Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except for Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.
Chapter 18- The Dementor's Kiss
I have never been part of a stranger group. Crookshanks leads the way down the stairs; Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron go next, looking like entrants in a six-legged race. Next comes Professor Snape, drifting creepily along, his toes hitting each stair as we descended, held up by his own wand, which is being pointed at him by Sirius. Harry and Hermione bring up the rear supporting me between the two of them.
"Harry… Mione… my head hurts." I say, okay maybe I whine. My past head injuries have never been left untreated this long before.
Harry chuckles drily from next to me. "You don't say Jamie?" Hermione glares at Harry for that comment.
"I know Jamie, we'll get you out of here soon and to the hospital wing." Hermione assures me.
"No… crazily ticked of Dumbledore will roast me alive." I moan this time. Harry shoots Hermione a confused look, but she only chuckles.
"I'm sorry Jamie, but it's going to have to happen." She tells me. I groan again in defeat. This year is just being incredibly unfair to me.
Getting back into the tunnel is difficult. Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron have to turn sideways to manage it; Lupin still has Pettigrew covered with his wand. I can see them edging awkwardly along the tunnel in single file. Crookshanks is still in the lead. Harry goes right after Sirius, who is still making Snape drift along ahead of them; he keeps bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling. I have the impression Sirius was making no effort to prevent this. Hermione and I follow at the end.
"You know what this means?" Sirius says abruptly to Harry as we make our slow progress along the tunnel. "Turning Pettigrew in?"
"You're free," says Harry.
"Yes . . . ," says Sirius. "But I'm also — I don't know if anyone ever told you — I'm your godfather."
"Yeah, I knew that," says Harry.
"Well . . . your parents appointed me your guardian," says Sirius stiffly. "If anything happened to them . ." Does this mean what I think this means?
"I'll understand, of course, if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle," says Sirius. I snort softly. "But . . . well . . . think about it. Once my name's cleared . . . if you wanted a . . . a different home . . ."
"What — live with you?" he says, accidentally cracking his head on a bit of rock protruding from the ceiling. "Leave the Dursleys?"
"Of course, I thought you wouldn't want to," says Sirius quickly. "I understand, I just thought I'd —"
"Are you insane?" says Harry, his voice easily as croaky as Sirius's. "Of course I want to leave the Dursleys! Have you got a house? When can I move in?"
Sirius turns right around to look at him; Snape's head is scraping the ceiling but Sirius doesn't seem to care.
"You want to?" he says. "You mean it?"
"Yeah, I mean it!" says Harry. I smile weakly at the display going on in front of me. Sirius beams at Harry, and I feel something shift painfully inside me. I wish that I had someone that only cared that much about me. Kingsley loves me, that much I know, but he loves his job more. My brother and I were always second best with him. Everyone has a family except for us…
We do not speak again until they we reach the end of the tunnel. Crookshanks darts up first; he has evidently pressed his paw to the knot on the trunk, because Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron clamber upward without any sound of savaging branches.
Sirius sees Snape up through the hole, then stands back for Harry, Hermione, and I to pass. At last, all of us are out. Thank you Merlin again! I can finally take in a fresh breath of air!
The grounds are very dark now; the only light comes from the distant windows of the castle. Without a word, we set off. Pettigrew is still wheezing and occasionally whimpering.
"One wrong move, Peter," says Lupin threateningly ahead. His wand is still pointed sideways at Pettigrew's chest. Never mind, I'm still not out of this crazy mess.
"Silently they tramped through the grounds, the castle lights growing slowly larger. Snape was still drifting weirdly ahead of Sirius, his chin bumping on his chest. And then —
A cloud shifts. There are suddenly dim shadows on the ground. Our party is bathed in moonlight.
Snape collides with Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron, who has stopped abruptly. Sirius freezes. He flings out one arm to make Harry, Hermione, and me stop.
I can see Lupin's silhouette. He has gone rigid. Then his limbs begin to shake.
"Oh, my —" Hermione gasps. "He didn't take his potion tonight! He's not safe!"
"Run," Sirius whispers. "Run. Now."
But I can't run. Ron is chained to Pettigrew and Lupin. Harry and I leap forward but Sirius caught us around the chest and throw us back.
"Leave it to me — RUN!" He shouts.
There is a terrible snarling noise. Lupin's head is lengthening. So is his body. His shoulders are hunching. Hair is sprouting visibly on his face and hands, which are curling into clawed paws. Crookshanks's hair is on end again; he is backing away —
As the werewolf rears, snapping its long jaws, Sirius disappears from our side. He has transformed. The enormous, bearlike dog bounds forward. As the werewolf wrenches itself free of the manacle binding it, the dog seizes it about the neck and pulled it backward, away from Ron and Pettigrew. They are locked, jaw to jaw, claws ripping at each other —
Harry and I stand, transfixed by the sight, too intent upon the battle to notice anything else. It is Hermione's scream that alerts us —
Pettigrew has dived for Lupin's dropped wand. Ron, unsteady on his bandaged leg, falls. There is a bang, a burst of light — and Ron lays motionless on the ground. "Ron!" I shout. Another bang — Crookshanks flies into the air and back to the earth in a heap.
"Expelliarmus!" I yell, pointing my own wand at Pettigrew; Lupin's wand flies high into the air and out of sight.
"Stay where you are!" Harry shouts, running forward me by his side unsteadily. Adrenalin is starting to mask the pain again.
Too late, Pettigrew has transformed. I see his bald tail whip through the manacle on Ron's outstretched arm and hear a scurrying through the grass. Oh no, there goes our only chance of proof of what happened tonight.
There was a howl and a rumbling growl; we turn to see the werewolf taking flight; it is galloping into the forest —
"Sirius, he's gone, Pettigrew transformed!" Harry yells.
Sirius is bleeding; there are gashes across his muzzle and back, but at Harry's words he scrambles up again, and in an instant, the sound of his paws fade to silence as he pounds away across the grounds.
Harry, Hermione, and I dash over to Ron.
"What did he do to him?" Hermione whispers. Ron's eyes are only half-closed, his mouth hanging open; he is definitely alive, we can hear him breathing, but he doesn't seem to recognize us.
"Oh no." I say softly fighting the urge to throw up from the sight of my friend and the slight nausea that I have.
"I don't know. . . ."
I look desperately around. Black and Lupin both gone . . . we have no one but Snape for company, still hanging, unconscious, in midair.
"We'd better get them up to the castle and tell someone," says Harry, pushing his hair out of his eyes, trying to think straight. "Come —"
But then, from beyond the range of our vision, we hear a yelping, a whining: a dog in pain. . . .
"Sirius," Harry mutters, staring into the darkness. Harry sets off at a run, Hermione, and me right behind him. The yelping seems to be coming from near the lake. We pelt towards it, and running flat out, feel the cold without realizing what it must mean —
The yelping stops abruptly. As we reach the lakeshore, we see why — Sirius has turned back into a man. He is crouched on all fours, his hands over his head. Oh this is so not good.
"Nooo," he moans. "Noooo . . . please. . . ."
And then I see them. Dementors, at least a hundred of them, gliding in a black mass around the lake towards us. I spin around, the familiar, icy cold penetrating my insides, fog starting to obscure my vision; more are appearing out of the darkness on every side; they are encircling us. . . .
"Hermione, Jamie, think of something happy!" Harry yells, raising his wand. Suddenly the voices start in my head.
"Run Alexis! Take Luka and Jamie! I can't hold them off forever!"
"Don't be stupid Daniel I'm not leaving without you!"
"Think of the children my love! They have to survive!"
"I don't want this to be goodbye…"
"I know but this is the only thing that we can do…" Suddenly there's a crash and the splintering of wood.
"Come on Danny, don't you want to show me the family? Those kids of yours need to meet their Uncle Augustus, if only so that they can watch me kill their parents in front of them before they die as well!" A mad loud voice sounds from the distance.
I attempt to think about the memories with my friends, my brother, and Ariana but its not working its too late…
I surrender to the bright white light and the endless chilling cold that has seeped into my very soul, leaving me feeling cold, bereft, and barren on the inside. Maybe this is how it's supposed to end after all?