Changed (Drarry)

Chapter 5

Draco started out of the window the whole time he was on the train, he had arrived early with Sirius, Remus and his own parents to see if Harry was being taken to Hogwarts, but it was getting dangerously close to the train leaving and Harry still hadn't shown up. If he hadn't gotten onto the train then he was probably going to miss it.

Remus and Sirius as a dog sat in the first empty compartment they could find, and Draco went to find Blaise and Pansy's compartment. They were all exhausted.

Officially, they would take it in turns to sleep or stay out searching for Harry, but none of them could really sleep properly when it was their turn to do so it was mostly going for as long as they could before they passed out and then repeating.

They had had a lead on Harry's location a little before his birthday at the Dursleys, there was evidence of Harry's magic there, but Harry had already disappeared.

To make matters worse, Dumbledore had managed to escape Azkaban, and he was still not able to be found. The Ministry weren't sure what Dumbledore was planning to do, so they had decided to "protect" Hogwarts from the barmy old wizard by sending dementors... To a school. It would be stupid to assume that Dumbledore didn't have anything to do with Harry's disappearance, but Draco wasn't being told everything, he could tell from the looks on everyone's faces whenever they talked about what Dumbledore could have done to Harry, but he'd never had the courage to ask what it was he didn't know.

"None of this was your fault, you know." Pansy said, looking sad as she tried to get Draco's attention.

"Yeah, he was at home, and even if you were there with him, I don't think you could have given him much help." Blaise agreed, trying to convince Draco what they had been trying to convince him of since the start of the summer holiday.

"Get some sleep now at least, you look completely terrible." Pansy said, her voice half gentle and half teasing.

"If it was that easy I wouldn't be so tired." Draco snapped at the two of them, not that either took it personally, you would have to be an idiot to not realise how much stress Draco was under.

"At least try, you're not going to be able to do anything at all if you spend all your time stressed and exhausted. You can always ask Mme Pomfrey to give you a sleeping potion." Pansy said, putting a hand on his shoulder that Draco shrugged off immediately.

"I can try, but I'm not sure if they'll work properly." Draco said with a sigh, resting his head on the window, it was cold and soothed his headache that was throbbing in his temples that had been there for the past few days, not that the journey was smooth, meaning Draco's head was starting to bounce off the window every now and then.

"The sleeping potions? Are you too tense or something?" Blaise asked, not getting more of a reply than a glare from Draco's reflection in the window.

-----

Hogwarts was almost in sight and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were starting to get their robes out of their trunks when it suddenly got extremely cold. Ginny started to hug Harry, as Ron hugged Hermione. The window started to frost over as the train started to slow down.

"We're not at Hogwarts yet, what's going on?" Hermione said, getting out of Ron's arm to open the compartment door to look out into the corridor, where all she saw was many other people's heads as they did the same thing, before a sudden jolt of the train threw Hermione back into the compartment, the sliding door sliding almost completely closed.

Then the lights went out.

Harry was sure he had heard a scream from a few compartments away, but he didn't have time to even try to see if they were okay before some kind of creature came up to their compartment. It was covered in torn and tattered robes that were translucent, and it looked like it was made of only bones and robes. It looked almost a little too human, other than the fact that it was floating and didn't seem to have any legs, the bones ending at the pelvis.

It waved its hands at the almost closed door, making it open. Harry had never seen anything like it, but he felt terrified that the door was opening. He wanted this thing to disappear and never come back, but he didn't even know what it could be.

The only good thing that came from the creature entering their compartment was the fact that Ginny let go of him, pushing against him and pushing herself into the corner away from the creature.

It seemed to be looking around, but it didn't have any eyes, although there were hollows where the eye sockets would be. What Harry assumed was the front, stayed fixated on Harry after giving the room a search.

At first, Harry felt terrified as the creature approached him, and he felt like he couldn't move, but when the thing was practically in his face he started to feel empty. A cold, hollow, emptiness filled Harry, the kind that would ache with sadness if you thought about it too long, before Harry heard a scream that belonged to a voice he swore he knew and his vision was blackness.

-----

When Harry came to, he still felt a little empty, but the fear he had felt when the creature had approached him had also returned. He felt worse than he did when he talked to Vernon and he got yelled at or beaten in response.

"What happened?" Harry asked, finding his voice extremely horse as he sat up from the floor.

"That thing was in your face, and something white came out of your mouth, but when it did I don't quite know what happened, but something scared it away." Hermione said, where she was holding a piece of cloth and a water bottle, that she had clearly going to be using to make a cold compress from Harry, but Ron grabbed the things from her hands and shoved them into Ginny's, spilling some of the water.

"Who screamed?" Harry asked, getting himself up off the floor, but collapsing onto the seat again.

"Before the creature showed up? It was Lavender Brown, she was scared of the lights going out, but there was a guy who came through and dealt with the creatures. Spoke to the train conductor which is why we're moving again." Hermione said.

"No, when the creature was in here." Harry said, the scream was filled with agony, fear, and a deep sadness that cut right through Harry and he wanted to make sure the poor woman was okay.

"Lavender was the only one who screamed, Harry." Ginny said, looking at him curiously.

-----

It was already dark when they reached Hogwarts, and they had all changed into their robes. Harry felt like something was off when he saw his Gryffindor coloured tie, and stared at it for a few minutes before Ron snapped at him to just put it on. It felt almost as odd for Hermione to have been wearing a red tie, he thought blue would match her better. He could have sworn she used to wear things with rainbows on, but she wasn't wearing anything like that anymore.

Ginny had tried to stay with Harry as he changed, which made him feel extremely uncomfortable, but thankfully Ron got in the way that time. They had changed just after Ginny had drunk something she had brought with her, after which she started clinging to Harry even more.

"Let's go, Harry!" Ginny said, squeezing his arm as tightly as she could while they walked to the carriages, and Harry stopped in his tracks, they weren't horseless anymore.

The carriages that took all of them to Hogwarts had always been horseless, travelling on their own, but now they were being lead by skeletal horse like creatures with wings. They didn't look dissimilar to the creature who had entered their compartment, bud oddly these creatures made Harry feel safe. They were morbidly beautiful, their skin looking like silk, and their bones protruding in a way similar to Harry's appearance under the spells.

"Do you see those?" Harry asked Hermione, gesturing to the winged horse like creatures.

"See what?" Hermione asked, looking over where Harry was pointing.

"You don't see anything?" Harry asked, his mouth gaping open.

"No." Hermione said, Ron pushing them to the carriage closest to them as Ginny pulled Harry by her tight grip on her arm.

"Just get on one of the carriages already!" Ron said, frowning as he looked around as though he was doing something wrong.

"Okay, sorry, Ron." Harry said, lowering his head as they got into the carriage.