Dementors
The following week found Harry, Hermione, Draco, Severys, Dragon, and Remus on the train going to Hogwarts. Knowing it had been the full moon the night before, the four left the werewolf to sleep while they had a lovely little conversation about last third year, while Hermione pet her new cat Crookshanks.
"So, I blew up Aunt Marge. I ran into you, though I thought you were just a scary, dark figure. You don't make very good first impressions, do you?" Harry paused, looking down into the brown dog eyes.
"Must run in the family." Draco murmured. Harry laughed and nodded.
"Anyway, I accidently hailed the Knight Bus…" Harry started. Draco interrupted.
"Wait, how do you accidently hail the Knight Bus?" Draco inquired. Harry looked bewildered.
"I have no idea. I am about as muggle as they come when it concerns knowledge of magic. It was someone's great idea to take me out of my home, plop me into the magical world, and expect me to figure it out. I find that most of the time when I do the right thing, it is totally by accident." Harry explained.
"How in the world is hailing the Knight Bus ever the right thing?" Draco muttered.
"It's better than being attacked by a mass murderer." Harry figured. Sirius whined. Remus stirred. Everyone froze. They waited a moment and continued. "Sorry, Dragon, but that was everyone's thought process back then, even mine." Harry huffed.
"But that is all beside the point. The Weasleys and I came back from our various holidays and came to Diagon Alley to get our things. We stayed the night at the Leaky Cauldron, and that was when the Weasleys told Harry about you." Hermione explained. Sirius gave them a questioning look.
"How did the Weasleys get enough money to go on holiday, you ask?" Harry interpreted. "They won a lottery at Mr. Weasley's job." Draco perked up at this.
"Ooh, Ooh. May I insult him again? May I? May I? May I?" Draco pleaded with his friends. Hermione rolled her eyes and Harry smirked.
"Sure, Ferret, whatever floats your boat." Harry agreed. Again, Dragon gave him a questioning look. "Oh, you want to know why I call him Ferret? Well, a fake Mad-Eye Moody turned him into a ferret for a short period of time. You know, you made a quite cute ferret, Draco."
"I didn't know I was your type, Scarhead." Draco drawled. Harry smirked.
"Well, actually, I didn't mention that the first time around. Hermione…" Harry was effectively stopped from saying anything further by a hand that was not his own that was now firmly rooted over his mouth.
"What Harry was trying to say, is that you know he has his eye on another blonde. This one is a girl and in Ravenclaw." She teased. Dragon perked up at that, and Harry blushed red. He was about to complain, when he had a thought.
"Hey, we should go find Luna. We have not seen her since the train ride home." Harry mentioned. "She didn't come when I called on the communicators." Hermione looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, that's a relief! She could have found out…" Hermione gasped. "Harry! Did you want to tell her about the whole time travel thing?" Harry looked sheepishly down at the ground.
"Maybe." He drawled childishly. However, they did not need to go searching for the blonde-haired girl, for she came right to them. They wondered if they had accidently placed an alarm on her name so that she came whenever they spoke her name, like Voldemort had tried to do.
"Hello all! I trust you all had a safe holiday and the wrackspurts didn't ruin it." Luna greeted. She put her glasses on to check if this statement was indeed true. She looked over at Remus and gasped. "Oh no! He's is tormented by them!" She lamented. She took her glasses off. "Who is he?" She motioned to Dragon.
"Oh, this is Dragon. He's my dog. I got him this year over holiday." Harry explained. "Dragon, this is Luna, our friend. She is someone we don't attack." He warned.
Luna smiled and sat down next to Professor Lupin. She opened her father's magazine and turned it upside down to read. Meanwhile, they continued talking about what they two "outsiders" needed to know about the coming year.
"Coming back to the point of this year, Mr. Weasley warned Harry that there was a mass murderer after him who had betrayed his parents. Harry went to Hogwarts, and everyone treated him like he was fragile. They wouldn't allow him to go to Hogsmeade. They didn't allow him outside alone. He felt strangled." Hermione described. Harry scowled.
"I can speak for myself, you know." He complained. She complied and allowed Harry to continue. "I ended up sneaking off anyway. I used Dad's invisibility cloak to escape to Hogsmeade."
"So that's who threw mud at me!" Draco interrupted. Harry rolled his eyes.
"Yes, but admit it. You deserved it." Harry demanded. Draco huffed.
"But…well…yeah." Draco ceded. "But that was still a new robe!"
"I'm sorry, Princess Malfoy." Harry teased. Draco huffed and crossed his arms, pouting. "The twins gave me the Marauder's Map and taught me how to use it…" Harry continued. Sirius popped into his human form.
"What? How did they find it? Who are these twins? Did they use it right? Did they use it well?" Sirius questioned excitedly. Hermione, Draco, and Harry all gaped.
"Padfoot!" Harry scolded, his voice squeaking with awkward hormonal voice changes. He quickly took a peek at Luna. She looked up, shrugged, and looked back down at her magazine. Hermione stood, flummoxed. Sirius turned back into Dragon, but she was highly concerned about the fact Luna had seen them with a highly dangerous criminal.
She waited a minute, but Luna never freaked out.
"Luna, what did you see when you looked up?" Hermione asked, thinking maybe she had been temporarily blinded or something.
"Sirius Black with blond hair seemingly excited over some map." Luna recited, not looking up from her magazine. All three gaped. She finally tore her attention away from the paper. "What? I'm loony, not stupid. You guys have been talking about a previous timeline every time I see you. I can put two and two together." She told them, looking from face to surprised face. "If it helps, I won't tell anyone you're time travelers, or that you're harboring a supposed fugitive. I figure if all that was said was true about him, you would be dead by now." Luna reasoned. Sirius turned back into a human.
"Hi, I'm Sirius Black. Are you the cute, blonde Ravenclaw I've heard all about?" He asked cheekily. Harry turned bright red. Luna giggled.
"Yes, I suppose I am. Nice to meet you, Mr. Black. I assume you are not really a mass murderer, or we would be dead by now. I hope you enjoy your stay in Gryffindor tower." She told him. Remus stirred again. Sirius turned back into Dragon.
It was then that the dementors began to invade the train cars. As before, when Harry came across one, he fainted. However, unlike before, he saw the final battle, stared over the unseeing eyes of all those who had died. He did not hear his mother's scream, but he did hear the crackling laugh of Voldemort before everything went dark.
He awoke to something wet on his cheek. He blinked several times and found Dragon licking him awake as Remus hovered over him. It was Remus who first noticed Harry was awake.
"Harry!" Remus began checking all over him for signs of harm while Dragon began to lick his hands and neck. Harry glared at his three friends, who could not help but laugh at the ensuing madness. All they needed was for Professor Snape to come down with bottles of potions and their joke would be complete. "Harry! Are you alright? The dementors came before I could stop them! You seem to have a very bad reaction to them. I need to tell Dumbledore that the dementors have to stay away from you. I mean, imagine if you had been on your broom when this had happened!" Remus began to rant as he force-fed Harry some chocolate. Dragon tried to steal some, too, but Remus stopped him. He hit Dragon on the nose. "No, chocolate's not good for dogs." Sirius whined and cowed, but accepted his fate.
They made it to the castle and Remus demanded that Harry have a thorough physical, much to Harry's disdain. Hermione and Draco doubled over in laughter, however, when Harry tried to escape and Remus took to hovering Harry over toward the hospital wing. The faithful Dragon followed along, prancing as he went.
As Hermione and Draco tried to compose themselves, McGonagall walked up and stood next to them. She stared at the mutt that was prancing happily next to Harry and Remus and scowled.
"And who is that?" She asked with disdain. Draco smirked.
"That's Dragon, Harry's dog." Draco informed her. Her scowl deepened.
"And we allow dogs now at Hogwarts?" The Professor questioned sarcastically.
"You allow Lupin." Draco muttered under his breath. However, Professor McGonagall-with her cat-like hearing-overheard this comment. Her eyes widened and she quickly shook her head to remind herself what she came there for.
"Miss Granger, will you come with me, please?" Professor McGonagall queried. Hermione looked over at her Head of House.
"Of course, Professor." She agreed. The two of them walked off toward Professor McGonagall's office.
"Hmm," Draco wondered. "I can only imagine what that is about." He shrugged and walked away, wondering when his friends would get supper. Oh well, he would save them some extra.