Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J.K.Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.


CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Enter." The voice called before Hermione even had the chance to knock.

"Headmaster?" Hermione asked. "Minerva said you wanted to see me."

"You'll call her Minerva, but you won't call me Albus?" the old man pouted.

"I call you Albus all the time. But I wasn't sure you were alone, so I elected to refer to you more formally." Hermione responded diplomatically. "Speaking of, didn't I hear you talking to someone?"

Albus smiled. "I was just conversing with some of the portraits."

Hermione noticed they all were pretending to be asleep, though more than a few eyes were cracked open. "The portraits! Of course! They're not bound by that immature manchild's secrecy spell!"

Albus shook his head. "Sadly, they are. The ones in here are duty and loyalty bound to the current Headmaster, and as far as magic is concerned, in here they are an extension of me."

Hermione sighed. Another option grounded before it even took off. "Hmm. It's not so much that I want to ruin the Flamel name, as it is I'm tired of that cheeky brat getting the best of us!"

Albus smiled. "Speaking of the manchild, I trust that lately, you have been taking better care of his gift? The Magical Tome?"

Hermione blushed a bit. "Oh yes, sir. I've been extremely careful with it."

"Excellent, Hermione! Excellent." Albus said with a twinkle. "Because if you are up for it, I was hoping you might be willing to take on a significant project."

Hermione got all warm and fuzzy thinking about a new project. "Certainly sir. I don't have much work to do on the dementor blood anymore, so I have some free time."

"Lovely," Albus said with a flourish of his hands. "Because I thought it would be well worth our time to craft some new Magical Tomes for our own Hogwarts library."

And at that moment in the Headmaster's office, Hermione's eyes twinkled for the very first time. Albus was a little embarrassed at her twinkling and wondered if he should look away, since it was her first time. "I would be honored, sir." She said proudly puffing out her chest. This time Albus did look away.

"I thought you might like this." Albus explained. "With one of the original Tomes you should be able to recreate the effects and perhaps even improve on them. I'm not sure how complex the project may be. For all I know you might even be able to get them to link with your original Tome. And of course, once you're far enough into the project, I'd be happy to provide some of my own personal manuscripts and books that are a bit too dangerous for our library."

There was Hermione's twinkle again. "That would be wonderful, Albus. Thank you so very much for trusting me with this task. I won't let you down, sir." Hermione said as she got up and left his office.

"Of that, I have no doubt." Albus bid her a good day.

It was just a few minutes later that the Head Boy franticly came scrambling up to his office. "Headmaster!" he yelled from the steps.

He was out of breath from running. "Head-" he panted, "-master!"

"Mr. Kirke, calm down." The Headmaster ordered. "Now, compose yourself, and tell me what the problem is."

Colin Kirke, younger brother to Andrew Kirke, caught his breath and explained. "The lake…" He took another deep breath. "Boat… rowing…"

Albus smiled. "Take a moment and wait until you can tell me a complete sentence."

Colin nodded. After a few moments, he calmly explained. "There is a large dementor rowing a boat across the Hogwarts Lake."

Albus briefly wanted to scold Colin for thinking that 'lake', 'boat', and 'rowing' were the most important words he had to get out when he was still catching his breath. And then Albus' mind processed what the young man had just said. He leapt out his office and down the hall, running until he saw the lake. He was thankful to realize, the boat was only two-thirds of the way across, and he had a moment to analyze the situation. He was a bit disturbed to realize that it really was a large dementor. Albus had his shields up full and even hundreds of feet away he was feeling the effects of this beast.

He hurriedly ordered the students back to their common rooms, and asked the first Prefect he spotted, Drew Bower, to go get Professor Potter.

All of a sudden Albus felt the air get a lot colder real fast. The area of the lake around the dementor's boat froze over and the chill was spreading across the surface very briskly.

The dementor slowly stood up from the now frozen unmoving boat. His back was still facing away from Albus. A quick snap of its head, and the black cloaked creature was staring right at the Headmaster.

Albus, who had never seen a dementor move that fast, as they were not known for their speed, could not stop the fear that flood his body. And it wasn't just because his shields were being pounded on.

The dementor kept his gaze firm on the Headmaster. A raspy, ancient sounding voice quietly broke the silence. "Duuummmmmbledorrrrre," the voice called. "Dummmmmmmbledore," it repeated.

Albus could tell this dementor was stronger than any he had ever seen before. His shields were beginning to crumble under the power of this creature. He wasn't Albus Dumbledore for nothing though. Mustering together all the power and happiness he could, he bellowed, "Expecto Patronum!"

A brilliant, glowing, bright white phoenix burst forth from his wand. The magical protector knew only what it was here to do. In a wide arc to gain speed, the phoenix flew up and came circling in as fast as it could to drive back this dementor.

In a movement almost too fast for the human eye, a shriveled decaying bony hand snapped out and clenched tightly around the head of the patronus. The dementor kept its gaze on the Headmaster, and somehow held on to the incorporeal glowing, ghostly spell. It held the phoenix's head to its shadowed and hidden face. A grotesque, thick tongue snaked out and grabbed hold of the struggling phoenix's head. It pulled the head back into the shadow of the hood, and a loud crunch was heard, followed by a spurt and a gush of crimson blood from beneath this creature's cloak.

Albus just stood there unmoving. Fright and shock gave way to disbelief. His mind simply could not process the idea, that a dementor just bit the head off of his phoenix patronus.

"Duuummmmmbledorrrrre," the raspy voice continued. The dementor began gliding closer to the Headmaster who could only stand there and watch.

"Duuummmmmyydorrrrrkk," it said. And that gave Albus pause. He was now realizing the effects of the dementor were lessening significantly, despite the quickly diminishing distance between the dementor and him. Albus was feeling much better and the temperature was rising.

It was then, that two things happened simultaneously for Albus. The first was his DADA Professor finally decided to show up. Albus noticed because he strode right up next to the Headmaster, and struck a pose. He smiled that annoyingly cheeky smile and bellowed, "I'll save you!" with his hands on his hips. After holding the pose for a couple seconds, he snapped back into action and walked right up to the dementor. But it was just as Harry appeared that the Headmaster noticed something else. There was a muggle sticker attached to the dementor's cloak. It clearly read, "Hello. My name is Bob." And Albus had the feeling he was the butt of someone's joke.

He watched Harry waggle his finger, apparently scolding the dementor. The dementor and Defense Professor gave each other a brief one-armed manly hug. And then the dementor waved Harry closer to tell him a secret. It looked as though the dementor was going to suck Harry's soul out through his ear. A decayed, bony hand lifted up, apparently ensuring no one could read the dementor's lips.

Hopefully it was speaking because Professor Potter was giggling. It appeared as though dementor whispers tickled, as Harry kept snickering and snorting. Occasionally, he swung his hand up to bat away the ticklish dementor and would effeminately exclaim, "Stop!" before giggling again.

Harry and the dementor were looking over at the Headmaster, when Harry yelled "Crap! Someone's coming." Harry addressed the Headmaster in a quick whisper. "Albus! Shh! Play along."

The Headmaster just nodded and saw Drew Bower, the sixth year prefect he'd sent for Professor Potter, coming running up yelling, "I found one! I got one, Professor!" The dementor's chill filled the air, though not nearly as severely as it had when the lake had frozen. The voice rasped out, "Pottttttteeerrrrrrr."

"Accio!" Harry yelled and the teddy bear flew out of Mr. Bower's hands. "Go back to your common room, Mr. Bower. Thank you."

Albus watched Harry appear to be giving the dementor in front of him his full attention. But the Headmaster could tell he was checking if Mr. Bower was running back to his common room, or watching them. Naturally, Mr. Bower was most definitely watching the action and only taking slow steps backwards.

The dementor's powerful ancient hoarse voice wheezed out, "FFFeeeeeeeed mmeeeeee!"

Albus saw Harry's hand glow with magic and cast some sort of spell onto the teddy bear. Harry took a step back and held the teddy bear up in front of him straight at the dementor as some sort of shield. The dementor began to glide toward Harry and the teddy bear, when the teddy's eyes opened wide and its mouth began to move. "Hi. My name is Teddy Ruxpin. Can you and I be friends?"

The dementor let out a snarl of rage and snatched the teddy bear right from Harry's hands. It was letting out a high-pitched squeal as it lowered its head over the top of the teddy bear and proceeded to give it the infamous dementor's kiss. There was a sort of mist and glowing white smoke being sucked from the bear and into the darkened mouth of the creature.

Harry turned and yelled to the student, "Mr. Bower! Your common room, please!"

Drew Bower apparently recognized an order from the most powerful wizard in the world when he heard one and turned and sprinted back into the castle.

The dementor pulled the teddy bear away from him, apparently satiated now.

The teddy bear sprung to life again. "Hi. My name is Teddy Ruxpin. Can you and I be friends?"

The dementor screeched and again tried to suck the soul from the toy.

When this process was repeated a third time, Albus saw the dementor hesitate, and once Mr. Bower was inside the castle and out of sight, it began to hack and cough in what was unmistakably laughter.

Harry at this point couldn't take it any longer and he too fell to the ground rolling around cracking up.

The coughing and hacking dementor spoke up in a strangely normal voice. "I can't believe you just made me do that!"

Harry snickered out, "I can't believe you actually did that."

"A Teddy Ruxpin!" the dementor exclaimed. "I haven't even thought about one of these in years."

Harry chuckled. "I'm a little scared that he was able to locate a Teddy Ruxpin in Hogwarts. He asked how he could help and I suggested he find me a Teddy Ruxpin, as they are 'like a chew toy for a dementor. Keeps 'em occupied so you can wrangle together your flock.'"

The dementor began coughing more laughter, "Harry, the dementor shepherd! Hey, you deserve another title!"

Albus cleared his throat loudly and asked, "a chew toy?"

Harry apologized. "Oh, I'm sorry. Where are my manners? Albus, I would like you to meet Bob. Bob, this is venerable Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Woozenwhatsit, Supreme BugRump of the Interfederation and all the rest of that rubbish."

Albus frowned. "That was nearly insultingly awful, Harry, Boy-Who-Lived, Savior of the Wizarding World, the immortal Favorite Son of God, Shepherd of Dementors, Elixir of Life fun factory-"

Bob raised his hand and you could hear the amusement in his voice when he interrupted, "That one was me."

"Really?" Albus said with a smile. "I like you already, Bob."

"That's good to hear, Albus," Harry said. "Because I told Bob, if he could make it across the lake like a first year, you would let him join the school with the first years."

Albus stared at Harry and couldn't seem to believe his ears.

"Kidding!" Harry exclaimed. "But man your face just now was brilliant." Harry fell back into giggles again.

Bob apparently saw Harry was not going to be any help. "You'll have to excuse him, Headmaster. Harry informed me, you would never allow me onto the school grounds unless I permitted you to meet the real me as opposed to 'Pottttterrrrrrrrrr'. I thought the idea of arriving like the first years would be fun, as well as ensure I was far enough away from any students until we met."

Albus nodded, still a bit confused reconciling his impression of dementors with this, relatively gentle character named Bob. "I appreciate the sentiment. I take it you can fully control your magical effects of cold and memory leeching?"

Bob nodded. "Yes, I can keep it completely reigned in, though it takes a little effort. If I ever fear it may be a problem I can leave instantaneously. Harry said I could help him scare some of the students into shape. I do have an image to maintain, so around the students I will only let a little of my power loose. No more than I did just now for Mr. Bower. Although for you, I was almost pushing at half strength. That was an impressive patronus considering the strain you were under."

"Great Merlin!" Albus exclaimed. "That was only half strength."

Harry smirked. "Yeah, Bob here is probably a bit stronger than most dementors you've seen, Albus."

Albus could only numbly agree. "Well, you certainly seem… capable. So you have my permission to help Harry in his classes as long as you can assure the safety of your presence. Although, seeing as I have met the real Bob, I would love it if you would come by so we could have a nice long chat."

Bob nodded his cloaked hood. "Certainly, Headmaster. We can trade Potter horror stories, perhaps."

"I'm sure you have some good ones." Albus added with a smile.

"Oh my, yes," Bob replied before turning to Harry, "Does he… ?"

Harry nodded. "Yup. He does."

Bob almost cackled with glee. "Oh goodie! Since you know about Nicky, I can even tell you about the time Wesley and I got him back for the flatulence powder in the salt shaker."

Albus gasped excitedly. "You knew Wesley?"

"Of course," Bob replied. "You really know a guy's got solid strength of character when he'll stand by you in spite of dementor farts."

Harry chuckled and winced in memory, "Oh good gravy."

"Dementor farts are probably worse than what your imagining, so let's just leave it at that." Bob explained to Albus. "So anyway, the next morning, Harry woke up, with an empty old female dementor's cloak. I came raging in wondering where my virgin daughter had disappeared to."

Albus quickly came up with about a dozen questions just from that last statement but decided to merely say, "Go on."

Bob saw they were almost to the castle and just whispered, "Long story short, Harry was in tears, begging us to exorcise the demon he could feel kicking around inside his womb."

Harry mumbled, "I still have nightmares about a dementor sucking out my-"

Albus smiled and interrupted, "Elixir of Life?"