Year Three - Chapter One

The Train for Hogwarts was packed with students. I, on the other hand, found myself pondering on when the Dementors would climb aboard. Would they be as terrifying as they had been written? Would I manage to stave them off, not having a very traumatic past to begin with?Would they fish from my memories my most terrifying moments, and run them in a loop? I was curious. I was as curious as I was terrified.

I had already pulled my luggage on the train, and then began to patiently wait like the best boy ever for his friends to come over and enjoy a happy trip into the wonderful Hogwarts once more. Though this time, believing the Quibbler, Dementors would be used to safeguard the Rotfang Conspiracy members from being revealed to the public with their newly found hair-loss recipe, making all balding wizards subject to space-rays of mind-control from the stars.

The first to arrive turned out to be Megan, who sat down in front of me with an awkward smile. "So, Mister Dark Lord, what is the plan for this year's great evil action? Will you save the unicorns from extinction? Solve the problem of the Goblins' tensions?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of just enjoying a school year without anything dangerous happening," I mumbled, "But since a certain Sirius Black escaped and is on the hunt for Harry Potter, maybe I'll put myself on bodyguard duty?"

"Meh," Megan shrugged, "That's too little, isn't it?"

"Did you have a nice summer?" I asked instead, receiving a positive reply.

"Yes," she said. "I wanted to ask," she looked straight at me, "Is it normal that when I try to send you Owls, they come back to the sender?"

I blinked at that, and then furrowed my brows. "You're sending them to me, right?"

"Well, clearly I'm not sending them to the Dark Lord That Mustn't Be Named," Megan replied. "Maybe you're under a secrecy charm or something."

I rubbed my chin, "Ah," I said in the end. "It's probably the orphanage. It's for muggles, so I guess it would be a breach of the statute of Secrecy if I suddenly ended up receiving dozens of owls during the summer. The only ones that go through are Hogwarts' ones, and they usually come late at night and quietly."

My own owl hadn't suffered catastrophic existential failure because I had literally let her, or him, free to roam the nights and the days and the whenever, really, just as long as it came back for the start of the term.

"Bummer," Megan said. "I wanted to invite you to my birthday party, but," she sighed, "Well, this just means I need to write the old fashioned way with a letter and the postman to deliver it."

I smiled, "I'll be sure to come at the next one."

"Oh, you'd better," Megan grinned. "You're not much of a Quidditch fan, but you'd better eat your socks if you don't."

I furrowed my brows, "What do you mean?"

Megan smiled, utterly pleased with herself. "You'll see, you'll see."

Wayne and Amanda both stepped in soon after, and as apparently Luna had found another carriage to stay at, the four of us talked about our summer vacations and about the latest Dark Lord actions I should do in order to further improve the living style of the world while the train rolled about, utterly lacking in Dementors for the time being.

"You could solve world hunger," Wayne suggested, "A fountain of infinite chocolate and candies," his eyes gleamed at the thought.

"Or maybe you could update the Quidditch rules to allow for five bludgers," Amanda suggested, "Or maybe even ten, one per-"

The train abruptly stopped. It was sudden, it was strange, it brought the cold and the frost together with it.

The windows hazed over. My breathing condensed. Those of my friends condensed too. It was as if winter had come. The cold crept across the skin, and made me shudder. Something had climbed aboard, and while I couldn't see it, I could sense it. The cold crept closer. The whispers grew in the back of my mind. They grew vicious, and dark, and angry, they whispered curses and begged for the death of misery.

My fists clenched as I felt the presence draw near, the biting cold chill my bones as it carefully pried open the wagon's door to look inside.

The tall, hooded figure seemed to hesitate on the doorway. It floated, clad in dark, ethereal-like robes, and it breathed in the air of the room deeply with a disquieting hiss.

"Leave," I hissed out. The Dementor's head moved towards me. My fists were clenched to the point where my nails dug into my palms, my eyes were narrow and my breathing sharp. I was scared. I was afraid. I didn't want this.

I wanted this to end.

And I would make it end.

"I told you to leave!" I snarled, standing up against my better judgment, against my shaking legs, and taking a step forward towards the Dementor. Fear was cold. Fear and depression and misery and everything evil and bad was cold and wet and clutched your soul and dragged it down. Hate was needed. Hate stoked the fires of one's soul. The embers of one's desires. Hate was vivid, purulent perhaps, but warm. It was the warmth that spread through one's chest and arms as it readied to strike, the vivid sensation of a heart beating faster and faster as it pummeled a face on the ground.

Rather than surrender to misery, rather than let myself go to the defeat of apathy and sadness, I'd rather rage against the dying light. I'd rather rage and snarl and bite and chew and spit and roar.

I'd rather do anything, anything at all, but not succumb without fighting.

"There is no Sirius Black here, but if you won't leave with words, I'll make you leave in another way!" I roared at the Dementor, baring my teeth as streaks of lightning formed across my closed fists, my eyes bloodshot and the pumping of my heart threatening to burst my temple's veins. The Dementor looked at me, it looked at me from the deep dark depths of its cowl, and then it moved a hand towards the doorway.

"We...apologize," it spoke deeply. It spoke oily-like. It spoke like some kind of dark, evil mass of writhing tentacle would speak as it chewed on the flesh and blood of innocent people. The very words made disgust rise from the depths of my stomach, it made me seek for a bin, made me wish the thing hadn't spoken and then, just as quickly as the thing had spoken, it closed the door and moved away.

I collapsed on my knees, my ears ringing as warmth began to very slowly return to the wagon. My breathing was coming to me in intervals, my heart refusing to speed down. I pushed my body to the far wall of the wagon and clutched my knees, letting my face press against my legs and not daring to as much as speak another word, merely breathing in the dusty smell of the compartment.

"G-Group hug," Wayne stuttered out. "My dad...says it works. T-That and chocolate," he stumbled out of his seat, collapsing a second later on his knees somewhere in front of me.

Arms, warm arms, actually encircled me. I latched onto the offered ones like an anchor of safety in an ocean of despair, the warmth of the bodies some kind of soothing balm on the soul.

Once our breathing was evened out, Wayne pulled some chocolate out and distributed it. It looked like the kind of pricey chocolate you wouldn't normally found in a thrift shore, but Wayne didn't really seem to care as he bit into his bar as if his life depended on it.

I, and everyone else, did the same.

"I'm gonna learn a spell that destroys Dementors," I hissed out.

"Ah," Megan laughed. "Told you stopping a criminal escaped from Azkaban would be too little."

Amanda chuckled in turn, and Wayne soon joined.

The Dementors hadn't just made me feel miserable. They had dared to toy with my emotions, and my feelings.

Nobody toyed with my precious, innocent feelings and lived.

They had wanted to make me feel miserable. They had failed.

I was angry. I was angry beyond belief and the further away the cold went, the hotter the rage burned within my chest.

Hello. My name is Shade Umbrus. You killed my happiness...

...prepare to die.