The Boy Who Lived

Dementors, Boggarts, and other Monsters...

The Hogwarts Express came to a screeching halt with a jolt and distant thuds and bangs which suggested luggage falling out of the racks. Without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.

Ron felt his way cautiously to the window, he'd already trodden on Hermione's foot, he didn't want to do the same to the strange professor sleeping in the corner. He wiped a patch clean on the window and peered out.

'There's something moving out there,' he said. 'I think people are coming aboard...' he didn't like it, things felt very wrong.

The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell over as they came in.

'Sorry! D'you know what's going on? Ouch! Sorry...'

It was obviously Neville.

'Harry? Is that you? What's happening?'

'No idea! Sit down...'

There was a loud hiss and a yelp of pain as Neville tried to sit on Crookshanks, Hermione's new devil cat that kept glaring at Scabbers like it was the next dinner.

'I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on,' said Hermione in the darkness.

Ron heard the door and then a thud and two loud squeals and next Ginny was joining them with more noise and kerfuffle. Ron tried peering out of the window again but couldn't work out anything in the darkness.

'Quiet!' said a hoarse voice suddenly.

Ron froze as there was some shuffling from Professor Lupin's corner of the carriage. No one spoke.

There was a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired grey face but his eyes were very alert and wary.

Remus had been listened vigilantly in the darkness, not acting but using the time to access the situation. Now was the time to move, he knew what had boarded the train - he felt them in his bones.

'Stay where you are,' he said, in the same hoarse voice and he got slowly to his feet with the flames held out in front of him.

The door slid open before Lupin could reach it and standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood and Ron knew he was relieved by that fact alone. It didn't stop the chill that entered the compartment with the strange figure. A chill which seeped into his very bones and sucked the life out of him. Especially when the creature drew in a long, slow, rattling breath as if it were trying to suck in more than the air.

The air became intensely colder as Ron felt his breath catch in his chest, like he was drowning and couldn't gasp for air.

He saw Harry go rigid and fall out of his seat but he couldn't move his limbs, he knew he had to get to Harry but he couldn't. That began to panic him, that he couldn't fight the cold and the paralysing fear but he knew he needed to...

Professor Lupin stepped over Harry's twitching body on the floor, with his wand pointing directly at the thing. 'None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.' And when the thing, which Ron realised could only be a Dementor, didn't move, Lupin muttered something and a silvery light shot out of his wand at the Dementor so that it turned around and glided away, pulling the coldness with it.

Within moments the train lights came back on and the train started moving again.

Ron scrambled to Harry's side as his bestfriend started to come around.