Harry is stirred from sleep when Hermione gently shakes him up, and Harry glances blearily up at her. Hermione's now dressed in her school robes, her hair tied at her neck, and he glances around. Crookshanks' weight has moved from his chest to his feet, and outside the train the sun is beginning to go down: in the distance, Harry can see the lights of Hogsmeade, and he shifts himself up, rubbing at his eyes and gently pushing Hermione's cat off his legs.

"Thanks," he murmurs, making his way past her to go and change into his robes, and then he settles across from her. "You get much reading done?"

"I've nearly finished Slytherin's Secrets," Hermione says, holding up the book. Its cover is a deep green leather, and in silver letters on its spine Harry sees the words Lindon Sartorius. "It's really good, Harry, even better than A Serpentine History. They found out so much around the castle last year - and look!" She leans forwards, pointing to the dedication near the front leaf, and there it says,

With special thanks to Harry Potter, without
whom this book could never have existed.

"He sent me a copy in the summer, when it was published," Harry admits, "But I haven't read it yet." Harry had made his way through a fair few books that summer, but for entirely sentimental reasons, he'd been saving Slytherin's Secrets for when he could actually lie in his bed or sit in the Slytherin library to enjoy it: there's something about the idea that just appeals to him. "You hungry?"

"Extremely," Hermione says, reaching up and dropping her books into her trunk before latching it shut. "Dad's cooking is great, but he can't match the food at Hogwarts." Harry chuckles, and he pulls Crookshanks' basket down, gesturing for the cat to climb inside. Crookshanks does so, but only with a whining grumble and a slow gait, and Harry shuts the basket's gate behind him. "Don't worry, Crookshanks, you'll have the run of the castle, soon."

"Along with the hundred other cats in the castle." Harry and Hermione step out of their carriage, heading towards the train's door, "Do you think he'll be territorial?"

"I hope not," Hermione says quietly, a little worry on her face, "Magical cats and owls are meant to be much happier with sharing roosts and territory, because they're bred to have so much more intelligence and awareness, but he could pack a mean punch if he wanted to."

"Bit like his mistress, really, then," Harry says, and Hermione sticks her tongue out at him, making him laugh. "What are they?" The black-robed figures stand - no, hover - at the gates of Hogwarts, two of them illuminated by the moonlight, and he can see more of them on the path up the hill and scattered around Hogsmeade.

"Dementors," Hermione answers, giving a shiver. "A few of them checked out the train, but you were asleep." Harry connects the floating spectres with the pictures of Azkaban he's seen in books, and he frowns slightly. The air feels cold, bitingly so, and there's a heavy weight in the air that he suspects is from the dementors more than the chilly wind.

"The carriages are up here, children," calls Professor Flitwick as he comes down the road with a clipboard in his hand. "Up you come!" Harry and Hermione begin to walk up, but one of the dementors turns its odd head towards Harry, and Harry takes a step back, frowning at it. It only comes closer, though, and as it does Harry feels like his chest is being filled with ice water: his vision begins to darken at the edges, and he can hear the ghost of a scream- "Get away from him!" snaps Flitwick shrilly, and he comes forwards, brandishing his wand at the dementor, which shifts right back from him. "How dare you? Does he look like Sirius Black to you!?"

The dementor glides off, and Flitwick's nostrils flare behind his beard as he glares after it.

"You alright, Potter?"

"I'm fine, sir," Harry says.

"Horrible monsters, these bloody dementors. As if we can't protect you quite adequately from Black ourselves - could never cast a good charm, that one. The only damned spell he could manage was a Permanent-" Flitwick seems to realize who he's ranting to, and he presses his lips together, waving for Hermione and Harry to head up to the carriages.

"I think he's right," Harry murmurs, and Hermione nods as they clamber into a carriage. "Alright, Ginny?"

"Hi, Harry!" Ginny says, shifting over slightly so Hermione can sit beside her. "This is my friend, Luna Lovegood. Luna, this is Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, the man himself." Harry sits next to Luna Lovegood, who is blond-haired and wide-eyed: she seems to examine Harry for a few moments, her blue eyes seemingly impossibly deep, and then she smiles. She has a pretty smile, Harry thinks, but there's something odd about it - as if she knows about a thousand things that you don't.

"Nice to meet you," she says sweetly, "I believe you've written to my father, Harry."

"Oh, Xenophilius Lovegood," Harry nods his head, doing his best to ignore the horrified look Ginny shoots him, "He's your dad?"

"Yes," Luna says, leaning back in her seat and peering out of the carriage window. "He said you sounded rather an odd boy."

"Did he now?" Harry asks, finding the idea a little amusing - he'd only written Lovegood once, when he'd read a reference to the Quibbler in the Prophet and wanted to ask what exactly it was about. Lovegood's response had been... Well. Harry had elected not to take out a subscription, and the man had struck him as a bit mad. "Well. Is the magazine going alright?"

"Oh, it's selling just fine," Luna answers distractedly. "I do hope they've got some parsnips at dinner tonight."

---

There are parsnips at dinner that night. Harry turns to show his plate of them to Luna, who's sat behind him on the next table, and she beams, showing her plate in response. The main difference between their two plates, of course, is that Harry's plate has other things on it too. "Have you read Slytherin's Secrets yet, Harry?" Theo asks when Harry turns back around, and he shakes his head.

"I've been saving it." Theo gives a little laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Me too."

"Me three," admits Daphne from across the table, and Harry laughs, shaking his head.

"Hermione just read most of it on the train, but there's a certain..." Harry trails off, trying to think of the right word.

"Romance?" Daphne offers.

"Irony?" comes Theodore's suggestion, but Harry shakes his head to both.

"Magic," Harry decides, "To choosing to read it here." They settle into their usual conversation after that, chattering back and forth - Draco is going to try out for the Quidditch team this year, and Blaise Zabini's mother is getting married again during the Christmas Holidays, apparently. At the end of dinner, Dumbledore stands to address the students, and they stop their conversation to look his way.

"You have no doubt noticed the new faces amongst our staff," Dumbledore says, standing at his lectern, and he gestures to his right, "This is our new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Professor Remus Lupin." Lupin is about the same age as Snape, Harry guesses, but even though he's not as ugly he's prematurely aged - there are lines on his face and his hair is going grey, and he looks... Well. Frankly, the man looks ill. "And taking over the Care of Magical Creatures staff position is Professor Gladys Gudgeon." Gudgeon is a lady in her early sixties, blond hair trimmed into a neat bob around her head: her robes and hat are lilac, and she wears lipstick of a similar shade.

"She's a bit different to Kettleburn, isn't she?" Draco says quietly as Dumbledore continues to talk, and Harry nods his head. She's a dainty looking woman, and she reminds Harry a bit of the Muggle Princess Diana - much older, obviously, but with the same sort of grace and poise to her. Harry thinks about her as they make their way down to the Slytherin common room - she doesn't really look like the sort of woman who embraces magical creatures, in all honesty, but maybe he'll think differently once he sees her in action.

Harry walks with the other third years down towards the Slytherin common room, but one of the suits of armour steps in front of his path. Harry stops short, staring up at it and glancing behind him at the other Slytherins, who seem equally puzzled. He knows that the suits of armours move around now and then, but they don't normally do it in sight of the students, and his one is standing right in the middle of the corridor, as if it doesn't want them to pass by.

"Uh, excuse me?" Harry says to the suit of armour, and it slowly raises the mace it holds in his hand, wielding it over Harry's head. His eyes widen behind the glass of his specs, and he dodges just before the empty knight slams its mace down where Harry's head had been a second before. Harry scrambles down the corridor as the suit of armour slowly turns, facing Harry. It walks slowly down the hall, its feet making loud, clanking sounds on the floor as it moves, and Harry keeps on moving, doing his best to get out of the thing's way.

"Potter?" comes Frank's voice from down the hall.

"Help, please!" Harry replies as he rushes out from under the mace again, and Frank runs forwards, glancing between the suit of armour and Harry: Frank is Slytherin's head prefect, now, with Afifa having finished her N.E.W.T.s last year, and he steps between Harry and the empty knight without any fear at all.

"Reducto!" he yells, and he shields Harry behind him as the armour explodes outwards, bits of gauntlet and chest plate clanging against the walls. "You alright, Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry says, and he leans to look to the other third years, who nod their heads to say they're alright. Frank keeps Harry close to him as they make their way into the common room, and he sends one of the new prefects to go and tell Snape what had happened. Blaise is sprawled on Harry's mattress when he gets into his dormitory, and Theodore is sat beside Draco on the other bed; pushing the door closed, Harry ignores Blaise, beginning to unpack his things.

"You know what that was about, don't you, Harry?" Draco asks as Harry rifles through his trunk, pushing his tent aside to pull out his record player and his records.

"Why don't you enlighten me, Draco?" Harry asks, doing his best to be sardonic: he's a little shaken, truth be told, but he doesn't want to display that to the other Slytherin boys. Blaise puts out his hands, and Harry drops his stack of records into the other boy's grasp, letting him curiously glance through Harry's ten-piece collection. He doesn't normally unpack the night of his arrival, but Harry's too full of energy to sit down right now, and he doesn't want to laze like Draco and Blaise.

"Sirius Black," Draco says, and Harry turns his head, glancing at the other boy with interest. "He wants you dead - that's why he escaped Azkaban. It was him that betrayed your parents to the Dark Lord." Harry keeps on shelving his books, but it's done absently, with no semblance of order, and he keeps his gaze on Draco. He's ecstatic to be the centre of attention, Harry can see, but he doesn't want to take the piss out of him for it just now - he just wants Draco to keep talking. "He and your father were good friends at school, Father told me, and they were friends with Pettigrew, too. After he betrayed your parents to the Dark Lord, and he had killed them both, Black sought Pettigrew out - he didn't kill those Muggles out of chance. They were in the blast radius when he blew Pettigrew up. He must have enchanted that suit of armour to kill you."

Draco is taking pleasure in regaling the story, but he's not getting the rise out of Harry that he wants, Harry can see: Harry's merely made more curious by the story, and he's not at all angry. He'd seen Black, after all, and the man had been utterly mad: he wouldn't have the faculties to Summon a feather right now, let alone enchant a suit of armour to come after Harry. The idea of Black, desperately asking after Harry's health and obsessively searching for a rat is at odds with the image of him as a bloodthirsty traitor, and Harry frowns slightly, considering the disparity.

"Why did he do it?" Harry asks. "Do you know?" Draco seems thrown by the question, and stares at Harry blankly.

"Why did he do what? Betray your parents?" Theodore asks.

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head. "I mean, there must have been some reason, right? What did he say at trial?"

"There wasn't a trial," Blaise says dryly, handing Harry his Michael Jackson record. "Black was mad when they caught him - he just laughed and laughed. They sent him straight to Azkaban. It wasn't as if they were short of evidence." Harry frowns, stacking his records together beside his turntable, and then he drops onto the bed, over Blaise's legs.

"You seem a bit calm," Theodore points out, and Harry nods his head.

"No sense taking it personally, is there?" Harry asks. He's not going to talk to the Slytherin lads about his meeting Black, so he only needs to brush off the concerns about him. "I feel that it's quite in vogue to try and kill me."

"Vogue?" Whoops. It's a Muggle magazine, isn't it? Vogue?

"Er," Harry waves his hand dismissively. "Fashionable. Popular. It doesn't matter. What electives did you take, guys?" They settle around, beginning to chat about more normal things, and Draco is even relatively pleasant to Winston when he clambers up onto Draco's knees to go to sleep.