I press my hand over my mouth to smother the scream that was clawing its way up my throat. The Dementor’s chill wafts across the ruins; it burrows into my skin to take root within. Tears freeze on my cheeks. My breath turns to frost before me. And sweet Merlin, they were coming closer. Drawn to my petrified presence.
A window is by my head, bottomless black beyond it. Like a gouged out eye, nothing left but the scarred ruin where the stained glass window had once been. The dark ripples like a curtain in the May air; a skeletal hand appears from within, latches onto that scarred stone. I choke on a sob.
Then the Dementor jerks around. It flutters away, grayed light burns down on me. Through the scarred eyehole, I can see the courtyard below. Dark forms hover before a broken boy who must have fallen from the western towers when they exploded.
I recognize him, vaguely, as the boy who once trailed after Potter. To his detriment, it seems.
He has to be dead after that. I am so certain that it's a surprise when his head moves. My heart races as the boy spots me. Lips mouth something-a plead for his life, a prayer to some god. It is unheard in the harsh wind.
The Dementors sweep forward. Robes as black as midnight cover the boy like a blanket pulled over a frightened child’s head. Bony fingers, yellowed and cracked, pull down a hood. From behind, I cannot see more than a mangled skull, but the boy sobs.
Die, I pray, but he doesn’t.
His cries fill the courtyard as the Dementors reach for his soul. Claw at it with their greedy hands. Something soft, flickering, appears beneath the mass of Dementors. Like the candle struggling to stay alight amidst a storm.
There’s a flash of white that sears my eyes, then the Dementors slowly retreat. In their wake is left the boy with mousy brown hair. Still breathing out puffs of frosted breath. Alive, yet dead. For a few moments, at least. His body is surely damaged beyond repair.
But breaths of air continue to escape him. Death rattles fill the place of his screams. I cannot look away as one breath after another passes. Ten becomes twenty, then thirty. Slowly, though, they still. I watch in relief as his body finally gives up.
Forty-eight breaths. An eternity.