Only one chapter to go! Can't believe it, I'm working on the next book now. Any suggestions? Should I definitely post it, I don't want to post something that won't get readers! :) Thanks!

Chapter 8: Old friends.

"S-Sirius! R-Remus! My old friends!" Pettigrew squeaked. They both seized him into a tight lock. Pettigrew was denying everything, which made Black even angrier by the second. Lupin was trying to remain calm. I was basically invisible during the conversation. I stayed in the background, just trying to understand what they were saying throughout all the yelling. In the end, Harry agreed to turn Pettigrew into the dementors in order to clear Sirius's name. We all began exiting the Shrieking Shack. Snape was being lifted by magic and following behind us. We could really use Lockhart and his memory charms right about now...Although I was happy Harry discovered the truth, it was likely we were all going to be in big trouble. To my amusement Snape was being banged up against the walls as he was dragged. I tried to listen, but it was hard to hear the conversation between Harry and Black. It was like they've known each other their entire life. Pettigrew was being herded by Lupin. Suddenly, the moment was ruined. The moon was out. "Oh my!" Hermione gasped. "He hasn't taken his potion, he's not safe!"

"Run!" Black yelled turning to us! "Run!" Harry was refusing to move. "RUN, LEAVE IT TO ME!"

My heart froze as Lupin was stretched out and transformed into a werewolf. I backed up into the tree, not knowing what to do. It was one of the scariest moments in my life. During all the commotion, Peter went unnoticed. I watched as he transformed into his rat self. "No!" I yelled, "Someone..." I didn't want to move, it would attract the wolf. I had to try though, I wasn't going to let a stupid fear ruin somebody else's life. I being running towards the spot Pettigrew was. I saw his rat form run towards the Forbidden Forest.

"Carlie!" Hermione was calling behind me.

"I'll get Pettigrew!" I yelled back while still running. I followed Pettigrew into the forest, but his size gave him an advantage. I followed to my best ability, I couldn't keep my eyes on his little frame. No! He was getting away, the sound of the others began to fade. I was alone in the forest. Pettigrew was out of my sight. I allowed myself to collapse on my knees. I let out a small scream, no! He escaped, he was gone right from under my nose. Our evidence was gone. I dropped my wand back where everybody was. I looked up at the sky, what were we going to do? That was when everything began going cold. The puddle next to me began freezing over and my fingers began feeling numb. My eyes widened in fear, oh no...Dementors. I stood up quickly, trying to back away. A large black-cloaked creature flew by me. It wasn't alone, there were hundreds of them...I couldn't scream, couldn't run... They were flying closer to me, one was less than a centimeter away. I was sliding down the tree, feeling tired and drained. My eyelids were shutting, the last thing I remember seeing was a silver doe fly by, and I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall into a deep sleep.

* * *

Faint screaming and arguing was happening outside the door...where was I? I opened my eyes. So many thoughts were running through my head, what happened to Sirius now that we know he's innocent? What happened to Lupin after he became a werewolf? Did anyone manage to catch Pettigrew? I blinked my eyes before fully opening them. I slowly sat up. I was in the hospital, again. Fabulous, just like last year I woke up in the hospital wing. The last thing I remembered seeing was a flood of dementors and a silver doe fly past me. I saw Hermione and Harry sitting across the room talking to Madame Pomfrey. Ron was dead asleep a few beds over from me with his leg raised. The doors burst open, the minister, Snape, and Dumbledore quickly came into the room. Of course Dumbledore still looked as if he was calm, but Snape was fuming. The Minister just looked confused. They stormed over towards Harry. "OUT WITH IT POTTER!" Snape yelled, what did I miss? I couldn't have missed that much. "WHAT DID YOU DO?" Even I wanted to know what Harry had to say. What did he do?

"Professor Snape!" Madame Pomfrey shrieked. "Control yourself!"

"See here, Snape, be reasonable," the minister spoke. "This doors been locked, we just saw..."

"THEY HELPED HIM ESCAPE, I KNOW IT!" Snape began yelling, pointing at Harry. Helped who escape?

"Calm down, you're talking nonsense!" the Minister argued.

"YOU DON'T KNOW POTTER! HE DID IT, I KNOW IT!" Snape screamed.

"That will do, Severus," Dumbledore added quietly. "Think about what you are saying. This door has been locked since I left the ward ten minutes ago. Madame Pomfrey, have these students left their beds?"

"Of course not! I would have heard them!" Madame Pomfrey replied with a scoff.

"Well there you have it, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Unless you are suggesting that Harry and Hermione are able to be in two places at once, I'm afraid I don't see any point in troubling them further." Snape still fuming sharply turned on his heel and quicker than usual exited the room.

"Fellow seems quite unbalanced," Fudge continued. I bit back a laugh at that one.

"Oh no, he's not unbalanced, just suffered a severe disappointment." Dumbledore said to him. What disappointment? I couldn't wait any longer to ask questions.

"He's not the only one!" Fudge went on, who else was disappointed? "The Dailey Prophet's going to have a field day! We had Black cornered and he slipped through our fingers again!" He escaped. I needed to know more. "All it need now is for the story of that hippogriff's escape to get out! And I'll be a laughing stock." I was completely lost, Buckbeak didn't escape. I was there when he was killed, unless they're talking about another hippogriff...but how rare would that be? After that Dumbledore and Fudge discussed about removing the dementors, thank Merlin! The two were exiting the room, discussing about what to replace the dementors with.

Harry and Hermione were both looking at each other knowingly, when they noticed that I was awake. "Carlie!" Hermione said. "We had no idea that you were awake..."

"Yeah, what's..." I was about to ask what was going on when Ron began shifting in his bed. His head slowly lifted up and he looked around.

"What...what happened?" Ron asked. "Where's Sirius? Where's Lupin? What's going on?" He took the words right out of my mouth. Harry and Hermione shared a glance, and then Hermione began to explain everything.

After I ran off, Sirius changed into his Animagus form and fought off Lupin. When I ran off, they sent Snape in after me to get me out. So it was Snape who saved me? Well, that was...completely surprising. It must have been him who casted the patronus. Although what they told us next was really surprising. The entire year Hermione's been using an object called the Time Turner to get to her lessons. No wonder why she's been stressed with work. I was wondering how she managed to be in two places at once. They used the Time Turner to go back and help Sirius escape before he was captured and sentenced to the dementor's kiss. They even managed to save Buckbeak, so he did escape! I wanted to laugh at that. Draco must not have been happy about that! I can't believe how much I missed in a mere ten minutes.

Madame Pomfrey let me leave before Ron. The dementor's effect wore off on me pretty quickly with the potion she used. Ron had to stay a bit longer, so I left with Harry and Ron. After parting ways at the stairs, I headed straight towards my common room. I stepped through the door when someone latched onto me. "Carlie!" Eowyn's fiery red hair flew in my face. "Merlin! Where were you! You didn't come back last night! Did you hear that Black escaped? Did you hear that the hippogriff escaped? Did you hear that Lupin's a werewolf? Did you hear that..."

"Eowyn," Dasha's quiet voice interrupted. "Calm down." She laughed as she hugged me as well.

"I was also just gonna ask if you heard that Aidan asked me to go on vacation with him..." she muttered. I laughed at her randomness.

"I don't know which question to answer first," I said. "But I'll try. Yeah, I heard about Black, Lupin, and Buckbeak but no, I didn't hear about Aidan." Eowyn was literally bouncing. "Wow, that's awesome!" I laughed not knowing what to say.

"I know right!" Eowyn said. "It's so perfect, we're so meant to be!" We were also only thirteen but I wasn't going to break it to her. She sighed as she fell back onto the couch. Dasha rolled her eyes and smiled.

"More importantly," Dasha spoke. "Where were you? We were so nervous, why didn't you come back?" I wasn't sure if I should tell them, it's not that I didn't trust them, just that I really couldn't tell them anything without the entire story. If they knew about Black's escape, it would put people in danger and I didn't want that. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I would get in trouble for almost everything last night, mostly Harry and Hermione. I decided to lie, although I really hated when I had to lie to them.

"I was running up the moving stairs, when one of the portraits started yelling at me. I turned around to yell back, but the stairs went the opposite direction, and I kind of fell again..." Eowyn chuckled and Dasha sighed. "I hit my head pretty hard, so Madame Pomfrey wanted me to stay the night."

"Then why are you covered in dirt and leaves?" Dasha asked curiously, oh crap...Hermione and Dasha were the two hardest people to lie too. They noticed every little detail.

"Oh, that!" I laughed. "Before I was walking up the stairs, I ran out to the Quidditch Pitch to look for the guys, but I tripped a couple of times, it was really windy yesterday actually..."

"You need to be more careful Carlie," Dasha said seriously. "One day you could get really hurt!"

"Tell me about it..." I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Dasha asked, I shook my head.

"Nothing, nothing!" I covered. "So where were you guys heading?"

"Well we were just about to head down to dinner, care to join us?"

"I think I'm going to take a shower..." I said holding up a piece of my hair that still had leaves in it. "I don't even want to know what I look like right now."

"Yeah, you really don't!" Eowyn agreed and laughed. I laughed and shook my head.

"Thanks Eowyn, thanks a ton..." I replied sarcastically while brushing a hand through my muddy blonde hair.

"No!" Eowyn replied catching on. "I wasn't saying that you're ugly! I mean, you're usually really pretty, but like you're covered in dirt...and cuts, and you're hair looks like it was attacked by bats and..."

"Alright Eowyn," Dasha cut her off. "I believe she gets it....We'll meet you down there." Dasha smiled as she dragged Eowyn with her out of the common room.

I showered and dressed quickly, I wanted to hurry and get down to dinner. I looked in the mirror, at least my hair was clean. I did have this cut though across my face that stretched across my cheek to the corner of my eye. Fantastic, even make up didn't cover it up. Oh well, what can you do? I hopped down the steps and began heading towards the door. "I can't bloody believe it!" I heard a familiar voice yell. "That bloody hippogriff escaped! It must have been that oaf Hagrid." I turned around to see Draco and his friends gathered around the fire.          

"It wasn't Hagrid," I quickly said without thinking. Draco turned around noticing me for the first time.

"Oh really Nyx..." he began saying, but then his eyes squinted while looking at my face. "What did you do to your face? You look awful, well, guess it's no different than any other day." I rolled my eyes. Pansy Parkinson snickered from behind him. Yeah look whose laughing. "Alright then, if it wasn't that oaf than who was it."

"I don't know," I lied shrugging. "It wasn't Hagrid though, I was with him a minute before the execution, there was no way he would have been able to free Buckbeak right under the minister's nose." Draco glared at me for calling him out and turned back to his friends. I smirked as I headed up to dinner.

I walked into the Great Hall and searched around for the guys. I haven't been able to talk to them in a few days. I spotted them throwing food at each other in the middle of the table. So I thought, what the hell, I'll sit at the Gryffindor table for a few minutes. I walked over and took the free seat next to Jake. "Throwing food again?" I laughed.

"Scars!" they all said turning around. "Where have you been?"

"You know," I replied not wanting to go into detail. "The usual, walking around, the hospital wing, outside the school, blah, blah, blah..." They just nodded and  didn't even bother asking about the cut across my face.

I sat at the Gryffindor table for a while longer. I listened to Percy talk about all the changes he's going to make when he joins the ministry and most of the Gryffindor table complaining about how they were sad to see Professor Lupin go. I was upset when I found out as well, he was actually a very good teacher. I understood why he wanted to leave though. I bet things would be even more tense between him and Snape. Plus, they had to let everyone know that he was a werewolf. Many parents weren't too happy. "You know," Jake said. "I don't think that Lupin should leave. I mean who cares if he's a werewolf?"

"I totally agree Jake," I added.

"Wonder what they'll give us next year!" Seamus Finnegan added. "Maybe a vampire." I smiled to myself, wouldn't that be nice. I then joined the Slytherin table and it was quite the opposite. They were all drawling on about how they suspected him for being a werewolf the entire time and glad that he was gone. Liars. Half of them loved him as a teacher. Eowyn, Dasha, and I returned back to the common room together that night, there were still a few weeks left of the term and I really needed to get my grades up if I wanted to pass...

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