REQUIEM - [h.p]

III; Commencement

| YEAR 3; CHAPTER ONE |
COMMENCEMENT

THERE WAS THIS TERRIBLE CHURNING FEELING FESTERING IN HIS ABDOMEN. He stepped onto the train platform, Mr Scamander beside him this time along with Hera—though, mainly because of his own insistence on bringing his scaled companion along with him this time. As long as he kept her away from his fellow students and really just kept her existence on the down low, he was allowed to keep her during the school year. 

It was what his guardian had warned him about during their shopping in Diagon Alley, which had left him hesitant to step onto the train for once. Sirius Black, the Dementors. It was all bloody terrifying, and Edwyn just knew that Harry was somehow smack-dab in the centre of it all.

As they continued to move closer to the train, Mr Scamander had stopped them, grabbing Edwyn's shoulder in a soft grip as he kneeled to eye level.

"Remember what I said?" He asked, and Edwyn nodded. "Good, if anything at all happens with the dementors, I need you to go straight to the Defence Professor."

Edwyn nodded once more, the metaphorical knife in his abdomen twisting as Mr Scamander got up and the train was now only an arm's length away. When he entered through the doors, it wasn't long until he had found Draco and the others. They had been using the same compartment for the last two years. 

They had exchanged pleasantries, and it wasn't until the train had taken off that Edwyn had asked. "What do you know about Sirius Black?"

Draco glanced over at him, though Blaise spoke before the blonde could get a chance. "He was sent to Azkaban because he killed Peter Pettigrew after the deaths of the Potters. It's just speculation, but most people think he was a Death Eater."

It was Draco who scoffed this time. "That mutt? A Death Eater? My Father told me that Sirius Black was a Gryffindor, imagine that! A Black, a Gryffindor? Can you believe it?" The boy shook his head, "If anything he probably went insane after the Dark Lord killed the Potters."

And with that, they all fell into the normal routine. Yet Edwyn couldn't help the uneasiness that crept into the back of his head. It stayed like that for about twenty minutes before a chill permeated throughout the train.

Edwyn felt his stomach churn painfully, the hairs upon his arms stuck up unnaturally when he saw frost build up on the window and then the lights went off. The rest of his friends seemed to feel the weighing aura as well, for when he glanced over at Draco, the boy's face was pale and body stiff as a plank. It took all of his courage to take out his wand and cast a locking spell upon the door.

Mr Scamander's passing words to him had already left him paranoid, and Edwyn had a feeling that the Dementors were behind the fear coursing through his veins. He slowly put his wand back in its holster, his body gone completely stiff under the overwhelming sense of dread and despair that emanated from the other side of the locked door of their compartment.