"Now what?" Harry asked, glancing around and bouncing from foot to foot.
"We'll have to hide in here. We need to wait until they've gone back to the castle. Then we wait until it's safe to fly Buckbeak up to Sirius's window. He won't be there for another couple of hours... Oh, this is going to be difficult..." Hermione replied nervously.
"We're going to have to move. We've got to be able to see the Whomping Willow, or we won't know what's going on," Harry pointed out.
"Okay. But we've got to keep out of sight, Harry, remember..." Hermione tightened her grip on Buckbeak's rope, and the three of them skirted around the edge of the forest until they reached a place where they could see the tree.
"There's Ron!" Harry whispered suddenly, pointing through the thick foliage at a shadowy figure running in the darkness.
"Get away from him -- get away -- Scabbers, come here -- " Past Ron shouted angrily.
Then two more human figures appeared, a tiny canine silhouette racing between their legs.
Ron dived, "Gotcha! Get off, you stinking cat -- "
"There's Sirius," Present Harry whispered once more.
The dog raced toward them, knocking Harry to the ground, swatting Amisty aside (the present girl rubbed her head in memory) and then grab Ron's leg.
"Looks even worse from here, doesn't it?" Harry commented casually. "Ouch -- look, I just got walloped by the tree -- and so did you, Hermione -- this is weird -- "
The Whomping Willow suddenly froze, lower branches halting in their attack against the three figures below it.
"That was Crookshanks pressing the knot," Hermione narrated.
"And there we go... We're in," Harry nodded.
As soon as Past them disappeared under the tree, footsteps approached. The execution party was walking back up to the castle.
"Right after we'd gone down into the passage! If only Dumbledore had come with us..." Hermione groaned.
"Macnair and Fudge would've come too. I bet you anything Fudge would've told Macnair to murder Sirius on the spot," Harry replied darkly.
Amisty couldn't help but agree. There was silence for a while, and then another man appeared.
"There's Professor Lupin," Amisty whispered, pointing out as the man raced down from the castle and toward the Willow.
He grabbed a stick, poking the knot to stop the tree, and then disappeared below.
"If he'd only grabbed the Cloak. It's just lying there..." Harry's voice was wistful as he turned to Hermione. "If I just dashed out now and grabbed it, Snape'd never be able to get it and -- "
"Harry, we mustn't be seen!" Hermione repeated sharply.
But Amisty was having difficulty paying attention to their bickering, her attention on the slight off-key music coming from further down the grounds.
She tugged on Hermione's cloak, but she didn't seem to notice her.
"How can you stand this? Just standing here and watching it happen? I'm going to grab the Cloak!" Harry decided, about to take a step forward when Amisty grabbed his robes and pulled him back with the help of Hermione.
"Harry, no!" Hermione hissed.
Hagrid rounded the corner near them, singing heartfully with a slight drag in his step. He was drunk judging by the bottle held tight in his hand.
"See? See what would have happened? We've got to keep out of sight!"
"A little help here?" Amisty begged, desperately trying to keep a hold of Buckbeak, who at the sight of Hagrid immediately tried to escape once more.
Once Hagrid disappeared, the hippogriff stopped fighting, head dropping. Then the castle doors opened once more, Snape racing toward them. He reached the Willow, picking up the Cloak.
"Get your filthy hands off it," Harry growled lowly.
"Quiet!" Amisty hissed, swatting him on the back of his head sharply.
Snape grabbed the stick Lupin had used and once more paused the tree, put on the Cloak, and then no doubt went under the tree as well.
"So that's it. We're all down there... and now we've just got to wait until we come back up again..." Hermione whispered, tying Buckbeak's rope to a tree and sitting down. "Harry, there's something I don't understand... Why didn't the dementors get Sirius? I remember them coming, and then I think I passed out... there were so many of them..."
Amisty looked over at him too, following in his actions as he sat and went into a tale of the silver thing that had appeared from the forest and banished the dementors away.
"But what was it?" Hermione asked jaw dropped.
"There's only one thing it could have been, to make the dementors go. A real Patronus. A powerful one," Harry replied.
"Then who cast the spell?" Amisty asked, not getting any reply.
"Didn't you see what they looked like? Was it one of the teachers?" Hermione suggested.
"No. He wasn't a teacher," Harry replied, shaking his head with utmost certainty.
"But it must have been a really powerful wizard, to drive all those dementors away... If the Patronus was shining so brightly, didn't it light him up? Couldn't you see -- " Hermione began.
"Yeah, I saw him. But... maybe I imagined it... I wasn't thinking straight... I passed out right afterward..." Harry's voice trailed off.
"Who did you think it was?" Hermione pressured
"I think -- " He paused, looking down at his hands. "I think it was my dad."
Amisty felt Hermione go very still beside her, and even she couldn't look up at Harry.
"Harry, your dad's -- well -- dead," Hermione murmured.
"I know that," Harry's response was almost instant.
"You think you saw his ghost?" She offered.
"I don't know... no... he looked solid..." Harry shook his head.
"But then -- " Hermione started.
"Maybe I was seeing things. But... from what I could see... it looked like him... I've got photos of him..." Harry shrugged, feigning nonchalance as he looked at their concerned expressions. "I know it sounds crazy."
Amisty picked at the grass by her crossed legs, highly aware of the uncomfortable that had fallen over them. It seemed to take forever before there was any movement at all.
"Here we come!" Hermione whispered suddenly, dragging Amisty's attention away from the blades of grass between her fingertips.
They all got up to their feet, even Buckbeak looking up. Lupin, Ron, and Pettigrew were the first to appear, then an unconscious Snape, and then Harry, Hermione, Amisty, and Sirius.
She tried to keep from tapping her foot in anticipation. She failed.
"Harry, we've got to stay put. We mustn't be seen. There's nothing we can do," Hermione warned lowly.
"So we're just going to let Pettigrew escape all over again..." Harry muttered bitterly.
"How do you expect to find a rat in the dark? There's nothing we can do! We came back to help Sirius. We're not supposed to be doing anything else!" She snapped back.
"All right!" Harry held up his hands in defeat, looking exasperated. The cloud that had once been covering the moon shifted.
"There goes Lupin. He's transforming -- " Hermione murmured.
"Hermione! We've got to move!" Harry exclaimed out of nowhere.
Amisty looked up at him, confused.
"We mustn't, I keep telling you -- " She started, sounding annoyed and not even glancing in his direction.
"Not to interfere! Lupin's going to run into the forest, right at us!" Harry argued.
Hermione paled considerably, "Quick! Quick! Where are we going to go? Where are we going to hide? The dementors will be coming any moment -- " She fretted, shoving Amisty toward Buckbeak so the raven-haired girl could untie him.
"Back to Hagrid's! It's empty now -- come on!" Harry replied calmly, waiting for Amisty to finish with the knot and then leading the way.
Leaping over logs, feet crushing leaves and sticks, the werewolf howling behind them.
Harry threw open the cabin door, slamming it closed after they had all ran in and bolting it. Fang immediately started barking.
"Fang, Fang!" Amisty hissed, racing toward him and petting him gently. "It's just us, quiet, please."
"That was really close!" Hermione gasped, brushing back the strands of bushy hair that had fallen in front of her face.
"Yeah..." Harry nodded, gaze captured by the window. Buckbeak settled down almost instantly, folding his wings and lying in front of the fire happily. "I think I'd better go outside again, you know. I can't see what's going on -- we won't know when it's time -- "
Amisty glanced up, her eyes narrowed. Hermione did the same.
"I'm not going to try and interfere. But if we don't see what's going on, how're we going to know when it's time to rescue Sirius?" He asked.
"Well... okay, then... we'll wait here with Buckbeak..." She nodded at Amisty, "but Harry, be careful -- there's a werewolf out there -- and the dementors -- "
Before he could leave, Amisty pushed up from the ground and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, "Stay safe, right?"
"Right," He murmured into her hair, the slight curve of a smile resting against her head.
And with that, he left the cabin.
-=+=-
"Hermione, Hermione it's been too long," Amisty was pacing by the window, trying to see through the darkness.
"How do you know?" Hermione asked though she looked just as concerned.
"I don't... it just feels off," She replied uneasily, looking out the window once more.
"Well, I've never doubted your instincts before," Hermione decided, getting to her feet and picking up Buckbeak's rope.
The two of them left Hagrid's cabin once more. As they were walking through the forest, Amisty's ears picked up the faint sound of a spell being cast.
"We need to hurry!" She hissed, picking up the pace.
Soon enough they were racing through the forest as quietly as they could muster. When Harry came into view, looking very shocked and scared indeed.
"What did you do? You said you were only going to keep a lookout!" Hermione scolded furiously.
"I just saved all our lives..." Harry shrugged, ducking down. "Get behind here -- behind this bush -- I'll explain."
He went off into how the Patronus that had saved them was his own, not his father's.
"Did anyone see you?" Hermione asked sharply.
"Yes, haven't you been listening? I saw me but I thought I was my dad! It's okay!" Harry replied.
"Harry, I can't believe it... You conjured up a Patronus that drove away all those dementors! That's very, very advanced magic..." Hermione blinked in awe.
"I knew I could do it this time because I'd already done it..." His voice trailed off. "Does that make sense?"
"I don't know..." Hermione smiled slightly, trying to logic her way through it when Amisty tugged on both of their sleeves.
"Look at Snape!" She hissed, pointing out at the field.
Snape had gained consciousness, putting them all on stretchers, with Ron floating beside him, and then walking up to the castle slowly.
"Right, it's nearly time," Hermione checked her watch. "We've got about forty-five minutes until Dumbledore locks the door to the hospital wing. We've got to rescue Sirius and get back into the ward before anybody realizes we're missing..."
And they were back to waiting, this time in the dark and cold of the empty school grounds.
"D'you reckon he's up there yet?" Harry asked, checking his own watch impatiently.
"Look! Who's that? Someone's coming back out of the castle!" Hermione whispered tensely.
She was right. A man was rushing across the grounds, a silver glint on his belt.
"Macnair! The executioner! He's gone to get the dementors! This is it -- " Harry replied.
Amisty was first to get up onto Buckbeak's back, helping Hermione up, and then waiting for Harry to climb on as well.
"Ready? You'd better hold on to me -- " Harry whispered.
Amisty held tight to his waist, Hermione to her, and there were off into the dark sky. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Amisty didn't know what to think.