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"Sirius." Harry finished, his heart had skipped about five beats and now was beating furiously inside his fragile chest as if it was beating of the bars of a jail cell.
"Oh... my... god," Hermione said in a deep whisper.
Ron just stared wide-eyed at the hunched over man; mouth had dropped open, almost hitting the floor. "Impossible," he said, so softly only Harry could hear.
Harry slowly made his way toward the man; whose hair had parted to reveal a beaten and battered face. Sirius' eyes had also widened with the shock of seeing his god-son at the Three Broomsticks. Harry reached out a hand, ready to embrace his god-father, when Sirius vanished just as quickly as he appeared.
"Noooo!" Harry cried, falling to his knees on the ground, shouting curses to the ceiling of the room. Hermione rushed to his aid, closely followed by Ron and Neville.
"Hey!" Lady Rosemerta, called from the opposite side of the bar, "Don't swear in my shop! Out you four, out I say!"
Hermione tugged on Harry's arm as Ron and Neville rushed to the safety of outdoors.
"What the hell was that!" Ron cried once Harry and Hermione had come rushing from the doors. Snow had fallen upon the dirt ground, covering the brown with a sparkling ivory.
"Could he have been... an apparition that we all saw?" Hermione suggested, fumbling with her hands.
"Apparition?" Ron asked. "How can you use confusing terms at a time like this!"
Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "Ron, an apparition is a spirit... Could we all have seen it though? Maybe he..." she trailed off, leading into hopeless ideas.
"He was there, that was him." Harry sad matter-of-a-factly.
"Harry, we can't be sure of that." Hermione said in an almost parent-like tone.
"I know it was."
"Harry-" she started, but stopped in fear his yelling fit would break out now. (You know what girl, you were right!)
"Don't you dare tell me it wasn't him!" Harry yelled at the top of his lungs, attracting the attention on of some innocent by-standers. "Don't tell me that wasn't my god-father! It was! And he will be back to take me away and we can live together! I can leave the Dursleys!"
Ron sighed, starting to turn back toward the castle. "We don't want to listen to your yelling," he said to Harry. "So you can stop."
Harry trudged after him, fuming in silence. They returned to the Gryffindor common room. Neville, Ron, and Harry bade a goodnight to Hermione as they headed off to their dorms.
"Harry, I would keep my mind off the whole Sirius thing..." Neville said through a yawn, he dragged his feet towards his bed.
Harry nodded, not feeling an urge to argue. Just forgetting it sounded great. But of course, when you fall asleep, your conscience will create stories in your head that we call dreams... and that night Harry had a very strange one.
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