Chapter 92 — What the Fire Could Not Reach

Rain began later in the afternoon, scattering drops against the window before the sky darkened. Soon water blurred the fields beyond the glass, leaving the compartment reflected over the countryside. Luna read against my shoulder, and I had reached the comfortable point where the train’s noise made it easier to sit still.

Harry rubbed his hands together and asked whether anyone else was cold. Ron looked up from the chessboard to agree, and I felt it once they drew my attention to it: a chill which seemed to have arrived beneath my clothes rather than passing through them.

Hermione reached for her jumper. She thought it could not just be the rain, and pulling the sleeves over her hands did little to improve her expression. Condensation gathered at the window’s edges; Harry touched the glass, withdrew his hand and said it was getting worse.

The train jolted hard enough to knock Ron’s remaining pieces together. I caught Leo’s cage as it shifted against its fastening beside the seat, while Harry reached for the board. A long, strained noise came from the wheels, and the passing fields began to slow.

I checked my watch. It was too early for the station, unless we had covered considerably more distance than the journey usually allowed. Hermione stood to look out through the door, but another shudder caught her before she reached it.

Harry took her arm, letting her steady herself against the frame. She thanked him as the professor opened his eyes, then the lights went out. Rain filled the sudden darkness, accompanied by a shout in the corridor and a door banging further along the train.

I asked Hermione to stay inside. She had already stepped back, leaving the door open enough for me to see into the passage. I drew a prepared strip from my pouch, checking its mark twice through the grey light before throwing it onto clear floor beside the table.

‘Lumos.’ A small pool of light showed Harry’s shoe, the scattered chess pieces and the steam of our breath. It let us see one another for a few moments, but did nothing for the cold. Ron wiped a circle through the condensation and pressed close to the glass.

He could see the side of a bridge. Harry asked why we would stop there, receiving no answer as Ron moved closer to the window. Then he said something was outside, in a voice unlike the one which had been disputing a chess move a minute before.

The professor sat upright, reaching into his coat. Hermione asked what Ron had seen, and he said he did not know. Whatever it was, it was not walking.

Something passed the compartment’s corridor window. At first I took it for a person in a long cloak, until I saw how high its hood reached and the movement of the cloth without feet beneath it. My light faded, leaving a dark curl of paper on the floor.

The figure remained visible against grey light from the opposite windows. It drifted closer, and the cold deepened sharply enough to catch my breath. The table at home came into my mind, empty except for one place setting and another which had been removed.

Emma stood in the doorway, waiting for a child who would not come downstairs. I had not remembered that room in this way for months. I tried to replace it with Harry’s birthday: the cake, his laughter and Luna putting her book into his hands.

I could remember the events. I could no longer reach the feeling they had given me, as though knowing something had made me happy was a fact about somebody else.

Luna closed a hand round my wrist. ‘That’s a dementor,’ she said, her voice shaking although the words were clear. ‘Be careful. Ordinary spells—’ The door moved before she could finish, and I realised I had another talisman between my fingers.

A grey, glistening hand appeared round the door’s edge. Its fingers seemed too long for the opening they gripped, and wet folds hung about the wrist. Behind me, the professor stood and told us to stay back.

I shifted between the doorway and Luna, leaving him room to move out of the corner. The hood turned towards us with no face I could make out, only darkness and the certainty of attention. Crookshanks made a low sound, Scabbers scratched inside his box and Leo became completely silent.

For an instant I smelled the sharp, clean air of a surgery from the life which should have stayed behind me. Then the empty house returned, colder than before, and I gripped the strip hard enough to feel its edge against my skin.

Ron said Harry’s name. I turned to find him pressed against the seat back, eyes open but fixed on nothing I could see. One hand clutched the fabric beside his leg, and his chest moved as though he could not get enough air.

Ron reached for him without producing a response. The hood inclined towards Harry as his grip loosened, and I threw my strip into the space between the doorway and his seat.

‘Incendio!’ Flame burst across the entrance, throwing heat against my face and orange light along the nearest seat. For an instant every crease of the wet cloak showed clearly. The thing continued towards Harry without slowing, while the cold inside me remained untouched.

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The short charge burnt out. I could release more fire, but in that space the heat would reach my friends whether it affected the creature or not. Instead I stepped across its path and kicked at what ought to have been a body beneath the cloth.

My foot met almost nothing. I caught the frame before losing my balance, and Lupin’s wand rose beside me as silver light passed my shoulder. It filled the doorway in a way my flame had not.

The hood recoiled. Silver followed it into the passage, pushing the dark folds out of sight, and I remained gripping the frame with the certainty that it might turn back. Lupin told me to move away from the door, leaving no doubt this time about whom he meant.

I moved and he closed it. Ron had caught Harry as he slumped sideways, while Hermione cleared the chessboard to make room on the seat. Lupin crossed to them and told us to let him lie down gently.

I crouched beside the seat while he checked Harry. His breathing was visible now, but I still could not make my hands stop shaking. I began a question without managing to finish it, and Lupin assured us he was breathing normally and needed a little space.

Ron moved back by inches. Hermione watched Harry’s face, and I looked towards Luna, who sat near the window with both hands clenched round the edge of her bag. There was little colour in her cheeks.

I touched her shoulder and asked whether she was all right. She nodded, but I stayed until she loosened her grip on the bag and took my hand. The lights returned gradually above us, revealing the spent Lumos strip and the scorched mark where the fire preparation had burnt out.

Neither had given us protection from the thing at the door. I asked what Lupin’s silver light had been, and he looked up from Harry to tell me it was a Patronus.

I glanced towards his wand. ‘The fire didn’t even slow it,’ I said, still feeling the absence of resistance against my foot. Lupin explained that neither fire nor a kick supplied the protection I needed against a dementor.

He looked at the scorch, then back at me. ‘I understand why you acted. You wanted to get between it and your friend, but making this compartment hotter would not have solved that.’ I said I had noticed, my voice rougher than I meant it to be.

Lupin told me to keep that part of the lesson. Being called brave would have been easier to hear, but considerably less useful. Before I could answer, Harry’s fingers moved against the seat and his eyes opened.

Hermione said his name. He looked at her without recognition for a moment, then turned sharply towards the door. I told him the dementor had gone and Professor Lupin had driven it away.

Harry tried to sit too quickly. Lupin kept a hand near his shoulder, waiting until he steadied before helping him move. When Harry asked what happened, Ron explained that he fainted, making him look round the compartment at the rest of us.

‘Did anyone else?’ he asked. I said no, but would not recommend what the rest of us had felt either. Lupin opened a packet from his coat, breaking chocolate with a firm snap before handing Harry a piece.

He told him to take small bites until he felt steadier. Harry examined the chocolate as though he expected a more complicated remedy, then ate a little and accepted water from Hermione. Lupin gave pieces to the rest of us too.

I discovered how tightly I had held my jaw when I tried to chew. Warmth returned slowly, and the empty table at home stopped being the only thing my mind would show me. I could picture the birthday with people round it again, although the memory felt bruised by what had happened.

Luna ate beside me. I did not ask what she had remembered, and she left my silence alone until Harry wanted to know whether the dementors were looking for Black.

‘They’re supposed to be searching the train,’ Lupin said. Harry told him it had not felt like a search, and he agreed without trying to make it sound more reasonable. He checked Harry again before looking at each of us in turn.

At the door, he asked us to stay together. He needed to speak to the driver and make certain this stopped, but would return. If Harry worsened, we were to call for him immediately. I nodded, and he left with the door closed behind him.

For a while we heard only the train and the people beyond our compartment: footsteps, voices and somebody crying further away. The wheels began moving again. Harry turned the chocolate wrapper in his hand before saying he thought the creature had tried to pull something out of him.

Luna asked what he had seen. He described something beneath the hood, his inability to move and the shout which would not come. Then he rubbed his palms against his trousers and asked why it had chosen him.

Ron shifted on the seat. He did not think it had affected only Harry; for a while he had felt as though nothing could ever be good again. Hermione agreed, and Luna and I nodded. Harry’s surprise showed how little of us he had been able to notice while it happened.

Luna explained that she recognised descriptions of Azkaban’s guards: the cold, the cloak and the way they moved. Ron asked what they did, and she glanced at Harry before answering. They took happiness and hope, bringing bad memories closer, but she did not think everyone experienced it equally.

‘Then I had more for it to find,’ Harry said quietly. I reminded him that we did not yet know exactly why he fainted. Lupin could help explain it; surviving upright had hardly meant I was handling the encounter splendidly, since I had tried to kick it.

Harry gave a startled laugh. He asked whether I actually had, and I admitted it had not been my best reasoning. He said I had tried to help, which was true, but I would rather know how next time. His laugh reassured me more than another minute watching him breathe would have.

Hermione reached for her book, then left it closed. She knew the Patronus was meant to repel dementors but had not learnt how to produce one. Harry asked again about what he had seen beneath the hood, and Luna folded her empty wrapper before speaking.

People called it the dementor’s Kiss. They said it could take a person’s soul, she explained, making Ron stare at her before asking where the soul went. She said she did not know and had never seen it happen.

‘What I’ve heard is that the person can remain alive, but they aren’t themselves any more.’ Harry went still, and I reminded him that it had not happened to him. He was here and talking to us; Lupin had stopped the creature.

Hermione put her book aside and asked whether we could wait for Lupin before deciding anything else. There was a tightness in her voice, and Luna nodded at once. We left it there without requiring Hermione to explain what made her want the discussion to stop.

After a little while Ron gathered the chess pieces. One complained loudly about the way it had been treated, an ordinary sound which almost made me laugh again. Harry announced that he would not finish the game, receiving a reminder that he had been losing.

He called that completely unrelated. Ron put the board away, taking care to keep it clear of Harry’s knees, and I settled back beside Luna while the rain ran over the glass.