Dementor's Kiss
By: jadoredancingintherain
Disclaimer: I do not own any of J.K. Rowling's work. Nor will I ever claim to.
Author's Note: I don't know, this was a really weird plot I was thinking about after I read the third book. I hope you like it. It is oneshot, and it took one sit-down to write. I normally don't do those, but I felt like this kind of needed to be an oneshot. Hahaha, call me strange. Please review! Constructive criticism and praise is welcomed, flames are unnecessary and are useless. I hope you like it! ;) –jadoredancingintherain
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Delilah Rosenberry sat with her one and only friend, Jacob Alexander, at their table. The long table was adorned with streamers of blue and silver. Ravenclaw's proud symbol, the raven, hung in streamers that cascaded over their heads. All around her were her fellow Hogwarts students, chattering eagerly about what they had done over their summer holidays. Her bright green eyes quickly glanced at her silent, sullen friend. Jacob's long, curly golden tresses covered his dark blue eyes. He picked at his nail, obviously bored, and Delilah smiled. It was comforting to be back.
"And then I went to Salem, in America? It was the strangest thing; they really thought the people they burned in the Witch Trials were innocent—" A group of Hufflepuffs to her left shrieked with laughter at the absurdity of the thought. Delilah rolled her green irises skyward. She opened her mouth to ask Jacob what he had done for the summer, but she pressed her thin lips together. She knew, all too well, how this conversation would go.
"So, Jacob, how did your summer go?"
"Oh, the usual; Mum drank the night away, Dad made me pay off his gambling debts, my sister tried to steal my wand and curse me. Drat her, she's the stupidest Squib you'll ever meet—" Here, Jacob would pause to take a breath. His nostrils would flare, and Delilah would be (once again) surprised at his absolute hatred of his family. "Well, what about you, Lilah? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"No," Delilah would confess with a depressed sigh. "Daddy discovered some new device that would help the Ministry, I had no clue what the hell he was talking about when he explained it to me. Then he got frustrated and left. Then my mum came in and scolded me for not knowing." Delilah would roll her eyes then and cross her arms and fiddle with her robe hem, bitter about her family's keen intelligence. A trait so crucial to being a Rosenberry, a trait that had skipped Delilah and gone straight to her 8-year-old brother.
Delilah smiled as she pictured the conversation. She quickly glanced at the long table in the front, adorned with gold designs and teachers. The high chair in the center, reserved for Dumbledore, was still unoccupied. Knowing perfectly well why Dumbledore was missing from his chair, Delilah recounted what had happened earlier that day…
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Soon-to-be fifth-year Delilah and Jacob got into an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express, far from the tearful mothers and fathers. Delilah opened the cage and let her owl, Shakespeare, out of his prison and into the compartment. Jacob jumped, but relaxed once he saw who it was. Jacob stroked his cat, Charles, and closed his eyes to sleep.
Delilah brushed dark brown locks away from her face and curled up in the corner with a book her father had bought her. Presently, she fell into a boredom-induced nap and the two contentedly dozed away the hours on the Express.
Suddenly, Delilah woke up, a chill running down her spine. She saw that Jacob, too, was rubbing his arms together, as if he was very cold. He glanced at her, and she at him. Delilah shrugged and donned her cloak. "Probably just a malfunction," she thought out loud. Jacob blinked at her and shook his head vehemently.
"No, Lilah, the Express doesn't just 'malfunction'." Jacob's teeth began chattering, and he began to mumble incoherent thoughts. Delilah stared at him; was this an act to get her scared? Because it wasn't going to work. Then, when he began to shake uncontrollably, Delilah jumped to his side and tried to shake him into consciousness.
"Jacob. Jacob!" Her voice began to border on hysteria as her friend lolled to the side, unresponsive. Suddenly, she saw the door slide open and a horrifying black hand slither around the edge. Frost formed around the windowpanes, and Delilah saw her breath frost up. Clutching her friend to her, she sat, mesmerized as the dementor's head peered into the compartment.
Delilah had never known what it was to be loved. The firstborn of Harry and Jennifer Rosenberry, she had been expected to be a genius. However, at her first aptitude test at the ripe age of 4, she had failed to meet any of her parents' expectations. Everything went downhill from there. Her parents always regarded her as their ward, not their child. Delilah took her responsibility as the failure seriously. She wreaked havoc around school and at home. Her parents received so many notices and letters from Hogwarts that at the beginning of each year, they would place bets on how many letters they would receive that year. Things only got worse when her parents had her baby brother, Allen, and he had turned out to be the genius they had always wanted. Now, what little love Delilah had received before was snatched away by Allen.
Looking at the dementor in front of her, Delilah was sure that she had fallen in love.
Such a lonely, bitter creature, this dementor. Not unlike herself.
Delilah wanted to speak to it, but before she could, he was gone and Delilah was left holding a now-sleeping Jacob.
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After the famous Hogwarts song and feast, the sleepy Ravenclaw students were brought up to their dormitories. Delilah waved goodbye to Jacob and headed up her own stairs. Her roommate, Hayley, had always been terrified of her and had kept out of her way. Delilah smiled to herself as she snuck under her icy-cold sheets and closed her eyes. Tomorrow would be another day.
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The next few months, Delilah devoted her life to studying everything she could about those strange, black-cloaked creatures. She was often stared at in the library. Some said she was planning on controlling them. Tch! Who could master such brilliant, haunting creatures? Delilah even neglected Jacob on her search to finally meet one, face-to-face. Delilah secluded herself from her friends, reading into the wee hours of dawn and fell asleep during class. But who needed Potions and Transfigurations? What she needed was to be alone with a dementor. To see if… to see if they could love her like she did them.
"I always heard she was a strange one," she heard a Gryffindor with bright red hair and freckles whisper to his friend, the notorious Harry Potter. Delilah walked past them, smiling. What did those fools know?
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Delilah sat under her favorite tree, watching the dementors float around. Her bright green eyes followed their trail endlessly. She was dying to get up close to them. But every time she even conceived going near such infamous creatures, something distracted her. As frustrating as it was, Delilah knew she couldn't give up. There had to be a time when everyone was somewhere else, and she would be allowed to approach one of them, and confess her love…
Hogsmeade. Delilah blinked and inhaled sharply with excitement. The next outing would be in two days. She could wait, and when the time came, she would finally quench her thirst for the dementors.
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Delilah checked the grounds. She saw the silhouette in the distance, and she smiled to herself. Her heart thumping loudly in her ears, she made her way confidently across the grass, her boots making imprints in the muddy turf. She tossed her dark hair behind her shoulders and kept her eyes keen on her prize: the dementor. As she walked nearer and nearer, she felt a cold chill raise goosebumps on her arms. She let out a little squeal of delight as she finally came, face-to-face, with the dementor.
The dementor paused in front of her, and she smiled at it. Could it understand emotions? Delilah paused and waited for the dementor to respond. She stared into the faceless, cloaked black figures and felt herself quake with fear and delight. Finally. She was as close as she could be.
Why does everyone fear these creatures? Delilah mused to herself as she reached out to touch the cloak. Her hand shot back instantly, a burning sensation ripping her skin apart. She bit her lip with the pain, but inside she was thrilled that no teacher had come and interrupted their meeting. They seem delightfully dreadful to me…
She felt something funny inside of her. As if something were sucking all the sad memories out of her. Delilah felt her legs shake, and she collapsed on the grass, breathless and exhilarated. Over and over, she pictured her parents' disappointed faces when they realized she was not a genius. She saw the doors slammed in her face when she had wanted comfort. She saw the looks she received in class, she saw the mistrust in everyone's eyes and the disbelief in McGonagall's eyes when she was put into Ravenclaw. Delilah shook, and tears gathered in her eyes. Was this the cost of loving such a creature? If loving dementors meant relieving her worst memories over and over again, then she wanted no part of it. But how could she control such emotions?
She gasped for air, but no relief came. Tears swelled down her pale, thin cheeks as she writhed on the grass .She felt her memories, her happy memories, fading and saw swirls of light stream from her small, frail body into the faceless dementor. Delilah tried to scream, but nothing escaped her lips. Her lips turned a strange shade of purplish-blue, and as suddenly as this panic had been set upon her, relief swam over her like water over sand. She watched the figures fly over her, and blinked slowly. Dazed, she could not do anything to stop the dementors from sucking out the rest of her soul.
As she lay there, feeling her soul being ripped out, piece by miserable piece, Delilah felt an immeasurable calm. She blinked serenely at the dementors and wished they would take a little bit more.
Suddenly she saw a bright flash of light, and the dementors were driven away. Delilah wanted to call out to them. She wanted them to return, to finish the kiss.
Strong arms surrounded her, and Delilah looked up to see the worried face of Professor Lupin, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She blinked serenely up at him and tried to smile, to ease his worries. But she had forgotten how to smile.
She looked up at the sky and felt dreadfully cold. Was it winter already? She stared at the bright orb in the sky without blinking. She had forgotten how to feel the warmth of the sun.
Lupin picked her up and rushed her to the Infirmary. But by then, of course, it was too late.
Delilah had forgotten how to live.
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Author's Note: What did you think? Haha, was it what you expected? I hope you liked it… thanks for investing time into reading this! Please review and let me know what you think! -jadoredancingintherain