trust him?" He had simmered down ever so slightly.

Violet was struggling to get an answer out. "I realised you and Hermione were right - I tried to learn to trust him but now…" She turned to Lupin, who clearly knew where her sentence was going because he was pained. "Now I think that was a mistake."

"Perhaps you're right," Lupin said. "But maybe you're not. And we'll show you why."

"You're not doing anything," Harry said, taking hold of Violet and moving her behind him. She peered at Lupin and Black over his shoulder, almost frightened.

"How noble of you, Harry, but I'm done with that - and talking!" Black exclaimed. "Remus, let's kill him!"

"Fine," Lupin said, handing him Harry's wand. "But Harry has the right to know why."

"I know why!" Harry said. "You betrayed my parents. You're the reason they're dead!" He directed that at Black. Lupin was shaking his head the entire time.

"No, Harry, it wasn't him who betrayed your parents, it was someone else - some who I thought until recently to be dead!"

"Who was it then?"

"Peter Pettigrew," Sirius said. "And he's in this room right now! Come out, come out, Peter! Come out and play!"

As they were all too entranced and gobsmacked and confused by what was going on, nobody noticed Snape sneak to the entrance of the room. What they did notice was him disarm Sirius, sending Harry's wand flying back towards the teenagers. Snape kept his wand pointed at Sirius from there on out.

"I'm sorry - I'm sorry but I need to know…" Violet spoke up from behind Harry, stepping around him cautiously. "Professor Snape, how did you know where we all were? And isn't Peter Pettigrew dead? How can he be here?"

"I was on my way to hand off some Wolfsbane to dear old Moony here," Snape sneered in response. "And a certain map was lying open on his desk. I should have known…"

At this, Violet sighed. "Maybe we should have asked for the map back."

"Ha! I knew that Potter knew it was a map," Snape said gleefully. "Although, Miss Merryworth, I'm surprised you're even intrigued by it… Regardless - I did hope I'd be the one to catch Black…" He turned to Lupin. "I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle…"

While the adults were preoccupied, Violet pulled Harry aside to the opposite corner of the room where they wouldn't be overhead.

"What?" he hissed.

"I'm not going to lie - this might be the concussion talking - but I'm curious about Pettigrew, so for once I'm going to do something incredibly-"

"Stupid?"

"Gryffindor, was the word I was going to choose."

Despite everything going on, he shot her a half smile. "Alright. I'll admit I'm curious to know more too."

Violet gave him a curt nod and slowly approached the trio of adults with her wand raised at Black.

"Violet…" Lupin warned her.

"Even your niece knows what's right-" Snape started, but he was abruptly cut off.

"Depulso!" Violet changed her aim to Snape at the last second and sent him flying across the room, smashing into the four poster bed and the wall. Everyone was shocked to silence by her action, and she pocketed her wand rather sheepishly.

"That - that wasn't a Gryffindor thing to do!" Harry exclaimed. "That was stupid! You could have disarmed him or - or something!"

Black was grinning madly at her, a strange youthfulness coming back to his face. "Oh no, that was both stupid and Gryffindor."

The teenagers looked at Black oddly; the smile dropped from his face pretty quickly after that.

Lupin, on the other hand, was pinching the bridge of his nose and clearly stressed. "Your parents are going to have a field day with this one…"

"Back to the point at hand - Peter Pettigrew?" Violet then said.

"He was at school with us and we thought he was our friend," Lupin explained. "The map - Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs - that was us. We created that! I earned the nickname Moony due to my affliction… Pettigrew was Wormtail as he was able to transform into a rat, Sirius is Padfoot - which you all know why - and James. James could turn into a stag. Hence the name Prongs. We called ourselves the Marauders."

"And then you," Harry pointed at Black, "killed Pettigrew."

"No - no, Black didn't kill Pettigrew," Lupin insisted. "I thought so too until you mentioned seeing Pettigrew on the map!"

"The map was lying then!"

"The map never lies!" Black said. "Pettigrew's alive - and he's right there!" He pointed over at Ron, who was affronted.

"Me?! He's mental!"

Black rolled his eyes. "Not you - your rat!"

"Scabbers? He's been in my family for-"

"Twelve years? Curiously long life for a common garden rat…"

Even Harry insisted that Ron handed over Scabbers, his curiosity about the truth within Black and Lupin's statements becoming more and more obvious as the minutes wore on. Eventually, Black took the rat from Ron and it tried to escape, but not before he and Lupin forced it to turn back into a man.

The man had clearly been a rat for so long, that he was constantly hunched over and sniffling - even his two front teeth were rat-like in look and size, although Violet realised they had probably been like that his whole life. Her head was spinning while more revelations unfolded, but that may have just been the concussion. Black had been innocent the entire time - Pettigrew practically admitted to handing over the Potters to You-Know-Who.

She wondered what sort of craziness she had gotten herself involved in by becoming friends with Harry, but maybe it was worth it. He was about to save an innocent man from something terrible, after all. Violet could see some kind of understanding forming between Harry and Black, especially after making the decision to hand Pettigrew over to the Dementors.

Violet caught Harry's eye when the decision was made. She gave him a singular nod, and he smiled at her: in that moment they had a moment of understanding, as if Harry knew she was in it for the long haul now.

About 3 chapters away from ending the PoA section! Actually can't wait to get onto GoF...

Comment?

-OL.