Chapter 21: Riddikurus

Meanwhile, Ron brought up the rear as he and his friends lugged their trunks into a compartment further down the train. Grunting, he turned and heaved to swing his trunk high onto the luggage rack at his left.

The new batch of first years seemed to grow bigger every year, which naturally necessitated a harder search for an empty compartment aboard the Express. So it came as both a shock and a minor annoyance when, upon pivoting to plunk down on the cushioned seat next to Hermione, Ron discovered the Trio was in fact, not alone.

Catching sight of the unkempt, rather disheveled man snoring against the window on the seat opposite, Ron nearly jumped a foot in the air. Scrunched in the corner as the man was, they might have otherwise missed him or not realized he was there. Meeting his best mate Neville's eyes from where he was keeping as decent a distance as possible from the stranger, the Boy Who Lived simply shrugged.

The bloke had a beard and receding hairline – too old to be a student, or even a Prefect (though, Ron noted with a bit of relish, his brother Percy was beginning to see his red curls thinning, and the git was only going into his seventh and final year at Hogwarts).

"Who's the bloke?" Ron wondered aloud to no one in particular. He was still surprised, though after two years of friendship he really shouldn't have been, when Hermione answered for him.

"Professor R. J. Lupin."

Ron swiveled his head between gawping at his best girl and gawping at Neville. "She knows everything!" he spluttered, his voice jumping an octave into a pitchy squeak of wonder. She never ceased to amaze him sometimes, or drive him mad. "How is it she knows everything?"

"It's on the suitcase, Ronald," Hermione huffed with a twinge of annoyance.

The stranger was snoring rather pronouncedly, slumbering soundly and not bothering anybody, yet the Trio made a concerted effort to not look in his direction. He could be the type of hobo – for that was the best way to describe his ragged appearance – who slept with one eye open. Except there had never been any hoboes bumming rides off the Hogwarts Express!

Ron shook his head. "If this is what's passing for professors these days…."

"Hey," Neville reminded him. "We've had worse."

Ron snickered deviously. "Yeah. Lockhart."

In spite of the fact that she had not questioned their story about Lockhart being a fraud, Hermione still tutted with sympathy. "The poor man…."

Ron scowled and folded his arms, he and his friends passing into an unusually companionable silence, at least for them. Neville was glancing out the window. Hermione was absently petting her new cat – a furry beast she had bought on an impulse while shopping for school supplies. Ron had been astonished by her inability to show any buyer's remorse; no Hogwarts student needed a pet that much! Besides, cats were becoming more rare as a viable castle pet option, as more and more students were coming in who had cat allergies. The thing looked like a peach throw rug! It now lifted its head, beady eyes slitting narrowly upon catching sight of Ron, and it hissed at him. Ron sent it a sneer back when he was sure Hermione wasn't looking.

It had to have been less than an hour into the train ride when the car suddenly lurched and began crawling down to a slow chug, nearly to a halt.

"Why are we stopping?" Hermione glanced up. "We can't be there yet."

Once again, Neville knew, she was right. Kings Cross to the castle took two hours at least.

The temperature in the compartment suddenly seemed to plunge by several degrees. The lights of the train flickered, then eventually sputtered out.

Concerned, Neville rose and crossed to the glass door, sliding it back to peer out into the hallway. He shivered at how it was now close to practically freezing!

Suddenly –

The ombrous thing reared up almost out of nowhere, the only warning heralding its arrival being a thin layer of permafrost crystallizing over the glass. Neville started to desperately tug the glass door shut, but he feared more ice might condense and seal them inside. As it was, the ombrous creature started to glide forward, in robes that didn't touch the ground and, Neville noted with disturbed horror, no apparent feet on which to walk.

He was suddenly starting to feel very cold, down to his very skin. A despondent, hopeless gloom was settling over him. He felt depressed, helpless.

He would never know his parents….

He would fail Hogwarts or anything else he tried and be living with his Gran the rest of his life, otherwise alone, unwanted….

He was never going to see Ron or Hermione again….

In the moment before everything went black, he thought he saw another shadowy figure leap in front of him. There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a woman's scream. The light, female voice was yelling his name – it might have been Hermione, but it also sounded like…. someone else. Another woman whose voice Neville inexplicably found familiar…..

When Neville came to, he was being lifted into a sitting position by strong hands, hands that may have belonged to Ron.

"Keep him upright," an adult male's voice was instructing, in the moment before Hermione came swimming into his line of vision.

"Neville….. Neville!" Her voice sounded stricken. "Are you all right?" She looked like she wanted to touch him, his face, just to be sure, but then someone just beyond his reemerging periphery shooed her back.

"He needs space, Miss Granger." Then the ragged man was suddenly before him, pressing something that, from the shape of it, felt like a Chocolate Frog. "Here, eat this; it'll help."

As he nibbled on the Chocolate Frog, Neville got himself a good look at the stranger. He was tall and hale, an older man, clad in worn and threadbare robes, the kind that Ron and his family might wear. He had a tired, yet also kind smile.

"What… what was that?"

"That was a Dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban," the man, this Professor R. J. Lupin, stated heavily.

Neville heard Ron gasp. "The wizarding prison? But what would a thing like that be doing all the way out here?"

"I don't know," Lupin sighed heavily. "But it can mean nothing good…"

The professor's full name was Remus John Lupin, and upon arrival at the castle he was installed into the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

"He seems all right," Ron conceded, clapping along politely with the other students when Dumbledore made the appointment. "Let's just hope if he is, he'll stay past one term."

"Why? Why wouldn't he?" Hermione tossed her curly chestnut tresses to turn and look at him absently, curiously.

"Heard the twins and Lee Jordan talking. They say the job's jinxed. No one's lasted more than a year in the DADA post since we were Sorted, 'Mione."

Biting her lip prettily, Hermione silently realized he was right. She too also hoped that, if there was a jinx on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, Remus Lupin might be the one to break it.

Their very first lecture with the man the following morning at least seemed promising, when they all filed into the room where just about one year ago, Lockhart had attacked them with Cornish Pixies and arrogantly expected them to handle it on their own. Neville and Ron both had this not-so-fond memory in mind as they set their sights on the large cabinet erected in the center of the room. From its odd shape and its upright position, it came off looking more like a coffin, and might have been mistaken for one.

As he began his lecture of the third years, Lupin appeared tired, nervous, but friendly. And competent, which, after experiencing the opposite under Lockhart and Quirrell, was a welcome change.

"Today, I will be teaching you how to handle Boggarts. These are creatures…."

Hermione's hand shot up even as she finished the sentence for him, enraptured. "… designed to show their opponent his or her deepest fears."

"Excellent, Miss Granger! Full marks!" Hermione beamed, pleased.

"Now, the spell to defeat a Boggart is very simple, and its purpose equally so: when cast correctly, it should turn the manifestation of your deepest fear into something that elicits laughter, so as to create an association that will allow you to overcome that fear." Lupin spoke authoritatively; he seemed to really know what he was talking about. Having someone so well prepared teaching them was a new experience for the third years, and they listened attentively, except of course, for the Slytherins in the back.

"So, onto the spell: it is really a play on words, which pneumatically makes it easy to remember: Riddikurus!"

"Ridiculous?" Ron blinked.

Lupin chuckled. "No, Ron, but you're not the first to mispronounce it. Many understandably do, since with the spell, you are making your greatest fear seem ridiculous. In spite of how they may sound similar, this should give you all the more reason to enunciate very clearly. Wands up; let's practice together. Riddikurus!"

"Riddikurus!"

"This class is ridiculous," Draco snorted under his breath from the back. Then he openly reached out and tugged on one of Hermione's frizzy bangs.

"Oi!" Ron started to make a threatening move towards Malfoy, followed by Neville, but Lupin was calling for quiet again.

"I will need a volunteer guinea pig to give a first demonstration. Inside that cabinet…" he gestured back to the cabinet that looked like a coffin. "…. is a captured Boggart. It will take all of us working together to defeat him, but someone will have to make the first advance. Mr…. Potter," he selected at random. Harry looked stunned and dismayed at having been singled out. He had almost never been singled out in class before, and on the rare occasion he was, it usually wasn't for praise. The meek little Gryffindor stepped forward.

Lupin smiled at the boy kindly, the grin giving off a familiar, sentimental aura, as if the professor knew him. "What's your biggest fear, Harry?"

Harry didn't answer for a moment, until he silently beckoned Professor Lupin forward. He had to whisper his phobia into the man's ear.

"Your aunt and uncle?" Lupin drew back, accidentally echoing the confession aloud. Most everyone in the class erupted with laughter; only Neville, Ron and Hermione remained silent.

Lupin grimaced at Harry apologetically. "That's all right, lad; we'll go with it! Now, when I unlock the cabinet, the Boggart should spring forth in the manifestation of your relatives. Resist the urge to shrink away, point your wand at them, and say in a forceful, clear voice - Riddikurus! Ready?"

If Harry looked ready for anything, it was to soil himself, and piss his trousers for good measure and in sheer fright. "One… Two…. Three!"

Lupin magically unlocked the cabinet, and a pudgy man came lumbering out, red-faced and enraged, followed by a hawkish woman with a look of abject disgust on her face.

It was curiously revealing to watch Harry's reaction to them. He cowered, submissive for a moment, his wand shaking as his aunt and uncle advanced steadily nearer.

Neville wasn't sure where Harry found his voice, but the boy did.

"….. Riddikurus!"

Upon the spell being cast, Harry's relatives immediately swept into each other's arms and began to perform an awkward, loping tango. The classroom erupted with howls. Harry allowed himself a small, tentative smile, clearly shocked and yet proud with himself.

"Bravo, lad! That's the way to do it!" Lupin chortled, clapping. "Who's next?"

There was suddenly a queue to have a go with the Boggart, the third years pushing and shoving to participate in a way they never had in this class. Hermione watched with great concern as Ron's Boggart predictably became a spider. Recalling their misadventure into the Forbidden Forest last year, Neville knew before it happened how Ron was going to freeze up. Even from the back, his best mate looked ghastly pale.

"Ri…..Riddikurus!"

The spider's legs magically grew roller skates, the creature slipping and sliding about.

Neville wasn't sure what his Boggart would appear as, as he moved to the head of the line. It could be his Gran, who sometimes scared him or pushed him to limits he had not always been willing to go to himself. But no, if his Boggart was anything, he presumed it would be Lord Voldemort.

So he was entirely unprepared when the Boggart came out of the cabinet looking like a…. a Dementor.

Neville froze up, his wand hand trembling. He tried to recall the word to the spell, but no sound came out.

Suddenly, there was a cry and Lupin was lunging in front of him. With a new target, the Boggart instantly shifted shape: it now depicted, oddly, a full moon.

Lupin didn't hesitate. "Riddikurus!"

The moon turned into a leaky balloon, which now zipped back into the cabinet. The third years burst into applause.

"Class dismissed!" The students filed out the classroom all talking exuberantly at once.

"Did you see that?" Ron pumped his fist. Neville could only nod dumbly. "That was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts class we've ever had!"

"He certainly is a very good teacher," Hermione buzzed, though she looked a little disappointed. "Though I wish I'd had a turn with the Boggart."

"What would have been yours?" Ron teased her affectionately. "A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?"