We're getting closer! Very close! Will I be nice and free Sirius? That remains to be seen...
Gabriel is in a bit of trouble in this chapter! I hope you guys like the little twist. I made the scene in the Shrieking shack a lot shorter than it originally was, mainly because I didn't want to copy directly from the book.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter
On his way back down from the North Tower [and still puzzling over whether Trelawney had seriously given him a real prediction] Gabriel ran into Ron.
"Hey-" Gabriel stopped at the look on Ron's face. "What happened?"
"Lost the appeal," Ron said weakly. "They're going to execute the Hippogriff."
"Oh." Gabriel still had no idea what a Hippogriff was. He also had no idea what to say.
"They can't just kill him," Ron said angrily. "I've looked up loads of stuff, and he hasn't done anything wrong!"
"Sorry."
"Yeah," Ron muttered. "Just wish we'd done a bit better is all..."
Gabriel saw Ron after dinner as well - he and Hermione were standing in the entrance hall and arguing in quiet voices as people streamed out of the Hall, going back to their common rooms. Gabriel drifted a bit closer. Michael, noticing this, followed him.
"We've got to go visit him!"
"Ron, we can't go out on the grounds, we're not allowed! They'll see us!"
"Who are you going to visit?" Michael asked.
Ron and Hermione both turned around sharply. By now the entrance hall was almost completely deserted, everyone going elsewhere to celebrate the end of exams.
"We - er - we were going to see Hagrid," Ron admitted. "But we're not allowed outside this late-"
"I think," said Gabriel, grinning slightly, "That I may have a solution."
"What, a spell?" Hermione asked dryly.
"Better." Gabriel reached into his pocket and managed to pull his invisibility cloak out - lucky he'd started keeping it on him. "How about an invisibility cloak?"
"I can't believe you never told me about this," Hermione hissed as the four of them crossed the grounds under the cloak. Hagrid's hut was, apparently, right next to the forest.
"Slipped my mind."
"You told Michael!"
"I thought he told you," Michael put in quickly, obviously unwilling to be blamed for anything. Ron shushed them all as they got closer to the door of the hut, and knocked twice.
The giant groundskeeper opened the door and looked around confusedly.
"Hagrid, it's us!" whispered Hermione. "We're just invisible!"
"Yeh shouldn've come!" Hagrid said in a hoarse whisper, but he let them in all the same.
Gabriel whipped the cloak off of them and stuffed it back in his pocket as soon as the door closed. Hagrid seemed surprised by the two new additions. Mostly, though, he looked rather helpless.
"Where's Buckbeak?" Ron asked.
"I left him outside," Hagrid said miserably. "Didn' want 'is last moments to be the inside of my hut..."
His hands were trembling so violently that the milk jug he'd been attempting to pour went crashing to the ground.
"Here, I'll do that," Hermione said hurriedly while Gabriel glanced out the window. There was some sort of grey, winged creature tethered in a pumpkin patch who must have been the Hippogriff.
There was a shriek from behind him. Gabriel whirled around and saw Hermione staring with astonishment into another jug.
"Ron, I don't believe it, it's Scabbers!"
"What?"
Hermione turned the jug over and the rat came out, scrambling around on the table before Ron scoops it up.
"Scabbers! What are you doing here? Ow!"
The rat looks frantic, clawing at Ron's hands to try and get away.
"What's that for? There aren't any cats here, see?"
Hagrid had suddenly gone very pale and was looking out of the window. "They're comin'..."
A group of people were headed down the sloping lawn towards the hut.
"Yeh gotta go," Hagrid whispered, while Gabriel pulled the cloak back out. "They can't find yeh here..."
Hagrid opened the back door and let them out into his backyard. Hermione and Ron were reluctant to leave.
"Hagrid, we can tell them the truth-"
"They can't kill him-"
Even Michael looked a little upset, glancing towards the Hippogriff.
"Go!" Hagrid whispered as Gabriel threw the cloak over them. "There's nothing yeh can do..."
The group of four went back up the lawn towards the castle as the front door closed with a sharp snap. Hermione was silent, in a kind of horrified way, and Ron was still struggling with his rat. The sky had turned a sort of yellowish orange, since the sun was going down, and every time someone turned around to look back at the hut they nearly got blinded by the light in their eyes.
Ron suddenly stopped dead.
"Ron, come on-" Michael began exasperatedly.
"It's Scabbers, he won't stay put-"
The rat was going berserk, and Gabriel was mulling over the pros and cons of kicking Ron so he'd let the thing go and get rid of the problem. Unfortunately, the invisibility didn't apply to others under the cloak.
"Ron, please," Hermione said, slightly tearfully, "Let's go, I don't want to hear it-"
"I can't-"
A door opened behind them and there was a faint mutter of voices.
"I can't hold him - Scabbers, come on, it's me-"
The rat was squealing now, not quite loudly enough to cover the sounds coming from behind them. The voices from behind them silenced suddenly, and then there came the unmistakeable swish-thud of an axe.
Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth. "They did it."
The four of them stood still under the invisibility cloak, Ron still struggling with his rat. Light was fading fast now, the last bit of sun casting bloody rays over the grounds.
"Come on," Michael said eventually. "We can't go back, he'll be in worse trouble, we've got to go back to the castle..."
They continued walking up the sloping lawn, darkness settling around them and only the lights in the windows showing where the castle was.
"OUCH!"
They all shushed Ron at the same time. "Stop it, they'll hear you!" Hermione hissed.
"He bit me!" Ron said, sounding outraged. "He won't - stay - put-"
There was something slinking across the lawn towards them. Something with reflective eyes and a bottle-brush tail.
"No, Crookshanks!" Hermione moaned. "Go away!"
"Scabbers-!"
The rat had finally slipped out of Ron's hands. In one bound the cat was after it, and before anyone could stop him Ron had thrown off the cloak and sprinted after them.
"Ron, no!" After a moment's indecision, Hermione followed. Gabriel and Michael looked at each other.
Michael took off after them as well.
"What the hell," Gabriel muttered, stuffing the cloak back in his pocket again. "Might as well see what's going on."
He could hear Ron shouting already, and there were several slightly darker, humanlike shapes in the darkness ahead.
"Get away from him - get away - Scabbers come here-"
Someone fell over with a thump.
"Gotcha! Get off you stinking-"
Gabriel almost fell over Ron as the boy rolled over, and had to jump to the side to avoid exactly that. He was rolling on the ground, trying to keep ahold of his rat.
"We need to get back under the cloak," Hermione panted. "Dumbledore - the Minster - they'll be up here in a minute-"
But before she could continue, something else moved in the darkness. It was heading straight towards them - a gigantic dog which was nearly invisible in the night.
Gabriel dived to the side to avoid it as the dog leaped and it hit the ground behind him. Hermione yelled something but the dog had turned around and instead of going for Gabriel again its jaw had fastened around Ron's arm and it was dragging him away.
Michael shouted and lunged towards the redhead but something whooshed out of the darkness and hit him away, sending Michael skidding backwards. Gabriel raced towards nir.
"What the hell was that?" Michael shouted. Ne had a long, thin cut across one cheek. The dog and Ron were disappearing into some sort of tunnel and Ron had hooked a foot over the entrance to try and stop himself from being pulled in, but just then there was a loud crack, a strangled yell, and his foot vanished along with the rest of him.
Hermione tried to go after him but she was tossed back as well, and now Gabriel could make out what had done it. It was the huge willow tree he'd seen on the grounds, except now its branches were waving wildly, and it appeared to be planted right over the tunnel entrance. The branches swooped past them, preventing any of them from getting to the tunnel.
"Harry - we've got to go for help-"
"Are you mad?" Michael demanded. "That thing's big enough to eat him if we're gone too long-"
Gabriel, however, was watching in disbelief as Crookshanks wove through the mess of waving branches and hit a knot on the trunk of the tree. The willow abruptly froze in place, absolutely still.
"Crookshanks!" Hermione whispered. She was grabbing Gabriel's arm, all arguments seemingly forgotten. "How did he-"
"No idea." Gabriel was already heading into the tunnel - though it was less 'rescue Ron' and more 'what the hell is going on here'. Michael and Hermione followed him.
Hermione lit her wand as they entered the tunnel, casting a shaky light over it. It was dirty and uneven, with the occasional root poking through the roof, but as they walked further these stopped appearing. The tunnel went on and on, as long and as winding as the one which led into Honeydukes.
"We must be under Hogsmeade by now," whispered Michael, voicing Gabriel's thoughts.
"Must be," Gabriel agreed. "This was on that map...Fred and George said no one uses it because of the willow, but obviously someone showed Crookshanks that shortcut..."
The tunnel began to rise eventually, showing that they were near the end, and then it gave one final twist and Crookshanks [who had been walking in front of them the whole time] abruptly vanished from view.
The tunnel led into a very dusty room, obviously unused for ages. All three of them had their wands out now, and in the light provided it was easy to see that the furniture was absolutely trashed. There were claw marks and chunks taken out of them, the wallpaper was peeling, and every window had been boarded up.
"We must be in the Shrieking Shack," Michael whispered. "But ghosts can't do this..."
There was a creak from overhead and everyone's eyes darted to the ceiling.
"Upstairs," Gabriel hissed into the sudden silence, and they all carefully moved towards a visible [crumbling] staircase.
"Nox," Hermione whispered as they reached the landing, Michael and Gabriel doing the same. The darkness was encompassing, and Gabriel took a moment to let his eyes adjust before creeping towards the already-open door.
Gabriel kicked it open.
There was a large, dusty four-poster bed inside, on top of which Crookshanks was curled into a little loaf and purring contentedly. On the floor next to the bed was Ron, leg at a strange angle and pale.
"Ron!" Gabriel glanced around at the room as Hermione and Michael rushed over. "Are you alright?" Hermione asked.
"Where's the dog?" Michael questioned, nearly at the same time.
"Not a dog..."
"What?" Gabriel looked sharply at the redhead.
"He's the dog...an Animagus..."
Gabriel whirled around as the door shut with a snap.
There was a man behind it, with a sunken face and a load of matted hair. He was wearing tattered clothes and looked like barely more than a skeleton, and was completely unmistakeable as Sirius Black.
And he was about a foot away from Gabriel.
Wouldn't this be wonderful.
"Expelliarmus!"
Gabriel dodged the spell and it hit Hermione and Michael instead, their wands yanking themselves out of their hands and landing in Black's. Gabriel had his up and pointing at Black before the man could cast again, and they were both frozen, looking at each other.
Black seemed to be fixated on him. "I knew you'd come," he rasped. He sounded like he hadn't talked in ages. "For your friend...your father would have done the same thing. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher...I'm grateful...it will make things much easier."
Something thumped behind them and Black's eyes flickered over Gabriel's shoulder. Gabriel didn't turn around.
"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too," a voice that sounded like Ron declared, and something like disbelief flared in Gabriel's chest.
"Lie down," Black said quietly. "You will damage that leg even further."
That didn't sound like something a serial killer would say.
"Did you hear me?" Ron demanded.
"There will only be one murder tonight." Okay, that sounded much more ominous.
"So what?" Gabriel decided to do what he did best - talk. "You're going to kill me and then let then just go? And what, make your escape? No, see, I think you're underestimating my friends."
Black looked at him oddly.
"Really, this was all very badly thought out." Continued Gabriel. "Now all three of them know about your weird dog thing, which I'm guessing you've been using to avoid dementors and the like. You let them walk, I wonder if they'll try and keep that a secret? Considered you are threatening to murder me here." Gabriel smirked slightly. "That is, if you really do end up managing to."
"Harry," Hermione whispered in the background. "What are you doing?"
"You've had plenty of time," Gabriel said, not answering Hermione. "You could have just dragged me in here and been done with it before anyone showed up. I came in here a while ago and you haven't made a single move towards me, except to disarm me. Why?"
Gabriel's want was still unerringly pointed at Black, who though he still had one of his own was letting it hang at his side. "I don't have time to explain myself to you," he growled.
Something creaked downstairs.
"WE'RE UP HERE!" Hermione yelled before Black could do anything. "SIRIUS BLACK - QUICK!"
Black made a startled movement and footsteps were thundering up the stairs and the door slammed open for the second time.
Lupin came hurtling in, his wand raised. His eyes flitted over Black and the entire scenario - Gabriel facing Black, Hermione and Michael next to Ron on the floor with a broken leg - and then back to Black.
"Expelliarmus!"
But it wasn't just Black's wand which was yanked away, but Gabriel's as well. He hadn't been expecting it, and so Lupin caught his wand easily and stowed it.
"Where is he, Sirius?"
What. The Hell. Was Lupin talking about.
For a few moments Black didn't move at all. Then, slowly, he brought up his hand and pointed at Ron.
"What-" Gabriel turned to look as well. The other three looked just as bewildered as he felt.
"But then," Lupin muttered, as if talking to himself, "Why hasn't he shown himself? Unless..." his eyes went back to Black. "Unless you switched without telling me?"
Black nodded, again not speaking.
Gabriel felt that this was a good time to interrupt.
"Okay, would someone please explain what the hell is going on?" he demanded.
Lupin didn't answer. He stooped, picked up Black's wand, and handed it back to him.
Before anyone could speak, Hermione started shouting.
"I DON'T BELIEVE IT! YOU'RE ON HIS SIDE!"
"Hermione-"
"You and him-"
"Hermione, please-"
"I didn't say anything-"
"Hermione, calm down-"
"You've been helping him?" Gabriel asked, more out of disbelief than any sort of betrayal.
"You're wrong," Lupin said desperately. "I haven't-"
"NO!" Hermione shrieked. "Harry, don't trust him! He must have been helping Black into the castle, he wants you dead too - HE'S A WEREWOLF!"
There was a ringing silence. Everyone's eyes were now on the three gathered by the door - Gabriel, Lupin, and Black, though admittedly Gabriel was much farther away from the other two.
Gabriel spoke first. "I know he's a werewolf," he said out loud, making Michael and Ron look at him in disbelief. "But I seriously doubt he wants me dead if he's been teaching me the Patronus charm or giving me perfectly safe and unpoisoned cups of tea."
"I don't," said Lupin, looking relieved. "And I haven't been helping Sirius get into the castle, either."
Ron made another effort to get up and collapsed with a grunt of pain. When Lupin made as though to go towards him he scooted backwards, hitting the side of the four-poster."Get away from me, werewolf!"
Lupin stopped, and with an obvious effort, turned to Hermione.
"How long have you known?"
"Ages," Hermione whispered. "Ever since we did that essay for Snape."
"He'll be pleased," said Lupin darkly. "That was what he set the essay for, of course."
"And he was right!" Michael suddenly yelled. "He didn't trust you, did he, and we shouldn't have!"
"Michael-"
"No!" Hermione started shout too, and soon Ron joined in until there was just a load of incomprehensible yelling and before Gabriel fully realized what he was doing he snapped his fingers.
Wands disappeared from hands with a crack. Lupin and Black looked down at their hands in alarm and then to Gabriel as he tucked two wands into his pocket, where three others waited.
Pushing down his panic because oh shit I don't have a good excuse for that, Gabriel glared at the room as a whole. "Everyone," he said calmly, "is going to sit down until we figure out exactly what is going on."
"Harry," Lupin said slowly. "How did you-"
Gabriel held up a hand. "Story first," he said, then pointed at Sirius. "You. Why'd you point at Ron?"
"I wasn't pointing at the boy," Sirius said hoarsely, staring at Gabriel. "I was pointing at the rat."
"My rat?" Ron said. "What d'you want with Scabbers?"
"His name's not Scabbers," said Lupin. "He's an Aminagus, by the name of Peter Pettigrew."
Absolute silence.
"He's what?" asked Michael disbelievingly. "But Pettigrew's dead - you killed him!" ne pointed accusingly at Sirius.
"I meant to," Sirius snarled. "But little Peter got the best of me - not this time!" he made as if to go for Ron and Gabriel shoved him into a chair that had been hurriedly snapped over.
"We are discussing this calmly," he threatened, wand pointed straight at Sirius. "No one is killing anyone until everything has been explained. Understand?"
Sirius didn't nod, but eyed the wand warily.
"Lupin." Gabriel looked up. "How do you know the rat's a man."
"Harry-" Hermione looked at him in shock.
"We have two options, Hermione," Gabriel interrupted. "One, they're both crazy and we can humor then before handing this guy over to the dementors." Sirius jerked in the chair. "Or Two, they're telling the truth and there's a possibility that the rat is, actually, an Animagus."
"You're crazy!" Ron shouted.
"I'm not, actually. Come on. Either the rat is a man or it's really a rat. If it is a man, we deal with it. If not, then we'll only be proved right." Gabriel explained further, his wand tip not wavering despite the fact that he wasn't even looking at Sirius anymore.
"I'm not giving you my rat!" Ron held the rat tightly, despite the fact that this entire time it had been doing its best to escape.
"Listen to me," Lupin said quickly. "You remember the map...Harry told you about it, no doubt...I was looking at it tonight, when to my surprise I saw you out on the grounds. And not only that, but the five of you-"
"Four of us!"
"Five of you," Lupin repeated calmly, "Had an unexpected member...someone I'd long since thought was dead...Peter Pettigrew..."
"What about Black?" Gabriel asked. "Why all this fuss about Pettigrew?"
"You know the story of how your parents had a secret keeper," Sirius spoke suddenly. "I was going to be that person originally...but I knew that everyone would immediately know it was me...I convinced your parents to switch to Peter at the last second..."
"You're lying," Michael said shakily.
"He's telling the truth," said Gabriel, whose attention had switched back to Sirius.
"And how do we know you are?" Michael suddenly shouted. "You just wandlessly took their wands! You could be lying to us to! You haven't tried to explain yourself!"
Gabriel swallowed down any guilt. "No," he said evenly. "That's because I don't have a good explanation. But these two do-" he gestured to Lupin and Sirius, "-and so they're going to explain themselves. Either way, someone in this room is spying for Voldemort-" They all flinched at the name, "-And I'm not explaining any info that might get retold to that guy. He's a dick."
It seemed to take a moment for them to process that Gabriel had actually just called Voldemort a dick. Meanwhile, Gabriel glanced downstairs and subtly knocked out whoever had followed them in. No need for them to be interrupted.
He faced Lupin again.
"Explain," he said. "You say Pettigrew's an Animagus, but how come you're sure that one's him?"
"His finger," Sirius said quietly. "The biggest bit they ever found of him...that rat's missing his toe on the front paw..."
Lupin was looking at the rat in astonishment. "Of course," he breathed. "When he confronted you...he must have cut off his own finger and transformed so everyone would think it had been you..."
"And I assume you're going to say that Pettigrew cast the spell the blew up the street?"
"He did," Sirius snapped, but still didn't get up as during the whole time Gabriel's wand had not moved from his throat. "Cornered me and framed me...pretended I'd been the secret keeper...and it worked..."
Well. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events. And the man hadn't lied once.
"Where's your proof?"
"In Peter," Sirius said.
"Come off it," Ron said weakly. "You're saying you broke out of Azkaban for my rat? I mean...there are millions of them!"
"How did you find Peter?" asked Lupin frowning. Sirius dug a newspaper clipping out of his robes. It featured a picture of the Weasley family, the rat perched on Ron's shoulder, and was an article about how they'd won the gold to go to Egypt.
"I recognized him," Sirius said. "There's only one rat like that, missing that finger..."
"He's been in my family for ages!" Ron protested. "He probably just got into a fight with another rat!"
"Ages?" Lupin questioned. "Twelve years, I'd bet...you never wondered why he was living so long? Most rats don't."
"We've been taking good care of him!"
"Ron, seriously," Gabriel said dryly. "Even if they are crazy, that's a hell of a lot of coincidences."
Ron swallowed and looked around at them, as if for support. Hermione looked conflicted, as if she realized the logic of at least seeing if they were right. Michael kept glancing at Gabriel out of the corner of nir eye.
"You're serious," Ron said.
"Ron," Lupin said firmly. "Give me the rat and we'll prove this once and for all."
Ron hesitated. "What are you going to do to him?"
"Just force him to reveal himself," Lupin said calmly. "If Scabbers is a rat it won't hurt him."
Reluctantly, Ron handed over the rat, who started struggling harder than ever. Lupin glanced over to Gabriel.
"Er - we'll need our wands."
"What? Oh." Gabriel dug into his pocket and pulled out all five. Sirius did a double take and reached down to his own pocket, as if conforming that they were really gone.
"How did you-"
"Never mind that," Gabriel said idly. "Which one is your again? Oh, that's Hermione's." He tossed Hermione her wand, and then Michael nirs, and finally through process of elimination found Lupin's. "Here."
Lupin took it and the other one as well, tossing it to Sirius, who Gabriel allowed out of the chair.
"At the same time?" Lupin asked Sirius, and he nodded as they both faced the rat held tightly in Lupin's hand.
"One - two - three!"
There was a bright flash of light. The rat was dropped and it was like they were watching a fast-forward film, which resulted in a cowering, balding man sitting on the floor of the shack.
"Hello, Peter." Lupin said, perfectly calm, as if rats frequently turned into old friends around him.
"S-Sirius...R-Remus..." his voice was squeaky even as a human. "My old friends..."
"No," Sirius growled, stepping forwards. "You don't get to call us that. After what you did to James and Lily!"
"They would have killed me!" Pettigrew said, backing up hurriedly. "He would have killed me, Sirius, how could I fight-"
"How?" Lupin asked in a voice full of barely repressed anger. "The same way we all fought against him, Peter!"
"They would have kill-"
"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" Sirius bellowed "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"
Everyone was watching in either fascinated horror or [in Gabriel's case] just watching. Lupin and Sirius both squared their shoulders and pointed their wands at Peter.
"You should have known, Peter," said Sirius quietly. "If Voldemort didn't kill you, we would."
"Stop!" said Hermione suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"You can't kill him," she said in a quavering voice. "Then - you'd go back to Azkaban, right? And no one would ever know that Pettigrew was the one to betray Harry's parents...we can give him to the dementors."
Pettigrew went a nasty shade of white at that. Sirius stared at Hermione. Then, very slowly, he lowered his wand.
"The dementors are horrible," he said quietly. "Worst thing in the world. I don't know how I stayed sane, with that awful cold and hopelessness everywhere...I think my animagus form helped...but it never stopped. I had nothing happy to think about. It's worse than death, to know you're there forever..."
He turned away. "I can think of no better punishment."
"No!" shrieked Pettigrew. Lupin flicked his wand at the man and ropes bound themselves around Pettigrew, so that he almost looked like a mummy.
"Let's bring him back up to the castle," Lupin suggested. "We'll have to explain things to Dumbledore."
They all descended the stairs. Pettigrew had been shackled to Lupin and enchanted to float behind him [since they definitely weren't going to free his legs] but Hermione [who was in the lead] stopped dead when she saw the room they had first entered.
"What in Merlin's name...?" Snape was lying sprawled on the floor. So that was who had been downstairs.
"Snape?" said Sirius incredulously. "What's he doing here?"
"He teaches at the school now," Lupin told him. "I wonder why he's here...and what knocked him unconscious."
"This place is haunted," Michael said.
"No," Lupin still looked puzzled. "It was never haunted. I used this place, on full moons, when I came to school here...the tunnel was created to give me an entrance and the willow planted to prevent anyone stumbling across me." His eyes widened suddenly.
"Sirius."
"What?" Sirius glanced over to see Lupin undoing his half of the shackle and clicking it onto Sirius's arm. "Remus what's wrong?"
"It's the full moon."
Hermione, Michael, and Ron all did their best to back away from Lupin at that. Sirius just looked puzzled. "But - you've got the potion, right?"
Lupin groaned. "I- I've forgotten to take it."
Sirius's eyes widened. "Run!"
They left Lupin behind in the shack, sprinting down the tunnel with Sirius levitating Snape and Pettigrew stumbling along behind him, none of them wanting to deal with a full-grown werewolf at that moment.
The full moon outside lit up the grounds, and luckily there were no dementors in sight.
"What are we going to do?" Michael demanded. "We can't just walk up to the castle with Sirius Black! They'll arrest him before we can say anything!"
"I think Pettigrew might give them a bit of a shock, we can work with that."
"Can we work with you, though?" Ron demanded, being held up by Hermione and bandages that Lupin had conjured tightly wound around his broken leg. "You used some weird magic in there - and you still haven't explained yourself!"
"That again? We've got some bigger problems here!"
"No, he's right," said Hermione stubbornly. "Harry, even some of the greatest wizards can't do wandless magic. Dumbledore still uses a wand. And you made everyone's wands appear in your pocket just by snapping your fingers!"
Jesus Christ they're not going to let this go.
"Look, I promise I'll explain everything later, but right now-"
A howl cut through his sentence. Sirius looked back at the tunnel in horror - they were just out of the willow's reach, but still close enough to realize where the noise had come from.
"Go!" Sirius shouted, just as something huge and furred burst out from the base of the tree.
Gabriel swept the three of them behind him with a thought and he might have heard someone curse as Ron tripped over his bad leg. His arms were spread and Hermione did shriek a little bit when she saw the silver weapon that hadn't been there three seconds ago.
"What-"
Sirius was already turning into his animagus form and Gabriel shouted for him to stop but it was already too late. Pettigrew was left with no minders and he was transforming too, disappearing into the grass. Gabriel had no Grace to go after him and if he had it would leave his friends undefended - Snape, unconscious several feet away where Sirius had dropped him, was certainly going to be no help.
The wolf-Lupin was huge and menacing, growling and amber eyes narrowed at Sirius, who in dog form was standing with back arched in between Gabriel and the others, and Lupin.
They fell on each other with snarls and the fight rolled away from them.
"Go!" Gabriel pushed the others towards the school, but Lupin was flinging Sirius off and rounding on them. Gabriel brandished the angel blade.
"This isn't silver," he said in a low voice, making sure they were all behind him, "But I'd bet it'll hurt just as badly. Back. Away."
Lupin growled again, but his eyes were on the blade - his wolf side obviously could tell when danger was present, and right now Gabriel was the most dangerous thing on the grounds.
The wolf, however, also seemed to be more confident in itself.
It lunged for the group and there was a lot of screaming but Gabriel met it halfway and this was no time to get shirty about giving the Defense teacher a new scar or two. The wolf howled again and backed off quickly, bleeding from two new cuts on its face. It gave Gabriel one look and headed towards the forest, long stride getting it there in a matter of minutes. Gabriel hurried over to where Sirius was still lying. Had Lupin killed him?
Apparently, no. He'd reverted back to human form when he got knocked out and was lying with a large gash across one arm.
"Wake up!" Gabriel was having to use way too much Grace in the last two hours or so.
Sirius woke with a start and sat bolt upright. "What-"
Gabriel hauled him to his feet. "Lupin scarpered into the forest. We're going up to the castle. Come on."
Bewildered, Sirius followed. Hermione, Michael, and Ron were still staring at Gabriel with varying degrees of incredulity and shock.
Of course, even with all that had gone wrong that night, getting up to the castle wouldn't be that easy.
It began with a sudden temperature drop.
It continued with frost creeping along the grass towards them.
And it got even worse when Sirius dropped to his knees.
Fucking bad luck I cannot get a single break can I.
Dementors were gliding across the lawn towards them, hundreds flocking from all over the grounds. Gabriel drew his wand but he didn't even have a corporeal patronus yet, and the one he could conjure wouldn't stand up to this many. There was no way he'd be able to use Grace against them unless he wanted to pass out and spend another month or two feeling uncomfortably human until enough of it came back.
"Harry-"
"Run!"
"We're not leaving you here!"
"What happened to not trusting me?"
"I don't care!"
Well at least that particular hurdle isn't as big as I thought it was, thought Gabriel as the dementors descended on them.
Seconds before he passed out, something silver ripped through them.
I was going to continue this but it made the chapter waaaaay too long. You want to have something left for chapter 27, don't you? Besides, I can only write so much and I'm sure you'd rather have the new chapter.
uh oh...Gabriel screwed up. I wonder what they'll think?
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