There were no empty compartments by the time Harry, Ron, and Hermione got on the Hogwarts Express. The best they could do was the compartment at the very end of the train, where a disheveled young man was sleeping, a frayed Muggle baseball cap covering his face. They looked at him curiously as they shuffled in, stowing their trunks under the seats. He didn't move, still fast asleep as they seated themselves as far away from him as possible.
"Who d'you suppose he is?" Ron whispered, pulling his pet rat – a fat brown creature named Max – out of his pocket and setting it on his shoulder. "He doesn't look like a student."
And indeed he didn't. The young man was dressed in worn Muggle clothing, faded jeans and a threadbare flannel shirt revealing a lanky, rather skinny form. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, large feet propped up on the bench opposite, his head leaning against the window. Though they couldn't see his face, a mop of sandy brown hair peeked out from underneath his cap, and they could see a healthy amount of blond stubble along his jawline. Though she would never admit it to Ron and Harry, Hermione found herself subtly ogling him, wishing the cap wasn't covering quite so much of his face. Ginny and Hannah tripped in to join them, and by the way their eyes lit up as they saw their mysterious traveling companion, Hermione knew she wasn't the only one who found the young man intriguing.
The trip passed in relative peace. The man must have been dead tired, because he slept straight through four rounds of Exploding Snap, the arrival of Neville, and a blazing row between Ron and Ginny when she found Max eating her Honeydukes chocolate. The world outside the train window got darker and darker as they neared Hogwarts. The children were just beginning to think about putting on their school robes when the lights on the train suddenly flickered and went out. The train screeched in protest as it came to an abrupt halt, and they all cried out as they were flung from their seats.
"Hannah, get off me!"
"Ow, don't sit here, I'm here!"
"Max! Where's Max! Did you squash him Ginny?"
"I wish –"
"Quiet!"
The pitch-black compartment was silenced immediately by the authoritative tone. A crackle, a spark, and suddenly they could see by the light of a blue flame that the tired young man seemed to be holding directly in his palm. He looked around in concern.
"Is everyone alright?" They nodded, brushing themselves off and slowly getting to their feet. Before anyone could say another word, though, a horrendous screech of rending metal came from the back door of the train, as though it was being forcefully pulled from its hinges. The young man's eyes snapped up, an expression of deadly focus on his face as he strode to the door of the compartment, just as two shadowy figures blocked it. The children gasped in fear as the blue flame illuminated the sunken faces of Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov, the only Death Eaters that remained at large in the world. The pure malice on their faces made something in Harry quake, but the sandy-haired man stood his ground, his voice clear and confident, no wand in sight.
"Good evening. Is there something I can help you with?" The calm words belied the clear tone of warning in his voice. Dolohov sneered and raised his wand.
"Yeah, you can get out of our way. We want the Potter boy, and we don't much care what happens to the rest of you." The tips of both of their wands were now angled directly at the young man's throat. Harry was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe as he fumbled for his wand with sweating hands, not sure what he was planning to do with it. He felt his sister's hand wrap around his upper arm in a trembling grip. This was her first train ride to Hogwarts, and Harry's jaw tightened in determination to protect her.
Against all reason, the young man began to softly chuckle. He released his ball of blue flame, letting it float away from him, and continued to laugh as the Death Eaters' faces went from shocked, to confused, to livid. Bellatrix opened her mouth, a spell on the tip of her tongue, and suddenly the young man exploded into action. He grabbed both wands and jerked them upwards, scorching the ceiling with the Death Eaters' spells. Wrenching the wands away, he expertly hooked his leg around Dolohov's, bringing the larger man to the ground heavily. Grabbing a shocked Bellatrix by the hair, he twisted her around and wrapped his arm tightly around her throat in what appeared to be a Muggle wrestling move, rendering her unconscious in seconds. He let her fall to the ground unceremoniously, and strode over to Dolohov, who was trying desperately to scramble back towards the door they had so recently ripped from its hinges. The young man also took Dolohov by the hair but, foregoing the wrestling move, he simply slammed the older man's head against the solid wall. It was brutally efficient, and within a minute of the Death Eaters boarding the train, they were unconscious and bleeding on the floor.
There was a shocked silence. The sandy-haired man looked down at the crumpled, black-clad figures, as if to make sure they were going to stay down. Then Ron let out a strangled laugh.
"That was bloody brilliant," he said shakily, sweeping a shaking hand across his face. "Can you teach us how to do that?"
The young man turned to them and grinned, and the three girls immediately fell in love a little bit. He was not classically handsome – rather plain in fact – but his smile lit up his face, and his hazel eyes twinkled from behind his messy, sandy brown fringe. His skin was tanned golden, as though he spent a lot of time working outside, and three mysterious scars ran in parallel from near his left eye, across his stubbled cheekbone and down his neck, where they disappeared under the flannel shirt. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties – tall, but not overly so, with a medium build that spoke of hidden strength. Hermione was appalled to find herself blatantly checking him out, and barely listened when he replied to Ron, voice lilting with a hint of a foreign accent.
"Well, I certainly hope I can, cause that's what I'm here for. I'm Remus Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."
