Chapter 15
The following day was an Order meeting, and Dumbledore broke the news of Harry's vision—few of them took it well. Mr. Weasley said he would alert the other Minister and begin to have the Dangerous Magical Creatures Department prepare.
When the meeting ended, Harry and his friends reported to the dueling room once more. They drilled in eight disarmers, three types of stunners, four shields, and patroni.
After an hour of that, the duels began. Harry faced off against Mad-Eye, and soon found that the grizzled auror now had sharper spells, and a sharper tongue.
Harry could feel his face growing red as Moody taunted him about his performance. "HA! I could've got you right there Potter!" "Going to let an old man beat you, eh Potter?" "A muggle's got better form than you!"
Out of patience, Harry blew him off the platform with a Parsloz flippendo jinx. Moody didn't drop his wand even when he smacked into the wall. He shook his head and stood, grinning maniacally at Harry. "Not bad Potter! Then again, blastin' an old, paranoid, crippled wizard isn't much to boast about is it?"
Harry rolled his eyes as Snape called a halt.
The next part of the lesson was on the dark creatures that had joined Voldemort. They already knew how to deal with dementors, chimeras, and minotaurs, but that was for one or two of them. Splikvin and Remus told them how to fight if there were five to ten of them—their animagus abilities were extremely handy.
Sirius told them about he effects a dementor would have on them in animal form, and Tonks taught them how to deal with trolls. "I like my way." Ron said.
"Which is?" Tonks said. So Ron demonstrated the drop-club maneuver he'd used on the troll in their first year.
"Primitive," Draco commented with a smirk.
"Hey, what works, works!" Tonks exclaimed. Harry laughed.
After the lesson, Harry teleported with Ron and Hermione to Diagon Alley. They went to Blurnof's Eyestore and picked up Alex since she wasn't working.
Together the four of them went to the deli for lunch. They talked, joked, and traded stories of their various summers. Ron was nearly shocked dead when Alex told them she'd been in Slytherin, but Hermione wasn't—she'd thought she'd seen her before.
Once they finished eating, they roamed through the stores, occasionally meeting some of their friends, and buying small trinkets when they wanted. An hour or two later, they went into a well-lit alley, and Harry placed a notice-me-not charm on them—they'd decided to teach Alex to become an animagus.
Ron and Hermione left after an hour, and about fifteen minutes after that, Alex had identified two of her three totems: a tiger and a rattlesnake. After an hour more, she identified the other: a siren.
"Harry!"
Harry turned sharply around to find Ron and Hermione running towards him.
"Dementors!" Hermione gasped, "Big ones!"
Harry jumped to his feet. "Where?"
"Just down the street," Ron said, "We called the others—Tallon, patroni aren't stopping them!"
Harry felt all the blood drain out of his face. Getting out his wand, he ran out of the alleyway with the others behind him.
It was a living nightmare.
People screamed, running from the Death Eaters who laughed at the chaos. Some people were frozen with fear as the dementors approached. Harry gasped, the dementors were twice their normal size and the silvery patroni didn't stop their advance, instead, they merely disappeared.
Harry gripped both his wands. "Don't fail me Dad," he whispered. Raising the two wands, Harry shouted, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
A silver stag at least fifteen feet tall charged, hooves thundering across the pavestones. Those in its path jumped out of the way; a few Death Eaters weren't quick enough.
The dementors hesitated, as if unsure what this new being of light was. Then, they fled, soaring up into the air and away out of sight. But there were still thirty Death Eaters attacking. Harry gathered a few winds and twirled them together. Keeping a good part of his magic anchored within him, Harry sent the miniature cyclone after the dark wizards. Two were caught and spit out against a wall—Ron stunned them.
Three more were tossed into the air, to land with painful, but not fatal, thuds—Hermione froze them.
The Death Eaters set fire to several buildings, before firing the Dark Mark into the sky and dissaperating from the scene.
The stag returned to Harry, bowing its head. "Thanks Dad," he whispered. As it disappeared, he felt all his energy drain away. He fell to his knees, black confusing his vision, and was unconscious before he could even blink.
Cool air flowed past his face. Something soft was underneath him, something light was on top of him.
His throat and mouth were dry, and there was a pounding ache in his head. Opening his eyes, Harry's vision was filled with gold. "Wha?"
Fingers brushed the gold away. "Your hair."
Harry blinked, smiling as Alex came into focus. "What happened?" he croaked.
She handed him a glass of water, and helped him to drink. "You drained yourself," she explained once he was finished. "That patronous took too much out of you—you're at home now. Lupin and Cklab were really insistent on it."
He smiled, holding her hand. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Did anything happen to you?"
"Oh—just one hex, it's completely gone now. What worries me are those dementors. My patronous couldn't do a thing"
Harry frowned. "I wonder what was wrong with them, the patroni I mean. Or maybe somehow the dementors changed?"
Alex sighed. "The Patronous Charm's been in existence for thousands of years; it used to be harder, but the effect was the same. I wouldn't be surprised if the dementors are finally finding a way to not be driven away by them."
"Or if Voldemort evolved them," Harry added.
"True. Do you want something to eat? It's an hour past dinnertime."
Harry's eyes widened, "I've been out that long?" She nodded. "Have you been here the whole time?"
"She hasn't moved from that spot," Padfoot's voice said. Harry turned and saw his godfather coming through the door. "I came in to check on you two; feeling better?"
Harry nodded, "You?"
"Feeling great." He smiled wolfishly, "Managed to pack five more off to Shadow Hold."
Harry nodded. "Was anyone hurt on our side?"
Sirius' face fell. "Three people were kissed, seven more were killed."
"None you know," Alex added in a quiet voice.
Harry clenched his hands, then let his anger slowly drift out of him. Shaking his head, he looked at Alex. "I think I will get something to eat, care to join me?"
She smiled, "Sure; it's to quiet in here, now that you've stopped snoring."
Sirius laughed while Harry blushed like a Weasley.
Alex stayed the night in one of the guestrooms, wanting to make sure Harry would be alright the following day.
His bones were a little wobbly, but other than that, he was fine. A few runs through the house in panther form had him feeling like his old self again.
During lunch, Remus' pendent vibrated. He spoke to the caller for a few minutes before turning to Harry. "Tallon, Selena has something she wants to try—would it be alright if I brought her here?"
Harry nodded, "Sure." So Moony left, and Sirius, Alex, and Harry did a few practice duels upstairs.
Just as Tallon had disarmed Alex in werewolf form, Remus and Splikvin entered. "Hey Sel," Sirius greeted casually.
"Hello Siri," she replied evenly, Remus chuckled as Padfoot rolled his eyes.
I don't think he gets it, Harry thought amusedly.
"Harry," Splikvin said, "I'd like to try something with you."
He transformed back. "What is it?"
"Parsloz patroni." She answered. "I wasn't able to find one of the new dementors, but Smuck tells met that there's one near here-wherever 'here' is."
He scratched his head. "Alright, where to?"
Splikvin tilted her head. Harry noticed the dark shadow under the collar of her shirt. "About half an hour from here—well, walking anyway:
Harry took panther shape immediately.
"Then let's run," Sirius agreed with a grin before becoming a dog. They left The Hideaway, then Remus became a wolf, Alex a white tiger, and Splikvin a mare.
Splikvin led the way, with Smuck riding on her back. Harry followed, jumping from boulder to log, tensing his powerful legs just before he sprang. Alex ran beside him, her sleek form rippling gracefully with each movement.
For the first time in a long while, Harry felt completely free. He enjoyed the smells of the trees, the damp earth, and relished the feeling of jumping across the landscape with ease, of seeing the land flee before his paws.
Splikvin slowed from gallop to walk as they entered a cooler part of the forest. Too cool, Harry thought.
They all became human and began to look for the dementor. All they really had to do was follow the frosty path of dead plants and frozen streams.
When Sirius, Remus, and Alex began to pale Harry knew they were close. He felt something, a cold touch, probing his mind. "Professor?" he asked quietly.
"Not me," she replied, then tapped the side of her head, "I feel it to; the dementor's near, very."
Suddenly, Alex fell to her knees. Harry rushed over and caught her before she fell over completely. He put an arm around her while drawing his wand.
"Look out!" Sirius yelled, pointing behind Remus.
Moony fired a patronous, and his phoenix began to fly around the dementor, keeping it in its place. "Selena?" he called.
She drew her wand and hissed, "Expecto patronum." A werewolf of pure silver, not white-silver, came out and ran at the dementor.
The creature released a horrible scream, filled with agony and anger. Harry felt something bombard his mind's defenses. Remus and Sirius covered their ears with the hands, faces cringing with pain; Alex fell unconscious.
Splikvin's patronous tore at the dementor; Harry aimed and hissed, "Expecto patronum." His solid, silver stag charged the dementor, and tore it in two.
The screams stopped, and Harry's defenses were no longer being attacked. The dark, tattered robe that had covered the dementor fell to the ground—empty.
Harry picked up Alex in his arms after pocketing his wand. "Why didn't it hurt me?" he asked.
Splikvin helped Sirius and Remus get to their feet, her eyes betraying her worry, then answered. "You're an Occlumens; dementors feed off your good memories, they have to find them first for your bad ones to surface."
"Do you think it'll do the same for the big dementors? The Parsloz patronous, I mean."
Splikvin shook her head. "Sadly, no. If it took two of ours to stop this one, I doubt it. We could try though."
Harry nodded, and his pendent pulsed, as did the others', signaling an Order meeting. "See you at H.Q." he said, and teleported away. After placing Alex in the Infirmary with Hedwig standing guard, Harry teleported to the meeting room.
Those who worked at the Ministry were absent, since they were in the middle of registering their animagus forms.
Tallon sat down next to Ron as Draco began his report. "I've found out how the new dementors came to be," he said, "The Dark Lord takes normal dementors and adds a spell on them—it creates a void of sorts."
"A void of what thought?" asked Charlie.
"A void of patroni," Draco answered. Murmurs swept through the room.
When Draco continued, the voices stopped. "What I mean by that is this: the other Death Eaters cast the patronous charm, and the void sucks them in, much like dementors suck the souls out of their victims.
"They feed off good feelings, off happy memories. The Patronous Charm worked because the patronous contained too much feeling for the dementors to take."
"Like a computer overload," Hermione said.
Draco raised an eyebrow. "I suppose so…anyway, now that the void has—expanded a patronous on longer works, it is absorbed by the dementor instead of repelling it. In contrast to the feelings they bring and their role in the war, these new dementors are—in a way—solely made of good feelings."
"Never thought I'd heard 'good feelings' and 'dementors' in the same sentence," Sirius remarked grimly; others nodded their agreement.
"Did you find out any hints as to how to stop them?" McGonagall asked.
"No. Only the Dark Lord knows how to control them."
"Herms is onto somthin'," Ron murmured to Harry.
Harry looked at his other best friend, and saw that her brow was furrowed in concentration, her eyes searching for something in the empty air in front of her.
He nudged the twins, telling them to be quiet; to his surprise, they were. Soon, all the conversation had stopped and Hermione got up and began to pace, unaware of the others' attention.
She was muttering something to herself, too quiet for anyone to understand, and in a different language, it sounded like. She seemed to be quoting something. Then, into the silence she shouted, "That's IT!"
"Eureka!" Harry added dryly; no one but Remus, Splikvin, and Hermione seemed to get it.
"What is 'it'?" Snape asked boredly.
Hermione started to pace again, repeating louder what she'd been muttering.
"The Shadow of Set?" Splikvin said in surprise. Hermione nodded. Harry looked around but only Dumbledore appeared to understand.
"Ummm—Herms?" Ron said, "Not all of us understand gibberish."
She flushed, "It's not gibberish Ronald, it's Egyptian." She stopped pacing and began to explain. "The new dementors absorb good feelings and memories, and bring out the bad. The ancient Egyptians had guardians similar to that, ones that stayed in the tombs of the vilest criminals.
"Now, in order to keep them there, they had to be able to control them. A spell was created, it was called the Shadow of Set, an Egyptian god of evil. The Egyptians believed that the Guardians trapped the person's soul within the tomb, keeping them from going on to the Afterlife. So, they also believed that the spell came from their soul.
"Seeing as how the Guardians are the absence of bad, the spells, the Challengers—as the Egyptians called them—were the absence of good. When faced with each other, they held each other in check." Her eyes lit up. "You see? The way to stop theses new dementors is to create the Challengers—beings without good!"
"That sounds kind of—well, evil." Neville said.
"Dementors are evil, but they're made of good," Harry reminded him, "Just because something isn't light, doesn't mean it's bad—it's the castor who decides that."
"So, what spell makes the Challengers?" Sirius asked.
Hermione frowned. "That's the part I'm not sure about. The Book of Spirit, which is where the legend of the Guardians and Challengers comes from, says something about 'the dwellers within the dark-sided soul,' but I don't know what that means."
"Does it say anythin' else?" asked Dung.
Hermione tapped her chin in thought, "The sentence after that mentioned something about 'that which both hides and seeks, which we would both desire to forget and flee.' Then something—oh….something about 'it vanishes in rain and at night—both when it is at its might.' Something along those lines."
"Whatever that means," Ron grumbled.
Then, Snape and Splikvin looked at each other and said, "Shadows."
"Come again?" Sirius said.
"It was talking about shadows," Splikvin explained, "Part of an old riddle, apparently very old."
"Which is?" he prodded.
Snape began to recite the riddle Splikvin had said almost a year ago. "'Only one color but not one size; stuck at the bottom yet easily flies. Present in sun, but not in rain; doing no harm and feeling no pain.'"
Splikvin explained it further. "The Book of Spirit was talking about the third verse. What the Challengers are, are the shadows of someone's soul."
"Any ideas what those are?" Bill asked.
"Bad feelings," Ron said, "Bad memories. Put them together, add a spell, and what do you get?" They starred at him. "A dark patronous," he finished with a hint of smugness.
Hermione beamed at him, "Brilliant Ron!"
The twins clapped, "Joy, o joy! Ickle Ronnikins solved it!" He shot them a glare and they stopped, but kept grinning.
"Any clue what th' incantation is?" Dung asked sleepily.
Hermione rolled her eyes, "If it's a patronous, it should be the same either way, dark or light."
"Let's try it out, shall we?" Remus said, drawing his wand.
"Bad memories should be forgotten," Draco muttered, but only Harry heard.
Silently, Tallon agreed. Nonetheless, he drew his wand, recalling memories of the Dursleys, the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, and the Department of Mysteries.
The room was filled with shouts of "Expecto patronum!" some shaky, others confident. Despite the many voices, only a few patroni appeared: Harry's, Draco's, Sirius', Remus', George's, Splikvin's, and Snape's.
At first, Harry didn't recognize the stag. When he did, he stumbled back a step.
The patronous was the essence of black. Its body was solid, and its muscles rippled with each movement, no matter how small. Its ribs pressed against its skin, but a powerful aura surrounded it nonetheless. Its antlers were proud and seemed cruelly sharp, its hooves more deadly. The body was tensed and thin, as if the stag was preparing for something. As it looked at Harry, he saw that its eyes were even darker, if that was possible. They seemed to go on forever, black, bottomless pits, void of any light, of any hope, seemingly of any life at all—they were shadows of death. Harry was cold, very cold. But it wasn't the air around him that was chilled, but inside of him. Harry no longer felt that comfort he usually did when seeing Prongs. It's not Prongs, he argued silently, Prongs doesn't look like that. His thoughts had a ring of both truth and lie.
Tallon mentally dismissed the Challenger, it reared back before vanishing in a wisp of dark smoke that also vanished. The others dismissed their Challengers as well and sat down. Harry noticed that Sirius was extremely pale, George and Remus were shaking, Draco's brow was damp, and Snape and Splikvin were determinedly expressionless. They must have used their worst memories, Harry thought, I wonder what would happen if I did too…
The others continued to try the charm, but those who'd done it once already did not.
Harry didn't want to see that Prongs again any time soon.
Coming Up:
'We can't help'
Basilisks
Then:
The Parsletongue Duel
Review Response:
WildRaven: Well, the Final Battle will take place in this installment as promised, and it will happen after Harry's birthday. What the exact date is, I won't tell you. That would ruin the suspense grin. As for Alex, I am not quite sure just yet. I have the main outline for the story, but not all the details.
Disclaimer: Yet again, I did not come up with the riddle about shadows, thank you.