Authors Note:
Once more, unto the Breach.
Had this little bunny pop up, remembering Nonjon's "Flamel" Trilogy, and had the idea of it being a bit, different... combined with the idea of Dudley actually turning out to be a nice guy for a while, and dementors having secret abilities, and other things too.
This is not Serious. It was done for the lols. so... yeah, it was sirius.
OUCH! Okay on with the show.
Train Ride to Hogwarts, beginning of Harry's third year.
Harry looked up curiously, as an adult who looked familiar opened the door and poked his head in, "Hi Harry, seen an escaped convict recently?"
"Uh... No... Mr...?"
The man entered and closed the door. "Oh, no worries then. This was the last compartment on my rounds. The Minister, Corny Fudge or somesuch name, was worried Black would get on the train..." He looked around and back at Harry, giving him the kind of look that made Harry think the man thought the idea preposterous. "Oh, right. I'm the new Care of Magical Creatures Teacher this year, Mr Wintergreen, but you can call me Dudley."
Harry raised his eyebrows, because he realised that the man did remind him of Dudley, like he was some weird alternate future thin version of Dudley Dursley, his cousin.
After checking elsewhere on the train for a second round, Dudley came back, and cast a charm on the door, before speaking to the group as a whole.
"So, introduction proper. I know each of your names." Here, he pointed in turn as he spoke, "Harry James Potter, born July 1980, son of James Potter and Lily Potter, Formerly Lily Evans.
"Hermione Jane Granger, born september 1979, Daughter of Daniel Granger and Emma Granger, formerly Emma MacDonald.
"Ronald Weasley, no middle name given." Ron smiled a little at that, "Born march 1980. Son of Arthur Weasley and Molly Weasley, formerly Molly Prewett.
"Neville Longbottom, born July 1980, Son of Frank Longbottom and Alice Longbottom, formerly Alice Potter." They all blinked in surprise, "Alice and James were distant cousins, lines quite distant, but traceable. I think they shared a Six-times-Great Grandfather. Legally and Magically, not close enough for Blood-based protection wards, even if the protections on the Dursley Household could have been keyed to Potter, and not Evans, Blood" Harry sighed.
"Ginerva Weasley, born August 1981, daughter of blabla you get that bit. Now... for me."
He sighed, looked at them. "This will sound crazy, but hear me out. In March 1980, I was born Dudley Dursley, son of Vernon Dursley and Petunia Dursley, Formerly Petunia Evans - Sister to Lily Evans then Potter, and therefore, Cousin of one Harry James Potter...
"I was raised to hate magic, even if I didn't know magic was real until I was eleven. I was rasied to hate Harry, and to bully him, and that didn't change until I was eighteen years old, when Harry saved my life in a Death Eater attack. The ole Folks had already died in non-violent circumstances - Vernon to obesity-related heart conditions - plural - and Petunia from food poisoning, of a normal, 'oops I didn't cook the chicken long enough and got salmonella' kind. Well, actually, that precise one. Turns out, years of Harry doing the cooking meant her skills let slip, and we ate lots of takeout when Harry was here at Hogwarts, so they never really recovered. If she'd had any skills anyway." He grinned at Harry, who was confused, and only Hermione seemed to understand the implications.
"When I turned thirty, a new Dark Lord came about, and sought to take on that generations' Dumbledore - you, Harry. But to do so, he first had to draw you out, and he chose to go after your family - Extended first, then close family. Both your Wizarding extended family, the Weasleys, and your muggle extended family, Me, My Wife, and my two kids." He lost all joviality, and took a second to gather his thoughts.
"He presumed that, as muggles, we had no magical defenses. He was wrong. Firstly, that my wife was a muggle, given it was public knowledge by then that 'The Dursleys' were magic-hating muggles - never mind that I'd since recovered from that mindset. My wife was not a Muggle - She was a Half-blood mixed-raised. I believe her counterpart is going to receive her first hogwarts letter this year. Her name was Natalie MacDonald. When I married her, February 2001, you were my best man. We had two daughters, Lily and Ginerva, twins.
"Curiousity of their birth, is that the day they were born - 31st July 2003, and yes she insisted on inducing labour two days early for that day, there was an entry on the Ministries' record of magical births... one, just one. The family name, MacDonald. The first name - both. GinevraLily. Like they was supposed to be one person, not a pair of twins. Both had magic, but only together. The Hermione of my time determined that they shared a magical core between them, so in the eyes of magic, they are one." Hermione's eyes lit up. "It also meant that she had discovered that there is in fact, such a thing as a magical core - source of magic in a wizard and witch, seperate from that of most.
"Anyway. Testing either one results in a report that they are muggles, Or 'Squib' since their mother is a witch. But put em together... it did, however, mean that without an invention you two came up with, that when it came to casting magic they'd have to be like siamese twins - joined at the hip, or at the wand-arm is it were. But you did come up with something. Not something that could be repeated more than a handful of times though.
"A set of Self-Spelling Wands, connected to the magical core of their creator, or someone related to their creator. For Lily and Ginevra, they both were given a wand each, connected to the same core - theirs. But when testing the invention beforehand, he came up with a way for the wand to be used by a relative of the one whose core it was connected to. His magical core... wielded by me."
The group looked astonished. "Yeah, I know. So I'd had years of training, and with special consideration, the girls had already been learning for about a year with theirs, when we were attacked, and we pushed back the dark wizard and his cadre... until he cast a spell, that hit all four of us. It was a very dark spell, designed to transform a human into a, husk of sorts. Keep in mind, that in this version of the timeline, There were no such beings already in existence, we were the first. Because of that, our Azkaban had always been guarded by humans, and was neither named that nor located on a distant rock in the north sea."
Harry looked confused, Hermione looked considering, and growing realization, and dreading confirmation, Ron and Ginny looked astonished, and Neville was just being quiet, absorbing it.
"My Harry did what he could, and the four of us, over the next ten years, learned how to take human form again, but it was much like an animal form is to an animagus - a second form, but not their base form.
"A Benefit for myself and my wife, is that our ages became effectively frozen. a downside for my two daughters, is that their ages became so also. Because whenever we shift forms, our 'physical age' is essentially reset. I could live in human form for forty years, and that passage of time be reflected, but when I shift back and forth, I appear once more as a mere Thirty year old. My daughters... Hermione discovered a temporary fix, one that set their 'default' age to reset back to, at post-puberty." He grinned and winked at the girl. "but even so, They could live a hundred years and reset back to looking fifteen again, and even post-puberty, still have all the hormonal problems with it.
"And that's nothing on the issues with our new base forms - that of being, well... Dementors."
"You're a Dementor." Harry and Ron spoke together.
"Yes. I'm getting to that part. So, you were... ninety, I think, when there was a little mishap with a student who wanted to attend all of the classes Hogwarts offered. " Hermione blinked at that. "The object that enabled it was cracked, then it shattered when I, as the then-head of Gryffindor House-" The group gasped, and he grinned, "Oh, yeah, being a Dementor meant I no longer needed to draw on harry's magical core. I had my own. Same with the girls - though they retained their original shared core as a 'shared pool' to draw from whenever their own gets low. My wife too, she had two. The 'Dementor' core, and her original 'Witch' core.
"Anyway, the core meant I could cast magic like any normal wizard, no matter which form I was in, so long as the wand that chose me didn't shatter from the cold I exude in my Dementor form.
"I Spent a few decades as Hogwarts' Defence Teacher, after Harry here was promoted up to Headmaster, and by the time of the incident', was also head of Gryffindor House. So. There I am, I pick up this object, and it's leaking sand into my hand... triggering my human form to shift away in part, and with the arm of a dementor holding it, the cold shattered it and the rest, well, there was an explosion, and I felt myself being pulled somewhere... but I didn't go.
"My wife and two kids, connected as they were to me as fellow Dementors - something else to learn - felt the same... and when we got together with Harry, he went to cast a spell to check things out, which triggered the call to go from a desire to," He trailed off in rememberance, "oh what was it Nat said?" He blinked, then smiled, "right. to 'Oh shit is that a black hole? oh crap it's pulling us in FUCK SHIT FUCK BOLLOCKS Hold on KIDS!"
Harry was the first to crack a laugh.
"Yeah, not so funny when it happened, but after the first two centuries, we eventually found it funny too." Dudley shared. "Anyway, it brought us to about three thousand years ago. Also, it caused a few, 'blockages' of sorts in our abilities. And without Wands, unlike wizards, we couldn't cast wandless wizard magic of any sort. We still had our Dementor magic though...
"So after a few decades, the four of us settled down, with me and my wife stuck in dementor form, while the girls had already figured out the trick. for the next two thousand years, they would go off, live a human muggle life for about sixty years or so, then come back faking their deaths. My wife and I, however... we decided to do something different. We travelled the world, and found that, in our Dementor forms, - keep in mind, we were stuck in them for sixteen centuries before that 'blockage' was sorted - we were most comfortable in the cold, wet climate of britain. But, in our forms, the already cold climate meant that the extra cold we created, meant lots of snow and ice. And human populations were springing up all over the place by around, two thousand years ago?
"Part of the Dementor Package, is the offensive package some of your are aware of. We, um... in our dementor forms, we naturally drain heat away, and anyone this close to us, physically, would begin reliving their worst nightmares, with varying levels of debilitation... and we can 'suck out souls', effectively killing people without killing - death of personality, I call it. Very permanent if not reversed inside of about twelve hours... but still reversible, if the one of us who did it, wants to, in time. I, uh... lets just say that we've occassionally helped good people escape bad situations this way, and no one being the wiser. Anyway, so all that, and much of it out of our control for a while, we decided to go find uninhabited land... and since we can, in dementor form, mind you, fly up to thirty feet off the ground... and to us, 'iced over surface of water' counts..." He smiled, "we eventually found an island in the north sea, and over the course of about three centuries, built ourselves our own 'Castle Greyskull.'"
Harry and Hermione burst out laughing.
"Knew you'd like that. So yeah. And we found out that, as either Dementors or humans... we can still reproduce." Harry's eyes bulged as he stopped laughing, and all present suddenly turned a little green. "Oy. Anyway, our kids born since then, are pretty much the same, and they gained the same deal as the twins - their dementor and human forms age independantly, yet dependant on time in each form, until they reach maturity, which becomes their 'base' they shift into. They could spend ten years in one form, then sixteen years in another, so, ten as dementors, sixteen as humans, and their human form would 'lock in', but they would be free to switch back aand forth, without locking their dementor form, until they had accumalated time in that form to reach maturity..."
He looked a little uncomfortable, as he added, "And, one other thing. I, Nat, Lil and Gin are the only four Dementors with a gender, since we were born human. The others... well, they can pass as either one, with the transformation into human being flexible enough for them, that they can choose which... extra features... to have, each time that change, though if they want to live a human life... they are stuck in whichever gender they chose for that life, unless they're willing to reset body age each time. And no extra features when they're growing up. So Harry, you have... about five hundred Cousins once removed, now. Which is pretty much every Dementor... Oh!"
Dudley smiled a little, uncertainly, "The Breeding Dementors thing, is... restricted to me and Nat. Lil and Gin probably could, if there was a male dementor they weren't related to, but that would be... anyway. The others, when they take human form, go live a life and end up falling in love, they all have human kids. Fully human... though they usually end up having a mix of magical and non-magical. But from what I can tell, the... genetics thing, with us? We Dementors in human form probably do test as related to you, but not my human grandkids. Oh... here's an interesting one..."
He turned to Hermione, knowing glint in his eye, "Ever heard of an Alchemist by the name of Nicholas Flamel?" She nodded, though Neville and Ginny looked clueless, so he expanded for them, "About eight hundred years ago, there was an Alchemist called Nicholas Flamel. Think of Alchemy as the 'research' with potions as the result of said research. Nick became famous in his time, though Alchemy was only a hobby. He and his Wife, allegedly created something called the 'Philosophers Stone'... though americans, for some reason, went on to name it 'Sorcerors Stone'. I say Allegedly, as he and his, 'Wife'," He used finger quotes, "never made such an object, and his wife, wasn't. His wife is actually his twin sister... one pair of only eight that my wife and I ever had." He grinned. "He was about, oh... three hundred, when they went and took different names, attended hogwarts during its first decade in operation, and many times got mistaken for a couple in their latter years.
"the rumor of the stone, and their alleged immortality, however, became useful, since it was in their second time around that they were recognised, and decided to subtly let the wizarding world believe it to be true, without actually saying so. They are Immortal, but only because they're Dementors and typically spend a decade in human form, then disappear for two, then return to maintain the falsehood."
Harry felt robbed.
Hermione felt like crying over so many truths from her books being debunked.
Ron felt like laughing.
Neville and ginny found it interesting, but with no vested interest in the 'lies' being revealed as such.
"Now, our castle was discovered about five hundred years ago or so. Something to do with the Statute of Secrecy. They'd learned about our existence, of sorts, around then. And someone, about four hundred years ago, noted that a castle built to house a thousand, but only housed around eighty Dementors, was just sitting there, going mostly unused, and they... not thinking we were intelligent creatures, invaded, turned it into a prison, and... well, I'd have been annoyed, except for the fact that dementors we may be, and effectively immortal at that, we still need to feed whichever form we're in to stay healthy. As humans, we can eat normally, at normal levels, and be physically fit. IF we didn't eat, our human forms would, somewhat, reflect that, by us having very little muscle mass, only able to walk and carry our own weight, and struggle with anything heavier than your typical student loadout of a bag and the day's textbooks. We woudl not be able to deadlift your standard student trunk, for instance. No running - that would exhaust us out.
"As Dementors, however, our food is human emotions. And though to us, healthy eating in that form is spending five minutes around a happy person per week, usually being around us meant people weren't happy, so it took longer to 'feed', and the vicious cycle commenced, the more time people were around us, the more miserable they were, and therefore the longer it takes to feed off them. Having humans in our castle, meant we were no longer being starved, like we had been. And, we were being starved before then.
"So the whole prison thing, was good for us... And we had a near fool-proof method of ensuring that the prisoners we were "guarding" were actually guilty of crimes such that we didn't feel bad about making them feel bad... which brings me back to that whole, helping out innocent people disappear into new lives I mentioned before. You see, spend enough time around a dementor - in the case of the prisoners, the hourly patrols that expose us to them for five minutes a piece, every day, it can kill even the strongest man in five years, maybe six. The weakest, I've seen die in days."
Hermione gasped.
"Keep in mind, the people we allow ourselves to be exposed to in these manners, they're criminals of the highest order... Not every criminal sentenced is sent to Azkaban. We're like... the maximum security prison... we're not the entire prison system of the Wizarding world, not even of the British segment of the wizarding world, though we do accept prisoners from all over." Dudley smiled, "We do, after all, have the unbeaten record of never having a single prisoner break out... Successfully, and unassisted by us, anyway."
The group narrowed their eyes.
"And Sirius Black, did you help him escape?"
Dudley smirked. "The reasons are many, and in a nutshell... nope, not in the way you're thinking. Though Yes. But not really."
"Huh?"
Dudley lost his smile. "Like I said a few moments ago, we have a near-foolproof method of ascertaining guilt... well, in so far as light, dark, good, evil, did they do bad crimes, is the crime they did do actually bad. We've 'disappeared' a fair few muggleborns who were sentenced to azkaban for allegedly stealing magic, doing dark magic, when they were sent there only because they were outspoken muggleborns... And the people who sent them there, would have sent Hermione there, cited the same things, even though she's just a nice girl... for now, anyway."
He let that settle with them for a moment, though Hermione shot him a confused look after his last word.
Harry spoke up... "Sirius... he's?"
"You all need to keep in mind, that my life as Dudley Dursley, then Dudley Macdonald, in the other life, was a vague memory for a long time... but it started to get clearer in parts recently. As in in the last fifteen years recently. Names, places, people, some of them were different from what I now remember, others the same, but I only had a vague sense of deja vu as they came up. I only remembered you, and about your parents, and voldemort, Eleven years ago - specifically, november 2nd, 1981, the day you were placed at the dursleys and the blood wards erected. But I still didn't know much. I've found some details are different, others the same...
"Such as the fact that in my own timeline, Sirius Black was severely wounded in battle in september 1981, and only recovered from a coma about a year before you started at Hogwarts. Dangers from the wizarding world meant that you stayed at Nantwhich Street - the street we lived on in that timeline - until you began hogwarts, though you did learn about magic when Sirius came to check in on you, and ended up moving in down the street and forcing the ole folks to be nice to you. you returned there each summer to recharge the wards. In this timeline, he wasn't hurt, and he ended up in prison a week after halloween, charged with, well, allegedly being responsible for your parents' murders. And the ole folks had moved to Privet Drive in Surrey, not Nantwhich Street in Derby.
"So... I cannot be like a cheat sheet for events or people... even at this point where I now remember a lot about life in the ten years before the now of that alternate timeline, and the nearly a century into that alternate future. Maybe the Natalie of this timeline doesn't exist, and the dudley on this timeline therefore wont get to meet her, and become this timelines' version of a true cousin to you. Or maybe he and they will and you eventually do get two cousins who love you despite everything Vernon and Petunia did.
"My memory began to come back in detail when Sirius arrived at Azkaban... and that method of mine revealed that, like in my timeline, he was not only your Godfather," Harry gasped, "He was, as in the other, magically speaking, your godfather." Ron, Ginny and Neville gasped.
Harry and Hermione looked clueless, and so Ron explained, "Harry, when a wizard agrees to become someone's godfather, they basically make a promise - magically enforced, one way or another - to always care for and never betray their godchild. Either the promise they make means that they do everything in their power to try, and die failing... magic enforcing them to act, even if they do fail in their act... or the other way, they can disobey, but must pay the price for it. But always, always, a godfather in the magical sense means that, if Black did betray your parents... he'd already be dead. he'd have been dead before that night was over."
Dudley nodded. "Since he didn't die, that was enough that, unknown to the guards, we spirited him away from the upper known levels and into the lower hidden levels, the ones accessable only to family. Our own form of Blood wards, which as he is the magical godfather of someone that the wards recognise as family, he is automatically able to pass through.
"Nicholas stayed with him, interrogated him, and basically got the gist of what happened that night, on his side of things. What we learned, even now with what I remember from the other timeline, I realized that more had been going on around that night than either of us ever suspected. From that your parents were in hiding, along with Frank and Alice," He nodded to Neville, "Who hadn't been in my timeline, as far as I'd learned. The Identity of the real betrayer, who, unlike the original, is as far as we've learned, very much guilty, when he was one of your most ardent supporters and unofficial 'uncles' in the other life. Far, Far too much is similar, even though it was different."
Hermione spoke up after a minute of silence.
"So, if you hid him away, how did he escape, or... what happened?"
"Well, going back ten years ago... As I rediscovered who I used to be, he slowly recovered from the harsh life he'd been living during the War against Voldemort and-" the three Purebloods in the carriage shuddered. "What the... Seriously? You three, who were only babes when he was kicking about, shudder at the name?"
Harry and Hermione both gave him long-suffering grins.
"Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. He knows about me, the truth about my kind, my origins... and, let me tell you, he was laughing with every revelation." Dudley smiled and chuckled after a moment, remembering that. "The bit that still gets him, is that in this timeline, I'm still one of the most celebrated Headmasters Hogwarts had seen, I was there in the thirteenth through fifteenth century. Hermione, you may have heard of me, I believe I was mentioned in a book called... hmm, 'Hogwarts: A History'?"
Hermione gasped. "You're Ronald MacDonald?!"
Harry bulged at that name... "You..."
Dudley had the grace to blush. "I didn't recall Mcdonalds back then, not consciously anyway, I do remember finding it amusing. For a long time I thought it was merely a combination I came up with at Random. Now, I believe it was, well, homage to Ronald here, and my wife. I was happier with that name than any other I carried before or since."
Hermione frowned at that, then giggled as she too made the connection. "McDonalds? Oh... God..."
Neville, oddly, smiled, "The Muggle Restaurant, right?"
Neville explained for Ron and Ginny, while Harry and Hermione continued giggling.
"Anyway... Ahem!" Dudley coughed, and the pair settled down, grinning like mad. "Unlike many others, we couldn't just 'Disappear' him, as his oath still bound him, and the moment we let him go, he would have either gone looking for you, Harry, or died from not doing so the moment he was free to do so. For his own good, and yours, from what I thought I knew, we had to hold him in Azkaban. He even voluntarily took residence in the assigned cell in the upper levels for the once-fortnightly patrol rounds that the wizards did. And since we dementors, believed to be unintelligent, had free access to the schedule, we made sure he was up there then, though most of his time he was in the lower levels, where we trained him.
"Technically, he was still a prisoner, though he was more ours than the wizards'. But, what he didn't know until recently, was that we knew very well he was capable of escaping the prison on his own... if we were not there to route him. And we Always had the upper levels guarded. It was on one of the Ministers' rare visits to azkaban, that, with Sirius playing possum in his 'cell', he very much inadvertantly learned about where the real betrayer was... and I realised what must be done, and told him he would get his window to escape.
"Then the Minister made the call to have us posted around Hogwarts..." Dudley grinned, "thinking that Sirius couldn't get past us, when we very much would not only let him past, but also assist in his efforts to remain free. And should Sirius be caught and we be forced to 'take his soul', the aurors who are always assigned as our... handlers... would be there to 'disappear' his body and ensure that he was restored, given a new false identity that magic itself would recognise, and sent in his new guise to be your secret godfather from a distance.
"Like I said, only a handful of my kids stay at Azkaban at any one time, the rest are in human form, around the world... but some are much, much, closer to home. Such as in the Ministry. As Aurors, and in other assorted positions. To Protect Dementor and Potter Interests, of course. That's why I applied to become the Defence Professor, though for some reason Dumbledore turned me down for the last two years. With the retirement of the previous Care of Magical Creatures though... well, I had an in. He almost said no, though, I think Hagrid was going to Apply, but the Ministry stepped in, since he never graduated."
"Now... about the truth of that night... There's a spell, called the Fidelius-"
After the train pulled into the station and disgorged the students, Professor Dudley Wintergreen, aka Dudley MacDonald, found a private spot, quickly transformed into his Dementor form, and took a more direct path to Hogwarts, over the Forbidden Forrest, and transformed back behind Hagrid's Hut, and continued his way to the castle on foot. He hadn't mentioned it to the others, but anything on his person (clothes, items and such), when he changed forms was, stored, of sorts, until he retook the form he was in when normally carrying.
In this case, he wore a suit that more closely resembled the muggle version of, than the magical version, the robe ontop of it to offset the 'muggle style', with its' cloaked hood up over his head. Within the magically customised suit, he carried his six wands. Three were typical wizarding wands, sourced from all over the world - one from the previous timeline, and it's temporal brother from this one, and a last one recently purchased, twenty years ago. All three used his 'Dementor' Core, not recognising the difference between a Dementors' magical core and a wizards'. The other three were all identical, all the same relative age - give or take the three years between the first and last - at the three thousand years or so Dudley had been alive for. And all three had ceased to work upon their arrival, and all three had resumed working after Dudley realised his cousin had been born, tested to ensure he could use them without hurting Harry.
Indeed, it seemed to be beneficial. One of his 'Daughters', Andromeda Tonks, in her current life she worked at St Mungos, and had made a secret stop at the Dursley residence in Surrey - which is how Dudley knew the different address - to assess the effect of the wands' use on Harry. From what she determined, the more Dudley used them without actually magically exhausting Harry, the stronger his magic would get, and mature much quicker from the instability of youth to the stability that typically only comes after a few decades.
She had also emplaced special wards that the more, inventive, of the MacDonald Dementor Family had come up with, tied into monitoring charms placed on and around Harry.
None of them could influence Vernon and Petunia into being nice people. But they could influence them away from physical abuse, something which was one of the first things to come back to Dudley when he began to remember. He intended that Harry would never have those scars.
As for emotional, that they couldn't.
As for the cupboard under the stairs... they couldn't, not overtly, and covert never did work on the dim-witted elements of that family.
Even Dudley had to admit that he was a dimwitted child, and his effect on the timeline probably hadn't changed enough for that.
Taking inspiration from the alternate future, those wards, and the once Dumbledore had placed, had all been linked to what would, in the future, be called a computer Tablet. A rectangular sheet of opaque glass that had a large bulbous on the left for holding, and somewhat smaller on the right that looked like it would, without that glass, fit into a suspiciously shaped slot on the left piece. This device was something that Dudley used for many things. It was essentially, a magically constructed, powered and operated, technological marvel of invention. Able to communicate with all of its' 'sister devices' that other Dementors and Associates held, and individually, linked to various properties and their wards and other monitoring magic and devices.
Dudley's, which was in fact in its compact form - the glass surface that acted as the screen and interface was hidden within the two end pieces, fitted together to appear as an otherwise thin but long dark grey, almost black, egg - and it was sat in the inside left pocket on his suit jacket. His tablet, wasn't just linked to the Dursley residence' to monitor them. It was also linked to Azkaban itself, its' wards, and it's cameras. Unknown to wizards, the castle's 'Prison' levels had been fully outfitted with both muggle and magical means of monitoring. Cameras, Motion Sensors, Microphones, and the magical counterparts - the works. The 'Security Hub' within Azkaban was monitorred by four teams of six Dementors, each team having three shifts of two hours each day, with two hours between the middle and the first and last shifts each.
During Dudleys' time at Hogwarts as Ronald MacDonald, the Magical side of those had also been installed into Hogwarts, though not quite as extensive, and they hadn't invented the tablet that far back, so those wards were inactive, as far as he was aware.
As worried about Harry as he was, that was one reason he wanted to get onto the school grounds as a member of staff - the moment he entered into the school as such, Hogwarts Herself would then recognise him and allow him to reactive those wards, expand them, and link to his tablet so he wouldn't have to be in the castle in order to use them.
Getting to teach again had nothing to do with it. Well. Sort of. He'd done stints in all of the core positions. The electives he had skipped on, since Arithmancy and Runes were more theoretical, Divination was useless unless you had the gift, muggle studies' curriculum was set by someone even worse than arthur weasley, and he hadn't been comfortable with the magical creatures' part since he had so much of his own kind hidden from the world. Though he fully intended on Pranking the Wizarding World with 'new revelations about the Dementors'. Most of those pranks were actually Nicholas' idea, though some came from Wesley.
It was that reason why he convinced Dumbledore to allow him to act as the guardian on the train, instead of Remus Lupin - and not, as Dumbledore had aloud questioned, because of 'suspect loyalties' from the man.
His trunk, packed with books and his clothes for the year, was shrunken and sitting in his other inner pocket.
He tapped on the door, and Hogwarts opened its' doors, and he felt the rush of magic with a smile.
Azkaban was his home, especially in his base form, but Hogwarts would always welcome him, and be happy about it, so long as he remained human.
"Hey Hogwarts. Those wards of mine, they inactive?" He whispered as he moved, his words hidden by magic so only hogwarts herself heard.
He frowned at the nonverbal reply, and between the entrance hall and opening the side door that opened onto the professors' table end of the great hall, he had opened his tablet, linked the wards, and discretely set the various links to the headmasters office to fake deterioration. Dementors may be able to use wizard magic, but the underlying, undetectable difference that came with dementors casting while being Dementors, meant that normal wizards had to use twice or even four times the power to affect it, and for wards, that meant using more power than any single wizard held. And they wouldn't think to join magic to restore magic that they think they can just recreate from scratch...
"Ah, Professor Wintergreen." Dumbledore greeted, and motioned to a seat next to Several Snape.
Snape looked at him, curious and without recognition.
Dudley nodded, as introductions were made, and smiled at Remus, even gave him a two-finger salute (false military, not the get-lost type, tap of the eyebrow, not the raise hand with index and middle finger up, parted...)
"Do I know you?"
Dudley shook his head, "Nope, though I dope to remedy that... Especially when the topic comes up in class."
Eyebrows were raised.
"What?"
"... You would..."
Dudley frowned. "You do have access to wolfsbane while you teach here, right? Then I'm sure you'd be safe to attend special classes, with the right set of precautions. The Students won't even have to know it's you. And you have to admit, the books are not like the real thing. It's not enough to tell them what werewolves look like in animal form, or even show pictures of such. The muggleborn would think it's pureblood's bias overexagerating things as usual, the purebloods would think it's understating things, the halfbloods would be mixed between the two and everyone would otherwise assume that werewolves are rare enough that they'd never need to know these things, and therefore not pay attention. The idea that Hogwarts would have access to one willing to show off his animal form... that, will make it clear to them that it's not that rare, and perhaps it may save lives."
Remus was pale, but nodded at those points.
"Any trouble on the Train?" Dumbledore asked.
Dudley shrugged. "The Dementors tried to board, but I assured them that I'd already searched the train for Black." He grinned a little, "They were annoyed, but accepted the point that I didn't want all the students scared before my first lesson with them. Oh, while I remember... I want all the first and second years, along with everyone in the upper years not taking the course to attend a single creatures class on saturday, rotate them by house if need be."
Snape sneered, "What are you going to do, introduce them to a Dementor?"
Dudley laughed, "Smashing Idea, Professor. I was just going to warn them about Dementors, and ways to avoid them to save them from the cold aura, but that suggestion is just perfect."
Most of the teachers gasped, and Dumbledore stood sharply. "You will do no such thing!"
Dudley looked at him, almost confused, but secretly laughing his ass off. "Oh come on, Albus. It'll be perfectly safe! The Students get acclimatized to the Dementors' presence to know if they get too close later on, and how to get away, while the Dementors will learn their individual scents so they know who not to kiss, and hell, everyone may even have some Fun!" Dumbledore looked pale. "Oh, come off it, Dementors are perfectly sociable once you get past that cold exterior!"
Remus choked, seemingly on nothing. Dudley knew he was the only professor present to have identified the glint in his eye as knowing amusement.
"They are mindless Beasts!" Snape ground out.
"They are not! In fact, I'll prove it. Tonight, after all the kids are asleep, I'll bring the Supervisor in, I'm sure you'll love Natalie."
Sprout sputtered, "N-N-Natalie?!"
Dudley nodded, "She's like, the second oldest Dementor in the world. Normally, She'd be overseeing their home - you know, that prison, Azkaban? But apparently Her two eldest, Lil and Gin, find kids annoying while she just loves em. Maternal, that one. I mean..." He smiled a little, "Damn, You've seen nothing until you've seen a Mama Dementor, taking care of a cute little dementor baby."
Their eyes were almost popping out.
"What? You act like you don't know where babies come from..."
"Dementors, Breed?" Flitwick, head of ravenclaw and charms professor asked.
"Well, sure. How else did they come into being in such numbers? Theres no dark lord alive with the power to create that many dementors." He shook his head sadly, and added, "I mean, generally, they want to destroy, not create life, yet it's the very dark energies that they have that's needed to create that kind of life. Sad, really. Anyway... Nat and her husband were the first two, and all the rest are their kids. And their views on breeding fit current muggle standards..." He laughed a little more, and added, "They're just as disgusted at the idea of siblings..." He stopped, shuddered. "Sorry... Ahem. When are the kids due?"
The door opened, and all the upper years began to file in.
He heard Snape, paler than usual, mutter, 'Saved by the imbeciles...'
Dudley stared around the staff room at the pale professors... while Hagrid looked like his birthday had come early.
Natalie waved hi at everyone, though she was still yet to speak. She was in her Dementor form, though stood at the farthest corner so her cold aura didn't affect everyone as much as the close quarters otherwise would have forced.
Both had agreed that their "human" forms was to be kept secret - aside from those they directly saved, only Harry and his friends knew the truth, and it was so fantastical that they wouldn't be believed anyway.
Didn't mean that Dudley wasn't going to start 'slipping' some of the truth out there, he was tired of the 'unintelligent beasts' thing afterall.
"You said, Sociable?" Remus pipped up, first brave enough to speak.
Natalie just turned a little toward him, shrugged, nodded, waved, and then seemed to shake at Lupin' response.
Dudley grinned, "They have a great sense of humor. Right now, your reaction? Priceless." He too was shaking, holding in, literally, his laughter.
Snape sneered, though it had non of his usual muster. "And Black was being guarded by these? No wonder he escaped."
Natalie paused, pointed at him, shrugged, and seemed to give the impression she wanted to say 'Eh, What can you do?'. Dudley shook his head, "He distracted them thanks to that, true."
"Distracted, How?" Flitwick asked.
Natalie pretended to be embarrassed, and whined something at Dudley, the first sound she'd made.
He 'Translated' that, and spoke, "Something about a Rubber Chicken?"
She whined some more.
"Oh... He rubbed chicken grease." He looked at the others, shrugged, "My Dementorise is a little rusty." He turned back, and she whined some more, and he went crosseyed as he 'tried hard to understand that', "Wait, no, that was how he slipped between the bars... So what was the distraction? Uh huh... yeah that is funny... wait, what?!" He pretended outrage, then, confused, informed the others, "He somehow convinced his guards that Celestina Warbeck was being sent in for a week, having been caught baring all in public... and she was being sent in without being given any replacement garments..." He looked at Natalie, and she acted annoyed a little, and embarrassed. "Apparently, most of her kids are each a bit of a closet pervert..." He looked at the others, shrugged, "The idea of seeing Celestina naked was enough, apparently."
Most of the males in the room - excluding Dumbledore, sighed and nodded in agreement... to Dudley's amusement, and Sprout and McGonagalls disappointment.
When the meeting eventually finished, Dudley calmly ignored the animagus that was hitching a ride on an unaware half-giant, having been aware of her presence all along... hence the prank about Celestina.
Dudley smiled as the last of the group of first years left, all chatting and laughing about their one-off class.
Dumbledore and the four heads of house were all present, and had been witness to the whole thing - from the mornings' first session with the fifth, sixth and seventh years gryffindor students, till this last session with the entire first year, all thirty students, the smallest year group currently in attendance.
They realised that his comment of Natalie being all maternal was very much dead-on... and had been surprised that it hadn't actually been cold, and that she was wearing more than the typical rags, instead fully decked out like a witch, which Dudley had calmly explained to each class was somethign she was only going to wear that day, so she didn't shock them with the typical area effects. after a fifteen minute lecture followed by as much as ten minutes for questions, She then hid behind a partition, changed into typical garb, and the group felt the lesser effects from twenty feet away. He then calmly led students individually into each 'zone', which he had explained, though he also added that none of the students would be allowed inside the last three, as the very last one could knock even dumbledore unconscious - which the headmaster did not refute, as he was unaware of if it was truth or falseness - the second to last still knocked out most, and the third to last was likely to knock out those 'especially vulnerable', which he had also explained as those who had suffered great trauma in their lives - both massive singular events, or lesser, but prolonged experiences. He had tried to impress that any kid that fainted the moment a Dementor got within eight feet was not by any means weak, but simply that they where actually stronger, having lived through trauma great enough to cause such reaction.
"So, how close can we get, you think?" Remus asked sadly.
"Why don't you find out?" Dudley asked, "wouldn't want to find out at the worst time, and besides, she needs to get a better scent when you approach individually. That other night, you all kept distance and stayed in groups, so she couldn't then."
Dumbledore approached first... and got as close as ten feet when he fainted. The others looked worried, but Dudley simply reiterated his point, adding that Dumbledores' age meant there was more opportunity for such trauma. Snape got to eight feet. Sprout and Flitwick both felt pride in getting five feet in, but the real surprise was Remus.
He was close enough that he actually poked her lightly, wondering if she were real.
"I can feel the cold... and I can just about remember the day I bitten, though I'm trying not to but..."
"I guess Werewolves would be partially unaffected... the Animal side acts like a partial immunity." Dudley surmised, wondering, "We know most animals are generally unaffected... the mental side of the aura seems limited purely to humans. Even goblins have been known to approach a Dementor unaffected. Just don't tell anyone, that's still highly classified among Dementor Handlers."
He should have known Sirius couldn't wait more than seven days. Snape was swearing about it all day. He himself, suspected that sirius was helped in the prank by the one Dudley had realised he named after the man.
Which was why, on the second friday of the term, Dudley found himself on the boundaries, back in his base form, berating his three-hundred odd year old son, Sirius Arthur, who he had found in human form hiding in one of the secret tunnels that weren't even on the marauders map.
It didn't help, though, that Dudley was barely able to contain his own amusement.
The rumours around the school had already overblown it until it made out that Snape was caught - by Professor McGonagall, who actually wasn't there - in bed with a trio of Dementor "Babes".
The truth was, one of the fifth year slytherins had simply found a dementors' robe in the potions' master private office, along with "suspicious stains", and Sirius Arthur had timed his exit from the bathroom so that the student saw, but was too scared at witnessing a naked dementor to do anything but run and scream. Sirius Arthur had then, upon the student being out of sight, transformed into human form, and fled through said secret tunnel, which exited near the gryffindor room. Sirius Arthur had dressed appropriately, before entering the school and taking dementor form 'on location'.
The best part, no one, except Snape suspected it was a prank. Even Dumbledore found it disturbing, and in a bid to avoid further disturbance, established a 'dont ask dont tell' policy.
He was annoyed, however, because Snape suspected him, not Lupin, and not Black. Natalie had suggested that he was annoyed because he didn't think of it first.