Madam Pomfrey handed Harry a pair of pyjamas to change into. While he was doing
so behind the screens that surrounded his bed, Padfoot walked over to Hermione. The
stress of the night, the past few months, the last fourteen years, had all been too much, and
he needed her—even if she was not exactly whom he needed her to be right then.
Padfoot moved to where the girl sat on a nearby hospital bed, jumping up to sit
beside her and resting his large, heavy head in her lap.
"He'll be okay," Hermione whispered and ran her fingers through his fur, causing
his body to shiver at the feel of comfort, something that had not been afforded him in far
too long.
The woman—Molly—approached Hermione, cautiously staring at Padfoot.
"Hermione, dear, maybe you shouldn't touch that dog. He's filthy, and who knows where
he's been."
When she took another step closer toward the bed, Padfoot gave another low growl
in warning, baring his teeth for a brief second before dropping his head back into
Hermione's lap, pleading with her to resume petting him.
When Harry pulled the screens back from his bed and slipped beneath the covers,
the Weasley matriarch was immediately at his side, smoothing down the blankets. Padfoot
jumped from Hermione's lap and rushed over to the bed, leaping onto the mattress and
circling twice before curling up at Harry's feet, sending cautionary glares to anyone else
who felt like coming near the boy.
It was starting again.
Harry had not been asleep for more than an hour before Sirius could hear screaming
in the corridor outside the infirmary. Voices he knew too well: Cornelius Fudge and
Minerva McGonagall. Barty Crouch Jr was dead, Kissed by a dementor that Fudge had
apparently brought into the school even after everything that had happened the year before.
Crouch was dead, and there was no proof. No proof except Harry's word and, according
to Fudge, that just was not enough.
Minerva sounded beside herself with rage. Dumbledore sounded defiant, filled with
righteous anger as he faced off against the clearly delusional Minister for Magic. Sirius even