Harry Potter: Dudley From LOTM - 343

Chapter 343: Another Encounter with Dementors

"We are not there yet?" Ron blinked. "If we are not there, why has the train stopped?"

Harry peered out of the window, but it was pitch‑black outside; he could not see a thing.

"Judging by the time, we definitely are not there yet," Hermione said after checking her watch.

Ron slid open the compartment door and leaned into the corridor, only to see a row of equally bewildered faces poking out from other compartments. From further up the train came bangs and shrieks, as if luggage had tumbled off the racks.

"Why would it stop in the middle of nowhere?" Ron muttered.

"Maybe something’s happened to the train. Or it has broken down," Harry guessed.

Dudley frowned, glancing at the window. A vague sense of dread tightened in his chest, and a thin, unnatural chill brushed over his skin.

"Do not tell me..." His expression hardened.

Without warning, every light on the train went out. Darkness swallowed them.

Screams rang from somewhere ahead. Panic rippled through the carriages.

"I am going to have a look," Dudley said, getting to his feet and heading for the door.

"I am coming with you," Harry said at once, standing up.

Hermione and Ron moved as if to follow.

"You three..." Dudley began, then stopped. "Forget it. Stay close to me."

He had meant to order them to stay put, but with the strength they had now, they no longer counted as helpless. They needed chances to learn how to react under real pressure.

"Can you feel that? It is getting cold..." Hermione hugged herself, shivering.

"It is just a bit chilly today. You should have worn another jumper," Ron said as they walked.

"Ron, where are you going?" Ginny stuck her head out from a nearby compartment, squinting to make him out in the gloom.

"To see what is wrong with the train," Ron called back.

"I am coming too—"

The train lurched violently before she could finish. Ginny pitched backwards and fell onto her seat.

"What was that?" Harry said, face tightening.

His breath felt thick and heavy in his chest. At the same time, that unnatural cold settled deeper into his bones.

All three of them were turning pale. It felt as though every scrap of happiness was being scraped out of them, all their warm memories drifting away into the dark.

"Get back."

The hoarse voice came from their compartment.

Professor Lupin was finally awake.

By then, Harry and the others were already stiff with cold and fear. They did not obey him immediately. Instead, all three of them looked towards Dudley.

In the faint, lingering glow, they saw that his face, too, had grown serious, with a flicker of anger in his eyes.

"What is it, Dudley?" Harry forced the chill back enough to speak, his teeth chattering.

Dudley clearly knew what was happening.

And Harry could not shake the feeling that he had experienced something like this before.

Suddenly, he noticed a golden ring on Dudley’s right index finger that had not been there a moment ago.

The next instant, warmth washed over them. The bone‑deep cold receded as if a door had slammed shut. It was like standing in summer sunlight, their clothes drying, fingers and toes prickling back to life.

"That is much better," Hermione breathed.

They all saw Dudley using the enchanted ring and remembered exactly what it could do: drive out the cold and strengthen one’s courage. They had seen it in action back when they faced the Basilisk.

"Come back," Lupin’s voice called again, sharper this time.

"You three, back to the compartment," Dudley said. "I am going on."

He started forwards along the corridor towards the join between the carriages.

"Lumos," Hermione whispered.

A small light bloomed at the tip of her wand, but it was far weaker than usual, as though the darkness were swallowing it.

"Wait... what was that?" Ron pointed with a trembling hand at the window. "Something huge just went past."

"What?" Harry gripped his wand and stared out, but there was nothing to see now. Only his own faint reflection in the glass.

Up ahead, Dudley also came to a halt.

From the far end of the corridor, a ragged fold of black cloak drifted into view, and then the rest of the figure glided after it.

A tall, towering shadow, shrouded in tattered black.

"What is that?" Harry breathed, peering over Dudley’s shoulder.

"A Dementor," Dudley said, voice low and grim.

He had not expected the Ministry to put Dementors on the train. For wizards who had known real suffering, creatures like these were a disaster waiting to happen.

A strange sound at his side made him turn his head.

Harry was trembling. His pupils shuddered violently in his ashen face, as if he were watching some horror no one else could see.

"Harry!"

Without the Sun Halo’s protection, he would probably already have collapsed.

Dudley’s shout made Harry jolt, dragging him back a fraction from that terrible, plunging emptiness.

"Reducto!" Harry yelled.

This time, he struck first. He hurled the curse almost on instinct because he knew if he did not move, he would drown in that despair.

Bang.

The spell slammed into the looming shape and smashed it back against the side of the carriage.

But the Blasting Curse did almost nothing.

The creature gave a soundless roar. Two hands, grey and rotted like something dredged from a sewer, slid out from beneath the cloak. Beneath the hood, in the darkness where its face should have been, there was only a single gaping hole.

Hiss.

The Dementor inhaled.

The temperature in the corridor plunged again.

Everyone went rigid. Their minds emptied in an instant, thoughts snuffed out like candles. They felt themselves sinking, deeper and deeper into the dark. They forgot to resist. They almost forgot they were alive.

"Incendio."

Flame exploded from the tip of Dudley’s wand, a roaring jet of scarlet fire racing down the corridor towards the Dementor.

Light flooded the passage, blazing off the carriage walls and throwing the creature’s decayed body into stark relief beneath the tattered hood.

"Stupefy."

"Reducto."

"Confringo."

Harry did not stop. He hurled one spell after another, refusing to give the Dementor—or his own fear—any room.

These things were far tougher than he had imagined, but he did not dare pause. If he did, he knew the despair would swallow him whole.

So he kept casting.

He would fight.

He would keep attacking.