Another Potter

thirty six

chapter thirty six
the prisoner of azkaban

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"Harry?"

Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting alone in their compartment with a man sitting fast asleep next to the window. 

"Amy?" Harry asked confused. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," the brunette said, "can I stay with you for the train ride?"

"Of course," Harry said as Amelia smiled. 

"Thanks," she said as she walked in and sat next to Harry. "Who's that?" The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with grey.

"Professor R. J. Lupin." Hermione said. Amelia looked up at the luggage rack over the man's head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string. The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

"Is he the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Amelia asked.

"Must be," Hermione said, "that's the only vacancy left."

Amelia, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already had two Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year. There were rumours that the job was jinxed.

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The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened overhead. People were chasing backwards and forwards past the door of their compartment. Hermione's new cat, Crookshanks had now settled in an empty seat, his squashed face turned towards Ron, his yellow eyes on Ron's top pocket.

At one o'clock the plump witch with the food cart arrived at the compartment door.

D'you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked awkwardly, nodding towards Professor Lupin. "He looks like he could do with some food."

Amelia approached Professor Lupin cautiously.

"Er, Professor?" she said. "Professor, you alive?"

He didn't move.

"Don't worry, dear," said the witch, as she handed a large stack of cauldron cakes. "If he's hungry when he wakes, I'll be up front with the driver."

"I suppose he is asleep?" said Ron quietly, as the witch slid the compartment door closed. "I mean. . . . he hasn't died, has he?"

"No, no, he's breathing," whispered Hermione, taking the cauldron cake Harry passed her.

The rain thickened as the train sped yet farther north. The windows were now a solid, shimmering grey, which gradually darkened until lanterns flickered into life all along the corridors and over the luggage racks. The train rattled, the rain hammered, the wind roared, but still, Professor Lupin slept.

"We must be nearly there," said Ron, leaning forward to look past Professor Lupin at the now completely black window.

The words had hardly left him when the train started to slow down.

"Great," said Ron, getting up and walking carefully past Professor Lupin to try and see outside. "I'm starving. I want to get to the feast. . . ."

"We can't be there yet," said Hermione, checking her watch.