Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban hp-3 Page 7

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Ginny huffily, and she stalked off.

  Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, but all were full except for the one at the very end of the train.

  This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window. Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked on the threshold. The Hogwarts Express was usually reserved for students and they had never seen an adult there before, except for the witch who pushed the food cart.

  The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard’s robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with gray.

  “Who d’you reckon he is?” Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.

  “Professor R. J. Lupin,” whispered Hermione at once.

  “How d’you know that?”

  “It’s on his case,” she replied, pointing at the luggage rack over the man’s head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string. The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.

  “Wonder what he teaches?” said Ron, frowning at Professor Lupin’s pallid profile.

  “That’s obvious,” whispered Hermione. “There’s only one vacancy, isn’t there? Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

  Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already had two Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year. There were rumors that the job was jinxed.

  “Well, I hope he’s up to it,” said Ron doubtfully. “He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn’t he? Anyway . . .” he turned to Harry. “What were you going to tell us?”

  Harry explained all about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s argument and the warning Mr. Weasley had just given him. When he’d finished, Ron looked thunderstruck, and Hermione had her hands over her mouth. She finally lowered them to say, “Sirius Black escaped to come after you? Oh, Harry . . . you’ll have to be really, really careful. Don’t go looking for trouble, Harry—”

  “I don’t go looking for trouble,” said Harry, nettled. “Trouble usually finds me.”

  “How thick would Harry have to be, to go looking for a nutter who wants to kill him?” said Ron shakily.

  They were taking the news worse than Harry had expected. Both Ron and Hermione seemed to be much more frightened of Black than he was.

  “No one knows how he got out of Azkaban,” said Ron uncomfortably. “No one’s ever done it before. And he was a top security prisoner too.”

  “But they’ll catch him, won’t they?” said Hermione earnestly. “I mean, they’ve got all the Muggles looking out for him too . . .”

  “What’s that noise?” said Ron suddenly.

  A faint, tinny sort of whistle was coming from somewhere. They looked all around the compartment.

  “It’s coming from your trunk, Harry,” said Ron, standing up and reaching into the luggage rack. A moment later he had pulled the Pocket Sneakoscope out from between Harry’s robes. It was spinning very fast in the palm of Ron’s hand and glowing brilliantly.

  “Is that a Sneakoscope?” said Hermione interestedly, standing up for a better look.

  “Yeah . . . mind you, it’s a very cheap one,” Ron said. “It went haywire just as I was tying it to Errol’s leg to send it to Harry.”

  “Were you doing anything untrustworthy at the time?” said Hermione shrewdly.

  “No! Well . . . I wasn’t supposed to be using Errol. You know, he’s not really up to long journeys . . . but how else was I supposed to get Harry’s present to him?”

  “Stick it back in the trunk,” Harry advised as the Sneakoscope whistled piercingly, “or it’ll wake him up.”

  He nodded toward Professor Lupin. Ron stuffed the Sneakoscope into a particularly horrible pair of Uncle Vernon’s old socks, which deadened the sound, then closed the lid of the trunk on it.

  “We could get it checked in Hogsmeade,” said Ron, sitting back down. “They sell that sort of thing in Dervish and Banges, magical instruments and stuff. Fred and George told me.”

  “Do you know much about Hogsmeade?” asked Hermione keenly. “I’ve read it’s the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain—”

  “Yeah, I think it is,” said Ron in an offhand sort of way. “But that’s not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honey Dukes.”

  “What’s that?” said Hermione.

  “It’s this sweetshop,” said Ron, a dreamy look coming over his face, “where they’ve got everything… Pepper Imps—they make you smoke at the mouth—and great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream, and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you’re thinking what to write next—”

  “But Hogsmeade’s a very interesting place, isn’t it?” Hermione pressed on eagerly. “In Sites of Historical Sorcery it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack’s supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain—”

  “—and massive sherbert balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you’re sucking them,” said Ron, who was plainly not listening to a word Hermione was saying.

  Hermione looked around at Harry.

  “Won’t it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?”

  “’Spect it will,” said Harry heavily. “You’ll have to tell me when you’ve found out.”

  “What d’you mean?” said Ron.

  “I can’t go. The Dursleys didn’t sign my permission form, and Fudge wouldn’t either.”

  Ron looked horrified.

  “You’re not allowed to come? But—no way—McGonagall or someone will give you permission—”

  Harry gave a hollow laugh. Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, was very strict.

  “—or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle—”

  “Ron!” said Hermione sharply. “I don’t think Harry should be sneaking out of school with Black on the loose—”

  “Yeah, I expect that’s what McGonagall will say when I ask for permission,” said Harry bitterly.

  “But if we’re with him,” said Ron spiritedly to Hermione, “Black wouldn’t dare—”

  “Oh, Ron, don’t talk rubbish,” snapped Hermione. “Black’s already murdered a whole bunch of people in the middle of a crowded street. Do you really think he’s going to worry about attacking Harry just because we’re there?”

  She was fumbling with the straps of Crookshanks’s basket as she spoke.

  “Don’t let that thing out!” Ron said, but too late; Crookshanks leapt lightly from the basket, stretched, yawned, and sprang onto Ron’s knees; the lump in Ron’s pocket trembled and he shoved Crookshanks angrily away.

  “Get out of here!”

  “Ron, don’t!” said Hermione angrily.

  Ron was about to answer back when Professor Lupin stirred. They watched him apprehensively, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth slightly open, and slept on.

  The Hogwarts Express moved steadily north and the scenery outside the window became wilder and darker while the clouds overhead thickened. People were chasing backward and forward past the door of their compartment. Crookshanks had now settled in an empty seat, his squashed face turned toward Ron, his yellow eyes on Ron’s top pocket.

  At one o’clock, the plump witch with the food cart arrived at the compartment door.

  “D’you think we should wake him up?” Ron asked awkwardly, nodding toward Professor Lupin. “He looks like he could do with some food.”

  Hermione approached Professor Lupin cautiously.

  “Er—Professor?” she said. “Excuse me—Professor?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” said the witch as she handed Harry a large stack of Cauldron Cakes. “If he’s hungry when he wakes, I’ll
be up front with the driver.”

  “I suppose he is asleep?” said Ron quietly as die witch slid the compartment door closed. “I mean—he hasn’t died, has he?”

  “No, no, he’s breathing,” whispered Hermione, taking the Cauldron Cake Harry passed her.

  He might not be very good company, but Professor Lupin’s presence in their compartment had its uses. Midafternoon, just as it had started to rain, blurring the rolling hills outside the window, they heard footsteps in the corridor again, and their three least favorite people appeared at the door: Draco Malfoy, flanked by his cronies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.

  Draco Malfoy and Harry had been enemies ever since they had met on their very first train journey to Hogwarts. Malfoy, who had a pale, pointed, sneering face, was in Slytherin House; he played Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team, the same position that Harry played on the Gryffindor team. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to exist to do Malfoy’s bidding. They were both wide and musclely; Crabbe was taller, with a pudding-bowl haircut and a very thick neck; Goyle had short, bristly hair and long, gorilla-ish arms.

  “Well, look who it is,” said Malfoy in his usual lazy drawl, pulling open the compartment door. “Potty and the Weasel.”

  Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly.

  “I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley,” said Malfoy. “Did your mother die of shock?”

  Ron stood up so quickly he knocked Crookshanks’s basket to the floor. Professor Lupin gave a snort.

  “Who’s that?” said Malfoy, taking an automatic step backward as he spotted Lupin.

  “New teacher,” said Harry, who got to his feet, too, in case he needed to hold Ron back. “What were you saying, Malfoy?”

  Malfoy’s pale eyes narrowed; he wasn’t fool enough to pick a fight right under a teacher’s nose.

  “C’mon,” he muttered resentfully to Crabbe and Goyle, and they disappeared.

  Harry and Ron sat down again, Ron massaging his knuckles.

  “I’m not going to take any crap from Malfoy this year,” he said angrily. “I mean it. If he makes one more crack about my family, I’m going to get hold of his head and—” Ron made a violent gesture in midair.

  “Ron,” hissed Hermione, pointing at Professor Lupin, “be careful . . .”

  But Professor Lupin was still fast asleep.

  The rain thickened as the train sped yet farther north; the windows were now a solid, shimmering gray, which gradually darkened until lanterns flickered into life all along the corridors and over the luggage racks. The train rattled, the rain hammered, the wind roared, but still, Professor Lupin slept.

  “We must be nearly there,” said Ron, leaning forward to look past Professor Lupin at the now completely black window.

  The words had hardly left him when the train started to slow down.

  “Great,” said Ron, getting up and walking carefully past Professor Lupin to try and see outside. “I’m starving. I want to get to the feast . . .”

  “We can’t be there yet,” said Hermione, checking her watch.

  “So why’re we stopping?”

  The train was getting slower and slower. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.

  Harry, who was nearest the door, got up to look into the corridor. All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments.

  The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.

  “What’s going on?” said Ron’s voice from behind Harry.

  “Ouch!” gasped Hermione. “Ron, that was my foot!” Harry felt his way back to his seat.

  “D’you think we’ve broken down?”

  “Dunno . . .”

  There was a squeaking sound, and Harry saw the dim black outline of Ron, wiping a patch clean on the window and peering out.

  “There’s something moving out there,” Ron said. “I think people are coming aboard . . .”

  The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell painfully over Harry’s legs.

  “Sorry—d’you know what’s going on?—Ouch—sorry—”

  “Hullo, Neville,” said Harry, feeling around in the dark and pulling Neville up by his cloak.

  “Harry? Is that you? What’s happening?”

  “No idea—sit down—”

  There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had tried to sit on Crookshanks.

  “I’m going to go and ask the driver what’s going on,” came Hermione’s voice. Harry felt her pass him, heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ginny?”

  “Hermione?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was looking for Ron—”

  “Come in and sit down—”

  “Not here!” said Harry hurriedly. “I’m here!”

  “Ouch!” said Neville.

  “Quiet!” said a hoarse voice suddenly.

  Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. Harry could hear movements in his corner.

  None of them spoke.

  There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.

  “Stay where you are,” he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him.

  But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.

  Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. Harry’s eyes darted downward, and what he saw made his stomach contract. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water . . .

  But it was visible only for a split second. As though the creature beneath the cloak sensed Harry’s gaze, the hand was suddenly withdrawn into the folds of its black cloak.

  And then the thing beneath the hood, whatever it was, drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.

  An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart . . .

  Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn’t see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder . . .

  And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn’t . . . a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him—

  “Harry! Harry! Are you all right?”

  Someone was slapping his face.

  “W-what?”

  Harry opened his eyes; there were lanterns above him, and the floor was shaking—the Hogwarts Express was moving again and the lights had come back on. He seemed to have slid out of his seat onto the floor. Ron and Hermione were kneeling next to him, and above them he could see Neville and Professor Lupin watching. Harry felt very sick; when he put up his hand to push his glasses back on, he felt cold sweat on his face.

  Ron and Hermione heaved him back onto his seat.

  “Are you okay?” Ron asked nervously.

  “Yeah,” said Harry, looking quickly toward the door. The hooded creature had vanished. “What happened? Where’s that—that thing? Who screamed?”

  “No one screamed,” said Ron, more nervously still.

  Harry looked around the bright compartment. Ginny and Neville looked back at him, both very pale.<
br />
  “But I heard screaming—”

  A loud snap made them all jump. Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.

  “Here,” he said to Harry, handing him a particularly large piece. “Eat it. It’ll help.”

  Harry took the chocolate but didn’t eat it.

  “What was that thing?” he asked Lupin.

  “A Dementor,” said Lupin, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else. “One of the Dementors of Azkaban.”

  Everyone stared at him. Professor Lupin crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.

  “Eat,” he repeated. “It’ll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me . . .”

  He strolled past Harry and disappeared into the corridor.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Harry?” said Hermione, watching Harry anxiously.

  “I don’t get it . . . What happened?” said Harry, wiping more sweat off his face.

  “Well—that thing—the Dementor—stood there and looked around (I mean, I think it did, I couldn’t see its face)—and you—you—”

  “I thought you were having a fit or something,” said Ron, who still looked scared. “You went sort of rigid and fell out of your seat and started twitching—”

  “And Professor Lupin stepped over you, and walked toward the Dementor, and pulled out his wand,” said Hermione, “and he said, ‘None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.’ But the Dementor didn’t move, so Lupin muttered something, and a silvery thing shot out of his wand at it, and it turned around and sort of glided away . . .”

  “It was horrible,” said Neville, in a higher voice than usual. “Did you feel how cold it got when it came in?”

  “I felt weird,” said Ron, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. “Like I’d never be cheerful again . . .”

  Ginny, who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as Harry felt, gave a small sob; Hermione went over and put a comforting arm around her.

  “But didn’t any of you—fall off your seats?” said Harry awkwardly.

  “No,” said Ron, looking anxiously at Harry again. “Ginny was shaking like mad, though . . .”

  Harry didn’t understand. He felt weak and shivery, as though he were recovering from a bad bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame. Why had he gone to pieces like that, when no one else had?