O, CURSED CHILD. ﹙ harry potter ﹚

𝐈𝐈𝐈 ━━ Dementors

Elara raised her book just a little bit higher. It seemed no one knew of her family relation to Sirius Black, and she thanked Merlin for it. The whispers would have only grown louder.

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

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

"Anything from the trolley, dears?"

Harry bought the trio cauldron cakes, then their eyes fell on Elara. Her hair turned red from embarrassment ― to which Ron said, 'Wicked!' ― when she ordered a lofty pile of sweets from the cart.

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

Hermione approached Professor Lupin cautiously. 

"Er — Professor?" She said. "Excuse me — Professor?" 

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 upfront with the driver." 

The trolley witch closed the door to the compartment.

He might not be very good company, but Professor Lupin's presence in the compartment had its uses. Mid-Afternoon, just as it had started to rain, blurring the rolling hills outside the window, there heard footsteps outside in the corridor again, and Elara's three least favorite people appeared at the door: her lovely cousin Draco Malfoy, flanked by his cronies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. 

Draco and Elara had never gotten along well. They were raised with different ideologies, therefore insinuating many, many arguments. Draco, who had a pale, pointed, sneering face, was in Slytherin house. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to exist just to do Draco's bidding. They were both wide and muscley; Crabbe was taller, with a pudding bowl haircut and a very thick neck; Goyle had short, bristly hair and long, gorilla arms.

"Well, look who it is," said Draco in his usual lazy drawl, pulling open the compartment door. "Potty and the Weasel ― and my darling cousin, so it seems."

Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly.

"I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley," said Draco. "Did your mother die of shock?"

If there was one thing elara hated most, it was her cousin's inability to see he had a superiority complex.

"Shut up, Draco. Not everyone gets things handed to them on a silver platter by mummy and daddy," snapped Elara, resting her book on her lap.    

Before Draco could retort back, Professor Lupin gave an odd sort of snort.      

"Who's that?" said Draco, taking an automatic step backward as he spotted Lupin. 

"New teacher," said Harry, who got to his feet in case he needed to hold Ron back. "What were you saying, Malfoy?"   

Draco'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 they disappeared.

The rain thickened as the train sped yet 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, the rain hammered, the wind roared, but still, Professor Lupin slept.