Harry Potter: Dudley From LOTM - 345

Chapter 345: Revenge

"Has he gone completely mad? He actually let Dementors search the Hogwarts Express!" Ron shouted furiously. "And he did not even bother to warn us first."

"It was Scrimgeour. He definitely did it on purpose," Harry said, face dark.

"So it was him," Ron muttered, finally putting the voice together with the man. The shout from outside had been Scrimgeour’s.

"Why is he targeting us like this?" Hermione asked, unable to understand.

They had clashed with him before, yes, but that had been largely due to misunderstandings, things that could, in theory, have been cleared up. By this point, though, their relationship had deteriorated badly.

Even so, sending Dementors onto the Hogwarts Express was beyond anything they could accept.

Dementors were the guards of Azkaban, the prison’s wardens. Under normal circumstances, they were never allowed to leave. Back when Sirius Black had first escaped, sending them out to search had at least made some twisted kind of sense. But putting them on the school train, packed with children, was something else entirely. That was Auror work, not the work of Dementors.

Almost everyone on board was a student, many of them still very young. Did they really not care what kind of scars Dementors might leave on their minds?

"A lot of Scrimgeour’s behaviour can no longer be explained by normal logic," Dudley said quietly. "But the search itself must have been authorised by the Ministry. Otherwise he would not have been able to deploy Dementors at all."

"Professor Dumbledore agreed to this?" Ron said, incredulous.

"No. There is a good chance Professor Dumbledore did not know," Dudley said, shaking his head.

"But... how? I mean, Professor Dumbledore and Minister Fudge get on so well. With something like this, you would at least tell him, right?" Ron still could not wrap his head around it.

"Obviously, Professor Dumbledore’s relationship with the Ministry is not what it used to be," Harry said.

"And this might be Fudge’s way of reminding him not to overstep his authority," Dudley added.

Ron fell silent.

With his current level of experience, he simply could not grasp the tangled power struggles of the wizarding world.

Beside them, Professor Lupin stared at the four of them, stunned.

Were these really thirteen‑year‑old children?

The strength they had shown against the Dementors had shocked even him. He had noticed, in particular, that many of their spells had been cast with nothing more than a flick of the wand, skipping the incantation entirely, something many adult wizards could not manage.

Their conversation now astonished him even more. The way they picked apart the web of power and intrigue would have done credit to a seasoned politician. Even he found their reasoning convincing.

Bang.

A noise sounded from the connection between the carriages, and a group of wizards burst in.

At their head, of course, was Scrimgeour.

Dudley’s gaze settled on him, taking in the rage twisted across his face. He looked like a lion driven mad.

"You again," Scrimgeour snarled through clenched teeth when he saw Dudley.

He started forward, but before he could launch into another tirade, Professor Lupin stepped out of the compartment and planted himself between the four students and Scrimgeour.

"And you are?" Scrimgeour said coldly, looking him up and down.

"Remus Lupin. Newly appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts," Lupin said, holding out a card.

Scrimgeour did not take it. His eyes flickered with a dangerous light as he sized Lupin up.

"Allowing Dementors into the carriages to conduct searches is hardly proper procedure, is it?" Lupin said, withdrawing the card.

"This search was authorised by the Ministry. You are in no position to question it. Stand aside," Scrimgeour said in a frosty voice.

Lupin did not move.

"We received no notice," he said. "Furthermore, those Dementors tried to attack the students on this train. Fighting back was entirely justified."

"If you intend to bring charges against my students, I will happily testify on their behalf."

"In addition, I have already informed Professor Dumbledore of what happened. I imagine he will be contacting Minister Fudge shortly."

"So for now, you would be better off leaving this carriage and checking on the condition of your Dementors, instead of standing here interrogating my students."

He did not yield an inch.

By now, many of the students had recovered enough from their collapse to poke their heads out and look around.

"That was horrible. I feel like I will never be happy again."

"I blacked out completely. What was that thing, attacking us on the train?"

"I am telling my mum. We were attacked on the train. This is too much."

"If my dad finds out I ran into something like that on the way to school, he is going to lose his mind."

Many of them came from old pure‑blood families. Some of their parents worked at the Ministry and held respectable positions there.

If this blew up, it would be very hard to contain. And from what everyone had just seen, the Dementors had gone far beyond a simple, orderly check for an escaped prisoner.

“Sir, those two Dementors are badly hurt. They cannot continue for the moment,” an Auror hurried up to Scrimgeour and reported.

"Fatally?" Scrimgeour asked at once, his expression shifting.

“No. Someone smashed their heads in with bare fists, but it doesn’t appear to be life‑threatening.”

"With bare fists?" Scrimgeour’s eyes narrowed.

That did not match the condition of the Dementor that had been killed earlier. That one had seemed to die under a burst of golden light.

"Dudley. You killed that Dementor in Surrey, did you not?" he said, glaring at him.

"Rufus, accusations are supposed to be backed by evidence," Dudley said coldly. "Is this how your office conducts its investigations? Just because we do not get along, you dump every bit of filth you can find on my head, even to the point of unleashing Dementors on the school train, letting them attack underage students?"

"You really have opened my eyes."

As he spoke, the mood in the carriage shifted. Everyone could see now that this was personal. Scrimgeour was abusing his position.

And while he talked, Dudley quietly stirred his Beyonder powers, nudging the thoughts of those around them, deepening their trust in his words and their doubt in Scrimgeour’s.