It was the ominous flickering of lights that awoke me. I'd been asleep, curled up at the compartment window seat, thinking for one vague moment that I was back home, and Aunt Marigold was messing with the electricity again, but then someone shook me. Hard.

"Angelique," someone breathed, "Angelique, wake up. Quick."

My eyes flitted open and I saw that I really wasn't back home. I was in the compartment with the three unnamed students from before, and it was dark. I sat up, alert, aware now that the train had stopped moving.

"What's going on?" I asked, my voice slurred slightly from sleep.

"Dunno," the girl in front of me said, "Think there may be trouble with the train."

And it was then that I noticed the icy forming on the window. It spread too quickly, like liquid, and laid it's thick mantle on the glass, obscuring the dark scene of night outside.

I pulled out my wand and stood up, tugging open the tall glass door and poking my head outside. Peering around, I saw that many were doing the same.

I spotted somebody I knew, a few doors down, "Hey, wha-"

I was cut off mid-sentence, thrown backwards by a violent jolt. The train had just shook. With one last flicker, the lights went off and it was dark.

"Someone's boarding..." Whispered the girl from before. She had her face pressed to the window, eyes screwed up in concentration. Her profile was just barely outlined by the faint moonlight outside. It was getting colder. Even through the dark sweater I wore, I felt goose bumps erupting all along my arms. Whoever was boarding, they weren't normal.

"Everybody, keep calm." I said. It was truly a hypocritical statement, seeing as I was very far from tranquil myself. I shook, but not just from the cold. I felt funny... Sad. Remorseful. Hurt. I was back seven years ago, and HE was there. He was hurting my mom. He was-

I stopped. No, that wasn't happening. That was long gone. I was getting distracted. But that's what they wanted to happen.

I quickly thought. I thought of Hogwarts, my home practically, of my friends and whispered, "Expecto Patronum."

A glowing, silver wolf poured from the end of my wand. It illuminated the whole compartment and the dark hall outside.

"Whoa..." One of my company breathed, "I didn't know you could-"

"Shh..."

I slid open the compartment door, pointing my wand ahead of me. The illuminated wolf trodded ahead, it's padded feet silent on the thick hall carpet. It was warn now, like a thick, reassuring blanket had been thrown over me. I felt safe, even though the threat was just ahead.

Doors slid open, voices became clear in the silence, scared and excited. Whispers echoed.

"Girl, go back..." Someone urged.

"No, don't you know what's down there?"

Those whispers were drowned out by, "Don't you know what that is, you toss pot?"

And then there were remarks about the beautiful wolf and more about the question of my sanity.

But then it was all gone. A thick silence had set and the train itself seemed to be holding it's breath. Someone screamed.

And then it came- a sound that grew louder and louder. A hoarse, rattling breath, like a skeleton being sucked into a vacuum.

The dementor.

Correction- dementors. They were tall, gray, ghost-like, a single hole where there the disgusting mouths were. 30 feet away down the train hall, too far away to feel the presence of an enemy. They were opening up each compartment door, one by one, sticking the heads in. For a moment, I was reminded ridiculously of a mother checking in on a sleeping child.

Someone cried out in fear.

I struck quickly, jabbing my wand forward. The wolf, liquid-like, sprinted forward and the scabby dementors melted away. I turned and through the next car window, I saw someone else mimicking me. A man in shabby robes had just expelled another dementor.

I was just wondering how many of the creatures had really boarded the train when the lights came back on. Everything was warm again, even as my patronus faded. I let out out a breath. they were gone.

"Miss Fairclough."

I blanched, hearing that menacing voice for the first time in a month and then pale fingers had curled on my shoulder and jerked me around. I was looking into the sallow face of Severus Snape, which was- as nearly always- contorted with anger.

"You should be inside your compartment."

"Where a couple of those slimy dementors would have eaten my soul?

Exaggeration.

"They wouldn't have attacked you, silly girl. They were aboard to check for..."

"For?"

"Never you mind." The angry professor jabbed a finger at the door closest. "Get back to your seat, before you earn a weeks worth of detention."

He passed me, black robes billowing behind, and I stopped myself from cursing him.

The train was moving again, already at full speed once more. We would all be at Hogwarts soon enough. I stored my wand in my pocket and went to change, dismal.