xecution by beheading, to be carried out by the 
Committee's appointed executioner, Walden Macnai..." 

"Come on, Buckbeak," Harry murmured, "come on, we're going to help you. 
Quietly... quietly..." 

"... as witnessed below. Hagrid, you sign here..." 

Harry threw all his weight onto the rope, but Buckbeak had dug in his 
front feet. 

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"Well, let's get this over with," said the reedy voice of the Committee 
member from inside Hagrid's cabin. "Hagrid, perhaps it will be better if 
you stay inside --" 

"No, I -- I wan' ter be with him.... I don' wan' him ter be alone --" 

Footsteps echoed from within the cabin. 

"Buckbeak, move!" Harry hissed. 

Harry tugged harder on the rope around Buckbeak's neck. The hippogriff 
began to walk, rustling its wings irritably. They were still ten feet 
away from the forest, in plain view of Hagrid's back door. "One moment, 
please, Macnair," came Dumbledore's voice. "You need to sign too." The 
footsteps stopped. Harry heaved on the rope. Buckbeak snapped his beak 
and walked a little faster. 

Hermione's white face was sticking out from behind a tree. 

"Harry, hurry!" she mouthed. 

Harry could still hear Dumbledore's voice talking from within the cabin. 
He gave the rope another wrench. Buckbeak broke into a grudging trot. 
They had reached the trees.... 

"Quick! Quick!" Hermione moaned, darting out from behind her tree, 
seizing the rope too and adding her weight to make Buckbeak move faster. 
Harry looked over his shoulder; they were now blocked from sight; they 
couldn't see Hagrid's garden at all. 

"Stop!" he whispered to Hermione. "They might hear us 

Hagrid's back door had opened with a bang. Harry, Hermione, and Buckbeak 
stood quite still; even the hippogriff seemed to be listening intently. 

Silence... then -


"Where is it?" said the reedy voice of the Committee member. "Where is 
the beast?" 

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"It was tied here!" said the executioner furiously. I saw it! just 
here!" 

"How extraordinary," said Dumbledore. There was a note of amusement in 
his voice. 

"Beaky!" said Hagrid huskily. 

There was a swishing noise, and the thud of an axe. The executioner 
seemed to have swung it into the fence in anger. And then came the 
howling, and this time they could hear Hagrid's words through his sobs. 

"Gone! Gone! Bless his little beak, he's gone! Musta pulled himself 
free! Beaky, yeh clever boy!" 

Buckbeak started to strain against the rope, trying to get back to 
Hagrid. Harry and Hermione tightened their grip and dug their heels into 
the forest floor to stop him. 

"Someone untied him!" the executioner was snarling. "We should search 
the grounds, the forest." 

"Macnair, if Buckbeak has indeed been stolen, do you really think the 
thief will have led him away on foot?" said Dumbledore, still sounding 
amused. "Search the skies, if you will.... Hagrid, I could do with a cup 
of tea. Or a large brandy." 

"O' -- o' course, Professor," said Hagrid, who sounded weak with 
happiness. "Come in, come in...." 

Harry and Hermione listened closely. They heard footsteps, the soft 
cursing of the executioner, the snap of the door, and then silence once 
more. 

"Now what?" whispered Harry, looking around. 

"We'll have to hide in here," said Hermione, who looked very shaken. "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 

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another couple of hours.... Oh, this is going to be difficult...." 

She looked nervously over her shoulder into the depths of the forest. 
The sun was setting now. 

"We're going to have to move," said Harry, thinking hard. "We've got to 
be able to see the Whomping Willow, or we won't know what's going on." 

"Okay," said Hermione, getting a firmer grip on Buckbeak's rope. "But 
we've got to keep out of sight, Harry, remember...." 

They moved around the edge of the forest, darkness falling thickly 
around them, until they were hidden behind a clump of trees through 
which they could make out the Willow. 

"There's Ron!" said Harry suddenly. 

A dark figure was sprinting across the lawn and its shout echoed through 
the still night air. 

"Get away from him -- get away -- Scabbers, come here --" 

And then they saw two more figures materialize out of nowhere. Harry 
watched himself and Hermione chasing after Ron. Then he saw Ron dive. 

"Gotcha! Get off, you stinking cat --" 

"There's Sirius!" said Harry. The great shape of the dog had bounded out 
from the roots of the Willow. They saw him bowl Harry over, then seize 
Ron.... 

"Looks even worse from here, doesn't it?" said Harry, watching the dog 
pulling Ron into the roots. "Ouch -- look, I just got walloped by the 
tree -- and so did you -- this is weird--" 

The Whomping Willow was creaking and lashing out with its lower 
branches; they could see themselves darting here and there, trying to 
reach the trunk. And then the tree froze. 

"That was Crookshanks pressing the knot," said Hermione. 

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"And there we go..." Harry muttered. "We're in." 


The moment they disappeared, the tree began to move again. Seconds 
later, they heard footsteps quite close by. Dumbledore, Macnair, Fudge, 
and the old Committee member were making their way up to the castle. 


"Right after we'd gone down into the passage!" said Hermione. "If only 
Dumbledore had come with us..." 


"Macnair and Fudge would've come too," said Harry bitterly. "I bet you 
anything Fudge would've told Macnair to murder Sirius on the spot...." 


They watched the four men climb the castle steps and disappear from 
view. For a few minutes the scene was deserted. Then -


"Here comes Lupin!" said Harry as they saw another figure sprinting down 
the stone steps and hating toward the Willow. Harry looked up at the 
sky. Clouds were obscuring the moon completely. 


They watched Lupin seize a broken branch from the ground and prod the 
knot on the trunk. The tree stopped fighting, and Lupin, too, 
disappeared into the gap in its roots. 


"If he'd only grabbed the cloak," said Harry. "It's just lying 
there...." 


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!" 


"How can you stand this?" he asked Hermione fiercely. "Just standing 
here and watching it happen?" He hesitated. "I'm going to grab the 
cloak!" 


"Harry, no!" 


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Hermione seized the back of Harry's robes not a moment too soon. just 
then, they heard a burst of song. It was Hagrid, making his way up to 
the castle, singing at the top of his voice, and weaving slightly as he 
walked. A large bottle was swinging from his hands. 

"See?" Hermione whispered. "See what would have happened? We've got to 
keep out of sight! No, Buckbeak!" 

The hippogriff was making frantic attempts to get to Hagrid again; Harry 
seized his rope too, straining to hold Buckbeak back. They watched 
Hagrid meander tipsily up to the castle. He was gone. Buckbeak stopped 
fighting to get away. His head drooped sadly. 

Barely two minutes later, the castle doors flew open yet again, and 
Snape came charging out of them, running toward the Willow. 

Harry's fists clenched as they watched Snape skid to a halt next to the 
tree, looking around. He grabbed the cloak and held it up. 

"Get your filthy hands off it," Harry snarled under his breath. "Shh!" 

Snape seized the branch Lupin had used to freeze the tree, prodded the 
knot, and vanished from view as he put on the cloak. 

"So that's it," said Hermione quietly. "We're all down there... and now 
we've just got to wait until we come back up again...." 

She took the end of Buckbeak's rope and tied it securely around the 
nearest tree, then sat down on the dry ground, arms around her knees. 

"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...." 

Harry sat down too. He explained what he'd seen; how, as the nearest 
dementor had lowered its mouth to Harry's, a large silver something had 
come galloping across the lake and forced the dementors to retreat. 

Hermione's mouth was slightly open by the time Harry had finished. 

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"But what was it?" 


"There's only one thing it could have been, to make the dementors go," 
said Harry. "A real Patronus. A powerful one." 
"But who conjured it?" 
Harry didn't say anything. He was thinking back to the person he'd seen 


on the other bank of the lake. He knew who he thought it had been... but 


how could it have been? 
"Didn't you see what they looked like?" said Hermione eagerly. "Was it 
one of the teachers?" 


"No," said Harry. "He wasn't a teacher." 
"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 --?" 
"Yeah, I saw him," said Harry slowly. "But... maybe I imagined it.... I 


wasn't thinking straight.... I passed out right afterward...." 
"Who did you think it was?" 
I think --" Harry swallowed, knowing how strange this was going to 


sound. I think it was my dad." 


Harry glanced up at Hermione and saw that her mouth was fully open now. 
She was gazing at him with a mixture of alarm and pity. 
"Harry, your dad's -- well -- dead," she said quietly. 
"I know that," said Harry quickly. 
"You think you saw his ghost?" 
"I don't know... no... he looked solid...." 
"But then --" 


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"Maybe I was seeing things," said Harry. "But... from what I could 
see... it looked like him.... I've got photos of him...." 


Hermione was still lo