They were happily chatting by the time the train hissed like a snake.
Everyone paused, looking around. Harry met Hermione's eyes, his own narrowed in confusion. Her eyebrows were lowered, teeth perched on the edge of her lip. Ron grumbled, arm reaching out to steady himself, looking around. The sleeping professor grunted but didn't wake.
The train jolted, groaned, and then ground itself to a stop.
Harry yelped and threw out an arm to catch himself before he fell off his seat. The second he righted himself, he looked out the window. It was dark, that was clear, but not overly dark. Light enough that he could see everything for a considerable distance. And all that there was to see was an empty field, grasses bumping against each other in a soft breeze. He tried to see forward as best he could but they were in the back of the train, and all he could see was the scarlet wall stretching on and on, dark windows being filled with pressed in faces as far as the eye could see. He leaned down, fingers working at the latch.
Hermione grabbed his wrist. "Don't," she whispered. "Something's not right here."
"Well, of course something's not," Ron said. "The train's stopped and we don't know why."
She glared at him. "Well, thank you for pointing out the obvious. It was almost like we didn't need it."
Harry stared at the window, fingers dancing over the ledge. He frowned and looked to the professor, who still wasn't moving. Shouldn't he have woken up by now?
Whispers snaked up and down the train, hisses of conversation that none of them could pick out. People poked their heads out of their compartments, shouting to prefects who hurriedly ran up and down, trying to calm everyone down.
The temperature of the room dropped.
It had been warm, pleasantly so. The heat coming from vents under the seats, pumping higher and higher while they laughed and joked around.
But now Harry's breath steamed in the air, trickling grey and pale up to the ceiling. Hermione and Ron's did the same, like smoke writhing through the air. He rubbed his hands together, knuckles freezing. His ears stung, toes curled inside his boots, and he could feel his cheeks start to flush.
And the train was still stopped. Creaks and groans echoed down the suddenly silent corridors, the train settling and resettling on the tracks. But it wasn't moving.
Hermione sucked in a breath, brown eyes glinting. She didn't stop looking around, staying sitting as she peered out. Her wand was in her hand while the other was curled in her pocket. Ron just looked confused.
The window started to frost over, the edges clouding and spreading inwards. Ice glittered, showing them one last view of the empty field before covering it up. The frost had covered the window in almost under a second, spreading much too fast to be normal. It was getting almost too cold for the simple robes he was wearing, and he could see his skin becoming more and more pale.
And then the lights flickered off.
It started with their overhead light, which spluttered once before giving up. The two smaller bulbs still gleamed valiantly, but then they each disappeared like a flame snuffed out. No one moved.
The light shining in through the frosted window was tinted pale blue, more like moonlight than the sun it should have been. Everything was wrong.
A shadow passed by their window, cutting off their light for nothing but a second. But everyone froze, staring with wide eyes at the figure that disappeared from view. Nothing else happened until the train hissed once more and a door slid open.
"Something's getting on," Hermione hissed. All Harry and Ron could do was nod dumbly, wands tight in their shaking fists. Darkness shone all around them, mist pumping from between their lips. Nothing made a sound, every other student had disappeared back into their compartments.
Harry slowly slid forward and flicked the latch of their door closed, locking it.
"Lumos," Hermione muttered, jabbing her wand a bit too sharply. But still light flared into existence on the tip, making everything it touched glow with brilliant whiteness. Harry and Ron quickly copied, pointing their wands up to light the whole compartment.
There was still nothing happening. Other lights began to flicker on in the train, but that was also the point that the glass window of the compartment began to frost over. From the inside.
"That shouldn't-"
A shadow crossed over the door.
It was much too tall to be human, stretching above seven feet. It was a shifting, writhing silhouette that swayed and danced as much as a flickering light yet managed to be perfectly still. It was right outside their compartment. No one said anything, breath sharp in their throat and fingers curling around the seats.
And there was something inside Harry's head - something that rose in crescendo with every passing second -
Harry Harry no not HarryHarry
It was soft, a female voice that grew stronger and stronger with panic.
The silhouette moved, reaching out with some terrible sweeping hand. The latch on the door snapped open with any resistance. There was still no response from the professor in the corner.
A hand, pitch black and pockmarked with cuts and sores and blisters all as black as night, curled around the handle of the door. Its skin was sucked parallel to the bone, barely more than a skeleton of a hand dyed black.
And the wood of the handle rotted before their very eyes, staining black and then blacker as it was slowly pulled open. It started to melt in on itself, the wood splintering and falling apart.
The figure was still black in the light of their wands, sucked dry and dripping in a ragged cloak that danced in an imaginary wind -
It floated one step closer, hand stretching out like a wall of fear -
Hermione felt tears on her cheeks and Ron choked as his stomach dropped to his knees -
But the creature's attention flickered from each of them and fell onto Harry, who was frozen on his seat, wand still pointing up. Even the light of their wands, which had been so strong a moment ago, went dim and then died.
The figure swept forward, sightless black eyes and horrible, horrible mouth gleaming.
Not Harry not Harry
It leaned down. The pain in his head swelled higher.
And then it grabbed his hand and brought him closer and he screamed -
There was a flash of silver light and his world went dark.
He came to not long after with Hermione over his face. Her eyes were wide, mouth moving, but he can't quite hear her. There was some sort of high pitched ringing in his ears that was much too loud, and it hurts to even think about trying to stand up.
But he blinked twice and watched as the world spun in front of his eyes, swirling like it was made of water. Hermione's brown hair encircled her head like a wreath, and it took a few seconds before it went back to being just a frizzy mane that sticks up on every which side. Her brown eyes met his, and she smiled wide.
"He's up! He woke up!" She turned away and said, but to him, she might as well be screaming next to his ear. He hissed and put a hand up to his ear. It was cold but warming up. His fingers were colder, however.
She flinched away and then settled back, letting him slowly push himself up to a sitting position. His head was pounding and words hammer behind his eyes, words he can't figure out.
It took him a few blinks, but everything swam into focus.
He was in the compartment, laying on the floor. Hermione and Ron were sitting on either side of his head, looking down over him. Hermione has worry lines around her eyes that he didn't notice and Ron was twirling his wand in his hands, eyes dark and worried. People were poking their heads by his door, staring in with wide eyes. He didn't recognize any of them.
And then there was the professor, Professor Remus J Lupin, standing over him with a wand drawn and soft grey eyes. His hair was salt and pepper and tousled fondly, and his robes are old with a tear down the side. His wand was drawn. There's a strip of something white over his shoulder.
And also his wand was drawn.
No one else seemed to be reacting to that, so Harry put it out of his mind and focused on the other things. Like how his left hand hurts like the fires of hell are on it, and he distinctly remembers passing out, and also how he woke up in a train compartment.
Then he remembered the creature, the monster with pitch black skin that was sucked dry next to the bone. The one with empty black pits for eyes and the hole for a mouth, the one that stopped the train, the one that froze the windows and door from the inside, the one that shattered the lights, the one with black robes that flowed like water.
And the one that had grabbed his hand and attacked him and then there was a flash of silver light.
That was why he had passed out.
His breath sped up in his throat and his heart beat an insanely fast rhythm, but then he felt the train moving beneath him. It didn't shudder or stop, just kept chugging along. His anxiety dropped slightly.
"Harry," Professor Lupin said, kneeling down slightly. "Harry. Can you hear me? Are you okay?"
Harry blinked a couple more times, looking around. There didn't seem to be anything wrong. The lights were all on, the windows were unfrosted, and the compartment door was fine. "Yes. I think I'm fine." He ignored how his hand was shaking and the other one hurt. "What happened?"
The professor chose his words carefully. "Well, dementors got onto the train. And they attacked you, but I was able to chase them off."
"Dementor?" He blinked, trying to think back. In every class he had ever had, he didn't remember dementors. Were they evil?
Harry frowned. "I remember it grabbing me? Is everything okay?"
His hand started to hurt again, pounding and burning and freezing at the same time. He brought it up to look at, but then Hermione quickly started to speak. "Harry! Um - of course, everything is fine! You don't have to worry-" But then he looked at his hand and froze.
His hand was rotted, just like the handle of the door. Dark grey and black studded over his skin, with three finger marks burned deep into his skin. It spread up to his wrist, ugly and horrific.
He slowly tried to move his fingers. And they did, but slowly and painfully and hard to control.
A scream built in his throat. He choked it down, staring around the compartment with wide, wide eyes.
Professor Lupin sighed and held up a hand. "The train is nearly there. We'll take you to Madam Pomfrey as soon as possible, don't you worry. It can't be as bad as it looks."
He stared up at him with incredulity, eyes wide and confused. "Take me Saint Mungos now! I can't get it healed just lying on the ground as I wait to go to school!"
Lupin shook his head. "No Harry, you'll be fine in the Hospital Wing." His wand flicked back up into his sleeve, disappearing from view. He had a perfectly normal face, one with eyebrows creased with worry and grey eyes wide and warm. If Harry had seen him on the street, he wouldn't have looked twice. But now the man was still standing over him with a wand and was apparently a professor. A professor who won't take him to get the healing he deserves.
He cast around to Hermione and Ron, asking for help with his eyes. They both meet his gaze but Hermione just smiles as best she can and gives him a thumbs up. She hadn't looked at his hand even once. Ron saw the struggle in Harry's eyes and just looked away, eyes closed. He's on his own here.
But the man was a professor. Despite everything that his instincts and his previous years of Hogwarts tell him, he simply nodded angrily and started to push himself up to a standing position. It almost took him a moment to realize he can't actually feel anything from his left hand.
Well. That wasn't quite true.
It was cold, cold in the kind of burning fashion that felt like his fingers could start falling off at any second. His hand wasn't painful enough to bring tears or even hurt too much, just a constant reminder that some part of him was wrong.
He flexed it, watching the pitch black skin roughly bunch up and then smooth out. It was like watching a stranger's hand instead of his own, one that had been caught in a fire.
"Oh Harry, you don't have to look at it, Madam Pomfrey will get it healed up as soon as you get there." Hermione was almost fretting over him, hands coiling and recoiling as if she wants to push his arm down but can't get herself to touch it. She was expecting him to be furious and hysterical. He was overcome with a feeling to prove her wrong.
"Oh, I know," he said rather mildly. "But it is rather curious how I was attacked and all it does is rot my hand away. Was that it?"
Professor Lupin shuffled almost nervously. "Well, no. Dementors - er - well, they suck the souls from their victims. I was able to chase it off before that happened."
Something burned on the back of his throat, something fierce and rough and painful. He swallowed. "Ah. Of course." And then he went back to looking at his hand, flicking his eyes over it and trying to pretend that this was a museum piece, something dead for many hundreds of years and kept around to look at, not attached to him. It helped, if minutely.
They don't talk anymore on the way to Hogwarts, and he could not have been more happy about that. His forced calm was dripping away, and it was all he could do to keep his breathing steady. Ron still hadn't made more than three seconds of eye contact and Hermione still murmured under her breath things that he couldn't hear. Professor Lupin sat down on a bench, eyes sliding closed soon. The man must have been exhausted, and Harry felt a little wriggling of sympathy worm its way into him.
But then excited voices echoed around the train, much quieter than previous years. They were still loud enough to hear, and that was when Harry pushed himself off of his seat and walked to the door. The piece of rotted wood was still there, glistening and ugly.
My hand is uglier, he thought almost smugly, and then patted himself on the back for taking this so well.
Hermione lunged forward to pull the door open for him, hiding the wood as the compartment side folded outward. They walked out, Professor Lupin staying back with his eyes open. At least the man didn't fall asleep as he was supposed to leave.
They wandered through the crowds, slowly pushing themselves through the train to pop out one of the exits. It wasn't a very far walk to the carriages, and he deftly danced around the tiny first years making their way over to Hagrid's enormous figure. Harry waved happily to him before Hermione snatched his hand down.
"Hermione! What was that for?"
"Don't let others see it, Harry! What if- what if they try to use it against you, or they make more fun, or if Malfoy sees you," she hissed, bunching up his robes over his hand.
He ripped them off. "Hermione, it's fine. Everyone knows I was attacked, and if Malfoy gets wind of this, then maybe I can infect him with it."
She smiled in spite of herself. "Oh, alright. Just be careful."
They grinned before Ron pushed himself next to Harry, putting him in the middle. "Oi, trying to kick the ginger out? It won't work!"
Laughter bubbled up in their throats as they finally found an empty carriage and clambered on. It wouldn't be long until they arrived at Hogwarts, and then Madam Pomfrey would fix his hand up so fast he'd still have time to see all of the new sortings. Everything would be fine.
They rumbled up next to the front gates and saw Madam Pomfrey already standing there. Harry clambered out of the carriage and trotted up to her, grinning widely.
She sniffed but smiled when she saw him, hand extending. "Come along, Mr. Potter. Much to do."
He waved to Hermione and Ron with his right hand before letting himself be tugged through the front gates.
Immediately, he knew he was back at home. The corridors that stretched miles above him made of the same grey stone carved to perfection, lined with pictures of every witch and wizard imaginable. A few chattered emptily to the two of them as Madam Pomfrey sped to the Hospital Wing, and the shimmering shape of a ghost bobbed up ahead.
She pushed open a set of doors and walked into the crisp white healing hall, turning sharply on her heel and beckoning for Harry to follow her. He did, still grinning, and quickly walked over to his signature bed.
"Well. Show it to me," she said, settling down next to him, sitting on the next bed. He peeled back his robe sleeve and held his hand up in the air.
There was a sudden intake of breath. "Goodness. Well, that's much worse than I thought. I only heard that you had a bump with a dementor, not that your hand had been strangled by one. Have you had any chocolate?"
He blinked. "No?"
She sniffed. "I'd like to bash the head of the new professor in! That's standard procedure even if a dementor didn't get anywhere close to anyone. Stay here."
And then she was gone, disappearing into a room in the back. He flexed his fingers again, noticing how they moved much slower than he had intended. It was still strange, and he doubted that it would ever not be. At least until she fixed his hand up. That would be a relief.
She appeared a second later with a stick of Honeydukes chocolate in her hand, forcing it into his right. He quickly snarfed it down, sighing happily as some pit in his stomach he hadn't noticed popped out of existence.
Madam Pomfrey frowned over his hand before standing back up. "Cast a spell." He readied his wand. "With your left hand, Mr. Potter."
He swapped hands and winced. It was a flaming torch, and his hand was an ice block. Not quite pain but nothing comfortable, either. "That feels weird."
"That'll be your wand magic connecting with your left hand, Mr. Potter."
"I don't think it's connecting."
"Cast a spell then, and we'll find out," she sniffed.
He shrugged. "Wingardium Leviosa."
Nothing happened. He tried again, this time aiming for a pillow. "Wingardium Leviosa." Still nothing.
Madam Pomfrey scowled, swooping in on his hand. He quickly set his wand down as she gently touched his fingers. Her wand appeared and she started to murmur words, soft ones that trickled from her lips. Bursts and buzzes of light danced around his hand, seemingly unstopping.
And then her wand snapped back up her sleeve and she stepped back, face dark and eyebrows drawn.
"I'm afraid I'm unable to fix it, Mr. Potter."
He blinked up at her. "What?"
"You heard me. I am not able to fix your hand, nor will you ever be able to cast any sort of magic with it again."
Hey guys! New fic.
This one should be pretty long, or at least I hope so. I'm going to have regular updates so I can kick my rear into gear and I also have written out a plan, so that might help!
Also! 25th story, guys! Isn't that awesome?
But yeah! Tell me what you think and what you think is going to happen! Happy reading!
Anyway! Please read and review!
Frost OUT!
