EDITED: September 2nd, 2021.

10 - Dark Rumours

I was startled awake by the knock on my door. Wiping the drool from my face, I stood and went to open it.

Percy looked down at me dressed in his new Hogwarts' robes, a shiny badge pinned to his chest. He hadn't t worn it before, but I suspected the robes had something to do with that. There was an elaborate 'H' and 'B' carved side to side onto the metal. It was pretty obvious what it meant.

"You were made Head Boy! Congratulations, Percy. You deserve it." And I wasn't exaggerating. Though he tended to go on tangents, he was helpful to all young kids; his scores were probably the best as well. With him stepping onto the role, I think he was the third on a row of the Weasley children to become Head Boy.

"Thank you, Anya. It was really difficult, for a moment there I thought Ross Gibberd would win—but that isn't why I am here. It's dinner time, and Father requests your presence. Ginny as well, but she was rather preoccupied not fainting around Harry."

I snorted. So Ginny hadn't gotten over her crush. I would tease her for not telling me.

"Thank you, Percy. Let me just put on some shoes and I'll go downstairs in a moment."

"I will wait," he said courteously.

I looked out for some flat shoes—I had the feeling that if I wore flip flops, I would stumble and roll down the stairs.

There were only Weasleys and Harry Potter at the big table. Tom the bartender was at the counter cleaning mugs with a rag that every once in a while was exchanged by another, the other piece of cloth floating to a bucket that had bubbles coming out. Either the pub had emptied throughout the day, or everybody had decided to not have dinner.

Both options seemed awfully suspicious.

"Her Majesty arrives!" declared George, dropping to the floor with a flourish. "Hail Anya Barton, Queen of the Fashionably Late!"

"Hail the Queen!" said Fred with the same fanfare.

"I said knock it off, Fred and George!" Mrs. Weasley said, waving her tablespoon menacingly. Tom the barkeeper eyed her closely—no doubt thinking about escaping.

I waved my hand lazily and said, "Rise, peasants." I heard Ron snort. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Damn," George winced, "and here I thought I had a chance at glimpsing your Charms notes." As a frequent member of the Charms Club, I did have an advantage over my peers sans Hermione. I saw and performed spells that were advanced, and I was really good at them.

Hopefully, I still was. I'd missed the last month worth of meetings.

"Be nicer to the first years and I will consider it."

Fred's head snapped up. "Hey! How come he gets a chance and I don't?"

I shrugged. "He's more handsome." I turned and thanked Percy, ignoring the guffaws coming from the floor.

Then I squared my shoulders and looked at the end of the table, where three pairs of eyes gazed at me expectantly.

It was strange. I knew these three people—they were my friends. The closest I'd ever had. The only ones I'd ever dared to care for. But I found that the last few months had changed something in them... no.

No, it was me who changed. It was me who was wrong. Because Ron was taller and had a tan, but his grin was just as teasing as I remembered. Hermione was frowning rather than smiling, but had she ever worn a different look? And Harry?

Well, Harry was smiling encouragingly. Apparently, he wasn't angry at me anymore. One less problem to deal with.

I drew the chair next to Ron, sitting across from Ginny, who sat next to Hermione. The four of us could look at both ends of the table, one where Harry was and the other where Mr. Weasley sat once more. My back faced the pub's brick wall, which was a great relief.

But Ron, Hermione, and Harry still stared. They waited for me to speak.

"Hey."

Ron snickered. "After that grand entrance, that's how you choose to greet us? 'Hey'?"

"What can I say? Your brothers left me speechless." I took a deep breath... and lifted my gaze to Hermione. "Hello."

Her lips trembled. "Hello, Anya. How have you been?"

Tired. "Bored. And you? How was France? Did you get to see the Catacombs or Le Louvre?"

She nodded stiffly. "Yes, I did." And left it at that.

Ginny caught my eye.

"Ready for Wood's final Quidditch season?" she asked loudly.

The boys launched into conversation. Sighing, I ate my way through five delicious courses in silence, praying that my presence would go as unnoticed as possible. I didn't want to make the atmosphere awkward again.

Leave it to Fred Weasley to break the illusion though.

"How are we getting to King's Cross tomorrow, Dad?"

"The Ministry is providing a couple of cars."

Eight heads abandoned the delicious chocolate pudding in favor of gaping at Mr. Weasley.

Percy broke the silence. "Why?"

"It's because of you, Perce," said George, pointing his spoon at his brother. "And there'll be little flags on the hoods, with HB on them—"

Ginny ducked to avoid getting an eyeful of pudding as George waved his hand enthusiastically.

"—for Humongous Bighead!" Fred finished.

There was a collective snort. But Percy was solely focused on his father.

"Why is the Ministry providing cars, Father?"

Mr. Weasley took his napkin to clean his mouth. Curiously, the skin below his forehead began to turn red.

"Well, as we haven't got one anymore and as I work there, they're doing me a favour—"

"Good thing, too," cut in Mrs. Weasley. "Do you realize how much luggage you've all got between you? A nice sight you'd be on the Muggle Underground... You are all packed, aren't you?" Her beady eye scanned each face at the table; when she glanced at me, her eyes darted quickly.

"Ron hasn't put all his new things in his trunk yet," said Percy with a slight whine. "He's dumped them on my bed."

"You'd better go and pack properly, Ron, because we won't have much time in the morning."

Ron slapped the table. "Tattletale!" he hissed.

"Your mother is right, Ronald," Hermione sniffed. "You don't want to get left behind, do you?"

"It's not like I left all my things out! Besides, they don't fit in my trunk."

"You can expand it."

"What?"

As they bickered, Harry caught my eye. He mouthed, "Good?"

I nodded. It was good. It felt like everything was going back to normal slowly. Whatever this new normal was.

•••••◘◘◘◘•••••

I was just getting into bed when my door snapped open, and someone fell on the rug.

I stared as Hermione scrambled to her feet with a mighty scowl, Ginny standing behind her with her hands on her hips and a glare that was nearly identical to her mother's. She blocked the door when Hermione tried to get past her, puffing out her cheeks. With them standing so close, I noticed for the first time that Ginny towered over her by at least ten centimetres.

"No! You are going to talk with her and that's final!"

"Ginny—"

"Do I look like I'm bluffing, Hermione? If you and Anya don't discuss your issues, I will burn your History of Magic copy." She reached out and closed the door on Hermione's face.

Hermione tried the doorknob. It didn't budge the slightest.

That's what I got for teaching Ginny how to block doors without magic.

Shoulders slumped, the brightest witch of our age turned slowly, her feet making noise as she dragged them.

"I'm not the Spanish Inquisition," I said irritably. "So stop acting like a little kid and sit. Looks like we're stuck together for the night."

"Did you make her do this?" she demanded. Her hair frizzled as her magic reacted to her anger.

"I didn't tell her anything. Nor did I force her." I seized a pillow and fluffed it violently. "What do you take me for? Wizard Hitler?" Then, because I couldn't resist: "The next Voldemort?"

She flinched violently. "No!"

"Then sit down. If you don't want to speak, just don't. And please, don't hog the covers." I fell on the bed and lifted my cover, settling awkwardly against the wall of pillows I'd created.

Thank the Lord the bed was bigger than both of us together. I don't think I would have lasted a night hearing Hermione complain about the floor—because while I was the reason she was left without a bed, I certainly wasn't thinking about giving her mine. I paid for it, I got to sleep on it.

Soon enough, the bed shifted with her added weight. The covers shuffled but she didn't take any more than what she needed.

"Lights off," I muttered. Instantly, the candles went out.

The bed began to shake as the last train ran past my window. The glass rattled, creating an odd, disturbing sound, not unlike a wail.

"Please tell me that's not a nightly occurrence," Hermione pleaded.

I closed my eyes and tucked my hands under the pillow. "It will end in five minutes."

"Unbelievable," she whispered. "Ginny's going to pay for doing this to me!"

I hummed.

"She seems to believe I'm angry at you! I'm not, but please—is there an etiquette to follow after your best friend was possessed? What about me getting petrified and unable to do anything but wait? How could I have been so stupid and not notice? We sleep in the same dorm!"

"The others didn't notice either," I grumbled.

"But I'm your best friend!"

I kicked the covers to sit up and glare down at her.

"Oh, really? What kind of best friend ignores her very traumatized girlfriend and makes her believe she was angry at her, hmmm? You didn't write back for weeks, Hermione! And you didn't visit me at the hospital wing! I get why Ron didn't visit me—well, I get why you didn't too—but you never talked to me properly! Not. A. Single. Time! Harry says that you aren't angry with me but I can't exactly read minds across countries or guess that from written accounts of the Palace of Versailles, can I?"

"Are you angry with me, then?" She exclaimed incredulously.

I exploded. "I'm angry at everyone! Do you know how hard it is to feign that everything's okay? My hands shake when I don't want them to—my body keeps doing these weird ticks that I can't control! It took me days to get my voice back but my brain can't connect some sentences with others at times! And don't get me started with the way I speak because it's driving me mad just how much I'm starting to sound like Tom freaking Riddle, AKA the Dark Lord, the biggest baddie of the Wizarding World next to Grindelwald! Ooh, let's not forget Sirius Black because turns out I'm related to him, and Harry and I made a freaking bet that he too wants to go after him like all my relatives seem wont to do—"

"You are related to Sirius Black?"

I swallowed back a scream. "That's all you got from my long-winded speech?!"

Hermione squinted at me.

"You said your 'relatives' are trying to kill Harry too. What did you mean by that?"

Dammit. Me and my big mouth.

I fell back into the bed and threw the covers over my head. And for good measure, I hid under the pillow. But I could hear Hermione's muffled voice.

"Anya, I'm sorry. I'm not angry about what you did; I'm angry that I claim to be your friend—your best friend—and I didn't notice this was happening to you. I know I can be self-centered, but I didn't think... all the signs were there, and I chose to ignore them. Yes, I spoke with McGonagall about your health, but I let her and Ginny convince me that everything was fine when it obviously wasn't.

"I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at myself because I could have helped you and I didn't. And when I found out, I still couldn't. I was helpless and I hated it!"

"Helpless? You? I literally could not say anything without getting a nosebleed! And he always threatened to hurt you and Ron and Harry and guess what? He did! And then, because he liked me, he decided to kill Ginny instead!"

"I know!" It was Hermione's turn to sit up, her wild hair giving her a crazed look. "I know it was awful for you, but I still can't get it! And I hate that I can't comprehend it was worse for you than it was for me!

"My dad says I'm like a computer," she continued. To my horror, tears sprung from her eyes. "And I am. I talk like a recorder, and I find it so hard to relate to other people's emotions and I don't know why. And I made this about me when we should be talking about you."

The last thing I wanted was to keep talking about me. I'd almost slipped about Voldemort being dear grandpa Riddle. And figuring how frantic Hermione was, this titbit of knowledge would certainly send her spiralling to who knew where.

"So, just to clear it out: you're not angry at me?"

Hermione sniffed and shook her head.

"Fine. Solved, then."

I curled on my side and pressed the pillow tightly over my head.

"Just like that?"

"Yeah. Good night."

"Anya."

"Good night, Hermione!"

•••••◘◘◘◘•••••

Everyone was running everywhere the next morning. Ron seemed to have not packed all his things as he promised, and the Weasley twins were doing somersaults over the staircase. The rest simply watched the chaos unfold.

Tom the bartender was a ball of nerves when we left his pub. I made sure to tip him generously.

The Ministry cars Mr. Weasley had promised waited outside in the London street. For some reason, I'd expected an army of armoured tanks, but was pleasantly surprised to find two normal cars, perhaps a tad sleeker and newer than what a middle-class Muggle could afford. They reminded me of the sort of vehicles Queen Victoria would drive about, more so because someone had thought of hanging two little purple flags with the ministry's logo on the antennas.

I was still waiting for God Save the Queen to play any moment now though.

Harry was marched by Mr. Weasley towards the car on the right. Hermione, Ron, and I followed closely, but then Mrs. Weasley cut across from me.

"Oh, no, Anya! You will be going with the twins, Ginny, and me." She steered me none-too-gently towards the front seat of the second car and pushed me in. Bewildered, I slid in—only to be nearly shoved right into the driver's lap as Mrs. Weasley slid right after me.

I investigated the rear-view mirror and found the twins and Ginny looking at their mother with amusing expressions of confusion. Ginny looked at me and I shrugged. I didn't know what had gotten into their mother this time. Perhaps she thought her mere presence would ward off my bad juju.

The trip to King's Cross Station was an interesting one. None of the Weasleys had ventured this deep into the populated city—or so I believed once Fred stuck out his head out of the car to clap the hand of an aghast carriage driver, his horse neighing at the teenager's hoot of excitement. Then it was Ginny squealing at the sight of some punk adults with an eerie resemblance to the KISS band members, calling them 'the Weird Sisters' and begging the driver to stop so she could ask for their autographs. After, Mrs. Weasley had her first exposure to a traffic accident, to which she reacted rather graciously... if you consider stepping out and glaring at both arguing drivers a smart idea. Someone could have whistled The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and no one, absolutely no one, would've dared to get into Mrs. Weasley's path as she glared the men down.

"Mum can take them," said George confidently.

He was right. Mrs. Weasley's glare was as mighty as I remembered. Both men gave grudging apologies before moving their cars out of the road.

Despite all these pitstops, our car was the first to arrive for some reason. But we didn't wait for the others and started to get our things out of the car's trunk. It was only when we finished that they finally arrived, and we had to help them unload their things.

And then it was just a matter of finding Platforms 9 and 10.

To get to the Hogwarts Express, the only train that takes you all the way to Scotland and right into the only magical school on British soil, you needed to first cross the barrier at Platform 9 and Three Quarters. It was an odd name but easy to understand the story behind it: it takes exactly three-quarters of a second and three-quarters the space of the brick wall to reach the mystical train. The brick pillars that separated each platform were old and, at first glance, indistinguishable from each other.

If you were a logical person with this knowledge, all you needed to do was narrow your eyes and find the path created by dusty footprints.

Wizards. Seriously, it was a wonder we hadn't been discovered by magicless humans.

Each of us crossed the barrier in pairs. When we were all together, we trudged past the horde of tearful parents and annoyed students—except for Percy, who ran off the moment he spotted his girlfriend. Then, when my friends and I found a compartment, we loaded our trunks and returned to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

I was the only one Mrs. Weasley did not hug. She avoided me so obviously that Ron, over her shoulder, mouthed sorry while making circles next to his head with a finger. But then Mr. Weasley called my name, distracting me from the sting.

"There's something I've got to tell you before you leave," he said lowly. "Some within the Ministry would strongly discourage me... from divulging what I'm about to reveal to you. But I think that you need to know the facts. Harry and you are in grave danger."

I felt like a balloon, deflating in defeat. "Does this have anything to do with Sirius Black?"

Mr. Weasley scanned the crowd over my head.

"What do you know about him, Anya?"

"That he's my uncle," I muttered. "That he was a Death Eater. That he blew up thirteen people."

Mr. Weasley nodded slowly. "Well, you know enough. But Anya... Black escaped Azkaban because he's after Harry."

I didn't react accordingly. I didn't gasp nor did I feel surprised or fearful. In fact, my mind went straight to the bet Harry and I made when we found out the murderer was my uncle... Harry would be happy to find out he was two Galleons richer today.

Thankfully, I wasn't all that stupid.

"How are you sure?" I asked, scanning the crowd to not appear suspicious.

"The man showed hints of interest in Harry before his escape. Guards found him muttering: 'He's at Hogwarts.' It would not be the first time a follower of You-Know-Who believed certain people impeded his return to power."

My blood froze at this. "Like my father."

"And now Harry," Mr. Weasley agreed grimly. "Anya, I know you have too much weight on your shoulders, but it is imperative that you stop Harry from searching Black."

I stared. "Why would Harry go looking for him, Mr. Weasley?"

The man clasped my shoulder and squeezed gently. I found the gesture comforting, but his gaze was far too grim to ignore.

"Promise me, Anya. Or else you will both get hurt."

•••••◘◘◘◘•••••

"I need to talk to you in private," Harry muttered, stopping in the middle of the hallway. He threw a glance over his shoulder, eyes skimming over Ginny at my side.

Ron nodded. Then he whirled dramatically on his sister and flinging a finger over her head, he said, "Go away, Ginny!"

The four of us stared at him incredulously.

"What am I?" Ginny demanded, crossing her arms. "A dog?"

"Good grief, Ron," I hissed, rubbing my eye to ignore the second-hand embarrassment. "Everyone's staring at us. Ginny, I'm sorry, I'll tell you later what it was about."

"Just as long as nobody points out I'm related to Ron," she snorted, stalking off the opposite direction.

"You're rubbing off my sister," Ron accused me.

"And she's rubbing off on me. I'm very tempted to walk away and forget I know you."

Harry sighed. "Let's go before I try to forget I know you both."

Our chosen compartment had been stolen by a group of Ravenclaws. I spotted Padma Patil among them, the twin sister of my roommate Parvati. Then there was Terry Boot and Sue Li, fellow members of the Charms Club. There were more Ravenclaws, but they all clustered around a pretty Asian girl who had a shiny new broom on her lap. She was apparently flustered by the attention.

Harry's breathless Who is that? stopped Ron from committing another public embarrassment.

"That's Cho Chang," said Hermione, sniffing. "She has the best Arithmancy notes so far." She gave Harry a flinty side-eye, hugging Crookshanks' basket close. "I'm surprised you don't know her. I heard she was on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team." Trust Hermione to know her rivals.

"Well, we were quite busy last year," said Ron reasonably, and stiffened. He gave me a not-so-discreet look.

But I couldn't care about that. I was too busy staring at Justin Finch-Fletchley, trying to find any obvious change from the last time I saw him in the Hospital Wing. But like Ron, he'd only gotten taller; there wasn't a single hint on him that pointed out he'd once been petrified. Neither had Hermione, but I'd hoped...

Hoped? I shook my head. Hoped what? That any of them would come looking for me in search of retribution? Of the victims, only Hermione seemed to be aware of her attacker's identity—and that was because Riddle had made it his goal to rub it on her face. But Dumbledore had promised me none of the others would know.

Justin glanced at us and looked back at the Comet 260, uninterested.

Apparently, Dumbledore kept his promise.

The four of us looked through different compartments until we finally found one that was occupied by one man only.

We stopped at the threshold to glare suspiciously. The man was sleeping next to the window, covered by a patched-up coat that looked moth-eaten. He wore wizard robes of the same quality, but there were patches that seemed to have been sown carefully. A well-loved set of clothes then.

His face was odd. At first glance, he looked old, but beneath the long scar that ran from his forehead down to his chin, I could tell he was young.

"Who d'you reckon he is?" Ron hissed over my shoulder.

Hermione leaned close to the window, the tip of her nose leaving a mark on the glass.

"Professor R. J. Lupin," she said at once.

"How do you know what?" Harry asked, foot halfway into the compartment.

"It's Hermione we're talking about," said Ron sagely. "She knows everything."

Hermione rolled her eyes and pointed to the luggage rack above Lupin. "It's on his case, Ronald."

The case was small and battered, but the gold lettering stamped on the corner shone like new.

Harry leaned back and looked both ways down the hall. "Should we get in?"

I sighed. "Might as well. We aren't going to find an empty compartment... and it looks like Lupin is sleeping."

"Do you really think he's asleep?" he asked.

Shrugging, I made my way inside carefully. I got close enough to Lupin that I could count the small scars near the bridge of his nose; his light hair was thinning, too.

I held one finger under his nose. Small puffs escaped his nostrils evenly. I waved the same hand over his face, and he didn't twitch.

"Yeah, he is. But we should speak softly if we don't want to wake him up."

The others scampered inside quietly, sitting close to the door. I sat on the floor, not wanting to be near Lupin either.

Ron still stared at Lupin. "Wonder what he teaches?"

"That's obvious," whispered Hermione. "There's only one vacancy, isn't there? Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"You sure about that?" He frowned. "He looks like one good hex would finish him off."

"I'm kind of scared the wind will blow him away," I admitted, having gotten a good look at his knobby ankles.

"If you have finished disparaging about our teacher, I'd really like to get on with what I've got to say," said Harry dryly.

"Oh, right." I grimaced. I started looking into my pockets, pulling out the two Galleons I'd put aside for the Candy Trolley. "Hold out your hand," I told Harry and slapped the coins on it.

Ron and Hermione stared. "What's that for?" Hermione asked.

Harry's eyes lighted up as he remembered, then dimmed. "No way. For real? Wait. Does Mr. Weasley pulling you aside have anything to do with this?"

It figured Harry's hawkish, all-too-aware eyes would notice that. In a low voice, I explained what Mr. Weasley said to me at the station, including his insistence that I swear I would not let Harry get any close to Black.

"It kind of fits with what I heard yesterday," said Harry. "When I was looking for Scabbers' tonic, I caught your parents"—here he looked at Ron—" arguing about Black. Your Dad said the Minister of Magic himself caught him muttering my name in his sleep. That the Ministry thinks that Black thinks I'm somehow stopping Voldemort"—we all flinched— "from rising back to power. He also mentioned that Dumbledore was none too happy about the Azkaban guards going to Hogwarts."

"What?" Ron and I shrieked.

"What do you mean 'Azkaban guards'? Not the Dementors, right?"

"Dementors?" Harry asked. "What's that?"

"The wardens of Azkaban," Hermione explained. "They are soulless creatures... well, nobody knows what they are exactly..."

"Because everybody who has looked into the face of a Dementor lost their soul," I said glumly. "They turn into shells. Nothing but empty bodies."

"It's kind of like death," said Ron.

"It's worse," Hermione stated grimly. "Far too worse. What was Professor Dumbledore thinking?"

"It's that what awaits Black?" Harry wondered. "Is it really that bad what he did? I mean—I know he's a murderer, but not even Muggles would think of punishing criminals that harshly."

"Who knows." Ron shrugged. "But why did Dad warn you and not Harry?" He narrowed his eyes at me.

Harry and I exchanged looks.

"Because Anya is related to Black," said Hermione.

Right. She wasn't going to be the first person I told I was Voldemort's granddaughter. Not. At. All.

"You're what?"

"He's my uncle. My mum's twin brother, apparently. I swear I didn't know until this summer." I kicked at Harry's shin. "Harry, tell them."

"Yeah," Harry nodded as our friends' heads swung in his direction, disbelief pouring out of them. "I was there."

"Does Dad think you can stop him or what?" Ron wondered out loud. "He's Sirius Black! He's a murderous, raving lunatic that broke out of Azkaban, the first to ever do so! What can you do against him? Give him one of your murderous glares and hope he drops into a dead faint? If that were true, Harry would have died ages ago, never mind Black."

"Your words fill me with a lot of confidence, Ron," Harry declared grouchily.

"Stop it!" Hermione pleaded, slapping a hand on Crookshanks' basket next to her and rattling it. Her eyes were wide with fear. "They'll catch him. They've got all the Muggles looking out for him too... he can't just vanish, can he?"

A strange, whistling sound startled us. We looked around until we found a trunk opposite Lupin's bearing Harry's initials.

"Huh. We didn't lose the compartment," I commented.

Ron stood and reached into the luggage rack. When he leaned back, he had a flashing spinning top in his hand at work.

"Is that a Sneakoscope?" Hermione asked eagerly.

"It looks like an electric spinning top."

"A what? No, it's a Sneakoscope... a cheap one, mind you. It goes haywire to the smallest of actions; it didn't stop making noise when I tried tying it to Errol's leg."

"They act out when you do something untrustworthy, don't they?" said Hermione knowingly. "What were you doing before that?"

Ron engulfed the Sneakoscope with the bottom of his jumper, the piercing sound dwindling slightly.

"Well... I wasn't supposed to be using Errol. You know he's not really up to long journeys... but how else was I supposed to get Harry's present to him?"

"You could have smuggled it like you did with your letters," I teased.

"Just stick it back in the trunk," Harry advised, "or it'll wake him up."

He nodded toward Lupin. Shrugging, Ron stuffed it inside one of Harry's socks and threw it under a pile of clothes; at last, the sound vanished for good when he closed the trunk.

"We could get it checked in Hogsmeade," he said. "They sell that sort of thing in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me."

"Do you know much about Hogsmeade?" Hermione asked keenly. "I've read it's the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain—"

I perked up. "Really? That's sort of close-minded, innit?"

"Don't care 'bout that," Ron said, "I want to go because of Honeydukes!"

"What's that?"

Ron took a sharp inhale of breath. "It's this sweetshop where they've got everything..." A dreamy look came to his face. "Pepper Imps that make you smoke at the mouth; great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream; and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you're thinking what to write next—"

"But Hogsmeade's a very interesting place, isn't it?" Hermione pressed on eagerly. "In Sites of Historical Sorcery, it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack's supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain—"

"—massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you're sucking them—"

"It's a nice place," I cut in, having spotted Harry's broody face. "We get it."

"Won't it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?" said Hermione.

" 'spect it will," Harry muttered. "You'll have to tell me when you've found out."

"What d'you mean?" said Ron.

"I can't go. The Dursleys didn't sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn't either."

Ron looked downright horrified.

"You're not allowed to come? But—no way—McGonagall or someone will give you permission—"

I snorted. Professor McGonagall making allowances for a student? Highly unlikely. When I'd been cursed by a Slytherin with a dark spell, she'd given me detention for a month.

"—or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle—"

"Ron!" Hermione scolded. "I don't think Harry should be sneaking out of school with Black on the loose –"

"Yeah, I expect that's what McGonagall will say when I ask for permission," Harry said.

"But if we're with him Black wouldn't dare—"

"Wasn't it you who said I don't stand a chance against Black?" I reminded him. "What makes you think the four of us do?"

"Anya's right," said Hermione. I blinked owlishly; it was strange to hear Hermione admit someone else than her was right. "Black did murder a whole bunch of people on a crowded street. No, he wouldn't care if the three of us were with Harry."

She started opening the straps to Crookshanks' basket.

"Don't let that thing out!" Ron yelled—spluttering as a mass of ginger hair landed on his lap and threaded up his chest. A lump on his chest scampered from one side to another, Crookshanks slapping on the spots like a game of Whack-A-Mole. Ron seized the cat and threw it off him. "Get out of here!"

"Ron, don't!"

A loud snort quieted them. Professor Lupin stirred in his sleep, eyes moving under his eyelids, and covered his head completely with his coat, effectively cutting him off the world.

I pointed at both Hermione and Ron angrily, making a zipping motion.

Hours passed. Everyone's high emotions dwindled as we played games on the floor, talking about our summers in detail between pauses. Ron inevitably talked about his older siblings and Wizarding Egypt (and boy, I was floored by the fact that Egyptians in actuality lived amidst Muggles, choosing to place their stores here and there in every corner of the country), and Hermione once again ranted about France's landmarks, mentioning that she'd heard rumours about a train going from London to Paris, and possibly Belgium.

Harry and I spoke little, and when we did, we often cut the other off. The disadvantages of having a shared summer, I guessed.

As the Hogwarts Express moved steadily, our scenery outside the window changed. Grass became darker and wilder; the clouds overhead thickened while the sky pinkened. Students went back and forth past our compartment, none of which my friends knew. I, on the other hand, found myself waving at many, recognizing them from the Charms Club.

"I didn't think you had a lot of friends," Ron commented when a shy first-year—no, second-year now—waved and ran off.

"Neither did I," I admitted, baffled. "I thought they were all scared of me."

"I think that's only the Gryffindors and Slytherins," Harry sniggered.

A knock on the window announced the arrival of the candy trolley woman.

"D'you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked awkwardly, nodding toward Professor Lupin. "He looks like he could do with some food."

Hermione approached Professor Lupin cautiously.

"Er—Professor?" she whispered. "Excuse me—Professor?"

"Don't worry, dear," the plump witch said, handing Harry a large stack of Cauldron Cakes. "If he's hungry when he wakes, I'll be up front with the driver."

"I suppose he is asleep?" Ron said quietly as the witch slid the compartment door closed. "I mean—he hasn't died, has he?"

I put my Sugar Quill into my mouth and trust another finger under his nose. Satisfied with the slight rattling air that came out, I wiped it on my jeans.

"Still asleep."

An hour or so later, the sky became completely dark. Rain pelted our window, with the odd rumble of thunder here and there bringing a stronger shower.

It was the perfect time to take a nap. And I did.

Two hours later, the train came to a screeching halt.

The lamps flickered—once, twice—before all lights went out.