𝑼𝒏𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏 (𝑒𝑛𝑔.) [𝑟. 𝑙𝑢𝑝𝑖𝑛]

2

If there was one thing I hated more than Hogwarts, it was goodbyes. I had decided to spend all of my holidays at Hogwarts this school year to prepare for my graduation. As expected, Gale became very emotional the night before and tears flowed. Of course, he always denied showing any feelings afterwards. Valerie drove me to London. The journey was silent as always. At the station, she took me to platform 9/10, from where I would walk through the wall to end up on platform 9¾. She always acted as if it didn't bother her that I was leaving for almost a year. I knew she would shed a tear or two on the way back. "I'll write to you if anything exciting happens." I promised before I ran through the wall. If I had stayed just another minute, I wouldn't have gone to Hogwarts at all. I was already dreading it so much.

As every year, I was there way too early, but that also has its advantages. I was able to leave my luggage in the luggage carriage in peace before I went to the scarlet locomotive. "Morning Alina." Frank, the conductor, looked out of the window. "Good morning Frank." I waved to him. "Next year you'll have to find someone new to talk to." I called up to him. "Well, you're brave, miss. Promise to come and visit me." "Promise." In my first year, Frank had given me a tour of the train because I was there way too early. Since then, I've always had a little chat with him when we went to Hogwarts. "Make yourself comfortable in there, little one. The others will probably be arriving soon." "I will." I saluted. "See you in Hogsmeade." I got a nod in response and I made my way to my compartment.

Okay, it wasn't mine, but since I chose it, hardly anyone came. Legend has it that no one chooses this compartment because it is cursed. Even though I never found out why and how but at least I had some peace and quiet.

Normally I had some peace and quiet, but today someone was already sitting in the compartment. Dark blonde hair with grey streaks peeked out from a mouse grey cloak. Somehow that mop of hair seemed familiar but I couldn't pinpoint why. As I sat down on the bench opposite the grey pile, I caught a glimpse of the nameplate on the suitcase. R.J. Lupin. Maybe it's the new Defense Professor, I thought, before I pulled Alice in Wonderland forward and disappeared between the pages.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the carefully quiet chatter woke me up. Oh man, did Potter and his entourage really have to choose my compartment? Didn't the three idiots know the unwritten rule of leaving me alone? "Can you possible be any louder?" Annoyed by being woken up and by their mere presence, I sat up and glared angrily at the third years. "Sorry, it was so crowded everywhere and we were really quiet-" "Did anyone ask you for your opinion, mudblood?" I snapped at Hermione Granger, who looked at me with her big brown eyes as if I had hit her. "Aren't you a Muggle-born too? How can you call her that slur?!" Ronald Weasley, whose red hair made him look so sickly, jumped up. Weaselys are blood traitors, no Slytherin who knows anything about pride would voluntarily associate with the family. I had to learn the hard way to think and act like a pureblood so that I would be accepted in Slytherin despite my questionable blood status.

Without even thinking about it, I put my book back in the small handbag that I always carried with me. From the outside, no one would know how much I was suffering inside. I, Alina Thompson, an orphan from Liverpool, was a vagabond, a troublemaker. In the summer I drank with my best friends and sometimes ended up in the police sobering-up cell or arrested for drug possession, sometimes theft, but I haven't been caught in over a year, so we let this one slide. I loved wild parties and the illusion of freedom. But at Hogwarts I was the ice princess, a cold-hearted Slytherin, a perfectionist who followed the rules and didn't stand out. Friendships served the purpose of securing my reputation and my standing in the magical world while I was still at that cursed boarding school. It was a huge win-win situation for me when I offered to help Draco Malfoy with his studies last year. Since then, no one has dared to bully me or portray me as incompetent.

"I asked you something!" Weasley was almost shouting, ignoring his girlfriend's quiet request to just drop it. With a casual gesture from me, he fell silent and was pulled back onto his seat as if he had a strong magnet in his pocket. Harry Potter thought carefully about his words again before closing his mouth and looking at his red-haired friend. The silence didn't last long, because when the train suddenly stopped, I instinctively reached for my wand and released the spell from Weasley. "You stay here," I whispered and opened the compartment door. "We're not in Hogsmeade yet, are we?" asked a Hufflepuff from the next compartment. "We're still about an hour from Hogsmeade," I answered, trying to make out something in the darkness outside.

The lights went out and the excited babble of voices disappeared. Only now did I notice that I could see my breath. The window in front of me began to freeze. "Back to your compartments and close the doors." I instructed the students within my hearing range, who did just that without hesitation. Only the prefects and a few of the older students remained standing in the corridor.

It was getting colder and colder. Had someone tried a forbidden frost spell? I asked myself before a shadow flew past the window. No, that was something much more dangerous. "Doesn't that remind you of the Azkaban essay from four years ago?" Felica Kobe, a Ravenclaw, said what I was thinking. "Dementors." I whispered, and yet it was so loud in this icy silence.

What were Dementors doing in Scotland?

I didn't have time to think about it any further, because at that moment all the train doors opened and shortly afterwards I looked for the first time at a Dementor in the black nothingness where the face should be.