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Night had fallen completely over Hogwarts' Forbidden Forest. A heavy mist drifted like ghosts between the black shadows of the trees. The icy wind brushed through the bare branches, its whispering wail sounding like countless invisible claws scraping across bare skin.
Tonight should not have been so cold.
And yet... Who could expect warmth when a Dementor was on the loose?
Dementors… Beings that did not truly belong to this world. Creatures that had slipped from the Twilight Zone into the realm of the living… an error of existence itself. Their very presence carried a natural, overwhelming suppression against all living things.
"I'm gonna die!"
Neville felt his mind flooded with despair and his most painful memories.
He thought of his parents. He thought of home.
Tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. Even so, he struggled… still trying to resist the creature's chilling grip. Such bravery would have been admirable… if it had mattered. But against a Dementor, his strength wasn't even worth mentioning.
Neville had courage...and courage, unfortunately, was a thing that hurts.
"Pa! Pa! Pa!"
It seemed that Neville's ancestors hadn't protected him for long. Perhaps the Dementor sensed his "disobedience" and was reminded of the times Ian slapped it whenever it misbehaved.
And so, it finally put its learned "skill" to use.
The slaps were loud.
And extremely effective.
Within seconds, Neville's face swelled up… he looked frighteningly like a pig's head.
"Neville!"
Ron skidded to a halt, spinning around to see Neville caught in the Dementor's grasp. His heart pounded so violently it felt like it might burst from his chest. The scene before him shook violently in his vision.
The towering Dementor seemed to be torturing his friend.
It was horrifying.
Utterly terrifying.
At least, to Ron… whose simple mind and limited understanding of Dementors couldn't grasp what was really happening. Neither he nor Neville knew much about the true, non-storybook nature of these creatures.
Because of that… Ron didn't realize that something was deeply wrong: the Dementor holding Neville wasn't feeding on his happiness at all. It was acting completely against the instincts of its kind.
All Ron saw was the Dementor slapping Neville a few times… pa pa pa… then lifting him high and shaking him violently, as if trying to rattle something loose from his pockets.
Yes… Neville was dangling helplessly in midair like a rag doll, eyes rolling back as though he might faint at any second.
Ron had no way of realizing how abnormal the Dementor's behavior was.
To him, it just looked like what beasts often did before devouring their prey...toying with them before consuming their souls.
"Nothing… no little treat… skeleton-thing…"
The Dementor grumbled in a rough, hollow sound of frustration, shaking Neville even harder when it couldn't find what it wanted. Its tone actually carried a faint trace of disappointment.
Unfortunately… Neither Neville, who was caught, nor Ron, who watched in frozen terror, noticed this. Neither of them realized that a Dementor… this supposedly soulless creature… was showing emotion.
In truth, the very fact that it could suppress its feeding instincts at all proved that this particular Dementor was anything but ordinary.
But alas… Neville and Ron were both too inexperienced, too green, to understand any of that.
They had no real knowledge, no rich experiences… their understanding of Dementors came only from the scary stories told to frighten them as children. Now, overwhelmed by terror and panic, it was impossible for them to notice anything unusual.
Having lost their external brain [Hermione]... they had practically lost most of their understanding of the wizarding world itself. Yes, as children born into wizarding families, they might know a bit more about magical common sense than someone like Hermione, who came from a Muggle family.
But when it came to actual learning, most pure-blood heirs gradually fell behind their half-blood and Muggle-born classmates once school began. That, in truth, was one of the real reasons so many pure-blood families despised non–pure-bloods.
Perhaps most Muggle-born students weren't as brilliant as Hermione, but when they studied magic, they did so with hunger and persistence… a kind of burning passion that pure-blood children, who took magic for granted, rarely possessed.
Neville and Ron were exactly like that. Neither had Hermione's relentless thirst for knowledge, especially when it came to things outside the classroom.
And because of that...the two of them had landed themselves in this mess, scaring themselves half to death.
Ron, in particular, was letting his imagination run wild. Now, in his mind, Neville was being flayed alive and having his tendons ripped out.
"No! Don't hurt my friend!"
A burning sensation rose in Ron's stomach, as though a block of iron were being roasted inside him. He glanced down at his trembling hands… but he knew, deep down, that he couldn't give up on Neville.
He was the only one who could save him.
Courage… in that moment, it triumphed over fear.
To be fair, Ron Weasley, for all his jealousy, pettiness, and tendency to grumble about the rich, was still a person with genuine loyalty and heart. And that side of him… was shining brightly now.
He saw his best friend being grabbed by the monster, and a surge of heat and adrenaline overwhelmed his terror. He glanced around...no weapon in sight.
But that didn't stop him.
"Then I'll fight you to the death!"
His shout burst from his throat, raw and shaking, but it didn't stop him from scooping up two rocks from the ground and charging straight at the Dementor, fearless and reckless.
Yes...ignorance truly is fearlessness. Ron was the perfect example of someone who didn't understand what a Dementor really was, and actually believed that rocks might hurt it.
He charged forward with all the courage his body could hold. The Dementor turned its eyeless gaze toward him...those hollow sockets radiating an otherworldly dread.
But in truth… it was just confused.
"Put down my friend!"
Ron screamed, his voice hoarse as he charged like a berserker. Branches cracked beneath his feet, the rushing wind filled his ears, and his blood roared like thunder in his veins.
For a fleeting moment...the world became startlingly sharp and vivid.
He could feel it...the strength that came from the bond of friendship. Ron was certain that with this power, he could save Neville.
And just then..."Hoo~"
The Dementor tried to imitate Ian's habit of sucking in a cold breath in surprise.
Unfortunately, what it ended up sucking away was all the warmth around it.
The temperature plummeted again, and Ron's head cleared slightly from the shock of cold.
"Die, you monster!"
Ron stopped about two meters away, his heart still burning with courage. He raised both hands high, and with all his strength, hurled the two stones straight at the Dementor.
"Bang~"
"Pa~"
There were only two stones in total. And one of them missed.
The one that hit didn't even strike the Dementor… it hit Neville, who had been rolling his eyes and nearly unconscious. The blow jolted him back to awareness, and on his already swollen face, another dark bruise appeared.
"Hang in there, Neville! Don't pass out!" Ron said, awkwardly trying to justify his blunder, and then bent down again, ready to grab a few more stones to throw at the Dementor.
When it came to fighting Dementors… only Ron could come up with something this ridiculous.
(To Be Continued…)