Dreaming of Dementors

A/N: This, here below, is an actual dream of mine that I had last night. It was spontaniously typed out in the space of about thirty minutes to my good pal Krissy over IM. The vividness recounting of my dream was such that she suggested I published it, so that I have (massive huggles, again, go to her for her priceless encouragement). This is my first and last telling of the dream - apparently too much editing would take away the "innocence" of it, so I left it as I originally typed it.

So here we go: enjoy my bloody scary experience of last night!!


I was in my house, can't remember what I was doing, or even if I was doing anything before it happened

Suddenly I felt an overpowering pressure around my head, like it was being clamped between something, or like I'd been hanging upside down - you know how the blood rushes to your head?

And I knew they were there.

Dementors.

Invisible, but there.

Thinking they were just in the house, I opened the porch door and stumbled outside.

But there were more.

I couldn't see them, but the pressure around my head increased, and I couldn't see properly.

Panic taking over me now, I didn't know where to go.

These Dementors didn't just suck out your soul. They killed you.

And I knew right then that I was going to die.

I ran anyway, I ran up the garden steps, because I was too scared to stand still and let it happen.

But the Dementors were swarming in now, more and more of them knew I was out the house.

There was no one else around.

I planned on just out running them, but I couldn't run. I felt sick. And like I was being suffocated.

The pressure was spreading down from my head through my entire body, like a numbness taking over me.

I stumbled, sometimes crawling down the road. It wasn't far, but it took forever.

I couldn't take it anymore, I knew that it would soon be over.

I wanted to stop and just wait for them to take over me, but my legs kept pushing me forwards.

I suddenly remembered something my mum used to tell me when I was younger, about strangers...

She said, "If anyone starts harrassing you, or following you. Or even if you just think they might be. Go and knock on someone's door, tell them someone's following you, and ask if they'll let you in."

Honestly, to me now, that's risky advice - what if that person is worse than the one following me??

But still, I had to do something.

I dragged myself up one of the other front garden paths, and banged on the door with my entire body.

Along with the suffocation, and the mounting pressure around my ears, there was the numbness from the unnatural cold that the Dementors brought with them.

A woman opened the door, and I suddenly realised how unbelievable it all sounded.

I looked crazy.

I felt crazy.

I grabbed hold of the woman's apron she was wearing.

She looked fearful and curious.

I spoke.

I may have shouted.

I could barely hear myself, it was like a dull echoing inside my head, and hearing it made me realise how far gone I was.

"Someone's after me," I rasped. "Someone's after me. Let me in. Dear God please let me in!"

She looked startled, but didn't move.

"You can feel the cold!!" I screeched at her. "You can feel them! They're here!!"

She pulled me into the house frantically, and I sat shaking violently on the carpet, my back against the wall.

I told her to lock all the doors, and board up all the windows. It seemed that the Dementors were now almost like germs - they could get in anywhere.

The woman wasn't the only one in the house - there was also her elderly but healthy-looking parents, her husband, and a couple who lived next door.

The doors and windows were boarded up, the hallway was strewn with unneccessary mess... clothes to be ironed, cardboard boxes with nothing in, broken telephones and microwaves...

All kept getting in the way.

It was suddenly nightfall. Dark and still.

The man who lived next door wanted to go out and check if the Dementors were still there.

I knew they were.

The others knew.

Heck, maybe even he knew.

But he chuckled and stood up, as if the whole thing had to be a joke.

He opened the door, and suddenly there were no boards up at the porch window.

He fell to the ground immediately, clutching his throat, his face turning a dark puce.

He was suffocating, I knew it. I'd felt it before, but there were hundreds - thousands - of Dementors out there now.

The woman who'd let me in the house earlier had shut the door the second the man had gone outside.

She'd known his fate.

She had to save us.

I screamed at the others to let the man back in.

I screamed till my throat was raw and tears flowed down my cheeks, but they stood between me and the door, sadness in their eyes, and I hated them.

The man was thrashing around in the garden outside for a long time.

Too long.

His screams could be heard easily, because everything else was silent, as if the Dementors had smothered all sound.

The woman from next door suddenly threw herself outside, unable to take it that her husband was dead.

I hadn't even been aware of her inner anguish, having been too immersed in my own.

But the door was open for too long.

They were in the house.

I ran.

I ran down the hallway, tripping over clothes and boxes and broken unnecessaries.

I ran through the kitchen - it was just like mine - into the conservatory.

The conservatory was also just like mine, but filled with more junk.

I knew it was over.

They would corner me, and I would die.

It was inevitable.

But suddenly, I remembered something.

It was as if I was aware it wasn't real.

It was a story.

A story within a story.

I remembered Harry Potter.

My mind raced.

'Harry's gotten through this before. He doesn't die!! He doesn't DIE!! How did he get through? I need to know!'

Suddenly, it was Harry in the conservatory, waiting for his life to end.

I was floating up in the corner, watching him.

I read the book (whatever book it was where he'd supposedly done this before).

I saw the words, and I saw him pacing the conservatory.

It said:

"Harry suddenly remembered something. What was it he'd read in that huge Potions book he'd found in the Library? That's it! 'Dementors cannot take the air. The only way to repel the Dementors is to used something with a hole in'. And so Harry dived into the junk of the conservatory, searching for something - anything - that had a hole it, ready to through it at the oncoming Dementors"

Then it changed again. It wasn't Harry - it was me.

I was looking through the junk, and I found something with a hole in - a large bronze sort of washer, used for plumbing and things.

I picked it up, and turned around quickly, poised and ready to throw it at the invisible Dementors.

But there was silence.

And no pressure.

No suffocation.

It dawned on me - the Dementors should have killed me ages ago.

They were gone.

I tried to comprehend my fortune and luck, hardly able to breathe - this time, through excitement and disbelief.

I made my way slowly through the house, back through the junk-filled hallway.

It was still silent, and a lead weight dropped in my stomach - the others were dead.

They had to be.

Just then, the woman who's let me in approached me, carried some washing as though nothing had happened, and she headed for the kitchen, smiling.

I realised that I must have been faffing around in the conservatory for longer than I'd thought - it was light outside.

"Are they dead?" I asked her. "The others... they're dead, aren't they?"

She smiled sadly.

"My mother is, yes. I found her upstairs. But everyone else is fine!" she said, her smile suddenly bright.

I couldn't believe that only one person had died from that.

They were in the house! There had been no where to go!

But still, it was over, and my body felt as though it were filled with helium balloons.

I just couldn't comprehend the fact that I'd made it through.

But I had, and it was over.

I woke up.