Chào các bạn! Vì nhiều lý do từ nay Truyen2U chính thức đổi tên là Truyen247.Pro. Mong các bạn tiếp tục ủng hộ truy cập tên miền mới này nhé! Mãi yêu... ♥

Shrieking Betrayal


⌗ ⌗ ⌗

Though in reality, it was only for a few seconds, Iris felt as if she had been unconscious for hours.

Her arm was throbbing in pain and she pressed her lips together to muffle a scream. Her hazel eyes shot open and it took second to focus, but once she did she found Harry kneeling over her with a worried look on his face as he kept glancing down at her arm.

All of a sudden, Harry ducked down, a branch of the Whomping Willow missing him by an inch as it swept over them violently.

"C'mon, we've gotta go help Ron!" Harry quickly told her, pointing to the opening at the bottom of the deadly tree.

Iris got distracted from his words when she heard Hermione swing past, shrieking. She had wrapped herself around a branch of the tree and was hanging on tightly as it whipped her around.

Harry pulled Iris up onto her knees, being careful not to touch her right arm.

 "Can you crawl over to the hole?" Harry asked her.

She groaned in pain but started moving toward the dark chasm in the trunk of the tree. Luckily, she wasn't too far away.

Iris had gotten no more than two feet when Hermione flew past once again, this time grabbing Harry by the collar of his t-shirt and taking him with her into the air.

The Potter girl hurried along until she was just in front of the hole and then stuck her feet in first, shimmying down into the familiar dark expanse below.

She took one last glance at her aching arm in the dying sunlight and noticed that the sleeve of her navy blue hoodie was becoming wet with deep-red blood. She looked away, not even wanting to imagine how bad it must have been under the sleeve.

Stumbling into the hallway to wait for the other two to join her, Iris cradled her broken arm, trying to find some sort of relief in the pain.

A few seconds later, her brother came flying into the dark passageway, slamming into her and sending her into the stone wall.

She gasped loudly, poorly stifling a scream of sheer pain as her arm banged into the wall.

Harry immediately looked up and started apologising, though it wasn't long before Hermione came sailing through just like he had moments before, landing on top of the dark-haired boy and crushing him into the floor.

"I'm sorry," Hermione told him, pushing off of the ground.

"Don't worry about it."

Even in the dim lighting, Hermione's eyes caught on Iris' sleeve, which was now darker than the rest of the hoodie as it was becoming quickly soaked in blood.

"Iris! That doesn't look good at all," Hermione said worriedly.

Iris grimmaced, "Brings back memories from Harry last year. At least this time there's no Lockhart..."

The bushy-haired girl pulled her wand out of the back pocket of her jeans and stepped closer to Iris,  "I'm sorry, I don't know many healing spells... this should help though. Ferula!"

Bandages started appearing, wrapping themselves around her arm and across her body to create a makeshift sling. It didn't stop the bleeding, and you could tell as the white bandages turned red from the blood seeping through. It did, however, take most of the weight off of Iris, letting her drop her other arm to her side.

"Thanks," Iris said in relief.

Hermione nodded at her before turning toward the rest of the small tunnel, "Where do you suppose this goes?"

"I have a hunch," Harry spoke, "I just hope I'm wrong."

He wasn't.

⌗ ⌗ ⌗

The trio made their way through the primitive passageway, ducking the roots that dangled overhead. Then, abruptly, the tunnel ended. Confused, Harry and Hermione glanced about, then peer up. The familiar small trapdoor was open above them.

Harry and Hermione poked their heads out first, surveying the rugged room that Iris had been in before. The three then pulled themselves out of the hole, Iris with a bit of trouble but with help from the other two.

Hermione hesitantly whispered, "We're in the Shrieking Shack... aren't we?"

Harry didn't answer, staring at the dog prints in the dust on the floor. The ceiling creaked.

"C'mon." Harry gestured to the stairs.

Iris sighed as they began to climb and reluctantly followed along behind Harry and Hermione.

Halfway up the stairs, they heard Ron moaning loudly in pain. The three exchanged a glance before running up the last few steps and into a semi-large room. It was about as decrepit as the one downstairs, except this one had obviously been a bedroom.

They found Ron sitting on a dusty and torn apart sofa cushion in the corner of the room furthest from the door. He was still gripping his 'rat' tightly in one hand, while the other clutched his bleeding calf.

"Ron!" Harry said, running over to his best friend.

Hermione followed closely behind, "Ron! You're okay!"

Iris stayed over by the door observing the rest of the room, finding a trail of pawprints on the dirty floor.

"The dog-- where's the--"

She followed the pawprints across the floor watching as they shifted into the drag of a human shoeprint leading into the corner behind the door.

Behind her, she heard Ron warn, "Harry, it's a trap-- he's the dog. He's an Animagus..."

The door just in front of her slowly swung closed, revealing a man standing in the shadows. Filthy, matted hair hung to his shoulders. His skin like a corpse.

Iris stared at her godfather, standing just a foot away from him with a sour expression of disappointment on her face.

He avoided her gaze and instead looked past her to study Harry's face keenly. Harry drew his wand.

"Iris!" She heard her brother shout, but still, she did not turn away from the beat-down man in front of her.

What are you doing? You would put us all in danger for him?

Iris chastised him, her soft voice echoing through his mind. Sirius' eyes flickered over to her for a brief moment, and in them, she saw nothing but longing and resentment, for the life he could have had but was taken from him by the man hiding in plain sight just in front of him but out of his reach.

Your arm?... It was the tree?

He looked painfully at her broken and bandaged arm, noticing how her blood was soaking splotches here and there on the once pure-white cloth.

Her silence was his answer.

"Iris! Get away from him!" Harry called once more.

Slowly, she turned around to face him and her two best friends. She took note of his defensive stance as he held his wand pointed at Sirius with hatred etched on his face. Someone who had not known him all of his life might not have noticed, but Iris also saw a hint of fear in his features. Fear of the man that had supposedly killed their parents, fear that he would now also be responsible for the death of someone, but fear, mostly, for his sister, who was standing no more than arm's length away from a mass murderer.

Iris looked at her brother with sorrow, and his face twitched in confusion when he realised she was not moving away from Sirius.

"Iris?" Hermione whispered from beside Harry.

Her eyes found the floor as she spoke quietly, "I'm sorry."

She didn't need to see their faces to know that they showed nothing but betrayal, their thoughts were screaming loud enough.

"I thought you'd come and help your friend," Sirius said hoarsely, stepping up to stand beside Iris.

Iris' eyes flickered up to Ron, seeing his pain both from his leg and from her standing with who they thought was a murderer, and it made her feel awful for keeping such a big secret from them.

"Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful...it will make everything much easier...."

Iris let out an exasperated sigh. Sirius was really not helping the situation. Harry's face was full of rage, probably from both the comment about their father and also Iris' seeming betrayal. Looking like he didn't know what he was doing, he started forward, but there was a sudden movement on either side of him and two pairs of hands grabbed him and held him back...

"No, Harry!" Hermione gasped in a petrified whisper; Ron, however, spoke to Sirius.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too! Iris, what's going on?" he said fiercely, though the effort of standing upright was draining him of still more colour, and he swayed slightly as he spoke.

Something flickered in Sirius's shadowed eyes.

"Lie down," he said quietly to Ron. "You will damage that leg even more."

"Did you hear me?" Ron said weakly, though he was clinging painfully to Harry to stay upright, "You'll have to kill all three of us!"

Sirus took another step forward, "No... only one will die tonight."

Iris' face immediately scrunched up in disbelief; Did he actually just say that?

"Then it'll be you!" Harry yelled, pushing through their friends to run at Sirius.

He grabbed her godfather by the neck and tackled him to the ground making Iris shriek as they almost bulldozed her over in the process. Harry took his wand out, pointing it at Sirius' face, his hand shaking in anger.

"Harry, please!" Iris pleaded to her brother.

She wanted to believe he wouldn't do it, but she had seen what Harry's rage could push him to do in the past.

"Shut up, Iris!" Harry yelled at her, taking his eyes off of Sirius for just a second to glare at her.

Then, Sirius did something that made her want to bang her head off a wall and slap him; He started laughing.

"Going to kill me, Harry?"

Suddenly, the door to the room slammed open, the shout of, "Expelliarmus!" coming from the familiar voice of Professor Lupin.

Harry's wand went flying across the room off behind Iris and their Professor.

Lupin stood next to the young Potter girl, looking down at his old friend with a hollowed look of incredulity as they met eyes for the first time in over a decade. The old weathered man nudged his head to the side, in a gesture of telling Harry to move away from Sirius as he held his wand out, pointed straight down at the grinning man.

Professor Lupin dauntingly walked forward, Iris watching in anticipation to see what his reaction would be.

"Looking a bit ragged, aren't we, Sirius? Finally, the skin reflects the madness within."

Sirius started chuckling madly, "You'd know all about the madness within, wouldn't you, Remus?"

If she wasn't feeling so beaten down, Iris probably would have laughed too.

The two older men regarded each other, the moment taut with tension, then Lupin steped forward and embraced Sirius like a brother.

Though Iris' eyes started watering in relief, and also likely in pain, her three friends did not share the same sentiment.

Hermione looked aghast as she watched, "No! I trusted you! I covered up for you. And all this time you've been his friend!"

Iris' eyes widened when she realised what Hermione was about to say.

"Hermione, no. Please don't--"

Her bushy-haired best friend switched her glaring gaze onto Iris, "You knew too? And you did nothing... Iris, what is going on!?" she didn't even wait for an answer, glancing back at the boys before pointing an accusitory finger at Professor Lupin and telling them, "He's a werewolf! That's why he's been missing classes!"

Harry and Ron stared, dumbfounded, at Lupin. Black howled with laughter, bitterly amused. Lupin eyed him, then turned back.

"How long have you known?"

Hermione swallowed thickly, "Since Professor Snape set the essay."

Professor Lupin nodded in understanding before turning to Iris, "And you? Since the boggarts?"

She nodded.

"You two truly are the brightest witches of your age I've ever met," Lupin bitterly complimented.

Sirius spit out a laugh, getting tired of the chatter interrupting his mission, "Enough talk, Remus! C'mon, let's kill him!

Remus turned to him, "Wait!"

"I did my waiting! Twelve years of it! In Azkaban!" Sirius yelled, his voice cracking.

Iris frowned at that. She hated imagining what that place was like, and what it must have been like for Sirius all those years, knowing he was innocent, trapped in a prison cell that wasn't meant for him.

Remus studied his friend for a moment, his wise old  eyes wandering over to Iris, who was watching Sirius intently with a pained look.

Sighing deeply, the Professor twisted his wand in his hands and nodded.

"Very well." He held his wand out to Sirius, the black-haired man immediately taking it into his clutches, "Kill him. But wait one more minute, Harry has the right to know why," Lupin insisted.

"I know why," Harry spoke, his voice quivering, "You betrayed our parents! You're the reason they're dead." He then turned to Iris, "How can you stand with him, he's a murderer!"

Iris flinched at her brother's harsh tone, "Harry, please, just listen... you don't understand!"

"I understand plenty! He practically killed mum and dad!"

"You don't know anything about what happened, Harry, if you would just hear the sto--"

"No! Why should I have to listen to anything you, or he, has to say?!"

"You are being so unbelievably daft right now--"

"Oh, I'm being daft?! You're betraying me just like he did with them!"

Remus had had enough of watching them fight, "No, Harry, it wasn't him," he cut in, breaking up the siblings' screaming match, "Somebody did betray your parents, but it was somebody who, until quite recently, I believed to be dead."

In all their years of knowing the twins, Hermione and Ron had never seen them have a fight so bad. Even Iris, who was usually the calm one in most situations, was seething.

"Who was it then!?" Harry spit out.

Sirius then jumped into the conversation, finally calling out the man that had ruined all of their lives.

"Peter Pettigrew!"

⌗ ⌗ ⌗

well that was dramatic

first of all, thank you all so much for getting this to 20k reads!

I realize that for as many of your lovely comments and votes I get, I don't really interact with you guys as much as I want to!

so, let me know something about yourself! your favourite color, or your favourite hp book/movie! anything you want! I'll start off with saying my favourite colour is sky blue, my favourite hp book is ootp, and movie is hbp!

love you guys, thanks for reading!! ❤️❤️

Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro