Harry Potter: Dudley From LOTM - 344

Chapter 344: Judgement: Death

Dudley stood at Harry’s side, wand raised, ready to cast at any moment. This time, though, he held back and left the fight to Harry.

Danger was only going to grow from here. He could not protect Harry forever, so Harry had to temper his own strength. Right now was as good a chance as any. With Dudley standing guard beside him, even if something went wrong, he could still rein things back under control.

"Oh Merlin, what is that thing..." Ron’s voice shook behind him.

He and Hermione had just seen the second Dementor appear at the far end of the carriage. Both of them went white as sheets.

"Incendio!" Hermione cried.

The instant the creature appeared, she reacted on pure instinct and flash‑cast the spell. Whatever it was, anything that foul and twisted could not be good.

Ron recovered almost at once and yanked up his wand.

"Confringo!"

The first shock passed quickly. The two of them slipped into a rhythm born of past battles. They were, after all, the same young wizards who had fought off an army of giant spiders and stood with Dudley against a Basilisk. They were rattled, but compared to most underage students, they were calm.

Unfortunately, their efforts did little.

The Dementor hardly seemed to notice. It did not fear fire, and it did not flinch from curses. The powerful spells Ron and Hermione hurled only slowed it for a heartbeat at a time, nothing more.

With a soundless swoop, the Dementor surged up into the air and glided straight for them.

The one facing Harry did the same.

They were not cowed by pain. Once attacked, they simply attacked back.

The corridor grew even colder. In the other compartments, the screams had fallen silent. Students lay limp on the seats and floor, letting the monsters drink in every last trace of joy and warmth they had ever known.

"No flying in this place," Dudley said.

He swept his right hand out in a horizontal push. Transparent ripples rolled out from him, washing through the corridor.

Thud. Thud.

Both Dementors crashed to the floor as if yanked down by invisible chains. No matter how they strained, they could not lift themselves from the ground again.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all exhaled at once and immediately renewed their assault.

The Sun Ring’s halo still blazed around them, blunting most of the Dementors’ influence and keeping them from collapsing altogether under that crushing despair.​

Dudley’s law had clipped their wings. Now they could not simply swoop down and smother the three of them at once.

Even so, the cold kept spreading. The happiness in their hearts was still draining away.

"Dudley, what do we do? Our spells are not working on them!" Hermione gasped.

She had tried every curse she dared use in such close quarters. None of them had made more than a cosmetic difference. These things seemed almost born immune to magic. Even when fire licked over their cloaks, it did little more than char the ragged fabric.

Dudley’s eyes narrowed.

He was thinking just as hard.

He knew the holy light from the Sun Ring would tear creatures like this apart, but if he used it now, he might as well stand up and announce to the Ministry that he had been the one to destroy their Dementor in Surrey.​

Aside from that light, nothing in his spell repertoire was truly suited to dealing with them.

Fiendfyre might work, but there was no way he was letting Harry or the others try to control something like that here.

Then his gaze caught again on the flames licking along the Dementors’ cloaks. They were still burning with the fire Harry and the others had conjured earlier, even if the curses themselves had done no real harm.

"If magic does nothing," Dudley thought, "then let us see how they handle a physical hit."

"Flame Step," he murmured.

He snapped his fingers.

With a soft crack, Dudley vanished from Harry’s side and reappeared in the air above the ring of fire around the nearest Dementor.

The creature gave a slight jerk of surprise and turned its hooded head towards him, as though considering bestowing its kiss.

"Judgement: Death," Dudley said.

His fist clenched.

He leaned forward, his waist driving his arm in a smooth, brutal arc. For a heartbeat man and force were one; his body left a blur in the air as his punch crashed down, impossible to dodge or resist, straight at the Dementor’s head.

Boom.

The blow landed with such force that it shook the walls. The Dementor flew backwards, a harsh crack sounding from within its hood, like a skull shattering.

Snap.

Dudley clicked his fingers again and vanished.

"Flame Step."

He reappeared beside the second Dementor.

"Judgement: Death."

The same technique was unleashed again.

With the Judgement Path’s laws wrapped around his body and the Baron of Corruption’s inhuman strength behind his fist, the punch hit like a falling hammer.

Crash.

The Dementor shot backwards, slammed into the rear door of the carriage, and punched straight through the metal. A moment later, it tumbled out into the darkness beyond the train.

For a long second, the only sounds in the Hogwarts Express were the ragged breaths of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Everyone else had already lost the ability to fight back while the Dementors were feeding.

"How... how did you do that?" came a hoarse voice.

Professor Lupin stared at Dudley, eyes wide with disbelief.

Dudley was standing in the doorway of their compartment now, perfectly steady.

Their gazes met. Dudley broke eye contact first and did not answer.

He still did not know everything he needed to about this man. Lupin’s being a werewolf was more than enough reason to keep some cards close, professor or not. After Quirrell, he was never going to trust a professor blindly again.

"You three all right?" Dudley asked, turning to Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"We are fine," they answered together, each of them shaking their head.

He had deliberately held back at the start, and they had not let him down. Even against foes as horrific as Dementors, they had fought hard. If the creatures had not been so resistant to spellwork, Dudley was sure the three of them could have brought one down on their own.

"Who attacked the guards of Azkaban?" a furious shout rang from outside the train.

The voice was one they all knew. Even Harry and Hermione recognised it at once.

Head of the Auror Office.

Rufus Scrimgeour.

So this inspection had been his doing after all.