I wish I owned Harry Potter. This does not mean that I do.

The Dementor

Ah, finally.

Ryua was getting away from her parents at last. They'd picked up schoolbooks earlier that week, and were just getting their trunks loaded now onto the Hogwarts Express. Father, of course, was no fun to be around, having cursed Ryua three more times since he got fired. Mother had been acting the martyr again, encouraging Ryua to just keep her place in the household so they wouldn't have to endure Father's fits. Keep my place in the household? she had thought, not a bloody chance, not with his definition The only reason they hadn't dropped her off at an orphanage at birth was because she happened to be firstborn. That was one of the first rules she could remember; never say she was firstborn, act properly, and she could stay a member of a rich, prestigious family. Actually, it could be worse. Father needed her healthy and beautiful to marry off to some other rich (probably stupid and ugly) pureblood, so he never did anything to jeopardize that. She had a healthy allowance, which she was currently funneling into her own account, untouchable by the rest of her family. And, she never had to deal with the really irritating people in life. If glaring down her nose at some upstart wizard didn't get her where she wanted, all she had to do was suggest they ask her Father about it. She could get just about anywhere in the ministry, most of Diagon Alley, and was one of the few people who could walk safely down Knockturn Alley.

Of course, it also meant she was stuck in Slytherin with her brother (she was still furious with him about betraying her) and his cronies and of course, Pansy and Millicent for dorm mates. Not the best company, either for chatting, homework, or much else for that matter. Well, she doubted any of them were taking arithmancy at least, so she should have some peace and quiet.

When they got on the train, Ryua and Draco were still early enough to have their choice of cars. They settled down in one, joined later by Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and Millicent at the other end of the car. After the train got underway, Draco left to go bug the Gryffindors, but came back almost immediately, looking disappointed. "They picked the one car with a teacher in it," he grumbled, sitting down with a huff.

"A teacher? Probably there to protect against Black, eh?"

"Maybe. You'd have to be crazy to attack the Hogwarts Express, it's got so many warding spells on it, but he is mad, I suppose." Both of them were kind of in the dark about Sirius Black. They knew he was a cousin, on their mother's side, and that he was a very skilled wizard, having blown apart a street like that, but there were some disturbing problems about the whole thing. He had been in Gryffindor, for the first, and was disowned from his family by his third year. And, the most obvious problem, he was never a Death Eater. From bits Father had said, the Dark Lord had approached him once or twice through lesser minions, but never succeeded in turning him. (The amusing thing was that Father knew no more than his children about this. None of the Death Eaters did.) No one could figure out why he'd bother killing his best friend, although it did make him kind of a hero in some eyes, going all dark and ruthless like that. Something just didn't fit, and if the Malfoys didn't know about it, there was really something strange going on.

The conversation ground to a halt, both twins looking out the windows into the wet, gloomy countryside, as they drifted off in thought. It was just starting to get dark, still half an hour out of Hogwarts, when the train started to slow. "We're early. Something's wrong." Ryua said, starting to sit up. Even Crabbe and Goyle were sluggishly getting to their feet. They saw something out the window, and without warning, took off through the far door faster than Ryua had ever seen them move, Pansy and Millicent following.

"What the... Crabbe! Goyle! Where do you think you're going?" Draco got up to go after them when suddenly, the outside door opened. A wave of cold darkness swept in. Draco froze, then shuddered, then broke into a run out the other door, not even looking back to see if Ryua was following.

Ryua wasn't following. Her instincts had been telling her to run from the moment Crabbe and Goyle had looked out that window, but she was stopped from doing so, by of all things, a leg cramp. She'd been sitting with her knees propped against the seat in front of her, and her left foot was completely numb, the leg tingling, unable to support her weight. She was trying to shake it out, pulling herself frantically along the row of seats when everything started to fade, and she slipped, the world dissolving in a white fog...

Ryua was five. It had been raining all day, and she and Draco had been allowed out to play in the damp, clean grass. Instead, they'd found a mud puddle twenty feet long, and so came in plastered with muck. Father had berated Draco about getting his clothes in such a state and sent him upstairs to change. Ryua, he made sit down at a table and pick up a sharp, steel-gray quill. She was to write "I will act as befits my station" five hundred times. Obediently, she put the quill to parchment and gasped as her words were drawn in fine lines over the palm of her hand the palm, so no one would see "Father, it hurts!"

"Yes Ryua, it does. That is because you did wrong, and must now learn your lesson..."

She was seven. She and Draco had stolen one of Father's brooms and flown around the south meadow for a while. The moment of happiness had evaporated when they came back inside, and were both facing punishments. Father was standing in a shadowed corner, his voice cold as he uttered a spell. The little girl in the center of the room let out a sob, tears rolling down her cheeks as it struck her. No, don't let him see it hurts, he'll only make it worse...

Image after image paraded through Ryua's mind, and through it, she felt every spell, her whole back lancing with pain along forgotten curse trails. She felt her palm catch fire, as the degrading words bit deep into her flesh, scratching the bone all over again. And more than anything else, she felt shame, shame for not being good enough, for not being strong enough, for being so damned helpless. All the negative emotions swirled through her head, and she could think of nothing else, until the mist finally started to fade, and everything went black.

In the next car over, Draco had burst right into the Weasley twins' laps. Luckily for him, they could feel the cloaked things moving about too, and didn't remark on his look of utter terror. Fred did manage to ask, however, in a hoarse whisper, "Where's your sister? You didn't leave her there with those things, did you?"

Naturally, Fred and George would understand about being a twin, and it was one of the few times you could trust them to be talking straight to you. Draco just gulped, he couldn't bring himself to admit he'd run like a scared rabbit.

They glared at him, and he cringed with shame, at least until the cloaked figures swept their car too. It didn't stay long, however, but all three of them were trembling in their seats by the time the lights came on and the creatures left.

Ryua came back to herself with the flickering of lights in the car. She pushed up off the floor, shaking her head to clear the last fading echoes in her mind, and, (she was slightly embarrassed) wiped her cheeks dry. Apparently, no one else seemed ready to move back to the car yet. She was entirely composed again, ready to greet Draco with a haughty glare for deserting her, although she felt deathly cold. Draco winced under her stare, and, sitting down and pulling his knees up to his chest, looked out the window. Only then did Ryua sink to her own chair, but couldn't resist the urge to curl up in a small ball too. That feast had better be good. She needed to warm up badly.

Author's Note: Sorry, yet another depressing chapter. Thanks to my latest reviewers, dragonwing () and Athena Diagon Cat. It really makes your whole day to see someone has read something you created and enjoyed it. If anyone has suggestions, or something they'd like me to put in, please let me know.