A Dark Place
The disappearance of Harry Potter was all over the Daily Prophet within weeks thanks to the snooping of a particularly nosy journalist known as Rita Skeeter. Once the news had broken of Harry Potter’s mysterious disappearance, Dumbledore’s position as Headmaster of Hogwarts had been called into question. The public, specifically parents, were pressuring for the Wizengamot to step in and take control of the school. The atmosphere of Magical Britain had also changed drastically, believing the Daily Prophet when it claimed Harry Potter to be “nothing but a runaway coward unwilling to admit he was wrong”.
Dumbledore had reassembled the old crowd months earlier, after the messy end to the Triwizard Tournament and imminent resurrection of Lord Voldemort. At first the adults hadn’t wanted to believe you-know-who was back. However, the timing of the-boy-who-lived’s disappearance only led credence to Dumbledore and the boy’s claims. Harry Potter had become something of a martyr in their eyes.
The report Arabella Figg had given to the Order before the news broke to the media mentioned the boy being picked up by a dementor of all things, which kissed him and flew away with his body. Wherever the nasty creature had taken the boy-who-lived’s body couldn’t have been pleasant. The old headmaster and the Order already assumed the dementor delivered his body to the creatures’ single ally, the Dark Lord. The thought had occurred to Dumbledore that perhaps it was better the boy had been kissed rather than surviving the encounter with the nightmarish creature. His hopes of winning the war hung dangerously in the balance.
After Ms. Figg had reported the alarming incident to Dumbledore, he began frequently called for Order meetings to accumulate the progress on their investigation into the strange appearance of dementors in Little Whinging. And what progress it was. During their meetings, the Order of the Phoenix devolved into arguing more often than not. With so little information on you-know-who and his alliance with the dementors, little could even be speculated on how he’d sent them to kill Harry Potter.
Sirius Black in particular was inconsolable the following weeks. The man’s already delicate mental state only worsened with the disappearance (and likely death) of his godson via the creatures he’d spent cooped up with for the passed 15 years. Remus Lupin, when he came back around, was likely to be found with Mr. Black during those Order meetings. The fierce betrayal felt by the man against the Headmaster could be seen spreading to Mr. Lupin as well. The two often sat separated from the remainder of Order members, inciting more arguing regarding their loyalty to Harry and the Order.
With little insight from the Order, Harry’s friends, while not having been exposed to the Order for more than a week, took up a research expedition in his name. In the end it turned up more results than the Order had gathered. Though those results were still minimal, only including the eery backstory of the creation of dementors, and possible forms of communication (read: manipulation) you-know-who may’ve used to gain the dementors’ alliance. And that theory was based on whether the dark creatures were even capable of being communicated (read: manipulated) with.
A week before the start of September, gossip in the paper and among the populous was at it’s highest. Fear was slowly growing as the cowardly Harry Potter had yet to emerge. The Ministry continued to deny the return of you-know-who, condemning Dumbledore as a liar, and publicly announcing it’s actions to take control of Hogwarts. But despite the Ministry’s best efforts to calm the people, without their saviour, the possibility of His return seemed more and more intimidating.
Meanwhile, in the days after the death of Harry Potter via kiss, in a dark cell at the highest level of a tower surrounded by raging seas reaching 20 meters high, a young man sat. The darkness of the square room was frequently illuminated by strikes of lightning, the silence parched by rolls of intense thunder and water beating at the outside walls.
A very alive Harry Potter sat nestled into the wall furthest from the chilling storm. As time passed, he found he had near constant company of at least one dementor at all times. It’s dark, fleshless hands would wrap around his shoulders and it’s startlingly silky yet tattered cloak was a constant presence at his back. Even as he curled in on himself and pressed into the stone wall. It was the only form of escape he could manage with these creatures around.
Time was hard to keep track of with no apparent night or day piercing through the storm. So, a time passed since his capture and placement in the cell, and the nightmarish effects of such creatures had startlingly dulled to an almost non-existent level, as if he’d built an immunity to them. There was no more of his mum’s screams, no more bitter cold, and no overwhelming depression and hopelessness. He was still debating whether that was a good thing or not.
On particularly quiet moments when the constant storms drifted away and took with them the raging sea, leaving behind only the faint pitter patter of light rain drops, Harry could swear he understood the dementors. The strange noises would thrum by his ear as it re-enacted a disturbing hug from behind (he would not call it spooning, he was at his mental limit already thank-you-very-much). In the depths of such sound, faint whispers he could barely latch onto would tease at the edge of his understanding, taunting him. If anything else, Harry believed the strangeness of their whispery language would be the thing to drive him crazy in this place.
Harry came out of his thoughts trembling when long, bony arms shifted around his shoulders to place a hand eerily over where his heart was once again frantically beating against his ribs. He shuddered in disgust when parts of it’s tattered cloak swayed with the movement and engulfed his arm as it reached over. The creatures defied every aspect of gravity, as if they were underwater as they swam through the air. Yet despite knowing this, due to boredom Harry agonized over how the one that had carried him to this nightmarish place hadn’t seemed to register his weight despite having no legs to counteract it. He’d learned in primary that there was an entire law dedicated to the idea, but magic so rarely abided laws of science so who was he to criticize what was possible. And yet, it was this small factor that had him trapped here in the first place. By simply carrying Harry, the dementor allowed him to defy the laws of science too, and made it possible for him to be taken from Surrey, hell, likely from Britain entirely.
Harry cringed into himself further when the familiar thrum of the dementor registered to him, along with another thing. Nature was calling again, and Harry had to wonder what his body was processing as he hadn’t eaten or drank anything since his kidnapping.
Had anyone-? Harry cut off those thoughts before they could form. He likely wouldn’t be found missing until school started up again anyway. And judging from the lack of snow it likely wasn’t that time yet… would it even snow here? He’d made sure Hedwig was with the Weasley’s to protect her from the Dursley’s care. So he wasn’t exactly sending out letters either.
Steeling himself, Harry twitched away from the wall he was curled against and stretched his chilled limbs. Another development he’d just started noticing was the lack of impact the cold now had on him. Either he was numbed to it, or Harry had lost nerves to it and simply couldn’t feel frostbite anywhere on his body.
Cracking limbs stretched from their once stationary state as he extended his arms and legs, trying his best to ignore the dementor at his shoulder. Despite having no obvious eyes, Harry had no doubt they could see everything he did. And so, it was with those eyes on him and a clawed hand resting on his chest that Harry stood up, or tried to stand up. Because not a second after he began putting weight on his legs did they turn numb and collapse under him.
A grunt left him as he hit the hard stone floor awkwardly on his unfeeling legs. He panicked when no sensation whatsoever came to him as he practically sat on his two unmoving limbs that had worked seconds ago.
“No, no, no, no!” The loo forgotten, Harry patted at his legs, frantically trying to feel for something, anything. “No, no, no!”
The dementor currently with him hadn’t interfered when he collapsed. It floated down to his level to tightly grasp his forearms with surprising strength. Or maybe Harry had gotten weaker from lack of food. That was the straw that broke the camels back, and Harry fought as best he could without useable legs against his captor.
The grip of the fleshless claws hardened around his remaining working limbs as if in rigour-mortis, and Harry thrashed and pulled and yelled out his frustration. Nothing came of it though, except for the noises he made attracting more of the disturbing creatures. And the appearance of two more made him scream with pent up emotion before finally collapsing on his side, still held in the original dementor’s iron grip.
Tears leaked down his cold cheeks and tickled at his ear as he laid prone on his side. Despair was engulfing him as the two other cloaked creatures came over to him and patted him down as if they were searching for injury. The irony of it wasn’t enough to elicit a laugh, only reminding Harry of his insane situation.
I just want to go to Hogwarts and see my friends. He thought as the two extra pairs of claws reached for his shoulders and face next. I just want to go home.