Despite her relief at having rescued Harry, Hermione found herself decidedly avoiding him over the next few days. From what Neville had clued her in on, Harry was in a fantastically bad mood. Not only had he lost the match for Gryffindor (to his crushing humiliation), but his Nimbus 2000 had been blown into the Whomping Willow when he'd fallen from it, and the Whomping Willow had taken out its displeasure at being hit in spectacular fashion. And Hermione had seen from experience what the aftermath of a broomstick versus the Whomping Willow looked like once before.
Neville and Ron had taken him the bag of twigs and wooden shards that remained of his broomstick, which was nicer than she would have been. Hermione wasn't about to muck around in the mud during a storm by the Whomping Willow to gather a bunch of broomstick remains; she'd have been callous, told Harry that at least it hadn't been him who'd hit the Whomping Willow, and to get over himself and buy a new blasted broom.
Which was why Hermione was avoiding Harry, really. She understood that he was upset, but she suspected her patience would quickly wear thin.
Draco Malfoy wasn't helping matters, either. He'd taken to doing spirited imitations of Harry falling off of his broom, and he spent much of their next Potions class doing dementor impressions across the dungeon; Ron finally snapped and hurled a crocodile heart at Draco, which hit him full in the face.
Snape had docked 50 points from Gryffindor, but Hermione privately thought it had probably been worth it.
Friday afternoon after classes, Hermione finally approached Harry, who was sitting with Neville and Ron in an old Potions classroom on the bottom floors of the castle. Neville was practicing potion-making, it seemed. Harry and Ron seemed to be there for moral support – neither was offering any input or advice to Neville whatsoever, judging by his anxious wringing of his hands.
"Bloody knight changed the password on the portrait hole again," Ron was complaining. "I can barely keep up with them all!"
"'Buttercup' is better than the old one, 'Matchsticks'," Harry groused. "Seemed like rubbing salt in the wound, you know?"
Hermione glanced over Neville's cauldron and bit her lip.
"Did you dice the blubberwort, or did you cube it?" she asked.
Neville's face paled.
"I knew I'd mixed something up," he bemoaned.
Hermione gave him a sympathetic smile, and Neville sighed, taking his cauldron off the fire and going to the back of the room to dump it out. She hopped up on a desk and settled down across from Harry, who was watching her with sharp eyes.
"Finally come by to say hi, have you?" he said shortly.
Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"Well, seeing as you never dropped by to thank me for saving your life," she shot back, "I figured I'd swing by and give you the opportunity."
Harry's jaw dropped. "Wait, what?"
"Saving your life," Hermione repeated slowly. "You fell off your broomstick. There are no safety enchantments on the Quidditch pitch. Dumbledore was fighting dementors. Who did you think kept you floating and falling safely so you didn't burst your skull on the ground?"
Harry looked like he'd just been struck. He whirled to look at Ron, who held up his hands sheepishly.
"How was I supposed to know she did anything from the stands?" Ron defended himself. "I told you – Dumbledore shot the silvery stuff at the dementors and then floated you to the hospital wing."
"You implied he caught me from falling!" Harry said.
"Well, I thought he had," Ron shot back.
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Your color was flashing in our rings," she informed him. "I grabbed Blaise's hand. We used the coven bond to—" she paused "err—make our magic keep you up and falling more slowly."
Harry nodded, his eyes sharp, and Hermione was glad. She didn't want to mention the elementals in front of Neville and Ron.
"In that case," Harry said, shooting a dirty look at Ron before turning to face Hermione, "thank you, Hermione, for saving my life." He shuddered. "I don't know what would have happened if you didn't."
"You'd probably have been caught at the last second by someone on the staff, but still hit the ground pretty hard, I imagine," Hermione said, shrugging. "Still. Helped you avoid a concussion, at the very least."
Harry ran a hand through his hair, looking exhausted.
"It's those dementors," he said, despairing. "Lupin kept me after class this week – asked about the match and my broomstick – and we got to talking about the dementors."
"Did you?" Hermione prodded. "What did he say about dementors?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. He said—he said that they don't affect me like that because I'm weak or anything, just because I have more horrific stuff in my past than most people."
Hermione blinked. "…wait, you didn't know that?"
"What, you did?" Harry said, surprised.
"I mean, I presumed as much," Hermione said. "Not many people witnessed their parents' murder or survived the killing curse as an infant. Your worst memories, locked away though they might be, are probably worse than most adults'."
Harry looked somewhat revitalized by this.
"Lupin said something similar," Harry said, though he looked cheered that not all of his classmates had apparently thought him weak. "We talked a bit about dementors, and I asked him if there was a way to fight them off – the silvery stuff, like you said he shot at the one on the train. He said there was, and he agreed to teach me how to defend myself against them after the new year – he's got too much work to make up right now from getting sick last week, he said."
"The Patronus Charm," Hermione said, her eyes lighting up. "And he said he'd give you private lessons?"
"You've heard of it?" Harry asked, surprised. "That's—that's the silvery stuff?"
"I might have been doing a bit of research about dementors lately," Hermione admitted. "The Patronus Charm is the only documented defense against dementors. It's terribly advanced."
Harry looked determined.
"If it's the only thing that works, I'm going to learn it, hard spell or not," he said. "I'm not going to let the dementors get to me again."
"Huzzah!" Ron cheered from the sidelines. Harry looked at him, and Ron grinned back. "What? Gryffindor really can't afford to lose another game."
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"But private lessons, Harry!" she enthused. "For advanced magic! That's so exciting!" She paused, tilting her head. "Do you think Professor Lupin might be amenable to extending the lesson to other classmates of yours as well?"
"Like a study session?" Harry blinked. "Err—I don't know. He was pretty hard to talk into offering the lessons in the first place—"
"I don't mean the entire Defense class," Hermione said patiently. "I mean, perhaps if there were a small, specific group of students, students you'd taken extracurricular advanced magic classes with before... might he be willing to extend the offer of lessons to such a motivated group?"
"Oh! Oh," Harry said, cottoning on. "Um. I don't know. Maybe? I'd have to ask."
"Please do," Hermione said, pleased. "If they're not to start until after the New Year, we'll have time to work on persuading Lupin if he's not willing."
"'Persuade' him?" Harry started laughing. "Meaning you and Blaise will do some sneaky Slytherin thing and bully him into teaching you as well?"
"I would do nothing of the sort!" Hermione said, highly affronted. She then gave Harry a wicked grin. "Bullying is for amateurs. Proper Slytherins are much more subtle than that."
"I'll ask him early next week," Harry promised with an answering grin.
The stacks of the Hogwarts library did not hold terribly much information about dementors, to Hermione's frustration. They were Dark creatures, they guarded the prison of Azkaban, and they evoked a person's worst memories when they drew near. The Patronus charm was the only thing known to fight them, and… that was about it.
Hermione wondered if further knowledge on Dementors was kept secret on purpose. If there was more unpleasantness widely known about the Ministry's prison guards, it could potentially get very sticky for them very fast.
As such, Hermione went to the one person she thought she could get more information about Dark creatures from easily – who was not a member of the staff.
"What do I know about dementors?" Theo repeated.
"You've been researching them for weeks," Hermione pointed out. "To prove out your Polyjuice Potion theory."
Theo made a face.
"Well, that didn't quite pan out," he said, annoyed. "Turns out dementors affect the core of a person and their memories, not just look for someone by appearance. They'd have been able to sense the memories of a person who didn't match their appearance, and they'd have known. So the Polyjuice theory's a bust."
"Still," Hermione said. "What all did you learn?"
Theo gave her a considering look.
"You know how to research just as well as I do," he commented. "Why didn't you go look them up yourself?"
"You know I did," Hermione said, folding her arms. "Just like I'm sure you have access to other resources than I do when it comes to looking up dangerous and Dark creatures."
Theo shot her a sharp look.
"What of it?" he said dangerously.
"So I'm jealous," Hermione admitted. "I want to know all about Dementors, too. It's not fair you can research it in books that I can't."
Theo looked kind of amused at that.
"Well, I don't know much more than what's generally known," he admitted. "They feed on people's happy memories and good feelings. They infest the darkest, filthiest places and they glory in decay and despair. Kind of makes you wonder why the Ministry decided to use them in the prison system, really."
Hermione nodded. "I figure if dementors have always been around, the Ministry probably had to find some way to appease them. Offering them prisoners is probably the least objectionable food source that wizarding society would accept."
"That's… very cynical," Theo said, considering. "But not entirely incorrect." He made a face. "Still. For as 'good' as the Ministry purports to be, they're rather barbaric with the whole Dementor's Kiss thing."
"I'm sorry?" Hermione said. "The 'Dementor's Kiss'?"
Theo looked surprised. "You don't know about the Dementor's Kiss?"
"Obviously not," Hermione huffed, folding her arms. "What is it?"
Theo smiled grimly.
"It's a horrifying sort of execution that isn't," he said. "Dementors, when they want to destroy someone utterly… they lower their hoods, and they clamp their jaws on the mouth of their victim and suck out their soul."
"They what?" Hermione gasped.
"It's awful," Theo agreed. "You're still alive, of course, so the public sees that the Ministry is still good and great – after all, they didn't kill anyone. You can still survive, but you have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no… nothing. You're just an empty shell, your soul gone forever…"
Hermione was horrified.
"They – they eat their souls?" she hissed. "They—the dementors literally suck out souls—"
"Well, I guess that's what they're trying to do when they feed normally," Theo quipped. "Sucking out happy memories and bits of people and whatnot."
Hermione was nearly apoplectic.
"That's worse than killing them!" she exclaimed. "That's the Darkest thing I've ever heard of in my entire life!"
Theo shot her a strange look. "Worse than killing them?"
"A million times worse!" Hermione shot back. "Think, Theo: what happens when we die?"
Theo rolled his eyes. "Spare me from your—"
"No. Shut up," Hermione snapped. "When you die, you either choose to 'move on', or you become a ghost, right?"
"Right," Theo said wearily.
"And if your soul is sucked up and consumed and is gone," she said, "just what do you think happens to those people when they die?"
Theo stopped.
"…nothing," he said finally. He looked at Hermione, his eyes wide. "There—there'd be nothing. There'd be nothing to move on."
"Exactly," Hermione said firmly. "That's why it's so much worse! With killing someone, at least they get a chance at an afterlife, of still existing in some form or other. But destroying someone's soul – that's the Darkest magic I've ever heard of—"
Hermione abruptly cut herself off, her eyes going very wide.
"I hate to admit it, but I agree with you," Theo said darkly. "The Ministry's really messed up to use the Dementor's Kiss as a form of punishment at all."
Theo was saying something else about the Ministry and their façades, but Hermione wasn't listening. Her blood was pounding in her head, and part of her vision had gone white, her own words ringing in her ears - words that sounded frighteningly similar to other words she'd read a long time ago...
Destroying someone's soul - that's the Darkest magic I've ever heard of...
Darkest magic I've ever heard of...
Darkest magic ever...
Hermione closed her eyes, counted to ten, and opened them once more.
"I'm sorry, Theo," she said. "If you would excuse me? I find there's something I have to attend to immediately."
"Of course," Theo said. He looked surprised and wary, though Hermione had no idea what expression her face might be making. "…should I prepare to hide a body?"
"Oh, no, but thank you," Hermione said darkly. "If I'm correct, there will be no body left."
