Demented Visions

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Iris and Shirou arrived early for their ride on the Hogwarts Express, once again made possible by Shirou's ability to Apparate.

Their timely arrival allowed them to easily snag an empty compartment on the train. From there, they used the Messenger Book to coordinate with everyone else as they arrived.

Soon, the whole gang was assembled with Shirou, Iris, Hermione, Rin, Sakura, Luna, and Illya all squeezed into a single compartment.

After hugs were exchanged, Sakura and Rin gave Iris her belated birthday presents from Japan.

Sakura gave her a box of Japanese sweets while Rin provided her with more talismans of a diverse variety.

Shirou barely held back a groan upon spotting Rin's gift. Iris had gotten one over him with a talisman in one of their spars. He wasn't opposed to her using them, he was just a little worried about what she could get up to with a more diverse set.

As the train started moving, the Japanese and European groups began chatting, sharing stories about their summers and catching up with each other. Iris, without a doubt, had the most fascinating experiences to discuss. She had been training under Kiritsugu and there was also the possibility of being targeted by an escaped mass murderer.

"Iris," Rin whined. "Can't we just have a normal year without someone trying to kill or exploit you?"

Iris let out a long sigh.

"Speaking of—" Hermione started to say, getting a surprised look from Iris and Rin.

"That was a joke," Rin stage whispered.

"—Do we know anything about this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"

"There's no guarantee that they will be a source of trouble," Rin pointed out.

"I just want us to be careful," Hermione responded. "Two years in a row they've been out to get Iris."

"I think this year's antagonist is going to be Sirius Black," Rin said, a bit sarcastically. "No need to invite more trouble."

"Can we talk about something other than who will be out to get me this year?" Iris asked.

Shirou watched with amusement as Iris glanced around the compartment, looking for something to talk about until her eyes fell upon her broom. "How are the Kanto Katanas doing this year?"

Rin's eyes lit up, while Hermione rolled hers.

"Quidditch?" Hermione asked. "Must we?"

"We must!" Rin leaned forward and began to talk about the new players that had been brought onto the team and how they were going to take the Katanas to the top.

Time passed with the group chatting, playing games, eating snacks from the food trolley, and occasionally going out to find some of their other friends from school.

As they went farther and farther north, the sky got darker and darker as clouds gathered and rain began to come down.

Eventually, they decided it was time to put their school robes on. Initially, Shirou stood outside their compartment protecting the door. Then, the other six had to crowd into the hallway while he got the whole compartment to himself to change in.

At this point, the weather had become absolutely atrocious with rain coming down in sheets that pounded against the windows of their compartment. The windows were completely black now, and lanterns lit up in the hallways and compartments.

"I wouldn't want to be a first-year in this," Rin commented as she squinted out the window. "They are going to be drenched when crossing the lake this year."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, they lurched, as the train began to slow.

"We can't be there yet," Hermione said, glancing down at her watch.

Despite her assertion, the train kept on slowing down, the pumps of the pistons and the faint screech of the brakes soon giving way to the drumming of the downpour and the howls of the wind.

The lights went out, plunging the compartment in complete darkness.

"Lumos!" Three voices echoed, and the compartment was lit by three wands.

Looking around, Shirou noticed that both Iris and Illya had also cast the Wand-Lighting Charm. Soon, the others followed suit, filling the cabin with light.

Outside of the compartment, they could hear people stumbling around and yelling.

"Does no one else know this charm?" Iris asked sarcastically.

With a small smirk and a slight shake of the head, Shirou rose and slid open their compartment door. Stepping out, he raised his lit wand and assessed the situation.

A few people had been caught out in the corridor when the light went out. Some had even tripped over each other while stumbling around in the dark. Shirou caught a few recognizing the other or apologizing as they untangled themselves in the wand light.

While some hastily retreated into their compartments, others emerged, eyes following the light to him, curiosity evident on their faces.

"The spell is 'Lumos'," he said, earning sheepish looks from his fellow students.

With the reminder, a soft chorus of "Lumos" sounded and the train car was soon filled with light.

"I'll make my way through the other cars toward the conductor, and see if anyone else needs light," Shirou announced. "Could some of you head the other way and help out if they need it? Especially the first-years."

He received a few hesitant nods. The girls from Shirou's compartment had crowded around behind him, ready to help.

Before they could further coordinate themselves, the door to the car was wrenched open, revealing something standing in the doorway.

It was tall, tall enough that it had to hunch slightly to get through the door. A ragged black cloak concealed the entirety of its face and body. Its hand, a putrid-looking mockery of a human hand, was still grasped on the door handle but was quickly tucked away into its robe when Shirou looked at it.

Shirou tensed up as his every sense screamed at him that the thing in front of him was wrong.

For a moment, it stood there, its hood shifting as it looked around. Then, it rasped, as though inhaling with the intent to drain all the air from the train car.

Fire surrounded him, and with it, the ruins of buildings burned without any sign of abetting. His skin blistered and every breath he drew scorched his lungs.

Shirou stumbled and blinked. He was still in the hallway of the train car. A deep cold cut into him like a knife and his every exhalation misted in the air in front of him.

He felt the thud of his heartbeat, and he was in the fire again. His skin crisped and cracked, his eyes shriveled in the heat, and his brain steamed in his skull.

His heart beat again and he was back in the train. Hot became cold and cold became hot. Up became down as opposites clashed in his head.

He staggered, struggling to focus on the monstrosity before him.

Another heartbeat.

Something was there, in his memory. Something that wasn't right. Everything was inverted, backward and forward, light and dark, hot and cold. But still, what he saw wasn't right. Even in his nearly-dead, empty state, it filled him with fear. Even though it was just a corrupted memory. Even over the great distance in time and dimensions. In the here and now, it filled him with a primal fear.

A black sun filled the sky.

The sound of dozens of voices shrieking snapped him back to reality.

The creature had stopped its rasps. Instead, its head tilted back and it let out an ear-rending wail that was echoed by what sounded like a small army of similar monsters outside the train.

The train car rocked as the creatures pressed themselves up against the windows, all still shrieking.

The creature in their train car lunged forward, clamping its disgusting, scab-encrusted hand down on Shirou's shoulder with an iron grip.

It started inhaling again, and the black sun grew large in Shirou's mind.

With less than a thought, black and white twin swords filled his hands and he twisted.

The grip on his shoulder loosened as the creature's hand separated from the rest of its arm and dropped to the floor.

A moment passed in absolute silence before the creature let out a very different kind of scream, one of pain.

Lurching away from Shirou, it turned and fled from him, passing the unconscious figures of other students with no care for their presence.

The train car stopped rocking as the other creatures fled as well.

Shirou wasn't about to let the one he'd wounded get away, but as he stepped forward, he found that his legs felt heavy and he barely managed one step before stumbling against a wall.

He didn't need to worry about the creature attacking others though. As soon as it reached the gap between cars, it leapt from the train and fled into the night.

Shirou collapsed to all fours, struggling for breath as his heart hammered heavily, each beat sending a bout of nausea up his throat.

He glanced around quickly to take stock of the people around him. Most were picking themselves up off the ground and shaking their heads to clear their thoughts. With how sick Shirou felt, and how close he had been to passing out, everyone else must have suffered similar effects.

Hearing a soft sizzling sound next to him, he looked to the floor, where the creature's hand dissolved into smoke before it slid through the air trailing after the creature.

"Iris! Iris!"

Calls that he now recognized had been going on for a little bit finally registered to Shirou. He turned to look towards his compartment, where everyone had carefully surrounded Iris, who was twitching on the floor.

"Iris!" His voice sounded weak. He dismissed his swords and crawled over toward his friends.

Just as he arrived, her eyes snapped open and she sat up with a gasp.

"What happened?" were the first words out of her mouth. "Who was screaming?"

"Those monsters were screaming," Hermione supplied. "Or screeching more like."

"I'm not sure that's what I heard," Iris said, shaking her head slightly. "It sounded like a woman screaming. Like she was afraid."

The rest of the group just shook their heads. The monsters had made plenty of noise, but the rest of the people in their train car had been too scared or too unconscious to scream.

"Just me then?" Iris looked around from her position on the ground. "Did anyone else pass out?"

"I think everyone did," Rin supplied. "At least a little bit. I recovered before I could hit the ground. Only you and Luna stayed out for longer than a few seconds. She recovered before you did though."

"It was horrible." That was all Luna said before she backed away from the group and sat down in a seat.

"It was horrible," Rin agreed. "Like it was sucking the heat right out of my body."

"It felt like I'd never feel joy again," Sakura said in a whisper.

As the others supplied their takes on the experience, Iris slowly clambered into her seat, leaning heavily on her friends.

"Need a hand, Shirou?" Rin asked, seeing him still on the ground.

Shirou shook his head and attempted to get back on his feet. He struggled, using the wall as support, but eventually succeeded.

"What were those things?" Hermione asked, looking to the others for answers.

"Dementors," said a hoarse voice from outside their compartment. "The guards of Azkaban. They were searching the train for Sirius Black."

The group turned to look at the new arrival.

He wasn't much to look at, especially after the last "guest" of the train car. He looked to be in his early thirties, though his hair was shot through with grey already. The set of wizard's robes he wore were threadbare and had been darned in several places.

"Here," the man said as he held out a large bar of chocolate and broke off a piece. "Eat this. It will make you feel better."

Nobody reached for the chocolate.

"Excuse me, sir," Hermione injected. "But who exactly are you?"

The man looked awkward standing there holding a piece of chocolate, but he didn't retract it.

"Remus Lupin," he said. "I will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts from now on."

Everyone looked cynically at the chocolate before looking back up at the man's face.

"It's not poisoned," Lupin said in a joking manner. "It will help you feel better after dementor exposure."

Walking forward with ungainly steps, Iris reached out and plucked the chocolate from the teacher's grasp.

"He's telling the truth," she said, looking down at the thumb ring she had gotten for her birthday. "It isn't poisoned or potioned."

Hermione waved her wand over it a few times while whispering spells before she too nodded her agreement.

Lupin looked surprised that they had actually checked, but didn't say anything.

Shirou took the chocolate from Iris and popped it into his mouth. Just because they had checked it didn't mean he was going to let anyone else be the test subject.

He immediately began to feel better. The exhaustion that had bogged him down receded slightly and he stood straighter.

"It works," he confirmed, watching as the teacher passed out more chunks of chocolate to the others from his compartment.

"That does feel a lot better," Iris said after she swallowed her piece.

"Can anyone tell me what happened here?" the teacher asked as he handed out more chocolate to the worst-looking students in the hallway.

"There were dozens of them, sir," a student said as he received a piece of chocolate. "Shaking the whole car and wailing. I thought it was the end of us." He shivered. "One of them even grabbed Shirou before he managed to scare them off."

"Scare them off?" Lupin's eyebrows rose as he looked around the car. "Which one of you is Shirou?"

"That would be me." Shirou raised his hand.

"You know the Patronus Charm!?"

Shirou shook his head. "I don't know what that is."

"Then how did you scare them off?"

"One of them grabbed me, and I cut off its hand. That seemed to frighten it and the rest of them off."

"You… cut off its hand?" Lupin scowled at Shirou. "I don't know why you're lying, but nothing can hurt a dementor. They are amortal and invincible. Even the Patronus Charm can only ward them off."

"It's true though." The student that Lupin had just handed chocolate to spoke up again. "He cut off its hand, then it howled in pain and ran off."

"Then where is its hand?"

"It turned into black mist and flowed out after the injured dementor. If what you say about them is true, then it probably just reattached itself.

Lupin frowned and looked around the car, trying to find a dissenting voice. However, they all agreed with the explanation that Shirou had injured the dementor to scare it off.

Shaking his head, Lupin turned towards the front of the train.

"Well, I have to go speak with the conductor," Lupin said. "You should all wait in your compartments until we reach Hogwarts."

"Wait," Iris called out, stopping him in his tracks. "Do you have enough chocolate for everyone?"

"That was the only bar I had," Lupin said with an apologetic shrug.

"The snack cart should be at the front of the train. Could you get the cart woman to come back through and hand out chocolate?"

The professor paused briefly then nodded.

"Very well," he said. "I will ask her to do so. Now, please stay in your compartment until we reach the school."

Shirou and the rest took their seats while they waited for the train to get underway.

Shirou closed his eyes as he waited, meditating on what he had seen while under the dementor's influence. Most of it was his own memory. He'd seen that fire before; felt that horrible heat on his skin; and lived through that dreadful event. But the black sun was new. He didn't remember such a thing, nor did he recognize what it was. He hadn't seen such a thing when he was young, he was certain of it.

The train started up again, though the usual hustle and bustle of people talking and moving in the hallways was absent.

"Are you three alright?" Hemione asked, breaking the somber silence of the train.

Shirou and Iris glanced at each other and Luna, checking to see who was going to answer first. Luna and Iris both shook their heads, so Shirou took the opportunity to speak.

"I'll be alright," he said. "While the dementor was in front of me, I saw some… unpleasant memories."

Shirou glanced down at his hands as he considered the events of just a few minutes ago.

He felt weak. Not only from the lingering effects of whatever the dementor had done to him but from the memories they had dredged up. It was a stark reminder of all those he'd failed to save, those he'd abandoned so that he, alone, could survive.

"I managed to stay conscious," Shirou continued. "But it was a near thing." He nodded towards Iris. "If they hadn't started screeching, I'm not sure I would have snapped out of it."

Iris nodded back.

"It's very like you to stay on your feet even when knocked out," Iris said with a joking tone. She let that lightened mood stay in the air for a moment before her expression became more serious. "For me, it was like I was drowning," she said. "Like I was being pulled deeper and deeper into the dark. Eventually, I heard a woman screaming. Pleading and begging. I wanted so desperately to help her, but I couldn't move." Iris shook her head. "It was getting colder and colder… and then I woke up." She shuddered slightly at the memory.

"Oh, Iris." Hermione reached over and placed her hand on Iris's knee. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Iris paused, thinking hard about her response.

"I will be," she said with a wane smile. "I could do with some more chocolate though."

All eyes in the compartment turned towards Luna.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," Rin reassured the girl.

"No, I will," Luna replied. "For me, it was similar to what Iris said." She pulled her legs up and hugged them. "I didn't hear anything, but it felt like I was drowning. Like I was lost and no one would help me." She sniffed, trying to hold back tears. "I thought I was going to die." Then she started crying.

Hermione was on her a moment later, wrapping the small girl in a hug and speaking comforting things into her ear.

The compartment settled into a subdued silence, broken only by Luna's soft sobs and Hermione's comforting words. Eventually, even those noises stopped as Luna stopped crying and Hermione returned to her seat. All that remained was a dull quiet that no one felt comfortable breaking.

Shortly thereafter, the snack cart lady came by, handing out free chocolate. No one in the compartment turned down a piece of chocolate and a chance to further drive back the lingering effects of the dementor.

Eventually, the train pulled up to Hogwarts Station and the students crowded out of the train and into the freezing downpour outside.

Shirou still felt ill from his experience with the dementor, but he managed to Project a few umbrellas to hand out to nearby students.

Iris raised her hand to wave to Hagrid, who was calling out to the first-year students. He caught sight of them and waved back, but was too busy with the students around him to do more than that.

Their group was caught up in the rush of students who wanted to get out of the rain and into the castle. They were pulled along up to the thestral-pulled stagecoaches and, after a short argument, split up into two separate cars. It ended up being third-years in one coach and second-years in another.

No one felt like talking as the coach silently trundled along toward the castle.

Everyone tensed up as a familiar cold sensation washed over them.

Shirou glanced out the window and saw two dementors standing on each side of the wrought-iron gates on the way into the castle. He tensed up and Projected Kanshou and Bakuya, waiting for the creatures to get closer. The rest of the carriage brought their wands out, ready to cast at a moment's notice.

As they passed by the monsters, they turned their heads and watched them go by, but took no other actions.