Chapter 7
After a long and hug-filled goodbye from Miss Ana and the kids, with many, many repeats of his promise to write at least once a week which had ended with Harry bolting for the train with his face beet read after blurting “Yes! Nënë! I’ll write home!”, Harry had happily ensconced himself in a train compartment. Dressed in properly fitting clothing and with his hair safe from Aunt Petunia’s End-of-Summer scissors (with additional help from a tiny dose of Hair growth potion) Harry, with Ember, had passed through the early crowds of Slytherins and Ravenclaws to find an empty carriage compartment near the front of the train where it was quieter to read and wait for his friends to arrive. The only person to join him was a well-worn-looking gentleman with a briefcase and cane who quietly asked if he could share the compartment before immediately settling in and falling asleep in the rear facing window seat.
It was five minutes to eleven and the guards had blown the first whistle when the Weasley family, with Hermione, burst through the barrier from the Muggle side of King’s Cross and raced en masse through the parents still saying goodbye to get onto the train.
Settling back in as the train picked up speed, Harry and Ember waited for his friends to find him. Part of Harry hoped that they wouldn’t search this far up the train and the two of them would get to have a quiet ride to school. He was about halfway through Martin the Warrior, with a promise for the others from Miss Ana’s overflowing bookshelf if he enjoyed it – which he did – and kept on top of his school work, when Ron and Hermione finally found him with a loud clatter of the sliding door.
“Mate! Why are you all the way up here with the snakes?” the lanky redhead greeted.
Hermione nudged him in the back to shove him the rest of the way into the compartment and settled beside Harry across from Ron and the sleeping man he was sharing with.
“So,” the bushy haired girl turned to him, “Where on earth were you? Why weren’t you at the Leaky?”
Harry jerked his hand down from where he had been running a finger along Ember's spine and gaped at her. “At the Leaky? Why would I be at the Leaky? Why were you at the Leaky? Wouldn’t it be faster for you to come straight here this morning?”
Ron and Hermione shared a strange look. “Mum said we were meeting you at the Leaky yesterday to go shopping and then we’d bring you here. When you weren’t there and Old Tom hadn’t seen you in weeks, Mum went bloody crazy. Pretty sure she sent someone a Howler about it last night. She and Dad were looking for you for hours. We were almost late because they were running around the Alley after someone mentioned seeing you in Diagon early this morning.”
Harry decided not to mention that they were, in fact, late for the train, barely making in on board before it pulled out of the station. Why were the Weasleys in Diagon to collect him from the Leaky and who told him he was there?
Letting his questions go, he let Ron and Hermione’s familiar bickering wash over him, something about her cat murdering Ron’s poor innocent Scabbers, as he picked his book back up and continued to read, hand creeping up to slowly resume stroking the three heads of his runespoor where they dozing lay on his shoulder just under his hair.
“Who d’you reckon he is?” Ron nodded at the sleeping man.
“Professor R. J. Lupin,” answered Hermione at once, without looking up from her bag where she was rooting for her own book to read.
“How d'you know that?”
“It's on his case,” she replied, pointing at the luggage rack over the man's head where his small, battered case was stowed. The name Professor R. J. Lupin was printed across the flap in faded handwriting.
“Wonder what he teaches?” asked Ron, frowning at the professor's scarred, pallid profile.
“That's obvious,” Harry snorted at Hermione's drawl. “There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“Well, I hope he's up to it after the last two disasters,” Ron eyed the sleeping man doubtfully. “He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn't he? Anyway …” He turned to Harry, staring until the smaller boy finally lowered his book. “What happened to you this summer? It's like you disappeared.”
Harry stared at his friends. “Um, well. It was just the usual, you know? Except, Aunt Marge came to visit…” Harry trailed off at their expectant faces. With a deep sigh, he told them about the night that he blew up Aunt Marge and his trip to London.
“Mate, what happened? We were told that you were staying at the Leaky and we'd meet you there for the train.” Ron asked.
Unsure why, but his gut wasn't usually wrong, Harry answered “I was at the Leaky, but just for a night. After everything calmed down I went back to Little Whinging, so…yeah. I spent rest of summer there.”
“Oh Harry.” Hermione sighed. “Only you.”
“Yeah, only me.”
“But why!” Ron spluttered. “Why would Fudge send you back to Little Whinging when Sirius Black is running around?”
“What do you mean?” Harry had seen the man on the Muggle news, and his face flashing on posters in Diagon but what did that have to do with him? And Harry didn't say that Fudge was the one who met him at the Leaky the night that he ran.
“He's the one who betrayed your parents to You-Know-Who. They think Sirius Black escaped to come after you.” Hermione explained. “Harry, you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble --"
“I don't GO looking for trouble, Hermione. It comes looking for ME!” Harry was nettled, it was like his friends forgot that he didn't go looking for Fluffy or the Chamber, he just got dragged into things, somehow.
“How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?” snarked Ron.
The man – Professor Lupin – flinched in his sleep, grimacing and burrowing his ears into his shoulders.
Quiet descended in the compartment as Ron ate his way through his stash of sandwiches, grumbling as he pulled out the remains of his summer assignments and Harry and Hermione went back to their books. Hermione was absently fumbling with the straps of her kneazle, Crookshank's basket as she turned pages.
“Don't let that thing out!” Ron said, looking up from his Herbology essay, but it was too late; Crookshanks leapt lightly from the basket, stretched, yawned, and sprang across the seats onto Ron's knees; the lump in Ron's pocket trembled as he shoved the large feline away angrily and gathered his book and crumpled parchment.
“Get out of here!”
“Ron! Don't,” said Hermione angrily, snapping her large textbook closed.
Ron was about to answer back when Professor Lupin stirred again. They watched him apprehensively, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth open slightly, and slept on.
The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened with rain. People were passing backward and forward past the door of their compartment. Harry noticed Montague peek in and gave a timid wave back to the older boy. Crookshanks had now settled into the empty seat between Harry and Hermione, his squashed face turned toward Ron, eyes riveted on his pocket.
Midafternoon, just as it had started to rain in earnest, blurring the rolling hills outside the window, their three least favorite people appeared at the door: Draco Malfoy and his looming shadows, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
Before the usual exchange of taunts could start between Malfoy and Ron, the sleeping professor stirred, drawing the attention of all the students.
“Who's that?” asked Malfoy, taking an automatic step backward as he finally spotted Lupin in the corner.
“New teacher,” said Harry. “What did you need, Malfoy?”
Malfoy's pale eyes narrowed; he wasn't fool enough to pick a fight right under a teacher's nose.
“C'mon,” he muttered resentfully to Crabbe and Goyle, and the trio disappeared back up the train toward the front.
Ron grumbled about not taking Malfoy's cracks against his family this year. Harry and Hermione rolled their eyes at each other, Ron and Malfoy both gave as good as they got, nothing on that front was going to change.
The rain outside thickened as the train sped farther north; the windows were now a solid, shimmering gray, which gradually darkened until lanterns flickered into life all along the corridors and over the luggage racks. The train rattled down the tracks, slowing in the gathering dark.
“We must be nearly there,” said Ron, leaning forward around the sleeping Professor to peer out the black window. “I'm starving. I want to get to the feast …” Ron stood to gather his things as the train slowed to a jerky halt.
“We can't be there yet,” Hermione said, checking her watch.
“So why've we stopped?”
Harry, who'd switched seats with Hermione after Malfoy left and so was nearest the door, got up to look into the corridor. All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments.
Without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness. Startled screams echoed up and down the length of the train.
“What's going on?” Ron's voice was shaky.
Harry felt his way back down into his seat.
“D'you think we've broken down?”
“Dunno…” Harry answered absently.
A squeaking sound turned Harry's attention from the corridor to Ron, who was wiping a patch clean on the window and trying to peer out.
“There's something moving out there…I think people are coming aboard…”
The compartment door suddenly slid back open and someone fell painfully over Harry's legs.
“Sorry - d'you know what's going on? – Ouch – Sorry –“
“Hullo, Neville,” Harry chuckled, feeling around in the dark to pull Neville upright and into the seat across from him.
“Harry? Is that you? What's happening?”
“No idea. Just sit down.”
“I'm going to go ask the driver…”
“Quiet!” said a hoarse voice suddenly.
Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. Harry could hear movements in his corner. None of them spoke.
There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.
“Stay where you are,” he said in the same hoarse voice, and he slowly got to his feet, handful of fire held out in front of him.
But the door slid open before he could reach it over the tangle of feet. A fluttering hood and black cloak was framed in the narrow doorway. Whatever it was drew a long slow rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.
An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest, ice seeping into his bones, into his very core.
Frost crackled over the inside of his new glasses as the world faded to black, screams echoing in his ears.
“Harry! Harry!” Someone was slapping his cheek. “Are you alright?”
“Wh-what?” Harry opened his eyes; there were lanterns above him, and the floor was rocking back and forth – the Hogwarts Express was moving and the lights were back on. He seemed to have slid out of his seat and onto the floor. Ron and Hermione were kneeling pressed to the compartment door and he could see a very pale Neville and Professor Lupin watching over their shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Ron asked, eyeing him warily.
::The Black Shadow attacked you, hatchling. The Marked One drove it away.:: Harry reached up to his shoulder, gliding his fingers against the smooth scales of Ember's middle head.
“Yeah,” said Harry, glancing quickly toward the door, The hooded creature had vanished. “What happened? where's that – that thing? Who screamed?”
“No one screamed,” said Ron, eyes still trained on the three headed snake slowly coiling around Harry's throat and shoulders.
“But I heard screaming –“
Harry looked around the now bright compartment. Neville swallowed thickly and caught his gaze, giving a tiny nod, eyes wide.
A loud snap made all of them jump. Professor Lupin was breaking an absolutely enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.
“Here,” he said to Harry, handing him a particularly large piece before passing more out to the others. “Eat it. It'll help.”
Harry took the chocolate but didn’t eat it. Ember sniffed it with his left and right head, trying to come to an agreement if it was safe to eat something that unnatural looking.
“What was that thing?” he asked Lupin.
“A dementor,” answered Lupin, who was slowly passing a second round of chocolate out to those how had already finished their first piece without taking his eyes off the snake. “One of the dementors of Azkaban.”
“Eat the chocolate,” he repeated to Harry. “It'll help with how you're feeling. I need to speak to the driver and the other students. Excuse me …”
He strolled past Harry and disappeared down the corridor.
“Are you sure you're okay, Harry?” asked Hermione, anxiously fluttering at his side.
“I don't get it … what happened?” Harry slumped further into his seat and nibbled at the chocolate, wiping sweat off his cold face.
“It was horrible,” said Neville, in a higher voice than normal. “Did you feel how cold it got when it came in?”
“I felt weird,” agreed Ron, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably, “like I’d never be cheerful again …”
An uneasy silence settled over the four of them. Ron and Hermione kept trading looks with each other when they weren't failing at stealing glances at Harry. Harry tried to curl up in his corner with Ember and warm up, Neville doing the same opposite him. Neither had much luck, and the rest of the train ride passed with tensions high. Peeks through the compartment door showed similar unease in the other compartments as the subdued students headed north.
Professor Lupin passed back through the corridor. He paused and glanced at Harry. “I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know …”
Blushing, Harry took a bite and to his great surprise felt warmth spread to the tips of his chilled fingers and toes.
“We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes,” said Professor Lupin. “Are you alright, Harry?”
Harry didn't ask how Professor Lupin knew his name, it's been happening since Hagrid first took him to Diagon Alley. He tried to not let it bother him and just nodded in reply.
The rain was still pouring down when the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station and they scrambled for the carriages up to the castle.