The front of the train belonged to the Prefects. No one begrudged them the luxury of their extravagantly outfitted car, because with it came responsibility for the disembarkation in Hogsmead, and the loading of second year and up onto the carriages, with all the happy socializing and the remembered feuding that both seemed to only intensify on the long train trip.
Slytherins tended to be behind the Prefects for the three most Slytherin of reasons, it put them in the closest proximity to power, it put them in the closest proximity to authority figures should they be attacked, and of course it put authority figures the whole Slytherin section away, with various deniable delays possible, should the Slytherins decide to go attack someone else.
Ravenclaw stuck to the middle because they didn't do drama, and wrapped themselves in Hufflepuff compartments so that the unsorted first years could find someone who lacked the ability to tell the little parasites to shut up and stop bothering them, and who might actually feel somehow responsible for helping and educating children who were only 25% likely to end up in their house.
The back of the train belonged to the Gryffindor troublemakers who wished to be as far from the Prefects as the train allowed, so they could be as noisy and rambunctious as an equivalent number of five year-olds on ten pounds of sugar washed down with a Pepper Up potion. This year, the replacement Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was napping in the Gryffindor rear car in the hopes that reliving his glory days on the Hogwarts express would spark a desire for teaching in him. Since he was both a werewolf the day after the full moon, and a mid-thirties man trapped in a room of teenagers who had all the energy he vaguely remembered having, and none of the self control, shame, good sense, or self preservation he had picked up since being one of them, Remus Lupin was growing more tired with every passing kilometer.
This unfortunate geography meant that those capable of casting the Patronus charm were located in the last car of the train (Remus Lupin and Katie Bell), and the front of the train (Both Ravenclaw Prefects, the Head Girl from Gryffindor and Adrian Pucey, Slytherin Prefect). The target the Dementors were seeking, being Draco Malfoy was in the middle of the train, surrounded by the tastiest of morsels, young witches and wizards with lots of innate magical talent but little to no ability or training in using it.
This particular setup was not deemed an issue, as the Hogwarts express had wards that caused Muggles to not only not notice it, but be actively repelled by it. During WWII the wards had proved so effective they diverted whole German bomber wings nearly an hour flight off course to avoid passing near the train. The train had powerful anti apparition wards that made it impossible to board via portkey or apparition, it was unplottable, so could not be remotely scryed to make a physical interception by anything that couldn't simply fly down the tracks until they spotted a shiny red train full of tasty, tasty students.
Sadly, the dozen Dementors dispatched by Lucius Malfoy were indeed able to simply fly down the tracks faster than a train, and lacked the physical senses the existing charms befuddled to stop magical beings from targeting the train. This oversight occupied several paragraphs in the DMLE review, cited in several related disciplinary hearings.
Onboard the Hogwarts express, the laughter and cheer of the Hufflepuff center, even with two Slytherins and an odd Ravenclaw along for the ride, was looking to rival the Gryffindor cars for boisterousness. The continual stream of people to and from the Hufflepuff and unsorted compartments were little more than Hufflepuffs Hufflepuffing, but given so long away from their fellow Hufflepuffs, when reunited it only made them Hufflepuff harder.
The introverts in Ravenclaw watched whatever you would call an orgy if instead of wild perversion and decadence you got a lot of friendly hugging and decency, in undisguised horror, and kept their compartments firmly closed. They liked Hufflepuffs individually, but collectively, they were like sixty preschool teachers looking for someone to cheer up. It was however the Ravenclaw cars that noticed the problem first. Tanis Tanaka shivered, and looked at her window. She looked in alarm to note that frost was covering the window, slowly creeping in from the edges while she watched.
In a very Ravenclaw attempt to find out what was wrong, she pressed her face to the window to see what was going on. It had been a bright sunshiny day with full late summer heat, but now the sky seemed dark. Pressing her face up to the window she saw the sky was black with flying shapes. Not the clean shapes of birds, or the jagged shape of witches on brooms, but the flowing ragged wrongness of Dementors, each seeming to darknen the sky around them. She opened her mouth to cry out, but suddenly one darted down and she found herself looking inside the hood at hungry red eyes that stared into her soul and began to feed. Whimpering, Tanis Tanaka remembered being chased through the muggle mall after she had lost her mother's hand. The four boys had been local bullies who were only too happy to pick on the Asian girl in what they presumed was a private school uniform. They hadn't done more than push her, pull her hair and laugh at her, unless you counted the spitting which mostly landed on her clothes, but it had triggered a bout of underage magic which put one of the boys into the hospital, and she was never sure she was told the truth about the boy even surviving. Tanis collapsed into a ball by her seat, leaving the other Ravenclaws to ask her what was wrong. None of them looked out the window, which was fine. The Dementor was already moving between the cars to find a door into the train itself.
In the Prefects car, the descent of four Dementors seeking to enter via the large luggage loading platform behind the Prefect's car was noted almost immediately. Unlike the general run of students, those selected to be Prefects tended to both expect trouble, and to be prepared to deal with it. When four Dementors attempted to board the train between them and the cars behind, they knew enough to know two important facts. Firstly, they were unable to get help mid journey, and second, that their only means of communication with the outside world was also their only defense against the Dementors; the Patronus Charm.
They were as prepared as student's could be for a threat most Aurors were not capable of facing. All their training told them that a single Patronus charm was enough to drive a Dementor away. After all, for a Dementor to return after the Patronus faded is a sign the Dementor is being controlled or directed, something that the student's textbook tells them can only be dealt with by trained Auror teams. The nearest is waiting at Hogsmead, a mere two hours away.
Adrian Pucey watched the Dementors turn back, his own mental shields in tatters from the close proximity of the last attack. He felt his wand hand shaking as the Dementors strove again to enter their compartment. He felt compelled to speak, as if he didn't vent his sarcasm, he feared he would start screaming like Percy Weasley, who lacked the raw power for the Patronus.
"I feel I should point out, that since the Head Boy cannot cast the Patronus, and I can, it was grossly unfair that I should die as a mere Prefect doing the Head Boy's job." Adrian pointed out.
Amerada Fawley, the Gryffindor Head Girl rasped quietly.
"Honestly Pucey, you think it matters what badge is on your corpse?"
Adrian gathered his power and shouted out "Expecto Patronum!" With a roar, and his glowing silver toad hopped at the Dementors struggling to get the door open to the cars behind. It's lashing tongue driving them off, but the toad was already fading as Adrian's power faded with it.
Adrian slumped down, his wand slipping from his fingers. He watched Amerada Fawley cast her last Patronus, a glowing Canada Goose flared from her wand to charge fearlessly at the Dementors to drive them away. Her nose was bleeding and her chest heaving as she spent the last of her strength.
Adrien looked up at her and smiled. "If I die, I will be a bitter disappointment to father, and confirm mother's opinion of me. If I die as Head Boy, I will be only a slight disappointment to father and might just surprise mother."
Amerada Fawley collapsed beside him, too tired to cast her Patronus again. She plucked off her Head Girl badge and jammed it onto Adrian's robes clumsily.
"There now, you are Head Girl. That should shock both of the bastards into the grave right after you." Amerada said, tucking the Slytherin Prefect badge onto her Gryffindor robes, uncaring what investigating Aurors would read into it.
Adrian began laughing, then swore. "Bugger Amerada, they aren't coming in. They are going for the kids." The two of them shared a look and struggled to stand. The Dementors were boarding the train and headed inward.
Minutes ago, at the last car, the Gryffindor game of exploding Snap and the ongoing stinging hex war between the Weasley Brothers and all three Gryffindor chasers were both interrupted when the shabbily dressed man sleeping under his copy of the Daily Prophet shot to his feet and glared at the car with eyes that glowed a dangerous gold.
"Dementors. There are Dementors trying to board the train. Who among you knows the Patronus?" Remus asked because he knew that even the weakling Peter from his old friends the Marauders could cast it by third year, as could Lilly Evans. Surely their had to be prodigies like that at the school still. Himself, this close to the full moon, his power was nothing but dregs.
Katie Bell held up her hand. "I can sir. Me mum's an Auror, and expects me to get O's on my DADA for both OWLS and NEWTS."
Remus looked around for other volunteers and got nothing but wide terrified eyes.
"That is it? One girl can cast it?" Remus asked in disbelief.
"You have to understand," Began Fred
"All our DADA instructors are shite," Continued George
"Or Dark Lords!" Objected Fred
"Or both!" concluded George.
Taking turns, a glowing silver bunny and a shining silver wolf drove the Dementors back from the space between the cars they were trying to use to board. After each attack, Remus felt himself growing weaker, Katie Bell was already on the dregs of her strength. She turned to look at Remus Lupin with wide terrified eyes and a trembling voice.
"I thought the Patronus would make them run away!" Katie said in horror, as the Dementors returned again, and her unable to conjure more than mist this time.
Remus remembered the war, and Voldemort's Dementors as they attacked again and again, even suffering death under the physical attacks of multiple Patronus just to close with and kill those Voldemort marked for death. He saw these Dementors showing the same focus, and unlike James and Sirius, he had never wanted to be a combat specialist. This close to the full moon, his power was even less their equal than it was normally. He looked at the one student able to hold her own, and knew the two of them were not going to be enough. He smiled at her and said softly.
"You have done wonderfully Miss Bell. When we get to Hogwarts, I will award Gryffindor accordingly." His smile did not reveal the slim chances of his living to do so, or her living to see it. He cast his last Patronus.
"Seek out Rufus Scrimgeour at Hogsmead station. Message is Dementors attacking Hogwarts express. Have suffered repeated Patronus attacks and return to attempt boarding again. I believe them to be directed, as during the war." Remus snapped, then felt his knees go weak, and his body leaned casually against the compartment seat. He let the children think he was awaiting the right time to cast his next Patronus. In fact, he was sure that it would be at least three minutes before he dared try, and at least ten before he was sure it would work.
"Merlin's left saggy nut, they are breaking in." Remus whispered, noticing the Dementors were not boarding the Gryffindor car, but headed inward at the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and worse, the unsorted and defenseless incoming first years.
Hogsmead Station, approximately the same time. Rufus Scrimgeour was not happy. His Dementor Handlers were hours late. His Floo call to Kings Cross to the Auror team handling departure had revealed that none of the departure team saw the Dementor handlers apparate out, but knew the Dementors were no longer in London. Patronus messages to the handlers had failed to generate a response.
Rufus had not enjoyed the last war. As a Slytherin Auror, he faced a certain amount of distrust from his fellow Aurors. He faced even more distrust from his former classmates, many of whom he had arrested over the years. While he knew that Gryffindor supplied the bulk of the Auror corps, they were bigger on charge than thinking. Why did no one notice the great Aurors of history were all Hufflepuff's or Slytherins? PLANNING and detail work were what won wars. Charging the enemy was something that worked rarely on the battlefield and never anywhere else.
Shouting at the bored Auror in King's Cross he found himself losing his prized composure for a second.
"Yes it bloody well is an issue. No one can find the handlers, so tell me Auror Jones, where are their bloody Dementors!" Rufus shouted into the Floo at the smirking London Auror.
That would be when the silver wolf Patronus appeared and spoke a message that chilled Rufus Scrimgeour to the bone.
"Message from Remus Lupin. Dementors attacking Hogwarts express. Have suffered repeated Patronus attacks and return to attempt boarding again. I believe them to be directed, as during the war." The Patronus said in a human voice Rufus somewhat recognized.
Smiling into the Floo at the smirking London Auror, he spoke soflty and smoothly as if remarking about the weather or the texture of the canapes.
"Terribly sorry old boy. Turns out we found the Dementors your team lost and didn't bother reporting. They are currently overcoming the limited student resistance and single teacher, and a dozen of them are about to murder a whole generation of wizarding children. You will excuse me, I rather think someone should respond to this. Good day!" Rufus said, tipping his bowler hat then slamming shut the floo connection.
"RIGHT THEN YOU LOT. ARSES ON BROOMS. DEMENTORS ARE ON THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS. ANYONE WHO SLOWS DOWN I WILL FEED TO MY HOUSEPLANTS!" Rufus roared, pulling out and expanding the shrunken broom he kept in his pocket. If any of his detail did not have a broom on their person, they would be in for a new career, if he didn't actually feed them to his house plants. If he arrived too late to save the kids, that seemed the least he could do.
Luna Lovegood grabbed onto Draco Malfoy and burrowed into his shoulder.
"Hungry, so hungry. They are coming for the children. So cold, so hungry. Draco, all the nargals are running away. The wrackspurts hear them coming. Oh Draco, the wrackspurts are calling them!" Luna was shrieking at the last.
Draco wanted to push her off, clearly she was mental and having some kind of a fit, but the Rock Viper Noodle came slithering over and looked into her eyes. He hissed at the compartment in general.
"$ The Feeders of Life. She sees the feeders of life. She sees them coming for the Nestlings and for some reason Yellow Haired Prey. $" Noodle hissed.
Hermione said a bad word. "Morgana's heavy flow day, Dementors are coming to eat the kids and Draco in specific?"
Noodle cocked his head and responded. "$ Eat Nestlings. Take Draco. She does not see why. $"
Neville frowned. "I am not letting them eat the firsties, or the rest of the students. I don't care if we go to Azkaban, I am not letting them kill the kids." Said Neville Longbottom, unaware of the irony of his describing a train full of people averaging older than him as kids.
Hermione frowned. "Going to have to go public, we can't just let them die, and nobody has taught us the Patronus. That is reserved for those seeking a NEWT and even then for OWLS or NEWT it is an extra credit not a requirement for DADA. We don't have anything else that works."
Draco was feeling Luna Lovegood cling to him and shake, as if only Draco could keep her safe. That was honestly not something Draco had any experience with. He cast his thoughts into his mind to search for something, anything to use against the Dementors.
He fell into a memory.
Voldemort came to Azkaban. He was unmasked, his followers all wore white masks with individual heraldry on them. The Knights of Walpurgis, the Eaters of Death. Against them came a swarm of Dementors.
"I/we will eat your souls. You have no Light/hateful light/punishing light to stop us. I/we will feed on your screams!" The collective mind of the Dementors beat the air with their hunger, for the guards of Azkaban had unleashed them against the Dementors.
Voldemort laughed. He held up his wand. "$ CRUCIO $" He hissed in parseltongue, and the blood red serpent of pain lashed out at the sky and dragged a Dementor down screaming. The other Death Eaters fired their own scarlet crucios at the Dementors and the spiritual beings that lived on the pain of others found that beings formed of fear and pain are both vulnerable to pain, and capable of great fear.
Voldemort laughed as the broken Dementors crawled to his feet to kiss his robe. He had not killed one of them, but now they would kill at his command.
Draco shot upright in his seat and shouted.
"Crucio! The cruciatus curse. Voldemort used it against the Dementors in the last war."
Hermione grabbed a book from her pocket and began leafing through it quickly. Neville stared at her in shock. "Honestly Hermione, you think you are going to find an Unforgivable listed in a school textbook. Dumbledore would poop baby dragons before he let us learn that." He said.
Hermione waved a hand at him to silence his objection. "Oh I know the curse. Draco cast it on me often enough. I suppose I mean Tom Riddle, but you can't use it on me that often and not have me learn it. I am looking up if it is legal."
Neville objected. "Hermione, they are called Unforgivable!"
Milicent reached over and ruffled his hair. "Oh you sweet summer Hufflepuff. You can't make a law without Slytherin finding a loophole and two abuses. Hermione is checking the Notty book to see if we can be naughty and get away with it."
Hermione shouted. "Eureka!" She then quoted the passage. "Use of the cruciatus curse shall result in life in prison in Azkaban if used against an intelligent witch, wizard, squib, or muggle. The use against protected magical species is subject to fine that may be waved in cases of situational requirement. The use of the curse is specifically unrestricted against boggart, lethifold and dementors as spiritual class XXX or better non physical threats."
Hermione began chanting. "Gemino, Gemino, Gemino" as she tapped her wand to the appropriate page of the Notty book and produced their legal precedent for the all-important bum covering.
Luna looked up with wide blue eyes. "You know how to cast the Cruciatus curse Hermione?"
She shrugged. "Of course, learned it from Voldemort."
Draco said "Me too."
Harry grinned and held up a hand. "Me three."
Neville looked down at the floor. "I know it. I found the codex in the family library. I swore when I grew old enough, I would find the LeStranges and get revenge for what they did to mom and dad." He didn't dare look up and face them.
Milicent gave a huff. "I literally killed my way into ruling a Dark House, I am the original Slytherin of the group and I am the only one who does not know the illegal torture curse? You will explain it as we go Hermione. I am not being the only one who did not get a chance to torture legally for truth justice and the defense of small fuzzy children!"
They broke into teams. Draco, Neville and Milicent went forward towards the Slytherins and Prefects. Harry and Hermione when rearwards towards the Gryffindors.
Draco had always held Neville Longbottom in contempt. He had started school almost a squib. He had huddled for protection with Harry Potter, clinging to him for some semblance of credibility. That he became a dangerous beater was aggravating, but possible. That he became a credible wizard was technically possible, but Draco still assumed Neville was largely as fake as Lockheart when it came to true power.
The idea that Neville Longbottom could be terrifying was something that Draco was having trouble processing. To use Crucio required true hatred, and a focus on inflicting pain that was beyond mere sadism, approaching nilhism. It was in many ways easier to kill than to torture with magic, because you can create various elemental and charm effects that result in death, but you are not actually willing that death. The torture curse is different. You pour your will, your awareness, and your magic into another thinking being and drive them to a pain that a body cannot experience, bypassing the brains own limits and denying it the escape of unconsciousness. The curse can literally inflict more pain than a body can survive, and not let it die.
Neville wielded it like a battle axe. While Draco wielded his like a rapier, with discrete thrusts of power and intent into targets that dared to advance towards him, Neville waded into he Dementors like his Viking ancestors coming ashore to sack a town. The blood red light made the hollows of his eyes into pits of hell and cast the long slab like plates of his face into a mask of stone and hatred that made Draco stumble. He seemed born to bring pain to the demons of the dark, the feeders of life itself.
Draco was stumbling, unable to cast fast enough to keep up with Neville and his seemingly inexhaustible well of rage and power, when Milicent shoved him bodily aside.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Got it!" Milicent cheered, catching up to Neville as the two of them fought shoulder to shoulder, Neville grim and elemental, Milicent savage and ecstatic. Blood red pain and hatred lanced from them, and the forces of hunger, the cold of the grave, the manifestation of the universes contempt for life met a Slytherin and Hufflepuff in a train hallway, and broke.
Adrian Pucey looked at the Dementors streaming out of the train and stumbling into the air as if flying hurt and was hard to remember, and wondered what could possibly terrify a Dementor.
Then he saw Hufflepuff's little cuddle badger stalking down the train hall like that Darth Vader fellow from the muggle Star thing movie, a blood red blade of pain and hatred cutting down any spirit stupid enough to stand before him.
Beside deaths own stuffed animal, the manish awkward amazon Milicent Bulstrode who had been a beater for him last year was dancing through the Dementors laughing in wild abandon like she was three days into a drug and sex orgy and had just discovered a new sin. She was like a goddess of every dark thing you make offerings to please stay over there and happen to someone else, but keep making secret temples to, because on some level she was magnetic. Adrain finally understood how Bellatrix LeStrange became the icon she had been. That level of power and madness had a beauty no set of physical features could define or contain. Before her all other women were just, less.
He turned to Amerada Fawley and handed her the Head Girl badge back. "Sorry Amerada, I've changed my mind. This is above my pay grade. Good luck writing it up. I think I am going to pass out now."
Amerada looked over at him and shook her head. The bastard did pass out. Coward. How she was going to write this up she did not know. Taking a look at Longbottom and Bulstrode, she made the executive decision that confronting two third years who drove off a horde of Dementors by out evilling them was above her pay grade. Upon reflection, she decided to pass out as well. Maybe she will die and the stupid Head Boy would have to write things up.
Roughly the same time, at the rear of the train.
Remus Lupin was ready to die to save these kids. He had come back to Hogwarts to try to guide Harry as much as he could. He owed James and Lilly so much, but due to his Lycanthrope he had to flee. Without Dumbledore's protection, there was no job or place for a werewolf in post war Britain. Wizarding Britain had suffered under Voldemort's lackey Fenris and his pack of werewolves. The laws past post war made it impossible to support himself, let alone a child. He felt so ashamed he could not be there for Harry, but now Dumbledore gave him a chance. The least he could do was die trying. Die defending the kids like James and Lilly had.
He had enough power to maybe cast one more, if he had to. He tried to force himself to walk forward, to move into the dark corridor the Dementors had gone down after the defenseless children.
The screams drove him back. Clinging to the door of his own compartment, his wolf senses roused as he caught the unmistakable sounds of wounded and panicking prey. The sounds were not so much physical as magical, mental and spiritual, but to his inner wolf they were more clear than a printed page was to Remus.
Then he saw the pair. The girl was no Lilly. Not an ethereal beauty, but a massive mop of curly brown hair over a face that had more character than delicacy, but her eyes shone with the determination of someone given a dirty job but determined to do it well anyway.
The boy was a young James. He had the simple happy smile of James mid duel, on the Quidditch pitch, or while performing some clever but utterly regrettable prank. His hair was an unruly mop, his body moved like the adult James, with the smooth lethal movements of a trained warrior and seasoned killer, not the coltish movements James had at that age.
What made Remus grip his wand tightly in terror was that the two coming down the hallway driving Dementors before them were wielding Unforgiveable curses faster and more easily than any Death Eater outside Voldemort's inner circle. Their lisping "$ Crucio $" hissed in the sibilants of Voldemort's own magic, and the blood red light did not shoot like beams or bolts, but living snakes that gripped Dementors and savaged them like a ravening wolf or hungry dragon rather than a normal serpent. They did not simply drive pain into the Dementors, but living snake constructs of living pain drove themselves into the Dementors and filled them with so much agony that the blood red light of the torture curse shone through the Dementors own bodies.
Remus did not have enough left to face two who wielded Voldemorts own magic. He was no James or Sirius. He was not the fighter, he was the scholar. Worse, the boy wielding Voldemort's own magic looked just like James! He prepared to sell his life dearly when the one who looked like James kicked the last Dementor off the train to fall beneath the wheels of the last car and, not die. Dementors could not be killed by physical damage alone.
The "not James" shouted to the car Remus defended.
"Oi, Weasleys. Get your ginger asses up here and be useful. All the lions okay? Litterbox need changing or anything?" the 'Not James' shouted, ignoring Remus altogether.
Two hands came down on Remus shoulders, one from each side. Two of the ginger idiots who had been having a hex fight earlier now were on either side of him.
"Harrykins!" Shouted ginger idiot number one. "Did you mistake the Dementors for bludgers? I thought you badgers were at least brighter than the snakes that way?"
Remus turned to look at him in something between horror and shock, when the second Ginger shouted out.
"Hermy! How do you keep your curls when torturing demons. Inquiring witches want to know!"
The girl called Hermy? Snorted and tucked her wand away. She shouted out to the twins.
"Fred, don't worry about Ginny. She is with Luna, and Noodle. He is keeping them both safe." The girl shouted, Remus looked confused. Who or what was Noodle?
The boy started to shout back. "Thanks Hermione, but I'm George."
The second boy shouted back. "Thanks Hermione, but he's Fred."
The first looked over Remus at his twin. "Am not!"
The second looked back. "Are too."
The shared a glance. "On three!" The pumped their fists at each other, then one formed a scissor sign, and the second paper.
The first one groaned. "Sorry Hermione, turns out I am Fred."
He then thought for a second. "Any word on Perfect Prefect Percy? He can't cast a Patronus, or we could totally send a Perfect Prefect Percy Patronus to tell mum we are all okay." The boy who was apparently resigned to being Fred today asked.
It was the 'Not James' who answered.
"Not a problem. We sent Neville and Draco up that way with Milicent to make sure Draco didn't shoot himself and Neville stopped when they were off the train." The 'Not James' answered, as if Dark Wizards were supposed to do train security in between overthrowing the world and making dead baby sandwiches.
Fred grasped Remus arm tightly, and George did the same on the other side. Remus prepared himself for battle. Clearly something had terrified the two ginger Gryffindors.
Fred began "The Queen of Beaters knows,"
"The torture curse!" George finished, his face raptured.
Fred looked at his brother past Remus nose. "I am in danger,"
"Of developing a fetish!" George agreed.
Remus asked the boys. "Is this someone you are afraid of?"
Both gingers smiled in a disturbing way.
"Harrykins, give the Queen of beaters our love!" Said Fred
"And a hug!" Agreed George.
"But make it just a bit too long," Advised Fred
"And just a bit weird!" Pleaded George.
The possible Dark Lord that Remus was growing worried might in fact be Harry Potter smiled at the twin Gryffindors and shook his finger.
"You are going to get a good smack from her if you keep talking like that!" Harry said.
"I certainly," Cooed Fred
"Hope so!" Sighed George.
The two torture cursing children waved once more and reentered their car. A shocked Remus was left holding his wand alone as the wing gingers sauntered back into the train car as if all was well and they could go finish the chocolate frog supply.
Remus gave up his valiant last defense when it became clear that no budding Dark Lords or hordes of Dementors were coming to end him today. Slumping into the seat across from the twins, he snagged a chocolate frog and struggled to open it with trembling fingers.
"Who were those two casting the Unforgivables, you sounded like you knew them." Remus asked carefully, aware that budding Dark Lords hid their identities carefully.
"That was ickle Harrikins. Harry Potter. He was our ickle firsty we adopted. Him and Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom and of course, the Queen of Beaters Milicent Bullstrode." Fred mused.
"How quickly they grow up! I remember when they were just first years killing DADA instructors." Mused George.
"And Voldemort" Corrected Fred.
"Because of Voldemort" agreed George.
"Then it was basilisk in second year" Sighed Fred
"And perverts." Added George.
"Very tough on perverts that Hermione. Got one arrested, and killed one. Hard on your DADA instructors those Hufflepuffs." Concluded Fred.
"Now it's Dementors." Offered George, as if that was a natural progression.
Remus snapped at them in shock. "Those Hufflepuff killed the last two DADA instructors? And Dumbledore allowed it?"
Fred put his arm around Professor Remus Lupin, DADA instructor to be. "Well technically the Hufflepuff's killed the first one on their own."
George leaned forward to offer a drink to the shaky professor. "The second one was a contract hit for the Gryffindor girls. Hermione she pimps out Harry's snake Noodle for the wet work."
Fred High fives his brother "Nice George, wet work, because it was in a shower."
George continued. "That one was a definite pervert, but not a DADA instructor. He wasn't a rat either."
Fred nodded. "Even when he was, he wasn't."
George smiled as if pointing out how reasonable Hermione was. "She let the DADA instructor live."
Fred corrected. "In Azkaban."
George nodded. "In Azkaban. Still, Hermione is your girl. Perverts delt with, reasonable rates for friends."
Fred smiled. "Noodle loves his wet work."
George agreed. "Showers with everyone but Ravenclaw."
Fred looked pious. "Snakes with standards, its ruddy inspiring."
Remus had no idea what Lilly and James poor son Harry was involved in, but he was growing more and more certain that Dumbledore had sent the one sane Marauder into a Hogwarts that belonged almost exclusively to lunatics.
He ate his frog, and reviewed his life choices. Honestly, being a werewolf was looking less and less like the strangest thing Hogwarts would have to deal with this year.