Disclaimer: Not a part of Harry Potter belongs to me. I'm just borrowing stuff…

AN: Oh my… what, it's been more than 2 months…. Nearly 3 months since my last update… school work has been killing me almost literally … and exam is coming up in May(scream in horror…. ) the delay really was not due to not knowing how to continue… I have written up most of this chapter like months ago… but I just seem couldn't find the time or the energy to type them up…

Sorry for leaving everyone in a nasty cliffy for so long. This chapter is very very short, it's not even half of what I have originally planed for this chapter… but I just want to resolve the cliffy and post with this first…

Thanks for all those who have reviewed. Please stick with me and I will try my best to post another chapter before the nasty exam arrives….

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 13 Assault in the Dark

Harry returned to the world of consciousness painfully.

His whole body ached and screamed in protest of being violently crashed into the hard floor. There was a pounding in his head as if someone was drilling through his way through his skull.

He tried to push himself up from the floor, but was rewarded with a mad spinning of the ground beneath him as soon as he moved his upper body and head a bit off the ground. He fell back down heavily, the impact threatening to snatch away his consciousness again.

However, something kept nagging his mind, commanding him to stay awake.

/Harry! HARRY! Wake up/

Who the hell was shouting and stabbing at his mind so sharply?

The cloudiness over his mind was cleared considerably by the wave of urgency and panic that flooded through the bond.

/Sirius/ he thought weakly.

His body was jerked up in shock as stabs of excruciating pain flooded through the bond. His mind was thrown back in rapt clarity by that pain. He struggled to lift himself up the floor and stood clutching the wall, fighting hard against the maddening protest of his mind and his wobbly legs to simply collapse again.

The first thing he noticed was the low growl of two wounded animals.

The second thing that came to his attention was the complete darkness of the hallway. When had the torches illuminating the hallway gone out?

And, above all, he felt pain. Pain from the other being that he held so closely to his heart.

/Sirius! Where're you? What's happening/ Harry thought frantically, his shaky hand searching for his wand in his robe.

/Harry! Go! Just go! I'll hold it off -/ his thought was cut off.

With dismay, Harry heard the wounded howl of his godfather and the clash of something big colliding into the floor. His bone chilled at the triumphant growl of the other beast and the sound of its clawed paws screeching against the tiles, ready to spring –

Harry's fingers closed around his wand. Strength seemed to rush back to his body.

"Lumous!" Harry yelled, the blinding flash of light appeared just in time to reveal the unsightly beast, twice as massive as Padfoot, that were just merely four meters from him, charging in great leaps towards him in an alarming speed.

Harry realized what a big trouble he was in as he met the unseeing white gaze of the beast for the split of a second – it was blind and that's why it hadn't flinched in the slightest from the blinding light.

Harry rowed sideway without delay at the realization, barely avoiding being crashed by the beast headlong into the wall. He tried to return to a crouching position where he could attempt an attack, but the beast was too fast. It leapt at him even before his rowing motion stopped completely.

"Reductio!" Harry screamed, and by sheer luck alone, the curse hit the beast square in the chest. The beast was blasted off and forced back, but not before slashing Harry's left shoulder with its sharp claws, eliciting a sharp cry of pain from Harry.

Harry staggered and fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

From the angry growl of the beast charging at him yet again, Harry knew he merely had succeeded in angering the beast, but not injuring it in the slightest.

A sense of doom descended, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

Harry waited. But the claw that would snatch his life way didn't fall.

Wounded howl of two beasts shook Harry away from his stupor. Without doubt, it was Sirius who saved him from the claws of death once again. Sirius, who was limping due to a bone-crushing wound on his left hind leg. Sirius, who was hurt like hell yet yelling through the mutual link for Harry to run for his life while he held the beast off. Sirius, whom Harry nearly, almost had lost.

He could not let anything happen to Sirius.

Harry steadied his grip on his wand, calmed his ragged breathing down, and stood.

The beast that assaulted them screamed as Sirius' sharp teeth sank into the back of its neck. Blood split out, yet it only added to the beast's furious struggle, as it snared, clawed and bit to get Padfoot off its neck. The two massive creatures rowed and crashed around, limbs tangled and twisted together without stop. Harry simply couldn't aim –

In Harry's moment of hesitation, the beast finally threw Padfoot off.

Harry's jolted in pain as Sirius was crashed against wall. Harry clutched his ribs and bent, the pain was real, as if it had been his ribs that were broken, not Sirius's. Waves of nausea and dizziness hit him, for Sirius had been thrown into the world of unconsciousness.

Despite the white hot agony, despite the protest of the body for him to just pass out, despite the cry from his heart to go and check on his fallen Godfather, Harry shut himself down from the pain and took aim, because the power that had been building up had screamed for release.

'Expelliarmus! Reductio! Stupify!'

Three blasts of raw power left his wand tip almost at once. They were so brilliant, and faster than lightning.

The blasts of lights was detained by an invisible shell just merely inches from touching the beast. But soon the sheer power of the curses shattered the shield, and hit the beast square in the chest.

The blood-curling howl of the dying monster was the last thing that Harry heard as his body, being thrown back due to the immense recoiling force of the curse he cast, collided with the wall behind him.

' I have to help Sirius.' It was Harry's last thought as cruel darkness engulfed his consciousness.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry woke with a heavy pounding pain in his head and the awareness of the dim light of the corridor.

Groaning in pain, Harry tried to assess the situation he was in. It seemed that he had just pass out for a few moment. He was half lying, half sitting against the wall, upon a pool of his own blood. Blood was still dripping steadily from the gaping wound on his shoulder.

Harry could see the monster, now thankfully dead, lying several meters away from him. It was a bloody mess that Harry couldn't make himself set his eyes upon twice.

Despite the beast's death, something was terribly wrong.

There seemed to be something important missing. As Harry searched within himself, there was an awful ache in his heart, and a gaping hole at the back of his mind…

Sirius!

Harry's frantic gaze darted across the floor and fell onto the immobile dog lying a short distance away from him.

Though he was so close within Harry's sight, Harry couldn't feel his presence through the bond.

It was as if someone had brutally ripped a part of Harry's soul away from him. It was as if their connection, the bond that Harry thought was more than important than his life, had been severed.

"Sirius!" Harry yelled, his voice hoarse, as he try to bolt to his godfather.

The world rotated as soon as Harry tried to move. But it by no means stopped Harry from half running, half crawling to the unconscious animagus.

Harry refused to acknowledge the terrible question rapidly rising in his mind. He dropped to a crouch besides Sirius. With a shaky hand, Harry tilted Padfoot's head towards him and felt for its snout with the other hand. And waited.

Tears of relief fell as soon as the breath of life from Padfoot's nose stroke Harry's fingers.

Quickly rubbing his tears away, Harry realized he had no time to waste. From the bond previously, Harry knew Sirius must have broken his ribs. It might have punctured his lung, regarding the pained and ragged way Padfoot was breathing.

Harry felt faint just by looking at the pool of blood that continued to grow in size on the floor.

Sirius's life was dripping away as time ticked by.

Harry mustered his last strength to perform the levitation charm on Sirius. He didn't dare to move or touch Sirius with his bare hands for fear that he might accidentally move and worsen the condition of any damaged parts.

Harry's unsteady footsteps echoed through the hallway as he walked as fast as he could, with Padfoot's prone body floating just besides him.

Harry had always been able to see Sirius even when the Concealment Charm had been in place. Padfoot's prone form had not really looked different to him, yet Harry knew without doubt that charm's power was weakened. Anyone that stumbled upon them then would be able to see Sirius.

Yet Harry could not seriously worry about that yet, as there was a much more urgent matter at hand. Before he could pass out from exhaustion and loss of blood, Harry had to get Sirius to the only person he could turn to – Madam Pomfrey.

Harry knew he really had to hurry.

Sirius's breathing was becoming more and more shallow.

But he could walk no faster. It was harder and harder to lift his foot and force it forward for another step.

The road to hospital wing had never been so long.

If only he could make it in time...

He had to, no matter what.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

AN: again, sorry for the shortness.

Please… click the little review button and give me some motivation and ideas… I really am needing those…