By your side: d.m

Year 3 - Awkward.

All summer, I had been trying to contact Harry using the phone, but his aunt and uncle were not happy about that, so I just sent him letters. Hermione, Ron, and I decided to meet up at the Leaky Cauldron when we found out Harry was going to be there soon. He came by the Knight Bus. I wish I did. Before we got to the Leaky Cauldron though, Hermione wanted to buy a pet. She bought a cat named Crookshanks, which Ron and his rat did not seem to approve of but he was so cute! Then, we went to buy our books. Hermione bought much more than I thought we needed. "What's all that?", I asked. "I'm taking a few extra classes this year.", she said. A few? One book specially, one about monsters, kept trying to eat me, so I tried kind of stroking it and it worked I guess? Did I drink a bottle of Felix Felicis this past year? After getting our robes, we went to the Leaky Cauldron where we met up with Harry. And by the way, can I say how much all of us changed? We look so different from last year. We look much older.

Hermione and Ron were talking about her cat again, and I saw Harry up a staircase. "Harry!", I said. Then they noticed and said, "Harry!". We sat down to talk and I found out that Harry blew up his muggle aunt in the summer. "You'll be fine, they're much too busy with Sirius Black.", I said. Then, the rest of the Weasleys came in. "Hi Fred.. Hi George!", I said a little too enthusiastically, which Harry and Ron didn't think much of it, but Hermione looked at me and laughed. Molly was talking about how proud she was of Percy for becoming a prefect, when George said, " What'd we want to be prefects for? It'd take all the fun out of life." Ginny giggled, and I laughed which made him smile at me. I turned red and when I looked to Hermione, she was trying to hold in her laughter. The innkeeper's name was Tom, which I shuddered at, and Hermione gave me a sympathetic smile and rubbed my arm.

~~

Molly and Arthur dropped us all off at the platform and Harry, Ron and Hermione went when I tripped over literally nothing and bumped into someone. "Agh, I'm so sorry-", I said as I was getting up. Then I looked up to see Draco. I laughed a little. "Hey, Draco... Did you get a haircut by any chance?", I said referring to his hair, that was no longer slicked back, but in a middle part. We were being kind of awkward, because we were used to hating each other. "Do you like it? Of course, I'd look good in anything but I wanted to try something new.", he said. I rolled my eyes and laughed and went to find Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Then, I bumped into Daphne Greengrass. "Daph!", I said hugging her. "I haven't seen you in so long." "Yeah! Gosh, I wish we could talk more. I wish you were in the same house. Hey, let me see your schedule. Maybe we have some classes together." We actually had potions and care of magical creatures together. I knew care of magical creatures was going to be my favorite class. I finally found Harry, Ron, and Hermione and sat with them. There was also someone else there in the compartment, who appeared to be sleeping. "Who's that", I asked. "Remus Lupin. Probably our new defense against the dark arts teacher.", said Hermione. Right, they completely wiped the last one's memory by accident. "Isn't it weird how our DADA teacher changes every year?", I said. They agreed. "I hope he's asleep because I need to tell you all something.", said Harry. He explained an argument that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had about Sirius Black. "Sirius Black is after you? You have to be careful, Harry...", I told him.

The train started to slow down. "We can't be there yet... Why are we stopping?", said Hermione concerned. All of a sudden, the lamps all turned off. The compartment door opened and Neville fell in. In the doorway, a dark creature with a hood appeared. It came inside the compartment and I started to feel like all the happiness was being drained from me. The creature slowly crept its way towards Harry and started to suck the life out of him, or that's what it looked like. I knew then what the creature was. My mum told me about them. They guarded Azkaban. They were dementors. She never told me how to fight them off, though. Then, Professor Lupin quickly shot up from his seat and released a white silvery animal, a Wolf, from his wand and it attacked the dementor. Harry passed out and started twitching, which made all of us really scared.

"Harry! Harry!" He finally woke up. "Are you okay?", asked Ron. "What... Was that?", asked Harry to Lupin. "A dementor.", I said at the same time as Lupin. He looked at me kindly, his scarred and tired face making me feel slightly comfortable. "You know about dementors?", he asked me. "My mum told me about them...", I said shyly. He sort of nodded and gave Harry a piece of chocolate. "Eat. You'll feel better.", he said before going to talk to the conductor.

~~

We arrived at Hogwarts, and as I was about to enter the Great Hall, I was pulled by my wrist by someone. "Draco! You scared me!", I said letting go of his grip. "Sorry about that. Um... The thing at the train was pretty weird... Are you alright?", he asked. "Yeah.. I'm fine. It was a dementor. They usually guard Azkaban, I don't know why one would be on the train. Harry even fainted, they're pretty nasty creatures..." I noticed I was rambling so I just asked; "Are you okay?" "Yeah. I'm fine." I walked into the Great Hall and sat down on the Gryffindor table. Professor McGonagall called Harry and Hermione to go with her. I assumed it was about what happened at the train. During Dumbledore's speech, he said that dementors would be staying in Hogwarts. Another wonderful idea! Yes, 20 points to Dumbledore! I rolled my eyes and noticed Draco laughed, which made me smile. "I know, it's ridiculous.", I heard from Fred Weasley. "Yeah, honestly.", I said, looking at George who was sitting next to him and blushing. When Hermione and Harry came back, Dumbledore announced that Hagrid would be our care of magical creatures teacher. After the feast, we went back to the dorms, and I tried helping Neville remember that the password was "Fortuna Major."

A/N

Sorry i took so long to upload, lots of school stuff & my computer was broken, but anyways here's the first chapter for year 3!!