Echo in the Night|| OC

Chapter three: Corporeal Patronus

Once the remaining Weasleys, Echo and Hermione joined them, Harry and Ron led the way to the end of the train, past packed compartments, to a carriage that looked quite empty. They loaded the trunks onto it, stowed Hedwig and Crookshanks in the luggage rack. Everybody else besides Echo went back onto the platform to say good-bye to Mr and Mrs Weasley. Echo already said goodbye and thanked Mrs Weasley for letting her stay.

Despite being a bit discriminatory towards the Slytherin in the beginning, Echo liked Mrs Weasley, she was a nice and warm woman.

She went to look for an empty compartment with Sionna in her arms, and spotted a near empty one. The only person in it was a sleeping Professor Lupin. Who looked ill and exhausted. She carefully opened the compartment door, once inside she closed it quietly. Echo sat down next to the sleeping wizard with Sionna in her lap, and looked out the window as she watched the scenery move.

Echo moved her head to the compartment door, The Golden trio were standing there staring at the man that wore an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes. They looked back at Echo, who put her finger up to her lips, silently telling them to stay quiet.

"Who d'you reckon he is?" Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.

"Professor R.J Lupin," whispered Echo.

"How'd you know that?"

"He was with Dumbledore when they retrieved me," She replied. "It's also on his case." Echo pointed at the luggage rack over the man's head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string. The name professor R.J. Lupin the as stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

"Wonder what he teaches?"said Ron, frowning at professor Lupin's pallid profile.

"That's obvious," whispered Hermione. "There's only one vacancy isn't there? Defense Against The Dark Arts."

Unbeknownst to Echo, the three Gryffindors had already two Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year.

"Well, I hope he's up to it," said Ron doubtfully. "He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn't he? Anyway.." He turned to Harry. "What were you going to tell us?"

Harry explained how he and Echo had heard Mr and Mrs Weasley's argument, then the warning Mr Weasley had just given him. The golden trio began to dive deeper into the topic. Echo noticed that they probably do this quite a bit, it seems almost rehearsed. They began to converse about Hogsemead, and how Harry can't go. Echo is not even sure if she can go either, given that she has no actual legal guardian and wasn't even given a permission slip.

Echo looked back from the window to the golden trio to find Ron yelling at Hermione to get Crookshanks out of here. Sionna jumped up from Echos lap in a hurry and onto her shoulders, resting against the back of the seat as she watched the orange cat stare at the lump in Ron's pocket. Lupin stirred next to them and everyone froze, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth slightly open, and slept on.

The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened. Crookshanks was now settled in an empty seat, his squashed face turned towards Ron.

The compartment door slid open; revealing a pale boy with a pointed, sneering face, flanked by two boys who were both wide and musclely, one was taller with a pudding-bowl haircut and a very thick neck; the other had short bristly hair and long, gorilla-ish arms.

"Well, look who it is," said the pale boy in a lazy drawl. "Potty and Weasel."

Who the fuck-