Chapter Twenty-One: Flight of the Hippogriff
The Valerians are sidelined as Harry, Blaise, and Hermione go back to right a couple of wrongful deaths.
Harry came to with his body still sure that it was drowning and, therefore, choking.
Having spent so much time in it – through no fault of his own – however, Harry recognized the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts almost immediately, and Blaise, with a heavy hand on his shoulder, leaned over him to further anchor him from that memory.
"Blaise?" Harry coughed, rolling over slightly.
"Easy, Harry," Blaise whispered, glancing over his shoulder. "Madam Pomfrey and Ebony said you inhaled a lot of water. It might be hard to breathe for a bit while your lungs recover."
"Sirius?" Harry rasped.
Blaise hesitated, but this time his glance was over Harry's shoulder.
Harry couldn't see it, but the Valerians were in what was clearly a heated, telepathic argument, apparently over something that Ebony had done because the Queen was glaring at him like he had been personally responsible for drowning Harry.
"He's alright, more or less," Blaise assured him. "Ebony and the Crown got to you guys before the dementors could finish pulling his soul from him. And Madam Pomfrey gave him a cleanish bill of health." He hesitated for a second. "Ivory said that your Patronus bought him time until he could circle around and get there."
Harry frowned.
His memories were a bit fuzzy, but he knew that he hadn't been able to cast a full Patronus on the bank.
He'd tried, but only got the fog he was more familiar with.
"She isn't happy though," Blaise continued, glancing again at the Valerians, "because she did all that work to make sure he didn't die and now all that work might as well have gone to waste."
Harry swallowed, pressing his hand against his chest. "Waste?"
Blaise dropped his voice lower, pressing further on his shoulder. "After he was treated for the arrow wounds, they took him to the West Tower. The Ministry plans to give him the Kiss in a matter of minutes."
Blaise's grip was the only thing that kept Harry from rising.
"Stop," he hissed sharply, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Pomfrey hadn't noticed and noticed that their conversing hadn't gone unnoticed. "Dumbledore's already been here. There's nothing you can do. Hermione and I have it covered."
He released Harry as Pomfrey came to hover over his shoulder, getting off the bed.
\/\/\/
Ron's leg had been temporarily casted by the time Fallen, Yoko, and their entourage of Gryffindors had arrived back at the castle, and Pomfrey quickly descended on them all.
Once she'd given them all a clean bill of health, she'd rounded on the fox to demand information on what he had given to her patient to cause such odd behavior.
Left to their own devices, they had all waited restlessly for news on Harry, Sirius, and Remus.
The first time the door had opened, it was Professor Vector, beckoning Pomfrey out of the room. She had returned pale and shaking with rage, ranting about the Ministry's care for their prisoners nearly forty-five minutes later.
Pomfrey's return had brought Harry, unconscious, with her, but the four remaining Valerians hadn't returned with her, and they were certain that Ivory would be in the Forest until dawn.
Regardless, there were still no answers for them, as Pomfrey, Fallen, and Yoko had retreated to the matron's office.
When the door had opened next, everyone had looked expectantly at it, only for Draco to shrink back when his father had stepped through first, Dumbledore behind him.
"Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore had said to the teen with a weary smile, bearing all the signs of a long night that was only getting longer. "Given the events of the evening, your father would like to have a word with you before he returns home. Professor Snape has generously offered his office to you."
Draco had glanced down at Fallen as the 'wolf had come to stand beside him, narrowing his eyes on the Potions professor standing in the hall beyond the door.
The blond teen had swallowed and nodded, ducking his head as he followed the silent Malfoy Lord out of the Hospital Wing, leaving Fallen behind with a glance.
The remaining Gryffindors had exchanged worried looks.
Hermione had broken first. "Professor," she had begun, pleadingly. "What's happening?"
"You know Sirius Black is innocent, right?" Blaise had asked sharply. "Someone has to have mentioned it by now. That Pettigrew is still alive and was the Potter's Secret Keeper."
Dumbledore had exhaled slowly, giving the collection of Valerians a long look before he had turned his attention back to the children.
"It's been mentioned," he told them. "Unfortunately, the testimony of several traumatized teenagers has not seen fit to sway the Ministry."
Blaise had inhaled sharply. "Seriously?!" he had growled, clenching a fist. "They're going ahead with it anyway?!"
Dumbledore's smile was not pleasant. "Professor Snape has already spoken with the Minister and he has portrayed things a bit differently than what you've told me."
Blaise's brow had furrowed, and he had shaken his head. "But he wouldn't-" He remembered the hatred that had been on the man's face in the Shrieking Shack, wand pointed between Pettigrew's eyes.
The callous comments about how he'd rather see all three dead than continue to aid the Valerians in keeping any of them alive and out of Ministry hands.
The conclusion the dark-skinned teen came to, the reason he came up with for Severus' assistance in searching out Sirius Black all year alongside them was suddenly blindingly clear.
And that betrayal, of the lie he cast to see Black, an innocent man, Kissed, punched a hole in Blaise's heart, fracturing the trust he'd had in the former Death Eater.
"But…but Arcana and Tarana, they're arguing for him, right?" Neville had asked, looking past the Headmaster to the closed door, as though it would open to reveal the still missing Crown and Ebony.
"They are," Dumbledore had replied, placatingly.
Hermione had sagged onto the end of Ron's bed in relief and Ron had, if possible, sunk deeper into his pillow.
As though summoned by the words, however, the door had slammed open with such force that Pomfrey and the two Valerians with her had run out of the office, coming up short as Tarana had stormed through the doors.
"-such an incompetent lily-livered man could have ever been elected to run this Ministry is beyond me!" The panther was ranting. "To put an innocent man through this to save face!"
It had been clear that the conversation with the Minister had not gone well.
Arcana, having followed his hicari through the doors with Ebony, read the expression on their faces well.
"Fudge will have him Kissed within the hour," he had reported grimly.
Dumbledore seemed to have suddenly grown, and the room was, all of a sudden, just this side of too tight to be in.
"To do so," the Headmaster had said evenly, "he plans to bring a dementor beyond the walls of the castle?"
Arcana had tilted his head in Ebony's direction. "'To move him from the West Tower would present an opportunity,'" he had quoted with a distasteful expression twisting his tone. "'And any attempts made by the Valerians to help him escape will be seen as an act of war.'"
Blaise shook. "But he's-" he had grit his teeth, just stopping himself from saying that they'd talk to Fudge.
"What if we talked to them?" Hermione had asked, pushing back to her feet, faithful as she always was to the faith of authority to do the right thing.
Ebony had snorted, derisively, but it was Tarana that answered, shooting her brother a dark look. "If he will not listen to the Crown, child, he will not listen to under-age witches and wizards that may or may not have been brainwashed by their time with a dangerous felon."
Her description of events sounded very much like something Severus had likely said, putting the Queen in the room when Severus had been talking to the Minister, or it had been repeated back to her by the man, who had likely never had an original thought in his life.
"What we need," Dumbledore murmured, the pressure of the room suddenly easing as he turned to Hermione. "Is more time."
"And an alibi," Ebony had yawned.
Blaise hadn't been sure if the shadow leopard was bored or exhausted. He was sure that the Shade couldn't have been getting much sleep over the last few months.
The Valerians, Pomfrey, and Dumbledore had all looked to the girl and her eyes lit up.
Dumbledore had nodded.
"If you go back far enough tonight," Dumbledore had told her, turning to join Pomfrey in her office. "You could just as easily save two innocent lives tonight."
"I understand," Hermione had said, reaching down the neck of her robes.
Dumbledore had smiled as he slipped through and closed the door behind him.
Hermione had barely waited until the door was closed behind him, before pulling a long chain, looped three times around her neck, with a golden hourglass encased in fine threads of gold.
Ron's brow had furrowed, and it was clear that he wasn't sure if it was the Lidrova or Hermione was actually holding a tiny hourglass on a chain.
"Whassat?" he had asked, slurring his words, and scowling when his tongue didn't cooperate.
"A time-turner," Ebony had said, sounding honestly impressed and, for the first time, surprised.
Fallen had sneered. "There's something you didn't account for?" he had asked.
"I can't see the future, General," Ebony had shot back in reply. "And I certainly couldn't know that the repeated twists in the Ether were because the Ministry was foolish enough to hand such a powerful artifact over to a hormonal teenage girl." He had sneered, though he didn't take his eyes off the time-turner. "Clearly I thought more highly of them than I should have."
"Which says a great deal," Yoko had snorted.
"You…you're not surprised?" Hermione had asked, looking around at the strangely tense-casual Valerians.
"We figured out that you had some method of attending too many classes the day permitted hours within months of the return, Granger," Fallen had said, lip twisted in a way that made it clear he thought she thought them idiots.
Yoko had shrugged. "Not that we would have been able to pinpoint if you had, but nothing damaging seemed to be being done and we stopped caring."
"Such a powerful gift," Ebony had said, tilting his head and circling to get a better look at it. "It will alter some of the things I currently have in motion."
Fallen's expression had suddenly twisted and he glared at the Shade. "And did one of those plans include the escape of Peter Pettigrew?" he had demanded sharply.
Tarana and Arcana, who had been looking over their charges, were suddenly very interested in the proceedings again.
"I'm not sure I'm following your inferior logic, General," Ebony had smirked.
Fallen had stalked toward the shadow leopard, but the other Valerian didn't give any ground, and, having seen what he was capable of, Blaise didn't think he needed to, for all that Fallen was certainly dangerous.
"I've watched you nearly lose limbs without so much as a flicker in your hold on your Power," the direwolf had snarled. "So how, pray tell," he had said mockingly, "did you lose control of them to such a degree that the only one capable of proving your charge's innocence escaped not only the cage but the room with such a minor blow to your head? A blow you could have blocked in your sleep?"
Ebony had snorted and waved a paw dismissively. "Still linear, I see," he had replied in non-answer.
"We put alliances on the line, Ebony," Yoko had said, stepping forward. "Isn't it a little late to be playing things this close to the vest?"
Ebony had looked down at the fox with an expression of serious disagreement but hadn't voiced it.
Fallen had growled and looked fully prepared to attack the leopard in his frustration when Arcana put a paw down with such force that the ground seemed to ripple with it.
"That's enough," the King had rumbled, glancing around at the frozen Gryffindors, all watching the argument before them. "You will explain yourself, Ebony."
Fallen had looked victorious as the leopard had tilted his head with half-lidded eyes.
To Blaise, however, it had appeared more as though the Shade was saying 'will I?'.
He wondered just what place the leopard had in the Collective, that he could get away with denying the King as he did.
Tarana had nudged his hand, breaking him from his thoughts, as Ebony followed Arcana to a far corner. 'The Valerians can't travel to the past with a time-turner, Blaise,' she had told him evenly, meeting his gaze. 'But this is an opportunity that I think will benefit you, given all that you've struggled with this year. Go back far enough and save more lives than just Sirius'.'
Blaise had stared at her; not entirely sure he knew what she meant.
The panther had tilted her massive head. 'For the moment, I give you all the responsibilities I would your guardian. I would never ask this of you if I thought it would put you our your friends in danger. Stay out of sight, save the lives of those under the care of the Crown and Collective, get back. Is this a mission you can accomplish for me?'
Blaise had swallowed and looked over the panther's body, meeting his guardian's trusting gaze. "I don't know if I can do this?" he had confided in the fox.
Yoko had smiled, wearing all the confidence that Blaise apparently lacked. 'Funny,' the Assassin had said, tilting his head. 'I was going to tell you that I had all the faith you could. You did, after all, get me free of the Mansion. A far more dangerous mission, when you think of who you fled from.'
Blaise had exhaled shakily, knowing the truth of the fox's words, and looked back at Tarana. On shaking knees, he went to them before her.
'Strike true, ak-esh of the Crown,' the Queen had told him, brushing her muzzle over his forehead. 'This is far easier than trying to get to the Philosopher's Stone.'
Blaise had given her a weak smile and nodded.
It had never even occurred to him that there was another option for him.
Not to use the time-turner with Hermione.
XX
"Not that I don't want to help," Neville had murmured, glancing, terrified, in the direction of the medi-witch's office, "but I don't want to do this again."
Hermione had plucked at the chain, once again hidden beneath her shirt, though it was only looped twice this time.
"Harry'll want to go," Blaise had said, glancing at the unconscious teen worriedly.
Pomfrey had said that he would be fine when he woke up, if a little lung-sore, but that felt like hours ago and the brunette still hadn't woken.
Hermione had plucked the chain again. "I might not be able to fit three people in the chain," she had said skeptically.
"You're all small enough," Ebony had replied derisively, showing that at least one of the Valerians was still paying some attention to the teens planning something stupid as soon as they were reassured that Harry was really going to be alright.
Tarana's eyes had narrowed dangerously and Ebony's gaze had returned sharply to her.
Blaise had eyed the Valerians warily for another moment, before retreating to Harry's side, leaving Neville and Hermione to twist their hands restlessly while they waited for Harry to wake and Dumbledore to leave.
/\/\/\
Awake now, Harry was restless, and that restlessness, combined with the knowledge that Sirius was likely, at that very moment, being given the Kiss, made him a short-tempered patient.
"What's wrong with you?" Blaise hissed, putting a firm hand on his shoulder when the brunette forced Neville to retreat to Ron's side with a sharp remark that wouldn't have been out of place coming out of Draco's mouth but didn't belong in the laid-back Harry's.
Harry clenched his fists into his blanket before releasing them with a sigh, glancing at Tarana and the other Valerians.
"Do you think it's possible my dad's still alive?" he asked quietly.
Blaise blinked and frowned. "What?"
"When the dementors come," Harry said slowly, watching Tarana out of the corner of his eye to make sure she was too focused on the meeting going on with the Valerians to be listening to him. "I hear my mum screaming for my dad. And then, on the lake, I thought I…when I was in the lake one of the lights was silver. Like…like a Patronus."
"And the only one who would have saved Sirius Black, knowing what he was accused of, would be the only man who wouldn't have known he'd betrayed them." Blaise surmised though he looked skeptical.
Harry nodded, frowning. "Look," he said, struggling to sit up, glancing nervously at the door to Pomfrey's office. "I know it's weird, I just. I need to know why he left things the way he did. As long as he did."
The need to know why wasn't an unfamiliar one to the dark-skinned Gryffindor.
On more than one bad night at the Mansion, he'd wondered just why his mother had stayed with Desmond. Why, when it had been clear, early on, that he was no prince.
Why, when she'd survived all the others, the good ones, couldn't she have killed the worst of them?
Blaise glanced at Hermione. "Hermione and I are going to go back and fix it."
Harry's brow furrowed. "Back?"
"She's got a time-turner, a device that can send the wearer back in time," Blaise whispered. "As soon as Pomfrey's back in her office, we're going back to fix it. To save Sirius and Buckbeak."
As Blaise had predicted, Harry's eyes lit up.
"I don't know if you're in any condition to come with us though, Harry," Blaise warned him, looking him over. "You can barely take a deep breath without coughing."
"Blaise-"
"I get it," Blaise interrupted quietly. "Just…don't do anything strenuous. Madam Pomfrey took out what seemed like half the lake when she got you in here."
Harry reached under his shirt and pulled out a long, silver chain.
It was a chain Blaise recognized, having picked it out himself, much like the locket that it was attached to, with help from Ron and Draco the year before, though it was the first time he'd seen Harry handle it.
Harry clenched a fist around the locket, expression desperate. "I need to know why he left," he said, looking at Blaise. "I need to know why he let us suffer like this…."
"And I don't suppose you'll trust me and Hermione to get that answer for you?" Blaise asked.
Harry's fist tightened.
Blaise snorted quietly. "I get it," he murmured. "I'd do anything to see Mother again," he glanced at the door, getting quickly to his feet as Dumbledore stepped out of the office.
The Headmaster gave the group a once over, the twinkle back in his eyes full force.
"Madam Pomfrey has a great deal of work to catch up on," he told them. "I trust you can all stay out of her way?"
Hermione and Blaise exchanged a glance as they all chorused, "Yes, sir."
The Valerians abandoned their argument, as Hermione fished the time-turner from beneath her shirt with hurried movements.
As the door closed behind the Headmaster, Harry was already pushing himself out of bed, Blaise there to help steady him if he lost his balance, and to push him back if he started coughing or something.
"Harry," Tarana growled warningly.
Harry waved her obvious concern and displeasure away. "I'm fine," he insisted, and, though his voice was rough, he didn't so much as sway as he and Blaise approached Hermione.
The witch looked skeptical, but Ebony was already circling them. "Be swift," he warned them. "Dumbledore needs to be the one to let you back in a few seconds from now."
Yoko nodded his head. "We've been feeling you use this thing all year, Hermione," he reminded her. "And while none of us are happy about it," he glanced at Fallen and Tarana, "you're going to be entirely on your own this time around. You'll be discovered immediately as time-traveling if any of us lay eyes on you."
Hermione, the only one who understood why that would be a bad thing, nodded and wasted no more time in throwing the long chain around Blaise and Harry's necks, with both boys needing to lean even closer, too close for proprieties sake, for the chain to loop comfortably over both their heads.
"Three turns for three hours," Hermione mumbled, flipping the time-turner three times and letting it spin.
XX
The trio of Gryffindors returned, for the second time, to the Entrance Hall, and Hermione dragged them to the closet, where they watched, in the strangest sense of deja vu, as the Valerians escorted their counterparts down to Hagrid's cabin.
Once the door was closed behind them, Hermione made them wait five minutes before they all followed.
"We don't have your Invisibility Cloak," she whispered. "We need to stay out of sight of everyone, human and Valerian."
Blaise and Harry nodded, willing to bow to her knowledge of the matter, seeing as how she'd been using the time-turner for the better part of nine months.
"How'd you even get that thing?" Harry asked, dropping onto a bucket and rubbing his chest absently.
"I got it from McGonagall on our first day back," Hermione whispered. "I had to swear I wouldn't tell anyone. She had to write all sorts of letters to the Ministry of Magic just so I could get it."
She looked nervously between the two boys, but they were both familiar with keeping secrets and didn't look the least bit judging about it.
Blaise, with his ear pressed against the door to make sure no one was going to approach the cupboard they were hiding in, gestured for her to continue.
"She had to promise that I wouldn't use it for anything except my studies. It's how I've been getting to my classes. I use it to turn back hours and do them over again. But now," she looked frustrated. "I don't know what he meant about saving more than one life."
"Buckbeak," Blaise murmured, glancing at them. "He meant Buckbeak."
"And if we save Buckbeak, we could see if he'd help us rescue Sirius," Harry added.
Hermione frowned, but it dawned on her quickly.
They couldn't be seen, and the only time that Sirius wasn't surrounded by the Gryffindors and Valerians was when he was in his cell on the West Tower.
"We won't be able to sneak through the whole castle without the Invisibility Cloak," Blaise pointed out. "We could just pick it up."
"Severus picked the Cloak up when he and Remus came down from the castle," Harry told them, vaguely remembering the silver cloth in the potions master's hands when he, Remus, and Ivory had arrived at the confrontation by the Forest. "And with the full-on elemental war happening there at the time, there's no way we'd be able to safely grab it before they arrive."
"We need to go," Blaise whispered, cracking the door open. "We need to get down to Hagrid's before Dumbledore and the Ministry entourage do."
Harry pushed himself to his feet and nodded. "I'm ready if you guys are."
Hermione slipped out the door after Blaise, leaving Harry to take a shallow breath, feeling the air slide into his still healing lungs, then follow them.
XX
Blaise and Hermione were both watching Harry warily as he finally dropped onto a fallen tree trunk just past the tree line by Hagrid's cabin.
"Are you alright?" Hermione asked worriedly.
"Fine," Harry rasped. "I didn't realize how many bloody hills were on the grounds is all."
To avoid the path the Valerians had taken them on earlier (or was it now) in the evening, and to stay out of sight of the Ministry as they came down, when they came down, the trio had all but ran down from the castle, but they'd taken the longer way to the cabin, not unlike the route the Valerians would take them on the way back up to the castle in a few minutes.
Hermione peered through the leaves and bushes of the underbrush. "I can see Buckbeak," she whispered.
Harry inhaled and pushed himself back to his feet on the exhale. "I can get him," he said quietly, only to be stopped by Blaise's hand on his shoulder.
The dark-skinned teen was looking over Hermione's shoulder, where Arcana had gotten to his paws and ascended the stairs.
"We need to wait," Blaise murmured. "They have to see Buckbeak, or they'll suspect that Hagrid set him free."
Harry grit his teeth but knew Blaise was right.
"Is this going to get the Valerians in trouble?" Hermione asked suddenly.
"It shouldn't," Blaise murmured.
"Severus said that the castle could see the battle against Ebony on the lawn," Harry pointed out. "They'll have been too busy to worry about a hippogriff, even a Hyer."
The trio held their breath as, again, they watched the confrontation between the Crown and the officials that had come down to kill Buckbeak.
Blaise, in particular, held his breath as the Valerians circled Tarana and Arcana.
He'd closed the door on his Bond to Yoko – a painful experience for him on its own, as he'd never done more than block parts of himself from the fox - but he wasn't sure if it was enough to prevent the fox from knowing that there was suddenly a second version of his charge running around the grounds, especially with that sixth sense or whatever that allowed them to know when someone was tampering with the "Ether".
Like before, however, the Valerians eventually turned away from the cabin, prioritizing getting the Gryffindors back up to the castle before Buckbeak met his end.
Blaise, without looking back, knocked the back of his hand against Harry's shoulder. "Come on," he murmured, pressing a little closer. "We won't have long after they verify that Buckbeak's in the garden."
Harry nodded and slunk after him, trying not to make any extra sound that might draw attention through Hagrid's window.
The backdoor opened, and the thin face of Macnair appeared in the gap. He wore a nasty smile when he slipped back inside, Dumbledore calling his name.
Blaise and Harry quickly slipped out of the undergrowth, approaching Buckbeak.
The Hyer got to his four, mismatched feet on their approach, whereas he hadn't so much as given Macnair a disdainful look.
'You move quickly, for humans,' the Hyer said, shifting uneasily and watching them with his unnerving orange eyes. 'Your Soul-brother and sister have let you out of their sight?'
Blaise glanced hurriedly toward the window, which was, thankfully, still half shuttered and blocked from within by Dumbledore's body. "We don't have a lot of time, Hyer," he said, bowing before the hippogriff. "The executioner will be out soon to take your head off. We can't be here then."
Buckbeak lowered his head. 'We have discussed this, the General and I, many times, Child of Emrys. I will not flee my home.'
"But it's not fleeing," Blaise protested. "This is survival. They have no right to try and kill you for defending yourself!"
Harry glanced worriedly toward the cabin.
'You would not understand the pride of my kind,' Buckbeak sighed.
"You're older than anyone the Ministry has sent to this castle. They should be respecting that age, not trying to put an end to it!"
Harry glanced at the cabin again, before stepping forward and nudging Blaise with an elbow.
"Hyer Buckbeak," he said, bowing and holding Buckbeak's gaze. "This pride you claim to have, I don't see it."
The hippogriff's eyes narrowed, and Blaise hissed at him warningly.
"Hear me out," Harry said, holding his hands up placatingly. "You say your pride won't let you run from the Ministry, but that same pride should be telling you not to bow to creatures so young. They don't care that you didn't do anything wrong, they only care that they can spill the blood of a non-human creature for blood spilled in self-defense. Pansy, the girl you attacked, is up at the castle with not even a scar to show for what you did to her, but they're going to repay that spilled blood by ending your life. How is that justice or fair?"
Buckbeak tilted his massive head. 'This world is far from fair, Child.'
"Trust me," Harry said, shaking his head. "I know. My godfather, a man who loved my father like a brother, is about to be given the Dementor's Kiss for a crime he didn't commit after spending twelve years for the same crime in a cage! All by the same Ministry you're allowing to murder you for your pride."
Buckbeak blinked orange eyes at the brunette and dug one of his talons into the soil of Hagrid's garden. 'He is family to you.'
"More than any member of my blood family," Harry agreed. "If you won't save yourself for yourself," Harry said, glancing over his shoulder where, some distance and a matter of minutes from now the Valerians would be fighting Ebony and Sirius, "will you help me save him?"
Buckbeak raised his head to the moon above them. 'You are an impassioned generation,' he said, before bowing his head low. 'I will cede the wisdom my age has given me, to that of your hearts, Children of Emrys. I do not know if I will manage to escape the fate your Ministry has assigned to me, but it will not hurt to try.'
Harry straightened from his bow and scrambled away as Buckbeak reared.
Flaring his wings to maintain his balance, the hippogriff brought his sharp talons down on the chain once, warping the chain with the force of the blow; twice, cracking the fragile metal; and a third time, finally snapping the chain only a short distance away from where the collar still sat snuggly around his neck.
Harry and Blaise bolted for the Forest as a ruckus began inside the cabin, not eager to be seen when the group flooded the garden.
Buckbeak, who had dropped back to all fours after breaking the chain, reared again, lashing out with his talons before, with far more speed than his size would accredit, launching himself into the air with only a few steps to gain momentum.
Though the teens couldn't see it, Buckbeak's path took him up and over the Forest, where he dove beneath the trees some distance in.
"After him!" Percival Parkinson cried.
The trio held their breaths.
There was nowhere for them to go, quietly at least, if they decided to try and search the Forest.
"Absolutely not," Dumbledore said sharply. "A search of the Forest will disrupt far too many creatures that live within it. I would certainly not wish to disrupt the centaurs or the acromantulas that live inside."
Macnair pointed the tip of his axe at Hagrid. "You did this, didn't you?!"
"Don't be a fool," Fudge said, glancing worriedly at the Forest, as though a centaur or giant spider was going to step outside of it. "We've been with them both the whole time."
"Perhaps," Dumbledore said, trailing his gaze over the tops of the trees, "Hyer Buckbeak simply decided that he was in no rush to die."
Macnair drove the blade of his ax into a half-rotted pumpkin. "You give the beasts too much credit," he sneered, hauling the weapon back out.
The Gryffindors exhaled in relief when the group went back into Hagrid's cabin.
"We need to go," Hermione whispered. "Just in case they change their minds."
Blaise and Harry nodded.
"We can head to a spot where we can see the Whomping Willow," Harry whispered. "We'll know when things start happening in earnest when we catch up with you two and Yoko again."
Blaise and Hermione agreed, and they quickly slunk through the undergrowth, trying not to draw any attention from the cabin.
Blaise glanced, continuously, at Harry as they went, making sure the brunette didn't fall behind them, but if his lungs were still bothering him, the other teen didn't show it.
"I'm fine," Harry hissed at him, aware of his attention. "Stop mothering me."
Blaise raised both hands in defense. "I just don't want to be the one to explain to Draco why you died in the Forest so soon after surviving the lake," he said, smirking.
Harry rolled his eyes. "It's not like I tried to drown," he muttered. "Sirius pushed me in."
"He pushed you?" Hermione gasped.
Harry nodded. "To save me from the dementors," he added.
Blaise distracted Hermione from her line of questioning, by deviating from their path, pushing them deeper into the Forest.
"Where are we going?" Hermione asked, looking nervously at the trees.
She, like most of their friends, was wary of the Forbidden Forest, though she'd spent the least amount of time in it.
"Deep enough that Neville, Yoko, and my other self won't see us when they sprint by. The Willow is just past the tree line."
"We'll need to find a place with a halfway decent line of sight," Harry pointed out. "If we can't see through the trees we'll never know when it's safe to move."
"We'll move again when we're sure we've passed us." Blaise frowned. "This is going to get very confusing."
XX
Sitting still for three hours while events repeated themselves, including Pettigrew's flight into the Forest, was enough to leave them all in serious discomfort because of how tense they all were, terrified of anyone stumbling on them, though with everyone inside the Willow, there were very few who would.
The hours were broken by quiet questions, many of which revolved around where Buckbeak was, and whether or not he'd return now that he was free of his collar and chain.
They all fell silent as the Gryffindors returned to the Willow with McGonagall.
Blaise and Hermione needed to forcefully push Harry onto a large stone, when, in a haze of red fury, he nearly went after Fallen and Yoko.
"We can't stay here," he said, pushing to his feet.
Blaise glanced at Hermione and leaned over Harry's shoulder. "Is this about…."
Harry shook his head, looking in the direction their counterparts had disappeared a few minutes earlier. "Fallen and Yoko took us back this way."
Blaise glanced over his shoulder.
The only place they could safely disappear and avoid both Fallen and Yoko's group, and Moony and his own chasers, was deeper into the Forest.
Where they had, thus far, managed to avoid going.
"We can't be seen," Hermione whispered, gripping her wand tightly.
"It's not deep enough that we'll see anyone else, except maybe the centaur herd," Harry assured them, wondering, briefly, where his own fear of the Forest had disappeared to in the last few hours (extended included).
Harry led them deeper into the Forest, clenching his fist when he heard the cries of the centaur hunters as they stumbled upon Moony, Sirius, and Ivory, realizing that now or in the next couple of minutes, Sirius was going to be hobbled by one of their arrows.
Hermione gasped, loud in the near silence of the Forest, and she nearly knocked Harry into Blaise when she took a startled step back, her hands coming up to press against her lips to muffle any additional noise.
The lanky form that stood on a half-fallen tree was not Sirius.
The werewolf sniffed, claws digging furrows into the trunk, and he growled, low and menacing.
The three teens scrambled, turning and running from him seconds before he launched himself at them.
"What the hell?" Blaise panted. "We didn't bother him on the hill earlier!"
"We probably don't smell the same!" Harry said breathlessly back, pushing Hermione to the side and dragging Blaise with him.
The three scrambled over a massive tree trunk and ducked their heads.
Moony snuffled and growled above and behind them somewhere, and Blaise had the grim realization that the werewolf was toying with them.
"I hate this," Hermione whispered frightfully. "Every time we come into this stupid Forest we almost die!"
"Shh!" Harry hissed, but it was too late.
There was a thud as Moony leapt onto their hiding spot, followed by a screech and flutter of wings as Buckbeak burst from the trees before them, wings flared.
Another two hippogriffs, the tan one from that long ago Care of Magical Creatures lesson and a darker gray than Buckbeak, took a wide path around the reared Hyer and physically drove the werewolf off.
The dark gray disappeared, but the tan remained, dancing restlessly.
Slowly, the three students got to their feet, looking between the regally standing Hyer and the other member of the herd.
"Hyer?" Blaise asked warily.
'He is Fleetwing,' Buckbeak told them. 'He will likely lead the herd in my absence for he is strong and agile on the wing.'
Harry's brow furrowed and he mouthed 'agile on the wing' to himself.
"Flying," Hermione whispered to him.
Harry frowned.
Why couldn't they just say that?
XX
Harry tried to focus on the conversation Hermione and Blaise were having with Buckbeak, on the logistics of getting up to the West Tower.
The Hyer was strong, certainly strong enough to carry two of them that high and far, but three was beyond his stamina, if not strength.
Blaise noticed his distraction, how he continuously looked toward the Lake, though they couldn't see it from the distance they currently stood.
When Harry next shook his head and brought his attention back to the others, Blaise met his eyes and flicked two fingers in a 'go' gesture at his side, out of sight of Hermione, though not Buckbeak.
Harry glanced at Hermione, who was engrossed in the statistics Buckbeak was struggling to translate into a more human understanding, her desire to know never turned off.
With a grateful smile to his dark-skinned friend, Harry took a couple of slow, steady steps backward, and only turned on his heel, disappearing into the woods, when he was sure he was out of Hermione's immediate line of sight.
XX
Harry had never traveled through the Forbidden Forest by himself, always having either his friends or at least one of the Valerians with him.
The Forest, on its own, was terrifying – every noise echoed and made gauging distance between potential threats and himself impossible, and each noise seemed to belong to something that Harry couldn't even identify, let alone figure out how to defend against if it decided to attack him.
Adding to the fact that the centaurs were likely still patrolling the Forest and would wonder what he was doing without Sirius if they found him, and the werewolf that was running loose with likely little mind left to care who he was attacking, and this trip through the Forest, already ill-advised in his head, was seeming more and more like a stupid move to make, especially for a man he didn't really know.
Harry ducked around a tree when a particularly loud screech or shriek echoed in the trees and he was horrified to recognize that cry.
It often came to him in his nightmares and fueled one of his newly acquired phobias.
Acromantulas.
Harry frowned.
He hadn't thought he was far enough into the Forest to have disturbed the nests of the giant spiders.
Turning a little more to his left, Harry pushed on, hoping to avoid any confrontation with the eight-foot-tall spiders, because if they found him there would be no one to save him.
He knew a spell that, supposedly, would repel spiders – one of the effects of having faced Aragog with Draco and Ron the year before was the redhead's sudden drive to research. He'd dug through every book in the library in search of a spell that would work against spiders, determined that his fear of them wouldn't hobble him – but he wasn't sure he wanted to test it on an acromantula, especially not more than one.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Harry blinked and turned a bit.
He wasn't quite heading in the right direction, but that was definitely his own voice casting the Patronus Spell.
Breaking into a run, Harry took off in the direction he'd, hopefully, heard the shout come from.
XX
Harry was hidden from view by several large bushes, three trees twice as wide as he was, and the distance between his shore of the lake and that which Sirius had just shoved his counterpart into the Lake.
Foregoing any attempts to remain hidden, Harry spun in circles, searching for his father.
Nearly half a minute went by before Harry was forced to realize that his father wasn't coming, and his other self was drowning.
Sirius was on his knees on the other side of the lake, defiantly screaming at the dementors that swarmed him. Harry watched as his godfather choked, one of the dementors swooping low, its pass was slow, and Sirius fell to his side once it had finally passed, catching himself on his elbow, panting.
He's going to die. Harry thought, terrified. Dad, where are you?
Harry slipped his wand free and remembered the quidditch game, remembered the feeling of watching that stag prance around them with Ivory's Afterimage.
Gritting his teeth, Harry pointed his wand through the trees and screamed, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
This stag was nothing like the one that had appeared the last time he'd successfully cast this spell, though it didn't look much different.
In the presence of the dementors, the stag – much larger than the one Harry remembered casting before – seemed to glow with a cold light, and pulse with every angry and heartbroken beat of Harry's own heart.
I was such an idiot. Harry thought. (The stag stomped a hoof and lowered its massive head of antlers.) There was no way that Tarana wouldn't have searched the house and just let my father leave if he was still alive.
With a soundless snort, the stag took off, moving with such speed over the lake that the first few dementors didn't even see it coming as they were gored on its antlers and tossed aside.
Another light flashed to his right and barely a second later the bright form of Ivory's Afterimage was shooting across the Lake.
Though Harry didn't notice it, the leopard's image was brighter, colder, and its aura alone seemed to drive off the dementors before it ever leapt onto the first one, shredding its cloth and dissipating the wraith beneath it.
Tears welled in his eyes as he watched the stag head straight for Sirius, driving the dementor swarm away with such fury it nearly matched the one that Harry felt burning in his own gut at his hopeful stupidity.
Sirius must have been unconscious because he didn't move when the circling stag turned and met the leopard image as the last of the dementors fled.
Lowering its head, it pressed its nose to the Afterimage and the bright leopard exploded into white, sparkling lights.
Rearing, the patronus turned and came back to Harry.
Through wet eyes, his vision going blurry, Harry reached out and touched the silver muzzle. "Prongs," he whispered.
The patronus, for all its lifelike appearance, wasn't a reincarnation of James Potter and therefore didn't respond to the man's name.
Regardless, Harry pressed his forehead to the stag's neck, and whispered, "Thank you."
The patronus faded into wisps as someone stepped through the trees beside him and Harry spun around, pointing his wand at the white leopard.
"Well," Ivory said, tilting his head so he could see both this Harry and the one that Ebony was forcefully resuscitating on the other side of the marshy lakeshore with a ball of shadows. "This is interesting. I had wondered who was capable of casting a Patronus mirror to your own when you were drowning in the lake."
Harry swallowed nervously, remembering Yoko's warning that the Valerians would, somehow, know that they had gone back in time if they laid eyes on them.
"How far back have you gone?" Ivory asked seriously, turning his full attention to Harry who, stupidly, still hadn't lowered his wand.
Harry's grip on the wood tightened. "Three hours, I think," he answered nervously.
Ivory tilted his head and turned back in the direction Harry thought he might have come from, waiting until Harry had lowered his wand and started to follow before asking, "And your end goal?"
Harry glanced over his shoulder, where he could just make out a couple of dark blobs on the far shore, surrounded by the three Valerians that must have followed him into the Forest.
Harry shook his head and turned his attention back to the Valerian at his side. "We saved Buckbeak a few hours ago," he told him, though he wasn't sure if he was supposed to. "And we're gonna save Sirius' soon. In little over an hour, I'll wake up in the infirmary and they'll have given him the Kiss on the West Tower."
Ivory turned his head slightly to give Harry a one-eyed once over. "Give me fifteen minutes," he told the teen. "And don't release him until I get there."
Turning on his tail, Ivory disappeared into the deep shadows of the trees around them, the darkness appearing to swallow his white form despite a residual glow from his Afterimage.
"Harry?" Hermione called, startling Harry.
Ivory had brought him just out of Hermione, Blaise, and Buckbeak's immediate line of sight.
Harry stepped in their direction and found Blaise astride the Hyer, and Fleetwing standing restlessly beside him with Hermione between them, a hand on Buckbeak's feathers.
"Where've you been?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
Harry shook his head. "I found Ivory in the woods, or rather, he found me."
Hermione went pale. "Harry we can't be seen!"
Harry ignored her. "He asked that we wait fifteen minutes before going up to save Sirius and to not let him out before he gets there."
Blaise glanced at the watch around his wrist. "We don't have a lot of time," he pointed out. "Thirty minutes after you lot were brought in; we were told that he was going to be Kissed. We've got maybe an hour before that happens, but we don't even know when for sure."
'It will only take us minutes to reach the Western Tower of your castle,' Buckbeak told them, lowering his massive head to meet Harry's gaze. 'You will ride Fleetwing.'
Harry swallowed and looked at the tan hippogriff.
Perhaps because this one couldn't talk, Fleetwing seemed somehow wilder and more savage than Buckbeak did.
Swallowing his nerves, Harry bowed to the other hippogriff.
Those orange eyes bore into Harry's own and for a few seconds Harry wasn't sure that Buckbeak's words were going to be enough to make Fleetwing bow in return, but then he lowered his head and turned to give Harry his side, sinking to his knees to further help Harry mount him.
"Don't pull feathers," Blaise advised as he helped haul Hermione on Buckbeak. "And try to avoid the wings."
Harry eyed him suspiciously as he tried to adjust himself, only to lurch forward when Fleetwing got back to his talons and hooves. The move wasn't graceful, and Harry was sure he was going to fall. Instinctively, despite Blaise's warning a moment earlier, he dug his fingers into the feathers at the base of Fleetwing's neck and the hippogriff jolted.
Harry immediately removed his fingers, soothing them back down. "Sorry," he said quickly. "Won't happen again."
Fleetwing snapped his beak savagely at him over his shoulder but didn't try to throw him off, so Harry took that to mean that his apology had been excepted.
Buckbeak led Fleetwing through the woods until they reached a spot that was a little less dense with trees and they could see pieces of the sky above them through the leaves.
Harry instinctively shifted back as Fleetwing spread his massive wings on either side and leaned forward to keep his balance, planting his hands firmly on the shoulders that flexed as the hippogriff beat his wings to take them airborne.
If Harry had to choose between hippogriff and his Firebolt, he'd choose the Firebolt every time, but there was something primal about flying on a hippogriff.
Every beat of the massive, beautiful wings caused him to be shifted with the muscles required to move them, risking an unseating at any moment, but Harry clenched his thighs tighter and leaned forward a bit more to compensate, never even thinking about it.
It was instinct.
It was, in its own way, exhilarating.
Fleetwing banked, bringing them around and toward the castle, and Harry shifted to compensate, just as he would with his broom, keeping himself straight with the hippogriff beneath him.
The two hippogriffs circled the castle and Blaise pointed past Buckbeak's head to where the massive square stood on the West Tower.
The West Tower was famous for that square, as there had been a lot of speculation as to why a school would need a cell built so high up and half-exposed to the elements.
The landing was a bit unsteady, with the hooves coming down first and Fleetwing's wings flared to balance him as he brought down his talons.
Harry was glad to be on solid ground when they finally landed on the West Tower, and his legs were shaking, but he still had enough presence of mind to bow to Fleetwing and thank him.
Fleetwing tilted his head and clicked something at the boy.
Harry blinked, having not understood a thing.
'He says that you are a natural flyer, and he would, if circumstances ever require it, allow you to ride again,' Buckbeak said, going to his knees so Hermione, white with terror, could slide off his back and Blaise could follow her.
"Harry?"
Harry, who had been watching Fleetwing rub his beak through Buckbeak's neck feathers, jumped and spun on his heel.
Sirius was plastered against the bars of his cell, hands wrapped around it, and looking between the three teens and their hippogriff taxis with wonder and not a little fear.
"Sirius!" Harry breathed, drawing his wand and approaching the cage. "Are you okay?"
Blaise and Hermione stepped away from Buckbeak, coming to flank the brunette.
"'m fine," Sirius said, but Harry was frowning at him and his grip tightened on his wand.
That gleam was back in Sirius' eyes, the one that they remembered seeing in the Shrieking Shack.
Hermione grabbed him by his wrist. "Don't," she whispered, knuckles white on her own wand.
There was a great flapping of wings behind them as Fleetwing dropped off the edge of the tower and soared back toward the Forest.
Buckbeak, perhaps sensing Sirius' altered mental state, approached with mantled wings.
"I said fifteen minutes."
The three teens jumped and spun around, but it was only Ivory, slinking up the stairs.
"Is that Ivory?" Sirius asked, straining to look through the bars in the direction the leopard's voice had come from.
Buckbeak tilted his head. 'Lightbringer,' he greeted. 'You have brave and courageous children within the ranks of your Soul-Brothers.'
Ivory scoffed. "They're stupid and foolhardy," he said, grinning. "Everything a Gryffindor should be." Yawning, the leopard arched his back, and, to Harry, he seemed tired
He realized that the Valerian hadn't really stopped moving since arriving at the Forest with Remus and Severus.
"Ebony is likely going to try and buy us an extra few minutes, but we shouldn't dally here. How is he?"
"He looks like he's heading back into the Madness," Blaise told him, he and the others stepping aside for the Valerian to squeeze between them.
As Ivory moved forward, his eyes flashed white and, much like Fallen's wind shear blades, an arc of light flashed across the distance, slicing the lock from the door.
"Look at me, Sirius," Ivory said, even though the convict was dropping to his knees as soon as he pushed through the door.
Buckbeak reached his great head over Ivory's shoulder to watch as the Valerian's eyes began to glow.
The trio of students could only stand there, terrified, as Ivory and Sirius remained locked together at the eyes and the tension slid off the man's shoulders.
The minutes ticking away seemed to be hours, as they waited with bated breath for the Minster to burst through the door or a dementor to drop out of the sky.
Finally, Ivory stepped back and Buckbeak pressed his side against the Valerian's.
Sirius grabbed the big cat by the neck and held his gaze a few moments longer, waiting for the fine tremors he could feel beneath his grip to fade away.
"This is too much for you," he murmured, too low to be caught by anyone other than the Valerian he was close enough to be sharing breaths with. "You should have let me fade and put me out of my misery before I hurt them."
'You're worth it,' Ivory insisted. 'And you would never have turned on Harry or Remus.'
"You can't know that," Sirius breathed. "What we're capable of when lost in the Madness…."
'With you,' Ivory said firmly, 'we'll never have t' know.'
Sirius shook his head and released the Lightbringer. "You should be focusing on them, Ivory."
Ivory curled a lip at him. "Shut your gob, you sacrificial fuckin' Gryff. I'll focus on whoever I damn well please, and it currently pleases me to not lose you to the Madness." The leopard sniffed. "You are the last of your Line, Sirius Black, and I have no one else who can tether my brother to this plane."
'What is this sickness you have cured him of, Lightbringer?' Buckbeak asked.
"It's a disease of the mind, brought on by being bound to the Power of Shadow, with none of the characteristics required to master and control it," Sirius told him, getting quickly to his feet and putting himself between the hippogriff and the children, as though just realizing what kind of threat was on the tower with them. "And it isn't cured."
'You don't seem sick any longer,' Buckbeak informed him.
"The effects are temporary," Ivory informed the Hyer. "As I work more t' push the shadows back t' Ebony, hopefully, the effects'll last longer."
"Can you do this with others?" Harry asked, thinking of Draco's mom, who attacked his friend magically frequently when in the throes of the Madness.
"No," Ivory said, sounding genuinely sad over the fact. "Sirius is linked to Ebony and thus poisoned by the Shadows of the Shade. The Black family is more susceptible to something similar because most of them have had children while Bonded to Ebony. Both are considered the Black Madness but only those linked to Ebony can be…fixed."
Ivory's explanation caused Sirius to flinch, as though he felt guilty for the state of his kin, though it wasn't truly his fault.
"This is Hyer Buckbeak, Sirius," Hermione said, looking nervously to the door. "He's going to help you get away before Minister Fudge brings a dementor up to give you the Kiss."
Sirius blinked, giving the hippogriff a once over with new eyes. "Thank you for the sacrifice," he said slowly, aware, though only through vague memories of his Care of Magical Creatures classes, that a hippogriff rarely left their territory. "How can I repay you?" he glanced at Ivory, not sure if he was doing it right.
His manners had suffered an unexpected setback when he was shoved in a stone cell for twelve years.
Sue him.
'I am stepping out of my territory for the first time, Child of Emrys, hunted by your Ministry.' the Hyer told him. 'I have been told that you are as in need of escape as I am. Perhaps you can assist me in navigating the concept of freedom.'
Sirius laughed, sharp and cold. "We'll have to figure that out together, Hyer," he told the hippogriff. "I've spent the last decade in a cage much smaller than yours, I'd imagine. Perhaps it will be you teaching me something."
The convict bowed low, keeping his eyes on the hippogriff's neck as opposed to his gaze, ensuring that his words weren't taken as an insult.
Buckbeak seemed pleased by the action or the concept of teaching a wizard something and bowed his head to the wizard in question.
Straightening, Sirius turned to Harry, his whole being softening. "Do we still have those few minutes, Ivory?"
"Not many," the leopard warned.
Harry stepped forward and Sirius dropped to one knee to meet him, putting both hands on the teen's shoulders.
"You are such an amazing boy, Harry," he said, smiling at him. "Lady Tarana raised you well."
Harry ducked his head, flushing slightly. "I know," he answered.
"I want to thank you, Harry," Sirius said. "If it wasn't for you, Remus and I would have done something James certainly wouldn't have approved of. He wouldn't have wanted us to have Peter's blood on our hands." Harry smiled at him. "I also wanted to say I'm sorry again. I won't be able to give you the home should have when I found you in Godric's Hollow."
Harry flung his arms around Sirius' neck. "Stay safe," he mumbled into the convict's neck.
Sirius tightened his arms around the teen's shoulders. "You too, Prongslet." He whispered back.
"Sirius," Ivory prompted reluctantly.
Harry stepped back and Blaise wrapped an arm around his shoulders, with Hermione grabbing his wrist with both hands.
Buckbeak bent his front legs so Sirius could climb unsteadily onto his back.
"Head past Hogsmeade," Ivory told them. "There's a cave network that's a little too difficult for most people to try and get to, requirin' too much effort. Ebony'll be out of the castle as soon as word reaches him that you're free, Sirius, and I'll find ya there. I'll meet you there as soon as I can to prepare you for the last leg out into the world."
"Thank you," Sirius said as Buckbeak turned toward the village. "All of you."
Ivory nodded and the teens waved.
As the two disappeared into the cloud-covered sky, Ivory stepped back to stand beside the three teens. 'Don't fret, kid.' He told Harry. 'I've walked in on more than one conversation between Tarana and Remus over the last few months. I think she's far more prepared for this than she lets on. If I miss my guess, Ebony and Sirius will have a haven somewhere in this country.'
Harry clenched a fist.
