Entering my third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I heard the worst news on the first day of the new term. Sirius Black, a murderer who had escaped from Azkaban Prison, was apparently after me. Worse, he was the one who had killed my parents.
During nights when I couldn't sleep from fear, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher appeared. His name was Remus Lupin. An older man in worn-out robes with a tired face. But his classes were more interesting than any I'd ever t
Forbidden Love - Shadow of the Dementor — A Lonely Girl and the Beginning of the New School Term
September 1st, 1993. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station was filled with the white smoke billowing from the red steam locomotive and the clamor of over a hundred students.
Fianna MacGregor walked along the edge of the crowd, dragging a heavy suitcase with one hand. Her long dark-brown hair brushed against the shoulders of passing students as it flowed behind her. Her deep green eyes looked only at the cobblestones beneath her feet, as if to avoid meeting anyone's gaze.
(So this season has come again.)
She muttered inwardly and unconsciously touched the collar of her uniform. Beneath her collarbone, her grandmother's silver locket pendant gleamed coldly. She had never told anyone that a crescent-shaped birthmark lay just beside it.
The interior of the Hogwarts Express was wrapped in the unique heat of a new school term. With every step down the corridor, lively voices spilled from the compartments.
"I can't wait for the Sorting!" "You're definitely going to be Hufflepuff." "Shut up, I want Gryffindor!"
The voices of first-years. Voices still sparkling, knowing nothing of the wizarding world. Fianna passed before those voices, killing the sound of her footsteps.
From a compartment a little further ahead, the low voices of older students could be heard.
"How's Gryffindor looking for Quidditch this year?" "Wood graduated, so I hear they're short on Chasers." "Apparently Malfoy from Slytherin bought a new Nimbus."
Quidditch. The sport of flying through the air. Soaring through three golden hoops, competing for the hundred-and-fifty-point Golden Snitch. The most popular sport of the wizarding world. Fianna had joined the house tryouts once in her second year. Her legs were fast. But she hated how every time she straddled a broom, she would find herself looking up at the sky and thinking of her parents—so she quit after that.
She found an empty compartment, lifted her suitcase onto the rack, and settled into the corner by the window. No one sat in the seat across from her. This time, this place—only this was her world.
Outside the window, parents had come to see off the students beside the smoke-belching locomotive. A mother was fixing her daughter's hair; a father was patting his son's shoulder. Fianna pressed her forehead against the cold window glass, as if to avert her eyes from that scene.
(I've never once been touched by anyone like that.)
An orphanage in the northern Scottish Highlands. The place where she had first become aware of the world. She had been told her parents died when she was three. That they had been killed by someone. No one had ever told her anything more.
The locomotive began to move. The wheels groaned with rust, and the platform flowed backward. Fianna closed her eyes.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A boarding school founded a thousand years ago by four wizards, standing atop a cliff six hundred meters above sea level in the mountains of the northern Scottish Highlands. Witches and wizards from age eleven to eighteen spend seven years here. Four houses. Godric Gryffindor's lion house, Salazar Slytherin's serpent house, Rowena Ravenclaw's eagle house, Helga Hufflepuff's badger house.
Fianna was a Gryffindor. The house that valued courage and chivalry. The head of house was Professor Minerva McGonagall. The lion symbol. Yet none of her housemates knew her well.
(It's fine. I don't need them to.)
She tried to think so. Better to be alone than to open her heart to someone and get hurt. It was a survival skill she had learned at the orphanage. Read the other person's heart. Keep your distance first. See through the smile. In three years, she had perfected it. Some whispered behind her back that she had a cunning that could rival Slytherin.
But the truth was—
Outside the window, pastureland flowed past. A flock of sheep was visible in the distance.
(The truth is, I just wanted someone to hold my hand.)
Thinking that, she smiled bitterly. How stupid. Three years had passed and she was still thinking things like this.
That was when it happened.
Something cold crawled up her spine.
(—?)
Fianna tensed. The back of her throat suddenly went dry. Her fingertips turned cold. It was as if she had suddenly stepped into a November lake. This wasn't the cold. It was something from somewhere far, far deeper.
The lights inside the train flickered. Frost crept faintly across the window glass.
"W-what...?"
She tried to stand. But her legs wouldn't obey. Her heartbeat was deafening. Someone was screaming in the back of her mind.
—A red light.
—Someone's scream.
—A green flash.
—A cold floor. Small hands reaching out to grab something.
(What is this?)
Fianna was seeing something that was not her own memory. A memory from when she was three. The memory of the night her parents died. Fragments she had dreamed of many times. But never this vividly—
—Why.
—Why is it so cold.
Her vision collapsed into white. The sensation in her fingertips faded. She dropped to her knees on the floor.
(Ah, I can't anymore.)
Her consciousness sank into dark water.
That was when it happened.
"—Hey, stay with me."
Someone's voice. A low, calm voice. And a warm hand touched her cheek.
At that warmth, Fianna slowly opened her eyes.
A man was there.
Around his mid-thirties. Light brown hair mixed with white. Wearing old robes. But the most striking thing was his eyes. Amber. Amber, as if harboring a faint light.
And his face bore countless old scars.
"Are you all right?"
He gently brushed the hair from Fianna's forehead. His fingers were covered in scars. Old cut-like marks were carved all over his wrist.
"...Who are you?"
Fianna said in a hoarse voice. Her throat still hurt.
"Remus Lupin. Starting this year, I'll be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts."
He smiled gently. At that smile, Fianna felt something tighten deep in her chest for some reason.
"Here, take this."
He took a chocolate wrapped in paper from his pocket and pressed it into Fianna's hand.
"When a Dementor gets to you, this works best. Eat it."
"Dementor...?"
"Yes. The guards of Azkaban. Several have been stationed on this train. For the search for Sirius Black."
The moment she heard that name, something cold ran down Fianna's spine once more.
Sirius Black.
(...Why do I know it?)
It should have been a name she was hearing for the first time. But her body knew that name. Her heart pounded painfully. Nausea rose up in her.
"What's wrong?"
Professor Lupin peered into her face. His amber eyes watched her with concern.
"...No. It's nothing."
Fianna put the chocolate in her mouth. The sweetness seeped slowly into her body. Blood returned little by little to her chilled fingertips.
"Thank you."
She said, looking down. She couldn't look Professor Lupin straight in the face.
"You're welcome."
He said that and stood up.
"Harry Potter is in the next compartment. If you feel unwell, come anytime."
Leaving those words behind, he left the compartment.
Fianna couldn't move from that spot for a while.
(Professor Lupin.)
In her heart, she repeated that name over and over.
(That's him. That's the one who'll be this year's Defense teacher.)
For some reason, deep in her chest was warm. The sensation of that warm hand still lingered on her cheek.
(How strange. I was only touched once.)
Fianna looked out the window. The pastureland still continued. But unlike before, the scenery looked a little brighter.
—Arrival at Hogwarts.
Night. The Great Hall of the castle. Stars twinkled on the ceiling. The enchanted ceiling. It reflected the sky outside.
Fianna sat at the edge of the Gryffindor table. The students around her were watching the Sorting ceremony. The new students took turns putting on the Sorting Hat.
"Hufflepuff!" "Ravenclaw!" "Slytherin!"
Each time the hat shouted, applause rose from the respective tables.
"MacGregor, alone again this year."
A small whisper came from the seat behind her.
"That girl's always isolated, huh." "She didn't talk to anyone last year either." "Those eyes kind of scare me."
Fianna didn't look up. She was used to it. It had been this way for three years.
(It's fine. I don't have anyone anyway.)
She thought so. But then she spotted a familiar light-brown head at the edge of the staff table, and her heart wavered just a little.
Professor Lupin was sitting there. Right beside Professor Dumbledore.
He was quietly watching the first-years' Sorting. Smiling from time to time.
Fianna found herself gazing at his profile.
(Where did he get those scars?)
(What are those wounds on his wrist?)
(What have those amber eyes seen?)
—I want to know.
She was surprised at herself for thinking that. For three years she had taken interest in no one. She had opened her heart to no one. And yet here she was, this interested in a professor she had met only once.
(Strange. Something's wrong with me.)
Fianna shook her head and brushed the thought away.
The Sorting ended, and Professor Dumbledore stood up.
"Welcome to a new term."
The Great Hall fell silent.
"I'm sure you all know by now. A prisoner has escaped from Azkaban."
—A stir rippled through the Great Hall.
"Sirius Black."
Fianna's body stiffened again.
(There it is again. Whenever I hear this name, my body reacts on its own.)
"The Ministry of Magic believes he is targeting this castle. Therefore, starting this term, Dementors from Azkaban will be stationed permanently on the school grounds."
The Great Hall murmured.
"Dementors..." "Seriously?" "Those things make it freezing cold when they're nearby." "This is the worst."
Fianna looked at her own hands. They were still trembling slightly.
—That cold.
—That memory.
—A red light. A green flash. Someone's scream.
(Why does that memory surface?)
(Why does my body reject it so much when I hear the name Sirius Black?)
A sudden memory of the orphanage director's words crossed Fianna's mind.
—"MacGregor, your parents were killed. I wasn't told the details either."
(No way.)
(No way this name has anything to do with my parents' death.)
—That can't be.
Fianna immediately dismissed the thought. Something she hadn't been told once in three years. There was no way she would suddenly understand it now.
But—
(But if it really is connected.)
(I want to find out with my own hands.)
—At that moment, at the edge of the staff table, Professor Lupin glanced her way.
Their eyes met.
Just for an instant. That was all.
But for some reason, in that single instant, Fianna felt something deep in her chest grow hot.
(—He knows something.)
There was no basis for it. She simply thought so. Her ability to read people's hearts, cultivated over three years. It was telling her. Professor Lupin knew something. About her parents' death. About Sirius Black. And probably—about Fianna herself.
The feast ended.
Fianna returned to the Gryffindor Tower. In front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, she said the password.
"Dragon's blood."
The portrait opened. Inside, a fire burned in the hearth. Red and gold tapestries. The lion crest.
"Welcome back, MacGregor."
Someone said that. But Fianna didn't respond to the voice.
She climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitory.
The outside scenery was visible from the window. The black surface of the Black Lake. The dark outline of the Forbidden Forest. And beyond that, several small lights flickered.
(Those are the Dementors.)
(Among them are the Dementors trying to catch Sirius Black.)
Fianna stood by the window for a while.
That cold. That memory. That name.
—And the feel of that warm hand.
(Professor Lupin.)
—Why are you so kind?
—Why are you covered in so many scars?
—Why do I want to know so much about you?
No one would give her answers.
But for the first time, Fianna thought.
(Maybe something will change this year.)
That premonition had no basis. But it was certainly burning small and quiet deep in her chest.
—The night of the new term,
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.