170 The drastic change everyone wanted

A group of nine exited the whomping willow and onto the school grounds. One was a cat, two people were floating while unconscious, a boy with glasses was talking to a skinny man, a ginger was being helped by another adult while the remaining two people, a girl and a boy, were trailing behind them.

Arth glanced at the scene before him and couldn't help but wonder how in the world he became involved in such a situation:

He had never seen a more unlikely group in the world.

Silently they tramped through the grounds, the castle lights growing slowly larger. Snape was still drifting weirdly ahead of Black, his chin bumping on his chest.

There were suddenly dim shadows on the ground. Their party was bathed in moonlight.

Arth frowned.

He was starting to get a very bad feeling.

Snape collided with Lupin, and Ron, who had stopped abruptly. Peter fell to the floor silently. Black froze. He flung out one arm to make Arth, Harry, and Hermione stop.

Arth could see Lupin's silhouette. He had gone rigid. Then his limbs began to shake.

"Oh, my —" Hermione gasped. "He didn't take his potion tonight! He's not safe!"

Ron let out a whimper and did his best to get away from Professor Lupin.

"Run," Black whispered. "Run. Now."

There was a terrible snarling noise. Lupin's head was lengthening. So was his body. His shoulders were hunching. Hair was sprouting visibly on his face and hands, which were curling into clawed paws. Crookshanks's hair was on end again; he was backing away.

As the werewolf reared, snapping its long jaws, it turned its gaze towards the nearest thing it could find. The petrified body of Peter Pettigrew.

The next scene was horrible, so horrible that even a god tier writer couldn't describe the scenery.

Arth immediately blocked Hermione's eyes and Harry and Ron closed their eyes in terror.

Sirius watched on with a wary look.

When the werewolf looked up from the bloody mess and showed interest at them, Sirius disappeared from their side. He had transformed.

The enormous, bearlike dog bounded forward. As the werewolf wrenched itself free of the manacle binding it, the dog seized it about the neck and pulled it backward, away from them. They were locked, jaw to jaw, claws ripping at each other.

After a while, there was a howl and a rumbling growl; Arth turned to see the werewolf taking flight; it was galloping into the forest with whatever remained of Peter Pettigrew inside its mouth.

Black was bleeding; there were gashes across his muzzle and back and he seemed to be in pain.

Then, as if the bad things had only begun, everyone started to shiver.

". . . . Dementors." Said Black before taking off. Harry followed right behind him, with Hermione and Arth hot on their tails.

As they reached the lakeshore, Sirius came to a stop. Dementors, at least a hundred of them, gliding in a black mass around the lake toward them.

Arth spun around, more were appearing out of the darkness on every side; they were encircling them. . . .

"Arth! Hermione, think of something happy!" Harry yelled, raising his wand.

"Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!"

Black gave a shudder, rolled over, and lay motionless on the ground, pale as death.

"Expecto patronum! Arthur, help me! Expecto patronum!" "Expecto —"

Hermione whispered, "expecto — expecto —"

But she couldn't do it.

And Arth just watched on silently, with closed eyes twitching.

The dementors were closing in, barely ten

feet from them. They formed a solid wall around them, and were getting closer. . . .

Arth felt Hermione collapse somewhere near him and then listened to the slowly dying out voice of Harry.

Arth tried his best to control the dementors, however, they would just not heed to his command. They were in a feeding frenzy and were just not intelligent enough to take orders from him. His four loyal servants were nowhere to be found.

Arth stared at the hundred dementors with a wry smile.

"I hope help comes soon. Damn this is going to take a heavy toll on me."

Arth stood in front of the Sirius, Hermione, And Harry and spread out his arms.

"Feast, daemons of fear, feast. For as long as I stand, you shall not harm those behind me."