I dressed and walked into the Parlour.
"Willow!" Hermione said as she saw me. "Hold this!" she gave me a half eaten piece of toast, which I devoured. She returned from somewhere and then complained about me eating her toast.
Meh. She gave it to me, what did she expect.
There was chaos as we tried to leave and finally, we were heaving our heavy trunks down the staircase and left them at the door.
Mr. Weasley, who had been outside waiting for the Ministry cars, stuck his head inside. "They're here," he said. "Harry, come on."
We walked across the short stretch of pavement toward the first of two old fashioned dark green cars. The car filled up and then I was ushered into the second car away from Harry, Ron and Hermione.
As we were driving, George kept poking me.
"Poke me again, and I will rip off your finger and shove it down your throat." I said threateningly.
"Maybe it will teach him a lesson." Said Mrs. Weasley from the front seat. "You have to stop torturing your brother George, and you too Fred."
"But it's so easy!" They said in perfect unison.
We reached King's Cross with twenty minutes to spare; the Ministry drivers found us trolleys, unloaded our trunks, touched their hats in salute to Mr. Weasley, and drove away, somehow managing to jump to the head of an unmoving line at the traffic lights.
Mr. Weasley kept close to Harry's elbow all the way into the station. "Right then," he said, glancing around us. "Let's do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I'll go through first with Harry. "Mr. Weasley strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry's trolley and apparently very interested in the Inter City 125 that had just arrived at platform nine. With a meaningful look at Harry, he leaned casually against the barrier. Harry imitated him. In a moment, they had fallen sideways through the solid metal onto platform nine and three quarters.
George and I went next and deciding to take it at a run, he linked my arm and we passed through to platform nine and three quarters.
I looked up to see the train billowing smoke over the platform packed with witches and wizards seeing their children onto the train. Percy and Ginny suddenly appeared behind us.
"Ah, there's Penelope!" said Percy, smoothing his hair and going Pink again. George, Harry, Ginny and I turned away to hide our laughter as Percy strode over to a girl with long, curly hair, walking with his chest thrown out so that she couldn't miss his shiny badge.
Mr. Weasley called Harry away and the rest of us hopped happily onto the train.
Just before the train was leaving, Harry ran onto it and we stood back to let him on. We leaned out of the window and waved at Mr. And Mrs. Weasley until the train turned a corner and blocked them from view.
"I need to talk to you in private," Harry muttered to Ron, Hermione and I as the train picked up speed.
"Go away, Ginny," said Ron.
"Oh, that's nice," said Ginny huffily, and she stalked off.
We set off down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, but all were full except for the one at the very end of the train. This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window.
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 gray.
Suddenly I recognised him.
It was Lupin.
"Who d'you reckon he is?" Ron asked.
"Professor R. J. Lupin," whispered Hermione and me at once.
"How d'you know that?"
"It's on his case, " she replied, pointing 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.
"Oh, I stayed at his place at the beginning of last year..." I said shyly.
"Really? Why?" Hermione said intrigued.
"I got stabbed-"
"AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME?" Hermione said a bit too loudly.
"Shhh! And Ron and Harry knew, relax. I stayed with him, then I went to Snape's. God, that's enough to make anyone cry," I started off into a rant about random things when Ron spoke.
"Wonder what he teaches?"
"That's obvious, " whispered Hermione."There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"Well, I hope he's up to it," said Ron doubtfully. "He looks like one; good hex would finish him off, doesn't he? Anyway..." He turned to Harry. "What were you going to tell us?"
Harry explained all about Mr. And Mrs. Weasley's argument. It was funny and the truth was twisted slightly from Harry's point of view. Funny.
When he'd finished, Ron looked thunderstruck, and Hermione had her hands over her mouth. She finally lowered them to say, "Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh, Harry... You'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry --"
"I don't go looking for trouble," said Harry, nettled. "Trouble usually finds me. "
"How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?" said Ron shakily.
"We are talking about harry," I muttered.
"No one knows how he got out of Azkaban," said Ron uncomfortably. "No one's ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner too."
"But they'll catch him, won't they?" said Hermione earnestly."I Mean, they've got all the Muggles looking out for him too..." she reached out and whacked me across the head.
"Ow! What was that for?" I complained.
"Because you don't give a crap about your friends, that's what!" she snapped
"I had last night to dwell on it! I heard the argument between Ron's parents!"
Hermione opened her mouth to argue back, but Ron said-
"What's that noise?" A faint, tinny sort of whistle was coming from somewhere.
"Mushrooms dancing in the sunlight?" I smiled.
"Oh Willow," Harry sighed.
We looked all around the compartment. "It's coming from your trunk, Harry," said Ron, standing up and reaching into the luggage rack. A moment later he had pulled a Pocket Sneakoscope out from between Harry's robes. It was spinning very fast in the palm of Ron's hand and glowing brilliantly.
"Is that a Sneakoscope?" said Hermione interestedly, standing up for a better look.
"Yeah... Mind you, it's a very cheap one," Ron said. "It went haywire just as I was tying it to Errol's leg to send it to Harry."
"Were you doing anything untrustworthy at the time?" said Hermione shrewdly.
"No! Well... I wasn't supposed to be using Errol. You know he's not really up to long journeys...But how else was I supposed to get Harry's present to him?"
"Stick it back in the trunk," Harry advised as the Sneakoscope whistled shrilly, "or it'll wake him up." He nodded toward Lupin.
Ron stuffed the Sneakoscope into particularly horrible pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks, which deadened the sound, then closed the lid of the trunk on it.
"We could get it checked in Hogsmeade," said Ron, sitting back down. "They sell that sort of thing in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me."
I wondered whether to be excited about Hogsmeade even though I wasn't going to go, or be quiet....
"Do you know much about Hogsmeade?" asked Hermione keenly. "I've read it's the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain --"
"Yeah, I think it is," said Ron in a cavalier sort of way. "But that's not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honey Dukes."
"What's that?" said Hermione.
"It's this sweetshop," said Ron, a dreamy look coming over his face, "where they've got everything... Pepper Imps--they make you smoke at the mouth--and great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream, and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you're thinking what to write next --"
"But Hogsmeade's a very interesting place, isn't it?" Hermione pressed on eagerly. "In Sites of Historical Sorcery it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shades supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain --"
Oh my god she got technical.
"-- and massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you're sucking them," said Ron, who was plainly not listening to a word Hermione was saying. Hermione looked around at me.
"Won't it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?"
"I hope you guys have fun there..." I said softly.
"You're not going?" Hermione said taken aback.
"Well, you need a parent or guardian to sign it, and technically, I have neither..." I trailed off and stared out the window leaving the conversation quite awkward for a few moments.
"What about you Harry?" Ron said clearly not wanting to press the subject. "Do you think it will be fun?"
"'Spect it will, " said Harry deeply."You'll have to tell me when you've found out."
"What d'you mean?" said Ron.
"I can't go. The Dursleys didn't sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn't either."
Several more long moments passed.
After sighing about how everyone was awkward and depressed, I started to tell a story.
"Once upon a time there were three friends. One was rather brilliant, one was all important and special and one was just a random Ranga." Ron hit me. "they spent six years of schooling together, before breaking out to be all epic and hardcore-"
"Wil, you need to put yourself in the story too!" Hermione complained.
"No way, I think I should write a book about what your lives would be like without me...in third person though." I smiled.
"No one would publish it." Harry said.
"After a while they would, and then it would become epically famous."
We continued to argue about this for ages, occasionally dropping our voices as Lupin stirred.
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."
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 up front with the driver."
"Oh, and could I have some every flavour beans please?" I asked politely.
With an exchange of gold and food, we closed the compartment door.
"I suppose he is asleep?" said Ron quietly "I mean -- he hasn't died, has he?"
"No, no, he's breathing," whispered Hermione, taking the cauldron cake Harry passed her.
"He's really cool; I bet you guys will love him." I grinned.
He might not be very good company, but Professor Lupin's presence in our compartment had its uses. Mid-afternoon, just as it had started to rain, blurring the rolling hills outside the window, I heard footsteps outside in the corridor again, and our three least favourite people appeared at the door: Draco Malfoy, flanked by his cronies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
"Well, look who it is," said Malfoy in his usual lazy drawl, pulling open the compartment door. "Potty and the Weasel." Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly.
"Sup bro!" I said falsely giving him a hug. He looked frankly disgusted. "Oh and you too Crabbe, and Goyle. Pardon my rudeness!" I gave them each a hug in turn. "So, what you sexy guys been up to?" I beamed the fakest smile I have ever worn. I noticed Goyle blushed furiously.
He doesn't - not me - no. Eww. Oh god. I think I'm gonna puke.
The other two ignored me apart from freakily bizarre looks.
"I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley," said Malfoy. "Did your mother die of shock?"
Ron stood up so quickly he knocked Crookshanks's empty basket to the floor. Professor Lupin gave a snort.
"Who's that?" said Malfoy, taking an automatic step backward as he spotted Lupin.
"New teacher," said Harry, who got to his feet, too. "What were you saying, 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 they disappeared.
Harry and Ron sat down again, Ron massaging his knuckles.
"I'm not going to take any crap from Malfoy this year," he said angrily. "I mean it. If he makes one more crack about my family, I'm going to get hold of his head and --"
Ron made a violent gesture in midair.
"Ron," hissed Hermione, pointing at Professor Lupin, "be careful..."
But Professor Lupin was still fast asleep.
"I'm gonna kick one of them in the nuts." I said profoundly
"Anyway," said Harry completely changing the topic. "Was I the only one who noticed Goyle's blush?"
Thoomp!
That was my head bashing into the window.
"I did." Hermione said slyly. "I think someone has a crush on Willow."
"Yeah, I bet I know what he wants to do with you!" Ron grinned broadly joining in.
"He is thinking about you when he goes to bed at night." Hermione said creepily.
"He-"Harry started.
"Oh my god! Stop!" I complained "You guys are sick! Just sick!"
"I'll tell you what; I think Willow likes him too." Ron said
"No, we all know who I like-"
"Who?" the boys asked stopping their taunts.
"Are you clueless?" Hermione said exasperatedly. "Even your mother knows Ron!"
"Who!" they repeated.
"I'm not telling them, they can work it out for themselves."
The complained at me for the next half an hour, and then started up with Goyle again.
"I'M IN LOVE WITH PERCY!" I said loudly.
The look they gave me! Ron was just deep disgust. Harry knew I was lying, and Hermione was on the floor in stitches.
***
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.
"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..."
"Yay! Food!" I said happily.
"We can't be there yet," said Hermione, checking her watch.
"So why're we stopping?"
The train was getting slower and slower. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.
The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.
"What's going on?" said Ron's voice from behind me.
"Ouch!" gasped Hermione. "Ron that was my foot!"
"D'you think we've broken down?"
"Dunno..."
There was a squeaking sound, and Ron was leaning over me wiping a patch clean on the window and peering out.
"There's something moving out there," Ron said. "I think people are coming aboard..."
The compartment door suddenly opened and a small thud told me they tripped.
"Sorry! D'you know what's going on? Ouch! Sorry --" it was Neville
"Hullo, Neville," said Harry.
"Harry? Is that you? What's happening?"
"No idea! Sit down --"
There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had tried to sit on Crookshanks.
"I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on," came Hermione's voice.
I heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain.
"Who's that?"
"Who's that?"
"Ginny?"
"Hermione?"
"What are you doing?"
"I was looking for Ron --"
"Come in and sit down --"
"Not here!" said Harry hurriedly. "I'm here!"
"Ouch!" said Neville.
"Quiet!" said a hoarse voice suddenly.
Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. I could hear movements across from me.
None of us 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 got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him.
But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin's hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. My eyes darted downward, and what I saw made his stomach contract. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, greyish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water....
And then the thing beneath the hood, 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 us all.
I felt like I was chilled to the bone.
Ice was in my heart.
Pain. Searing pain hit me.
"Crucio," a cold voice said. Lucius Malfoy.
I shrieked in pain but then the scene dissolved. I was in immense pain as I was thrown into yet another horrid scene.
"Useless." Lucius spat kicking me. "Worthless."
"Willow? Are you all right?" I recognised Hermione's voice.
I opened my eyes; there were lanterns above me, and the floor was shaking -- the Hogwarts Express was moving again and the lights had come back on. I seemed to have slid out of my seat onto the floor.
I saw Harry beside me. Ron was slapping him trying to wake him up.
"Well, this is awkward." I said weakly. Hermione helped me back onto my seat.
"Are you alright?" Hermione repeated.
I didn't reply. I could feel tears on my face. I felt weird. Really weird. And kind of nauseous.
Harry woke up then.
It took both Ron and Hermione to heave him back onto his seat.
Fatty.
Willow; be nice, the pair of you just passed out.
"Are you okay?" Ron asked nervously.
"Yeah," said Harry, looking quickly toward the door. "What happened? Where's that -- that thing? Who screamed?"
"No one screamed," said Ron, more nervously still.
"But I heard screaming --"
"I screamed in my head." I said. Everyone looked at me. "Well, I'm sane." I paused a moment. "Yeah Hermione, I think I feel alright."
A loud snap made us all jump; I nearly slipped off my seat again. Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.
"Here," he said to Harry and I, handing us particularly large pieces. "Eat it. It'll help."
We took the chocolate but didn't eat it.
"What was that thing?" Harry asked Lupin.
"A Dementor," said Lupin, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else. "One of the Dementors of Azkaban."
We all stared at him. Professor Lupin crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.
"Eat," he repeated. "It'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me..."
"Oh, Lupin," I said after him.
He turned around. "Yes?"
"Hi," I smiled weakly at him
"Hi."
He strolled past and disappeared into the corridor.
"Are you sure you're okay?" said Hermione, watching Harry and me anxiously.
"It's always the two of us, isn't it?" I said so quietly no one could hear.
"I don't get it ... what happened?" said Harry, wiping his face.
"Well -- that thing -- the Dementor -- stood there and looked around (I mean, I think it did, I couldn't see its face) -- and you --"
"I thought you were having a fit or something," said Ron, who still looked scared. "You went sort of rigid and fell out of your seat and started twitching --"
"And Professor Lupin stepped over you, and walked toward the Dementor, and pulled out his wand," said Hermione, "and he said, 'None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.' But the Dementor didn't move, so Lupin muttered something, and a silvery thing shot out of his wand at it, and it turned around and sort of glided away..."
"It was horrible," said Neville, in a higher voice than usual. "Did you feel how cold it got when it came in?"
"I felt weird," said Ron, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. "Like I'd never be cheerful again..."
Ginny, who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as I felt, gave a small sob; Hermione went over and put a comforting arm around her.
"But didn't any of you -- fall off your seats?" said Harry awkwardly.
"Yeah," I said "But I was by the window, I don't think anyone noticed until after..."
"Sorry," said Ron sheepishly
"Don't worry about it..." I was trying to think of a smarmy remark, when I was kind of like attacked by what had happened when the Dementor came in.
Interesting.
I apparently had just let out a small squeal, because everyone looked at me anxiously.
"Wil?" Ron said nervously.
"I'm good." I said sounding so ridiculously unbelievable. Just because I was now shaking....Cruciatus curse does that to anyone!
Right?
Professor Lupin had come back. He paused as he entered, looked around, and said, with a small smile, "I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know..."
Even though I felt as though I might vomit, I took a bite. To my great surprise I felt warmth spread suddenly to the tips of my fingers and toes.
"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," said Professor Lupin. "Are you all right, Harry?"
Harry didn't ask how Professor Lupin knew his name.
"Fine," he muttered, embarrassed.
"Willow?" Lupin said looking at me with worried eyes.
"Peachy." I lied taking another bite of chocolate.
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