HARPER WAS WOKEN UP BY RON WHO BARGED INTO HER ROOM, pulling a sweatshirt over his head and looking irritable.

"The sooner we get on the train, the better," he said. "At least I can get away from Percy at Hogwarts. Now he's accusing me of dripping tea on his photo of Penelope Clearwater. You know," Ron grimaced as he sat down on her bed, "his girlfriend. She's hidden her face under the frame because her nose has gone all blotchy . . ."

Harper rolled my eyes, ordered Ron to turn around and got dressed. A knock on the door made the two of them look up.

"Yeah?" Harper called out and Harry came in.

"I've got something to tell you," Harry began, but they were interrupted by Fred and George, who had looked in to congratulate Ron on infuriating Percy again.

They headed down to breakfast, where Arthur was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow and Molly was telling Hermione and Ginny about a Love Potion she'd made as a young girl. All three of them were rather giggly.

"What were you saying?" Ron asked Harry, as they sat down.

"Later," Harry murmured, as Percy stormed in.

After breakfast, they dragged their trunks downstairs together with their cages. A small wickerwork basket stood beside the heap of trunks, spitting loudly.

"It's all right, Crookshanks," Hermione cooed through the wickerwork. "I'll let you out on the train."

"You won't," Ron snapped. "What about poor Scabbers, eh?" He pointed at his chest, where a large lump indicated that Scabbers was curled up in his pocket.

Arthur, who had been outside waiting for the Ministry cars, stuck his head inside.

"They're here," he said. "Harry, come on."

Hermione, Ron, Percy and Harper followed Harry into a car.

The journey to King's Cross was very uneventful, Harper noticed. They reached King's Cross with twenty minutes to spare; the Ministry drivers found trolleys, unloaded their trunks, touched their heads to Arthur and drove away, somehow managing to jump to the head of an unmoving queue for the traffic lights.

"Right then," Arthur said, glancing around them as they stood near the entrance of platform nine and three-quarters. "Let's do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I'll go through first with Harry."

Arthur strolled towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing Harry's trolley and apparently very interested in the InterCity 125 that had just arrived at platform nine. With a meaningful look at Harry, he leant casually against the barrier. Harry imitated him. Next moment, they were gone.

Hermione and Harper hurried after Percy and Ginny who had been after Harry and Arthur.

"Ah, there's Penelope!" Harper could hear Percy exclaim, as he smoothed his hair and went pink again.

She caught Ron's eye and they both turned away to hide their 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.

Once the remaining Weasleys had joined them, Harry and Arthur led the way to the end of the train, past packed compartments, to a carriage that looked quite empty. They loaded the trunks onto it, stowed Hedwig, Dale and Crookshanks in the luggage rack, then went back outside to say goodbye to Molly and Arthur.

Molly kissed all her children, then Hermione, then Harper and finally Harry.

Ron, Hermione and Harper were already on the Hogwarts Express and waited for Harry near the door. He had been seized by Arthur and were now having a conversation.

Steam was as billowing from the train; it had started to move. Harry ran to the compartment door and Ron threw it open and stood back to let him on. The four of them leaned out of the window and waved at Molly and Arthur until the train turned a corner and blocked their from view.

"I need to talk to you in private," Harry muttered to Ron, Hermione and Harper, as the train picked up speed.

"Go away, Ginny," Ron said and Harper noticed that the youngest Weasley was still with them.

"Oh, that's nice," Ginny said huffily, and she stalked off.

The four of them 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.

Harper's eyes lit up as she recognized Remus and sat down next to him. She glanced over at him; he was fast asleep.

"It's all right," Harper said, knowing he was still tired from the latest full moon. "It's my uncle and he's sleeping. We won't have any problem with him. Anyway," she added, turning her head to look back at Harry, "what were you doing to tell us?"

Harry explained all about Molly and Arthur's argument and the warning Arthur had just given him. When he finished, Ron looked thunderstruck, Hermione had her hands over her mouth while Harper just frowned.

"Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh, Harry . . . you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry . . ." Hermione said, lowering her hands.

"I don't go looking for trouble," Harry said, nettled. "Trouble usually finds me."

"How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?" Ron said shakily.

Harper didn't say anything. She was still convinced that Sirius was innocent, but all the talking in his sleep . . . he's in Hogwarts . . . it's kinda weird.

"No one knows how he got out of Azkaban," Ron said uncomfortable. "No one's ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner, too."

"But they'll catch him, won't they?" Hermione said earnestly. "I mean, they've got all the Muggles looking out of him, too . . ."

"What's that noise?" Ron asked suddenly.

Two faint, tinny sort of whistles were coming from somewhere.

"It's coming from your trunks, Harry, Harper," Ron said, standing up and reaching into the luggage rack. A moment later he had pulled out two Pocket Sneakoscopes out from between their robes. They were spinning very fast in the palm of Ron's hand, and glowing brilliantly.

"Are those Sneakoscopes?" Hermione said interestedly, standing up for a better look.

"Yeah . . . mind you, they are very cheap ones," Ron said. "They went haywire just as I was tying it to Errol's leg to sent it to Harry and Harper."

"Were you doing something bad?" Hermione asked.

"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 and Harper's presents to them?"

"Stick it back in the trunks," Harry advised, as the Sneakoscopes whistled piercingly, "or it'll wake him up." He nodded to Remus.

"We could get it checked in Hogsmeade," Ron suggested, sitting back down. "They sell that sort of things in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me."

"Do you know much about Hogsmeade?" Hermione asked keenly. "I've read it's the only entire non-Muggle settlement in Britain . . ."

"Yeah, I think it is," Ron said in an offhand sort of way, "but that's not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honeydukes!"

"What's that?" Hermione said.

"It's this sweet shop," Ron explained, 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 presses on eagerly. "In Sites of Historical Sorcery it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack's supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain . . ."

". . . and massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you're sucking them," Ron said, who was plainly not listening to a word Hermione was saying.

Hermione looked around at Harry and Harper.

"Won't it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?"

"'Spect it will," Harry said heavily. "You'll have to tell me when you've found out."

"What d'you mean?" Ron said.

"I can't go. The Dursleys didn't sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn't, either."

Ron looked horrified.

"You're not allowed to come? But — no way — McGonagall or someone will give you permissions . . ."

Harry gave a hollow laugh. Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House, was very strict.

". . . or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle . . ."

"Ron!" Hermione said sharply. "I don't think Harry should be sneaking out of school with Black on the loose . . ."

"Yeah, I expect that's what McGonagall will say when I ask for permission," Harry said bitterly.

"But if we're with him," Ron said spiritedly to Hermione, "Black wouldn't dare . . ."

"Oh, Ron, don't talk rubbish," Hermione snapped. "Black's already murdered a whole bunch of people in the middle of a crowded street. Do you really think he's going to worry about Harry just because we're there?"

Ron huffed and turned to be. "What about you, Harp, can you come?"

Harper shook her head. "Neither Dorcas, nor Remus wanted to sign it after Sirius Black escaped. They're afraid he'll come after me, too, since I'm Harry's sister."

"It think that was a wise decision of them," Hermione agreed, while fumbling with the straps of Crookshanks's basket.

"Don't let that thing out!" Ron screeched, but it was too late; Crookshanks leapt lightly from the basket, stretched, yawned, and sprang onto Ron's knees; the lump in Ron's pocket trembled and he shoved Crookshanks angrily away.

"Get out of it!"

"Ron, don't!" Hermione said angrily.

Ron was about to answer back when Remus stirred. They watched him apprehensively, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth slightly open, and slept on.

The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened. People were chasing backwards and forwards past the door of their compartment. 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 trolley arrived at the compartment door. 

"D'you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked awkwardly, nodding towards Remus.

Harper shook her head. "No, I'll buy him some chocolate. I know he loves that."

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

"Well, look who it is," Malfoy said in his usual lazy drawl, pulling open the compartment door. "Potty and the Weasel."

Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly.

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

Ron stood up so quickly, followed by Harper, he knocked Crookshanks's basket to the floor. Remus gave a snort.

"Who's that?" Malfoy asked, taking an automatic step backwards as he spotted Remus.

"New teacher," Harper replied. "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.

The two of them sat down again, Ron massaging his knuckles.

"I'm not going to take any more rubbish 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 mid-air.

"Ron!" Hermione hissed, pointing at Remus, "be careful . . ."

But Remus was still fast asleep.

"I'm with you on this one," Harper quietly told Ron.

The rain thickened as the train sped yet further 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, Remus slept.

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

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

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

"We can't be here yet," Hermione said, 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 Harper 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?" Ron's voice said from somewhere in front of her.

"Ouch!" Hermione gasped. "Ron, that was my foot!"

"D'you think we've broken down?" Harry asked.

"Dunno . . ."

There was a squeaking sound, and Harper saw the dim black outline of Ron, 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 someone fell over Harry's legs.

"Sorry! D'you know what's going on? Ouch! Sorry . . ."

"Hello, Neville," Harper said, feeling around in the dark, pulling Neville up by his cloak and putting him next to her on the seat.

"Harper? Is that you? What's happening?"

"No idea," she replied.

"I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on," came Hermione's voice. Harper felt her pass her, heard the door slid open 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!" Harper could hear Harry say hurriedly. "I'm here!"

"Ouch!" Neville said.

"Quiet!" a hoarse voice said suddenly.

Remus appeared to have woken up at last. Harper could hear movements in her corner. None of them spoke. There was a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. Remus appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired grey face, but his eyes stood 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 Remus could reach it. Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Remus' hand, was a cloaked figures that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. Harper's eyes darted downwards, and what she saw made her stomach contract. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, greyish, slimly-looking and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water . . .

It was visible only for a split second. As though the creature — the Dementor Harper had figured out — sensed her gaze, the hand shook as suddenly withdrawn into the folks of the black material.

And then the Dementor drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it was trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.

An intense cold swept over them all. Harper felt her own breath catch in her chest. The cold went deeper than her skin. It was inside her chest, it was inside her very heart . . .

Harper's eyes rolled up into her head. She couldn't see. She was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in her ears as though of water. She was being dragged downwards, the roaring growing louder . . .

And then, from far away, Harper heard screaming, terrible, terrified screams. She wanted to help whoever it was, she tried to move her arms, but couldn't . . . a thick white fog, was swirling around her, inside her —

"Harper! Harper! Are you all right?"

Someone was slapping her face.

"W-what?"

Harper opened her eyes. There were lanterns above her, and the floor was shaking — the Hogwarts Express was moving again and the lights had come back on. She seemed to have slid out of her seat onto the floor. Hermione was kneeling next to her, and as Harper glanced sideways, she could see Harry laying next to her.

"Harry?" Harper said urgently, popping herself up on her elbow, before shaking her brother's shoulders.

He groaned and opened his eyes. "Are you okay?" Ron asked nervously.

"Yeah," Harry replied, looking quickly towards the door. "What happened? Where's that — that thing? Who screamed?"

"No one screamed," Ron said, more nervously now.

"I heard it too," Harper replied hoarsely as Remus pulled her onto the seat before braking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces — the one she had bought for him from the trolley.

"Here," he said to the siblings, handing the both of them a particularly large piece. "Eat it. It'll help."

Harper took the chocolate and bit a piece off it. Harry, however, did not.

"What was that thing?" he asked Remus.

"A Dementor," Remus replied, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else. "One of the Dementors of Azkaban."

Everyone stared at him. Remus crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.

"Eat," he repeated, noticing that Harry hadn't touched his piece yet. "It'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me . . ."

He strolled past Harry and Harper and disappeared into the corridor.

"Are you sure you're okay, Harry, Harper?" Hermione asked, watching Harry anxiously.

"I don't get it . . . what happened?" Harry said, wiping more sweat off his face.

"Well — that thing — the Dementor — stood there and looked around (I mean, I think it did, I couldn't see his face) — and you and Harper — you . . ."

"I thought you were having a fit or something," Ron said, who still looked scared. "The two of you went sort of rigid and fell out of your seat and started twitching . . ."

"And Professor Lupin stepped over you, and walked towards the Dementor, and pulled out his wand," Hermione continued. "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 round and sort of glided away . . ."

"It was horrible," Neville said, in a higher voice than usual. "Did you feel how cold it went when it came in?"

"I felt weird," Ron said, shifting his shoulders uncomfortable. "Like I'd never be cheerful again . . ."

Ginny, who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as Harper felt, gave a small sob; Hermione went over and put a comfortable arm around her.

"But didn't any of you — fall off your seats?" Harper asked awkwardly.

"No," Ron replied, looking anxiously at the two of them. "Ginny was shaking like mad, though . . ."

Harper didn't understand. She felt weak and shivery, as though she was recovering from a bad bout of flu.

Remus had come back. He paused as he entered, looked around and smiled slightly as he saw that Harper was the only one who had eaten the chocolate.

"I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know . . ."

Harper nudged her brother and Harry bit a piece off.

"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," Remus went on. "Are you all right, Harper, Harry?"

"Fine," Harry muttered and Harper gave him a small smile and nod.

"All fine."

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December 26st 2023
I hope you enjoy it & tell me what you think of it! :)