Chapter Twenty: Strike Out
Remus' transformation trigger's Peter's escape, as dementors swarm Hogwarts and don't particularly care whose soul they take in their drive to get to Sirius Black.
Even without Severus and the teens in the room, it was still thick with tension.
Remus had dropped to his knees almost as soon as the children – and they'd be children to him for a while yet, regardless of how old they were – had been out of his hearing range, bringing Sirius to the ground with him.
The wolf pressed forward, reaching for the animal that had seemed to have always lived in Sirius, a pack unto themselves, something not even James had been able to understand.
Something just for the two of them.
There were no words spoken between the two of them, though they were communicating just fine.
James may have been their unofficial leader, but Sirius had always been the initiative.
He'd been the first to figure out Remus' secret.
The one to drive himself into the ground over the Animagus Ritual, where he didn't put even a fraction of the effort into his lessons.
He didn't need to speak to tell Remus that he was feeling guilt, apology, promise, and still steadfast devotion to his friend.
Remus pushed his pain, desperation, guilt, and fledgling love – love that hadn't dimmed in over a decade – and wrapped his taller, lankier frame over Sirius', letting him carry him as he clearly felt the need.
And above them, restrengthening the tie between them, the full moon pulsed, pushing its own connection on Remus and his wolf.
Sirius tightened his hold as though he could feel it himself.
Grounding.
XX
Tarana, Ivory, and Arcana had shoved the bed into a corner, throwing out the only table in the room, to make additional room.
Ebony maneuvered his shadow-cage into the corner beside it, where Arcana could keep an eye on both the prisoner within it and his charge beside him on the bed.
Peter was forced to sit inside it, arms around his knees because Ebony was an ass and had made it smaller when he moved it, far smaller than the man inside it required it to comfortably be.
There was a tense silence in the room as all senses, if not eyes, had been turned to the werewolf, waiting for the moment that the change forced itself over him.
Peter knew, from experience, that Moony hated strangers, and ideally, the Valerians would have sent Fallen, Arcana, and Yoko out of the Shack and left only the three he knew and was familiar with, but – and they hadn't bothered to have the conversation telepathically so he knew they meant for him to overhear it – it had been argued that if those three were focused on watching and containing Moony, there would be no one to watch Peter.
Being forced to sit in his nearly-too-small cage and watch as Sirius wrapped himself around Remus, grounding the werewolf in his flesh for a little while longer, he allowed himself a moment to reminisce.
In the early days of their friendship, James and Sirius had been nearly inseparable, wound so tightly together that trying to find your niche with them was borderline impossible. It left Remus and Peter, on more than one occasion, shuttled to the sidelines with the Valerians – who at the time had only been Tarana and Ebony – but the Valerians were rarely all that interested in the two strange eleven-year-olds that James and Sirius hung around with and they were left to their own devices trying to fit in.
Being the 'odd couple' didn't make Peter and Remus closer, but it had given them a sense of comrade.
Comrade that had driven Peter to bring up a way to join a werewolf on the three nights a month that it was at its most feral.
It had been his idea that Remus gave credit to Sirius, who had taken his idea and, with help from James, fleshed out to the brainchild it had become.
His idea which had been born out of his understanding of loneliness, loneliness that no creature should ever have gone through, let alone such a pack-oriented-creatures like a werewolf.
Watching his former friends now, he wondered if, had he made different choices, could it have been him, not Sirius, that anchored the werewolf in his flesh.
The thought of all that Sirius had taken from him transformed the thought from guilt and melancholy to anger.
Anger that his supposed friends had never noticed.
Anger at always being the butt of the jokes, of being left out, of being an afterthought.
Anger morphed again, to jealousy this time.
He'd wanted desperately to connect with Remus. It had always been Peter pushing to try and understand his fellow 'outsider', wanting that connection that had been, to the very end, as powerful as what was between James and Sirius.
He'd thought, when James and Sirius had taken his idea and run with it, that he might even have been part of that legendary connection they'd shared.
So how?
How as it that it was Remus, who wanted nothing to do with them, always alone and afraid of what he was capable of.
Of what he was.
A dark chuckle in his head forced him to avert his gaze from his former friends, but he knows that it's too late.
Tearing his gaze away from Remus and Sirius puts him eye-to-eye with the black leopard.
Ebony had always been the most dangerous thing in any room and anyone around him knew it.
Even now, sprawled on the floor and half-buried by his white Twin, Ebony looked like he was stalking the room, tail flicking in that slow, steady way he and Tarana had perfected and used when they were at their most dangerous – which for Ebony was always.
The leopard didn't take his eyes off Peter, and, as it inevitably always was, Peter looked away from those too-knowing, half-lidded ice-blue eyes.
How much of my mind did he manage to read? Peter thought to himself.
XX
Fifteen minutes later, an ominous creak from the bed forced Arcana to remove himself from it, or risk collapsing it with his injured – and growing rapidly more and more uncomfortable – charge still on it.
"Yoko?" Arcana asked, glancing over his shoulder at the redhead.
Yoko looked up from where he was lying on the ground beside Fallen and shook his head. "The Lidrova leaf isn't entirely safe for human consumption," he told him. "It'll numb the pain, but any more than what he has could make him too loopy and we'll never get him out of here."
Arcana sighed and glanced over at Tarana.
'How do you do this every month?' he asked the panther.
Tarana glanced at him, not that anyone would know, as her eyes were solid black, reflecting the hold she had on two Elemental barriers. One was a low banked circle of fire that she would raise once Remus' transformation began in earnest, and the other already nearly chest high on a normal person at the top of the stairs.
'Which part?' she asked him.
'The waiting,' Arcana answered.
'Practice.' Tarana replied, turning to look back at Remus and Sirius.
Arcana looked her over. 'You've been lost in thought since you raised the barriers. Are you alright?'
Tarana weighed her answer carefully.
The barrier she currently held against Remus had, once upon a time, been to protect James and Peter – Peter because he wasn't quite as instinctual as Sirius and James were, though he was almost as at home in his second skin as the now-convict; and James because he was simply too big to be in the room as Prongs, standing nearly as tall as the Siblings did. The memories were bittersweet, and she apparently didn't need to tell Arcana that, because he changed the subject.
'What are your plans now that Sirius is free of prison?' he asked her.
'Free but unwell,' Tarana sighed. 'No one would allow him to take Harry into his home, in the mental condition he's in, not even me.'
'He can't return to the Dursleys,' Arcana pointed out. 'Odds are high you'll kill at least one by the end of the first month.'
'First week,' Tarana corrected with a sneer, before sighing. 'It wasn't the most important thing on my mind this year, but it has been there.' she admitted. 'Once I found Remus here, I had begun to wonder if perhaps I'd been thinking about it the wrong way. Harry has three properties in his title's name and now I have two adults who would welcome a home to come to.'
'The Ministry will never allow Remus to take custody of him,' Arcana pointed out.
'They can't stop me from putting him on one of those properties,' Tarana pointed out. 'And they likewise can't stop the Lord Potter, as the homeowner, from inviting two of his parents' friends into his home and life.'
'Can you put up with the additional interest they would use to try and keep tabs on their Savior?' Arcana asked, sneering the 'title' the wizarding world had given Harry with such distaste one would have thought him still serving Dark and the Dark Lord.
Tarana's lips curled. 'And what 'interest' could get past the marriage home of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter? Or would step foot on the grounds Lily and James were murdered on?'
'Or the ancestral home of the Potters,' Arcana snorted, seeing her point. 'Have you given thought to which one?'
'Of the three, Fleamont and Euphemia's home likely has the least amount of work that would need to be done to bring them back up to livable conditions,' Tarana told him. 'Remus and Sirius would be familiar with it as well, as they both spent a significant amount of time there while they were going to school.'
Arcana glanced at Sirius and Remus, tilting his head thoughtfully. 'It'll be quite the fit,' he said. 'I don't suppose the house is all that large, if it was given to the Potters for marriage.'
Marriage houses were usually, as the name dictated, given to heirs to start their own families in, away from the pressure and responsibilities in the Family home. They weren't usually all that big, only large enough for the couple and perhaps two children.
'Two bedrooms,' Tarana agreed. 'James and Sirius needed to share a room when he moved in.'
Arcana blinked, startled. 'He lived with you?'
'He left home the summer after their Fifth Year,' Tarana told him, eyeing him oddly. 'He was only there for a couple of years before he moved out and got a place of his own. The place wasn't quite big enough for Ebony and myself. I doubt it'll be much better with all three of us in residence.' The panther shrugged. 'Needs must.'
The curt tone to her voice neatly asked Arcana not to push the matter any further, and the tiger couldn't blame her.
They were this close to having a way out for Harry the same way they had one for Blaise, but though they hadn't mentioned it to the teens, Trelawney's prophecy was still pounding away in the backs of their minds.
If Peter was the Dark Lord's servant, that meant that he was going to escape tonight.
The only question remaining to them was did he do so before or after he was revealed to the Ministry of Magic?
XX
Arcana glanced over his shoulder as Ron shifted, or at least tried to.
It was obvious that his limbs weren't cooperating with him.
"How long is that likely to last for?" Ivory asked, pausing in his grooming of his brother to eye the redhead.
It said a great deal about the Twins that despite the cozy scene – and the fact that Ebony was putting up with it in the first place said a great deal about how much he'd missed his family, even if he never said it – the Twins still looked like the most dangerous thing in the room.
It was the aura, Arcana was sure.
Once the two stopped hiding it, it was impossible not to know that there was something different about Ebony and Ivory when compared to the others of their Kin.
Yoko looked away from whatever argument he and Fallen were privately having – and the frustration on the wolf's face told the King that whatever it was, he was losing it – to eye the teen for himself.
"Theoretically it should last another couple hours. He's likely feeling minor twinges of pain, but they won't last. He's only just taken the leaf maybe half an hour ago. Once the full effects kick in, he'll be feeling nothing."
Ivory snorted. "Did you think about the fact that we've gotta move the kid when you dosed him?" he asked.
Yoko shrugged.
"It certainly won't be a normal school year if something didn't hit the proverbial fan," Fallen drawled, rolling his eyes.
"At least this one's an easy fix," Sirius said, sounding more exhausted than he had before Severus and the teens had left and startling the Valerians with his opinion, given that he was rubbing his thumb over Remus' neck and appeared entirely focused on the half-dozing werewolf. "'Least once a professor shows up. Have him levitated back up to the castle."
Tarana and Arcana glanced at one another, but though Sirius may have been listening to their conversations, he wasn't looking at any of them and he missed it.
XX
The Gryffindors had torn into a sprint the moment they had escaped through the Whomping Willow's now flailing branches again, leaving Severus behind, not that the professor minded much.
He'd had enough of aiding and abetting the idiocy of the Marauders and their Valerian allies to last him a long time.
"We'll get Professor McGonagall," Hermione called, grabbing Draco by the wrist and pulling him toward their Head of House's office.
"Guess that leaves us to get that potion," Harry said, glancing at Blaise over his shoulder. "You alright?"
Blaise gave him a mirthless smile. "Been better," he admitted. "I'd rather we didn't have a werewolf pretty much captive in a deadly tree."
"Here, here," Neville muttered under his breath, though he barely had that to spare. "Is it like this every year for you guys?"
Blaise and Harry exchanged a quick glance as they darted around a corner. "Pretty much," they answered as one.
XX
Nearly twenty minutes later, Harry, Blaise, and Neville were quietly arguing whether they should go back to the Shack with the potion or continue to wait for Hermione, Draco, and McGonagall when the three in question joined them in the Entrance Hall.
McGonagall had her cloak over one shoulder, leaving one free to draw her wand at a moment's notice, and was a rather alarming shade of white as she swept past them toward the door.
"Show me how to get into this secret passage," she told them, leading them all outside. "And you will all return to your dormitory."
"Yes ma'am," everyone chorused, though the odds of them doing so were rather low.
"Crookshanks pressed on that knot in the tree there," Harry said, pointing to it. "It froze the Willow and let us all get through to the hole in the trunk."
McGonagall nodded; her lips pressed tightly together as she extended her wand-free hand to Blaise. "The potion, Mr. Zabini."
Blaise eagerly handed the lukewarm goblet to the professor, who frowned at it, before swishing her wand toward the ground and flicking it toward the knot in the tree.
A branch lifted off the ground and levitated to the knot, pressing against it and almost immediately the branches of the Willow froze.
"Straight back to your common room," McGonagall reminded them. "Do not dawdle."
Once the professor was through the entrance to the secret passage, however, none of the Gryffindors moved.
They may not want to face off against a werewolf, but they were each, in their own way, worried about Ron and the Valerians that were still in the Shrieking Shack with not only Remus, on the cusp of a full moon transformation, but also with Peter Pettigrew, the supposedly dead man responsible for the murder of his friends.
"I hope Ron's alright," Hermione whispered, wringing her fingers together.
"He'll be fine," Draco assured them, crossing his arms. "I don't think there's anything that can get past the six of them together."
"Famous last words," Blaise said drily.
XX
Minerva had, objectively, known that the Whomping Willow hid the location that Remus Lupin had used to hide his transformations when he was attending school.
At the time, she'd trusted that Albus had things well in hand and had taken all the precautions necessary to keep the students safe.
She still believed that now, but she worried regardless, as she stalked swiftly down the passage and, eventually, into the Shrieking Shack of Hogsmeade, though she'd never seen it from the inside.
She took a deep, startled breath, as immediately past the entrance, between her and the stairs up to the second floor, a Venomous Tentacula swayed in response to her appearance.
Raising her wand-light higher, she searched for the tell-tale glow of Yoko's Element and found none just as the plant lunged toward her.
Swiping her wand from left to right, she severed the head of the plant as she stalked forward, too worried about the still cooling Wolfsbane Potion in her hand to pause for much longer.
Approaching the stairs, the Transfiguration professor found another obstacle.
The top of the stairs was on fire.
Tarana's fire, to be precise.
Before she could get higher to call to the queen, however, there was a scream of pain followed quickly by a vicious curse that could only have come from Sirius Black (and proving that at least that part of the children's story had been true), and ending with a guttural cry that, though she'd never heard it, could only have been from Remus' transformation.
The fire went out as, hitching her robes higher around her knees – at the cost of her light – Minerva took the stairs two at a time.
She cursed to herself when Yoko rebound off the far wall with two paws and flew past her down the stairs, and Fallen leapt over her, the tips of his ears brushing the low ceiling above her to avoid colliding with her.
Neither Valerian said a word to the professor but disappeared into the darkness from whence she came.
Taking a steadying breath, Minerva loped down the short corridor with long strides and pushed the door open to chaos.
Her eyes were drawn first, and obviously, to the massive circle of green and black flames that burned at waist height, giving off so much heat that she was surprised the Valerians hadn't been forced out by it.
In its center, Sirius Black, looking very much like a man on the run, sat on his friend's chest, physically pinning the thrashing Remus Lupin to the wooden floorboards.
There was a crash as Remus's fist, most likely, broke through the floor.
With reflexes that he should not have still had, after twelve years in Azkaban, Sirius raised his right hand and caught the clawed hand coming up at him and pinned it to his body with his arm.
"You fucking moron," Ivory hissed, drawing Minerva's attention to the white leopard, licking a bleeding gash up the side of Ebony's eye.
"Get off, Ivory," Ebony growled, trying to shove himself to his paws and shake his brother off him.
The bed that had once stood, was sagging, having lost one of its legs, and Arcana was struggling to keep it upright, or risk Weasley rolling off it and into Tarana's circle.
There was no sign of the cage Granger and Malfoy had told her about or Peter Pettigrew.
"Minerva!"
Behind the leopards, Tarana was getting back to her own paws and it was a testament to her skill that the circle still burned.
Minerva straightened, remembering that the possible survival of Peter wasn't the only reason she was there.
Nodding sharply, the witch moved swiftly toward the circle, which parted like a wave before her and closed again behind her.
If possible, despite the heat of the flames and the knowledge that she was this close to the betrayer of Lily and James Potter, watching Remus' skin ripple as the wolf within him struggled to the surface made what little color she'd regained since the short story from her students slip from her face.
Her hands shook.
It was something beyond knowing when one watched a werewolf transform.
"Give him the damn potion, Minerva!" Sirius rasped breathlessly, shifting his weight to further pin Remus to the ground, and used his left hand to stroke the side of Remus' face.
The professor dropped to her knees and was surprised at the fight in Remus' unnatural amber eyes, nearly as much as she was by the fact that, at Sirius' touch, he obediently opened his mouth for the potion.
Between Minerva's shaking hands and Remus' thrashing – which said a great deal because the witch could see how hard the man was fighting to stay still enough to ingest it – only perhaps two-thirds of the potion made it into Remus' throat, and she couldn't even say that he ingested it because he choked after the third swallow and most of what came afterward ended up on the floor beneath his head.
"Easy, Moony," Sirius rasped, rubbing his thumb down the werewolf's throat to try and coax more of it into his system.
"Do we even know if this is going to work?" Ivory asked sharply, barely heard over the roar of Tarana's flames and the blood rushing through Minerva's ears.
"Tarana!" Sirius suddenly cried, pushing off Remus and bowling the witch back and over to the side, rolling them both away as the werewolf arched off the floor with a scream that quickly turned into a heart-stopping howl.
XX
Tarana had cranked the flames of her circle higher at Sirius' cry, but as the werewolf got to his feet, it was clear that he'd done some growing since the last time she'd seen him.
Remus stood at nearly six feet tall.
His werewolf counterpart had at least a foot on him when not hunched over and had put on a bit more weight while he was in America, no longer appearing as emaciated as she remembered.
"You didn't mention that he'd had a growth spurt Ivory!" she growled, trying to bring the flames higher without burning the shack to the ground, but she was too slow.
Moony launched himself over the fire with apparently little effort, landing on his hands and feet and lunging toward the only two in the room he didn't recognize.
The bed thumped to the ground as Arcana turned on the new threat with a roar, rearing on his hind paws to land a heavy hit to the werewolf's lower jaw, as close as he could get to the creature's face, and sending it careening off to the side from the unexpected blow.
Shadows wrapped around Ron's shoulders and hauled him up and away from the flames, even as Tarana was forcing them to die out, with inches to spare.
Shaking his head, Moony turned and darted away from the too crowded room and they could hear him slamming around the lower level.
Like a shot, Ivory was on his tail.
Inside the scorched circle, Minerva and Sirius had both slipped into their animal skins, with Padfoot crouching low over the tabby cat as though to hide her from view.
Padfoot lunged after Ivory, but the Valerians could already hear the werewolf as he made for the secret passage, and they could only hope that the Whomping Willow was enough of a deterrent to keep him off Hogwarts grounds.
Minerva retook her human skin and put a shaking hand on her chest before she managed to gather herself. Proving that she knew her students well, she stooped low to pick up her wand and started immediately for the door.
"The children are still beyond the Willow," she told the Valerians.
"Wait," Arcana told her, preventing her from leaving the room by bodily blocking it. "We need you here."
Minerva drew herself upright.
"Ron's leg is broken, Minerva," He told her. "We can't get him up to the castle. Yoko and Fallen went after Pettigrew when he escaped, and the children likely went with them."
"The Willow has terrified Moony his entire school stay, but we need him out of the Shack in order for you and Ron to get back up to the castle," Tarana pointed out. "Let us corral Lupin. Get Ron help."
Minerva's expression clearly displayed her confusion.
There'd been no sign of Peter Pettigrew flying down those stairs when Yoko and Fallen had gone past her, of that she was certain.
Before she could argue, however, the three remaining Valerians had already slipped out the door, leaving her with Ron Weasley, who was giggling in the corner, leg propped at a painful-looking angle from where Ebony had simply let the teen fall to the floor.
XX
It was, predictably, the seeker among them who caught the moving flash of dark brown on the green lawn and his wand was in hand and the first spell he could think of – the disarming spell – was flying from his lips before any of the others realized that Scabbers was coming straight for them.
The spell was both ill-fit for the job he was trying to accomplish and ill aimed at a moving target and missed as Peter swerved out of the way.
Another spell, this one from Draco, likewise missed and Peter was weaving through Neville and Hermione's legs before anyone else could think of trying to stop him.
Swearing, Harry turned on his heel and darted after the rat.
The Willow took on the trademark blue-black of Yoko's Element and slowed considerably seconds before he and Fallen darted out of the hole, Fallen lunging over his smaller companion to take the exit as one.
Neither Valerian took note of the teens other than to swerve wide on either side of them and come back around after Harry, Draco, and Blaise's departing forms.
Faster than the teens, however, Yoko and Fallen were quickly even, and then outpacing, the Gryffindors, though the seven still streaked across the lawn nearly as one.
Yoko darted to the side, smaller than Fallen and nimbler on his paws, and caught the naked tail with one paw, but he wasn't hunting a normal rat, but a human in rat skin, and Peter rolled onto his back and used all four of his tiny paws to pull himself free, darting under the fox and out the side, careening for the Forbidden Forest, where the lighting would be even worse.
Bypassing Fallen, Peter was nearly bitten clean in two by the wolf's snapping fangs, shrieking as he was missed by just enough, the hot breath of the General fluttering his fur and his fangs drawing a thin streak of blood from one ear.
Yoko tapped his Element again, commanding the grass to rise and hinder their prey, tying itself around tiny paws, but Peter slipped from his rat skin to his human skin – breaking the ties binding him – and back into his rat skin in a matter of seconds, barely looking over his shoulder at the 'hunting party' struggling to keep him contained.
Blaise's Slowing Charm missed the man by virtue of him slipping back into his rat skin, causing Fallen to curse creatively, if a bit breathlessly as he dug his paws in to turn sharply after the fleeing rat.
Fallen and Yoko followed Peter into the darkness of the tree, but the teens skid to a stop, all too aware of the fact that Peter was far from the only threat inside the Forbidden Forest and not willing to risk running into one of them.
Harry punched a tree with a curse.
"They'll catch him," Hermione panted, leaning heavily against a tree and struggling to catch her breath.
"The Forest hates them," Draco panted, clutching a stitch in his side. "The fucking bastard's gone."
As though in response to his words, Fallen's familiar and angry howl echoed through the trees a few minutes later.
There wasn't a doubt in any of their minds that whatever it was that had just gotten in the way, was likely as good as dead.
XX
No one was brave enough to speak as Fallen and Yoko led them back up the hill toward the Whomping Willow, the two were in that foul a mood, and the arrow still sticking out of Fallen's flank - though the shaft had been snapped off two-thirds of the way down, told them that the centaurs had interrupted, either intentionally or not, the hunt for Pettigrew through the Forest – made them doubly unwilling to speak about it.
Another howl echoed through the night, this one eerie and unnatural, unlike anything the teens had ever heard before.
Neville swallowed nervously. "Was that-"
"Lupin," Yoko said shortly.
"Stay close," Fallen added, ears pricked and trying to pinpoint where the werewolf currently was, almost eager for a shot at it, after the loss of Pettigrew. "No matter the Wolfsbane, Lupin's still a threat."
The Gryffindors didn't need any additional coaxing, pressing into a tighter huddle.
Yoko glanced to their right. 'We should take them to Hagrid's.' he told the direwolf. 'He and Fang will be a greater deterrent if Lupin shows up. And the extra muscle won't hurt.'
'He's in no fit state to help us,' Fallen pointed out dismissively.
'Better than nothing,' Yoko countered coolly. 'And we don't actually have to bother him. We can stay on the far side of the cabin. I'd rather the children don't see the Hyer anyway.'
Fallen huffed but turned to head toward the groundskeeper's shack.
They don't get far before the thudding of unfamiliar, off-kilter paws reached their ears.
Fallen swept the children up in a red-tinted bubble as he swung around, fangs bared and growling a low warning.
Above them, the werewolf tilted his massive head as it scented the air.
It was thinner than Harry had expected a werewolf to be – an image born after having watched too many movies when Dudley had control of the remote at the Dursleys - and long limbs. Its hands had long, thin fingers tipped with black claws, but all in all, though taller than Remus, the only things animalistic about it was the way its back legs bent and the clearly canine head and muzzle.
Neville made a trod-on sound and Hermione inhaled a wheezing breath.
Fallen's lips peeled away from his fangs and he barked out a wordless warning.
Lupin looked at him for a moment, dismissed him, and loped off in that off-kilter run into the Forest.
Ivory and the massive dog that was Sirius' animal skin crested almost immediately after the werewolf and, though they spared the teens, Fallen, and Yoko a cursory glance, they didn't stop in their pursuit of the werewolf.
'Watch out for the centaurs!' Yoko called after them, not sure if Black would listen even if he heard his warning.
XX
When the agonized scream came from the depths of the woods, louder than normal as it echoed through the trees and pulled further by the silence of the night and the adrenaline still spiking in the Gryffindors, there was no stopping Harry from darting into the woods in search of it.
The cry had been human.
And the only human in the Forest was Sirius Black.
XX
"Potter, you godforsaken idiot!" Fallen roared, darting down the hill, only to duck when Arcana flew over his head, paws thudding as Ebony and Tarana came by on either side of him.
None of them paused.
'Get them off the grounds,' Tarana ordered. 'It's been years since Moony was on his old territory and he may double back to search it.'
'Harry's in the Forest,' Fallen replied. 'Yoko and I rattled the centaurs!'
"They'll get them, right?" Neville asked, looking out into the Forest.
Draco growled quietly. "We just have to hope that whatever hurt Black, it wasn't Lupin."
"Werewolves don't hurt pack," Fallen reminded him, turning back to the group. "If we can, we'll head straight for the castle."
"I'm sure McGonagall has already made the staff aware that Lupin is on the grounds, but I'd like to make sure no one does anything stupid," Yoko said, glancing worriedly at Fallen.
Fallen shook his head to his unasked question.
Severus may have kept the man's status as a werewolf a secret before, but given that he'd just lost any chance he had at vengeance, both for the death of Lily and for the torment the Marauders had given him for seven years, Fallen couldn't be sure what the potions master would do.
XX
"No!" Harry cried, rushing forward, and throwing his hands wide, keeping the fallen Sirius at his back and between the arrow pointed at the man's heart. "He's innocent."
"Harry Potter!" Sirius hissed through grit teeth. "What are you doing?!"
"Your headmaster," said one of the many centaurs with arrows pointed at Sirius, "has tasked us with keeping this man out of the Forest. The stars have shown us what fate awaits him. We will not have it."
"Please," Harry insisted. "He hasn't done anything wrong. He doesn't deserve the Kiss and he doesn't deserve whatever you're going to do to him!"
"Death is swifter and simpler than the fate of the Wraiths," a dark-colored centaur said, raising his bow a little higher, as though preparing to go through Harry first.
"He is a student of the castle!" a new voice cried, stomping a hoof as he stepped out of the trees.
Consider he'd only met him once, it wasn't surprising that it took Harry a long moment to recognize Firenze, the centaur that had helped him and Draco in the Forest their First Year, and had given the teens the last hint as to who was really after the Stone that year.
Two of the four centaurs moved aside as the palomino came forward, making Harry wonder if he was, in some way, important in the hierarchy of the centaur herd.
"Firenze," the dark centaur grunted. "You risk much. Your history with the boy will not make this second intervention well received."
Firenze looked down at Harry, his forelegs beating against the ground restlessly, obviously already aware of what was likely to come.
"The stars have shown us what's to come," Firenze told the others of his herd. "And if we do not desire intervention on our territory and kin, we cannot do so with those of the castle."
"Let me take him to Dumbledore," Harry pressed. "He can decide whether Sirius needs to die or not!"
The centaurs all looked to the apparent leader, Firenze included, an older paint with long, dark hair with streaks of gray in it, braided over one shoulder.
"As you say," the older centaur said, lowering his bow. "A wizard problem to be solved by wizards. The stars cannot be rewritten."
The centaurs departed until only Firenze, half-hidden in the shadows of the trees, remained.
Harry felt no hesitation in turning his back on the blonde palomino and struggling to help Sirius to his feet.
The convict had an arrow in his thigh, which had likely brought him to the ground, and a jagged wound in his side where he'd torn out another one.
Harry stayed on the opposite side of the wound as he tried to balance the taller, broader wizard, and Sirius used the hand not around Harry's shoulders to try and put pressure on it.
"Thank you, Fire-" Harry blinked to a startled stop.
The centaur was already gone.
Sirius shook his head. "You're just like him. Making strange friends, Prongslet."
Harry blinked and staggered as he tripped over a tree root that wasn't completely sunk into the ground. "Prongslet?" he mouthed, before repeating the word aloud.
Sirius grit his teeth as Harry righted himself, the stumble having jarred the arrow in his thigh and the hole in his side. "'s what've always called you," he told the teen. "Prongslet. Little Prongs. It was clear pretty early you were your father's son."
Harry gave him a tight smile, still not sure how he felt about the nickname or Sirius' familiarity with him.
Though Sirius apparently thought they were close, Harry was aware that they didn't really know one another.
Eager for any option that didn't include the Dursleys, however, Harry would put up with Sirius, and Ebony if necessary, if it meant not going back to Privet Drive.
The idea died a quick death, however, as he realized that any chances of such a thing had gone when they'd lost Peter Pettigrew in the Forest.
He tightened his grip on Sirius' wrist and pushed the thought away for the moment.
The Valerians might still have a plan, after all.
XX
Harry didn't realize how far into the Forest he'd sprinted until he and Sirius needed to take a break.
Both were sweating, though they hadn't traveled far, Sirius because of his wounds and the toll they were taking on his already weakened body, and Harry because he'd never tried to, essentially, carry a full-grown man before.
"We can wait here," Sirius panted, and Harry worried about the gray tone to his skin, barely visible in the full moon light that made it through the tree branches above them. "They'll find us soon enough."
There had been the sound of a fight a few minutes ago from the direction they'd come from, so at least one Valerian had followed them into the Forest.
At least Harry hoped it was a Valerian. He hadn't forgotten that Remus was a werewolf and somewhere in the Forest with them.
"He won't hurt you," Sirius mumbled, head leaned back against a tree.
"He?"
"Rem's," Sirius slurred. "Moony knows you're James' son. Makes you pack. Wolves don't hunt pack."
It revealed a lot about the scene on the hill; when the werewolf had scented the air before moving into the Forest.
Sirius rolled his head to look at the teen.
There was a glassy sheen in his eyes that worried Harry.
"Did you know," he asked, shifting his weight with grit teeth. "That your parents named me your godfather?"
Harry nodded. "Tarana mentioned it."
Sirius smiled wearily. "'m sorry, Harry." Harry frowned. "If I wasn't so fuckin' angry that night, I wouldn't've given Peter the chance to frame me. Wouldn't've left you alone."
"I'm never alone," Harry told him truthfully. "Tarana's with me always."
Sirius smiled. "'course she is," he said and didn't sound at all like he was patronizing the teen.
It was simply a stated fact that both knew to be true.
Sirius closed his eyes. "Sorry it couldn't've been the way it should have been." He said.
Harry clenched a fist. "Are you dying?"
Sirius huffed, amused. "Nah," he said, looking at the teen. "Too stubborn." He grinned in a very wolf-like manner. "Ivory's patch is wearing off though. Might not be entirely here for much longer."
Harry's hand trailed over the sheath on his wrist, the wooden handle of his wand sparking against his fingers.
Sirius didn't miss it. "Not that far gone, Prongslet," he assured the boy. "Not yet."
Harry shivered at the words, a chill in the air around them before he frowned and drew his wand, looking around.
Sirius looked up and swore.
Circling above them was a half dozen of the wraith-like dementors.
Harry raised his wand. "Expecto Patronum!" he cried.
Unlike the afternoon by the changing rooms, the stag didn't erupt from his wand, merely the thick silver fog.
The dementors pushed against it but couldn't drop any closer.
"Harry," Sirius grunted, pushing to his feet.
Harry turned fearful, determined green eyes to the lake beside them, where what seemed to be hundreds of dementors were crossing the surface, turning the water beneath it to ice.
Harry looked up at the dwindling barrier above them, the echo of his mother's scream already pulsing in the back of his head as his fingers went numb from the cold.
Sirius glared up at them hatefully, before turning sharp gray eyes to his godson.
Stepping into his space, Sirius caught Harry's face with his hands and pressed their foreheads together. "I would have been honored, Harry, if you and Tarana had come to live with me when this was over."
Harry's brow furrowed.
His mother was screaming for his father and Dark was cackling.
His vision was going a little fuzzy.
"She's always with you, right?" Sirius asked, sounding far away despite him being right there.
"Wha-"
Harry was suddenly flying, crashing through a thin layer of ice that brought him back to the here-and-now.
It took him a moment to realize he was in the lake and thus he sunk, cloak and clothes weighing him down, and watched, dazed and confused, as dark shadows darted and dove across the surface of the water, swarming the edge.
Sirius!
He flailed, trying to right himself in the water, shrugging the cloak from his body, but the shadows were growing, pressing on the edges of his limited vision in the dark water.
A silver-white light exploded across his vision, darting over the water.
Arcana?
He surged upward, lungs burning.
Another light came from the other direction, crossing with the first and circling around.
Something circled in the water with him, but Harry was driven by his need for air, and not the threat in the water or the dementors above him could have stopped him from struggling to the surface.
He screamed as something tugged on his ankle, dragging him back down.
It was the last mistake he made.
Water rushed into his mouth and down his throat, stealing the last of his precious air and turning his world black.
