Hey guys! I have returned with the Prisoner of Azkaban! And cover your ears, I DO NOT OWN ANYONE BUT MY OC'S!

The train ride was long and quick at the same time, the day turning into night and the night sky filled with dark clouds and rain.

"Let me get this straight." said Ron. "Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban to come after you and Tess?"

"Apparently." Harry replied.

"Oh Harry!" Hermione said worried. "You'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry..."

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

"Preach brother." said Johnnie, holding up a fist.

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

"But still." said Tess. "They'll catch Black eventually. I mean pretty much everybody is rooting for his capture.

"Sure." said Johnnie. "Except Azkaban is, or was one of the top security prisons in the world and it doesn't really help that he's a psychopath."

"No one knows how he got out of Azkaban," said Ron uncomfortably. "That's why most countries are on high alert. No one's ever done it before. And he was a top-security prisoner too. He was imprisoned on over 10 murders."

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

D'you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked awkwardly to try to ease the tension that had suddenly fallen on the compartment. He nodded towards Professor Lupin. "He looks like he could do with some food. Luckily I saved some from the cart."

"Oh Ron." Tess said, shaking her head. "The host of the bottomless pit known as your stomach."

"Hey!" said Ron. "Food is important, especially if I'm a growing boy."

Johnnie sniggered at Harry's reaction of the words, "growing boy."

Hermione approached Professor Lupin cautiously.

"Er - Professor?" she said. "Excuse me - Professor?"

He didn't move.

"I suppose he is asleep?" said Ron quietly. "I mean - he hasn't died, has he?"

"No, no, he's breathing," whispered Hermione, taking the cauldron cake Ron passed her.

The rain thickened as the train sped yet farther north; the windows were now a solid, shimmering gray, 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, Professor Lupin slept.

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

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

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

"I may be new here but I'm pretty sure that we can't be there yet," said Johnnie, checking his watch.

"So why the pausies?" Tess asked.

"Don't know." Harry replied. "Maybe we've broken down."

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.

Harry, who was nearest the door, got up to look into the corridor. All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments.

The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them 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?" said Ron's voice from behind Harry.

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

Harry felt his way back to his seat.

"What's going on?" Tess asked.

"Dunno..." Ron muttered. There was a squeaking sound, and Harry 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..."

"Out here?" Tess asked. "I'm pretty sure we're nowhere near a train station."

"Sometimes you don't need a train station to get on a train." Hermione quipped.

The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell painfully over Harry and Tess' legs.

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

"Hullo, Neville," said Harry, feeling around in the dark and pulling Neville up by his cloak.

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

"No idea! Sit down -" Johnnie made room as best as she could.

There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had almost sat on Crookshanks by accident.

"I'm gonna go and ask the driver what the deal is." came Johnnie's voice. Harry felt her pass him, heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain. "But guys." He spoke in a voice that oozed authority. "Nobody leaves this compartment, ok? We all need to stick tight together. Understand?"

"Who's that?" Ginny's voice sounded.

"Who's that?" Came Hermione's voice.

"Ginny?"

"Hermione?"

"What are you doing?"

"I was looking for Ron -"

"Come in and sit down -"

"Not here!" said Harry hurriedly. "I'm here!"

"Ouch!" said Neville.

"Quiet!" said a hoarse voice suddenly.

Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. Harry could hear movements in his corner.

None of them spoke.

There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked 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. He looked at Johnnie. "You too, young man. Stick with your friends."

But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.

Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin's hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. Harry's eyes darted downward, and what he saw made his stomach contract. Tess looked like she was going to throw up. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water...

But it was visible only for a split second. As though the creature beneath the cloak sensed Harry and Tess's gaze, the hand was suddenly withdrawn into the folds of its black cloak and floated closer to them.

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

An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart… Tess felt the same thing. It was like she was being pushed down in ice cold water.

Harry's eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn't see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder...

And then, from far away, Harry heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. Tess heard an explosion and felt the heat of a large fire. She could smell the smoke coming from the burning building. They wanted to help whoever it was, they tried to move their arms, but couldn't...a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside both of them -

"Harry! Tess! Are you all right?"

Someone was slapping his face and pinching Tess skin.

"W-what?"

"Wha is 'at?"

Harry and Tess opened their eyes; there were lanterns above him, and the floor was shaking - the Hogwarts Express was moving again and the lights had come back on. He seemed to have slid out of his seat onto the floor. Ron, Johnnie, and Hermione were kneeling next to them, and above them they could see Neville and Professor Lupin watching. Harry felt very sick; when he put up his hand to push his glasses back on, he felt cold sweat on his face. Tess took a few heaving breaths that sounded like she had come back for air after being submerged in water for so long.

Ron and Hermione heaved him back onto his seat.

"Are you okay?" Ron asked nervously.

"Yeah," said Harry, looking quickly toward the door. The hooded creature had vanished. "What happened? Where's that - that thing? Who screamed?"

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

"Then what was that exploding noise?" Tess asked confused. "And that heat?"

"I didn't hear anything." said Johnnie. "And it's still cool in here."

Harry looked around the bright compartment. Ginny and Neville looked back at him, both very pale.

"But I heard screaming -"

"I heard this boom-"

A loud snap made them all jump. Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.

"Here," he said to Harry and Tess, handing each a particularly large piece. "Eat it. It'll help."

Harry took the chocolate but didn't eat it. Tess instantly took it and warmth spread to her fingertips and toes.

"What was that thing?" he asked Lupin.

"A Dementor," said Lupin, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else. "One of the guards of Azkaban. It was searching the train for Sirius Black."

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

"Eat," he repeated. "It'll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me..."

He strolled past Harry and disappeared into the corridor but not before giving his coat to Tess. "You look like you need the warmth."

"Are you sure you're both ok?" said Hermione, watching Harry and Tess anxiously.

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

"Well " Neville said. "- that thing - the Dementor - stood there and looked around - and both - you -"

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

"And Professor Lupin stepped in front of you two, and walked toward the Dementor, and pulled out his wand," said Hermione, "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 around and sort of glided away..."

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

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

"Me too." said Johnnie. "And I thought that's what you felt in Los Angeles."

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

"But didn't any of you fall off your seats?" said Tess.

"No," said Ron, looking anxiously at Harry again. "Ginny was shaking like mad, though..."

Harry didn't understand. He felt weak and shivery, as though he were recovering from a bad bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame. Why had he and Tess gone to pieces like that, when no one else had?

Professor Lupin had come back. He paused as he entered, looked around, and said, with a small smile, "I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know..."

Harry took a bite and to his great surprise felt a warm fire light in his body, the kind of warmth one felt after being in a cold winter storm for so long.

"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," Professor Lupin had reappeared. "Are you all right, Harry? You too, Quintessa? Johnnie?"

Harry didn't ask how Professor Lupin knew his name. But Johnnie took that liberty.

"H-how do you know my name?"

Lupin only chuckled. "I've known you since you were very small. I better go check on anyone else who needs chocolate. I find that it helps with any problem."