Chapter 131 — The Water Between the Trees

The werewolf came at me before I had properly recovered my balance. I lifted a forepaw as though it were a hand, intending to turn the blow aside, and discovered how much practice in an empty room had left out. Its claws caught my right shoulder and dragged through the fur.

I roared with the pain. The sound shook inside my chest, and the creature hesitated just long enough for me to drive forwards again, lower this time. When it reached for me, I caught its forearm in my jaws and pulled across its balance.

It fell heavily. I released my grip, brought my shoulder through and followed as its head came up, already lifting a paw for the next blow.

‘He’s down!’ Hermione shouted. My paw struck the earth beside the werewolf’s head, close enough for mud to scatter across its face.

I could feel the unused weight of that blow in my body. Another few inches, and I would have brought it down on Lupin’s skull; the thought frightened me even while he began moving again. I backed away, keeping myself between him and the roots, and tried to make room for Snape.

The werewolf shifted sideways with one arm held nearer its body. I moved with it, my shoulder stinging under the fur and one foreleg heavier than the other. Beyond it, Snape reached a position clear of us both, and I lowered myself out of his line.

A howl came from the forest. The werewolf turned so suddenly that I nearly lunged after it, but it was already gathering its legs beneath itself. It sprang away from me and ran towards the sound as Snape’s spell struck the earth behind it.

I followed for two strides before stopping. Between the dark trunks I could no longer see where it had gone, and there was no sensible way to put a wounded lion in front of a running werewolf by guessing.

Sirius struggled up behind me. He stood shaking with his head low, then began limping towards the trees. Harry came out from under the root as the dog passed the first trunk.

‘Sirius!’ he called. Snape reached for him, but Harry was already moving, eyes fixed on the gap where his godfather had disappeared.

I crossed his path and lowered myself. He stopped against my shoulder, catching the fur along my neck, and tried to look past me into the trees.

‘He’s hurt,’ Harry said. ‘He can’t keep up with Lupin like that.’

I knew it; Sirius had barely been able to stand. But behind Harry, Hermione was still beside the opening with my pouch against her chest, and Ron could not leave his litter. Snape looked between them and us before pointing along the lighter ground at the edge of the wood.

‘Bring Black back if you reach him,’ he said. ‘You do not follow Lupin into that forest. Stay where I can find you.’

There was movement beyond the first line of trees, a scrape followed by an uneven rustle. I could reach that much ground before it disappeared. Harry put one hand across my back, then stopped as Hermione ran over with the pouch.

‘Fasten it on yourself,’ she told him. She waited while he pulled the strap across his chest, then checked the flap. ‘Don’t let him change with this on.’

Harry nodded, tightened the strap and climbed onto my back. His weight altered my balance immediately; I took the first stride carefully and felt him grip my mane. Carrying someone was another thing the empty practice room had neglected to teach me.

‘Only the edge!’ Snape called. I went between the first two trunks and slowed before the ground dipped, keeping the pale strip of open grounds in view.

Somewhere ahead, Sirius moved through the undergrowth. I followed the sound rather than a scent I could not distinguish, stepping over roots and stopping when the noise stopped. Harry leaned forward over my neck as we waited.

‘He asked if I wanted to live with him,’ he said. His hands tightened in my mane. ‘When we got his name cleared. He said I could come if I wanted.’

I turned my head far enough to see his knee against my flank. There was no way to answer him in this shape, and he did not seem to need one; when another rustle came from ahead, he looked towards it at once. I began moving again.

The next patch of roots made his weight shift sharply to one side. I stopped, but he was already sliding off my back before I could lower myself. He landed on his knees and bent forward with one hand against the ground.

I changed beside him and reached for his shoulder. He was sick into the leaves before I could ask anything, and I stayed crouched there until he could breathe without retching.

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‘Sorry,’ he said, wiping his mouth on a handkerchief. He sat back against a tree and closed his eyes for a moment.

‘Don’t apologise. I should have slowed down.’ I looked through the trunks towards the grounds, where a large figure had reached the Willow. Hagrid’s voice carried to us, followed by Snape’s sharper answer; I could not make out the words, but they were together.

Harry opened his eyes and followed my gaze. ‘He’ll come after us?’ he asked, still holding the handkerchief against his mouth.

‘He knows which way we went.’ I tried moving my right arm and stopped when the shoulder burned under my shirt. The fabric had stuck to the skin, and lifting it away was unpleasant enough to make Harry forget the trees for a second.

‘Did he bite you?’ Harry asked. He began pushing himself upright, watching the place where my fingers had come away bloody.

‘Claws. His teeth didn’t get me.’ I remembered those quite distinctly, including how determined I had been to keep them away from my throat. ‘Give yourself another moment.’

‘Sirius hasn’t got one.’ Harry stood too quickly and had to lean against the trunk until the dizziness passed. I waited beside him, then checked the pouch still fastened across his chest.

‘Keep that for now,’ I said. ‘And keep close. If you see anything, signal before you go towards it.’

He put a hand over the flap and nodded. We continued on foot along the outer edge of the wood, with Harry’s wandlight catching droplets on the bark. I could no longer hear the dog; a disturbed patch of leaves tempted me to pretend I had found a trail, but there were too many roots and old marks to tell.

‘You want to live with him, then?’ I asked. Harry looked up from the ground at once, as though he had been waiting for someone to return to that part of the evening.

‘Yes. Of course I do.’ He stepped round a root and glanced back towards the Willow. ‘I shouldn’t have used Hermione’s wand.’

I waited while he kept walking. The light moved across the trees ahead of us, and for several steps he seemed occupied with putting his feet where he could see them.

‘He’d brought the potion,’ Harry said. ‘I saw it. If I hadn’t knocked him back—’ He stopped, leaving the rest of it between us.

‘We have to tell them exactly what happened,’ I said. ‘All of it. But we’ve got to find Sirius first.’

Harry nodded without looking at me. We could not put Snape’s bottle back together by discussing it here, and I had no comforting explanation that would make the decision disappear. We went on with his light ahead of our feet.

A fallen tree crossed the next shallow dip. The gap beneath it was full of muddy water, so I headed towards a low fork where I could climb over.

‘Wait while I look on the other side,’ I told Harry. ‘Then come round where I am.’

He stayed beside the trunk while I climbed across. The movement pulled at my shoulder, and I stopped on the far side until the pain settled. Somewhere ahead, a branch clicked; after that, the wood was quiet enough to make me feel that somebody else was waiting for me to move.

I could see no face or wandlight between the trees. I called Harry’s name, and he answered at once from behind the fallen trunk, close enough to reassure me about the only person whose position I knew.

‘Keep talking,’ I said. I looked into the dark again, trying to decide whether the sound had moved away or stopped altogether.

‘What do you want me to—’ Harry broke off. ‘Oswald, there’s someone down there.’ Red sparks went up beyond the other end of the tree.

‘Stay there. I’m coming.’ I changed beside the fork, with my pouch still safely on Harry, and jumped the lowest part of the trunk. My shoulder hurt on landing, so I shortened the next stride and reached him at the top of a bank.

Water lay below us, a small dark pool edged with stones and exposed roots. Sirius was on his side beside it in human form, so still that Harry went straight down the bank. I followed, changed back and caught his hand before he could shake his godfather.

‘Let me check his breathing,’ I said. Harry pulled back just far enough for me to bend close to Sirius’s face.

I could feel his breath and see shallow movement beneath the torn clothes. His skin was cold, but I found a pulse; the marks along his side looked ugly in the wandlight. Fragments of old instruction returned with the actions, including the part about not calling someone well simply because he was still breathing.

‘He’s alive,’ I told Harry. ‘He needs Madam Pomfrey. We should get him away from the water.’

‘If we take him back, they’ll have him.’ Harry looked up the bank, towards the way to the castle. ‘Peter got away.’

‘Snape saw him change. He heard him admit what he did, and Dumbledore already knows why we were looking.’ I kept my voice steady, though my arm was shaking against Sirius’s clothes. ‘Peter escaping doesn’t undo that.’

Harry stayed crouched beside me. I could not promise what the Ministry would decide, but I could see an injured man lying on cold stones, with Dementors somewhere outside the grounds looking for him. When I said that much, Harry moved round to help me lift him.

My shoulder objected as soon as I took any weight. I asked Harry to wait while I found a better grip, and felt something cold touch the back of my neck. At first I thought it was water from the branches; then the chill went through my collar and settled under my skin.

‘The pool,’ Harry said. He was looking past Sirius at the water, where a pale edge spread over the surface. It tightened, cracked softly and became still.

I lowered Sirius and looked up. Dark shapes moved above the trees, and more came into the gaps I had begun counting as possible ways out. One descended between us and the bank we had just used.

‘The pouch,’ I told Harry, holding out my hand. ‘Keep close to Sirius.’

He unfastened the strap and passed it over. I secured it round my waist, opened the flap and found the two dry covers I had prepared after practising with Lupin. There were other spells in there, but only two pieces that could help us against these things.

Harry raised his wand beside me. His hand shook as he looked from the frozen water to the shapes coming down through the trees.

‘Like the lesson?’ he asked. He stayed where he was, close enough for his sleeve to touch mine.

‘We start together,’ I said. I drew the first cover out, keeping my fingers tight enough to stop them trembling. ‘Then we hold on.’