Chapter Five

Flared Jeans and sad eyes didn't exactly go well together, but Dawn wore both none the less. She was tired and silent and scared. Nerves flowed through her veins as the day had finally approached, the day she had been dreading all summer long.

The first of September.

Her final year at Hogwarts was just moments away, and she stood, quiet, eyes welling ever so slightly with tears she always had angrily pushed to the back. There was loud chatting around her, of kids as young as eleven and as old as seventeen. Bodies pushing past her on their way down the station, some kids to meet their friends they hadn't seen all summer long. She, on the other hand, was terrified.

"Dawn," a brush of her hand and her mother's warm smile entered her vision. Her dad was teary-eyed for her, scared for his little girl. He knew the pain she was going through, tried to keep his mouth tightly shut all summer long as she tried to find her own sense of peace, but he almost slipped up once or twice, "please...write to us every day."

Dawn nodded, taking a deep breath, "I will, mum. I promise."

"If you want to come home..." her dad trailed off, taking a deep breath of his own, "If you want to leave, Dawn. You tell us, and we will come to get you."

"I don't think that's allowed, dad." She forced a smile; her lips had tugged ever so slightly, but she still had to force it.

"I don't give a damn if it's allowed, they can't keep my baby girl if she doesn't want to be there!" he all but exclaimed, and it didn't take Dawn more than a second until she had tightly wrapped her arms around him. She loved her parents more than anything. They didn't know how much they had helped her, but to them, both thought they hadn't done enough.

"Look, Dawn," Allie, her mother nudged her, "there's Elsie!"

Allie waved to Elsie just down the station from where they stood, beckoning the girl to come over so they could say goodbye to her. As much as the girl was much different from what they thought Dawn to be, she was there for the girl all summer long. Dawn needed a friend in school, and Jasper wasn't there anymore.

Dawn's stomach dropped when Elsie looked right at them, and then a moment later, her eyes glanced away, and she turned in the opposite direction to greet her Hufflepuff friends. She sighed, trying to push down the pit in her stomach. Hufflepuff's were loyal after all, Dawn thought, but maybe to only the ones they truly cared about.

Dawn believed that Elsie was only friends with her for the summer and that was it, she had now just proved that to be true. She knew Elsie's friends; they weren't precisely the rebellious type, but then she didn't think that about Elsie either. Dawn wondered if Elsie maybe wanted to keep that a secret, and she would keep that secret for her.

Considering she had decided to never speak to her ever again.

"Well then," Allie tutted, "you're going to have a great year, Dawn. I know it."

Dawn practically scoffed, "I think at this point, it'll be a good year if I don't die."

"Don't say that honey," her dad sighed, his arm around her and giving her another tight hug, "you'll have a great time, we promise. I don't care what any old grey wizards have to say, if we want to come get our daughter then we will!"

"I don't even think muggles are allowed in the school!" Dawn quietly chuckled, shaking her head. She knew her parents were worried about her, so she took a deep breath and forced another smile, "I'll be fine. I love you both so much."

They chorused their own 'I love you', and Dawn finally broke away from them. She was terrified to aboard the train, and rightfully so. When she stepped on, she felt suffocated in an instant. Loud chatter turned to hushed whispers when she walked by students crowding the train entryway and the carriages that lined the hall.

She kept her head down, eyes averted, hair in her face to shield herself from anyone who looked her way. The quiet Ravenclaw girl, that's what she had always been known as. Never once occurred to anyone that she had a name, but now everyone knew it.

"Hey, isn't that Jaspers friend!" she heard, a pierce to her heart at the sound of his name said so loudly and so casually. The last thing she could have ever wanted was for Jasper to be known as 'that guy who died' it made her furious. He was so much more than that.

She was much more than 'that one girl who was friends with Jasper' she had a name. She wasn't just some Ravenclaw girl who hid in the shadows anymore, she couldn't just always shy away from the people who looked at her like they had any right to.

So, she lifted her head up, her hair behind her shoulders and her eyes cold and dark. People still stared, they looked at her up and down. It was everywhere, the day she found him. It was everywhere that she found him.

"Oh, that poor girl!" she could hear it through the whispers. Sympathetic stares from some that passed her by. Those in her year that she barely spoke three words to. The pity on the tip of their tongue. The nosey ones who nudged their friends to look in her direction.

The long hallway of the brightly lit train seemed as though it was going on for miles. She was practically strutting down the hall, the flared jeans scuffing on the ground and her eyes throwing daggers that anyone who lingered too long.

"What the fuck are you looking at?!" she sneered at a fifth-year boy who couldn't take his eyes off of her. He stuttered ever so slightly and then scurried off in the other direction. It worked, though. When she lifted her head from where the boy once stood, all eyes were off of her.

She felt powerful.

It felt like a lifetime had passed by when she finally found an empty carriage. The train had already started moving, and she knew that there would be very little chance that she would be able to find an empty one, it was almost near impossible.

Her emotions had overwhelmed her. She hadn't even gotten to the school yet, and it felt like she was going to explode. Anger pulsed through her, but so did sadness. So did grief and guilt and hurt. She had finally and officially lost any and all traces of friendship that she had ever had and now she would experience complete loneliness.

Well, she thought she would. That was until the squeak of the old sliding door pushed open, and a mop of long black hair entered her view. She grumbled a string of curses under her breath.

"Oi!" the thick English accent rang through the carriage. It was almost like a forced twang to a posh boy, so it wasn't surprising when her eyes caught that of Sirius Black's. She, of course, knew the boy. Well, no, she knew of the boy.

"Can I sit in here?"

"Why?"

"Well...if not for the rather beautiful girl in my sites." She could feel the scowl on her face, "then for the fact I've lost all my friends."

"No."

"Wait...what?"

"I said no. No, you can't sit in here." She folded her arms, legs up on the seat that could easily fit three people, but she simply didn't allow for that, "leave."

"I mean... you don't control the carriage," Sirius grumbled, visibly annoyed that his lame excuse of a 'pick up line' didn't work out.

"I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you asked, and I gave my answer. So if you're done harassing me with your bullshit quotes that make all your many girlfriends swoon then I would like you to leave me alone!" she practically exclaimed, "please, close your door on the way out!"

She thought that would be enough only for that feeling again, that powerful feeling of anger and shouting and harsh words. To not be quiet and kind and sit still and be the smart, quiet Ravenclaw. Maybe she could be something more than that. To stand her ground, perhaps she didn't need Jasper.

But Sirius bit his cheek, she could see it sucked in but what really infuriated her like no other was the slight tug of his lips. He had his hands up in defence, slightly smug-looking and she didn't know why or how after such angry words left her mouth, could he possibly still smile, "alright... I'll leave!"

"Good. Go!" Dawn huffed, gesturing angrily to the door.

He opened the carriage door, turning and walking out with a dramatic overemphasis of his movements just so he could genuinely piss her off. Though what he did next, what sent furious anger coursing through her in the feeling of sheer frustration was the giant grin on his lips just as he turned and said, "I do think you are a beautiful site, though."

Then, he was gone.

And she was still scowling.