"I am terribly sorry about that." Harry apologized to Jet as he walked to the compartment where his friends would be, Angela was not with him as she was heading off to a prefect meeting, Harry was honestly not very surprised that she had become a prefect. He could only hope that the Weasley twins were never given positions of power, that very thought was terrifying.
"Apology accepted," Jet replied. "but the next time you wish to repeatedly stab each other in the mouth with your tongues and hug lips then at least give me the opportunity to leave."
"Noted." Harry said with an eyeroll just before he arrived at the compartment, he opened it and saw Tracey and Daphne sitting on one side of the compartment with Blaise sitting on the other. "What's up guys?" Harry said as he entered and put his trunk over head before he sat down next to Blaise.
"Alright Harry," Blaise nodded in greeting. "where's Angela?" He asked.
"She's off to a prefect meeting, she's very busy apparently." Harry shrugged.
"She'd have more time if you would stop stabbing her in the mouth with your tongue." Jet pointed out, Harry ignored him in favour of greeting Daphne and Tracey.
"Daph, Trace, how was your summers?" Harry asked just as Jet slithered down from Harry's shoulders and into Daphne's waiting arms.
"Boring but relaxing." Tracey shrugged.
"Same," Daphne nodded before she began petting Jet. "and how is my favorite snake doing?" Daphne asked as she smiled at Jet.
"Well...he is still an asshole." Harry said with an amused smile. Any further response was cut off when a girl with blue eyes and curly blonde hair, a first year if Harry had to guess, opened the door. She was about to say something but stopped and gasped when she saw Jet resting in Daphne's lap.
"Is that Jet?" The girl asked Daphne.
"Yes, he is." Daphne said with a smile before she turned to the rest of the compartment. "Everyone, allow me to introduce my younger sister, Astoria." Daphne said as she gestured to the new girl.
"Hi," Astoria said with a small wave. "Daphne had said I could sit with you guys, is that alright?" She asked, as she looked around the compartment.
"I don't mind." Harry said, everyone looked at Blaise who shrugged to show that he didn't care much if she did.
"Thank you." Astoria said as she sat in-between Daphne and Tracey. "Oh, can I touch him?" She asked as she gestured to Jet.
"Give me a sec," Daphne said as she looked at Jet. "Jet, can my sister pet you?" She asked as she held him.
"My pet's sister? Hmm...I will allow it." Jet said with a small nod.
"That's a 'yes' apparently." Daphne said as she nodded to Astoria.
"Wait, you can understand him?" Astoria gaped at her.
"Well...I understood the nod, Jet can understand English. I don't speak parsletounge." Daphne shrugged before she gestured to Jet with her head. Astoria tentatively reached out and stroked Jet's body.
"Wow, he is so smooth." Astoria gasped.
"I know," Daphne smiled before she placed Jet over her shoulders. "oh, I should introduce you to the others. You know Tracey already, but this one here is Blaise Zabini." Daphne said as she gestured to Blaise who gave Astoria a nod in greeting. "And this one is Harry Potter." She said as she gestured to Harry.
"I...kind of worked that part out." Astoria said as she gestured to Harry's not so subtle scar. "Sorry, I hope that's not offensive."
"Honestly, you've handled it better than most." Harry replied as he leaned forward and took Astoria's hand in his own. "As Daphne said, I'm Harry Potter." Harry said as he leaned forward and planted a small kiss on Astoria's knuckles, causing Astoria to blush.
"Oi." Daphne said in an irritated voice as she lightly slapped Harry on the top of the head. "No flirting with my sister."
"I wasn't flirting." Harry protested as he let her hand go.
"Please," Blaise scoffed. "you would flirt with anything if it's mildly attractive and breathes." As the boys continued talking Astoria leaned over to Daphne and whispered in her ear.
"I can see why you have a crush on him." Astoria whispered with a grin. Daphne's face turned red before she began whispering furiously in her sister's ear.
"You say anything and I promise I will make you pay!" Daphne hissed into her ear. Astoria smirked and was about to reply when Jet suddenly placed his face in front of hers, and began softly hissing, Astoria couldn't understand parsletounge but knew that whatever he was saying wasn't nice. Jet pulled his head back and returned to resting on Daphne's shoulder.
"W...what was that?" Astoria mouthed to Daphne.
"Well," Daphne whispered with a smirk. "I have to guess but I think Jet offered to get revenge on my behalf if you bother me." Daphne said as she petted Jet's head.
"Fine," Astoria sighed. "I won't say anything."
"Good." Daphne smiled.
"So Astoria," Harry said as he and Blaise both came back into the conversation. "what house do you think that you will be in?" Harry asked.
"Hmm," Astoria hummed. "I think I will be in either Ravenclaw or Slytherin." Astoria said after a while. "Hmm, maybe Hufflepuff if I had to chose a third. I don't think I'm much of a Gryffindor."
"Hmm, some of the Gryffindor's I've seen are alright." Harry replied, though he was honestly mostly just thinking about the three female chasers on the quidditch team. "Others, not so much."
"Is that supposed to be a reference to Ron Weasley?" Astoria asked.
"You know about Ron Weasley?" Harry asked.
"Have you met him? Poor girl." Blaise replied.
"No, I haven't met him." Astoria said with a head shake. "But I have heard Daphne complain about him." Astoria said, she was very tempted to point out that those complaints were actually Daphne mumbling under her breath about Weasley constantly bothering Harry but decided she'd rather not risk her sister's wrath, Astoria knew that Daphne would never even dream of killing her but that she was also sure that Daphne could easily find a non-lethal and non-harmful way of punishing her.
"Oh," Harry suddenly grinned as he looked around the compartment. "I have something to show you guys." Harry grinned before he suddenly transformed into a single tailed cat. Harry had made the decision to not hide the fact that he was an animagus, after all the bloody work he put into it he'd like to use it whenever he wanted. He planned to tell his closest friends - Daphne, Tracy, Blaise and Angela - that he was a Tri-cat when they got to school but he would let the rest of the school assume that he was a simple cat animagus, if they worked out that he was not then so be it, but until then he could enjoy sticking to just being a cat.
"Bloody hell!" Blaise exclaimed as he jumped back in his seat in surprise. "Harry?"
"You're an animagus?!" Tracey gasped as she looked at Harry while the Greengrass sisters stared at him with dropped jaws.
"Meow." Cat-Harry said as he jumped from his seat and into Tracey's lap, Tracey slowly reached down and stroked the back of his head.
"Wow, he's so soft." Tracey said to the others.
"Oh, can I pet you?" Astoria asked in a hopeful voice, Harry tilted his head before he hopped into Astoria's lap. The girl smiled and reached down before she gently began petting Harry, Daphne leaned over and scratched him under his chin. After several minutes of this Harry jumped back to his own seat and transformed back into his human form and shook his head.
"Show-off." Blaise said as he playfully nudged Harry's shoulder.
"When did you become an animagus?" Tracey asked, disbelief in her voice at how Harry casually showed that he had mastered such an advanced piece of magic.
"Over this summer," Harry replied with a grin on his face. "it wasn't actually that hard, just very tedious. The first transformation hurt like a bitch but the ones after that were fine."
"Harry, don't swear in front of my sister." Daphne said with a roll of her eyes.
"Daphne, she is British. We all swear." Harry said, this time he was the one who rolled his eyes. "She'll learn eventually, I'm just speeding up the process. Anyway to sum up, the animagus transformation was tiring and long but not that hard. The first transformation was painful and the second one less so but now I can do it easily."
"Why a cat though?" Tracey wondered.
"Because I am more than willing to scratch off someone's face if they annoy me." Harry said a moment later.
Eventually Angela came back to the compartment, after introductions exchanged between herself and Astoria, she was shown Harry's cat animagus form. She was very impressed that he had already accomplished such a thing at such a young age. And it went without saying that she thought that Harry's cat form was absolutely adorable.
Right now the compartment had settled into silence with Jet resting on Harry's shoulders, Tracey and Daphne were talking with Astoria and Blaise while Angela and Harry were reading books and occasionally adding themselves into the conversations. Angela was reading a potions book while Harry was reading a book on runes, he found the subject to be very fascinating. Harry's reading was interrupted by a sudden chill that went through the compartment.
"Did anyone else feel that?" Harry frowned as the whole compartment suddenly felt very cold. The train stopped moving, the window of the compartment suddenly became covered in frost.
"W...what is that?" Astoria shivered.
"Dementors." Harry said, a tense look on his face.
"Dementors? B...but what would dementors be doing here?" Tracey said as he began rubbing her arms, trying to keep warm.
"Andromeda told me that Fudge was going to place them around the school to catch Black, I didn't know that the idiot would let them go on the bloody train." Harry growled just before the cold got worse, they heard the dementors boarding the train. A few silent and tense moments later a dementor stopped outside of the compartment, the compartment door opened and a dementor hovered in front of them.
It had a humanoid shape, approximately three meters, or 10 feet high, and was covered in a dark hooded cloak of long ripped black cloth, making it closely resemble a wraith. Its body is greyed and decayed looking, like a decomposing corpse, and its breath sounds rattling like it is trying to suck more than air out of a room. Its hands are glistening, greyish, slimy-looking, and scabbed.
Harry felt colder than he had ever felt, he was able to see up the hood and saw the face has empty eye sockets, covered with scabbed skin. There is a gaping large hole where the mouth should be, which Harry knew is used for sucking the soul out of the victim in a process called the Dementor's Kiss, leaving victims in a state generally considered worse than death. Something he most definitely did not want to experience, thank you very much.
Jet hissed threateningly at the dementor, Harry felt his whole body freeze, memories of beatings from Uncle Vernon and getting stabbed by the basilisk fang swarmed his mind, Harry knew that dementors made their victims relive their worst memories, and right now he was experiencing it. It was at this point that another memory came into Harry's mind, it was a woman's scream, she was screaming his name. Her voice seemed so familiar.
"Harry!" Jet hissed loudly into Harry's ear, snapping him out of his trance. Harry's eyes widened as his wand quickly came into his hand, the dementor saw his wand and lunged forwards.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled, a thin wisp of silver escaped his wand and hovered like mist before him, taking the form of a shield. Harry's shield wasn't quite strong enough to be a corporeal patronus and take the shape of an animal yet but it was fairly close. The patronus held back the dementor who tried to pierce through the shield but was unable to. "Sirius Black is not here, now fuck off!" Harry yelled as he pushed the shield forwards, pushing the dementor out of the compartment. Harry followed after it and kept pushing until the dementor fled and began flying away.
Harry turned around and saw another dementor, Harry was a second away from getting rid of this one too when another patronus shield chased it away. Once it was gone Harry was able to see the caster, he was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes. He looked ill and exhausted, though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with grey. He supported a thin moustache and had several small scars on his face.
Harry gave the man, whoever he was, a short nod before he rushed back into his compartment and he saw everyone was shivering and looking cold.
"Are you guys alright?" Harry said as he quickly reached into his trunk.
"Y...you chased it off?" Daphne said, disbelief clear in her voice.
"When Andromeda told me about the dementors being at school she told me to learn the patronus charm." Harry replied.
"But...but that's a NEWT level charm!" Tracey gasped.
"I'm an animagus and I've been doing advanced magic beyond my years since I was a first year." Harry reminded her as he pulled out a couple of bars of chocolate. "Here," Harry said as just as the man with a moustache stopped at the door of their compartment. "eat this chocolate, it'll help fight the effects and make you feel better." Harry said as he handed everyone a bar. "I brought a few for the dementors, I guess I'll have to buy more on the first Hogsmeade trip."
"That is very impressive, Mr Potter." The man said, bringing the attention of the compartment to himself. "You've studied up on dementors?" He asked.
"I had learnt that they were coming to school and didn't want to be caught unprepared." Harry shrugged.
"And you learnt a patronus charm at your age?"
"It's not as good as it could be but it'll do until I manage a corporeal." Harry replied. "And, if you don't mind me asking, who are you?"
"Mr Potter, I think the fact that you can even create more than a little bit of mist is impressive." The man replied, "And um..." The man paused and coughed. "I am Professor Remus Lupin, I will be your new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor for the year."
"Right...you're not evil and/or a rapist, are you?" Harry asked.
"Um...not last time I checked," Professor Lupin said, looking confused. "Why? Why do you ask?"
"Because if you're not then you're already better than the last two teachers." Blaise said, after finishing his seventh or so bite of chocolate, Harry was right when he said that it helps, Blaise was feeling better already.
"Right..." Lupin paused, he gave Harry an odd look before he coughed and shook his head. "right, I am just going to go and have a word with the driver." He said, he gave the members of the compartment a small nod before he turned and left.
"Are you guys alright?" Harry asked once Lupin was gone.
"We're fine, very cold and scared shitless but we're fine, thanks to you." Tracey said in a quiet voice.
"You don't need to thank me, you're my friends, of course I would help you." Harry replied as he sat down.
"I know Daphne said that you were a great wizard but I didn't know that you would be this good." Astoria said as she looked at Harry with awe.
"Stop it, you'll make me blush." Harry said with a small chuckle, hoping to ease the tension.
"Thank you, Harry." Daphne said in a sincere voice. "Really, thank you."
"You're welcome, Daph." Harry smiled at her, Daphne blushed slightly before looking away, she looked out the window now that the frost had begun disappearing.
"The next time we are alone I hope to 'express my gratitude to you'." Angela whispered into Harry's ear. "I'm going to 'express it' over and over again." A shiver went up Harry's body, this time from a totally different reason than before.
"Oh for fuck sakes, you're not going to stab each other with your tongues again, are you?" Jet hissed.