Disclaimer: If you know it, it's from Prisoner of Azkaban. Tragically, I did not write that book. JKR did. Thus, I do not own it.
Edited and reloaded 24 July 2013
Meet a Dementor
Summer came to an end with a whimper. All too soon, Draco found himself trailing after Harry, looking for Hermione on the Hogwarts Express.
"Where is she?" Harry asked, peeking in compartment after compartment.
Hermione's bushy head poked out of a door of a compartment of the last car Harry and Draco tried. She waved wildly. Draco elbowed Harry, who finally turned away from the compartment he was staring into. The boys hurried down to where Hermione was waving. Draco came to a dead stop upon seeing who was sharing the compartment with them.
"What's he doing here?" Draco asked.
"He's Professor R.J. Lupin," Hermione replied.
"Who?" Harry asked, gawking at the sleeping man. "Why's he here?"
"That's obvious," Hermione whispered, tugging Draco into the compartment. "There's only one vacancy."
"Defense," Harry sighed, sitting down next to Professor Lupin.
"But…" Draco stared at Lupin, who appeared rather ill and exhausted. While still quite young looking, his light brown hair was flecked with grey and his face was rather lined. He wasn't shabby, though, as he'd been the first time around. He was rather well dressed for Lupin.
"What?" Hermione and Harry asked together.
"That's Mr Remus," Draco said. "You know, Atlanta's tutor?"
Draco frowned, trying to remember if Harry had ever met the man. Draco knew Harry was aware of the man due to the fact Harry's face lit up when Draco called Lupin Mr Remus. Harry turned to closer inspect the sleeping adult next to him.
"Oh," Hermione said, eyeing the trunks above Lupin's head. "Did he only come because of Atlanta, then?"
"I don't think so. I wouldn't know, though," Draco admitted. "I haven't heard from her at all since…well, she appeared in front of us when she came back from wherever she went."
"No letters?"
Draco shook his head. "I wrote her a few, but I didn't get any answers back."
"I didn't write," Harry said. "Two weeks I couldn't and after that, Draco did the writing for me."
Hermione nodded. "So, he's here…?"
"To look after her for Mr Black?" Draco guessed. "Or he was the only person who accepted the DADA job. It is cursed."
Harry snorted. "Sure, Draco."
"Harry," Hermione scolded, glancing at Draco out of the corner of her eye. Draco rolled his own and settled into his seat.
Draco and Hermione both knew Lupin had been the professor the first time around third year, thus they both knew it was likely the case this time around. Silently, Hermione asked if the man had ridden the train last time and Draco gave a small nod, which went unnoticed by Harry, who was still studying Professor Lupin.
"Wonder if he's ill," Harry commented. "And why is he on the train? Professor's usually don't ride the train."
"I bet he was told to ride the train to watch Atlanta," Hermione offered. "I take it that is her trunk next to his case. It was here when I arrived, but he was the only one in the compartment. All the others were already full. You two were rather late."
Harry gave her a sheepish smile, sinking down in his seat a little.
"I take it from your reaction, it was your fault?" Hermione asked, quirking her eyebrows upward.
"Harry decided it'd be best to play a practical joke this morning and turn my hair green," Draco sneered, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Your mum set it right! We wouldn't have been late if you hadn't had a royal hissy fit like a girl!"
The two boys argued in quiet voices for fifteen minutes before Hermione hushed them.
"So, do either of you know much about Hogsmeade?" Hermione asked. "I know it's the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain."
"It's filled with shops," Draco offered.
"And I'm not allowed to go," Harry pouted, slouching down further and sticking out his bottom lip.
"What? Why ever not?"
"He blew up his aunt," Draco reminded Hermione.
"So, my uncle refused to sign the form and Aunt Narcissa can't as she's not my guardian," Harry grumped.
"Ah, well, maybe it's for the best," Hermione offered, looking uncomfortable.
"What? Why?"
"Sirius Black," she reminded Harry. "He's out to get you."
Harry snorted, eyeing Draco, waiting for Draco to pipe up with his denial of this fact.
"He's not, Hermione," Draco said, giving Hermione a sideways look.
The pair had decided last year if Sirius Black escaped, Hermione would remain suspicious of Sirius Black until Harry had figured out Draco was from the future (if he ever did). If she suddenly switched her beliefs, Harry would want to know why she had changed her mind, which would lead to her telling him about Draco being from the future. That was a can of worms they both knew they couldn't open up. Harry had to figure it out on his own. If he didn't, Time might get pissed off and do something drastic.
Draco was having enough issues changing the future without Time being mad at him. Somewhere in his head, Draco was still having trouble with the fact he had fully excepted the theories he'd read last year in a book called Time Traveling Souls. It was where he'd gotten the whole fixed points in time thing from and that Time was a woman. Actually, per the book, she was a mad woman who lived in a box.
The author sounded like he was more insane than Harry Potter, but at the end of the day, the book made sense. Tragically.
"The papers said Black is a follower of Voldemort," Hermione reminded the two boys in a scandalized tone. "This is serious. If he follows Voldemort, it's logical to assume he'll be after you, Harry."
"But, Hermione—" Draco started.
"No! I am sure Sirius Black did escape to come after Harry," Hermione insisted. She turned to Harry and pointed a finger at him. "We know he betrayed your parents and turned them over to Voldemort. And Harry, you're going to have to be really careful. Don't go looking for trouble."
"I don't look for it. It finds me usually," Harry said, nettled. "How thick would I be to go looking for a bloke who wants to murder me?"
"He won't murder you," Draco insisted.
"No one knows how he got out of Azkaban," Hermione reminded the boys. "No one's done it before and he was a top-security prisoner."
"But, he got out," Draco pointed out. "And don't go saying he used Dark Magic."
"I wasn't going to!" Hermione shouted.
"SHHHHH!" Harry hissed, pointing to Lupin, who snorted in his sleep and rolled his head till it hit the window. He went back to peacefully sleeping.
The trio toned down their conversation and stopped talking about Black. Harry seemed to be uncomfortable with the topic. Draco figured it might be due to the fact his two best friends were pitted against one another, but he let it slide in favor of doing something more fun than discussing Sirius Black as the train steadily traveled northward.
It was after lunch when Theodore Nott showed up. It had just started to rain when the door flew open, startling all three of the people who were awake. Nott stood in the open door, flanked by his minions, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.
Nott glared at Harry, sneering. Nott was a weedy boy who had decided to be exactly what Draco Malfoy had been the first time around: a total prat. He and Harry were enemies, though the feud between the two never got to the point it had been with Draco and Potter.
Crabbe and Goyle were just as Draco remembered them: stupid, large and mindless. They were both cracking their knuckles, a clear sign they were looking for a fight.
"Well, look who it is," Nott drawled, turning his attention to Draco. He glared daggers of disgust at Draco. "Potty and the blood-traitor."
"Nice insult. Did it take you all summer to come up with that, Weedy?" Draco drawled back, interrupting the trollish laughter Crabbe and Goyle had been mustering up.
Nott sneered, opening his mouth to snap at Draco, but nothing came out as he finally noticed Professor Lupin.
"Who's that?" Nott asked, taking a step backwards.
"New teacher," Harry explained, glancing over at Lupin. "You were saying, Nott?"
"C'mon," Nott muttered resentfully to his cronies.
"Well, that was lovely," Hermione drawled from the corner she was sitting in reading a thick book. "He didn't even notice me. I feel insulted I didn't get insulted."
Harry and Draco both laughed.
The rain outside thickened as the train headed further north. By the time the sun would be about beginning its decent, it was raining hard and the lanterns had been lit for two hours or more. Professor Lupin, though, slept on as hard as he had been when they'd entered the compartment.
"We're nearly there," Hermione announced, shutting her book. She turned and peered out the window. "Not that I can see anything. But, it's almost the time we be about there. Maybe we ought to get changed."
"The train is slowing," Harry suddenly announced, tensing up. "But we're not there, are we?"
"No. It's a black endless abyss out there," Hermione commented, turning away from the window. "Can't see a thing."
"Why are we stopping?" Harry asked.
"Oh, no," Draco said, suddenly remembering why the train was stopping.
"What?" Hermione asked, knowing full well Draco had remembered something important.
"What? Draco?" Harry asked, not knowing in the least.
"I, uh, I…"
The lights suddenly went out as the train came to a jerky halt. Harry stood up. The door slid open.
"Lights are out all over," he announced.
The door shut and Harry moved around the compartment.
"Ouch!" Hermione gasped. "Harry, that's my foot. Where are you going?"
"Window."
"Sit down."
"NOT THERE!" Draco shouted as Harry sat down in his lap.
"Sorry."
Noise told them Harry was moving and falling into his own seat.
"I think people are moving in the hallway," Harry announced after awhile.
The compartment door slid open again and someone fell inside.
"Sorry— d'you know what's going on? Ouch. Sorry."
"Hullo, Neville," Harry said.
There was noise as Harry pulled Neville to his side of the compartment.
"Harry?" Neville asked. "What's going on?"
"No idea. Are you sitting?"
"Yes."
"I'm over here."
"Oh. There's someone on my other side."
"That'd be Professor Lupin."
"Oh."
"I'm going to go ask the driver what is going on," Hermione said loudly. "Unless you'd like to tell me?"
She asked the last question in Draco's ear.
"Dementors," Draco whispered back as Neville asked Harry again what was going on.
Hermione stayed where she was as the door slid open yet again. There were two squeals of pain as two more bodies tripped and fell into the compartment.
"Who's that?"
"You know who I am!"
"No, there are other people in here! I can see them! Why did you trip?"
"I can't see magic like you, Atlanta!"
"Ginny, there are at least five people in this compartment already. Professor Lupin is asleep in the corner, Harry and Neville are there and Draco and Hermione are over here. There is room here."
The speaker pushed Ginny Weasley over to the window.
"Atlanta?" Harry asked.
"Huh?"
"Is that you?"
"Who?"
"It would be me. Hullo."
The sing song voice was familiar, but it was now in an odd sounding British accent rather than American.
"So, you're back?" Hermione asked. "For good?"
"Unless I accidentally time travel myself somewhere again," she joked. "Professor Lupin assured me this would not happen, nor do I think it'll happen. Must keep away from strange books is all. Now, what is going on?"
Everyone tried to tell her at once what they thought was going on. Chaos reigned until a hoarse voice suddenly shouted, "Quiet!"
Light was filling the cramped compartment suddenly, casting everyone in a soft, shimmering blue light. The flames in Lupin's palm were similar to the ones Hermione cast so well, hence why he wasn't getting burned. The soft blue light illuminated the gray, tired face of Remus Lupin and showed how alert and wary his amber eyes were as he cast them around the compartment.
"Atlanta?"
"Yes?"
"Where have you been?"
"I went to find Ginny," she replied. "We're on the train. What is going to happen to me on the train?"
Lupin gave her a look.
She huffed her annoyance.
"Stay where you are," Lupin warned.
Before Lupin could do whatever he had planned to do, the door slid open again. Draco did not bother to turn to look at the dementor. His insides were frozen and all he could hear was the taunting voice of Lord Voldemort, the sounds of the Battle of Hogwarts, and his own screams. He huddled into himself next to Hermione, knowing she was actually warm but feeling none of that warmth.
Suddenly the compartment was filled with silver light and slowly, Draco's head cleared and he became aware of Hermione clinging to his arm. There was a thump and Draco tore his eyes away from the spot he'd been blankly staring to find Harry on the ground.
Dementors were no friends of Harry's any more than Potter's it seemed.
"Oh, no," Neville muttered, his teeth chattering. "What's wrong with Harry?"
"Nothing," Lupin muttered, Vanishing the flames. He knelt down, checked Harry's pulse and then stood back up, heading for his suitcase. Hermione untangled herself from Draco and fell to the floor and shook Harry. Draco looked over to where Atlanta and Ginny were huddled. Ginny was pale and shaking. Atlanta was rocking back and forth, pale as well.
Well, more pale. Since her time travel mishap, she'd looked drastically different than she had before. Studying her in the light, Draco saw she'd chopped off her long, flowing, curly black hair to just above her shoulders. This seemed to accent the chiseled appearance of her face. She no longer looked anything like the Atlanta Black Draco had known. She seemed to have become more…alien since he'd seen her in January some nine months ago.
"Here."
Draco snapped his attention to the large chunk of chocolate in front of his face.
"It seems many of you have horrors in your pasts," Professor Lupin murmered, eyeing Draco with a strange look.
"Thanks," Draco muttered, taking the chocolate. Lupin turned and made sure Atlanta and Ginny were all right before kneeling down to the waking up Harry.
"What happened?" Harry asked, attempting to sit up. Lupin put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down.
Harry looked worse off than all of them put together. He was sickly green instead of just pale and he was sweating. After taking in his state, Lupin guided Harry into a seated position, where he sat for a moment till he stopped swaying back and forth. Standing, Lupin allowed Hermione and Neville to guide Harry to a seat on the bench.
"Are you okay?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know. What happened? It got really cold and who was screaming?"
"No one screamed," Neville whispered.
"But, I heard screaming," Harry said, looking confused.
"Many of us heard things," Atlanta whispered.
"Here," Lupin said, handing Harry a large chunk of chocolate. Harry took it, but didn't eat it. He was staring at Atlanta and Ginny.
"What was that thing?" Harry asked, casting his green eyes back on Lupin.
"A dementor," Lupin supplied, handing the last bit of chocolate to Neville. "One of the dementors from Azkaban. Now eat up. It'll make you feel better."
Everyone still had chocolate in their hands except for Atlanta, who was no longer as pale or shaking, but composed as she'd been when she'd entered in the dark.
"Eat," Lupin repeated. "It'll help, won't it, Atlanta?"
"Yes, helps greatly. It counters the effects of dementors by warming you up inside and out."
Draco took a large bite and felt the warmth flood through him.
"I need to speak to the driver. Excuse me. Oh, Atlanta, stay put," he ordered.
Atlanta huffed.
"Why is he so concerned for you?" Neville asked as the door slammed shut, looking at Atlanta curiously.
"He worries. Constantly," Atlanta drawled in an unfamiliar manner. She rolled her eyes in a very familiar manner and added, "He's my tutor. Was my tutor? Well, he's been with me since I was a baby, so of course he worries. I'm like his daughter."
Draco tried hard not to snort at that statement, which was more true than Atlanta realized.
Harry demanded to know what had happened in great detail when the dementor entered. Draco allowed Hermione and Neville to explain it to him. Draco moved till he was sitting next to Atlanta and Ginny, who even after eating her chocolate was rather pale and shaky.
"What happened to you, Atlanta? I know you…well, something happened and you thought you were someone else. That's what Mother told me, but she wouldn't give me much detail," Draco asked, looking over the unfamiliar, yet familiar face of his friend.
"Well, I left Atlanta Siria Black, was turned into someone named Calliope Wren Riddle, was dragged to the 1970s by some girl Atlanta D. Black where Dumbledore realized the barriers Tom Riddle had created between Atlanta and Calliope were crumbling and then was sent to 1992 where I went under intense therapy to meld the two together."
Draco baffled, gaped at her.
"I am Atlanta Black as well as Calliope Riddle. I used Occulemency in order to organize Atlanta Black's thoughts and life into my own. It was difficult, but I am no longer unstable and will not go insane. But, I am who I am. I will never be the Atlanta Black you knew again, nor will I ever be the Calliope Riddle Tom Riddle knew again. I am me."
Draco wasn't sure what she meant by that, but who ever she was at the moment, she was right.
She wasn't who he remembered.
Once again, Draco was faced with a completely different person than who he'd come to know. The Atlanta he had actually grown up with the first time around and remembered was completely different than the Atlanta he'd been presented with once he'd returned to the past three years ago. And now he had yet another different person.
Time must really hate Atlanta Black with a passion.
"You're not all that different," a quiet voice said from behind Atlanta. "You talk differently, but your personality is still like the girl I knew."
"Thanks, Ginny," Atlanta said, smiling at the girl. She squeezed Ginny's hand and turned back to Draco. "I'm sorry I was unable to reply to your letters. My father confiscated most of my letters this summer, fearing I was not prepared for them. I only got Ginny's because Re— Professor Lupin received those."
Draco frowned, but didn't ask.
"I need to change," Ginny said, standing up. "I'll come back after I get my stuff."
"Oh. Draco, could you go with her? Professor Lupin told me to stay," Atlanta sighed, rolling her eyes again. "He worries." She shook her head in wonderment. "I'm not sure why he worries so."
Draco smiled softly. Of course Lupin worried. Atlanta was his daughter, who had a new personality due to something Lord Voldemort had done to her. He couldn't imagine what his mother would be like if that had happened to him. Draco doubted he'd be allowed to leave her sight. Well, the old version of Narcissa Malfoy. He wasn't sure what the new one would do. He doubted either one would let him go back to Hogwarts, the scene of the crime, that much was for sure.
"Come on, Ginny," Draco said, jerking his head at the door.
Ginny blushed and hurried out, followed by Draco.
"You don't need to go with me," she mumbled at the ground, her cheeks glowing pink.
"Oh, it's fine. We'll just grab your trunk and head back. I doubt you can really carry the trunk easily on your own."
Ginny did not reply.
"So, is she really that different or the same? I'm not sure how to ask that question?" Draco asked, laughing uncomfortably.
"Feel kind of confused?" Ginny ventured, peeking up at Draco.
"Yes, actually."
"Give her time," Ginny said. "She's not acting like herself at the moment. She's more Calliope than she's Atlanta right now because she's scared. The dementor…"
"Makes you relive your worst moments," Draco whispered.
Ginny nodded.
"Whatever Riddle did to Atlanta was worst than what he did to me," Ginny whispered. "And I thought I was going to…"
"Yeah," Draco quickly agreed. "I know."
Ginny frowned. "I can't imagine what was terrible…oh, unless…"
Ginny didn't finisher her sentence as they reached the compartment where she'd stored her trunk. Quickly grabbing it, Draco helped her haul it back to the other end of the train.