Chapter Text
Platform 9¾ buzzed with its usual mix of excitement and chaos, as families embraced for final goodbyes and friends reunited after summers spent apart. Steam curled around ankles and rose in twisting columns, catching the golden light of the morning sun and making the whole scene shimmer like a dream—or a memory. Parents called out last-minute instructions. Owls hooted in protest from their cages. Trunks thudded as they were hoisted aboard the scarlet train waiting patiently beside the platform.
Esther Black stood slightly apart from it all, leaning casually against her trolley. Her long black hair, straight and sleek, fell like a curtain around her shoulders, and her sharp grey eyes scanned the crowd with a practiced detachment. She wore the expression of someone who had seen it all before and wasn’t particularly impressed. The familiar Slytherin smirk tugged at her lips—habitual, more than anything—but her heart wasn’t in it today. Not really.
She kept her gaze trained on the crowd, ignoring the sting of soot in the air and the way her jumper clung uncomfortably to her skin in the rising heat. She was looking—no, waiting—for a head of flaming red hair to appear. Not that she cared. Not that she was hoping to see Fred Weasley. Absolutely not.
She straightened when the train’s whistle blew, sharp and urgent. A new year was about to begin.
With a sigh that only she could hear, Esther adjusted her grip on her trunk and began the well-trodden walk toward the train. The Hogwarts Express loomed before her, its scarlet exterior polished to perfection, the golden lettering catching the light like fire. It always looked more majestic in memory than in reality—but it still had a certain charm.
Esther clambered aboard, dragging her heavy trunk behind her and dodging a group of loud third-years who had clearly missed one another terribly. She tried not to let her irritation show. The compartments were already filling fast, and as she walked the corridor, peering through foggy windows, she began to suspect she’d have to share a space with someone annoying. Probably several someones.
She passed one full of giggling Ravenclaws, another crowded with a Hufflepuff card game, and yet another with a pair of Slytherin first-years struggling to wrestle a trunk onto the overhead rack. With each compartment, her options dwindled. Until, finally, she reached near the back of the train.
There, tucked away in a quiet corner, was a compartment with just one occupant—a man slumped against the window, snoring softly. His robes were patched and worn, and his face bore the unmistakable signs of fatigue, though there was something kind in the lines of it. Esther hesitated. It felt wrong to intrude, but she wasn’t about to ride five hours standing in the corridor.
She slid the door open gently, careful not to wake him, and settled into the opposite seat by the window. Her trunk thudded softly to the floor, and she sank into the cushions with a muted exhale. From her bag she pulled a battered, dog-eared copy of A History of Dark Artifacts: Curses, Creators, and Cautionary Tales. The title alone had a way of discouraging conversation. That was intentional.
For a few blessed minutes, all was quiet—just the soft rhythm of the train beginning to move, the occasional puff of steam, and the gentle creaking of the rails beneath them.
Then the compartment door slid open again.
Esther didn’t look up, already bracing herself for the intrusion. She heard the voices first.
"Uh, do you mind if we sit here?" Hermione Granger’s voice was as polite as ever, though a note of hesitation crept into her tone.
Esther lowered her book slightly, her grey eyes flicking up. She saw the trio standing there—Harry Potter with his eternally messy hair, Ron Weasley scowling half-heartedly, and Hermione clutching her bag to her chest like a lifeline. Esther caught the flicker in Hermione’s eyes when they landed on the green trim of her robes.
"Go ahead," Esther said, her tone smooth and disinterested. She didn’t wait for a response, already retreating behind the safety of her book.
The trio settled in across from her, whispering in those hushed, half-secretive tones that were somehow even more obvious than full-blown gossip. She tried to tune them out—until she heard her name.
"Who is she?" Harry asked in a low murmur.
"Esther Black," Hermione replied, barely above a whisper. "She’s in Slytherin. Her family—well, they’ve got a bit of a reputation."
"A bad one," Ron added quickly. "Bet she’s another Death Eater in training."
Esther’s fingers curled tightly around the edge of her book, her nails pressing into the worn leather. She stared hard at the page but didn’t absorb a single word. Her jaw clenched. She could let it go. She should let it go.
But then Hermione said, a little too quickly, "She’s not like the others—"
"She’s a Black," Ron cut in. "Can’t be that different."
That was it.
She slammed her book shut, the sound echoing like a thunderclap in the small compartment. All three of them jumped. Esther leaned forward slowly, her grey eyes cold as steel, pinning them in place.
"You know," she said icily, "it’s bad form to talk about someone when they’re right in front of you."
Ron turned bright red. Hermione looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly, muttering something unintelligible.
"And for the record," Esther continued, her voice sharp as a blade, "not every Slytherin is a Death Eater. But you lot wouldn’t know that, would you? Too busy passing judgment on people you know nothing about."
Silence fell like a dropped curtain.
Esther leaned back in her seat, lifting her book once more, her smirk returning with a quiet, vindicated satisfaction. "Glad we cleared that up."
A loud snore broke the tension like a crack in glass. All four turned to look at the man by the window, who shifted slightly, still deeply asleep. Esther’s eyes caught the name stitched in faded gold on the side of his worn suitcase.
Professor R. J. Lupin.
"Who do you reckon he is?" Ron asked after a pause.
"Looks like our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Hermione whispered.
Ron groaned. "Great. Another odd one."
Esther rolled her eyes but kept her comments to herself. She cracked her book open again with exaggerated indifference, pretending to be far too immersed to care. But behind the pages, her thoughts were a storm of irritation, curiosity, and the creeping dread of what the year might bring.
The compartment grew darker as the day wore on, and the sky outside blurred into the dusky blue of early evening. Esther rested her forehead lightly against the glass, her breath fogging a small patch of window. Her book lay forgotten on her lap. She wasn’t reading. Just… drifting.
The others were quiet too. Ron and Harry murmured about something to do with Quidditch, while Hermione had pulled out a thick Arithmancy textbook. The rhythmic clatter of the train should have been comforting. It wasn’t.
Not when the temperature began to drop.
It was subtle at first—a breath of cold, curling beneath the door. Then the lights flickered once, twice, before dimming altogether. The warmth drained from the compartment like someone had opened a trapdoor beneath it.
Esther straightened instinctively. Her fingers twitched toward her wand.
The train lurched, brakes squealing.
“Something’s wrong,” Harry muttered.
Then the door slid open.
What hovered in the doorway was not human. The Dementor floated forward, its tattered robes dragging soundlessly along the floor, its skeletal hand outstretched as though reaching for something only it could sense.
The cold turned brutal. Esther’s breath vanished from her lungs. A familiar, gut-deep fear clutched her chest and dragged her backward into memories she didn’t want.
A scream. A locked door. A name shouted through smoke.
No.
Not again.
Her vision tunneled, the sound of the train vanishing beneath the dull roar of grief and ice.
And then—light.
Brilliant, silver, and sudden. A Patronus erupted from the opposite side of the compartment, casting the Dementor back in a flare of warmth. The creature recoiled, retreated. The door slammed shut with a bang.
Silence.
Esther gasped like someone breaking the surface of a deep, dark sea.
Across from her, Professor Lupin stood now, his wand still raised. He looked like he hadn’t been asleep at all—just waiting. Listening.
His gaze swept the compartment. “Everyone all right?”
The others murmured responses, shaky and pale. Esther couldn’t speak at first. Her hands trembled despite herself.
Lupin’s eyes lingered on her. “You kept your head,” he said quietly. “That’s not easy.”
Esther forced a laugh. It came out brittle. “Did I? Felt more like drowning.”
Lupin nodded as if he understood exactly what she meant. From his coat, he produced a battered bar of chocolate and broke it cleanly into four pieces, handing them out without ceremony.
When he offered hers, she hesitated just a second too long.
“It helps,” he said. “Not just physically.”
Her fingers brushed his as she took it. The warmth of it felt strangely intimate after the Dementor’s chill.
“Professor,” Hermione asked, still pale, “why was there a Dementor on the train?”
“They’re searching,” he replied grimly. “For Sirius Black.”
Esther stiffened. The name hit her like a slap across the face, though she hid it well. To everyone else, she looked merely tired. Inside, a different storm raged.
As the train resumed its slow roll toward Hogsmeade, the warmth returned, but not the comfort. Esther sat silently, nibbling on the edge of her chocolate. The others didn’t notice how pale she still was. But Lupin did. His eyes found her again—quiet, thoughtful.
She avoided his gaze.
But deep down, something about his presence sparked a flicker of something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Recognition.
The train had begun to move again, the rhythm slow and almost uncertain, like even the machinery was shaken by what had just happened.
No one spoke much after the Dementor left.
Ron was huddled near the heater vent, muttering under his breath about how the Ministry was completely mad to let those things near students. Hermione sat stiffly, still clutching her book but not reading. And Harry—Harry hadn’t said a word. He was staring down at his hands like they’d betrayed him.
Esther watched him from behind her lashes. There was a quiet fear in him. Not cowardice—just... an old pain, freshly torn open. She recognized that look.
It was the same one she saw in her own eyes, sometimes, in the mirror.
She turned away from the window, her breath finally steady, and tucked the chocolate bar deeper into her cloak pocket. She still hadn’t eaten it.
“Are you all right?” Hermione asked quietly, not looking at her but clearly addressing her.
Esther blinked. That surprised her.
She debated brushing it off with a sharp comment. But something in the way Hermione had asked—tentative, almost sincere—softened the instinct.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Or close enough.”
Hermione nodded slowly. “It’s just... Dementors don’t usually affect people that strongly unless—”
Esther cut her off. “Unless what? They’ve got something dark in their past?”
Hermione flushed. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did,” Esther said. Not cruelly. Just… tired. “You meant exactly that.”
Silence stretched thin between them.
Esther sighed. She wasn’t angry, not really. Hermione had asked something that no one else ever had: not what she’d done, but what had been done to her.
“I suppose I’ve seen worse,” she added finally, echoing her own words from earlier. “The Dementors just make you remember what you wish you could forget.”
Harry looked up sharply at that, eyes suddenly locking on hers. Something passed between them—an understanding neither of them had words for. Then he looked away again.
And just like that, Esther felt something shift.
Not in them.
In herself.
Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the only one carrying ghosts on this train.
Lupin’s voice interrupted the moment as he leaned forward, speaking low and calm. “You should eat the chocolate,” he said, almost gently. “It won’t fix it. But it will help.”
Esther reached into her pocket, unwrapped the bar, and bit into it without a word. The warmth bloomed almost immediately—small, but real.
It was enough.
The last leg of the train ride passed in silence.
Esther didn’t speak again. She didn’t need to. Her silence was armor, forged sharp and shining. But her eyes lingered on Harry a little longer than before, and once—only once—on Hermione, as if reconsidering her earlier judgment.
The sky outside had gone deep violet, the windows fogging from the chill left behind by the Dementor. Esther pressed her forehead to the glass, watching the shifting silhouettes of the hills, the castle’s turrets finally coming into view like a memory rising from mist.
There was always a moment, just before arrival, when everything felt suspended—like the year hadn’t quite begun and last year hadn’t fully ended. It was fleeting, and it always passed too quickly.
She hated it and craved it in equal measure.
When the train gave its final lurch into Hogsmeade Station, the tension in the compartment snapped like a stretched thread. The Golden Trio gathered their things in a quiet flurry, Ron practically tripping over Crookshanks’ carrier. Lupin had already disappeared somewhere down the corridor, cloak trailing behind him like smoke.
Esther didn’t rush. She never did.
She let the others go first, then stood slowly, brushing a wrinkle from her robes and slinging her bag over her shoulder with practiced ease. She reached for her trunk—but paused.
There, tucked just beside the door, was a chocolate wrapper.
Not hers.
Lupin had left it. Deliberate. Quiet.
She stared at it for a moment, then picked it up, folding it into a neat square before slipping it into her pocket with the uneaten remainder of her bar. No reason. Just—because.
Outside, the cold hit her like a slap, crisp and biting. Lanterns bobbed as older students and professors shepherded the crowd toward the carriages. Esther tugged her cloak tighter, the train’s warmth already fading from her skin.
She was halfway across the platform when she heard it:
“Oi! Jinxed Black!”
Fred Weasley’s voice cut through the hum of voices like a firework.
Esther turned, slowly, and there he was—standing on top of a carriage step, grinning like an idiot, waving with far too much enthusiasm. The lantern light flickered against his hair, setting it ablaze.
She rolled her eyes, but there was no real heat behind it. Just habit.
And then—traitorously, without permission—the corner of her mouth lifted.
Barely.
But it did.
Fred must’ve caught it, because he pressed a dramatic hand to his heart like he’d been shot. George appeared a moment later and clapped him on the back, both of them laughing as they climbed into the carriage and vanished from view.
Esther turned back toward the last carriage in the line—her usual one. She preferred the ones at the rear. Quieter. Fewer eyes.
Inside, the other students were already chattering about the Dementor, about Black, about everything and nothing.
Esther sat alone.
The carriage began to move.
And in that quiet moment, surrounded by the sound of hooves and rattling wheels and distant laughter, she let her smile fall away. Her gaze drifted to the darkening sky, to the looming towers of Hogwarts, and her hand brushed the pocket where the chocolate wrapper lay folded like a note never written.
This was the beginning.
And beginnings always lied.