47. The Dementors’ Kiss
They were an odd group.
Crookshanks led the way down the stairs. Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron followed behind, shuffling like contestants in a three-man, six-legged race. Professor Snape drifted eerily next, his toes bumping each stair as he floated down, limp and unconscious, suspended by his own wand—which was firmly gripped in Sirius’s hand.
Harry, Hermione, and Hope brought up the rear.
Getting back into the tunnel was awkward and cramped. Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron had to turn sideways to squeeze in, Pettigrew still tightly secured and covered by Lupin’s wand. Hope watched them shuffle forward in single file, their movements stiff and uneven.
Crookshanks was still out front, tail high.
Harry went next, right behind Sirius, who continued to steer Snape along. Snape’s head bumped repeatedly against the low ceiling. Hope was almost certain Sirius wasn’t doing much to prevent it.
She trailed behind everyone else. Her steps were slow, unsure. Now that the adrenaline was ebbing away, every part of her body ached. Her head throbbed with a dull, relentless pain, and her legs felt like they barely remembered how to move.
Up ahead, Harry spoke quietly to Sirius. Hermione walked beside them, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her face pale and pinched. Lupin and Ron flanked Pettigrew near the front, the traitor hunched and twitchy, like he might scurry off at any second.
Hope’s eyes lingered on them, her chest tightening. They knew now. The truth was out.
They seemed okay now. Calmer than before. But she wasn’t foolish enough to think it would stay that way.
It was one thing to learn your professor turned into a monster every month.
It was another to find out one of your friends was the daughter of that monster.
Would they be angry she hadn’t told them? Think she didn’t trust them? Would they still want her around?
The questions twisted in her stomach. She tried to shake them off, but they clung to her like shadows. What was she even supposed to say?
“Hey, I’ve been lying to you for years, but please don’t look at me like I’m dangerous or different.”
They finally reached the tunnel’s end.
Crookshanks darted up first. A moment later, Lupin, Pettigrew, and Ron followed. He must have pressed his paw to the knot on the trunk—there was no sound of branches lashing out.
Sirius levitated Snape through the hole, then stood back so Harry, Hermione, and Hope could climb out.
At last, they were all above ground again.
“One wrong move, Peter,” Lupin warned coldly. His wand was still trained on Pettigrew’s chest.
They moved in silence through the grounds, the castle lights slowly growing larger in the distance. Snape still floated eerily ahead, his chin lolling against his chest.
And then—
A cloud shifted overhead. Pale moonlight spilled across the grass. Long shadows flickered.
Snape collided with Lupin, Ron, and Pettigrew, who had stopped dead.
Sirius froze. His arm shot out to stop those behind him.
Hope’s heart jumped. A shiver ran down her spine. She gulped.
She’d never seen her father transform before.
Lupin’s silhouette stood rigid in the silver light. Then his limbs started to tremble.
“Dad…” she breathed, her voice small and frightened.
“Oh my—” Hermione gasped. “He didn’t take his Potion tonight! He’s not safe!”
“Run,” Sirius whispered. “Run! Now!”
Ron paled further, unable to move, still chained to Lupin and Pettigrew. Harry darted forward, but Sirius caught him and flung him backward.
“Leave it to me—RUN!”
Hope couldn’t move.
She was frozen.
Lupin’s kind blue eyes were gone, replaced by a wild, glowing amber. A deep, terrible snarling erupted from his chest. His face stretched, lengthening. His shoulders hunched. Hair burst through his skin. His hands curled into clawed paws.
It looked... excruciating.
It was strange—terrifying—to see someone so gentle twist into something so monstrous.
Crookshanks backed away, fur bristling in alarm.
The werewolf reared, jaws snapping.
Sirius disappeared from Harry’s side—transformed. The massive, bear-like dog lunged. The wolf ripped free of its bonds just as the dog tackled it, seizing it by the neck and dragging it away from Ron and Pettigrew.
They rolled, jaws clashing, claws slashing.
Hope couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. She watched, horrified and hypnotized.
It wasn’t until Hermione screamed that she turned.
Pettigrew dove for Lupin’s wand.
Ron, stumbling on his injured leg, fell.
There was a flash of light—a bang.
Ron crumpled, motionless.
Another blast—Crookshanks flew into the air and landed in a heap.
“Expelliarmus!” Harry shouted. Pettigrew’s wand flew high into the air.
“Stay where you are!” Harry yelled, running forward.
Too late.
Pettigrew had already transformed. His pink, bald tail whipped free of the manacle still clamped around Ron’s wrist.
“No!” Hope lunged for the rat, hand outstretched—but he scurried into the darkness.
“No,” she repeated, quieter this time. He can’t get away. He can’t just go free.
A howl echoed through the night.
Hope turned. The werewolf—her father—was fleeing, vanishing into the trees.
“Sirius, he’s gone! Pettigrew transformed!” Harry shouted.
Sirius, bloodied and panting, dragged himself upright. Gashes crossed his muzzle and back. But at Harry’s words, he was off again, paws thudding against the ground as he tore off into the forest.
Hope ran with the others toward Ron. Her vision blurred. Her body was barely holding her up.
“What did he do to him?” Hermione whispered.
Ron was alive—barely. His eyes fluttered open and closed. His mouth hung slack.
“I don’t know,” Harry muttered, looking around desperately.
Black and Lupin were both gone. Snape still hung in the air, unconscious and useless.
Harry glanced at Hope—she looked like she could collapse at any moment.
“We’d better get them up to the castle and tell someone,” he said, sweeping hair from his face. “Come—”
But then came a sound from the darkness.
Yelping.
Whining.
A dog in pain.
“Sirius,” Harry breathed, eyes wide.
He hesitated. There wasn’t anything he could do for Ron. But Sirius—he was hurt.
He made his decision.
Harry bolted toward the lake. Hermione followed close behind.
Hope blinked, trying to steady her vision. She stumbled, then forced her legs to move, trailing after them.
The sound was coming from near the lake.
They sprinted, wind whipping against their faces. Cold seeped into their bones—and with it, dread.
The yelping stopped.
On the shore, they found him.
Sirius had transformed back. He crouched on all fours, arms wrapped over his head, shivering violently.
“Nooo,” he moaned. “No... please...”
And then—they saw them.
Dementors.
Not just a few—hundreds, gliding in a vast, black mass around the lake like smoke on water. The sight froze them in place. The creatures moved silently, their tattered cloaks billowing as they floated forward with a deadly purpose, the air growing colder with every inch they gained.
She shivered. That familiar, bone-deep chill crawled through her, like winter settling into her veins. Her head was already aching, but now everything felt worse—heavier.
A pale fog started to blur her vision. She blinked, trying to focus, but they kept multiplying. More Dementors were coming, rising from the shadows on every side. They were closing in.
The pressure in Hope’s head spiked, to an unbearable pain as the voices of her mother—of Pettigrew—began to echo in her mind again.
She staggered, her limbs heavy, until her knees buckled. Her body finally gave in.
Hermione caught her just in time, easing her to the ground.
“Hermione, think of something happy!” Harry yelled, raising his wand. He blinked furiously, trying to block out the screams in his head. “Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!”
Sirius gave a shudder. Rolled over.
He lay still, ghost-pale.
“Expecto patronum! Hermione, help me! Expecto patronum!”
“Expecto—” Hermione whispered, her voice trembling. “Expecto—expecto—”
But she couldn’t do it.
The Dementors were closing in now, barely ten feet away. They formed a solid wall, gliding soundlessly over the grass, their ragged cloaks trailing behind them like a living shadow. Cold was pouring in from every direction, sharp and unnatural, gnawing at their skin and bones. The air itself seemed to be draining away.
Hermione’s wand shook in her hand. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Fear was a weight pressing down on her chest, and the spell—the one she’d practiced so many times—slipped through her mind like water through her fingers.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Harry yelled, desperate to block out the screaming in his ears. “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
A thin wisp of silver burst from his wand. It hovered in front of him like mist, flickering.
At the same moment, Harry felt Hermione collapse beside him, her body folding to the ground in a helpless heap.
He was alone now. Completely alone.
“Expecto—expecto patronum—”
Harry’s knees gave out, hitting the cold grass hard. Fog crept across his vision, thick and suffocating. He could barely breathe.
He fought to stay focused—Sirius is innocent. Sirius is innocent. We’ll be okay. I’m going to live with him—
“Expecto patronum!” he gasped.
By the faint glow of his formless Patronus, he saw one of the Dementors pause just in front of him. It didn’t move forward, hesitating at the edge of the silver mist. But then—slowly, deliberately—a dead, slimy hand slid out from beneath its cloak. It lifted one arm, reaching to sweep the Patronus aside like it was nothing but smoke.
“No—no—” Harry rasped. “He’s innocent... expecto—expecto patronum—”
He could feel them surrounding him now. Dozens of them. Watching.
Their breath rattled in the air around him, harsh and rhythmic, like wind howling through broken glass.
The closest Dementor seemed to be considering him, still as death. Then, with a motion that made Harry’s blood freeze, it lifted both of its rotting hands and lowered its hood.
Where there should’ve been eyes, there was only thin, grey skin—stretched taut and blank across a face that had none. But there was a mouth. A gaping, shapeless hole that sucked in air with the sound of a death-rattle.
A paralysing terror gripped Harry.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
His Patronus flickered... and went out.
White fog swirled around him, blinding. The cold was everywhere now—inside his lungs, under his skin.
He had to fight. Expecto patronum. But the memory was slipping away.
He couldn’t see.
The screaming in his ears was louder now—his mother’s voice—shrill, pleading.
He reached blindly into the fog and found an arm. Sirius? He didn’t know. He held on with everything he had.
They weren’t going to take him.
And then—suddenly—clammy, ice-cold hands closed around his neck. Strong. Unforgiving. They yanked his face upward toward the Dementor looming above him.
He could feel its breath—putrid and wet, dragging across his skin.
His mother’s screams were the only thing in his head now.
She was going to be the last thing he ever heard.
And then—
Through the fog that was choking him, Harry thought he saw something.
A light.
Silver, faint at first, then growing brighter—blinding.
He felt himself fall forward, collapsing face-first onto the cold grass.
Too weak to move. Shaking. Every muscle in his body ached. His limbs felt like lead.
He opened his eyes, barely. The light was still there—pouring across the grass like moonlight.
The screaming had stopped.
The cold was fading, slow but sure.
Something was driving the Dementors away.
It circled him, Hermione, and Sirius, forming a shield of light. The rattling breaths were growing distant. They were leaving.
Warmth seeped back into the air.
Harry forced his head up a few inches, straining to see.
There—through blurred, sweat-stung eyes—he saw a creature made of light galloping across the lake. It was dazzling, glowing brighter than anything he’d ever seen.
It looked almost like a unicorn.
He blinked hard, trying to keep it in focus.
The creature slowed on the far shore. It stopped.
And someone was there.
Someone was welcoming it—reaching up to pat its glowing side.
Someone who looked... strangely familiar.
But that couldn’t be...
Harry didn’t understand.
His thoughts wouldn’t connect anymore.
He felt the last of his strength slip away.
His head hit the grass.
And everything went black.