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Chapter 165: 2 Patronuses
🕑 Added 2018-07-11 00:29:36 +0000 UTCOver an hour before that, in Hogwarts, on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
After the violent explosion, Harry and Hermione stood up difficultly from the ground, and the huge impact of the explosion made them feel sore. Evan had already chased Peter Pettigrew into the Forbidden Forest. Only the two of them were there.
Ron and Sirius Black were unconscious, lying on the ground; Black was bleeding.
"What should we do?" Hermione said desperately, looking at the Forbidden Forest uneasily. "Evan ran after him in there!"
"We must first get the two into the castle; Sirius needs treatment. Then we should tell someone able to save Evan!" Harry said quickly, brushing his hair away from the front of his eyes.
Then he saw the Dementors approaching.
Almost instantly, the center of the field became misty and the temperature plummeted.
He spun around, the familiar, icy cold penetrating his insides, fog starting to obscure his vision; more Dementors were appearing out of the darkness on every side. It seemed that they have noticed Black.
They were excited, and their rotting limbs stretched out from their ripped black cloaks.
They were encircling them…
Hermione raised her wand and tried to summon her Patronus. Her wand’s tip emitted a white light, but she couldn’t get it to become corporeal.
There were too many Dementors. Her fear was closer to be corporeal than her patronus.
Hermione couldn’t think of anything happy at that moment. She was too worried about Evan. He went to chase Peter Pettigrew alone. What should she do if anything bad happened to him?
There are many unknown dangers that hide in the Forbidden Forest at night.
She thought of her only nighttime experience in that forest. It was during her first year, she was there with Hagrid, Harry, and Malfoy, and she saw the unicorn being killed by Voldemort.
Thinking of Voldemort, the little light at the tip of Hermione's wand dissipated instantly.
“Hermione, think of something happy!” Harry yelled, raising his wand, blinking furiously to try and clear his vision, shaking his head to rid it of the faint screaming that had started inside it…
“I’m going to live with my godfather. I’m leaving the Dursleys.”
He forced himself to think of Black, and only Black, and began to chant: “Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!”
Black gave a shudder, rolled over, and lay motionless on the ground, pale as death.
“He’ll be all right. I’m going to go and live with him.”
“Expecto patronum! Hermione, help me! Expecto patronum!”
“Expecto…” Hermione whispered, “expect… expecto...”
But she couldn’t do it. The Dementors were closing in, barely ten feet from them. They formed a solid wall around Harry and Hermione, and were getting closer…
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Harry yelled, trying to blot the screaming from his ears. “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
A thin wisp of silver escaped his wand and hovered like mist before him. There were many Dementors, and this feeble resistance didn’t work at all. At the same moment, Harry felt Hermione collapse next to him. He was alone… completely alone…
He couldn’t let the Dementors get close to Black, he wanted to drive those monsters away and get rid of them.
“Expecto… Expecto patronum….”
Harry felt his knees hit the cold grass. Fog was clouding his eyes and all his unpleasant memories flashed in his mind. Harry tried not to think about such things. He tried to remember that Sirius was innocent and his name was going to be cleared. Everyone will be fine, Professor Lupin will return safely, Ron will gradually come back, Evan will successfully catch Peter Pettigrew, and he, Harry will live with Sirius.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry gasped hard and shouted with all his strength.
By the feeble light of his formless Patronus, he saw a Dementor halt, very close to him. It couldn’t walk through the cloud of silver mist Harry had conjured. It was starring at Black behind Harry, and from underneath its black cloak, a dead, slimy hand slid out.
It made a gesture as though to sweep the Patronus aside.
"No, don't!" Harry gasped. "You can't hurt him. He's innocent! Expecto Patronum!"
He could feel them watching him, hear their rattling breath like an evil wind around him. The nearest Dementor seemed to be considering him. Then it raised both its rotting hands, and lowered its hood.
Harry had seen the same Dementor on the Quidditch pitch. Where there should have been eyes, there was only thin, gray scabbed skin, stretched blankly over empty sockets. But there was a mouth… a gaping, shapeless hole, sucking the air with the sound of a death rattle.
With that, Harry felt that his soul was being sucked in. A paralyzing terror filled Harry so that he couldn’t move or speak. His Patronus flickered and died.
White fog was blinding him. He had to fight… Expecto patronum… he couldn’t see… and in the distance, he heard the familiar screaming… the voice of his mother before her death.
Harry gasped heavily, and he fumbled for Sirius in the mist...
He found Black’s arm, and he held him tightly. He couldn't let the Dementors take Sirius away.
But a pair of strong, clammy hands suddenly attached themselves around Harry’s neck. They were forcing his face upward… He could feel its breath… It understood Harry thoughts and was going to get rid of him first… He could feel its putrid breath… His mother was screaming in his ears… She was going to be the last thing he ever heard.
She was shouting his name. That was her last sentence before her death.
The fog was drowning him completely. Harry knew he was going to die. He was going to see his mother. He was going to reunite with his parents!
But then, two silver-white lights slid from the distant horizon becoming brighter and brighter.
The Dementor who was about to kiss Harry stopped suddenly. Just like what happened on the Quidditch pitch two months ago, it felt the danger of terror. It knew that if it didn’t run away, it would disappear completely from this world.
The Dementors fled, and Harry felt that he had fallen forward to the grass. His face was down and he couldn't move. He shivered and barely opened his eyes.
The dazzling light illuminated the lawn around him, and the screams in his ears stopped, the cold feeling was passing away, and something was driving the Dementors back.
The two silver-white Patronuses surrounded him, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius, and the sucking sound of the demons gradually faded away.
Harry gathered his strength lifted his head a few inches. He saw two animals in the light. They were so similar, very bright, much like a unicorn, one tall and one short. One had a stout sharp horn on top of its head, and the other was incomparably pure, looking like...
They revolved around them and flew back into the castle.
Through the starlight in the sky, and by the light of the Patronuses, He tried to see who saved him, but the sweat blurred his eyes.
He only saw two Patronuses separating over the castle, one flew into the Hall through the gate and the other disappeared into a narrow window on the third floor.
Harry didn't understand why, he felt that his last glimmer of force had left him, his head hit the ground and he fainted.
