Chapter 160 : A Race Against Time

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"He didn't realise Adrian was with us! He jumped up on Ron and grabbed his wand. He pointed it at him and grabbed him from his shirt. He said that when I woke up I should tell Adrian and only him what had happened and then warn him that, if he wanted to see his best friend alive, he should come at the Shrieking Shack alone." She started panicking again. "But I saw Adrian in the corner, he'd pulled out his wand and the cloak rippled for a while, before Pettigrew stunned me!"

"So Adrian attacked him?" Remus asked terrified.

"I don't know!" Hermione shook her head.

"Can you walk, Hermione?" The girl nodded once decisively. "Good; I want you to go and tell everyone where we are; the next team of Aurors is looking for you guys close to Zonko's. You think you can walk that far?" Sirius asked.

"I think I can."

"Go and tell them to wait outside the Whomping Willow, okay?" The girl looked perplexed but decided to just go with the instructions she was given. She stood up with Remus's help and took off, casting one last glance at the three men. Sirius conjured his patronus to send directions to James and prepared to apparate.

"The Whomping Willow?" Severus asked. "The Shrieking Shack is just a mile from here."

"You can't enter it from Hogsmeade." Sirius explained. "Albus warded it when we were kids; the only way in is hidden in that blasted tree." Severus nodded and apparated with the two friends. Their feet touched the ground of the forest the very moment a group of five men led by James walked out behind some thick bushes and towards them; Sirius ran to inform them of what had happened exactly as they all marched, wands in hand, out of the forest and towards the tree.

Severus was certain something would go wrong; everything was going too fast. They had all gone from naught to one hundred and fifty faster than the Firebolt and they had no plan whatsoever. Pettigrew was waiting in the Shrieking Shack, that was sure; if he wasn't they would have found the Weasley boy already, the potions master figured. Dead of course, for if he had Adrian he would have gotten rid of any spare weight.

The potions master lit the tip of his wand; night was falling and the castle's lights were too far away to help them. He watched carefully as Sirius transformed into a black dog and deftly crawled around the assaulting branches to press a knot on the trunk. The tree stopped moving in an instant as the rest of the wizards approached; Sirius turned back and stood straight, walking back to the group.

"Listen now." James began, addressing the Aurors of his group. "One child is definitely in there along with a wanted and unstable criminal. It's possible that my son's there too." He stopped for a second, trying to get to grips with what was happening. "The passageway is too small for all of us to go at once so we'll have to enter one at a time. Andrews, Hunter," two of the Aurors nodded. "I want you to inform the rest of the groups and guard that entrance; if Pettigrew comes out before we do, stop him. Kill him if you must." The Aurors nodded and James turned to the rest of the group. "Now Sirius you and I go first and…" Severus tuned James out, his attention captured by something at the bottom of the tree, his eyes widened as he pointed at the sorry excuse of a man that had just appeared.

"You!" Lupin exclaimed; the werewolf had seen Pettigrew too. Everyone turned to the convict who stood frozen, nobody moving for a second. Most were just shocked; Severus was making sure the two boys weren't with him before he cast a spell; the clouds parted and Lupin growled. He growled? And all hell broke loose.

As the moonlight bathed everything in silver everyone burst into motion; Remus fell on the ground, his back arching as the transformation began; this was going to be very bad, Severus immediately realised. Remus hadn't drunk his potion that day. How did he know? Simple; he'd never got around to deliver it. A frantic Harry had burst into his office just as he was preparing to do so and, needless to say, it had slipped his mind afterwards.

"Stand back!" Sirius, who must have had the same thought, yelled. "I don't think he drunk his potion today!" Everyone did as instructed while he turned into a dog for the second time in a few minutes. The transformation was almost complete when a second one began; Pettigrew, taking advantage of the situation transformed into a rat himself; Severus moved to hex him when Adrian -a gash still bleeding on his face and looking generally ruffled- exited the secret passageway and stepped right between the potions master and his target. The boy noticed Pettigrew changing into a rat and making his escape and did just what Severus feared; he ran after him.

"Adrian, no!" James called and chased after his son. Severus took one look behind him; Lupin had fully transformed and was at the moment fighting with Sirius while the Aurors had run for cover. He ducked and rolled away as Lupin turned his attention to him, barely avoiding getting hurt by the werewolf's claws. He dodged for a little longer until Sirius regained enough strength to keep distracting his out of control friend. Severus stood up and looked towards the Whomping Willow; there was no sign of James or Adrian.

Borrowing a page from Harry's book, he cursed quite fluently in Gobbledegook and began his pursuit; how far could they have gotten? He was running towards the general direction James had headed to. The darkness didn't make his job any easier and the fact that they seemed to be headed towards the lake, trough yet another patch of thick forest, didn't help either. He mostly used James's calls to his son as a guide, but even that wasn't enough to aid him catch up. No, what truly pointed him to the right direction was the cold; the lake was close to the school's borders. That meant it was being patrolled by Dementors. Dementors who wouldn't care if the person they hunted down was a convicted killer or a student; all that would matter was that someone was trying to pass through them.

Not quite believing he was running towards Dementors, Severus picked up his speed and headed for the lake. The cold was getting stronger as he marched through the snow and he forcefully pushed all the dark thoughts in his head away; he had promised Harry he would bring his brother back. And since that promise wasn't exactly a happy memory, it couldn't be taken from him; it kept propelling him forward. The scene he faced once he reached the lake almost stopped his heart.

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