The Dream Trilogy Book Two: Tread On My Dreams (A Harry Potter FanFiction)

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Draco thought better of staying in the carriage by himself and went the other way to find Blaise and Sarah again. He managed to reach them without threatening to be thrown off the train by anyone, which he chalked up as a win. They were sat in their compartment along with Blaise's brother and a girl who must have been Sarah's friend Natalie McDonald. Natalie was so excitable it was like stepping into a tornado as she ran around the small space, and Draco was quite pleased Sarah just threw him his uniform for him to change into in the privacy of the boys' loos.  

The train was slowing, and as Draco walked back into the compartment they finally ground to a halt in Hogsmeade station. He felt stiff from being on the train all day, and was grateful to get out into the open air, even if it was unusually hot for autumn. Lavender, Lisa and Hermione wove their way through the crowd to them and introductions were made. "Where do we go now?" asked Sarah nervously. 

"Err," said Draco, trying to remember. "In the first year we took boats with the ground keeper, then the second year we went in horse drawn carriages with everyone else." 

"Except there weren't any horses," murmured Blaise, peering around. "They just drove themselves." They found themselves being pulled along in a current of students heading away from the platform, so without any better idea of what to do let themselves be steered away. 

After a few minutes of walking through the wizarding village everyone seemed to stop, and there was a ripple of confusion coming from the front of the hoard. Draco and the others pushed their way forward, but as soon as they spied the carriages he realised why the students had not gone near them. Like Blaise had said, when they'd rode the vehicles before the reins had been suspended mid air, as if something invisible was pulling them ahead. But there was definitely something there now; big, bony horses with leathery black skin, blood red eyes and sweeping wings like small dragons. Hermione gawped. "I thought there weren't any horses?" she said to a puzzled looking Blaise. Armand Zabini frowned. 

"What do you mean?" he chirped. "There aren't. There's just the wagons." It seemed the same argument was being repeated throughout the group - for every person that could see the horses like Draco, Hermione and Blaise, there were two or three that couldn't. 

"They're called Thestrals," said a voice louder than the rest. Harry Potter broke through the masses with Parvati Patil scuttling behind him. Draco couldn't say what his face showed, anger, apprehension? Everyone quietened down to listen to him, 'The Boy That Lived,' thought Draco scornfully. He was a fraud. 

"You can only see them if you've seen someone die," Potter explained curtly, heading for the nearest carriage, yanking open the door, and sliding inside. Parvati followed and slammed the door shut to a chorus of mutterings. Hermione had gone slightly pale, and had to be asked three times by Lavender what the beasts looked like before she heard. Draco felt cold, as cold has had been in the forest in Germany with Seamus Finnigan dying on the ground. This wasn't exactly the omen he'd been looking for on his first day back at school. 

The student body moved towards the wagons in trepidation. Some voiced that if Harry Potter had done it it must be fine. Others said that was exactly why they shouldn't. Draco tried to tell himself that the only difference now was that he could see the Thestrals, that the carriages were the just as safe to ride in as before. He wondered if Potter himself could even see them, after all it was the other Harry who had been with them in Germany? He decided to ponder it another time. He hopped up into a free one with Hermione, Lavender and Lisa, whilst Blaise went in the one behind with her brother, Sarah and Natalie. 

When all the wagons were full they lurched forward in unison, trundling along towards the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The three girls hung out the windows and gasped as the grandiose building came into view, but Draco could feel himself shrinking away from it. In that place he was still the villain, it was home to the lowest and most shameful moments of his life and he'd been running from it for three whole years.