Another month blew by quickly, at least from the outside. When you look back at your life, it's annoying to realize the moments of sheer terror are the ones that really left a mark. A whole month of learning, working on projects, and deepening relationships and there's nothing really to mention. As soon as a madman shows up, though, it's a memory. Humans are weird.
Speaking of the inevitable madman, the end of October was a looming excitement. My 18th birthday coincided, as always, with Halloween but, this year, also with a Hogsmeade weekend. The excitement was only slightly diminished by the increased vulnerability to Sirius Black and the dementors set to pursue him while I was out of the castle. It was also sad because that Saturday night was a full moon, which meant Remus couldn't even enjoy the weekend (and Tonks couldn't be on hand as auror backup in the guise of spending the day with her boyfriend).
But, hey, 18! While it was a year past my wizarding adulthood, I'd grown up muggle and 18 felt like the real win. I wasn't really sure how to register for the muggle privileges, though. I knew we'd been kept in the muggle system so Elaine and I could go to school in America, but that had slipped since I'd been in Britain. I wondered if there were case workers in the US who thought I'd died?
Anyway, Hogsmeade: birthday weekend. Did you know that when you're a magical adult they can't stop you from just flooing elsewhere? I mean, they probably could, especially when you're bringing your technically-still-underage girlfriend. But, "Hey, Rosmerta! Going to use the floo so I'm not a sitting duck here for Sirius Black," really stops innkeeping cougars from asking too many questions.
I would like to make a brief aside to note that it's weird that everyone is so into a witch in her fifties, right? Even with the increased magical lifespan? She's a very nice looking middle-aged lady, for sure, but Madam Rosmerta isn't that much younger than Professor McGonagall, and yet she seems to be every Hogwarts boy's first crush. Is it the magic of finally letting 13-year-olds into Hogsmeade right when puberty is starting to kick off? It has to be, right?
One thing that had never really entered my head regarding my girlfriend being a pureblood is that most non-Weasley purebloods are wealthy. When we fell out of the floo into an elite dining establishment for the birthday lunch she was treating me to, I asked, "Wow, can you afford this?" This level of hardwood and crystal indicated the kind of place I'd maybe considered someday entering through the servants' entrance. I wasn't even sure where we were, but the view was an amazing glimpse of sea and islands. If you were willing to rely on magical transportation, building your business in an established magical neighborhood was purely optional.
"Why Mr. Dresden," Mathilda tried a sultry pout, "are you saying you're not with me for my money?"
"I legitimately never considered it," I told her, planting a kiss on the top of her head. "But now that I realize gold digging's an option…"
She leaned her shoulder forcefully into my ribs, "Nope! Laura Jigger took her shot and you didn't even notice!" Laura was a Hufflepuff in my year. I vaguely remembered she had been trying to chat me up in classes a couple of years prior. The last name seemed familiar; maybe her family had money from potions? "You're going to have to settle for mere dragon money!"
Oh, right. I knew Mathilda's family was from Wales and that Welsh Greens were one of the British breeds of dragon, but I hadn't really made the connection that the Grimblehawks probably came by their obsession with magical beasts by owning lots of land on which said beasts lived. I misquoted Bilbo at her, "No thanks! I didn't come for presents. I only wished to see if you were truly as great as they say. I didn't believe them."
"Do you now?" she asked.
"Truly songs and tales fall utterly short of the reality, Mathilda Grimblehawk, Chiefest and Greatest of the Calamities!" I said, quietly, hugging her.
"You have nice manners for a wizard," she grinned, leaning up to kiss me after finishing the quote.
"Ahem," the hostess chose then to show back up.
Not in a rush, Mathilda eventually drew back out the kiss and told the witch, "Grimblehawk: Reservation for two!"
The lunch was probably better than any meal I'd eaten up to that point. I won't try to dignify the sense-memories with words. Suffice it to say, the difference between regular-people food and rich-people food is reflected in more than the visual presentation.
We didn't make it back to Hogsmeade until mid-afternoon, and joined a triple-date with our friends (already in progress) at the Three Broomsticks. Alexis was celebrating forcing Oliver to take the weekend off from the last month's obsessive quidditch practice prior to the first match the following weekend. Penny and Percy were celebrating that Dumbledore had told them that his friend "Saul" at the Department of Mysteries had been very pleased with our libertas charm and was anxiously awaiting the rest of the Apologies. They figured their post-Hogwarts jobs were in the bag.
I had absently wondered whether the Doom of Damocles would keep me from getting a job with them. But, as much as I loved tinkering with magic, I wasn't sure I could do it as a career. The members of the Department of Mysteries probably never borrowed a Hippogriff for a ride with their girlfriends, or slew enormous basilisks.
Was it weird that the terror of that moment faded, but the victory remained?
Speaking of terrifying moments, less than an hour into hanging out squeezed into a booth in the corner of the packed Three Broomsticks Inn, we heard shrieking from the street outside. Nobody at the table even blinked at piling out to go see what was going on. If you took an aerial photograph of the crowd heading out to look at a crisis, you could probably neatly diagram them into Hogwarts houses, with Gryffindor first and closest to the danger.
We were a really bad influence on one Penelope Clearwater, Ravenclaw prefect, who had once had a whole long life of safe research ahead of her before all her friends were Gryffindors.
From my position at the head of the pile of the house of the reckless (who were, themselves, at the head of the rest of the houses that had vomited forth from the doors of the Three Broomsticks), I saw Hermione, Neville, Ron, and Seamus doing a truly impressive sprint down the street, probably from the Honeydukes candy shop. Give the third-years their due: all four of them had discovered cardio. They'd actually started doing some light exercise after all the running from danger they'd had to do the past couple of years, and they were putting in a pretty impressive sprint for wizards. "Sirius Black!" Neville wheezed, charging the crowd like he was playing a Red Rover game.
Remember the inevitable madman?
Sure enough, not far behind, the same oversized-but-mangy black hound that we'd seen at Diagon Alley and on the overpass above the train was bursting from Honeydukes behind a bunch of other shopping students.
"Secret passage is closed, asshole!" I yelled, charging down the road, staff aloft. Even going to a fancy lunch, I wasn't going to leave my staff, because I could, eventually, learn lessons about the dangers of not having the proper foci when danger happened. I often took my staff to the bathroom those days.
You know what escaped murderers probably don't expect? They don't expect some dumb jerk to charge them when they're in the middle of scaring off a bunch of young teenagers. A block down, the skeletally-thin black hound turned to face me and cocked his head in doggy confusion. While I hadn't actually thought it through before I started running, I wasn't really that worried about him in dog form. Animagi weren't spell resistant, and even McGonagall couldn't manage wandless magic in her animal form. While it was probably ideal for terrorizing adolescents and hiding in muggle areas, a big black dog wasn't great for fighting a wizard.
Scratch that. I was a terrible influence on all my friends. A big black dog wasn't ideal for fighting a single trained wizard, and it was way overmatched when facing an entire screaming horde of Gryffindor students pelting down the Hogsmeade strip. I was even pretty sure that Hermione's crew had hung a 180 and joined the fun when they realized how many reinforcements they had.
The dog blinked. The dog fled. He cut behind the post office and made a break for the nearby woods.
A rousing, unplanned battle charge tends to lose cohesion when the enemy jukes left and legs it down an alley. While I and my nearest friends kept rushing toward the corner where we lost him, about half the crowd turned right at the near side of the post office and tried to cut him off. Probably a few people turned left in case he'd somehow doubled back and apparated to the other side of town.
This meant that we were spread out across Hogsmeade by the time the secondary effect of shouting "Sirius Black!" in the middle of town manifested itself.
The dementors arrived.
If the charge hadn't already been broken by the target turning on his furry haunches and fleeing, it would have ended when the black-shrouded figures began flying into town pushing an aura of despair before them. Someone, a million miles away, shouted, "Dementors!" Another voice suggested, "Back into the inn!"
That was all I understood before I was back in Azkaban. The dark walls of the cell pressed in, and I had no memories but the fact that I'd accidentally killed my mentor and girlfriend. Everything else—over two years at Hogwarts—must have been a fever dream. I felt myself falling on cobblestones that might have been the floor of the jail cell. It was where I belonged. Murderer. Pretty soon, the black specter of Lord Voldemort would be coming back. It would be bringing an immense snake, a murderous werewolf, and a beautiful, white-haired girl that hid knives behind her smile.
A dozen dementors bearing down on my position were harder to disagree with than just the single one on the train. I was nothing. I belonged here.
"Harry?" a voice I vaguely recognized swam through my dark thoughts. "Harry!" the pretty girl insisted, reddish-brown hair falling into her face as she looked where I'd fallen to the ground. "Sirius Black is that way!" the girl insisted, gesturing angrily at dark shapes that swarmed in the air. "Dos i chwarae efo dy nain! Expecto patronum!"
Something silver erupted from her wand as she crouched protectively over me.
The dementors fled, and I passed out.