When it came to fighting Dementors...only Ron could come up with something this ridiculous.
"Let go of my friend!"
Ron roared again. In this moment, the bonds of friendship and courage shone through him, the brilliance of a true Gryffindor blazing forth...But, honestly, it was completely useless.
"Clatter~"
The Dementor, seemingly realizing that Ron was about to throw another stone at it, suddenly lunged forward. As Ron bent to pick up another rock and tried to stand up, the Dementor grabbed him by the leg and lifted him straight into the air.
"Let me go! Let...go...!"
Ron's bravery didn't bring about a miracle. As it turned out, no matter how much you shouted about friendship and courage, if you didn't have strength, the situation wasn't going to change.
Before a Dementor...Ron, without even a wand, had zero chance of turning things around. Terrified, he struggled desperately, but all he managed to do was flail around like a fish caught and dangling helplessly in the Dementor's grip.
His struggle was completely meaningless.
Neville, who had been hit awake earlier, watched as Ron was now "captured" too. His pale, battered face was filled with despair, and tears welled up in his eyes.
"Help~!"
He kept screaming, but his voice wasn't loud enough to reach the castle.
Inside the silent castle, not a single professor came to their rescue. After all, it was deep into the night...most of the professors were already asleep.
Not everyone in Hogwarts was constantly under a professor's watchful eye.
"We're doomed, we're so dead! Damn it, why is there a Dementor in Hogwarts? Why isn't anyone coming to save us?!" Ron shouted as the Dementor kept shaking him.
His head spun and his stomach churned...he felt like vomiting. Now, Ron was experiencing the same "treatment" Neville had endured earlier. The Dementor was shaking him violently, as if trying to shake something out of him.
However...there was even less on Ron than there had been on Neville. After all, he was famously poor. Other than half a sandwich, the Dementor managed to shake out only a few messy odds and ends.
It was obvious these weren't what the Dementor was looking for.
"N-no… nothing…"
The Dementor actually looked more desperate than the two small wizards. Of course, neither Ron nor Neville could tell...it just looked like a terrifying creature making them both cry and scream in its grasp.
Yet, even so...the Dementor didn't lower its hood to suck out their souls like a normal one would. Instead, with its decaying arms, it lifted the two of them high, as if evaluating something.
"Toy… I need a toy… a substitute, to take my place…" Its body trembled slightly, a muffled sob echoing from beneath its hood...sounding both fearful and expectant.
It had to be said...compared to before, the Dementor Ian kept as a "pet" had gotten much better at speaking.
Then again, that made sense...after all, the Dementor in the Room of Requirement was often pushed to its limits.
It was only natural that the creature's speech was becoming more fluent in human language.
"The thing's torturing us...it's enjoying our despair!" Ron's teeth were chattering, and every breath he took turned into a puff of white mist. Hearing that, Neville's lips had already turned purple, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.
"C-could it be… it's already eaten everyone in the castle… and now it's our turn?" Neville's voice quivered with tears, his imagination running wild beyond control.
The atmosphere was filled with despair and utter helplessness.
Young wizards often had no accurate sense of how powerful the professors at Hogwarts truly were. They didn't understand that even a whole swarm of Dementors could never break through the castle's ancient defenses.
But seeing Neville's imagination spiral...Ron's own imagination began spinning out of control as well.
"That's it! It has killed everyone! That's why no one's coming to save us!"
"This is all part of Snape's and those Dark wizards' plan...they left us for last, to torture us slowly!" Ron's body twisted violently, but he couldn't break free from the Dementor's icy grip.
"Waaaah! Everyone's dead!" Neville began to sob uncontrollably.
"It has to be true! Otherwise, why isn't it interested in us?!" Ron shouted in despair. "It's already full...it's saving us for a midnight snack!"
It had to be said...Ron's imagination was absolutely world-class.
"It'd be better if it just sucked out our souls right now!" Neville moaned hopelessly, too terrified to keep struggling, limp like a salted fish awaiting its fate.
Under the Dementor's influence, the cold seeped deep into their bones. Their minds dulled, their thoughts slowed, as if they were about to freeze solid.
"I...I see my great-grandma…" Neville's voice grew weaker and weaker, his eyes unfocused. Ron too felt his consciousness fading, the edge of death bringing strange, flickering hallucinations.
Just when the two of them thought they were about to ascend to heaven...the Dementor suddenly moved.
It slowly turned its body, as if frantically searching for something. Finally, its hollow face locked onto a shadow in the distance.
"It's here…"
The Dementor grew tense...terribly tense.
Still clutching the two little wizards, it turned them toward the direction of the unsettling presence it sensed.
Hanging upside-down, Ron and Neville could also see the scene: a dark figure walking slowly through the moonlight. The figure radiated a chilling aura...there was no trace of kindness in that presence.
"Dark wizard!"
Ron shouted in horror, the raw adrenaline snapping him back to full alertness.
"Damn it!" he yelled, struggling again. "I get it now! I get it! This Dementor's been waiting for its master...we're going to be used in some Dark magic ritual!"
His imagination was still performing with perfect, terrifying consistency.
Neville, shaking like he had Parkinson's, stammered, "A Dark wizard who can make Dementors obey him… h-how terrifying must he be… w-wait, could it be that You-Know-Who has come back to life?!"
The black-robed figure drew closer and closer, the long robe snapping in the night wind. With every step it took, the Dementor trembled harder, desperately lifting the two boys higher, as though anxiously presenting them.
"I knew it!"
Ron's voice cracked...but he was now absolutely certain of his own insane conclusion.
And then...the black-robed figure stopped directly in front of the Dementor, lifted its head, and under the pale moonlight, its face was revealed...It was a woman's skull. Beneath the black robe, faintly visible pale bones gleamed ghostly white.
In the hollow sockets, eerie, unnatural flames flickered.
"Ahhhh!!!"
Neville's eyes rolled back, and he went utterly limp in the Dementor's grasp, knocked out cold.
"Wh...what is that!?"
Ron's mind completely froze. He struggled wildly, but the Dementor's grip was like iron, unyielding. It even pushed him and Neville a little closer toward the skeletal figure.
"P-play… play with them… n-not me…" The Dementor stammered, its voice hoarse and trembling, pleading toward the skeletal woman as it thrust the two boys forward again and again.
The black-robed skeleton leaned in close, its empty sockets staring right into the two small wizards' faces.
And that was the last thing Ron saw...before terror shattered his sanity. His vision went dark, and he passed out cold.
The next second…
"Sssplash..."
Ron's trousers were finally wet.
(End of Chapter)
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