The Hogwarts Express

Jack continued down the train, wondering when the cart would empty, but it was surprisingly overstocked to an extreme and she never seemed to run out. She continued along, a long-ish queue forming ahead of her of hurt or injured students. She was yet to see any of the corpses she suspected to be there, and took it as a blessing. She was not squeamish in the least, but who aspired to see a dead body anyway?

Finally, she reached the end of the train where all the healers and injured students were convening. She carefully pushed the cart to a nook where it would be out of the way of the bustling people and she spotted Lupin. She herded the injured students his way and said "Here is the injured that needs healing. I have everyone else shut up tight in their compartments with enough snacks to last them until Christmas."

Of course, this was not true (especially if any of them ate like Jack) but it was enough to at least replenish and rejuvenate some of the students, in her opinion. She noticed that Chase and Elijah were right there too and she flashed them both a mix between a smirk and a grimace, the grimace mainly because she had just noticed a peculiar smell. She then announced to the general company, "The cart is right over there, if anyone is hungry." She looked back to Lupin. "I'll be glad to help in any way I can."

She looked back to Chase and Elijah, though she focused a little more on Chase. The little she knew of Elijah told her that he could hold his own. He seemed casually unperturbed by this anyway. Chase was a little more sensitive, and Jack was not sure how she would handle all of this. Not to mention, Jack felt as though she had abandoned her again, even if she had risked a lot to protect her as well. "You okay?" she said to both of them, though it was directed mostly on Chase.

The silvery hawk Amelia had conjured from her wand had served its purpose in bringing the dark-haired girl safely to the floor of the compartment, and just in time too. The energy she was expending on controlling and directing the patronus had all but dried up, and although Amelia made one last futile attempt to maintain it, the bird of prey flickered and disappeared, leaving only wispy traces of silver which were quickly swallowed by the darkness.

Physically exhausted and mentally beaten from the attack of her outpoured emotions, Amelia once again found herself sinking closer to the ground. She fought the onslaught of exhaustion as the dark haired girl moved toward her, but she could feel her eyelids starting to droop even as the girl’s whispered words reached her ears.

Amelia knew she was being asked a question to which she knew the answer, but she could not make her muscles of her jaw form the words. Her tongue seemed to be immobile in her mouth, laying there uselessly, much like the rest of her. It was a terrible feeling, being able to think clearly but not being able to do anything about those thoughts; it felt eerily like being trapped. Amelia could feel panic starting to seep back in at the realization that she could not express her thoughts in words, and after a few moments of trying, merely allowed herself to sink back to the floor with her arms bent beneath her head, her eyes hidden toward the floor.

Once there, Amelia’s mind seemed to take direction from her body and slipped into a sort of slump, occasionally taking in what was going on around her, but mostly just disconnecting from reality to protect itself. She caught bits and pieces of conversation, thought she felt the air around her move more quickly, and then heard a noise that brought her quickly back to herself. The sound was like the worst kind of tearing she had ever heard combined with the sound of breaking bones, and a moment later she felt bits of wetness hit her limp form, a particularly goopy bit landing on her cheek.

It almost didn’t process, what had just happened. In fact, Amelia’s mind was hardly in a state to process much of anything in its current condition. Instead, it just refused to do much of anything until, after a time unbeknownst to Amelia, she felt a kind of weight lift from her chest. She was still very much debilitated, but suddenly the room was not as cold and her outlook not quite as dismal. Forcing her eyes open, Amelia was able to see that the foggy darkness that had encompassed the dining car no longer persisted. She could also see several pairs of feet that had not been there before, though to whom they were attached she did not know until her thinking became clear enough to process the voices above her.

Amelia could hear Angelique’s voice first, followed by another, more familiar male voice that made her cringe internally at the thought of him seeing her like this. It was undoubtedly Elijah Krum that was speaking now, followed by the voice of a girl Amelia didn’t recognize. They were discussing the logistics of the situation, a situation Amelia had been too weak to witness and was now too weak to handle even in the aftermath. How pathetic.

Reaching a hand up to her face, Amelia wiped the bit of goop off her face with two fingers, bringing her hand away from her face slightly so that she might see what it was that she had removed. At first she had been pinching the bit of sludge between her fingers, but as her eyes examined just what she was holding, she immediately dropped it to the floor, visibly shaken by the fact that she was absolutely covered in what appeared to be shredded human being.

As Amelia cringed away from the torn flesh, she felt a hand on her shoulder and receded even further away inside herself. She could hear Elijah’s voice, his nick name for her in a soothing tone that suggested he was not nearly as lost as she was in the situation. Although she should have been calmed by this fact – that he could be her anchor in this situation – instead she felt even more embarrassed by her actions and even more by her inaction. He was sorting out the situation logically, the way she might have done in any other situation, but was incapable of doing in her current state.

Why does he always have to see me like this? Amelia thought angrily, thinking back to the battle in the teashop that had ended with her crying in Elijah’s arms. These two instances were the only she could think of in recent memory that were truly mortifying for her, and Elijah had managed to witness them both.

As Elijah placed a blanket around her shoulders, she was tempted to throw it off, but even in her state of disarray she could see the logic in what he was saying. She couldn’t lay here all night in the puddle of what had once been a human being. Not even that was bothering her significantly at this point. Of course, it was a shame that someone had died and was now covered her with what was left of their body, but her reaction to whatever that black smoke had been had been so much poorer than that of her classmates that this fact was bothering her much more. She prided herself on being strong, and in this case, she was the weakest of the bunch.

Sick of wallowing in self-pity, Amelia took a deep breath and wiped the rest of the bodily fluids from her face with the back of her forearm as she returned to a sitting position. She waited until Elijah had released his touch on her shoulder – for that boy’s touch had always made her feel weak, but in a completely different way than she did now – to try to stand, and managed to successfully find her feet beneath her. Although she still felt hesitant to move, she knew it was a necessity that could not be avoided, and thus put one foot in front of each other carefully as she moved from the dreadful scene in the dining car. She saw Elijah disappear ahead of her into the driver’s compartment, but she did not feel that she would be of any real use there. Instead, she moved into a compartment that had been blown apart and was now empty, sitting down on what remained of a seat and wrapping the blanket tighter around herself, focusing now on regaining her sensibilities and strength as the train started once again to move forward.

Somehow, she'd found her way to a table. Cassie didn't remember doing that. In fact, a lot of her life between now and when the train had started up again was coming up blank. She could still remember hiding in her compartment and being terrified, though.

She didn't want to be alone. There was a tight spot in her chest, the kind of aching feeling you got just before you were about to cry, but Cassiopeia never cried. She certainly wasn't going to do it in front of all these people.

A girl had tried to make her go back to her compartment, but Cassie had slipped away from her. She wasn't going back there, not when she didn't know what was going on. She wanted her mum, or her dad, or even her sisters. She wanted someone to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, even if it was a lie.

Lucy had managed to get the window open... just in time for the demons to leave. At least nobody in her compartment had been injured, and at least they hadn't needed to jump out the window. It would have been hard work getting back in again, especially after the train started back up.

"Everyone okay?" she asked for good measure, though the lack of physical injury was all the confirmation she needed.

If any of the littleies had psychological trauma, they'd better get used to it. Hogwarts didn't exactly have a reputation for churning out the most well-ajusted wizards and witches.

"I'll be right back."

Screw the Ministry. Lucy had an entire extended family to watch out for, and most of them were Gryffindors. Usually it was everyone else watching out for Lucy's tricks, but when it came to unthinkingly sacrificing themselves, the Weasleys could be counted on to put themselves in harm's way.

Sam stood up, a shower of dust and rubble falling to the ground as he did, when the first of the demons had arrived they'd sent chunks of wood everywhere, one of which heavily colliding with his head, knocking him out cold, a nasty concussion wrapping it's grips on his head.

He groaned and brought his hand to his head, stumbling a little off centre, as he regained his balance. Finally, his vision was restored, as were most of his basic motor skills, it had been an awfully big knock to the head.

He looked around and saw a small fire burning in one of the compartments, the smell of roasted meat wafting out from it, walking over to it he stuck his head through the broken door and coughed, the smoke getting to him. Looking again he saw what was causing the smell... well, he saw a part of it, an arm, yet untouched by the flames.

He stumbled back, reeling from the sight, and threw up, before pointing his wand at the flames, "Aguamenti," he muttered, putting the flames out. He looked up in time to see an old man and a slightly younger one, he walked over to them and shook his head as he heard the old one's analysis. "There's a whole compartment back there..." he said, referring to the body count, "and more, i think, that carriage... that was where the worst of it was," he said, smiling at him, before following the other students into the carriage that they were meant to go to. "How is the train moving, if the driver is dead?" He asked the old man, turning back to the old man.

Have you any idea how difficult it is to apparate onto a moving train? It was bloody risky. If you splinched yourself, there was the risk that one of your limbs would end up a kilometre away before you even realised.

I suppose it was lucky that Caelani was so perfect at everything she did, since none of her body parts ended up anywhere inconvenient. She glanced about the train. To be honest, everything seemed to be well in hand. However, Calli knew appearances could be deceiving and considering the message she'd received, she wasn't going to judge by appearances alone.

She opened the door to the nearest compartment and looked in on a disaster. The luggage racks had been torn from the walls, and the entirety of one seat had collapsed in on itself. Sitting on the other was a girl wrapped in a blanket.

Caelani sat down next to her, wondering who'd left her like this, if anyone else even knew she was here, and how many others like her were scattered throughout the train.

It was a delicate situation. Caelani wished she had studied legilimency better when she had the opportunity. Unfortunately, at the time she'd been more intent on blocking people out of her own mind than gaining insights into others'. Right now, it would be useful to have a starting point to reach out to this girl.

"Hi," she started.

It was better than nothing.

Keith blinked once crouching low and listening for any signs that the battle continued. Hearing nothing, he laid back and tried to figure out how he ended up here.

Once the fighting had started, Keith had realized he was in way over his head. A friendly fight was one thing, this was life and death and really, really not his thing. So as soon as spells had started flying, Keith had crawled to the only place that seemed safe.

Namely, on top of the train.

It hadn't been difficult. A stray blast of something had nearly torn a door down, providing a makeshift footstool allowing him to wiggle through a hole in the roof. The train had been stopped, and he had spent the rest of the time moving towards where the sounds of battle were the weakest, not daring to drop back down until he was sure it was safe.

Except now the train was starting. And he needed to get back in.

Keith scampered over to the hole that had allowed him onto the roof of the Hogwarts Express. The area below was relatively free of rubble, though Keith had no way of knowing how it had fared in relation to the rest of the train.

So, feet first, he dropped back into the train, landing in front of a slightly older, black haired girl he recognized from the halls last year. (Lucy)

"What the hell just happened?"

Lucy backed up as someone dropped to the floor in front of her. Then, realising it was just the Nicholas boy, she relaxed her guard. She didn't waste time wondering why he'd been on the roof, or how he'd got up there.

"They're saying it was demons," Lucy told him. "You know, from the pits of hell."

"Seen any gingers lately?" she asked in turn, referring to the rest of the Weasleys.

"Um." Keith said, looking around. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." The more he saw of the train however, the more he had to admit that this might've been different from your normal dark wizards. Maybe even otherworldly. Maybe even from the pits of hell.

"Seen any gingers lately?" The girl asked.

"Gingers? Would they happen to be large, freckled, and in possession of an odd need to throw themselves in front of oncoming spells?"

Lucy's stomach lurched.

"You've seen them? Are they okay? Where are they?" she demanded.

She couldn't believe her last words to Molly had been about not dobbing on her. It seemed so superficial now.