'How could she explain that coming from deep within herself it was already a victory to be half alive?'

Clarice Lispector

"We'll write to you about Christmas this year, and good luck in all of your classes," Mrs. Weasley rambles, pulling Darcy into a tight hug as the Hogwarts Express blows its horn, giving the lingering students a warning. Steam billows onto the platform, where people are scattering and scrambling to give last minute goodbyes and making sure they haven't forgotten anything. The rest of the Weasley children are already jumping onto the train and, behind Mrs. Weasley, Emily and Carla wait for Darcy. Carla checks her watch constantly, but Emily busies herself by chatting to a fourth year Slytherin girl with a hairless cat, stroking the animal with a single, nervous finger.

"Thank you," Darcy mutters, trying to pull away from Mrs. Weasley.

Mrs. Weasley only tightens her grip and traps Darcy against her bosom. "I've always known you were a good girl—I've always known you were going to go somewhere with your life and I'm so proud of you—" Real, fat tears begin to fall from Mrs. Weasley's face and Darcy squirms uncomfortably. Mrs. Weasley's tears drip from her cheeks onto Darcy's forehead. She appreciates the show of affection, but Darcy can't imagine her own mother would be crying into her hair if she were still alive.

"Mrs. Weasley—I'm not dying, you know—"

"Please don't get into any trouble this year, all right? Focus on your classes and your N.E.W.T.'s and I know you'll do well—you and Percy can study together, and he's so good at Transfiguration—you could help each other…"

"Mrs. Weasley, the train's about to leave—"

"And don't forget about us when you're some big, famous Auror!"

"Mrs. Weasley—" Darcy squirms again, looking desperately at her friends.

"Always remember that you're welcome at our home whenever—"

"My friends—"

"If there's anything we can do for you—"

"Molly!" Mr. Weasley, seemingly out of nowhere, pries Darcy and Mrs. Weasley apart. He smiles apologetically at Darcy and gives her one last hug and kiss on the head before sending her off to her friends, who are looking nervously at the Hogwarts Express. From over her shoulder, Darcy hears Mr. Weasley call after her, "And no drinking!"

Darcy rolls her eyes as Emily and Carla laugh heartily. Mrs. Weasley blows kisses to her children, who sink low in their seats, avoiding eye contact with their mother. Darcy pulls her trunk and Max's cage onto the train, which lurches as it begins to move. The doors close right as Darcy stumbles down the corridor. Emily leads the three of them to an empty compartment that Emily has already claimed by throwing her jacket and scarf and trunk on the seats. Gemma, busy with her prefect duties, hasn't joined them on the train since fifth year, but Darcy doesn't complain—the three of them, especially Darcy and Emily, have grown in the past few years and the compartments are no longer as spacious as she had once thought.

"Well," Emily grunts as she hoists her trunk in the compartment above her, "it's all happening, isn't it?"

"For you, at least," Carla sneers, sitting on the seat opposite Emily and stretching her legs out. Darcy sits next to Emily, allowing Max out of his cage to perch on Carla's calf. He shifts, then falls asleep, swaying slightly as the train rattles along. "I like your owl, Darcy. What's his name?"

"Max," Darcy says.

Max opens his eyes at his name, but when Darcy doesn't say anything further, he closes them again, resting once more.

"He's smart, huh?" Carla continues, stroking Max's chest. "Wish I had one."

"No, you don't," Emily scoffs. "They stink. You better not keep his cage in our dormitory." She narrows her eyes at Darcy, then looks quickly at Max. "He can stay in the owlery with the other birds."

"His cage isn't going to stink—it'll be clean because he can go wherever he pleases."

"Look, I'm just saying—I don't want that thing near me—oh!"

Max, apparently understanding Emily's hesitation, suddenly hops over to Emily's side, looking up at her with his wide, dark eyes. He seems to be waiting for Emily to pet him, and he nudges her indignantly. Emily reaches a hand out, pauses for a moment, and then quickly strokes the owl, wanting to get it over with quickly.

"Bit creepy, isn't he?" she whispers, still petting Max. "Ouch!" Max snaps at her fingers and Emily draws her hand away, looking outraged, a small trickle of blood running down from the prick in her finger. "Why you stupid—"

As Max flutters back over to Carla's leg, Darcy sits up straighter. "Mr. Weasley told me some interesting information," she says, lowering her voice. Emily forgets about her bleeding finger and leans in closer, raising an eyebrow. Carla purses her lips, folding her arms over her chest. "He says there'll be dementors at Hogwarts—for our protection, of course."

Carla's eyes widen. "How did the Ministry ever get the authorization to station those horrible creatures there?"

"Mr. Weasley said Dumbledore allowed it," Darcy continues, shrugging her shoulders.

"I think it's dangerous," Emily says in a very matter-of-fact way. "Who's to say the dementors are actually going to do what the Ministry says? I mean, they don't seem the type to care about who lives and who dies, do they?"

"Seems like a bit of a… grandstand—doesn't it? I mean —all this just for Sirius Black? Fudge is just trying to make it seem like he's really serious about student safety... probably to make up for the fact a prisoner escaped from Azkaban right under his nose." Carla nods, talking more to herself than to Darcy and Emily. "I can't think of any other reason that Fudge would station dementors at Hogwarts other than to attempt to save his pride."

Darcy hesitates. She looks at Carla for a long time, leaning back in her seat. Emily considers Carla's theory, thinking hard and looking out of the window, concentrating as hard as she can. Darcy holds her tongue, not wanting to tell her friends the real reason the dementors are being stationed at Hogwarts. That's not the way she wants to start off the year, especially with the way their last year had ended. Darcy still remembers the look of horror on Emily's face when she'd shown up in the Gryffindor common room in the dead of night, her clothes soaking wet and torn, her face and hands and blouse covered in black ink and basilisk blood.

Most of the journey is spent in silence. Carla tires of thinking and talking of dementors and reads almost the entire trip, Max sleeping on her leg. Emily rests her head against the window, closing her eyes and throwing her legs over Darcy's lap. Eventually, Emily falls asleep, and Darcy opens her own book, her eyelids heavy and her breathing slow. She rubs her eyes and sees Carla yawn behind her book.

The weather continually gets more dismal with each passing moment. Rain begins to hammer the top of the Hogwarts Express and the sky darkens rather quicker than normal. It gets so dark, it becomes near impossible to see the treeline in the distance. Younger kids run down the corridor, laughing loudly and stomping their feet at the train rattles onward. The lamps are now lit, providing barely enough light to read. Darcy's eyes hurt from straining, so she closes her book and looks at Carla, who does the same thing.

Carla moves her leg, forcing Max to leave, and she stretches, muttering under her breath about Max. Darcy opens Max's cage and he flutters inside, nuzzling his face in his feathers before falling asleep once more. Carla watches Darcy carefully, tucking her legs underneath her and looking out of the window, glancing every so often at Emily, whose mouth is hanging open.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" Carla asks suddenly. "My mum and dad are planning on going to Spain—maybe they'd let you come with us."

"Oh," Darcy smiles weakly. "Yeah, maybe. I'll probably just go to the Weasleys' this year. Mrs. Weasley said she'd write about it."

"Right," Carla nods, but Darcy notices her disappointment.

"I could visit over summer," Darcy suggests, appearing a bit more upbeat. She sits up straighter. "Now that I'll finally be free of the poor bastards at Privet Drive."

"You'd leave Harry?"

Darcy hesitates, the small smile fading from her face. She hadn't expected such a bold question from Carla. Carla takes Darcy's silence to mean she's overstepped, and she looks away from Darcy, back out the window, looking extremely focused on the distant shadows. Darcy wishes she could answer, but she isn't sure what to say, so she just says nothing at all.

It's not long after that that the train begins to slow. Darcy feels a wave of relief wash over her, but when Emily wakes suddenly due to the train lurching to a stop, she looks around the compartment, then back outside the window. Emily gets to her feet slowly, Darcy and Carla both watching her, and she puts her hands on her hips. "We're not at Hogwarts," she says, "are we? We've still got a little bit to go, haven't we?"

Now that something has been said, Darcy feels dread overcome her. Max boots and beats his wings wildly against the bars of his cage. "Shh, Max, it's all right." She looks out of the compartment door, trying to see down the corridor, but it seems that everyone has returned to their seats. "I wonder if someone's ill," Darcy shrugs, trying to see as far down the train as possible. "Or the train's broken down."

Emily snorts, nose pushed up against the window. "Darcy, this train is magical—it didn't just break down."

"Hey," Darcy retorts, raising her eyebrows. "I'm just throwing some suggestions out there."

Finally, the train stops completely, their luggage falling onto the ground and Max's cage falls onto the seat Darcy had been occupying, bursting open. Max flies out, circling above them frantically. The three girls look at each other. Darcy isn't sure what to make of their expressions, but Carla is tensed up, huddled in the corner of the compartment, watching the windows and door. At this point, people outside their compartment begin to look curious, as well. Darcy opens the compartment door and sees a Slytherin girl, Sarah, she once had Herbology with.

"What's going on?" Darcy asks Sarah, but Sarah just shakes her head and shrugs. Darcy sighs heavily and looks to her right, where another fellow Gryffindor boy is looking around with furrowed brows. "Hey, you! Why are we—"

Before she can finish her sentence, all the lamps are extinguished and there's screaming from the other occupied compartments down the train. Carla yelps behind Darcy and she turns around, accidentally trodding on Emily's feet. Emily hisses in pain and Darcy feels feathers brush across her face in the pitch darkness. Darcy throws her hands out, trying to find her friends, and she grabs onto Emily's hand and Carla's ankle.

"What the hell is going on?" Emily growls. "Lumos." A small light illuminates their compartment, Emily's wand held out in front of her.

"Someone's coming on the train." Carla's voice is shaky and quiet. "I can see them."

"Who? Who is it, Carla?" Emily asks. She rips her hand from Darcy's and moves loudly around back to her seat, still holding her lit wand aloft. "Oh, shit—I see them—those aren't people. Darcy, come look at this."

Darcy flings herself at the window, but by the time she looks out of it, there's nothing there. It's dark outside, but she doesn't see any silhouettes or movement. "What do you mean they're not people?" she whispers to Emily. "What did you see?"

An intense cold washes over all three of them and Darcy feels goosebumps rise on her arms and the hair on the back of her neck stands up. By the light of Emily's wand, Darcy can see the fear etched in both of her friends' faces. Emily scrambles across the seat, nearly climbing into Darcy's lap, and the two of them watch the corridor, holding their breaths as the cold overwhelms them, makes them shiver uncontrollably. Carla watches them from the corner near the window, frozen with fear.

The cold intensifies still and Darcy feels paralyzed as a hooded shadow makes its way down the train corridor, occasionally stopping at compartments and peering inside. There is no screaming now, only quiet—a quiet occasionally broken by the sound of a rasping breath being drawn, a breath that seems to echo inside Darcy's own head. Emily lowers her wand at the sight of it, but keeps it firmly grasped in her hand, and when the shadowy figure reaches their compartment, everyone within holds their breath in earnest.

Carla looks away, hiding behind her hands. Emily moves back slightly, eyes never leaving the figure, but Darcy stays put. She doesn't think she could move if she tried, and her heart beats a violent tattoo against her chest.

A scabbed and decaying hand, long fingered and bony, slowly opens their compartment door and Emily drops her wand at the sight of it. The light is extinguished as soon as the wand leaves her hand and Darcy nearly chokes, a suffocating, heavy weight pressing on her chest. Everything around her seems to be so far away—she reaches for Emily, but Emily's hand is nowhere to be found, and Darcy can't get to her wand, her hands shaking. Everything seems to have slowed down and Darcy's head is filled with images she's spent years trying to forget—

A flash of green light and a woman with red hair, not smiling but not afraid, lying still on the carpet… a pale, snake-like face looking down at her and her brother greedily… cold, high-pitched laughter and another flash of green light… a scene of destruction around her, the ruins of a house swallowing her… She can't think of anything else—the rattling breathing of the dementor fills her ears and Darcy silently begs for it to stop… All she can see are the repressed memories—scenes of trauma that she hadn't dreamt of for years—all the progress she had made, suddenly gone, and she screams madly—or does she? The scream is real, she can hear it, but it doesn't sound like it's coming from her…

As soon as she screams, the heavy cold lifts. It's still much chillier in the compartment than usual, but the dementor sweeps away from them, leaving the compartment door cracked only slightly. At once, Emily grabs her wand off the floor, whispers "Lumos" again, and touches Darcy's shoulder, steadying her. Darcy takes a look around the compartment, heart pumping faster than ever, cold sweat dripping down her forehead.

Carla is still in the corner of the compartment, shaking violently, hands tangled in her hair, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. Emily looks slightly green in the face, her chest is heaving beneath her sweater, and she stares Darcy in the eyes, looking rather anxious.

"Are you all right, Darcy?" Emily asks quietly, shaking Darcy's shoulders. "You look terrible."

Emily's wandlight helps Darcy see her reflection in the dark window. The train is still at a standstill and Darcy tries to look outside to see if the dementors have left. That's when Darcy notices how terrible she really does looks—she's white as a ghost, sweating, with dark circles around her eyes, looking quite like a raccoon. Without warning, Darcy retches all over the floor of the compartment, not once, not twice, but three times. Emily dry heaves beside her and Carla gags at the sight of it, pinching her nose to keep from smelling it. And it's then that she remembers that the three of them are not the only ones on the train—

"Harry—" Darcy chokes, getting to her feet, but stumbling. She looks down, trying to avoid the pile of vomit on the ground. Emily holds her up by the arm. "I have to go check on Harry—"

"That thing is still out there," Carla protests, her voice barely more than the feeblest whisper. "You shouldn't go yet."

"He's fine," Emily replies. "I'm sure he's fine, Darcy—just sit down and relax for a minute, would you?" She strokes Darcy's back, Vanishing the pile of sick on the compartment floor, appeasing Carla. Standing up has made Darcy weak, her stomach rolling violently. It takes her a few moments to steady herself, and by then, the lights have flickered back on. Emily puts her wand on the seat.

"No—no, I have to—I have to see Harry—"

Emily looks at Carla and sighs. "We'll be back."

"You don't have to come with me," Darcy snaps.

"Shut up," Emily smiles weakly, her face still a sickly green. "You know I do."

Carla at least convinces them to wait for the train to start moving again, a sure sign that the dementor is gone. Once everything seems back to normal—despite the chill lingering in the air and in her bones—Darcy and Emily take off, searching for the compartment containing Harry. Emily supports her the entire way, fully aware that Darcy can walk by herself, but knowing it's nice to help her anyway. They look in every compartment, scaring a lot of the younger kids who think they're dementors returning to haunt them. Everyone is on edge, still frightened, afraid to speak. Many students look sick, like Emily, looking at them with wide eyes.

Finally, at the very end of one of the train cars, seemingly a million miles from where Darcy and Emily's compartment is, they find Harry. Darcy throws the door open to the packed compartment, throwing herself to the ground at her brother's side. Harry is lying on the ground, oddly contorted around everyone's legs. Hermione, Ron, Neville Longbottom, and Ginny Weasley are still sitting on the seats, pale faced and trembling. And bending over Harry, a hunk of chocolate in his hand, is an older man that does not fit in with the scene, slapping Harry's cheek.

"Don't hit him!" Darcy hisses. Unsure of what comes over her, Darcy reaches for the stranger's arm and pulls his hand away from Harry's face. "Don't do that!"

The man pulls her arm away quickly, looking up at Darcy from across her brother. He looks at her for a long time, taking in her appearance, looking as if he's seen a ghost. The stranger opens his mouth to speak, but is spared by Harry's stirring.

"Harry!" Darcy grabs his hand and pulls him to a sitting position, fixing his messy hair. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"He only fainted," says the man beside her with a small smile. He holds out a piece of chocolate to Harry. "Here, eat this."

"You fainted?" she continues, frowning. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here quicker."

Harry accepts the chocolate from the man, turning it over warily in his palm. He looks up at his sister, glancing down at it before taking a small nibble. "I'm fine," Harry grimaces, looking up behind Darcy and noticing Emily standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. "Did you—?"

Darcy shakes her head slowly.

A loud snap! in her ear makes her jump and Darcy turns to her left to see the man breaking up the slab of chocolate into smaller pieces for everyone. He passes the chocolate around the compartment, even reaching up to give one to Emily, who takes it graciously, and then he holds the last piece out for Darcy, who is hesitant to take it for reasons unknown to herself.

Darcy and the man look at each other for a minute, eyes fixed upon each other intently. He looks kind enough, with soft features and messy brown hair. Finally, Darcy takes the chocolate from his hand, but puts it up on the seat, meaning to eat it later. The man chuckles, catching her attention again. The knowledge that he can laugh after what has just happened gives her some small comfort. "You should eat it," he says. "It'll make you feel better."

"I know," she answers sharply. "I'm not hungry right now."

She looks around the compartment and notices that every person who has eaten the chocolate seems to have regained color in their face. The only person who hasn't eaten their chocolate is her, but she doesn't feel as if she could keep it down anyway. She and Harry glance at each other for a moment, wary of the entire situation. Finally, Darcy can't help herself and she turns again to the stranger beside her, still kneeling at Harry's side.

"Who are you?" she asks, sounding a bit harsher than she'd intended.

The man clears his throat and stands up. Darcy does the same, cocking an eyebrow. It seems he's been waiting for this moment, for the chance to introduce himself, and a weak smile graces his face. "Your new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," he replies quickly, holding out his hand. "Professor Remus Lupin."

Darcy looks at his hand, back up to his face, to his hand again, and she finally takes it, shaking it slowly. As soon as their hands touch, a warmth spreads through Darcy's arm, infecting her entire body. She can't stop looking into his face—he looks so familiar, but Darcy can't recall ever hearing his name or seeing his face. The dementor has scrambled her thoughts, so perhaps she just isn't thinking straight. But the way he looks at her, as if she's an old friend, as if he's been waiting years to meet her—there's something strange about it.

They continue to shake hands for a long few seconds, while everyone around them watches awkwardly. Lupin continues to smile warmly at her, waiting for her to introduce herself, their hands moving up and down lazily and absently. "Darcy Potter," she finally says and, while they still shake hands, she adds, "Have we met?"

Lupin chuckles. "I don't think so."

Darcy pulls her hand away and she shivers, forgetting how cold she had been only a minute ago. Lupin points to her piece of chocolate and grins wearily. "I promise it'll make you feel better," he says again. "You don't look so great."

"C'mon Darcy, eat the chocolate," Emily sighs. "It's not that bad."

Darcy, if only to stop everyone from asking her to eat it, eats her chocolate. The same warmth that touching Lupin's hand provided now floods through her body again and she almost asks for a second piece, but Lupin hands one to her before she has to ask. She scarfs it down and Harry finally takes a large bite of his own, appeasing Lupin.

"We'll be at Hogwarts soon," Lupin announces to the compartment. He looks around at them all, hesitating upon seeing that Darcy is still looking at him.

Everyone looks rather relieved, but Darcy feels a pit form in her stomach. If dementors are going to be stationed at school—if they're going to be in such close proximity all the time—how many more times is she going to have to relive that memory? How many more times will she have to see her mother's face, blank and cold and dead? How many more times will she have to see Voldemort looking directly at her? And how long will it take her to forget all over again?