The Wolf's Lion ~ Harry Potter (Editing)

Chapter Forty-Two | Mooney, Padfoot and Buckbeak

Ariana stood in the Entrance Hall, leaning against the humongous open doors. Saturday had come around and all of the third-years and up, who had permission, were about to head off.

Of course, Ariana didn't have a signed permission slip, so she had to sneak out of the school with the Marauder's Map and Harry's cloak. It was becoming difficult to cover up why she didn't have a signed letter, but luckily she was talented at lying on the spot.

Professor McGonagall was about to leave with her students, so Ariana waved at her friends and turned to walk into the bowels of the school.

"O'Connor!"

Ariana spun around to see Professor McGonagall calling her back, summoning her. Curiosity prickled at the girl as she approached the elder witch, sincerely hoping she hadn't discovered that she had been sneaking it if the castle since last year.

"Professor Dumbledore informed me that your guardians sent your permission form in yesterday," she said. "You may come with us."

"Thank you, Professor," Ariana smiled. She caught up with her friends, pulling the hood of her floor-length black cloak up to block out the dull sunlight, since her head was still aching, along with the rest of her body, because the full moon was two days ago.

As she weaved through the mass of casually-dressed students, Ariana thought about the permission she had gained. There was no way on Hell or Earth that her 'guardians' sent an owl to Hogwarts... which left one person, unless she had a godmother she never knew about.

In the way Professor McGonagall had worded her sentence, Ariana figured that Dumbledore hadn't told her about Snape, so they want to keep it to themselves.

'That's okay,' Ariana thought, 'I don't want anyone to know, either.'

If the information did get out, it would definitely cause chaos for everyone involved.

Why had he stepped up? Did the Potions Master have a heart beat under the icy exterior, or was it for some other reason? Either way, Ariana had to thank him... and the thought of that made her feel a little unease. Perhaps -

"Ariana?" Hermione asked, peering around her hood.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?!" Ron questioned, looking at her as if she had gone mad.

"My parents send an owl to Dumbledore with my permission form," Ariana smiled, coolly lying her ass off, resisting the urge to shiver when she called those monsters her parents. It was like an insult to her true parents.

"That's great!" Harry said, grinning.

The four students chatted all the way to Hogsmeade, three of them having removed their cloaks by the time they arrived. The silver sun was peeking it from behind the dull clouds, the little light making Ariana's head throb, so she kept her cloak on, hood shielding her eyes.

They walked straight up the high street, passing the bright shops and cottages with thatched rooftops. Towards the end of the village, they followed a winding path that lead into the countryside that surrounded Hogsmeade. Here the houses were fewer, their gardens larger; the group were approaching a large mountain in whose shadow the wizarding village lay.

Ariana's joints felt like they were rubbing against each other, bone on bone. Nevertheless, she powered on, thankful when they reached the stile Sirius had described. Waiting there for them was a massive, shaggy black dog with old newspapers in his mouth, its front paws on the topmost bar of the stile.

"Hello, Sirius," Harry greeted when they reached him.

The dog sniffed at the small, black leather bag over Ariana's shoulder, wagging its tail eagerly as it smelled the food they had managed to steal from the breakfast table. It then lead them over the stile, trotting off towards a rocky path up the mountain.

Ariana groaned, taking a deep breath before pulling the bottom of her cloak up to clamber over the boulders. It was easy for Sirius with his four legs, but the others were soon out of breath. Ariana's body screamed with discomfort and her head felt as if someone was using a jackhammer to break out of it, but she wasn't about to let that stop her.

Half an hour later, they were sweating in the sunlight, thankful when Sirius finally disappeared from view. Ariana squeezed through a small gap in the rocks and appeared inside a rocky cave, then spotted the orange eyes of Buckbeak at the end, tethered to a rock. Each of them bowed deeply, waiting for a moment as Buckbeak bent his scaley legs and ducked his head.

Then her eyes landed in the familiar form of Remus. He looked just as ragged as she did, sitting down on a rock. Every time he inhaled, she could see the pain he masked behind a smile, just as she was doing.

While the dog stretched back into Sirius, Ariana lowered herself onto the rock beside Remus, groaning as she did. The witch lowered her hood, blinking a few times in the dull light.

"You look about as good as I feel," she laughed weakly.

"I could say the same thing, Ariana," Remus retorted, his blue eyes contrasting greatly with his sickly pale skin.

"Oh, I'm truly flattered," the witch said sarcastically, finally pulling the cloak off of her boiling body.

"Ariana, you have the food," Ron said, motioning to her bag.

Ariana nodded. She removed the handbag-sized bag from her shoulder, then plunged her entire arm inside. As the bag should of only been able to fit her hand, Ron gasped, "Bloody hell! What's that?"

"Undetectable Extension Charm," Ariana answered, pulling a paper bag containing sixteen chicken legs from the depths of the bag.

"Chicken!" Sirius said hoarsely after removing the old Daily Prophets from his mouth and throwing them down onto the cave floor.

Ariana handed him the bag and placed her arm back in the bag, shoulder deep. She could feel the supplies that she had inside, so she opened it up and looked into the depths. The witch pulled her wand out, figuring it would be easier to summon her things instead of swimming about in the bag's contents.

The witch retrieved two loads of fluffy bread and a large flask of pumpkin juice, passing them around to the two men. Upon looking at Sirius properly, she saw that he looked almost as bad as he did in the Shrieking Shack the previous year. In fact, he was also wearing the same grey clothes.

"Thanks," they chorused, eagerly eating the moist chicken legs.

"I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; we'd draw attention to ourselves," Sirius said, munching on a chuck of chicken.

"You haven't been living off of rats, have you?" Ariana asked the man beside her, who paused to swallow his food.

"Unfortunately not. That delicacy is for Sirius," he replied, amused.

"What're you doing both here?" Harry asked his godfather, who was smiling up at him.

"Fulfilling my duty as godfather," said Sirius, gnawing on the chicken bone in a very doglike way. "Don't worry about it, I'm pretending to be a lovable stray."

Remus's eyes automatically flickered to Ariana, but he quickly pulled them away. "Moral support," he smiled, throwing a bone over to Buckbeak for him to eat.

Ariana saw the anxiety in Harry's face, and apparently Sirius did too, so he spoke in a more serious tone, "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter...well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried."

He nodded at the yellowing Daily Prophets on the cave floor, and Ron picked them up and unfolded them. Harry, however, continued to stare at Sirius.

"What if they catch you? What if you're seen?"

"You five and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus," said Sirius, shrugging, and continuing to devour the chicken leg.

Harry did not look remotely comforted, his face creased with anxiety. Ariana exhaled and propped her elbows on her knees, doing all she could to ignore the illness the moon caused her. The feeling that she got by being in close proximity to Remus was enough to trump them, feeling like a warm liquid was swishing around her stomach. One of the best feelings imaginable.