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Attack on the Hogwarts Express

Sept. 1st, 1993

Fifth Year

It was a normal day aboard the Hogwarts express; the girls sat in their compartment with Luna. It was raining outside, but as usual it was nice and toasty inside. Luna was reading her copy of her father's magazine, the Quibbler; Jo and Leili were playing with the small wooden catapult Jo had had brought, launching Diminuendo'ed chocolate frogs at random, unsuspecting passersby.

All was fun and games until the train came to a screeching halt. When a towering, darkly cloaked and hooded figure opened their compartment door they felt the temperature drop to freezing and all the laughter vanish in the figure's wake.

Jo found herself reliving her parents divorce when she was 6, the dread she felt whenever staying with her father.

Luna found herself reliving the first time someone had called her 'Loony' Lovegood, her own tendencies towards anorexia-a battle she had won only two years earlier and the death of her mother from a spell gone wrong when she was 9. She saw her mother's body lying on the floor, her fingers black from the spell's backfire, her long hair spread across the floor.

Leili relived the day she'd nearly been strangled by Max and the day a fire had spread to the hills behind her elementary school. For her, the air choked with heavy smoke, the sun a burning orange and the hillside charred black from the fire that continued to spread.

The creature hovered there, its hooded head sweeping from one girl to the next; it seemed to enjoy Jo and Luna more than Leilani. Skidding down the hall, Kanani, who would be graduating this year, raced to the rescue of her sister. Drawing her wand she pointed it into the compartment and cast a cheering charm. She over did it. The girls burst out into uncontrollable giggles and started launching chocolate frogs at the thing in the door way, confusing the Dementor which prompted more laughter until a blue-silver wolf came charging down the corridor, chasing away the gloom. Kanani slipped inside and sat down beside her sister, suddenly exhausted.

The threat to happiness removed, the deadening depression started to lift. A short time later a tall man with brown hair and robes that looked shabby-but upon closer inspection appeared to just be well worn in, like a pair of jeans in which the knees are starting to go-walked past. He took a look inside and raised an eyebrow at the hysterical laughter, "I've never seen a response like that to a Dementor attack…" he mentioned.

"Cheering charm went slightly wrong," Kanani explained.

"Ah," the man grinned and with a flick of his wand they calmed, but not until after launching a chocolate frog at him. "Eat these," he said, scooping up the frog and waving it at them, "it'll help." He popped the frog in his mouth as he walked away.

"What's a Dementor?" Jo asked when she stopped giggling and Kanani had left the compartment.

"I don't know," Leili said, still grinning.

"…Can we kill them?" Jo asked,.

Leili frowned, she didn't know, "I'll look it up."