Decent DADA Professor?

Rushing through the train, Loki found himself pushing through empty corridors, but the feeling of dread in his heart never left, in fact, it got only deeper.

'Why's that thing chasing me so persistently!?' Loki screamed inside his head as he looked back for a second only to find the Dementor on his tails.

Its robe was back on, and its arms were outstretched like a zombie's.

Although its hands were made out of bones and preluded to not having much grip strength, Loki still felt uncomfortable. He instinctually knew it'd be bad to even be grazed by those arms.

To escape from its clutches, Loki used his skill in creating illusions to create a copy of himself as he made it rush in the opposite way while remaining invisible himself, but the Dementor seemed to see not through sight or even sound which he could mimic using his illusions but the soul.

It easily dismissed the illusion, forcing Loki to run away.

That was when Loki tried to talk to it, trying to confuse it by stuffing thoughts into its head, "Your prey escaped by jumping out the train! I'm just a normal person!" He tried to swindle it by placing stray thoughts into its body of heart and mind.

The dementor was confused for a second, but immediately afterwards, as if ignoring Loki's words, continued to chase him through the train.

All of a sudden, Loki tripped as he was crossing from one compartment to another, the train swayed and the carts had misaligned, leading to a small protrusion that Loki had not anticipated.

There was pain, but it was only momentary.

Instead what gripped Loki was a sense of despair that began to spread upwards from his legs now touched by the shadowy creature.

It floated low and began moving towards Loki's face, drenching him in an extreme sense of despair.

Loki tried to move, to wriggle out of the despair-inducing touch, he tried to command his legs to kick away the weightless creature that was hovering in front of him.

Loki did his best, but even his best was not enough.

The legs that Loki was using to run away now felt like they were filled with lead, his arms which held the wand felt like they had been bound using a straitjacket.

Everything felt like it had frozen as temperatures close to the Dementor plummeted below zero.

As the Dementor glided closer to his face, Loki felt himself falling freely without any stoppers into an unending pit of despair, as if he had been abandoned by the world itself, as if everything he had ever done was worthless.

But just as Loki had given up hope and just as he was going to allow the dementor to kiss him, somewhere far away, Loki heard a bold voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Expecto Patronum!"

A sense of warmth began to emerge in the dark cold loneliness that Loki was facing all alone as he lay there on the cold surface of the train compartment joint.

The Dementor *screeched* like a banshee as if attempting to claw its own throat out and turned away from Loki and flew out the open window nearby.

The feeling of wind rustling past him through the gaps emerged and Loki felt a different sense of biting cold through his robes, but he still didn't move, even this cold felt better than the presence of the dementor.

Lying on the ground like a frozen block of ice, Loki found a ragged man walking into his view.

He seemed to be saying something, trying to assess Loki, but Loki's mind had blocked out any sounds from getting to him.

The man appeared to have panicked as he looked around trying to find someone to help but there didn't seem to be much he could do.

And then as if deciding something, the man took a step back and pointed his wand at Loki.

'Is he going to kill me?'

As suddenly as the man had pointed his wand at Loki, a sudden bright flash of red light occupied Loki's sight.

And as the light started to fade to black, Loki felt his body finally loosen up. He felt his thoughts began to flow, and his fingers and toes wiggle and move.

*GASP*

Taking a sharp breath in, Loki rose from his position on the floor of the train car.

Loki's eyes looked around frantically until they heard a rusty but polite and old voice speak to him.

"It's gone."

Loki's eyes immediately locked on the man who'd spoken and recognised him as the man who had just helped him but seeing his gaze still linger upon him, the man introduced himself.

"Professor Lupin, nice to meet you."

"Wh- What happened?" Loki asked, confusion marring his face as a hint of fear emerged from the hidden depths within.

He felt uncharacteristically terrible.

"That was a dementor. It was about to perform the dementor's kiss, halfway there in sucking your soul too. It was lucky that I managed to catch you when I did." Lupin said with a soft smile, holding out a bar of chocolate. "Have this, it'll help with the jitters."

Loki looked at the bar of chocolate for a little bit but then took it with a polite, "Thanks." and bit into it.

It was dark chocolate, it was bitter, but Loki continued to munch on it as he felt a sense of warmth emerge from within, "It does help." Loki nodded.

"Good, then if you'll excuse me, I need to go check on the others on the train, there might be others that might be suffering like you are. Although I doubt it, I just want to make sure." Lupin asked his permission to leave, and Loki nodded.

"You'll be alright, don't worry.", Lupin said with a smile and patted Loki's shoulders as he left Loki there and rushed deeper into the train compartments.

Eventually, Loki stood up with the support of the train walls.

'What just happened?'

'Why are there Dementors on the train?'

'And why did that Dementor try to perform the kiss on me?'

But Loki then remembered a detail he'd noticed earlier during the 'battle'.

'Is that the dementor my wand was made out of?' Loki wondered as he pulled out his wand and thought back to the missing bone in the Dementor's forearm.

'Was it mad at me because of this?' Loki thought with a self-pitying smile as he clenched the wand that had bonded to him in his hands.

'*sigh* that felt terrible.'

'I don't want to experience such a thing ever again.'

'Damn, I felt quite helpless.'

'I knew I'd have to face something crazy this year too, I hadn't expected it to be this soon though. Things usually only happened at the end of the year until last year.'

Professor Lupin eventually came back and met with Loki, escorting him back to his compartment on the train.

As they were walking, Loki gathered up the courage to ask Lupin a question.

"Professor, why are there dementors on the train?"

"Ah…it's not like it's a secret. They're here because of Black."

"You mean Sirius? He was on the train!?"

"I am serious."

"..."

A strange awkward silence took over the compartment after the weak joke and Lupin decided to ignore it as he continued talking as if nothing had happened.

"He was probably not on the train, but the dementors wanted to check anyway. Didn't think they'd attack a student though, I'm sure Headmaster Dumbledore is going to be furious about it."

"I see."

"Good, then since the station will be arriving soon, I'll be leaving to go back to my compartment. Make sure you stay here for now, I'll escort you to Madam Pomfrey when we're at Hogwarts."

"Is there something wrong with me?" Loki asked with a puzzled expression since he felt fine.

"Probably not, since I think I used the right spell, but let's check just to make sure alright.", Lupin said and Loki nodded in understanding.

"Thank you, professor." Loki finally said just when Lupin was about to leave.

"Don't worry about it."

'*sigh* at least this professor is good. Has the curse on the Defense Against Dark Arts Position been removed? It'd be a shame to lose him too.' Loki wondered as he stared at the passing scenery outside the train.

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