A/N: I know the Dementor scene in this chapter kind of corresponds to the one in book 3, but I meant to have it that way. All things come in circles, even Dementors. And I dislike putting disclaimers, because it should be obvious that I'm not making any money out of this.

Part 4: The Sorting Hat
Immediately Remus scrabbled in his pocket and found his wand. "Lumos maximus!" he murmured. Immediately the end of his wand erupted into a bright golden glow, illuminating the scared faces of the others as muted cries of shock and fright floated towards them from the other compartments.
Suddenly the light began to flicker and fade; Remus' face was apprehensive as he looked at the others by the dying light of his wand. "It's never done that before," he muttered. James, Lily, Monique and Sirius dug in their bags to find their own wands as the Westhaven twins between them yanked down a large purple bag, which they, Milo and Arabella dug into to find their wands. Peter was nowhere to be seen. By now, everyone had their wands out, but none had managed to successfully perform Remus' charm, and as his wand flickered and died at last, the carriage was plunged back into pitch darkness.

~*~

Sadness; a great, unimaginable sorrow that went on and on, flooded the compartment, blocking out all other thoughts and feelings and sending the odd incident they ha just witnessed completely out of Lily's mind. Suddenly the door on the corridor side slid open, silently, which was odd because when they'd used it to go out into the corridor before, it had creaked no end.
Into the gap stepped what seemed like a moving shadow, just the edges of a flowing robe shown. Everybody leapt to their feet. An odd, hissing, growling sound that sounded oddly like a kind of muffled, hysterical sobbing drifted towards them.
"Daaaaaark… heeeeere."
Remus seemed to understand. "Nobody here is anything but a Hogwarts First Year," he said harshly. No-one is hiding anything. Go!"
At once the air of sorrow in the compartment changed to overwhelming fear; Lily fought the emotions, somehow knowing that the fear was not her, that she could fight it in the same way she fought everything she didn't like. Abruptly the part of the black cloth that seemed to be an arm raised, and a hand, scabby and greenish-greyish-black, like that of a corpse that has rotted in water, rose and pointed straight at Remus.
"Youuuuu… wooooolf," the creature said. Remus flinched as though he'd been struck, looking at whatever-it-was with eyes that were dull and despairing. He dumbly sat down and said no more. The creature moved towards him, raising its hands as though to pull down its hood with a definite air of menace, but Artemis abruptly moved towards the door, standing between IT and Remus.
"I don't know who you are; dammit, I don't even know WHAT the hell you are," she said quite calmly, with a voice that held a steely hint of danger. "But nobody. Threatens. My. Friends. Got that, slimeball?"
At this the creature did pull down its hood, and in spite of herself and her words Artemis took a step back at the sight that met her eyes. It was a skull; a skull with grey, mouldy-looking skin stretched thinly over it like an awful kind of plastic bag stretched too hard. There were no eyes and a sort of snakelike nose that was just two tiny holes. The mouth was nothing but a gaping blackness, blacker than anything Lily had ever seen, just an empty void, like a black hole, sucking air inside with a rattling sound- a death rattle. Artemis screamed, a sound that seemed to galvanize her twin into action. Apollo shook her hard, then slapped her, and the action seemed to bring Artemis back to earth. The two turned to face the creature: together, the way that Lily suspected they had done everything, always. Something silver shot from the very centre of each of their foreheads, in two misty lines- moonbeams, Lily thought irreverently. It meant at a point equally between the twins and the creature, shimmering and forming into a kind of silver human, a girl of about eleven, slim, with tumbling curls and eyes flashing with danger and unspeakable anger. Her face was small, delicate and pointed, like an elf. Apollo gasped and Artemis clapped her hands to her mouth. Both seemed to be fighting the urge to scream.
"'Mina…" whispered Artemis, staring at the image with a fixed, frenzied fascination. "Oh, 'Mina… why are you here?" At this, the girl turned, and smiled reassuringly at the girl. Then she pointed first at the creature, then the door. What-ever-it-was simply tried to sweep the apparition aside, but a brutal snap-kick to the head from the girl cracked its neck and sent it reeling, stumbling out of the compartment. The girl turned once more to the twins, a sad, sweet smile on her face, a single silver tearing coursing its way down her features.
"I'm sorry, so, so sorry …" she whispered. "But I'll protect you when you need me… you and your friends. Be careful, now… don't let them get you… I love you both…" She looked as though she wanted to say more, but suddenly vanished with a soft poof like smoke, silver beams coursing back to the twins. All at once, the lights came back on with a crack that them all jump once more.
Sirius turned to the twins. "All right," he said. "What the hell was THAT?"