CHAPTER 21
Dementors And Their Effects
Severus hurried into the Great Hall having finished going through the dungeon with a fine tooth comb along with a quarter of the group of Aurors that Minerva insisted on being called to castle. Severus parted with them at the entrance Hall where they made haste to help their fellow Aurors to search the grounds.
Severus's mind was whirling with various theories regarding the reason behind Black's appearance at the Gryffindor Tower. But the one that seemed most plausible reasoning was Black's stubborn assumption that the Potters belonged to Gryffindor.
Ha! That deranged convict could run around in circles with that belief for all Severus cared. It worked in his favour actually. Only now, he would have to see to it that Minerva and Dumbledore gave the residents of that tower maximum protection.
As soon as he entered the quiet Hall, his eyes instinctively looked around for his charges and he found them dosing off in a corner. Only Harry looked alert and judging by the furtive manner in which his eyes moved, Severus assumed that the boy was either very worried or in deep thought.
Just ahead of them, Dumbledore stood surveying the Hall with grave, aged eyes. Severus moved towards him without making a sound and then said, "The dungeons are thoroughly searched and warded. Black will not be able to enter there... Headmaster, you know as well as I, that it was virtually impossible for Black to set foot in this school. He's bound to have had aid from inside...and I'm sure you know who-"
"Severus." Dumbledore interrupted firmly. "I do not believe that anyone from within the walls of this castle would help Sirius Black. I've already said this to you many times, and I'll say it again...I trust my teachers."
"Quirrel? Lockhart?"
"Quirrel used to work here before he met Voldemort, Severus." Dumbledore said patiently. "I knew him then and I knew then, that he could be trusted. He was blinded by the promises of power that Voldemort offered him. I admit that I had fallen down on that job.
"As for Gilderoy Lockhart, I knew that one of my friends had fallen prey to his scheme and I wished to teach him a lesson. You see, I wanted him to be caught in the act."
"At the cost of what?" Severus demanded quietly. "The students' lives? Another obliviated victim? By God, Dumbledore! Your reasoning is so unfounded and so absolutely witless and naive, I haven't and probably will never even think of it as one of the motives of one of the Great Albus Dumbledore's most moronic plans!"
"I won't argue with you Severus." Dumbledore said wearily. "But I will make it quite clear...I trust Remus. And even if I'm not able to get through to you with my reasons, I certainly know what I am doing."
Severus growled through his teeth, "You know very well what that man-"
"Not now Severus!" Dumbledore admonished severely and walked to the other side to the Hall, far away from Severus, to greet Minerva who'd just entered.
Severus made himself invisible to all except Harry and moved to his side and sat on the floor besides him.
"And exactly what is going on in that head of yours?" He whispered.
Harry looked around wildly to make sure nobody was watching and realising what Severus had done, the boy moved closer to him and whispered..."If it hadn't been for the Fat Lady, some of the Gryffindors could have died."
"Could've they?"
"Yes!" Harry hissed with nervous tension. "You know it too!"
Severus sighed.
"Just go to sleep Harry...You're right. I know it and we're going to tighten the wards on the inside of the castle before the week is done."
"He's already managed to get past the outer wards! What'll stop him from doing the same when he enters the castle?"
"When?!" Severus exclaimed. "What makes you think he'll try ...oh ...Harry, just go to sleep. As long as we teachers and the now permanent team of Aurors are around this place, Sirius Black will not dare enter."
Harry snorted,"I'm willing to bet you five galleons that before this year ends, he's going to break in at least another two more times. Anyway, good night Prof." Harry lay down and shut his eyes.
Severus didn't move from his place. Harry opened one eye and stared up at him and he hesitated for a minute and then said meekly, "I don't want the others getting hurt because of me."
Severus sighed again and said, "No one's going to get hurt because of you, Harry. You aren't responsible for this. May I remind you that it is... that you are the victim in this case? You didn't help him escape...You certainly didn't help him get through these wards... And you will not ever come in close contact with him if I can help it. Just throw those silly thoughts out of your head and sleep."
With that Severus, ruffled Harry's hair, and got up, took off the disillusionment charm and moved over to Minerva who was now standing alone. It looked Dumbledore wanted to stay as far away from him as possible.
"I need to tell them." Severus said.
Apparently Minerva knew what he was talking about.
She said wearily, "I understand, Severus. But they're just too young."
"They've survived in a locked cupboard, they'll be able to handle this." he insisted.
"They're going to actually hate him when they find out, Severus. It's too dangerous an emotion for them to hold at such an age."
"Please, Minerva." Severus said. "I can't keep it away from them anymore. If he approaches them first and tells them the tale with a lot of petty adventure recounting in addition to a nonsensical sob story about the entire thing being faked...and if they believe him and fall into his trap... it'll be worse than they knowing the actual truth."
Minerva sighed and said, "Severus, please, at least wait until Christmas. Let them have a little more time before their childhood partially ends."
"Partially ends?" Severus sneered. "They will be children until they turn seventeen... eighteen if I can help-"
"Children with the knowledge of murderers and betrayers and caution and hate and everything else a child shouldn't think of, let alone come in contact with at the age of twelve."
"They're thirteen." Severus corrected.
"Doesn't make a difference...and, before you begin the entire cycle of argument again, I'll tell you this: I cannot stop you from doing what you wish. And you know as well as I that you could do whatever you wish without consulting me. I don't know why you seem to want my opinion and then bargain with me when I give you the desired opinion. But the fact that you haven't told them the truth yet, Severus Snape, is because you don't want to. I'm glad. I'm glad that you, too, don't want to spoil the little innocence that they've-"
"That isn't the case at all!" Severus hissed, before she got too sentimental. He could already feel the back of his neck turning red. Why did she always have the habbit of changing topics whenever she wanted to shut him up?
He continued, "Besides, they could find out the truth from anyone else! A little piece of news hear and there, a little reading in the library, a search through the nineteen seventies detention records and they'll have the entire story on a platter! They're smart. They've figured out many other things to this date-"
"They won't find anything else about Sirius Black until after Christmas."
"And if he meets them before that?" Severus demanded.
Minerva said grimly, "He won't."
With that she turned on her heel and, like Dumbledore, hurried to another corner of the Hall far away from Severus, leaving him in his state of moody thoughtfulness.
Slowly a week went by and another and by now the fear the castle's Halloween visitor caused among its inhabitants had almost dissipated.
Whether it was the calming aura the alert looking Aurors on guard gave or whether it was because of some other reason Severus didn't know, the students seemed to be getting more and more careless. And Severus realised that he was getting more and more displeased with them by the day.
Their absolute undaunted behaviour was outrageous and this just wouldn't do. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and dished out detentions to just about anybody who he caught doing so much as hurrying down the corridor without taking a little time to check it for any danger first.
At least, having them right under the noses of the teachers in this way was way better than having to worry about them while they were unsupervised...But now came the problem of the teachers complaining about not being able to complete grading homework and Severus was almost able to convince the teachers to make the students do the homework in detention in the presence of their respective teacher, but McGonagall turned it down the moment she heard of his proposal.
Hence finally, the excess detention dishing out came to an end and as soon as the students were done with dinner, they were escorted back to their common rooms and locked in there with a sort of an answering machine that helped them obtain any books they would have liked to go out to the library to retrieve.
If their need was something beyond the limits of books, stationary and owls, a message could be sent to a teacher through a perfect. And though now the students were all safe, meaning Severus was happy, the children were getting more and more annoyed.
And before the episode could end with something disastrous, the doors were unlocked, but the students were strictly forbidden to roam anywhere alone. They compulsorily needed to move around in groups of five after their last meal for the day.
This turned to be a cause for irritation amongst both the studious and none-studious groups of the school. The former couldn't find a group of students from their house willing to study in the library for the next couple of hours... and the latter found accompanying the studious children, while they studied and made notes and triple-checked homework, an unpleasant chore. And though both groups could have used this opportunity to learn a thing or two from each other, they preferred to protest noisily around the place, until a new rule came up which stated that only those places that were guarded by Aurors could be accessed.
And this was the way it stayed.
And lo and behold! Pranks had come to an end. At least until the pranksters got back their pluck. But who'd want to risk coming in contact with the deranged Sirius Black?
Then came Harry's first match of the season and to his bad luck the day of the match was welcomed by torrents of rain. Very carefully, Severus inserted into the minds of Pomona and Filius the dangers of flying around the pitch on wet, slippery broomsticks. Ten minutes before the match began, the ground was not only layered by a long lasting cushioning charm, but all the students (the ones watching as well as playing) and their brooms and clothes were coated with water repellent and warming charms.
And the match began.
For a very long time the players could do nothing but try to figure out their way around the pitch without dashing into each other or the stadium. The spectators could hardly make out who was who. Except for Lee Jordan who either had the best eyesight of the lot, or was relaying an imaginary game of his own.
This led to the spectators as well as the players to slow down for a minute and listen to him point out that now Hufflepuff had scored and the seekers were now after the snitch.
"They're neck to neck!" Jordan yelled suddenly.
And instinctively everyone strained their necks to get a look... only to be gifted with a cold wave in turn... Dementors.
Now, Severus desperately wanted to see clearly. He strained his neck, narrowed his eyes, widened them, tried pointing his wand out in the general direction of dementors, who seemed to have formed a mass of black over the ground.
The Dementors had already taken a grip on his fear, bringing to the front of his mind the unfortunate moments of his childhood and the terrible instances of his recent past, and Severus realised that his Patronus refused to come out in anything more than a few flimsy whisps of mist.
Angry with himself and thoroughly frustrated with the situation, Severus almost missed the figure that came plunging down followed by the delayed reaction of the public. And the worst part of it was that he couldn't even make out who was falling. He saw Dumbledore's phoenix patronus soaring and Severus followed him down to the grounds along with Pomona. The coolness began to ebb away.
And as he got closer, icy horror gripped his stomach when he noticed red hair and a pale white face. From his distance, Dumbledore had already conjured a stretcher under the boy and Severus took over from there. He leviated the stretcher and hurried to the infirmary, inwardly seething.
He gnashed his teeth and scowled, silently cursing Fudge, Dumbledore, Dementors and finally Sirius Black. Then when he reached the infirmary and laid the still child on the bed, Madam Pomfrey pushed him aside and began running her wand over him.
Severus took this opportunity to begin pacing the floor, thinking about what could be done now. This entire situation was absolutely ridiculous and the helplessness it reeked was insane. It was apparent that Dementors had no effect on Sirius Black. So what was the purpose in still keeping those damn creatures around? What was Dumbledore doing in keeping quiet about it? Wasn't he the one who didn't like the idea in the first place?
"Quidditch!" Poppy exclaimed in utmost disgust.
"Dementors." Severus corrected absentmindedly. "Hundreds of them on the stadium."
Pomfrey scowled at him.
"Will you stop that?" she snapped.
Severus scowled but stopped pacing.
He said, "Do you want me to do anything?"
"No." she said. "Have you given Remus his potion yet?"
"Today?" Severus asked in confusion. "His night was last night."
"Oh." she said in a little defeat, giving him the impression that she had been trying to find an excuse to chase him out of the infirmary.
Severus sighed and said, "Do you need any potion."
"What I need," Pomfrey said grimly, "is a whole stock of chocolate distributed amongst all the students in this school."
Severus shook his head and moved towards the infirmary doors.
"I'll be back soon." he told her and went out into the corridor. And as he made his way towards the kitchens, an idea began to formulate in his head.
He tickled the pear and entered the kitchen was greeted by a dozen bowing elves.
"What can Mondy do for Professor Snapey Sir?"
Severus bit back a growl...oh how he hated that name. Instead, he said, "Do you have a lot of chocolate in handy?"
"Lots of chocolate, Professor Snapey Sir! House-elves has bars, slabs, molten chocolate, chocolate with fruits and nuts, chocolate with mint, chocolate with orange flavourings, or strawberry, chocolate that go crackle in the mouth, chocolate that makes eater smile, chocolate that-"
"That's alright!" Severus said hastily, "Could you give each child in this school a large piece of chocolate?"
"Yes, Sir, of course Sir, Professor Sna-"
"Yes, yes." Severus interrupted. "Thank you. Please see to it that all the students have a piece of chocolate, force feed them if they refuse. And if I'm not mistaken, I suppose, Blaire and Ethan Potter, Neville Longbottom and Draco Black have already or will be gathered around Harry Potter's bed in the infirmary. I want you get them all a mug of rich hot chocolate each."
With that he turned around, disillusioned himself and headed up to the Entrance Hall and out onto the grounds through the large doors.
He kept walking around aimlessly for around ten to fifteen minutes, the rain bouncing off him thanks to the water repellent charm, until he felt that dreaded coolness again. There, hovering around at the gates were a couple of Dementors looking as daunting as they felt. Carefully, Severus sent out his beautiful white doe as a shield, and from where he stood, he addressed the two creatures.
"Sirius Black isn't hiding around Hogwarts. He's hiding in one of Minister Fudge's robes. You'd better make a big group and head up to Cornelius Fudge's home and search his closet. If you do not find him there, wait for Fudge to return home and check the clothes he's wearing."
Severus didn't wait to see what would happen.
He turned around, patted his Patronus goodbye and hurried back towards the castle. Now, happy to be out of the rain, Severus made his way back to the infirmary to see Harry sitting up in bed and eight children having a conference.
Apart from his five, there were Tilly Ollivander, Cedric Diggory, Marcus Flint and Adrian Pucey, all enjoying a mug of presumably hot cocoa...the elves really followed his orders to the letter. From where he stood, Severus could just make out Harry's devastated face, and, at first, he thought it was because of the match Slytherin lost, but on a second look, he realised that Harry was gazing morosely at pieces of twigs...that used to be the Nimbus two thousand that he'd got for him.
The devastation was for a blasted broom!
Severus frowned a second later. It was just a broom. Harry was lucky not to get hurt from the fall he had.
Sighing at the things that children prioritised, Severus waited patiently for the older students and Tilly Ollivander to leave. And when they were alone, he took off the disillusionment charm and made way to the little group.
Harry looked up at him with eyes so utterly frustrated that Severus sighed again.
"That's it." he told them. "Every Saturday evening, after dinner, you will stop by my office for an hour and a half and I am going to teach you how to produce a patronus."
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Dear Dee
I've got to tell you something. Prof's gone crazy! First he says that the Patronus is a difficult charm to master. Now he says that it's high time we mastered it! We're trying and trying, but to no avail...and it's just our third class. By the way, the snow had covered the entire place up and Herbology and CoMC have both been cancelled for today.
Oh, and Hagrid's gone crazy too! You see, he's done teaching us with Hippogryffs and all (We've even learnt to ride them) but, he's also given us a demonstration on a thunderbird and an occamy, but now, he trying to get us to learn the dancing patterns of the mooncalf! It's ridiculous and Blaire just seems to be getting great entertainment by just watching us practice.
And speaking of Blaire, I think she's on the way to becoming the second animagus. She says she can visualise feathers in her mind. Sometimes the feathers are black and sometimes white. We're trying to guess what bird she'll be...or will her form be a hippogryff? She gets absolutely annoyed when we suggest that.
Her competition against Hermione Granger is still full on. Only this time, Granger's rather distracted. To be honest, I would be too, if I'd opted for all the electives. That girl's absolutely crazy! And the worst is, she's able to sit not in two but three classes at a time! While Blaire had her for Runes the other day, Harry and I had her in our CoMc class and Neville and Draco had her for Muggle Studies! It's absolutely barmy!
Anyway, I have my own mystery to solve and I think I'm getting the picture. Blaire's trying to solve her own mystery (the Sirius Black one) but by the looks of it, I don't think she's getting anywhere. She's just in love with the idea of Black being an animagus...She insists that they're unaffected by dementors, but we decided to check that out a bit too late. By the time Harry (he's begun to practice digging tunnels for no particular reason, he says it might be useful!) got down to trying it out, the dementors were removed from their posts, by Minister Amelia Bones.
Oh, did I mention, the ex-Minister, Cornelius Fudge resigned on the grounds of mental health issues and a nervous breakdown. Apparently, when he went home after a long day of work, he found a bunch of dementors having a tea party in his wardrobe! And they saw fit to search the robes he was wearing s well! I find it difficult to believe that they were under the impression that Sirius Black was hiding in the Minister's pockets!
Anyway, speaking of my mystery, I think I've solved it. But I really hope I'm wrong. I like Lupin...I keep my distance, but I like him. And he's an excellent teacher. I haven't even told Blaire or Harry about what I've found...I don't want to spoil their impression of him. But my theory explains, why he becomes unavailable for once a month, why Prof has to give him his potion, why he looks so shabby and ill once a month and why Prof has explicitly told us to stay as far away from him as possible.
But putting all that aside, let's just say that I've given up on researching anymore about Lupin. But it doesn't help. The more I see him, the more positive of his condition I feel. And I feel really very sorry for him...
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Full-fledged Patronuses were hard to conjure. But a week into December, a few wisps were all they could produce from their wands. And Prof was getting desperate...there were no dementors around how, save for a few who'd simply glide in front of the Hogwarts gates.
By now, Harry had to reduce the time he spent improving on his fox skills so as to practice his Patronus and he was starting to get annoyed. And as he spent that particular evening in his cubicle, ranting to his mother about how frustrating his life had just become, she listened.
And when he was done, she said, "Harry, what do you think of when you do that charm?"
"Prof says I have to think of a happy memory, Mum. And I think of our eleventh birthday when I do the Patronus, but it doesn't help. I get only whisps of mist!"
"That is because, you are anticipating the failure that will come after your try."
"I don't understand."
"Why don't you try that Patronus. Think only about Blaire and Ethan and Neville and Draco and nothing else. Don't think about the Patronus. Don't think about the mist. You will only focus on your happy memory. Bathe yourself in that happy feeling and only that feeling...do it"
And Harry closed his eyes and obeyed.
"...now try."
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry said.
And he was distracted by a loud gasp.
Harry opened his eyes to see a white ostrich dancing all around his cubicle, disrupting nothing in his path, but simply dashing right through it.
"My Patronus!" Harry gasped in awe, then his awe turned into a frown when he realised the form of his Patronus... Blimey, they wouldn't let him live it down! "An ostrich!? I don't spend my time running-"
"Yes, yes." his mother interrupted, distractedly. "Well done, dear. You should be able to do this in the presence of a dementor."
Harry shuddered.
"What's the matter?" his mother's portrait asked solicitously. "What's wrong, Harry?"
Harry hesitated for a few seconds and then said, "You know, in November, during that Quidditch match?"
She nodded encouragingly.
"And you know in our first year, when I'd been subjected to that potion?"
Again, she nodded.
"They say both bring out your worst memory...Mum, I hear your screams just before Voldemort murders you."
She looked devastated, "Oh, my baby... I'm so sorry!"
"Not your fault Mum!" Harry replied hastily. "And besides, now that I've got the Patronus, I'll be fine! Don't worry about it!... I'll tell you what? Forget about what I said and go down to Prof's quarters. I'll get Ethan and the others and ask them to meet you there. Then you can tell them how to produce their Patronus just as you told me!"
With that, Harry turned on his heel and dashed out of his cubicle and out of her sight completely unaware of the sorrowful tears that began to trickle down her cheeks.
tbc...
