Wolfbite (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter 3: Cold

Chapter 3: Cold

It's been cold lately for summer, a sure sign of the dementors' presence. Despite this, Reggie was excited to board the train for his first year of Hogwarts. He was also a bit nervous too at the thought of sitting by himself on the train, so I sat with him and some kid named Barty – it was his first year as well. He plied me with endless questions about Hogwarts and the Sorting. I made things up for the latter question. The Sorting should always have an air of mystery, after all.

**

The rest of August flew by in a haze of laughter and fun. Sirius and Leo often spent their time running around the house, casting various spells at each other and generally making quite a mess of things. When they weren't trying to tickle each other into submission or stick each other to ceilings, they set up pranks all over the house to the point where you could barely walk more than ten steps without bouncing into the air or getting covered in tar and feathers. Remus got hit with the latter of the two.

The Blacks thought it was hilarious until Remus glued their tongues to the roofs of their mouths until they decided to apologize or – in Leo's case – the spell wore off, which took a few hours. Even Sirius was impressed by his stubbornness. Now knowing that getting an apology from the boy was next to impossible, Remus instead made him sit down for the rest of the day and do nothing but homework. Leo put leftover colour change potion in his tea as a form of revenge.

On the first of September near the crack of dawn, Leo and Remus bid farewell to Sirius and made their way to the Hogwarts Express before the station could become packed with students and teachers. Remus almost tripped on his way up the steps, exhausted after his transformation the previous night. Leo helped him up and led him to a compartment in the very back of the train. When his godfather was settled, he went back for their trunks and his empty owl cage – Apollo, as always, would fly ahead –and placed them in the racks above their heads. He then took a seat across from him next to the window, eyeing Remus warily as he drifted off to sleep.

Leo followed his lead, deciding he would rest until Harry and the rest of his friends came on board the train. A sharp whistle and movement sometime later awoke the blonde, alerting him that the train had started moving. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, yawning and turning his head as the compartment door opened, revealing Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were all staring at him and Remus in bewilderment.

"Who is that?" Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.

"New DADA professor," Leo replied with a small shrug.

"How d'you know that?"

"Why else would an old man be on a train full of kids? Besides, the job's open after Lockhart decided to take a nap," Leo grinned, still quite proud of that accomplishment.

The three snorted at this.

"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?"

Leo leaned forward slightly, eyebrow quirking upward in mild amusement as Harry explained all about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's argument and the warning Mr. Weasley had just given him about not going to look for Black. When he'd finished, Ron looked thunderstruck, and Hermione had her hands over her mouth. Leo just stared out the window, not trusting himself to not laugh at the thought of Sirius trying to kill Harry.

Hermione finally lowered her hands 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..."