HaHA! AP World History is over! So I'm writing a chapter to celebrate. Yay for Jarx.

So a quick survey: how many people are actually reading this? Just out of curiosity. My ego is rather wounded that I'm only getting reviews from my best friend and one other person (thanks, Piratess of Summer :-D). If you are reading this and you never review, please just review this one chapter so that I know how many people I'm writing for. Thanks a ton :-D

Disclaimer: …duh.

Chapter 37

Reunited At Last

"We have to go to St. Mungo's," Harry muttered as he half-stumbled, half-fell out of the fireplace and into his office. "We have to go…"

"You can't just go waltzing in there," Hermione said, emerging from the fireplace with rather more dignity than Harry had. "He was discovered ten minutes ago. How would we explain knowing that he was there? Besides, you can hardly stand."

"And you still look like Kurt Hutchinson," Ron reminded him. "Wait until the Polyjuice potion wears off and we hear something from the Order."

"And go to sleep while you're waiting," Hermione said firmly, putting her hands on his shoulders and guiding him gently towards the bedroom that adjoined his office. He didn't have the energy to resist.

Forty-five minutes later, he awoke, feeling a searing pain jarring through his body. He watched in exhausted agony as his arms grew slightly shorter, his shoulders narrower, and his feet smaller. He was Harry again. And before it even registered to his brain, he was asleep once more.

"Harry."

He muttered something incoherent.

"Harry!"

He came fully awake, and he sat up, stretching. He no longer felt as though he were about to keel over from fatigue. "What is it?" he murmured, yawning.

Ron glanced towards the doorway, and Harry followed his gaze. When he saw who stood at the entrance to his bedroom, he stood hastily, straightened his robes, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Professor McGonagall!"

She nodded, the barest hint of a smile flickering across her lips. "I have news," she said shortly. "And it's important, so listen. Four hours ago, Unspeakables from the Ministry of Magic emerged from the Department of Ministries carrying…"

Harry waited, trying to decide what the best reaction to the "news" would be.

"Carrying Sirius Black."

He did his best to look dumbfounded, and he could tell Ron and Hermione were doing the same. Apparently, they were not quite convincing enough. Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes suspiciously. After a moment of silence, she said in a quiet and deadly voice, "Do you have something to tell me, Potter?"

Harry shook his head. "That's… Sirius… are you serious? They found Sirius?"

His façade was failing miserably. Professor McGonagall sighed. "Are you going to willingly tell me what role you played in this, or am I going to be compelled to force it out of you?"

Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione. They both gave him looks that clearly said, what do you want me to do?

He took a deep breath. "The Unspeakables who emerged bearing Sirius Black on a stretcher were me, Ron, and Hermione."

"What do you mean, Potter?"

With a sigh, Harry related his tale. By the end of it, Professor McGonagall looked torn between pride, fury, and exasperation.

"W—well, Potter, I must say that I am indeed impressed that you could… could infiltrate the Ministry, do something even the Unspeakables hadn't managed to do, and escape without being caught. However, that does not change the nature of your actions! You broke into Britain's biggest wizarding institution, went to the one place in that institution that you are most certainly not allowed, performed powerful spells whose repercussions you could not possibly have known, and impersonated—violated the identities—of three Unspeakables, one of whom is a friend and ally of the Order! Do you understand what you've done?"

Her nostrils were flaring, and her lips were compressed to the point of sheer whiteness. Harry knew the danger signs, but he did not heed them.

"I saved Sirius," he said quietly. "That is worth any price to me."

Professor McGonagall inhaled as though she were about to start scolding him again, but she let the breath out in a sigh. "You know, Potter," she said softly, looking at him with a strange expression in her eye, "Your father said that exact same thing to me once. After Sirius tricked Severus Snape into trying to get past the Whomping Willow, and James pulled him back, saving Sirius from expulsion and possibly Azkaban… 'I saved Sirius,' he said. 'That is worth any price to me.'"

Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"You are more like him than you know, Harry," she said after a moment, and he could have sworn he saw a tear in her eye before she turned to leave the room. "You may go to St. Mungo's tomorrow. We don't want to overt about our knowledge of him. Don't tell anybody else about your role in what's happened. Leave them to believe it was really the Unspeakables who brought him out."

And then she was gone.

"I think we might have a problem, mate," Ron said slowly after a few seconds of silence. "What happens when the Unspeakables whose places we took go back to work tomorrow, and everyone is asking them questions about what happened and how it happened? They won't know what anyone is talking about."

"I took care of it," Hermione beamed. "I put a… well, I manipulated a Protean Charm to change their memories to whatever I changed my… It's complicated, and I can hardly explain it to myself. Just trust me, when they arrive at work tomorrow, they will believe that they're the ones who did everything we did."

"I trust you," Ron and Harry said simultaneously.

There was someone waiting at the hospital that he had lived without for a year and a half, and though he wanted to see him now, he saw the sense in McGonagall's warning. He had waited a year and a half; he could wait another day.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

As though in slow motion, Harry made his way towards the curtained bed on the far side of the dimly-lit room. The other two beds were empty. He could see the moonlight dancing playfully on the curtains that swayed slightly in the breeze that entered through the open window. It added to the unreal, dreamlike state Harry was already in.

There was no way their plan should have worked, and yet, right in front of them, blocked from their view by a thin curtain, was the product of their escapade.

In a half-trancelike state, Harry passed the curtain and gazed at the bed.

The fathomless gray eyes lifted from the book they were reading and glanced at Harry from under a mane of dark hair. The face first registered shock, then puzzlement, and then, finally, joy.

"Harry," he said hoarsely. He was already halfway out of bed, standing up and crossing to his godson in one stride. And then Harry found himself wrapped in a strong, unbelieving, loving embrace.

And Harry was, for the first time in a very long time, perfectly and incandescently happy.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"I was… I was in there for a year and a half?" Sirius croaked disbelievingly.

He was still pale, and his eyes were slightly more sunken, and he was even bonier than he had been before. But the restless, unbelievable vitality that coursed through his body made Harry forget the sight he had seen just after bringing him back, the sight of him as pale and lifeless as a corpse. The sight of him falling through the Veil. The thought of him as dead. The healers had worked wonders in a very short time.

"It didn't feel like that," he said, settling back into his pillows.

"What did it feel like?" Harry asked softly.

A shadow of pain flickered in Sirius' eyes. "It's like when you get badly hurt," he said after a moment's consideration. "You're in agony, and each second seems to last forever because it won't stop, but you know that each second is only a second. It's as though time seems to have slowed down to a crawling pace just so that you have to suffer for longer. Time was distorted, and it felt like an eternity of agony in only a few seconds."

Harry was silent.

"It was just a black, whirling vortex," Sirius said softly. "None of my senses worked. I couldn't smell or see or hear or feel anything, but my mind was there. It was… the worst thing I've ever felt." His face lit up slightly. "But then I felt something brushing my mind, something warm and familiar and wonderful, and I tried to grasp it. It enfolded me instead and tried to take me away." He looked at Harry strangely. "It felt like… it felt like you."

Still, Harry did not reply, deep in thought and memories, both joyful and agonizing.

"I have no doubt to whom I owe my life, Harry," he said softly.

Harry looked at Sirius, still only half-believing what his eyes were telling him. "You gave your life for me," he told him quietly. "I couldn't live with myself until I risked mine for you."

Hermione, discerning as she was, had quietly dragged Ron out of the room fifteen minutes ago, leaving Harry with what she knew was much-needed time alone with his godfather. People had come and gone as the night progressed, including half of the Order, most of the Ministry, and all of the reporters in the country of Britain. The healers had denied the latter group access on Sirius' request. Those from the Ministry seemed to come only to glare at him as though he were still a mass-murderer, which, Sirius pointed out with only a small degree of bitterness, they probably believed. The members of the Order were the only ones who really seemed glad to see him.

The door to the room opened, and Harry turned around to see Tonks come in, grinning broadly. She looked as though she, like Harry, still could not believe what had happened. "Sirius," she said. Despite the fact that she had already heard the news, the shock was evident in her voice.

He smiled wanly, looking exhausted but happy nonetheless. "'Lo, Tonks."

"How are you?"

"Whatever I am, it's better than dead."

"You told me before you… er, died, that being captive was worse than being dead."

He looked at her. "I did, didn't I? Well, I'm free now. My name is cleared because Pettigrew has been sighted more than once, and people no longer think that Harry is off his rocker, or that Dumbledore… was."

Sirius had not taken the news of Dumbledore's death well. It had practically devastated him, and the Healers had had to come in to administer a potion that would keep his still-weak body from collapsing.

The door opened again, and whoever it was did not enter the room fully, and the door blocked most of the man's body. Harry, however, recongnized his voice.

The newcomer seemed to see only Tonks from where he stood. "Oh, thank God," Lupin said, stepping into the room and kissing her. "I got a letter from Minerva, but she didn't say what was going on. I thought something terrible had happened to you… I came as soon as I could. What's so urgent that she would call me back from…"

His voice trailed off as Tonks pointed to the bed beside which Harry stood. Lupin turned his gaze to follow her finger. His eyes flicked to Harry and then to the form in the bed next to him.

He staggered back, as though hit by a physical force. He groped for the wall behind him for a moment, and then he seemed to regain his composure. His legs carried him swiftly to the bedside, where Sirius was getting up as well.

They faced each other, three feet apart, and the faces of both were twisted with emotion. Remus was the first to speak, and his voice sounded muffled, as though he were fighting back tears.

"I've spent a year and a half on every street in hell," he whispered.

"That's funny," Sirius, crying openly, answered. "I didn't see you there."

With a sob, Remus embraced his friend. "You're back."

A/N: Oh, crud. Now that I've brought Sirius back, I find I'm about as good at writing him as I am at writing Spanish poetry—namely, not at all. So I apologize if he seems out of character. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and sorry, Kenzi, if I scared you a bit for a moment with that Lion and Winter quote, considering what its connotation in the play is…