I don't own Harry Potter. All rights belong to J. K. Rowling. The only thing I own is Ami.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Incidents on the Train
When September first came the Quartet had gotten on the train just as it was about to leave. Ami giggled quietly when Mrs Weasley was running towards them as they waved their goodbyes out the window and handed Scabbers up to Ron, who was surprised that he had actually forgotten his pet.
"Don't lose him!" his mother shouted over the sounds of the farewells and the chugging of the steam train.
The Elemental rolled her eyes.
"I'd actually prefer it if you did lose that rat," she muttered to herself. "Hate it when he goes into my Chocolate Frog supply."
While they walked through the corridor in search of a compartment the incident involving Aunt Marge came up again.
"Bloody brilliant if you ask me." Ron smiled.
"It's not funny! He was lucky not to be expelled!" Hermione chastised.
"I think I was lucky not to be arrested actually." Harry deadpanned.
"Personally I think the Ministry is trying to cosy up to you, win your favour since you're the Boy-Who-Lived. Merlin, I hate them." Ami groaned.
She found a compartment that only had one occupant, and he was sleeping. Seeing as there wasn't any other option she opened the door.
"Come on, everywhere else is full."
They bundled inside and put their hand luggage above their heads, sitting down soon after and looking at the man that was leant against the window sound asleep.
"Who is that?" Ron asked.
"Professor R J Lupin." Hermione answered.
Harry and Ami looked at each other as their friends argued back and forth, until Hermione pointed out the man's name on his suitcase, hence how she knew his name.
"Do you think he's really asleep, or just pretending to?" Harry questioned.
The Elemental became thoughtful for a moment.
"That depends. Aurors have been trained to sleep, and become alert within a second's notice if they need to defend themselves from an attack."
Hermione arched an eyebrow at that.
"Is that why you nearly punch someone when they tried to wake you up in the morning?"
"That was one time!"
It was getting late into the evening when they turned the conversation to Sirius Black. They marvelled at how he escaped from Azkaban, and Ron's sarcasm about him being a murderous raving lunatic didn't make Ami feel any better, especially since she knew that he was innocent. It was such a shame that she only had her witness testimony; she needed more evidence of the truth. Her attention returned to the matter at hand, where Harry was looking at Ron and clearly resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
"Thanks for that, Ron." He said sarcastically.
The Elemental shook her head.
"You're getting me agitated. I'm actually thinking that something's going to get on the train and prowl down the corridor before banging at the door to be let in!" she snapped.
At her words the train ground to a halt, thudding on the doors clearly showed that something was climbing aboard. The trio looked at their friend.
"You should have signed up for Divination. You're good at predicting things." Harry commented.
"No way! The teacher's a crackpot! I don't even know why you three are taking it." Ami retorted. Her blood then ran cold as the boy poked his head out of the compartment to see what was going on. "But I really think we should be worrying about what has just climbed onto the train..."
The lights flickered out and Ron peered out the window. Cold mist started to crawl across the glass, the liquid inside the bottle beside their new professor freezing up audibly with a faint crackle. They breathed out slowly, their breath visible before their very eyes. Ami desperately tried to think of what could cause such events to occur, but as the coldness crept over her body, she struggled to form even a coherent thought.
It was then that a black cloaked figure emerged on the other side of the door, their shroud floating around them as if they were underwater. The girl took a shuddering breath as her violet eyes watched a skeletal hand magically open the door and slowly drift inside. Scabbers and Crookshanks were clearly restless, the cat hissing at the creature. Ami clamped her hands over her eyes, the coldness running through her body and brutally constricted her heart. The screams... The screams!
No! No! Not again!
The images playing out before her eyes were not those of her friends. Ami felt like a small child again, crying in agony for her mother, who had dropped down dead while holding her in her arms.
Please Mama! Please! Don't leave me, Mama!
It hurt... It hurt so much... Her happiness... Her life was being sucked out of her. Her hand snatched out and gripped Harry's in a hope to ease the pain; anything to make it stop.
It was clear though that the creature found something to satisfy its appetite, because it had expressed its delight when it began to feed on Harry. Ami glanced weakly over to the professor and found that his eyes had snapped open and he had drawn his wand. A flick of his wrist and silver light erupted from the end of his wand, repelling the beast right out of their compartment. Harry fainted dead away onto Ami's shoulder with a soft thud, and the girl trembled with tears spilling from her eyes, hands clawing at her face in desperation. She wasn't even aware that Hermione and Ron were calling her name, trying to bring her back to the present.
"Ami! Ami!"
Ami could only whisper out a few words, her voice was like a child's as she whimpered.
"Don't go, Mama... Don't go..."
Lupin wondered over to the girl, knelt in front of her and tilted her chin up to look at her face. He was astounded to see the bright violet eyes brimming with tears.
"Ami, can you hear me? Are you listening?" he asked, reaching into his pocket for some chocolate.
"Damn that rat..." she whispered.
She blinked for a moment and looked up at her professor, rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears; Ami found herself looking up at a man with ragged brown robes, short brown hair and moustache, and pale scars across his face.
"Sorry... I'm fine now."
The Elemental didn't protest when he handed her a Chocolate Frog. Hermione furrowed her brow, looking at her friend as she nibbling the brown frog.
"What was that, Ami? You were crying for your mother. Didn't she die when you were a little girl?" she asked.
The Elemental looked at her through her eyelashes.
"I'll tell you when Harry's woken up. I don't want to have to repeat the story again later."
The girl was reluctant to accept that, but she couldn't argue with her logic; it only seemed fair to include Harry in the discussion.
Harry awoke not long after the lights had turned on again and the train had returned to moving towards their destination. Ami was still nibbling on her Chocolate Frog as she watched him move his head off her lap to stare at everyone.
Lupin knelt down and handed Harry some chocolate.
"Here, eat this. It will help."
"What was that thing?" Harry asked,
"A Dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban, it came onto the train to search for Sirius Black." Lupin explained.
Ami snorted.
"He was smart enough to break out of a prison that has never been escaped from before, so he's smart enough to not use a train that's obviously leading to where the Dementors are going to be guarding. We don't even know if he's coming to Hogwarts in the first place."
Hermione smiled at her.
"Good to see you've gone back to normal...at least as normal as you can be."
The Elemental playfully stuck out her tongue. Lupin looked between the four third years and smiled before getting to his feet.
"Excuse me, I need to have a word with the driver."
He bid them a quick farewell and left the compartment.
Harry absently nibbled on his chocolate before he asked, "What happened to me?"
"You sort of went rigid," explained Ron. "We first thought you were having a fit. You passed out on Ami's shoulder not long after. None of us fainted, but I felt that I was never going to be cheerful again."
Hermione nodded her head.
"I felt the same. But Ami, she looked like she was going into shock, she was muttering and clawing at her face. Lupin checked her over and saw that she was about to cry."
"Who screamed?" Harry asked.
Ron and Hermione looked at one another.
"No one screamed. Ami was muttering a lot, but she never screamed."
Hermione then decided to broach the subject that they had been waiting for, since Harry had woken up, and Ami had promised to tell them what was wrong with her.
"What happened to you, Ami?" she asked softly.
The Elemental sighed heavily.
"Those Dementors...they brought our worst experiences back to light. They made me see the worst night of my life..." she gulped. "I never told you how my mother died. She was...one of the victims that...Sirius Black killed to cover up that he supposedly killed Peter Pettigrew. She protected me with her own body... She died holding me in her arms... It was that night that I developed my fear of rats, it was the last thing I saw before I screamed and the Aurors arrived."
Her friends were stupefied into silence, the horror of her words sinking in; she was the only witness to Sirius Black's crimes at barely two years old, she would have been traumatised. That night took many things from her, her beloved mother and the years they should have had together; but she had gained things as well, the will to fight, and a fear of rats induced by visual trauma. Hermione then noticed something about her statement.
"You said 'supposedly', you don't believe he did it?" she asked.
Ami didn't like lying, but she needed proof before she could say her claims; sometimes she wondered if her memories were truly accurate, but she pushed her doubts away when she realised that there was no way she could forget the events that led to her mother's tragic demise.
"I was barely two years old when it happened, I can't say for sure. But there was never a trial, and the Ministry would never take the account of a small child that had just witnessed their mother dying in front of them, would probably have called it inaccurate because it doesn't fit in with everyone else's account of the events."
She looked out the window, feeling Harry holding her hand in his for the first time since she started talking.
"But this year, things are going to be very personal to me. I'm sorry if I'm not the best person to be around during the year."
Harry squeezed her hand gently.
"It's okay, we'll just take everything as it comes. You all stood by me last year, now it's our turn to stand by you."
The smile the trio received from her remained for the rest of the train journey, something they all appreciated. Ami did look better when she was smiling.
This chapter explores Ami's horrors and nightmares, she can't confess her theories and the truth to her friends because she wants to make sure that she isn't wrong, and that she has come evidence that what she says is true. This year is going to serve like an introduction into Ami's family history and the family dynamics that go with it.
What do you think? Let me know with your reviews. I am more than happy to receive constructive criticism about Ami and this story. Any questions? I am willing to answer them.
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