"I'll hit you, I swear!" came Dudley's quavering voice in the darkness as a deathly chill enveloped them.

He couldn't move… Heavy blankets of mist was shrouding his every thought and Harry fought to see through the darkness as two hooded figures materialized out of the thick fog and went straight for them, swooping forwards… Dudley started to scream; he couldn't see them but he could definitely feel them.

"Dudley, shut up!" He reached for his wand ready to cast a patronus, but the next second a gigantic fist had appeared in his line of sight. Dudley's aim had been true, his glasses shattered, and he was left staggering dangerously while seeing blood; tottering he couldn't stand and Harry crumpled to the floor, his head crashing painfully on hard concrete.

Still trying to shake off the heavy blow unsuccessfully, his head feeling as if it weighed a mighty ton, Harry vaguely saw his cousin still screaming as a dementor leaned over and above him, hood lowered. And for the first time, he saw the face of a dementor.

It paralyzed him, for nothing could have prepared him for the ghastly sight, not even the face of Lord Voldemort himself that he remembered from the back of Quirrel's head. Harry fought to stand but realized he was missing his wand.

Panic shot all over his spine as he fumbled in the darkness, while behind him the dementor did its work. His cousin's scream slowly receding into sinister silence, Harry couldn't find his wand. And there was still the matter of the second dementor to be worried about. He had to act, had to act or Dudley was a goner.

"Lumos," Harry shouted, hoping against odds. But there was no response. Then he could feel the presence of the second one behind him. Turning his head blearily, he was met face to face with the predator who steadily gazed at him impassively underneath his black hood for a second. Then he lowered it.

Harry started to scream, all thoughts forgotten as the pale face descended upon him. His eyes glued shut from the terror that confronted him, the lips pressing towards him. The gnarled hands, holding him in place. He simply couldn't close his mouth, couldn't stop the scream that was ripped out of him, as the mouth made suction.

Like a clamp, it fastened itself over his lips and he was pulled forward into nothingness. This was the end, he knew it. The last coherent thought that passed through him were the faces of Ron and Hermione, his parents, and then they too dissipated. He couldn't feel… couldn't know… The cold was all consuming, to the very pits of his insides being frozen numb. Nothing could be seen, all warmth was leaving him…

.

He stirred, a blanket of uncertainty and confusion as he could move again. The dementors were gone, their feeling had passed, and yet he was still alive. Harry opened his eyes and found himself lying in the same spot where he had been felled by Dudley. He tried, but failed to stand, the world a whirl of confusing mass of shapes and colours since he didn't have his glasses. Nausea built up within him and he vomited.

And the first vision struck him. He was in an orphanage. He was eight years old, a dirty orphan of eight, the nameless son of nobodies looking into the bright light and the faces of those jeering… He felt himself reach for his magic to punish them and the sight of their terrified faces was the last thing he remembered…

He was at Hogwarts making light intellectual conversation and exchanging pleasantries with Professor Slughorn, head of Slytherin House. From behind him, his foolish admirers Avery, Mulciber, Travers were waiting. A sudden feeling of giddy exhilaration arose, and he finally broached the topic that he longed to ask from a member of Hogwarts' learned faculty…

He was flying, weightless like a black shadowy form in the sky, a trail of smoke was all that he left behind him. He was triumphant, the master of magic, he had accomplished a task that none felt possible, it confirmed his genius, his destined right to rule all magicals. Now all he needed to do was to finish up his work on the Potters and Longbottoms…

Harry came to, for a moment. But then dozens more memories assaulted him again and he had severe difficulty keeping them apart in his mind. These were Voldemort's memories. Why on earth was he seeing into Voldemort's memories, his past, his origins… He had just come through a dementor's attack, who miraculously had not eaten his soul, but where was all this coming from…

He vomited again and made to stand. The memories were growing increasingly confused and entangled, but he could still make sense of many of them. But then a shrill cry interrupted him, and turning he could see with what vision remained Mrs. Figg advancing towards him, her movements haphazard perhaps out of fear.

"Where's your wand Harry? I tell you I'm no use against them! Oh, I'm going to kill Mundungus Fletcher, the next time I…"

None of this was making any sense and Harry couldn't understand any of it, still with an overwhelming deluge of memories spilling forth and passing through his mind. But vaguely he somehow knew that the danger had passed, and unwilling to expend any more energy to sort through the contradictions he gave himself up to unconsciousness again…

.

And dreamt some more of a boy named Tom Riddle, the brilliant student that he became, his rise to power among pureblood circles, his extraordinary magic, the people he betrayed, the heroes and fools he destroyed…

And then as he came to, he could faintly hear Mrs. Figg shouting frantically, "the dementors must have addled his mind!"

His mind clearer now, and feeling a lot more enlightened, he ignored his batty old neighbour who had been trying to wake him and gestured for her to calm down. Spotting his holly wand intact from the corner of his blurred vision, he picked it up and pocketed it which elicited another shrill cry from Mrs. Figg who was clearly in a mad state of panic.

"Don't put it down boy! I tell you, I'm no use…"

Dudley Dursley was dead. Harry stood over his cousin feeling uncharacteristically nothing. His skin was a deathly pallor, those wide eyes unseeing, lips parted with a gaping hole for a mouth. He closed his eyelids and felt for a pulse, it was still beating. He was breathing faintly. But he was no longer alive.

He turned back to Mrs. Figg who was gesturing pointedly in the direction where they both lived. "We need to get indoors immediately!" Harry nodded still feeling light-headed, and he only had to consider for a moment. He flicked his wand without even needing the incantation and then immediately slung Dudley over his back, weighing less than an empty sack. Performing magic for some reason, had never felt easier. If only he had been able to find his wand against the dementors, all this would have been avoided.

But despite all that had happened, he could somehow only feel a twinge of sympathy for his cousin. While he couldn't name more than a handful of people who deserved the Dementor's kiss, Voldemort judging from all that he had seen deserved it; Dudley had definitely been an insufferable brute for most of his life, not only to him but he was a tormentor to many others.

Surprisingly he could now see more clearly into his own past. He felt a sense that many things which mattered greatly to him from before no longer did, while other things appeared far more pressing. In spite of himself, he felt a vindictive flare of pleasure at the thought that he certainly could no longer stay with the Dursleys after all that had transpired.