Where No Wizard Has Gone Before
Six….
Harry was running as fast as his legs could carry him. The wind bit at his cheeks and windpipe with its frigidness, whipping at his hair to reveal his marred forehead. Shadows lurked in his peripheral as the sun had long since been blocked out by the swirling dark clouds above. The darkening field blurred passed him as Harry pushed himself to run faster, unfitting shoes preventing him from going fast enough. He wasn’t going fast enough.
Five….
Dudley’s wheezing gasps for air were growing distant behind him just as he finally connected with a sidewalk and returned to his plain neighbourhood. No cars drove on the road, lights illuminated windows as their inhabitants tucked themselves away from the oncoming storm.
Shelter. Harry could’ve cried in relief when he spotted the creepy tunnel. Despite it’s notorious reputation as a place for “no-good street rats”, it was still better than being out in the open so he altered his course.
When he reached the entrance panting for breath and still filled with adrenaline, Harry noticed the graffiti that layered the stone walls. It gave off a drug dealing back alley feel that made Harry nervous, having been ‘raised’ in a goody-goody house. The unfamiliar smell wasn’t helping the tunnel’s reputation, and for a moment Harry wondered what a cop would do if they saw a teen in this place.
These thoughts cycled through his head in seconds and Harry kept running, only stoping halfway down the tunnel. Sweat had gathered along his hairline and he swiped it away while he caught his breath. The cold of the wall felt nice on his heated skin, so Harry allowed himself to sink into the feeling of relief if only momentarily.
Back in the park where he’d been sitting on the swing set, Harry had known that he couldn’t continue running for his life. The cost of his continuous heroism, as Dumbledore called it, had already taken a lot from him, namely his hopes for normality and freedom at last. And yet, here he was, running from another danger carried in the eye of a cyclone, who’s winds whistled outside the tunnel he rested in.
Harry flinched and grabbed for his wand when his obese cousin finally caught up to him. He was thankfully without his gang of friends, who had likely split off at the park and hurried home to escape the sudden storm. The boy practically fainted from lack of air when he got out of the winds, leaning his bulk against the wall by the entrance. Offhandedly, Harry could only compare the colour of Dudley’s face to Uncle Vernon’s right after he’d climbed a stair too many, or gotten irritated at the telly.
No more respite was offered to the pair -typical of the Potter luck- as frost began visibly creeping along every surface. As he watched with baited breath, even his glasses fell victim to the disturbing frost. Before the sting of cold metal against his skin could sharpen and chance him getting frostbite, he pocketed his specks.
When Harry looked back up to the blurry form of his cousin, who still remained unaware of his surroundings, he caught sight of the breath swirling from his lips. The plumes of moistened air dissipated as they rose above him. That… was unusual. It wasn’t close to autumn yet, let alone winter. And just a couple minutes ago the temperature had been above freezing.
Four….
His wand was in his hand now and Harry backed away from the direction they’d ran from, where most of the frost was coming from too. Dudley was oblivious to his hand that was now likely attached to the frost bitten stone as he continued to suck in air like a dying man. And perhaps he was, his face not yet having lost its red flush. Contrasted with what Harry thought was Dudley’s purpling lips, and he almost felt concern for the bully.
A flicker from outside took his immediate attention away from his cousin and caused a stone to drop in his gut. It felt as if his voice had been taken from him as he backed away from the echoes of his mother’s screams. The second glimpse his impaired eyesight managed to catch of the dementor’s cloak made him turn and run. His muggle cousin would be unscathed if not a little traumatized, he told himself. A vindictive part of his mind felt satisfaction at the thought of giving his cousin a taste of the dementor’s nightmare inducing cold, but Harry irritatedly shoved those thoughts away.
Three….
He reached the other end of the tunnel with relief, and would’ve continued on sprinting away if a black skeletal hand hadn’t caught him around his throat right as he stepped foot outside.
The abrupt lack of oxygen from having run into the skeletal hand and being raised off his feet, combined with the blossoming painful frostbites from its touch made Harry flail in shock. His wand fell from his hand as he tried to grasp at the dementor’s wrist to alleviate some of the pressure and allow himself room to breath. His back connected painfully with the wall, his baggy shirt catching on the frozen concrete and freezing his back easily through the stretched material. Impending doom drowned him as a woman’s screams blared louder in his head, and his momentarily forgotten depression reared with a vengeance.
Two….
The dementor’s lips were creeping towards his own, the deep noises he could barely make out passed the ringing screams growing closer. Wandless and growing weak from lack of oxygen and frostbite, Harry’s arms refused to cooperate and fell to his sides, limply hanging from it’s hold. He could feel how his very soul started fracturing around the edges and pulled something deep in his chest towards the creature. The sensation felt disturbingly intimate, and he hoped he would never feel such a thing again.
And that’s when it happened.
One….
It’s frozen mouth connected with his and something in his chest jerked. But before his soul was taken, his scar gave out a fiery stab of pain that made him scream. Harry didn’t register his hands flying up to grab at the dementor’s wrist. The bone deep sting of darkening fingertips wasn’t registering past the hot pain digging into his head. A hot poker was sinking into his skull, spearing his brain while the extreme cold of the dementor branded into his neck, pressed into his chest, harshly scratched at his back, and now was touching his blue lips.
Unconsciousness didn’t claim him to relieve Harry from the torture, with his high pain tolerance keeping him aware and awake, riding on adrenaline.
Harry could only watch through blurry sight as the dementor stopped pulling at his soul and made what he’d later hypothesize was a confused noise. It’s grip slackened enough for him to strain and finally take in sips of blessed air, meanwhile becoming more of a ways to hold onto him rather than choke.
Harry took that moment to catch his breath and recover from the torture that had just assaulted his head. It left him burning and raw on the inside, yet he was cold and quickly growing numb on the outside. Through the haze of feeling, Harry tried to forge a plan as to how to get the hell away from this thing, but was interrupted by a gasp of surprise that echoed down the small tunnel. It reminded him of his cousin, who he’d mercilessly left to fend for himself against dark beings invisible to him. Guilt grew in him as he thought more on what he’d subjected the muggle teen to. Harry turned his head as far as the dementor’s hold would allow and to his surprise, instead of seeing his cousin being attacked by another dementor, he caught sight of his cat loving neighbour Ms. Figg dragging behind her a suitcase.
The gasp from the muggle woman had caught the dementor’s attention too, though, and it’s head turned to face the old woman. A stalemate between the three of them thickened the air to near suffocating. It was broken just as fast when not a second more passed before he was being whisked away by the Dementor. It’s bony arms wrapped around him like shackles as it flew out into the storm above.
There would be no finding him. Not where he was being taken.