A.N. Thanks for the reviews guys. And thanks Lou for pointing out that Draco was not tagged. I was sure I had tagged him but apparently I didn't.

I have a lot of stuff to do for university, so naturally, I'm writing and reading fanfiction instead^^ I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

English is not my native language (so be nice) and I do not own Harry Potter.

Read, enjoy and review :)

ooOOoo

The ride to Hogwarts was surreal. His compartment consisted of a number of living corpses. Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott and Pansy Parkinson were sitting around him. Crabbe had been killed by his own Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement. Goyle he had found lying dead on the floor after the Battle of Hogwarts. Theodore Nott, ironically, had not been dead in his time but was sent to Azkaban after being arrested for the illegal possession of an unregistered time turner. Pansy and Blaise had mostly stayed out of the final battle as far as he could remember. Blaise had left the country and Pansy had died during childbirth.

He thought sitting with them would be weird, but it actually felt good. Talking to them about completely normal teenager stuff. Quidditch, visits to Hogsmeade, Quidditch, how they spent their summers, more Quidditch. He almost forgot that he was not really a teenage Draco, talking to his peers.

He had always just considered them to be acquaintances, not friends. He had been far too focused on being (or rather, appearing to be) superior to everyone around him, to ever really make any friends. Keeping up an impeccable image had kept him from telling those around him how he really felt, so none of the other Slytherins every really knew him. Maybe he should change that. He would need all the help he could get. And it would be nice not to be alone for a change. He had always envied Potter his friends and hated him all the more because he had had something Draco hadn't. Only now was he mature enough to see that it was his own fault.

They were just talking about the Quidditch World Cup when the weather outside grew darker and colder. The rain and the wind were getting louder by the second and the train slowed down.

"Are we there already?" asked Crabbe.

"No," he whispered. No, this wasn't good. Realization of what year this was finally hit him. How could he not have thought of this?

"It's getting really cold," Blaise muttered.

"What's going on?" Pansy whispered worriedly.

Draco looked at her and said only one word. "Dementors."

Abruptly, the train came to a halt, the lights went out and Draco could hear Pansy's surprised squeak.

"Lumos," Draco mumbled. Now he could see the fear on his companions' faces. Draco gulped. They were children and they were scared. Pansy, who was sitting to his right, edged closer to him. He put a reassuring hand on her back. "It's gonna be alright," he whispered.

The door to their compartment slid open and, ironically, from all of them only Crabbe had the presence of mind to grab his wand and try for a defensive spell. But he halted mid-movement, when a dark figure entered the compartment, moving closer to Draco.

The cold was almost unbearable. The screams of a tortured Hermione filled his ears and pictures of a dead muggle studies professor being devoured by a snake flashed in front of his eyes. He saw images of his dying wife, her last, painful, days, his son in danger, the Dark Lord's atrocities,… it did not stop. He felt like it never would.

His head felt like it was splitting in two and he wanted to scream and cry, the first one he actually did. Then he started to hyperventilate before everything went black.

ooOOoo

When he woke up again, he was looking into the eyes of one worried Professor Remus J. Lupin.

"Are you alright, boy?"

Draco was definitely not alright. He looked around. Crabbe and Goyle were very pale and it looked like Pansy had been crying. All of them had worried looks on their faces.

"I'm fine," he finally lied.

Lupin studied him for a while. He probably did not believe him. Draco wouldn't believe himself either. It was weird to see Prof. Lupin worried on his behalf. He had not been one of his favorite pupils during the time he taught at Hogwarts. Not that Draco didn't give him every reason he could to dislike him. Lupin gave all of them some chocolate and left the compartment. The chocolate made him feel better immediately.

"What happened?" Draco asked after a few awkward minutes of silence. His head was spinning and he could barely hold a thought. Travelling back in time and being attacked by a Dementor was a bit much for one day.

The others looked at each other.

"That… thing, it attacked you," Goyle offered.

"You screamed and twitched and then Pansy started screaming. I thought we were all done for but then a dog or something came in here and made that thing disappear," Blaise recounted.

In hindsight, Draco should have known this would happen.

"I felt like I would never be happy again… It was so weird," Goyle added.

"Why did this happen?" Pansy asked, her voice shaking.

"Sirius Black," Draco offered meekly.

The others looked at him.

"You think they are looking for him?" Pansy asked.

"Yes," he mumbled.

"Do you think he really might be here? Are we in danger?" Pansy asked with a shaky voice.

They all looked at each other.

He spent the rest of the ride not talking much. Neither did the others.

This time, no one made fun of Harry Potter. Draco was relieved when he noticed that no one was making fun of him either.

TBC

As always, let me know what you think :)