Against my better judgment, I'm going to go ahead and finish this story. After this I may possibly retire from the HP department. Don't quote me on this. I'm entertaining another story idea, but as of right now I'm so tired of Harry Potter I could barf, and none of the other characters are very appealing right now either. Sorry guys. Hope these last few chapters are a satisfactory clean up for the mess I've made.

I'm not supposed to be scared of anything
but I don't know where I am.
I wish that I could move, but I'm exhausted
and nobody understands how I feel.

At first he wasn't quite sure what had happened. All he knew was the dark and the pain, or the unnerving lack thereof.

The force of the spell blast had sent him skidding across the floor some twenty feet from where he had originally stood. He saw a window and some doors that he didn't recognize, and for a moment he entertained the idea of having been hurled through a wall.

But there was very little debris, and Sirius could see the corridor as clearly as he had before the skirmish had occurred, save for the enormous floating balls of dust and bits of wall that hung from the frames of the house.

"Remus?" he called into the darkness. Coughing, Sirius pulled himself quickly to his feet. "Remus!" he yelled again.

No answer.

Groping about, the wizard was able to find his wand, and on all fours began to crawl through the dust clouds, realizing only too late that he should have waited for his eyes soon began to sting and water from the irritating particles.

His hand found a foot not a few moments after, and he already felt panic well up within him as the formation of a limp and bloody figure became known to his eyes.

"Remus?"

All of a sudden, the body flipped from its side to its back, and Sirius jumped in spite of himself, for the motion had been so abrupt that he had to wonder if Remus were being controlled from another wizards' wand.

Looking past the dying fog of dust, he found a familiar face working frantically to find a pulse on the man lying on the ground.

"Tonks?" He asked, coughing again against the dust. "Is he...?"

She shook her head, inspecting a deep incision on Remus' brow. "No, but he's in pretty bad condition. We need to get him out of here."

"But..."

She raised a glowering set of eyes in Sirius' direction. He shrunk back instantly, recognizing the danger their friend was in, but his mind inadvertently traveled back to his godson who was undoubtedly in the midst of all of this somewhere.

"I can't abandon him now, Tonks," he begged with saddened eyes. "We're so close."

The pink haired woman glanced sadly to the man in her arms. Sighing, she nodded her head. Allowing Sirius, against her better judgment, to go through with the rest of this mission alone. Tonks knew that she really had no power to stop this man anyway. He was determined, and though she barely knew her cousin that well these days, she knew better than to think that the stubbornness of the Black lineage had over passed him.

"Good luck to you, Sirius."

Sirius smiled and nodded. "And to you." He paused to consider his friend, then sighed. "Take care of him."

"Always." Tonks grinned.

With that, he disappeared into the dispersing cloud of debris.

For the first time since he'd left the Dursley's, Harry marveled at his personal freedom once again. The prisoners who had survived the collapse of the basements had found the lock boxes where their wands had been kept, and with some magical intervention they had been able to access them and flee into the deteriorating halls of the keep. Everyone took off in their own preferred way, wishing the others luck in their escape.

Harry was not surprised to find himself alone in his endeavor to flee. His instincts, however, were guiding him in a different direction. He wasn't looking for a way out, just some faces that he knew he could trust, team up with, and hopefully assist in any way possible. Chances were that he knew this castle better than many of the Order members, and with him they could find an escape route easily and without enemy interference.

When Harry took the nearest hall alone, he knew that alertness was his key factor to survival. He would have to keep to the shadows for as long as possible. Interference was not a luxury he could avoid. He needed to get out of this castle. Sirius had to be beside himself with worry at this point, and Harry wasn't sure he wanted to imagine what his godfather might do in such a fit of desperation.

He couldn't take the chance of gambling his life away if others were dependant on him.

The corridors grew uneasily silent as Sirius progressed down through the labyrinth of stone walls and aged tapestries. Each corner held unfriendly shadows and possible obstacles. One wrong move and he could easily be taken unaware, carted off without a single witness and left for dead in some godforsaken hold of the enemy.

Gritting his teeth against the imminent frustration, Sirius urged himself forward. Each echoing footstep caused his heart to skip a beat, and every time he moved to fast he suspected his shadow as the culprit that breathed down his neck.

Paranoia would soon set in if he didn't find light or catch sight of a face that wasn't his own.

The howling wind outside was reduced to a mere echoing whisper within the stony walls of the keep, communicating heatedly with the chest-tightening trepidation that threatened to overpower his will and send him hurtling out of the castle in a fit of terror. Fear was the key factor Sirius had never been able to beat throughout his life. The only thing that ended up defeating his fear was a more overpowering fear. Now, the only thing that overpowered his fear of this keep and all that resided in it, was the fear of never again seeing his godson.

With his jaw stiffened against the inner chill of his body, Sirius pressed on. Fearful, but determined.

Nothing would keep him away any more.


Lyrics: "Changes" by Three Doors Down