"When all this mess is over, perhaps... Perhaps you could come live with me?"

Harry wasn't sure he heard what his newly discovered godfather said. Not an hour ago, he was going headfirst against the supposed traitor of his family, only to discover the real culprit, found some still existing family that wasn't the Dursley, to have a chance to better leaving condition.

While the sudden proposal transfigurated Harry, Sirius started to worry as negativity engulfed his mind.

"Of course, I would understand that you wouldn't; I mean, I'm still on the run as a wanted escaped 'convict', but..."

Hearing the previous Azakaban inmate starting to mumble, Harry abruptly cut him.

"I would love to! I mean, if you want me."

His outburst rapidly died, but both could see relief and joy in the other eyes at the events' turn. Regretfully, it was at this moment that things started to turn sour. The previously hidden full moon behind the heavy grey clouds slowly revealed itself, shining its cursed rays upon the particular individual that was this year's Hogwarts DADA professor.

"Sirius, the moon!" Hearing Hermoine shoot, the duo swirled their head to the group of two students, professors and a rat a little afar. Snape's unconscious form landed somewhat heavily on the ground, the charm keeping him afloat perturbed when the young witch turned her attention to the silvery star. Remus, hearing the young girl shoot, reflexively turned his head toward the sky, triggering the early stage of his change the second his gaze looked at Earth's satellite.

Amidst the confusion, Pettigrew rapidly snatched the fallen wand of his once friend, who fell off the Werewolf's grip the second he turned to the sky. Triggering his own change, not without a smug wave at the aggrieved teens assisting powerlessly at the scene, the rat rapidly scurried away from the place toward his freedom.

All the while, Sirius abandoned Harry to run at Remus amid his change, trying to hold on to the man, speaking to him.

"Fight it, Remus! You can't change now; think of Harry!"

But no matter how and what he could have said, the curse was above being constrained by mere words when the best available potion of the current age could do little more than help the infected wizard to hold their sanity on the full moon, let alone prevent the change.

As he was slowly but inexorably changing between fabric tearing sound, growling and whines, the situation suddenly shifted to an even more inconceivable happens barely a hundred meters from the group.

The otherwise silent night was torn apart by the sudden arrival of two forms emerging from nowhere. All still aware, wizards' eyes turned to the impossible sight of someone apparating inside Hogwarts' wards that should have made this happening impossible. None had the time to take a good look at the arrival before they heard the sound of shattering rock before it blurred out of sight, only to reappear in front of them.

All four were frozen solid at the deadlock they found themselves entrapped in. The previous group was suddenly rescinded in three, all present locked in a triangular formation, each eyeing the other two.

It took some seconds for the escaped inmate, the wounded ginger and the duo of third years to realise that a humongous wolf was standing between them and the two other parties, snarling and ready to pounce at the slightest sign of aggression from the others.

"Professor Snape!" Catching the prone and whitened limp body in the grip of the one-armed form that appears alongside the wolf, Hermione barely held her tears as she suddenly gripped Harry as a security blanket. Even the three other males weren't faring much better than the female as their brains processed the scene they had under their eyes.

Severus Snape was even paler than ever, the reason evident as his neck was bleeding the little left in his body from the sudden feast he was subjected to from the vampire that appeared alongside the wolf. As for Moony, the fully turned Werewolf was releasing some pitiful whine, clearly confused about the situation and the mixed signals its instinct and nose were sending to his brain. Most came from the evident creature, which still smelled of humans. As for the other one, it was wrecking of death while stirring some deeply buried instinctive hostility.

~D.S.S~

"Merlin shaggy' balls! Have you seen the size of this monster? It is at least three-meter tall!" Whispered Incredusously the somewhat raving ginger.

Ron's words seem to be the trigger needed to break the rising tension. Discarding Remus's momently cowed attitude, the wolf again blurred off the Wizards' sight before a scream of anguish and the sound of shattering rocks thundered in their ears as the vampire was torn to shred. Snape's corpse wasn't spared any thought and was rapidly mangled in the short scruffle of the two supernatural creatures. Unlike the meat paste that was the previously Potion professor, the vampire's corpse was still somewhat whole, with only the exposed flesh of the wound looking like some shattered marble sculpture.

Moony, who had stayed still, snapped back to them once again at the vulnerable group of four and would have torn them apart if not for the timely intervention of the wolf who barreled into the dark creature. The sound of snapping bones and painful whine echoed in the night as the two tangled forms tumbled from the little outcrop they stood atop, leaving the four flabbergasted at the happening.

It was only a fews minutes later, when the sudden coldness started to surround them, that they snapped out of their flunk.

"Harry, take Ronald with you and go to the infirmary! I'll go after the rat!"

"What? No! He already sent you to Azkaban the last time! With the Dementors already here, you will be directly kissed!" Interjected Hermione hotly, knowing what would happen in witnessing the slightly crazed glint in the man's gaze. "You already left Harry back then; he needs you now!"

Hearing the young girl's harsh barb, Sirius seems to surface from the quagmire that was the situation, enough to realise her words and how true they were. Torn by the two situations and possible outcome, he hesitated for seconds before nodding and turning into Padfoot.

Harry visibly relaxed at seeing his godfather stand at his side before remembering their situation. While Hermione snapped her wand toward the injured third of the golden trio, levitating him, Harry processed with his own spell. The incorporeal silvery list of the Patronus appeared just in time to repel the first two incoming Dementors.

"Run!" Shooting at Hermione, the group started to head back to the castle as fast as possible with their corresponding burdens.

~D.S.S~

When they finally neared the castle, the dementors on their heels were immediatly dispersed by the poncing form of a tabby cat. A few dozen meters reveal that Mcgonagall was already waiting for them. Taking advantage of the cover of the night and the driven out Dementor, Sirius derived from the group, not wanting to risk approaching the Transfiguration mistress and being spotted. Harry was about to shoot for his godfather, only catching himself when he saw him going toward Hagrid's hut. Any interrogation their head of house could have waited when she saw her wounded charge and heard the Werewolf howling.

"Quick, get inside!" Taking the rear once she closed off the castle door, Mcgonagall herded them to the infirmary, where the matron immediatly took over and started to treat Ronald. "How is he, Poppy?"

"Nothing serious, just some bite and a slightly sprained ankle, nothing a good night won't heal." responded the matron while forced-feeding Ron, who was still a little delirious due to the previous rapidly shifting situations.

Seeing that her third charge was in good hand, the Deputy Headmistress turned back to the duo after the medicwitch had a turn on them, making sure they suffered nothing more severe than the mild Dementor exposition they suffered in returning to the castle. Taking care of the redhead didn't take more than a dozen minutes; as for the duo, it was even faster, taking a little under twenty minutes.

"What could have possessed you to be out at this time of the night, more so knowing what was roaming outside and your reaction to them, Mister Potter, Miss Granger?"

Before any of the two could respond, the infirmary's door opens once again on a group even stranger than the gathering that happened not long before outside.

"Sweet Merlin!" Gasped McGonagall as she looked at the procession which came inside.

No one could blame the cat lady for her shocked state, as, walking to the side of the Headmaster, was a man who the entire country, both sides confounded, into a wild manhunt since the start of the year. If it wasn't enough, Hagrid carried an enormous wolf everyone present ever seen in their lives. The last and perhaps even more shocking and confusing was the partially mangled body of another of her past student, one through dead for twelve years, under the hand of the first man. If McGonagall or Pomfresh had any doubt, Harry shoot cleared any possible misunderstanding.

"Pettigrew!"

"Why bring the beast here, Headmaster? Shouldn't Hagrid kept it near his hut to treat it?" Asked Poppy, who still merged two beds to accommodate the creature. Looking at it while speaking, her experienced eye rapidly caught the matted fur on some spot, a possible sign of external injuries.

Barely put on the bed, Dumbledore put Pettigrew, whose lower half seems to have been squashed flat, on another, before securing the two. While the last was more of a measure to prevent escape, if it was even possible in its state, the other was meant to keep the heavily shaking creature seemingly suffering some seizure of sort.

"I fear the situation is more complex than even what took place here during the year."

When all four heard the sombre tone of the Headmaster as Ron was knocked out from the potion to allow a better recovery, did the other understand that it wasn't all to the story. Harry and Hermione understood and remembered that one of their professors had died shortly after. While the former couldn't care less and even felt some sort of retribution falling on the Potion master from his previous treatment. The latter was deeply shocked by the brutality of the happening and how fragile the human body was against those two creatures after knowing that Wizards were generally sturdier than standard humans.