Hey there buddies! I'm back. Seems like it's been forever, I know! And I'm sorry for the delay.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave me your opinions of what Sirius' fate should be and I'm proud to say that…I MADE MY DECISION! Some of you will be very happy with this chapter. I hope all of you will like it, but I can never be sure. :)

I don't own Harry Potter

ENJOY!

The group continued the walk up to the castle until they reached the great oak doors.

"You ready?" Arra asked her father, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

He took a deep breath and sighed as a wide smile spread across his face. "Yes."

Arra took hold of the handle and pulled as Sirius went into his animal form. They didn't want to scare any of the kids around the school by having Sirius Black just waltz up to Dumbledore's office. Of course, they would be a bit worried of the seriously injured Ron, and the fat little man who they were dragging behind them. They had left Snape back at the Shrieking Shack. They figured that would be the best plan. But not before Sirius drew a fake mustache and unibrow on the greasy professor's face.

The group entered the main entry hall, glad to be greeted by no one. If they were lucky, they could get all the way up to the headmaster's office without having to explain their present state to anyone. And for once, something in the life of Harry Potter and his friends went as planned!

"Come in." Dumbledore's bright and cheery voice said from the other side of the door.

Harry took a deep breath and led the group into the office. Arra opened her mouth to immediately begin explaining, and apparently everyone else did as well, but all stopped when they caught sight of Dumbledore. He was smiling calmly from his desk, just looking at the visitors plainly. "Hello." He said finally. "I never thought I'd see a sight like this."

Arra frowned in confusion. "Sir?" She asked tentatively. "Are you alright?"

He looked at her. "Yes, I'm quite fine, thank you. But Mr. Weasley there," he said pointing to Ron, who was still beaten up pretty badly from the dog bite, "doesn't look so good."

Arra looked around again, still confused as to why Dumbledore was so calm. Why he wasn't completely freaking out about having a little mad man crying in the corner, a random dog, and a seriously injured student just standing in his office. She caught Harry's eye. He too looked completely lost as to Dumbledore's behavior.

"I suggest that Professor Lupin take Mr. Weasley to the Hospital Wing, and our little friend," he looked at Wormtail, "to Mr. Filch until we decide any further action."

"Ooooookay." Lupin said slowly as he led the two out of the room. Well, for Wormtail it was more like dragging him out of the room.

As soon as they were gone, Arra whipped her head around to the Headmaster, ready to begin her questioning. However, she was silenced when he put his hand up, stopping her. "Sirius," Dumbledore said looking at the dog, "it's quite alright for you to turn back into a human being now. I promise we won't be interrupted." Sirius did so.

"Wait, what?!" Arra yelled. "You knew about him being an animagus?" She asked Dumbledore.

"Oh yes. I've known since they were students here at the school. A clever Headmaster such as myself doesn't just seem to look over the fact that four students were sneaking out once a month when it just happened to be a full moon. It's not like most people follow werewolves in human form." He said with a twinkle in his eye.

Arra looked around with a confused face. "How much exactly do you know?"

"More than you would assume, Ariana." He said smiling. It may have just been the light, but Arra could have sworn that there was a small bit of sadness in his eyes as he said her full name. But as soon as she noticed the change, it had disappeared. "But let us listen to your explanation, as I'm sure it will be most entertaining." He said, sitting back in his chair.

"Um, sure." Arra said, still a bit confused. "Dad, why don't you start from the beginning?"

"I was framed by that fat-little-rotten-no-good-dirty-sack-of-snot." He said with a scowl.

"He means Peter Pettigrew." Harry added hopefully.

"Details, old friend." Dumbledore urged kindly.

"Right," Continued Sirius, "Wormtail joined Voldemort towards the end, and he's the one who told Voldemort where they were. Then after James and Lily--…it happened," he faltered. He still had trouble talking about their murder, "after it happened, Wormtail framed me to save his own ass. Didn't even care about anyone but himself. Worthless piece of shi--"

"Arra," Dumbledore cut Sirius off. "Why don't you tell me what happened after that?"

"Yeah. Well on Halloween, after dad broke in--that was to find Wormtail, not Harry, by the way! Just felt like I should clear that up. But yeah, when the minister looked through my memories about my dad, I just remembered I guess. Then I went to talk to Lupin and it just sort of went on from there. Then tonight, Harry, Ron and Hermione found out the truth as well. And so did Professor Snape." She added, remembering the unconscious Professor, still in the Shrieking Shack. "You may want to check up on him later." She said quietly, for fear of getting in even more trouble. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sirius trying to stifle a laugh at Snape's expense. Arra stomped on his foot.

"Ouch!" He said quietly, shooting her a glare.

"Oh, shut up. You're fine." She said, ending the matter.

"Professor," Hermione said suddenly. "I can't help but wonder why you're being so calm about all of this?"

"I feel that if you think back," He said turning back to Arra. "You'll remember why."

A confused Arra racked her brain for a specific memory. She was quite good at that now, after the ministry's spell. She pretty much remembered everything now. Which was both a blessing and a curse. Suddenly, she remembered the correct memory:

She had just remembered that her father had been innocent. Arra was now watching the angry Minister storm out of the Hospital Wing and she couldn't help but smile.

"Something funny, my dear?" Dumbledore asked with a smile.

"Oh, no. Just glad he's gone." She lied.

"Hmmm, I'm getting the feeling that there's something your not telling him." He questioned with a twinkle in his eye.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, sir." She said with a smile.

"Did--did you know? Then, I mean?" She knew it was true now that the thought had been placed in her head. Dumbledore knew everything. It was like he could read minds or something!

"You'll find I'm a very perceptive old man." He said with a smile.

"Sir," Hermione said. "If you knew months ago, why did you let everyone go on thinking these horrible things for so long?"

"Miss Granger, if I had told you that your best friends father was not a murderer, was not after Mr. Potter, and had broken into Hogwarts to steal Mr. Weasley's rat, how would you have reacted to that?"

"I would have thought that you'd fallen off your rocker, sir. No offense." Hermione said truthfully.

"Exactly, my dear. Do you understand now why we all kept this from you?"

Harry and Hermione both nodded. Arra grinned at her friends and they returned the gesture.

"So now what?" Sirius suddenly asked.

"I don't understand." Dumbledore said.

"How do we go on from here? Do we need to call the minister? Does Wormtail get sent to Azkaban? Am I free to finally take a shower?" He asked hopefully.

Dumbledore smiled. "Of course. I will send an urgent patronus message to the Minister and we will resolve the matter once he gets here." And with that, Dumbledore got to work on his Phoenix shaped patronus.

"Are we going to have to live in that stupid old Grimmauld house?" Arra asked her father as the four guests sat down on the chairs sitting around the office while awaiting the minister.

"For now, yes." Sirius said sadly. Arra groaned. "I hate it as much as you do, Arra. But we don't really own another house right now. But we have the money, and we'll get a new one as soon as possible."

Arra smiled. "Ok."

Sirius shuffled his feet. "But I was actually thinking that we wouldn't even be spending that much time at home this summer."

"Huh?"

"I thought maybe we could go on one of those extreme road trips all around the world. Wherever we want! Italy, Egypt, France, China, and," he paused for dramatic effect and leaned in closer, "Canada!" He said excitedly.

Arra's face split into a wide grin. "Really?! Oh my gosh, that's going to be so much fun! Wait--Harry's coming too, right?"

"Of course!" Sirius said.

"Seriously?" Harry said as he gave Arra a hug. She hugged him back with enthusiasm. She looked up at her father, as she was the one facing him, while Harry's back was to her father. Sirius looked at both the hugging kids, smiled widely, and gave her a double thumbs up. She scowled at him.

A sudden door opening pulled their attention back to the scene around them.

"Dumbledore!" Cornelius Fudge said as he burst into the room. "What do you mean he's innocent?!"

"He means he's innocent." Arra said rudely from her chair. "He's telling the truth. He's not lying. Because you and I both know, sir, that lying is bad." She explained to the Minister like he was an idiot (scratch that. He is an idiot.) She got up from her chair and slowly advanced on him. "Lying, will get you sent to Azkaban! But then again," she looked back at her innocent, truth-telling father, who was grinning at her, "in some cases, it doesn't matter what you say. You're going anyways."

"Enough, Arra." Dumbledore said calmly. "Harry, Hermione, Arra, why don't you step outside for a bit while we discuss this like adults."

"Oh, then the minister better come with us." Arra sneered. Fudge's face turned redder than a tomato. Sirius was trying not to hold in a laugh, but not doing very well. "Actually on second thought, we'd better take my dad too." His laughter subsided and he glared at her.

"Miss Black." Dumbledore said a bit more sternly.

She gave one of her trademark smirks, put her hands up in surrender, and backed out of the room. "Alright, alright, I'm going." And she closed the door behind her.

Dumbledore spoke up, "Oh, could you please call Miss Granger back, there's something I need her to do for me."

"Sure." She went down the stairs to the corridor with the Gargoyle. "Hermione, Dumbley wants you."

"Dumbley?" She asked dumbfounded.

Arra shrugged. "Eh, his name's too long to keep saying over and over. He will henceforth be called Dumbley!" She said proudly, stomping her foot and placing her hand over her heart like a member of the Queen's guard.

"Dumbley. I like it." Dumbledore said from behind her.

Arra spun around. "Oh! Sorry sir, I didn't know you were there. I thought Hermione was coming up to see you."

"No matter." He said, closing the matter. "And I decided this conversation would be best held in private. And he took Hermione just out of earshot of the other two.

She joined Harry, who was sitting on the ground, watching the sun come up. "Interesting night, huh?"

"You're telling me." Arra said, putting her head back, exhausted.

He looked at her sincerely. "I'm sorry."

She lifted her head and stared at him and saw sadness and remorse in his beautiful green eyes. "For what?" She asked softly.

"For doubting you. For thinking, even momentarily, that you would ever do something to hurt me. I know now, that you were trying to protect me." He said.

"It's ok. I probably wouldn't have reacted the same way."

He nodded sadly. "But you know that I would never hurt you, right?"

She smiled and placed her hand on his dirty cheek. "I know." She said, wiping some dirt away from his eye.

She was about to pull her hand away when she suddenly felt another hand on top of hers--Harry's. He looked in her eyes intensely, and Arra could feel her heart threatening to jump straight out of her throat. Her intestine's felt like they were tying themselves into knots and keeping the butterflies in her stomach trapped inside her. She was suddenly very aware of her hand, still on Harry's cheek, and she hoped to God that it wasn't getting sweaty and wetting his face. He was still holding her hand in place when he gave it a tiny squeeze, as if telling her that it was okay. Arra tried to will herself to lean in to him, but her body was stiff as stone. But at that moment, she felt like she could have stayed that way with Harry forever. Just staring at each other, silently communicating their feelings. Or at least she hoped he was feeling the same. If he wasn't, boy was she going to whoop his ass for leading her on.

The sound of running footsteps made them break apart suddenly. Arra looked behind her at the intruder of her romantic moment. "Hermione?" She asked confused. "Weren't you just over there," she pointed, "with Dumbledore? How are you there now? You never even walked by us!" Jeez, how long were Harry and I staring at each other? She thought to herself.

Hermione laughed. "No. I'll explain later. But uh, I kind of sent you a new pet."

"Excuse me?"

"How do you feel about Hippogriffs?" Hermione asked, clearly out of breath from running.

Arra was confused. She looked at Harry, who was sniffing the air.

"Hermione, why do you smell like ferrets?" Harry asked curiously.

"What's that around your neck?" Arra said, pointing to a rather large necklace Hermione had on that sort of resembled a clock.

Hermione quickly tucked it inside her shirt and opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a new set of footsteps running towards them.

"Lupin? What's wrong?"

He looked at them grimly. "Pettigrew's escaped."

* * *

Harry, Hermione, Arra, Lupin, Fudge, and Dumbledore all met up in the Hospital Wing, where they were reunited with Ron. Hermione immediately went to Ron and began to fuss over the state of him. Harry and Arra stayed with the adults to discuss the matter.

"Let me get this straight. So while you were helping Madame Pomfrey try to fix Ron up, Wormtail just grabbed your wand, transformed, and took off?" Arra asked dumbfounded.

Lupin nodded gravely. "I'm afraid so. I know it was irresponsible for me to leave my wand unattended, but Madame Pomfrey was having trouble wrapping Ron's leg by herself."

"It's ok, Remus. We know you didn't mean for this to happen. It was a mistake any of us could have made." Sirius said comfortingly.

Fudge shook his head. "So Peter Pettigrew is actually the one caused all of this?"

"Yes Minister." Dumbledore said. "I explained everything to you up in my office."

Fudge nodded. "I think I'm beginning to understand. I just--I can't believe that the real killer has been on the loose for the last 12 years!"

"Yeah, we know." Harry said shortly glaring at the Minister.

The Minister gained back his normal stature. "Well, I think a visit to the Ministry and the Daily Prophet is in order. Dumbledore." He said, nodding to the Headmaster. He looked at Arra and Sirius and scowled before leaving the Hospital Wing.

Sirius scoffed. "How rude!"

"Now, we've all had a long night. I suggest we all go to bed. Sirius, we'll get you a private room so nobody knows you're here. I think it would be best if we waited until the official news is announced before we start parading you around the grounds." Dumbledore said. Sirius nodded in agreement and he, Dumbledore, and Lupin left.

Before going to bed, the three remaining kids talked with Ron for a bit.

"How are you doing?" Hermione asked softly.

"Brilliant." He said sarcastically. "My rat is a murderer, who is now on the loose again, Arra's dad tried to take my leg off, and we're all going to get a heaping load of detention from Snape when he finally comes back."

Harry groaned. "I completely forgot about Snape. Prepare for the remainder of our Saturdays to be spent testing Snape's potions for boils and puss-bombs!" Harry looked over at Arra. "Arra, what's wrong, you're awfully quiet?"

Arra's attention was drawn back to them. "Huh? Oh yeah, I'm just too happy to really care right now." She said with the world's biggest smile.

* * *

The next morning, Arra was greeted by an owl at her window. She let it in and took the newspaper off of it's leg. She unfolded the Daily Prophet to find today's headline in big black letters:

SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT; NEW THREAT ON THE LOOSE

Arra went on to read about how her father was wrongly accused and framed, blah, blah blah, she knew the story. It also mentioned for people to be on the lookout for Peter Pettigrew in human and rat form, because he was the real criminal. Arra laughed to herself at how hard it must have been for Fudge to print this.

"Good morning, Arra." Hermione said as she woke up. Arra threw the paper at her and watched as Hermione's face split into a smile. "This is wonderful!"

"Yeah, but I wonder how everyone is going to take it." Arra said with a bit of worry. "Eh, I don't really care. Because I'm going to Canada!"

The two girls walked down to breakfast, and saw almost every kid in there reading the Daily Prophet in disbelief. When they noticed Arra, all of their wide eyes became glued to her. "Déjà vu." She muttered to herself.

"At least this time it's for a good reason." Hermione pointed out and the two sat down at the table.

Soon enough, Harry joined them and he was obviously upset about something. Ron was still in the Hospital Wing so he wasn't joining them.

"Uhhh, you ok Harry?" Arra said.

"No." He said shortly. "I just talked to Dumbledore. He says that I can't live with you this summer!"

"What?!" Arra said with disbelief. "He can't do that! It's my dad's choice not his!"

"Well apparently he talked to your dad and explained to him that it would be better for me to be with my aunt and uncle. Something about the 'power of love' protecting me there." He began to violently dig into his eggs.

"I'm sorry." Arra said. "But, we'll be back next year. I mean, a summer isn't really that long is it?"

Harry tried to smile. "Take a picture of a moose in Canada for me."

"Of course." She beamed, and Arra realized that for the first time, in a really long time, she was truly happy.

And that's the end of their third year! I really hope you all liked it and that I didn't ruin the story too much for some of you by letting Sirius go free. I just couldn't put him back in hiding since I had the power to change it! REVIEW and you will be given pudding!