Are there excuses? Yes, I suppose, plenty. I do, although very carefully, promise that the next chapter will be uploaded sooner. I've been out of sorts for a good long while now and eh, you may notice when you read it. it's not my best work yet, but it'll improve.

Destroying dementors took time, especially considering she only dared taking them on one on one, still not feeling up to the task of handling several of them at once. Living in the forest turned out quite alright, the food wasn't great but she remained alive and entire September passed, fifteen more dementors exterminated.

She had no idea what was going on in the castle and frankly she didn't care, her only worry were the dementors and she feared that people might take action against her. She wasn't certain if destroying dementors was seen as a good or a bad thing, yet she hadn't noticed anything above the usual, aside from the dementors being on edge.

She kept seeing the black dog close to the tree that had hit her against the head. So far she still hadn't been able to get close to the hole through which the dog disappeared, even as a Ka she couldn't get there, the moment she was touched by one of the branches she was thrown back into her own body. Damn wizards. There were protective spells in the area, spells meant to protect against dementors but which also affected her Ka. It was tiresome.

The centaurs left her alone although sometimes she could sense them watching her and she stayed clear of the cave with spiders. Living in the forest was a challenge, a strange challenge since most of the things she came across were alien to her. The black horses with the wings of bats had also accepted her presence. All in all they seemed to be like regular horses in behaviour, only they ate meat and could fly. She wondered if she could gain enough trust from them to learn how to ride one.

It seemed most creatures living in the forest accepted her, merely because she destroyed dementors. The hatred for them was widespread and her reputation was good, even the black horses seemed to understand what she was doing.

Then, in October, something happened that she actually picked up on. Over the grass a man headed towards a dementor at the edge of the forest, she had been about to annihilate that dementor but refrained. She pulled back into the shadows, her Ka was big but silent. She wanted to watch this, few would willingly approach such a foul creature.

The man was old, he had half-moon spectacles and a starry robe. His beard hung down to his knees and his hair didn't do under for it. Just by looking at him she could tell he hadn't wished to meet the dementor anymore than anyone else would have. He came to a halt a few meters away.

"Sirius Black has entered the castle", the man said grimly. "It seems he passed your defences."

Whatever the dementor replied she couldn't understand it, the hissing sounds wasn't a language she had mastered. It was a slow language and the dementor hissed for a long time before the man spoke again.

"We will search the school and hand him over to you the moment we find him", the man said sharply.

The dementor hissed again, sounding persistent and she could see the face of the man turn less and less friendly. Whatever the dementor was saying, it didn't please him.

"No. As long as I'm headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry no dementor will set foot inside the castle. We will search for Black ourselves. I'll notify you once our search has been conducted." Without waiting for a reply the headmaster turned around and returned to the castle. The dementor hissed angrily, but didn't stop him.

Gararai waited until the man had vanished from view and the dementor retreated, then she attacked him. Taking a dementor by surprise simplified things, within mere minutes she had annihilated him and satisfied she let go of her Ka and returned to her body, having killed her eighteenth dementor. She wished it would go faster, especially since new dementors were send towards Hogwarts for every one she destroyed. She assumed that there were over fifty left and the number increased for every one she took out.

She stuck around the school. Black was, as the saying went, a mass murderer and perhaps her aid could be of use. All she saw was the black dog and no sign of the face she had been staring at every day while she had resided at the Leaky Cauldron. Most of the night had passed by the time she saw the headmaster return, no doubt to tell the dementors how their search went. Only the dementor he was supposed to meet was no there.

With a frown on his face he moved further towards the boundary, hoping to find a dementor who could tell him why he was stood up, no doubt. She followed him, stalked him through the dark and when he found a pair of dementors at last she remained close to listen in, undetected.

"We didn't find Black", the headmaster told the dementors.

The dementors replied in their usual hissing tongue and again the headmaster seemed to understand what they were saying. The dementors didn't seem pleased.

"He never showed. It seems he has vanished, like the rest." The man didn't seem all too displeased with that. "I will inform Fudge before long about yet another disappearance."

Fudge, the minister of magic, the man she had seen her first day at the Leaky Cauldron. Somehow he was connected to these dementors, to Azkaban, though she did not know how. She would quite like to spy on the man for a while.

Angrily the dementor hissed and cried.

The headmaster scoffed. "I sincerely doubt Black would be responsible for this." His tone was condescending and Gararai smiled proudly. Of course Black wasn't responsible, he was just a wizard and couldn't even imagine the skill that was required to disintegrate a dementor. Once again it seemed the headmaster had grown weary from being in the presence of the dementors and he turned and left.

Seeing as these two dementors stuck close to each other they would remain in existence for a while longer and she was too tired for another fight anyway. Instead she returned to her camp, a place that had grown almost luxurious. She had used fir branches to make herself a soft bed and she used hot rocks to keep herself warm at night and the improvised windshield had grown to a full accommodation, with water and windproof walls and roof. It still wasn't big, if she sat on her knees and straightened her back she hit the roof with her head and it had space to hold her and her things, little else. She had also managed to camouflage it so that it was almost invisible, almost, she had never perfected the skill of hiding forest-based encampments.

She crawled into her sleeping bag and slept a dreamless sleep for what remained of the night.

"Dumbledore, this can't go on", Fudge said as he nervously paced the headmasters office. "We can only praise Merlin that the Daily Prophet hasn't found out yet what's going on. Who else knows? You and me, who more?" Fudge had his bowler hat in his hands and was twisting it subconsciously. If he wasn't careful it would lose its shape and become unusable.

"You, me, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Snape and Professor Lupin. Perhaps Hagrid noticed, but I don't know, I doubt it."

"And the students? The ones who saw the dementor being destroyed? What did you tell them?" Fudge asked and by now the bowler hat was beyond salvation.

"Nothing but the truth, we told them we had no idea what happened to the dementor. But in my honest opinion, minister, I think that whatever caused the destruction of this dementor was acting rightfully. The dementor threatened students, students it had no reason to threaten." The headmaster was sitting calmly in his chair and the old headmasters grimly nodded their approval of Dumbledore's words.

Fudge nodded as if that occurrence had merely been a minor inconvenience. "Yes, yes, but these dementors aren't threatening students, they are protecting them. By destroying these dementors they are, inadvertent or not, putting the students' well-being at risk and helping the fugitive Sirius Black. Had these eighteen dementors not been destroyed perhaps they would have caught him!"

"I doubt it", Dumbledore said dryly. "You have more dementors stationed at the school now than at the beginning of the school year, you have replaced every dementor that disappeared with two new ones."

"No matter", Fudge said, not pleased with Dumbledore's reply. "Apparently dementors alone aren't sufficient. I'm adding aurors to the schools defences, every pair of dementors will now be patrolling with an auror."

"Minister …" Dumbledore started to protest, but Fudge wouldn't hear it.

"No! Now that Black has entered the castle it's clear that you cannot keep the school safe and therefore I will", Fudge said and the portraits gasped at his insolence. Fawkes cried his disapproval. "They will not be in your way and the students shouldn't even notice they are there. Tomorrow morning they will arrive here and I have arranged for the dementors to welcome them, you needn't get involved. I have handpicked these aurors myself, they are the best of the best."

"I have no doubt", Dumbledore said and although he did no effort to hide his sarcasm Fudge did not seem to pick up on it.

"Good, then that's settled", Fudge said. "This problem better go away soon. If dementors can be destroyed here … what if someone in Azkaban finds out!"

"I severely doubt any of them will", Dumbledore said. Though in truth Dumbledore was a bit uneasy himself, he had no idea what could be causing the destruction of the dementors and although he did not grieve for them, he was concerned what force could be achieving something so difficult.

"I have to take my leave now", Fudge said, "lots of matters to deal with and … and you have repeatedly pointed out to me what a busy man you are. If anything else comes up, be sure to inform me. Should Black be caught you don't hesitate to involve me, I'm sure." Without so much as waiting for a polite goodbye Fudge left Dumbledore's office. "Goodness me", he muttered as he left the castle. "Goodness me."

Life was becoming increasingly difficult for Yugi. Poison was only the gazillionth in a long row of problems. The owner of the shop had been poisoned by his own scorpion and one of the two sneakers Yugi had gone to get had a big hole in it, as if someone had put a knife through it.

He wasn't even entirely sure he had gotten to the store, all he remembered was that he had been determined to get Jonouchi's stolen shoes back and the next moment he was standing in the shop. Scorpion on the loose, owner poisoned and the shoes ruined. He wondered if he was responsible somehow. He was starting to think there was no other explanation for all the terrible things that happened to people while he blacked out.

So what was he to do now?

There was only one thing he could do. He picked up the phone and dialled the alarm number, he told them the truth as far as he knew it. The owner had been poisoned by a scorpion that was running around the store and he seemed to be unconscious but alive. The dispatcher told him calmly to wait for an ambulance and to keep away from the scorpion.

The warning was a bit unnecessary, Yugi wasn't getting anywhere near that critter, scorpions made him squeamish. Before the ambulance could arrive he took the chance to put the shoes in his backpack, he felt a bit guilty, but Jonouchi had after all paid for them. Paid all his savings for it even, so he deserved having them back, whole or not.

The ambulance wasn't the only one who arrived, there was also someone who showed up to catch and take care of the scorpion. The ambulance personal said they were very impressed by him, being so brave and all, of course they believed him to be ten. It took them a little while to realize he wasn't, and when they realized the overbearing compliments stopped. They assured him the owner would be alright, but were clearly in a hurry to leave. All in all they were there for barely five minutes.

The man who caught the scorpion had a hard time getting it out from beneath the shelves, but after a good fifteen minutes he managed and was gone quicker than Yugi held for possible. He sighed deeply. No one had even suspected he could be responsible. He supposed there was nothing left to do but to turn back and go home. Tomorrow he would give Jonouchi his shoes back, he was only not entirely sure what explanation he would give his friend for the hole in the shoe.

The weather hated her or perhaps she hated England, she hadn't figured that out yet. The weather was becoming less and less manageable every day, rain and thunder was starting to become a common occurrence, but what was worse was the new addition to the dementor forces. Humans.

She didn't know who they were or why they were there, but she didn't like it one bit. Ever since they had arrived it had become close to impossible to kill any dementors. They looked miserable though, these humans, and Gararai almost pitied them. Sometimes she wondered if these humans would even care if she tried to kill any of the dementors they were travelling with. But the issue remained that every patrol group consisted out of two dementors and one person and she couldn't handle two dementors even if the human wasn't there.

So she sat in her encampment, cold and miserable as the rain kept falling. The pond was getting bigger and bigger and if it kept raining she would have to tear down her encampment and move it further up. A tedious task.

It seemed only very few creatures liked the rain, for the forest had never been this quiet before. They had all done like her, returned to their lair to wait out the rain. And the storm she realized as she heard the thunder role in the distance. That storm would reach them soon. She crawled further into her little den and into her sleeping bag, as she listened to the thunder she did something that closest resembled moping as she longed back for hot desert sands and a burning sun.

Then she felt something even colder go through her and within a second she was outside her lair. It was a dementor she had felt, though it did not seem to be heading in her direction, because as soon as it had arrived, it disappeared again. A bolt of thunder lit up the sky and she saw two dementors heading towards the school, towards the large field with the tribunes and hoops. If these wizards practiced a sport there then she didn't know which one.

Behind them ran a very distraught witch with purple hair, she was yelling at them to stop and come back and a lot of abuse, but they ignored her. They steadily moved on towards the playing field. Not bothering putting her winter cloak on she followed them, it didn't take her long to notice that it weren't only these two dementors who were heading for the field; It were all of them.

She cursed and ran after them, only to stop dead in her tracks when she saw why they were heading that way. It seemed the entire school had gathered at the pitch, no doubt watching whatever sport they were playing and the high of emotions had lured the dementors there, like flies to honey. The students grew quiet as the cold the dementors brought with them struck them.

The dementors, who had taken their witches and wizards with them, who had now gone collectively pale, seemed to have all their attention on one particular student though. This one wasn't sitting in the tribunes, thank Bast for small mercies, but on a broomstick high in the air … When that fact registered Gararai didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

Not having the time to sit down in peace and quiet she did the only thing she could, she summoned her Ka without fusing with her and the sphinx, as furious as her Ba, leapt onto the field. This would give her away, she knew that, but that was a concern she would handle after she had protected the children from the dementors.

Her Ka was like a cat among doves, with a roar the dementors scattered, but they kept closing in from all directions. When her Ka made one group scatter another group was closing in from a different direction. Some of the dementors turned towards her. She wasn't entirely sure what it was like to fight a dementor on a mortal plane, but they seemed solid enough to do it the old way. Instead of a wand she had a sword, old and made of bronze but the enchantments placed on it by the priests were strong. Unlike other bronze swords this one wouldn't break when faced with one made of iron or steel. She gripped it steadily and waited, the cold and the storm making things more difficult, as if she was fighting against a steady stream of water or under a waterfall. She had never liked water.

The witches and wizard who had worked with the dementor were shouting something and waving their wands, but they didn't seem to have much luck. Gararai wondered if a wand could break, could it suddenly stop obeying its master?

Then the boy who the dementors had their full attention on fell from his broom. The old man she had seen talking to the dementors a few weeks ago entered the field. He waved his wand and something silvery appeared and the dementors scattered, more effectively than her Ka could make them. Then the old man pointed his wand at the falling boy, making him slow down, but her Ka acted anyway. With a quick sprint and a high leap she caught him in midair, her claws pulled in her paws closed around his body and she turned so she took the hit when they landed uncomfortably on the muddy ground. The moment they boy was safe her Ka ran away, after the nearest dementor.

She recognized the boy, she realized as she took a closer look, it was they boy who had stayed at the Leaky Cauldron for so long; Harry Potter. The old man made his way towards the boy, now joined by the majority of the other teachers, including the ones that she had seen on the train. The witches and wizards who had used to be with the dementors didn't follow the fleeing non-beings, but stayed in place. While the woman with the tight bun and the headmaster fussed over the boy and magically put him on a stretcher the others had their full attention on her, wands raised and aimed at her.

Her Ka came back, angrily pacing between Gararai and the witches and wizards. Every now and then she growled angrily at the people gathered there. The remaining students had been sent back to the castle by the teachers who had not entered the pitch and the woman with the tight bun took the stretcher and levitated it away.

Not wishing to agitate the adults any more she called her Ka back, not into her, but next to her. She may still have to fight them even though she would prefer not to, her quarrel wasn't with them. She didn't speak, she merely waited as she considered if the wisest move would be to just run away. The problem was that she couldn't parry the curses of all those wands. Ten teachers and forty of the patrols was too much for her Ka, had they been regular soldiers she could have handled them, but they weren't and wizards and witches were more of a challenge than swordsmen or gunmen. She sheeted her sword, she would have no use of it now.

It was the old man who spoke first. "I believe you are the young lady responsible for destroying the dementors of Azkaban."

"Not so young, old man", she retorted calmly. She didn't take kindly to being called young, especially not since she was older than the ages of all the people present combined.

The man did not seem to take offense.

"Are you an accomplice of Black's?" one of the patrols asked.

She shook her head. "No, never seen him, never met him and certainly never worked with him. I don't take kindly to mass-murder." Next to her her Ka roared in protest. She put a hand on her Ka, as if to calm herself down, a Ka could not hide the emotions the Ba felt.

"Then how do you justify your actions here. All the dementors you have killed!" the patrol shouted, hardly audible over the weather.

"I take even less kindly to beings that rip a person's soul apart and then devour it. I've never seen something so vile before. How can you knowingly allow them to roam these forests, around a school?" she retorted angrily. There was nothing this youngling could say that would make her regret her choices. "Their very existence is an abomination!"

"These are political matters that you should not get involved with!" a different patrol shouted back at her. "You have breached our laws. Turn yourself in and you will be allowed a fair hearing."

Gararai laughed. It was a genuine laugh, loud and melodious, yet dark all the same. "I do not abide by your laws, wizards, witches, I follow my own set of laws." As she said it she felt more than one pair of eyes move towards the tattoos on her arms. "I will not answer to you, who out of your own free will cooperate with 'dementors' nor will I stop for your convenience. Your laws are young, the laws of the soul are not."

"I can sense your soul, warrior", an older wizard said, also a parole. "Dark and filled with loss and bitterness. A soul like yours is one for the dementors."

She couldn't deny his words, but she wouldn't quietly stand by and accept them. "And yours is young and foolish. Weak, controlled by laws that most of you would protest if you weren't too comfortable in your dull way of life. Those that fall victim to your vicious ways will be left undefended, since no one will risk their own peaceful way of life for someone else. But I will! I won't quietly come with you to be handed to this filth!" She gestured towards the forest, where the dementors had vanished. "A government who executes punishments like these should be fought, stripped of its power!"

"Capture her", the elder parole said. She was starting to understand that it was he who was in control. "Dead or alive."

"Come now, Alvey", the old wizard with the starry robes said soothingly. "Isn't that overdoing it a bit? This young lady, excuse me", he added when he noticed his own choice of words and her dislike, "is merely trying to look after the best for the people around her. That's hardly something that warrants death."

"It is not you who makes such decisions, Dumbledore", Alvey hissed and a spell shot from his wand towards her. "Her words are treason."

She dodged it without effort, it seemed that the teachers and even some of Alvey's fellow patrols seemed to disagree with him. Yet no one but Dumbledore opposed him openly, which was precisely what she had expected. She sighed deeply and frustrated, what had happened to the people of earth? Where had the time gone when they would fight for their freedom? Had their cage become so golden they could not recognize it anymore? Would they murder her to keep that illusion alive?

She knew the answer to that and did not stay around. People would go to all kind of lengths to maintain their illusion, Kisara had proven that many times and paid the price for it. Kisara had died and Gararai did not feel like following her to the grave just yet.

"Arrest her!" Alvey shouted as Gararai ran away. Her Ka threw itself at him and created enough distraction for her to vanish into the forest. She shouted angrily and her Ka came back to her. With a few mighty pounces the sphinx disappeared back into Gararai. She heard the wizards take up the hunt and she ran faster, grateful she had taken the time to get to know the forest. Spells of all colours shot around her. She grumbled when she noted that wands were just as annoying as guns. Call her old fashioned, but she hated the impersonal way wars were fought nowadays.

Luckily she was faster than them and before long she had shaken them off. She was fairly certain she had just been branded a terrorist. Well, that was new. In Egypt they had merely denied her existence, but here they had to go all out. If that man could really sense her soul then she couldn't stay in the forest, and she had no doubt he could. The greatest disadvantage of having a connection with her Ka as strong as this was that it glowed like a beacon for those who could sense it. And she supposed that being wizards and witches there should be affinity.

She considered packing and taking her things with her but then thought the better of it. She had no idea when these wizards would get organized and she supposed they'd be taking plenty of dementors with them. She bristled annoyed. It was time to leave and change her strategy. She'd go to Dublin and from there spy on them as best as she could.

"What are you standing around for?" a vaguely familiar voice yelled. "They're creating a barrier around the forest to trap you!" It was Juvan, the warrior centaur that she had met after having been attacked by the spiders. This time he seemed to be alone.

Gararai started. "What?! What is the fastest way out?"

"Me!" he growled at her and without asking for permission he pulled her onto his back. "I'll get you out of the forest before the barrier closes around us." He didn't allow her to protest but just set off in gallop. She had to hold onto his quiver, having nothing else. It was not the nicest of contraptions to hold onto and more than once she was afraid the arrows would fly out of the quiver and quite potentially land on her.

"Why are you helping me?" she shouted over the sound of his hooves.

"Because the world just disappeared for Pavana", he called back.

"What?" she shouted again.

"She can't see the wizarding world anymore, the moment you were seen on the quidditch pitch she could no longer see the future of the ministry or any witch or wizard within school premises." Juvan ran a little faster.

"Shouldn't this cause you to distrust me rather than to help me?" She knew she was pushing her luck, but she didn't like being helped, didn't like owing favours.

"The future of the centaur has always appeared rather gloomy. The wizards do not treat us fairly, there is reason for our hatred towards them. They have called it upon themselves when they started to oppress us", Juvan said and bristled angrily. She could feel his muscles tense beneath her. There was no doubt as to what extent Juvan hated the wizards and witches. "But just before her visions vanished she saw something, something good, apparently. A future where we centaurs can live freely again, like we did thousands of years ago, not only free from wizards and witches but in harmony with them. It may sound strange coming from me, a warrior, but that's a future I want for my kin. Then it disappeared, which means you are the one who resides over this possible outcome and therefore I will give my life for you."

"Even though you know I hold no loyalty to your kin and would sell you out for those to whom I do", she said and scoffed.

"I don't like it that it depends on you and that you have the chance to ruin us or save us, but it is a chance better than the gloomy future we had before. It may not even be a choice you make, but an unintentional side effect. I do not care, all I know is that without you that future is lost." Juvan looked back at her with intense eyes. "And you have shown us more respect than any ministerial official has for several hundred years. If I'm going to place my fate in the hands of any human then it will be a warrior like you."

Gararai smiled wryly and did not reply. It had been a long time since anyone placed such faith in her and she wasn't sure she liked it. Instead she held on tightly as Juvan galloped, if possible, even faster through the forest.

"Will we make it?" she asked a few minutes later as she saw the orange barrier form above her.

"I am insulted", he said but she could hear the smile in his voice. And they did make it, easily, enough to say goodbye and allow Juvan to go back into the forest too. "I wish you all the best, warrior, and do not forget our plight in your future adventures."

"I shan't", she promised and left the forest behind her, having the heavy feeling that she had failed her mission. It was time to draw back into the shadows and observe before she made her next move, make them belief she had gone permanently before returning. She would have to refrain from using her Ka for a while, knowing they'd be looking for a strong soul. She sighed, luckily there were very few people with a strong Ka and even fewer who had a developed relationship to it.

If you have not come to despise me, which I know some of you already do after my previous stories, then please review? :3