Chapter 3: Dementors

The next morning, Uncle Vernon came stumbling out to breakfast. "Where's that stupid Harry kid?"

"Oh, he borrowed my broom awhile back. He said something about wanting to sweep out the garage."

Okay, Harry had told a bit of a lie. In reality, Harry Potwalker was out riding the broomstick, whipping across the desert after Fred and George. Magic, such as riding broomsticks and setting giant snakes upon Dudley, didn't sit too well with the Dursleys. So Harry kept mum about his powers.

It wasn't hard for Harry to follow the two off-worlders. Their path was a straight as a laser beam, heading for the Cursed Cactus Patch. So whenever they had passed over rocky outcroppings or baserock, it was simple to pick up their trail again on the other side. And their trail was getting fresher by the minute.

WHAMM! YIEEEE! OWWWW!

Harry suddenly flew off his broomsticks and, from out of nowhere, Fred and George were tumbling across the desert.

Harry bounced off a large bolder and landed on his head. "Where did you guys come from?"

"Hummm? What?" said Fred, hiding his invisibility cloak behind his back.

"Whazzat you're hiding behind your back? Is that an invisibility cloak?"

"What invisibility cloak?" replied Fred. "I didn't see any invisibility cloak."

Harry grumbled, "That's an old joke," and made a grab for the cloak. "I need it. The weather's getting cold."

Fred looked around nervously. "It is getting cold."

George added, "Uh oh."

Cloaked and hooded dementors began floating in from all directions. Ice formed on nearby cactuses. Snowflakes danced in the air. Everything stank of rotting flesh.

George pulled out his wand. "What's the charm again?"

Fred mumbled, "Uh, 'Expectorate something'?"

"I know." George flicked his wand. "Petroleum prospectus!"

Fred flicked his wand too. "Post-partum Depression!"

"Exactimundo, Barbarino!"

"Exceptional Peon!"

"Erroneous Planetarium!"

As the dementors circled closer and closer, the strength went out of the young men's knees. The boys knew in their heart of hearts, they'd never be happy again. The three of them slowly sank to the ground and toppled. Dementors sailed over the top of each of them, sucking out wisps of their souls as they did so.

"Extracto Palimony," mumbled Fred with the last of his strength.

"Errata Patricio."

"Exceptional Poltroonery."

"EXPECTRO PATRONUM!" bellowed a new voice, and into the swirl of dementors tore an ethereal hippogriff, tossing the monsters this way and that, ripping huge chunks from their cadavers with its sharp beak and scattering them with its huge beating wings.

As the dementors fled from the ghostlike protector, the three boys slowly regain consciousness and stumbled back up onto their feet.

Down a sand dune, came a twelve-foot giant wearing a mole-skin jacket and carrying a pink umbrella. "You'll be doin' me a favor if you don't tell anyone about that. Strictly speakin', I ain't supposed to do magic." He grinned through an enormously bushy black beard.

"Hagrid!" cried Fred and George together.

"And wha' at you two doin' here? You're supposed to be guardin' Princess Hermione."

"Our spaceship was captured by Darth Snape," explained Fred.

"She sent us here so that you could get this secret message to Professor Dumbledore," added George.

"Great man, Dumbledore." Obi-Wan Hagrid unrolled the scroll. "And a bloody good secret message this is too. There ain't nothing here." He lowered the scroll. "Who's this?"

Harry said, "Harry Potwalker, sir."

"Oh, I ain't no 'sir.' I'm about as far from 'sir' as a fellow can get. Call me, Hagrid. –Hey, aren't you one of the new kids who got accepted to Hogwarts?

"Yeah, but I can't go. My uncle needs me to stay home to help with the harvest . . . now that our newest slaves have run off."

"Really? Too bad about that. But stop up at my place. I got sort of a present for you."

"A present?"

Hagrid led the three boys and the last remaining wisps of the patronus over the dune, passed the Cursed Cactus Patch and up a small mountain to a stone cabin. Hagrid went in and came back out with Harry's present. "Here ya go."

"Er, it's a stick."

"Beauty, ain't she?"

"It's a stick."
"Made from a yew tree, thirteen and a half inches long, phoenix-feather core. It's a magic wand, Harry."

"A what?"

Fred beamed. "It's a wand, Harry. It means you're an apprentice wizard, like us."

"Right!" agreed George. "Give it a try. Just swish and flick."

"I swish and flick?"

"Yeah."

Harry was looking back in the direction they had come from. He swished and flicked. There came the flash of light brighter than the sun, followed moments later by a roar louder than the end of Creation and a blast of fiery wind hotter than dragon's breath. When the inferno had swept passed, the four of them were looking at a blazing mushroom cloud as it climbed ever higher into the blue-white sky.

"Yep, you're a wizard all right," murmured Hagrid, "and a thumpin' good one too, I'd wager."

Fred shrugged. "Looks like you won't be going home again."

George asked, "What's the half-life of thaumic radiation?"

"It," stammered Harry, "it was an accident."

"You'd best be coming along with us to Hog Eismeade. From there, we can hire transportation which will take us off-world to Hogwarts," said Hagrid. "There's not much left for you back there."