Disclaimer: I own nothing.

           Title: To Kill a Mocking Rat

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          Harry stopped Hermione from going any further. Hermione seeing whom they were following gripped onto Harry's arm like her life depended on it. Only a few fallen trees and some standing trees divided them and Sirius Black.

          "Sirius Black?" Harry asked. Black slipped away from sight. Hermione tightened her grip on his arm he was beginning to lose feeling in his fingers.

          "Yes?" a hoarse voice answered from behind them. Harry spun around Hermione still attached to him. His and Hermione's wands were still out. Black snatched the wands from their hands. Hermione looked from the knife in his hand to the wands in his other. She was biting her bottom lip so hard it bled. She was muttering, "Please don't hurt us, please don't hurt us." Harry however took action. He took his right leg and ran it under Black's so he would trip. It worked until Black grabbed Hermione's left leg and pulled her down, she screamed when she fell. Oh course who wouldn't scream? Harry grabbed the fallen knife.

          "Hermione!" Black had her in a headlock.

~@~@~@~@~

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

          "What's going on?" Seamus Finnigan's voice asked. Ron Weasley was sitting up in bed, the hangings torn from one side, a look of utmost terror on his face.

          "Black! Sirius Black! With a knife!"

          "What?"

          "Here! Just now! Slashed the curtains! Woke me up!"

       "You sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?" said Dean Thomas.

          "Look at the curtains! I tell you, he was here!"

  They all scrambled out of bed; no one noticed Harry was missing. They sprinted down the staircase. Doors opened behind them, and sleepy voices called after them.

          "Who shouted?"

          "What're you doing?"

The common room was lit with the glow of the dying fire, still littered with the debris from the party. It was deserted.

          "Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?"

          "I'm telling you, I saw him!"

          "What's all the noise?"

          "Professor McGonagall told us to go to bed!"

          A few of the girls had come down their staircase, pulling on dressing gowns and yawning. Boys, too, were appearing.

          "Excellent, are we carrying on?" Fred Weasley said brightly.

          "Everyone back upstairs!" said Percy, hurrying into the common room and pinning his Head Boy badge to his pajamas as he spoke.

     "Perce-Sirius Black!" said Ron faintly, "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"

          The common room went very still.

     "Nonsense!" said Percy, looking startled. "You had too much to eat, Ron-had a nightmare~"

      "I'm telling you~"

    "Now really, enough's enough!"

     Professor McGonagall was back. She slammed the portrait behind her as she entered the common room and stared furiously around.

     "I am delighted Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better of you!"

          "I certainly didn't authorize this, Professor!" said Percy, puffing himself up indignantly. "I was just telling them all to get back into bed! My brother Ron here had a nightmare~"

     "IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!" Ron yelled. "PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!"

Professor McGonagall stared at him

    "Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he possibly have through the portrait hole?"

    "Ask him!" said Ron, pointing a shaking finger at the back of Sir Cadogan's picture. "Ask him if her saw~"

     Glaring suspiciously at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside. The whole common room listened with bated breath.

    "Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?"

   "Certainly, good lady!" cried Sir Cadogan.

  There was a stunned silence, both inside and outside the common room.

      "You-you did?" said Professor McGonagall. "But-but the password!"

       "He had 'em!" said Sir Cadogan. "Had the whole weeks, my lady! Read 'em off a little piece of paper!"

          "Which person," she said her voice shaking, "which abysmally foolish person wrote down this weeks' passwords and left them lying around?"

          There was utter silence, broken by the smallest of terrified squeaks. Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to toe, raised his hand slowly in the air. After McGonagall gave Neville lecture and a punishment, Ron noticed Harry was not in the room.

          "Professor!" Ron said. "Harry's not here!"

      Professor McGonagall turned whiter than chalk.

          "Are you sure?"

          "Yes! And neither is Hermione!"

        "Stay here," the professor left Gryffindor Tower.

~@~@~@~@~

          "I won't hurt, Hermione, if you don't kill me," Sirius reasoned. He knew Harry wouldn't give up easily if he were anything like his father.

          "And I thought you'd kill anyone who got in your way. What? Gone soft in Azkaban?" Harry snarled.

          "Harry!" Hermione said. Sirius felt like a knife had just gone through his chest.

          "Harry, I didn't," Sirius said quietly.

     "Didn't do what?"

         "I didn't kill your parents! You don't understand!"

     "I understand a lot better than you think!"

          "I wasn't the secret keeper! Pettigrew was!"

     "Then what were you doing in Gryffindor Tower with a knife?"

          "I was-er-getting Pettigrew sounds stupid I know, but please believe me, Harry. I can't lie."

Sorry it's such a crappy chapter, my sister's kicking me off the computer.

        ~*SoccerrSweet*~