I've got a lot going on this weekend, so I'll update early. I'm on vacation from work much of next week, so there may be additional updates if I have the time to post. Thanks so much to anyone who reviews — it makes my heart happy!
Bookcozy: Thank you for reviewing! I just love the Weasleys and Tori. Tori is harder to fit into the story and keep her as true to her personality as I would like (she's my total opposite, so harder to flesh out sometimes), but I just love her.
readerfaye: Thank you for the review! I'd have a stroke if Harry Potter was real — I mean the insanity that Harry gets himself into! This year will be a bit angsty, but stick with me. I'm already squealing for later, so good times are coming!
Chapter Four
Tom woke the two of them the next morning with a toothless grin and two cups of tea. Nessa spent some time re-packing some of Tori's things — she had a horrible tendency of just throwing it all in her trunk with no organizational system at all. Nessa did not know why, but knowing about the chaos in her best friend's trunk bothered her a great deal, and she could not bear the idea of knowing it was a mess inside during their entire trip back to school. Not to mention, she would have to listen to Tori's complaining all year about her clothes being wrinkly because she just squished them all into the space.
When they'd finally dressed for the day and made their way out of the room, they were nearly trampled over by a very irritated Ron.
"What's his problem?" said Tori in irritation when the twins stepped out of their room with identical grins.
"He dripped tea on Percy's photo of Penelope Clearwater —" said Fred snickering.
"You know, his girlfriend," said George, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically and causing Nessa to laugh. "She's hidden her face under the frame because her nose has gone all blotchy…"
"She won't be his girlfriend for long," said Tori with an eye roll and a pointed look at Nessa. "A girl can only stand her boyfriend snogging his Head Boy badge more than her for so long, yeah?"
Nessa laughed and shoved Tori toward the direction of the stairs. Mr. Weasley was reading the front page of the Daily Prophet with a furrowed brow when they made it to the breakfast table. Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley were very giggly and talking in whispers about a love potion Mrs. Weasley had made as a young girl.
Breakfast was quick and loading into the cars was as chaotic as leaving from the Burrow the year prior had been. They piled all of their luggage near the door with Hedwig and Hermes perched on top in their cages. Crookshanks and Peanut were in wickerwork baskets, clearly fed up with all of the noise and spitting loudly. Peanut, who was usually very well behaved, seemed to be taking her cues from a very irritated Crookshanks and Nessa had long since given up trying to comfort her. Archie was perched as far from the cats as possible as their anger seemed to be causing him some stress and she wasn't entirely sure how long that would last.
Nessa watched as led Harry to one of the dark green Ministry vehicles parked outside. He shot her a look, but said nothing as he was shuffled into the vehicle. Ron, Hermione, and Percy joined them. The rest of them piled into the second vehicle. It was a tight fit that made the journey to King's Cross entirely too uncomfortable for Nessa's liking. They reached King's Cross with twenty minutes to spare — something Nessa was entirely certain was due to the fact the Ministry cars were able to slide through gaps that any other car would not have been able to — and the drivers helped load their luggage onto trolleys before leaving, somehow managing to jump to the head of an unmoving line at the traffic lights.
Mr. Weasley kept close to Harry all the way through the station and Nessa forced herself to stop watching them because it was beginning to make her anxiety from the previous night jump to the surface again. Tori squeezed her elbow as they came to a stop ahead of the barrier, as if sensing her growing worry. Nessa smiled at her gratefully.
"Right then," Mr. Weasley said, glancing around them. "Let's do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I'll go through first with Harry."
The two of them leaned casually against the barrier and fell sideways through it, disappearing from sight.
"No, Ronald, not you yet," said Mrs. Weasley, looking around the train station anxiously. "Nessa and Tori. You next, dears."
They shared a confused look, but complied. They imitated the two before them, pushing their trolleys up to the barrier, and reclining against the wall until they fell sideways and ended up next to Harry and Mr. Weasley, who's relief seemed to increase at the sight of them. Percy and Ginny appeared next, clearly having taken the barrier at a run, as they were panting.
"Ah, there's Penelope!" said Percy, smoothing his hair and going pink again. Tori and Nessa grabbed onto each other and leaned in as if they were speaking to each other quietly in an attempt to hide their laughter. Ginny and Harry caught each other's eye and turned away from each other hastily to hide their own laughter. Percy strode over to a girl with long, curly hair, walking with his chest thrown out so that she couldn't miss his shiny badge.
"Please just kill me if I ever date a bloke like Percy," said Tori, still laughing as the twins came through the barrier.
They hurried to an empty compartment to stash their trunks, Peanut, and Archie before going back out to the platform to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley kissed them all in turn.
"Do take care, won't you, Harry? Nessa, you'll watch out for him?" she said to them as she straightened, her eyes oddly bright. Nessa smiled and nodded at her. Then she opened her enormous handbag and said, "I've made you all sandwiches…Here you are, Ron…no, they're not corned beef…Fred? Where's Fred? Here you are, dear…"
"Harry," said Mr. Weasley quietly from behind them. "Come over here a moment. Vanessa, Victoria…I'd like you to come as well, if you don't mind."
The two girls shared a very confused look with Harry, but followed without comment as they took refuge behind a pillar, leaving the others to crowd around Mrs. Weasley.
"There's something I've got to tell you all before you leave —" said Mr. Weasley, his voice tense.
"It's all right, Mr. Weasley," said Harry. "I already know."
"You know? How could you know?"
"I — er — I heard you and Mrs. Weasley talking last night. I couldn't help hearing," Harry added quickly. "Sorry —"
"That's not the way I'd have chosen for you to find out," said Mr. Weasley, looking anxious.
"No — honestly, it's okay. This way, you haven't broken your word to Fudge and I know what's going on."
"Arthur, what's this got to do with me and Nessa?" said Tori and then quickly adding, "Not that we're not concerned about his safety but —"
"Arthur!" called Mrs. Weasley, who was now shepherding the rest onto the train. "Arthur, what are you doing? It's about to go!"
"They're coming, Molly!" said Mr. Weasley, but he turned to them and kept talking in a lower and more hurried voice. "Listen, I want you to give me your word — all three of you —"
"That we'll behave?" said Tori with an eye roll.
"Not entirely," said Mr. Weasley, who looked more serious than Nessa had ever seen him. Tori seemed to agree as she was looking more concerned by the minute. "All of you, swear to me you won't go looking for Black?"
They stared at him. "What?" they said in unison.
There was a loud whistle. Guards were walking along the train, slamming all the doors shut.
"Promise me, you three," said Mr. Weasley, talking more quickly still, "that whatever happens —"
"Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to kill me?" said Harry blankly. At the same time, Tori said "What the hell is going on, Arthur?"
Nessa stepped on her toe for her use of language.
"Swear to me that whatever you all might hear —"
"Arthur, quickly!" cried Mrs. Weasley.
Steam was billowing from the train; it had started to move. The three of them were forced to run to the compartment doors. Ron opened one for Harry and Fred and George each opened one for Nessa and Tori and stood back to let them on. They leaned out the window and waved at Mr. and Mrs. Weasley until the train turned a corner and blocked them from view.
"What was that about?" said Fred, looking between the two of them. "You nearly missed the train."
"Not here, Tori," Nessa said as she opened her mouth to explain the conversation. "In the compartment."
Fred and George led the way and Nessa waved at her brother as they headed in the opposite direction. They found Lee in one of the compartments and filed in, Tori and Nessa giving him a hug in greeting as they came to sit.
"Er — Lee, not that I'm not happy to see you or anything, but could you give us just a moment?" said Nessa with a guilty smile.
Fred and George met each other's gaze in confusion and Lee raised his eyebrows into his hairline, but nodded anyway and grinned at her.
"Sure," he said casually. "I'll just go and find Angelina and be back in a bit."
"You aren't going to ask her out again, are you?" said Tori with a laugh.
"Only time will tell, Victoria," he said coyly and left, shutting the door just in time. The shoe Tori had thrown hit the glass and bounced off. They could hear Lee laughing down the corridor.
"Prat," muttered Tori, sliding her shoe back on.
"What can't you tell us without Lee here?" said Fred from next to Tori, clearly running out of patience.
"Your father just asked us to promise him we wouldn't go after Sirius Black," said Tori. The twins gaped at them both.
"What? Why?" said George from where he sat next to Nessa. "I mean, Harry I get because of what he heard last night, but what do the two of you have to do with anything?"
"He's not after you too, is he?" said Fred.
"He didn't say that he was," said Nessa. "He just kept saying 'promise me whatever you might hear'."
"He really didn't say much of anything," agreed Tori. "But it was very odd. I thought maybe he was going to tell us to keep an eye on Harry —"
"What could we possibly hear that would send us looking for Sirius Black?" said Nessa, biting her lip.
"Dad must think you two are mad or something," said Fred, shaking his head. "I mean, he isn't too far off, y'know, but —"
Tori cuffed him on the ear with an eye roll. He swore loudly and shoved her off the bench. George rolled his eyes when Tori shot up and tried to put Fred into a headlock. Fred was laughing and holding her arms away with his own.
"They've been getting worse, I think," he said to Nessa in such a grave voice that she couldn't help but laugh.
The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened. People were racing back and forth outside the compartment. Peanut had begun roaming the compartment, sniffing curiously and settling behind George's legs. Lee returned some time later, looking very chipper for a bloke who'd been denied yet again, in Nessa's opinion. At one o'clock, the food trolley came through and Nessa and Tori made their usual purchases to share with the compartment.
At some point, George disappeared for a while to go see Alicia and Nessa ignored the looks that Tori and Fred gave her at this pronouncement, in favor of reading — or pretending to read — her book. She did not want to go through this conversation again with Tori and talking about it with Fred felt like betraying George somehow. It probably wasn't, but it still made her uncomfortable. Not to mention how incredibly awkward it would be. After a while of pretending she didn't see them looking at her, they shared an annoyed look with each other, and then started talking with Lee about the upcoming Quidditch season. It was Oliver's last year at Hogwarts, so they were expecting him to be far more manic than usual.
They were in the middle of a game of Exploding Snap when George returned and Nessa refused to notice that his hair was a lot messier than it had been when he'd left. She didn't care at all. Absolutely did not. The pang in her stomach was really just because she was hungry and that was it.
She sighed heavily at herself.
"Alright, love?" said George, looking at her in concern.
Tori and Fred engaged Lee in conversation hastily as Nessa froze in surprise.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," she deflected. George raised his eyebrows at her, clearly not buying it. "I'm fine, George, really. It's just been a weird few days."
Maybe she should just tell him. Not because she hoped it would do anything, but because she felt so awkward around him when she didn't say anything. But then what could he possibly say that would make it any easier? 'Yeah, sorry, but I've got a girlfriend, and you're more like a sister than anything.' Yes, great. Because those words wouldn't rip her entire heart out.
Maybe she could just go back to hiding in Myrtle's bathroom again.
"Yeah, I suppose it's not every day that you hear Sirius Black is after your brother," he said, still looking at her suspiciously.
He spoke quietly so that Lee wouldn't hear, but she wasn't sure he would have anyway. The conversation may have started as a diversion from the awkwardness in the compartment, but Fred and Tori were now having a heated debate with him over his assumption that the Chudley Cannons Seeker could take them to the World Cup next year if they played their cards right.
"At this point, I feel like I shouldn't even be surprised," said Nessa seriously. "He attracts trouble like Bludgers to beater's bats."
George laughed. "And here I thought that's what you said about Fred and I."
"Who says I don't?" she smirked.
"Maybe this will be the year we break your goody two-shoes facade, Potter. Imagine the look on Snape's face."
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the game in front of her, pulling Tori and Lee back to finish.
The rain thickened as the train sped yet farther north; the windows were now a solid, shimmering gray, which gradually darkened until lanterns flickered into life all along the corridors and over the luggage racks. The train rattled, the rain hammered, the wind roared, but still, the train continued north without delay.
As the night wore on and Nessa was beginning to get antsy, wishing they were in the castle and eating dinner at the feast, the train started to slow down. Nessa checked her watch — they still had thirty minutes left.
"We can't be there yet, can we?" said Tori, echoing her own thoughts.
"No, we still have half an hour left," said Nessa, wiping off the condensation on the window and trying to look out the window. All she could see was thick rain and darkness. The train was getting slower and slower. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.
She did not know why, but she was anxious all of a sudden. Lee got up to look outside the compartment.
"Nothing," he said, sitting back down with a shrug. "Maybe there's a mechanical malfunction or —"
The train came to a stop with a jolt, and Nessa gasped, flinging an arm out to keep herself from being thrown forward. George wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back into the seat. Distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness. Nessa felt her breathing quicken minutely.
"What's going on?" said Fred's voice from across from her.
"I think there's people getting on — something is moving out there —" said Tori, who was wiping away the fog on the window again. "I can't tell for sure though."
The train jolted again and Nessa squeezed her eyes shut in panic. Not that she could see anything anyway. The compartment door opened and there was a clatter as someone fell over their legs.
"Ouch!" said Nessa as a knee landed on her toe and jerked it away hastily.
"Who's that? What's going on?" said whoever was on the floor below them. The voice sounded vaguely familiar.
"Who's that?"
"Malfoy?"
"Oh, great, it's Potter," said a clearly annoyed voice. "Thank Merlin, it's so dark. I wouldn't want to scar my eyes with your ugly —"
Nessa kicked out hard and hit him in the stomach. He grunted.
"Sorry," said Nessa in a falsely sweet tone. "It's so dark, I didn't see you."
She heard the others laugh.
"Don't sit here, idiot, I'm here!" said Tori when Malfoy tried to scramble onto one of the seats.
Crabbe and Goyle stumbled in after him, stepping on all of their toes again and causing them to hiss at them. When silence finally filled the compartment again, Nessa strained to hear what was happening in the hall, but there was nothing but silence.
"Where's my wand?" said Lee from the other side of her. "Oh, shite, sorry Nessa," he said when he accidentally rammed his hand into her side.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered. "Ad Ignem."
A bright ball of orange flames filled her hand and lit the compartment enough that she could see their faces. There was a mix of irritation and anxiety showing on all of the faces across from her. Malfoy in particular looked very pale.
"Why didn't you do that before now, Potter?" he griped at her with a sneer. "It'd have been nice to see where I was going earlier."
"Shut it, Malfoy," snapped George from beside her.
"Maybe we should go ask the driver what's going on —" Tori began, but a shadow was suddenly filling the glass pane of the compartment. It looked as if it were floating. And whoever it was was extremely tall.
They stilled as the compartment door slid open slowly. Standing in the doorway, illuminated slightly by the flames in her hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water…
And then the thing beneath the hood drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings. An intense cold swept over the compartment, the windows coating themselves in ice and their breath coming out in clouds in front of them. Instinctually, she pushed herself back against George, who was still holding her waist, and tried to seep warmth from him instead. He pulled her into his lap, but the shivering continued, both of them shaking almost violently.
The cold went so much deeper than her skin. It was weighing on her chest until she could hardly breathe. It was weighing down her heart and freezing her lungs from the inside. She was drowning in it, trying to gasp for air. The flames extinguished as the panic set in, the fear. And then she heard it — the memory she had been suppressing on the Knight Bus when Stan had been talking to them about Sirius Black.
She heard herself moan in pain, tried to cover her ears, squeezed her eyes closed. Anything that would keep her from having to relive it again. But the memory came anyway as if it were being sucked out from deep in her head and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
"Lily, take Nessa and Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"
A high, cold laugh filled the air around her followed by a flash of green light that she could see over her mother's shoulder as she raced up the stairs, illuminating the living room and causing her mother to let out a horrible scream of agony. She watched her father crumple in front of her, falling in a heap on the floor, his glasses crooked and broken.
Her mother stumbled, set Nessa in a dark room, kissed her on her forehead and whispered, "I love you, darling," before she was racing away with Harry, leaving her alone in the dark room. Nessa screamed, cried, and toddled to the door, banging her little fists against it and crying for her mother.
She heard the panicked scream from the next bedroom.
"Not Harry! Not Harry! Please not Harry!"
A cold, cruel, mocking voice.
"Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside now."
"Not Harry! Please, no, take me…kill me instead!"
"Move aside, you insolent girl."
"Not Harry! Please…have mercy…have mercy…"
Another high, cruel laugh, a flash of light that she could see through the cracks under and on the sides of the door. Harry screaming, crying…another bright flash of green light and an explosion that caused her ears to ring.
Then silence. The kind of silence that weighed on a person until they couldn't breathe. The silence they heard at funerals or after a tragedy. God, the worst part was that silence.
And then all at once the lanterns were flickering on again and whatever had been hovering in the doorway was gone. But still none of them moved or spoke.
Nessa could feel herself shaking, felt tears running down her face, and a cold sweat on her face. She was still covering her ears, but didn't have the strength to put them back down, even though her arms were shaking so badly she wasn't sure how she'd kept them up so long.
The memory faded from behind her eyes, but the sounds…she could still hear the sounds, the screaming. Could still hear her mother whispering to her that she loved her as if she had been saying goodbye. Could still see how quietly she'd closed her daughter into that dark bedroom, despite her panic, so that whoever was after her would not think to look there first. Could see her father, his brown eyes empty and hollow. It was more than she'd ever remembered before — like the dementors had pulled it from the recesses of her brain and forced her to see it all.
And that high, cruel laugh. It showed up in her nightmares sometimes. The laugh that suggested the kind of cruelty Voldemort was truly capable of. It was the sound of someone who felt no compassion, no love, no mercy. She did not understand how he had laughed in the face of her mother's pain, knowing he had killed her husband, and was preparing to kill her too.
The others did not look much better than she felt. Malfoy looked as though he might wet himself at any moment. Crabbe and Goyle were very pale. Lee was staring ahead of him in shock, shivering violently. Fred didn't look much better and she was sure that if she had the strength to look behind her, George would look the same way. He was gripping her waist so tightly still that she was sure it would leave a bruise.
But it was Tori that looked the worst of them. Her black curls made her look as pale as one of the Hogwarts ghosts and her body was so tight that she looked like one touch would break her into a million pieces. Her eyes were wide, her body rocking back and forth, and she was whispering to herself over and over again. Something Nessa could not hear. She kept squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears over and over again. She looked like…a child.
And then, all of a sudden, she screamed. Bloody murder. The kind of scream that was filled with fear and pain. It sounded like she was being tortured. And, in a way, she probably was.
Nessa jumped, and heard Lee swear next to her in surprise. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle panicked and ran from the compartment without looking back and she wasn't quite sure, but she was sure she'd heard Malfoy crying on his way out.
The panic shot her forward out of George's lap, even though her body felt like it were being weighed down by cinder blocks. She landed on her knees in front of her best friend.
"Tori! Tori, look at me!"
"I'll go get someone," she heard Lee say quickly from behind her.
"Victoria, look at me!" Nessa said, shaking her hard, when the screaming did not stop.
Tori's eyes shot to her immediately and there was a gasp of air, as though she'd forgotten to breathe entirely, and then a ringing silence as the scream died in her throat. But she was still clearly not in a good place — her eyes were glassy like she was still focused on whatever she was seeing in her head.
Their eyes met and held, gray against green, and Tori crumbled. Just completely broke right in front of her.
Nessa caught her as she fell forward, sliding out of the seat, her body wracked with sobs, heaving with them so strongly that she was curling in on herself as if she were in physical pain. George fell next to them and tried to help Nessa bring her back to reality, grabbing one of Tori's hands and speaking to her quietly, but Nessa couldn't make out what he was saying in her own desperation. He gave her a helpless look as Tori's sobbing continued.
"Tori, you're okay," she said, her eyes filling with tears again at the sound of the sobbing. She'd never heard such pain in another human being before. "I promise you're okay. It's just a memory. Please, Tori, breathe for me."
The sobs were turning into hyperventilation and she was entirely unprepared for how to help. It was only a memory, sure, but it was real. And she knew what she had to have been seeing because there was nothing worse that had happened in her life other than the night her mother had died. And she'd been much older than Nessa had been when her own parents had been murdered. She could only imagine the clarity she'd had as it was happening.
"Tori, come back, okay?" she said quietly, gently, forcing her friend's face to look at her again, hoping the familiarity of her face would help ground her a little. "You're safe, I promise you. It's not happening right now. I need you to concentrate and try to breathe for me, okay?"
The compartment door opened and a very pale looking Lee entered with an older man wearing very shabby, tattered robes and he looked exhausted, but very serious. There were gray streaks in his brown hair even though he seemed fairly young. He froze for a second as he got a look at Nessa and Tori, but he was next to them almost immediately.
"You said it was the dementors?"
"Yes, sir, she…well, I don't know what happened." said Lee from the doorway as Nessa tried to console her friend. "She started screaming after they left. I think it may have hovered over her a bit because I could hear her…she was begging it not to do something, I think."
"The screaming. All I can hear is the screaming," Tori sobbed. "Please, make the screaming stop."
It was nearly impossible to understand her and Nessa was sure that if she wasn't acutely aware of what Tori must have heard once the dementor had walked into the compartment, she wouldn't have been able to make it out.
"I know you can, Tori," she said brokenly. "I know. I'm so sorry, Tori. I promise the screaming will stop, but I need you to try to breathe slowly for me. Just focus on me, my voice, okay? You aren't in that closet, Victoria." The others shifted uncomfortably as the realization of what she was seeing became clear to them at these words. Tori's sobbing did not stop, her breathing didn't slow and Nessa could feel her own panic setting in. "I don't — I don't know how to help her." she said desperately to the stranger next to her.
"Chocolate will help," he said, gently and calmly. It helped keep her grounded a little. Which was likely a good thing because the last thing any of them needed was for two of them to be mid-panic attack. "But we've got to get her to calm down a little before she'll be able to eat any. I can use a Cheering Charm, but I'd rather we tried to bring her back down naturally or the sudden change in emotion could make her sick."
Nessa nodded shakily and looked up at Fred, who looked frozen in place, unsure what to do. He was the only one of them that hadn't tried anything yet. And, despite their insane fondness for irritating each other, they had a bond that Nessa and George did not. George had told her once that when she'd come to the Weasleys the night her mother had died, she'd gone to Fred, not anyone else. Maybe the familiarity of him would help.
"Fred, come here," she said quietly over the crying, "Fred!" she snapped when he didn't move at all. He jumped as if he'd been shocked back into reality. "Get over here!"
He rushed forward and gathered Tori into his lap, whispering something in her ear quickly. Tori didn't seem to hear him at first, and Nessa was beginning to think that it wasn't going to work either, except then she saw Tori's hands grab onto Fred's sweater, holding it so tightly that he was forced to hunch over her a little. And then the sobbing stopped and turned into shallow, shaky breaths. And then she relaxed all at once, the tension in her body leaving so abruptly that she sagged. Fred rose with her onto the seat again and let her curl into him.
Nessa felt her breathing slow as relief flooded her. She saw George exhale and sag against the wall behind him. He still looked very pale and she was sure at this point that it was a mixture of the dementor's effects and Tori's breakdown. He grimaced at her when he saw her looking, and then pulled her into the space between his legs so that she was leaning back into him. She went willingly because she could still feel the cold in her bones, as if it had sunk into her down to the marrow. He was warm, but it was not enough to dissipate the feeling.
There was a loud snap in the compartment and they jumped. The stranger was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces. He handed a piece to Lee and then to George.
"She doesn't like chocolate," said George immediately when he tried to hand one to Nessa, who had scrunched her face in disgust and started shaking her head in refusal.
A flicker of a smile appeared on the man's face, but he looked at her sharply.
"I'm sorry, Vanessa, but I must insist this time," he said firmly. "It will help. I promise."
She hesitated a moment, but accepted it anyway and took a small bite. She did not like it. She'd have much rather thrown the rest away except there was an immediate warmth that filled her body as she chewed, all the way down to the tips of her fingers and her toes. She was so desperate for that warmth that she shoved the entire thing into her mouth instead.
The stranger handed the entire slab to Fred. Fred took it, but seemed very unconcerned about it. Tori was still clinging onto him as if he were her lifeline to reality. She wasn't speaking at all, her eyes focused on the empty seat across from her, but it was clear she wasn't focusing on it. The tears were silent, but her eyes looked empty. Nessa was not sure that she was thinking about anything at all at this point, that the emotions had wiped out her body's desire to function completely.
"You both should have some," the stranger said firmly to Fred and pulled Nessa's concerned gaze away from her best friend. He stared until Fred broke a piece off and began to eat it. "Victoria may need more than that given the reaction she had to them —"
"She has more in her trunk," said Nessa, smiling wryly. "She's obsessed with the stuff."
"Good. Make her eat until she feels warm again," he said. "The driver says we'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes. I've got to go check on your brother —"
Nessa sat up hastily and George swore when she elbowed him in the thigh.
"Harry? What's wrong with him? Is he —"
The man held up a hand calmly and smiled at her kindly.
"Yes, he's quite alright. Just a bit shaken up. He fainted when the dementors came onto the train, but nothing to be concerned about." Nessa relaxed back against George again, who did not appear as though he minded she was there, even though the chocolate had already beat back the cold. "I'll have him check with you once we get back to the castle. I expect that chocolate to be gone by the time we arrive."
He left, shutting the compartment door quietly behind him. It was then that Nessa realized that there were several people standing outside the compartment, clearly trying to see what the commotion had been about inside it. Nessa imagined that someone screaming like Tori had would cause a lot of panic. She heard the man calmly corral the students back to their compartments with assurances that everything was alright.
It would be hours later that she would realize that she'd never told him what her name was. And Tori had never told him hers because she'd been too distraught to say much of anything. But he'd somehow known them anyway.
-o0o-
You know, reading this one back over, there's some intense emotions going on here at the end. It did not feel that intense as I was writing it originally. My heart is heavy with this one.
Next up: A bit of jealousy & a lot of banter