Chapturr thee Syxth

Harry Potter's 15th birthday had passed two weeks ago... and yet...he couldn't believe that he was still trapped in Privet Drive. It was once again another achingly warm and oppressive summer. Although it has been mentioned before that Hell is not in England, to Harry's mind nothing came closer to it than the stuffy, curtain-twitching world of snobbery known as Privet Drive. The middle-class suburban nightmare where the only way out was horizontally.

His feelings of being stuck there as though he was a wingless fly in the bottom of an empty milk bottle were not without undue foundations. His best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had been...well...they had been writing to him, but none of their letters had been what you'd call helpful in any way. All they'd both said were things like "see you soon, mate" and "I hope we'll be seeing you soon" - but soon was just infuriatingly vague. He just felt useless, kept in the same vacuous place where he was treated no better than a woodlouse. All the neighbours simply referred to him as "that Potter boy" and looked down their long noses at him. He had never wished to return to Hogwarts more. It was a place where he was at least treated as a human being, rather than a piece of furniture.

But he shelved these thoughts as he saw his cousin Dudley and his gang (yes, they were unfortunately now at the age to be properly called a gang) approach him. He had been sitting on the vandalised swings in the local play park, brooding over the non-events of the summer, when Dudley bade his gang farewell1to a chorus of "See ya Big D!" and strode off down Magnolia Crescent on his way home.

"Yo, Big Dizzle! You as much shizzle as the nizzle ya pizzle?"

Dudley Dursley didn't turn, exactly – watching his solid mass revolve about in a half circle was akin to observing a tank turret rotate. He gyrated slowly about, pinpointing the source of the nonsensical statement to its source. The light of hope drained off his face when he discovered that the noise had been created, not by a member of his loyal gang, but by his annoying cousin, Harry Potter.

"Huh." Dudley grunted. "Whatja want?" he began stumping back along Magnolia Crescent, as Harry feel into step beside him.

"Nothing, really. Just wondered how long you'd been called 'Big D'. Just wondered if I ought to tell the guys what your mummy calls you." Harry said glibly, feeling satisfaction filling up the chasm left by frustration and anger.

"Shut up!"

"It's only fair, though. I mean, if you don't mind mummy calling you her little 'Popkin' and 'Diddykins', then I don't see why they shouldn't have the chance to call you it too."

"If you don't shut up I'll...I'll hit you!" Dudley balled his ham-sized hands into fists, knuckles cracking menacingly. It was rather like the sound of pork crackling...crackling.

"Wivvout your pwecious gang, Diddykins? You still needed them to hold your other hand when you wanted to punch that ten-year-old the other day."

"I said, shut it!" Dudley came close to screaming childishly – something he hadn't done for years2. "You're no so brave yourself, Potter! I've heard you at night, you keep yelling at your pillow. 'Cedric! Cedric! No, please, don't kill Cedric! Help me mum, he's gonna kill precious Cedr'-aaaaagh!" For the first time in a while, Dudley Dursley actually squealed like a pig.

Harry Potter had drawn out his wand, and levelled it at his cousin's chest.

"Stop it! I'll t-tell Dad! That madhouse will expel you if you use magic outside school!" Dudley's face and voice were clear indicators of a person clutching at desperate straws.

His word, for a few moments, appeared to strike hom. Harry hesitated, and then thought back to all those years of torture by this one person – the bitterness channelled out of him and into the ether, calling outwards like a flame to a moth.

However, even that level of negativity could not save one Anthony J Crowley from Certain Annihilation.

(_)

Crowley's feet flapped along the damp pavement, running for dear...well, not Life, exactly – but he was running to keep himself to himself. The evening had been so easy to begin with – and then the Auditors that were not Auditors had showed up.

He had been sitting in his Bentley at the time, listening to Stravinsky's "Touch my Bum". A curious phenomenon, but there it was. He had discovered that, after having been left within his car for almost a decade, all his "Best of Queen" tapes that had originally been god knew what, had now all metamorphosed into items of novelty pop songs.

He didn't particularly care for the Cheeky Girls – nor how touchable their bums were3 – but it was better than listening to Bach's "Mr Blobby Song" for the hundredth time.

He wasn't feeling particularly happy about having to once again don the disguise he wore of the tall man with the pinched sallow face who greatly resembled the type of arachnid found within black-and-white horror films; but it had been the angel's idea. Aziraphale had found this old photo of some dead geezer called Lord Anthony Cloade and his brother Meredith – and then suggested that they use these people as disguises around Harry Potter. Why Crowley was lumped with having to be Meredith rankled – wasn't Meredith a girl's name?

Suddenly, he caught a sense of...negative energy. It wasn't overly-large, but it was certainly medium-sized, and large enough to put a dent in his demonic radar. There were two sources of it, heading his way. He stepped smartly out of the Bentley (which was parked neatly in Privet Drive, outside Number 7, where there was a party in progress) and saw two very large cowled robes floating along the street. The air seemed to grow colder - much, much colder, and ice formed across every surface wherever the...things...glided. All the lights in the street suddenly failed, even the stars and the noise of the streets beyond were plunged out of detection. The real world had been sealed off.

"Look, can't you lot give me a rest for five flippin' minutes!" Crowley yelled angrily, striding towards the apparitions, "And since when did you lot start giving off negative energy, and not be transparent, or translucent or whatever the hell it's called; and since when have you ever dressed all tattered and raggedy and started... sucking air in like dying dirigible whales...?" He slowed down, as he stared at the beings. Having sensed the demon, the Dementors geared up for attack. They had felt bitter energy radiating further along the street – but a demon was far more potent. Crowley, being a demon, was a beacon of negative energy, and the Dementors now had a limitless supply of the food they craved.

Even though he had no idea what they were, the demon could sense that they spelled Trouble.

Which was why, seconds later, he careened down Magnolia Crescent, slammed into Harry Potter and they both ended up sprawled in heaps on the floor.

Harry was winded, wasn't sure what was happening, and gasped, wishing that air could fill his lungs. His wand had skittered away as he fell – he had no idea where it was, now. All he could feel was the dead weight of the supine man crushing him. The man had simply appeared from nowhere – and now there were two Dementors greedily sucking the energy from him. Two long black streams had erupted out the man's mouth and were sucked up into the vile creatures' mouths as though they were a particularly delicious type of spaghetti.

Harry scrabbled uselessly about for his fallen wand, until he muttered "Lumos!"White light suddenly blossomed from his wand tip which was inches from his right hand. He picked it up, and examined his surroundings. Dudley was white with terror, huddled on the floor, racked with fright – presumably spread by the Dementors. One of them had sensed Dudley's fear, and decided that although it could feast on negative energy forever; a soul was a soul, and not to be sniffed at. The eternal negative energy could be returned to later...

"Dudley! Keep your mouth closed!" Harry shouted to his cousin urgently, but Dudley's soul was already beginning to stem out of him in a long pearly-white string.

Harry couldn't believe his eyes, this couldn't be happening! But it was, and if he didn't move quickly, there would be three empty soulless shells of flesh, lying in Magnolia Crescent. He tried to marshal his brain into order, tried to pull Common Sense out of the hole it had buried its head in, and most of all, tried to summon those happy thoughts that would not come. He thought of his mum and dad, he envisioned Ron and Hermione...and he thought of the day his godfather, Sirius Black was pardoned of all his supposed crimes. A silvery Patronus in the shape of a stag charged out of his wand tip and cantered towards the Dementor that was eating the soul of his cousin.

Then more Trouble happened. Six more cloaked things phased into the Universe. Harry tried to repel them with Patronuses but to no avail. The spells were simply absorbed as if nothing had happened. Harry felt the panic rise within him, felt terror grab hold of his senses and squeeze them in its giant vice of despondency.

"Leave my demon ALONE you foul monster from the nether hells!" a well-educated voice roared uncharacteristically loudly. There was a very complicated moment, in which the Dementor sucking the energy from the demon was caught in a conundrum. Should it continue to feed, or should it flee the fountain of positive energy that was approaching very, very rapidly? The fountain was very, very angry, as well.

Aziraphale stepped forwards out of the gloom, shining as if he were a lighthouse in a lonely sea. "Let there be LIGHT!" A blue-white haze of heavenly light ripped through the artificial darkness created by the Dementors and blazed like a million suns.

The Dementor shied away, releasing Crowley from its clutches. However, the angel wasn't going to let it get away quite so easily. To prevent it from leaving unpunished, Aziraphale grabbed hold of the withered, decaying arm of the beast.

Nobody has seen the death of a Dementor in living memory4. A Dementor's destruction is a sight to behold and a half, it must be said. As soon as the angel touched the foul being, blue fire burst out from the centre of the creature, soon joined by a swirling vortex of lost souls, all the souls the vile being had ever consumed, spinning and wailing in the most pitiful way. The fire joined the swirling souls, as the Dementor screamed in every conceivable note on the audible and inaudible scale. The concrete in the pavement began to resonate, the glass in nearby windows smashed, car alarms started to bleep and screech wildly.

But then... Just as soon as it had begun, it was over. The Dementor was sucked up into the swirling vortex which imploded violently after exploding hard enough to knock all those standing to the ground.

Aziraphale, still disguised as Lord Anthony Cloade, helped his ward up onto his feet. "Are you feeling alright, dear boy?" The blue-white heavenly light faded as the streetlamps began to wok once more. faded

"Wow, um. Wow." Was all Harry's brain could coax his mouth to say. "A-are you a wizard?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I'm a dab hand at making pigeons pop of my armholes, but that' about it, really." Aziraphale glanced up and gave a little shriek when he saw the six Auditors watching him. A manic gleam glazed over his azure eyes and a vein bulged horribly out of his forehead, gleaming a deep purple. "No! No! Desist, I tell you! I'm not going to wait about for you all, if that's what you think! And don't think about following me, you fiends!" The angel skittered away, leaving Harry and Dudley all alone. The other man appeared to have vanished...

Far away, they could hear the voice of the heavens cackling insanely in an inexpert fashion.

1 ZDZ: It was more of a grunt, actually.

2 ZDZ: All two of them.

3 ZDZ: Which is very.

4 ZDZ: A wholly inaccurate statement. Several people have seen a Dementor's demise, although none of them were in any fit state to tell the tale – it must be remembered that Dementors are rather like buses: They turn up in odd places, especially at the wrong time; they clump together, and if you miss one there's always one right behind...