CHAPTER FOUR
✧
-: sixth year :-
── IN WHICH SOMETHING EERIE ARRIVES
. . .
"Merlin Erin you're ruthless." Theo commented, as the girl slipped back into the compartment. Erin made a face, before rolling her eyes as she sat down. She wrapped her shirt closer around her torso, eyes focused on the floor as she managed to get lost in her thoughts, only a few minutes into the trip.
Quidditch this year would be ruthless. She suspected that Gryffindor and Slytherin would be head to head for majority of the time - and that worked out perfectly for her. It was Oliver Wood's last year, and it was her last chance to beat him.
She hadn't forgiven him for the situation that had arose during her first year, which had stuck with her through all these years. It was that which made her so bitter towards him, and other than that - after the years of being friends due to their mothers - Erin was sure that they could have been friends during their joint Hogwarts years.
But they couldn't, Oliver had made that very clear six years before, almost to that exact day. And with that in mind, Erin made a promise to herself, and slightly to Oliver, that she would beat him.
It would be her revenge - and for Erin, it was necessary for her to get this revenge so that she could finally feel at peace with what had happened. Before Harry Potter had come to the school, Slytherin had been on a winning streak, taking the trophy every year. But that year, Ravenclaw beat them all - which to the Slytherins, wasn't as bad.
The next year, alongside her list of OWL books for her upcoming year, was the letter from Snape, which in his usual scroll had named her as captain for the Slytherin Quidditch team. It had been amazing news - she was the first female captain for Slytherin in a while, and the only one in the school for a good amount of time. It was also not really a position given to fifth years, but usually sixth or sevenths.
Erin had taken great pride in this title, and had instantly held a meeting within the second week back. After her first Potions lesson, Snape had held her back and handed her a letter. It was from Lucius Malfoy, who had asked her to see his son play, and if he was placed on the team then there would be a generous donations of new broomsticks for the team.
Morally, it was wrong, and Erin was hesitant to do so. But before she told anyone else, she invited the extremely blonde Malfoy child to the Quidditch pitch that night, and watched him play. All moral aspects and somewhat bribes put away, Draco was a good player. And so he joined the team.
They had played extremely well that year, but with the basilisk on the loose, Quidditch was cancelled. And so that gave Erin one last year to beat Oliver. And she would do that, she would focus on that.
She was broken out of her thoughts by the feeling of the train coming to a halt. They had travelled quite the journey, and despite her train of Quidditch-central thoughts spanning over various hours, nothing had quite jolted her out of this like the feeling of the train stopping.
"What's happening?" She asked, eyes widening as the lights both in the compartment and the aisle flickered out. And eerie, blue darkness settled over the train, and in the darkness, Erin found someone clinging to her - most likely Cleo.
"Oi, someone try look outside." Daniel said, and Cynthia cleared some of the condensation off of the window looking through the small patch at rather an odd angle to try and see the entrances to the train.
"Someone's getting on." Cynthia told them, and confused, they glanced at each other, eyes adjusting to the light as they view each other's dark outlines.
"Let's go check it out." Daniel immediatley said, jumping up out of his seats. "Erin, you coming."
"You know Daniel you do take this Hufflepuff-finder stereotype thing very seriously." The Quidditch captain said, before getting up herself. "Of course I am."
"You're both crazy." One of the three left in the compartment said as Daniel and Erin exited it, pulling the sliding door to a close behind them. It was even more uncanny outside of their small compartment, the same darkness there but seemingly more strange.
And it was a lot colder, and Erin shivered, Daniel edging slightly closer to her. "Lumos." She whispered, suddenly remembering that she had a wand.
"Good one." Daniel said, his voice no louder than Erin's had been and slightly shaky in comparison. Whilst he had seemed confident as he stepped out the carriage, something about the atmosphere they had stepped into in had caused him to lose it.
A few heads popped out of carriage doors, wondering what was going in. Fred and George were two of those people, and they winked at Erin as she passed. The Slytherin captain had been subject to many of their pranks, and they were constantly flirting with her, in the most uncoventional way ever.
With no answers coming from the compartments, Erin and Daniel reached the door that lead them into the more open carriage area. "Ladies first." Daniel smirked slightly, not even flinching as Erin directed her wand at him.
"You're a right prick, Daniel Montgomery." She muttered, the boy chuckling behind her as the door swung open and they stepped into the carriage which was far more open and more designed like a muggle train.
The pair froze, jaws dropped as they stared at the other end of the carriage. Overcome with a feeling of cold and gloom that Erin had never felt before, her arm fell down to her side, and her wand threatened to fall from her grasp.
A dementor, floating at the other end of the carriage.
✧
