Hello everyone. Hope all are having a fine Friday eve.

Yesterday there was a fun prompt post where Harry brought a Dementor to the Yule Ball as a date. I did a response to it and it was very well received. People asked for a full one shot or a series for it and at first I was hesitant. However today I had an idea and decided to run with it. Admittedly, this idea will be a bit different in tone but hopefully still enjoyable.

I am posting the first chapter here and will continue to work on it and eventually post it on my fanfic and AO3 accounts as well. Comments and critiques are always welcome. Thank you for reading. Have a lovely day!

***

A Dance of Dementors

Chapter 1: Third Year, Awakening.

Harry Potter shivered. His skin felt clammy, cold and lifeless at the touch. His head felt like it was burning, on fire. He wanted to vomit. To pass out again. Both at the same time if he was feeling honest. He could still hear his mother screaming. He could still hear Voldemort laughing. That particular combination of sounds tore him apart from his stomach to his brain.

He barely kept the mouthful of chocolate within him.

“What-what was that?” His voice sounded like he had swallowed sand and glass, jagged and full of pain.

Remus Lupin looked down at the pale boy, his eyes filled with a shared pain. “That was a Dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban.”

Hermione Granger had her arms wrapped around Ginny Weasley, her eyes flicked between the sobbing girl and Harry. “That was a Dementor? They don’t seem…human.”

Remus snorted. “That’s because they aren’t. They are Dark Creatures. They hunger for emotions, for feelings. They feed off them, especially positive ones. They have an Aura that suppresses positive emotions while draining people of them. It’s how they thrive. As you might imagine, they make very effective guards.”

Ron Weasley stared out the frost covered window. “Dad told me about them before, he had to go to Azkaban once. I never knew how horrible they were. Always thought he was exaggerating.”

“I don’t believe anyone can exaggerate the effects a Dementor can have.” Remus sighed wearily. “Their presence at Hogwarts will make things quite problematic.” He smiled at Harry. “Don’t worry Harry. Your response, while a bit more extreme, is normal. I’ll do my best to prepare you and your classmates for them.”

The train began to move again, the gentle sway of the compartment reappeared. The whistle of the Hogwarts Express sounded forced at first, but the subsequent blast seemed to chase away the chill. But only a little.

-0-

No matter where he went, Harry could still feel them.

The Dementors were not allowed on school’s grounds, something everyone was thankful for. Most of the time, the Dementors were very far away, barely visible unless you went to the edges of the grounds. For the vast majority of the students, they did not feel the oppressive aura of the Dementors. They could go about their lives, focusing on their classes and social lives, completely ignorant of them.

He would have given much to feel like them.

The feeling was not as strong as the time the Dementor had entered their compartment on the Express. He did not feel like he was drowning, his skin not frozen, his spine and mind not on fire. He could be happy, content, excited even.

Instead it was a lingering feeling. One that could not be completely shaken or ignored. It was always there, always prevalent. Like when you tried to dry off after a shower and there was that tiny bit of wetness that clung to you. Or when you came in from a snowstorm and you still had that tiniest bit of chill that clung stubbornly to your bones.

His dreams were no solace for him.

Nightmares plagued him night after night. The feeling of Dread that swallowed him. The deep and primal fear that stalked him. He could hear Lily Potter’s frantic bargaining, her screams of sheer soul rending pain. Voldemort’s high voice, dripping with contempt and superiority. His laughter was colder than the Dementor’s Aura.

He either woke screaming or crying. More often than not, he did both.

His friends had tried to help him. Ron was a solid presence near him. Never asking too many questions. Never trying to pry. Hermione did enough of that. Instead he simply accompanied Harry, willing to play a game of Chess or Exploding Snap, willing to grouse about homework and the Professors.

Hermione meant well; she always did. He did not get too annoyed at all her questions, her sincere advice, her nagging about his homework and studies. He saw that she cared and knew she tried to make him feel better with ways that helped her feel better. It did not work as well for him, but the thought warmed him nonetheless.

The Twins, George and Fred Weasley, did what they did best. They wreaked merry havoc on any they could. Even Harry could not avoid being the target of their mischief-making and he adored it. He knew that their intention was to make him laugh. In fact, they took the clause of no safe targets to heart. Harry had spent a day laughing at a civil war that erupted between the twins. Separately they had planned to prank the other and coincidentally chose the same day to do so. There were many collateral casualties but the spectacle was worth it.

Ginny had sat with Harry here and there. They would sit together in companionable silence. No questions, no banter, no discomfort.

He appreciated the moments of silence with her.

Despite all that he could never shake off the feeling of Dread. The Despair seemed to always find him. Wait for him to drop his guard. All it took was something that sounded like cold laughter, that sounded like panic and pain, and he would instantly be lost to his deepest and darkest memory.

He was the Boy Who Lived. He was beginning to question the cost.

-0-

“G-Get away from her!”

Harry was where he both did not want to be and needed to be. His wand trembled, his hand shook, and his body quaked as he stood between Ginny and the Dementor.

He had heard that Ginny had been attacked. Well, she had attacked and had been left at the edges of the grounds after her attack. Draco Malfoy and his cronies had apparently done their usual crude insults directed at Harry. However it took a turn for the worst. Somehow, that terrible and terribly personal memory of Harry’s had been revealed to the school.

Draco had immediately used it with malicious glee. Mocking Harry over the deaths of his parents, his mother especially. Even most of his fellow Slytherins had found his antics to be in poor taste but Draco was never one to allow propriety to limit his cruelty.

Ginny had hexed him. Without hesitation she Bat-Bogey Hexed him, screaming at him all the while. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, after stupidly watching their shrieking benefactor try to fight the charmed bogeys, had overpowered the red headed girl. At Draco’s order, they had dragged her out of the school and left her where the Dementors patrolled.

Harry had heard what happened and ran out of the school. He ignored Hermione calling him to wait while she ran for a teacher. He did not join in with Ron, George, and Fred attacking Draco and his goons. He ran out as fast as he could.

In one of their silent moments, he had confessed to Ginny what he heard when he was near a Dementor, when he was under the Aura and the Dread. She in turn told him what she felt, why she nearly went catatonic when she was near one. She told him of missing memories and blood on her hands and robes. She told him of younger but achingly familiar cruel cold laughter. She told him of stone eyes and reptilian fangs.

He would not let her suffer alone.

He saw the Dementor descend upon the girl. She was already gone, rigid from fear and sobbing silently. Without hesitation he threw himself between them.

“Go away!” he cried out. “Expecto Patronum!” He had spent weeks trying to learn the Charm that would protect him from the Dementors. It was a difficult one and while Remus was an excellent teacher, it was still beyond Harry’s abilities.

A thin silver mist spilled from his wand, a feeble shield slowly taking shape between Harry and the Dementor. It was enough to make the Dementor pause, but the Aura remained as oppressive as ever. He could feel it beat against his shield, draining his energy, making him and the shield weaker.

He desperately tried to bring up a happy memory, any happy memory. He tried to fuel the spell, to make it stronger, to protect him. To protect her.

He was failing.

The Dementor drew closer. A long wasted skeletal hand reached out to him. It reached towards Ginny.

He thought of the first time he was hugged. The first time Hermione had crushed his ribs with her arms. The first time Mrs Weasley had drawn him into a tentative but warm embrace. The time Ginny had clung to him after she woke in the Chamber of Secrets.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

The shield flared brightly, the strongest it had ever been. The barest appearance of something else took shape, a hint of horns, a whisper of hooves. The stronger spell pushed against the Dementor and the Aura faded noticeably, filling Harry with exhausted hope. The effort of the spell drained him of energy and he fell to his knees, his eyes closing against his will.

The last thing he saw was the Dementor slowly leaving the pair alone. The last thing he heard was Hermione screaming and Professor Dumbledore calling. The last thing he felt was the slightest tingle of a connection, and an immense sensation of confusion.

-0-

Not for the first time, and he knew it certainly would not be the last, Albus Dumbledore cursed the Ministry of Magic.

Not literally of course. He knew he was a very powerful wizard and curses were not to be idly thrown about. Instead he non-magically cursed the Ministry, their insistence on using Dementors, their demands to put said Dementors around Hogwarts and Hogsmede, and for many other things. He saved his last and most severe curse for the suffering of innocents, and how life was simply unfair to certain individuals.

Harry was one of those individuals, and Dumbledore sadly watched the boy being examined by Poppy Pomfrey.

The Headmaster had been furious. The Dementors, starved for emotion and Hungering without satiating, had invaded the grounds during the Quidditch game. Their Hunger had overridden the commands of the Ministry, unable to stay away. Their presence had interrupted the game, sending students into a panic.

Surprisingly to most but not to him, the Dementors had flocked towards Harry. Drawn to his pain and intense emotion, they tried to feed from him. Their Aura, magnified by the sheer number of the Dementors, had knocked the boy out, causing him to fall from his broom.

Dumbledore was able to catch him before he hit the ground. The other Professors were able to keep the Dementors at bay before he added his considerable Patronus to the fray. Once banished again from the grounds, Dumbledore had carried Harry to the Medical Ward and eagerly waited for Pomfrey to finish her initial care.

Something had happened however that had made Dumbledore pause ever so slightly. The pause did not keep him from saving Harry. If anything, what caused the pause made it easier to do so.

Two figures arrived by his side. He spoke without shifting his gaze from the unconscious boy’s face. “I trust the students are safe and everything as they should be?”

“Not as they should be,” Minerva McGonagall said waspishly. “They won’t be while the Dementors are here.”

Dumbledore agreed with her. Unfortunately the Minister of Magic disagreed with them, hence the current dilemma. He coughed slightly. “Severus, have you seen anything like that before?”

Severus Snape knew what the Headmaster was referring to. “I…have not. I will readily admit that I do not know everything about Dementors.” He shifted slightly. “That being said, I have never seen any kind of account of one behaving like that.”

McGonagall looked between the two men. “What are you talking about?”

“One of the Dementors, it did not flock towards Potter.” Snape’s customary sneer was absent. He looked thoughtful. “It…did not try to feed from the boy. It attacked the other Dementors.”

“Attack the other Dementors? Surely not!”

Dumbledore spoke softly. “I am glad to see I was not the only one that noticed. It held the others at bay. It pushed them back. If it did not, then the damage done would have been much more considerable.”

McGonagall’s face was a picture of astonishment. “Why did it do that? Has there been any history of a Dementor fighting another?”

“Not as far as I know,” Snape replied. “Usually, Dementors hunt in tandem. They will approach their targets together knowing success is more guaranteed. It is very strange for this to have happened. There have been times where one can be more…predatory. Where a particularly strong Dementor will lay first claim. However-“

“However this one did not try to feed first,” Dumbledore finished. “It truly held the others back. IT was almost…protective.”

Pomfrey looked up, doubt written across her face. “Protective? A Dementor? Surely you must be mistaken.”

“It certainly is possible,” Dumbledore admitted. “In this case however, I am not so sure.”

-0-

Harry could not believe he was doing this, again.

It was dark, the sun had already set. Under the cover of his invisibility cloak he had slipped out the main doors of the castle and was walking onto the grounds and towards the Quidditch Pitch.

He felt something calling to him, for him. Something tugged on him, a feeling that he could not ignore. He tried to, for many days. It was a strong feeling, never fading away. At first he tried to ignore it. He had learned a lesson from last year. Last year he should have not tried to look for the voice in the walls. If he had spoken to someone about it earlier, perhaps a lot less drama would have happened.

He did not tell anyone about this feeling though so perhaps he was as poor of a learner as Hermione feared he was.

Yet he decided to address it because he realized something while trying to ignore it. He could not feel the Aura anymore. That was not completely correct. He felt the Aura still but it was much less than before, almost hidden or wrapped in some kind of dampening material. He no longer felt the immense Dread that the Aura inspired. He was aware of it, like one is aware of the air or the wind. But it brought him no pain or discomfort. Instead he felt the connection more.

So he followed the connection and it led him to the Quidditch pitch. He felt that he might be able to handle himself better. He had finally produced a form of the Patronus, at least during the other Quidditch match when Draco tried to trick him. He could reliably produce the shield version much more easily than before.

He did not feel confident per se, but he knew he could defend himself. Maybe.

He stood in the middle of the pitch, idly wishing that the cloak would hide him from the cold. As if in revenge, the cold deepened. It grew stronger, sinking into his flesh to cling to his bones. He shivered, his breath becoming visible.

Then the Dementor became visible.

It glided towards him yet in a way he was not used to. It did not dive towards him like the others had. It did not reach out a thin grasping skeletal hand. It did not immediately try to suck his energy or his emotions or his soul. It moved slowly, almost hesitantly. Then it stopped at a very reasonable distance away from him.

If he had to guess, it looked uncertain. How he knew it looked uncertain with a hood drawn up and no facial features to go by, he had no idea.

“You’re the one that I…met…on the train,” he said.

The Dementor nodded.

Do Dementors nod? Harry thought. “You’re the one that came near Ginny and me.”

Another nod.

Harry opened his mouth but did not speak for a moment. He had a feeling, one similar to the feeling that pulled him here, and despite assurances from Dumbledore he had to verify it. “You’re the one that…didn’t try to attack me during the Quidditch match. You tried to stop the others.”

The Dementor floated silently for a long moment. Then it nodded a third time.

“Why?” Harry had thought he had hallucinated the incident. He had been under a lot of pressure at the time. He was weak from the rain and the cold. The Aura from over 10 Dementors had assailed him and he could not defend himself. He thought seeing a shadowy form chase away the other Dementors to be a fever dream as he fell from his broom. Apparently it was not.

The Dementor floated silently for even longer moments. Harry felt stupid. He did not know if Dementors spoke at all. What was the point of asking it questions?

He felt even more stupid, not to mention shocked, when it spoke.

“I…did not…want…them to feed.”

The Dementor’s voice was eerie. The words echoed over themselves, almost as if several voices spoke at the same time but at slightly different speeds. However, it was only one voice. A cold raspy voice, one that had not been used in goodness knows how long. A voice that inspired deep fear. A voice that invoked ice in the middle of winter. A voice that promised nothingness and oblivion.

A voice that was all that and yet distinctly, recognizably, feminine.

“Well…thanks I guess,” he said lamely. He shuddered at the sound the Dementor made. It was a hoarse noise, as if it was groaning in pain. It continued and Harry realized it was laughing.

Do Dementors laugh?

“You are….welcome.”

“Why though? Why did you stop them from feeding? Isn’t that what you lot want”

The Dementor, she, floated in place. “Yes…we must feed. We hunger…for what we…do not have. Warmth….heat…positivity. We crave…it. We want to consume…it.” It’s, her, head shook. “Yours…too precious. You have…so little as it is. I do not want…you to lose anymore.”

Harry was completely and utterly gobsmacked. “Are…all Dementors like you?”

Her head shook again. “No. I do not think so.” Her voice had grown stronger as they spoke. It resonated less, echoed less. It still inspired fear and the dark, enhancing the growing shadows around them. However it was becoming less forced, less pained. “I am beginning to remember things, feel things. Things I have not in ages.”

“What do you mean?”

She floated closer and waited for him to nod before approaching. She still stopped at a fair distance away. Despite the proximity, Harry did not feel the same despair that he used to. That horrible memory that he hated and craved for did not surface. He felt in control of himself.

“Before, before your spell, all I could think of was the Hunger. It calls to us, constantly rules over us. It guides our actions, forces us to feed. We crave positive energy, we lust for it. We can survive without, but it is an obsession that defines us. We think not of anything else save the desire to consume emotion.”

She descended, hovering very slightly over the ground. She still towered over him, but was not as intimidating as she once was. Not as intimidating.

“But since your spell, I can think. I can think of other things. I do not hunger as I used to. I do not crave as strongly as I did. I still do, and even now a part of me desires your thoughts…” Her arm rose slightly but she forced it down with the other. “I can resist. I…resist. The idea of you losing your life force by my action is…distasteful.”

Harry could only stare at her. So overwhelmed, he missed what she said. “I’m sorry,” he admitted with bright red cheeks, “could you say that again?”

She laughed again, it was definitely a laugh this time, a recognizable one.

“How? What did you do to me?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, I mean, I can barely cast a Patronus Charm. I was told it’s supposed to chase you away. Drive you back from being pure positive energy.”

She aped his shrug. “Yes. In the past the Patronus did as you say. We cannot withstand it. It drives us back, banishes us. Yours…was not fully formed-“

“Corporeal you mean?”

“Yes! Corporeal. When I approached the girl and you, you could barely keep me at bay with your shield. Yet when you thought of your affection, the first times you were treated to love, it struck me like no Patronus had ever before. Since then…I can keep the Hunger at bay. I had thought….it was something that can be done to others.”

“Sorry, it’s not like I intended to do that.” He blushed deeper. “Not to say I mind that it happened. I mean, I’m glad you’re…less hungry. But I don’t really have a good answer for you. I can ask my Professor, the one who taught me, if you like.”

She nodded and then slowly started to drift away.

Harry thought about what she said. “You…saw the memories I used to fuel the Charm.”

She stopped and turned to face him, another nod.

“Do you always see them with every Charm?”

“Sometimes. We can see the driving emotion in the memory. We can feel as you felt when the memory was made.”

Harry felt embarrassed, mortified that the Dementor had felt the shock of being loved, of feeling affection for the first time like he did. “What…what did you feel?” he asked.

“No longer hungry.”

-0-

Harry felt his wand drop from nerveless fingers. He was beyond exhausted. He felt like he had run for miles without rest. His throat was raw from screaming the Patronus Charm again and again. His eyes hurt from blinding white light and devouring black shadows. Tears ran down his cheeks, burning and freezing.

“Harry!”

He smiled. “Mom?”

“Harry! You must remain strong!”

He shook his head. He never remembered Lily saying that. His mind must be going. “Mom, I’m so tired.”

His knees buckled and he fell to the hard ground. He never fell all the way. Hands kept him from colliding with the unforgiving earth. Long skeletal hands that burned and froze his skin.

“Harry!”

His eyes opened and he looked without seeing. He slowly recognized a ragged black hood. “Oh, you’re not mom. Hi…I never asked your name. Do Dementors have names?”

Her head shook, the cowl moved wildly. “No, no, no! They took too much! No, Harry, wait. You must remain. You will remain!”

The hands let him go, gently placing him on the ground. He could not move, staring up at the night sky. He tried to, but his body would not obey.

He listened instead. A tiny feeling of relief grew in his heart as he heard the gasping of Sirius Black beside him. He was alive.

He heard something else. A loud primordial shriek shattered the air. He would have flinched if he had the ability to. He shuddered on the cold ground, the sound washed over him and he felt the Dread and the Aura at full force. It almost undid him.

Skeletal hands lifted him up and he writhed in agony. He wanted it to end.

A skeletal hand gently pulled on his chin, opening his mouth. He breathed deep and felt something enter him. It felt like warm air was being blown into his lungs. It revitalized him. It took away the chill in his body. It filled him with intense pain.

He felt himself slip into blessed unconsciousness.

-0-

“Any minute now, Hermione. He’ll come and save us. I know he will.”

“Harry…” Hermione wrung her hands. This was the hardest thing she had ever watched in her life. Sirius Black, laid out on the ground. Harry Potter, a thin boy wielding a wand, against a horde of Dementors. The dark creatures swirled around the pair, hands grasping and clawing, energy faded off them in waves. She watched them get weaker and weaker.

“Harry, your father, he’s dead. He can’t save you. We have to save you. That’s why we’re here.”

“But…I saw him. I know I did.” Harry watched himself being devoured by the Dementors. It was the latest strangest thing he had ever seen in an increasingly strange life. He watched himself try to drive the Dementors away. He watched himself fail.

He watched himself die.

Hermione gasped. “Is that one…is that a Dementor fighting other Dementors?”

The pair watched in astonishment as one Dementor clearly fought the others. It was only one against many, but it pushed them back. It clawed at them, forcing them away. There were too many to fight and most of the Dementors ignored the rogue one, lost in a frenzy. Lost to the Hunger.

In one desperate move, the rogue Dementor shrieked. A noise that stopped all the other Dementors for one brief moment.

It was enough.

Harry leapt forward from his vantage point and screamed. “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

His Patronus leapt out of his wand, fully corporeal, a figure of pure silver white. The stag reared and charged. It drove the Dementors away, forcing them back and away from the pair of wizards on the ground.

The rogue Dementor was also driven back, but it did not fly away like the others did. It hovered and after the stag chased after the other Dementors, it flew down to the boy and the man.

“Oh no! There’s one left! Hurry Harry, you must stop it.” Hermione pulled out her wand and was about to leap out but Harry stopped her.

“Wait! I know what she, its, did. Or about to do.”

The pair watched as the Dementor caught the collapsing past Harry, lowering him gently to the ground. It then flew at the other Dementors, still being chased by the Patronus. They watched with open jawed amazement as the rogue ripped the enemy Dementor to literal shreds. The other Dementor shrieked as it died, torn apart. The rogue gathered a lingering essence before flying back to the Harry that lay on the ground.

“What…what is it doing?” Hermione asked.

“Saving my life.”

-0-

He realized this was the first time he ever saw a Dementor in the daylight. Usually they came when things were dark or dreary. Or perhaps they made things dark and dreary. She did not seem to enjoy the direct sunlight. She floated near him, in the shade of a tree.

“Thank you,” he said.

She turned to look at him, well at least the cowl turned towards him. “You are welcome.”

He chuckled softly. It was almost a repeat of their first conversation. A little less forced. A little less awkward. Not normal by any stretch of the imagination, but not as strange.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Sure.”

“You called me Mom, that night. Why?”

He flushed. “Because…you kind of sounded like her at the time. I know you don’t, but the Aura was making me remember when Voldemort attacked. The way you said my name, it was like how she said my name. You both…cared for my well being. That’s why.”

Silence.

“I…am not your mother Harry.”

“I know. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“You did not.”

Another silence.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What is your name? Do Dementors have names?”

“You have already asked me that, that night. I could not answer then. I…cannot answer you now. Dementors generally do not have names. In many ways, Dementors share a single mind to feed, facets of Hunger. Typically very little separates us, designates us. However,” her voice trailed away, almost wistfully. “I think I do have a name. Or I did. I do not know it now. I hope one day to.”

More silence.

“Since I already asked you that question, mind if I ask another?”

She laughed. “I will allow it.”

“May I ask why you saved me? Again?”

She giggled. Not a laugh, but a distinct giggle. It was still an eerie sound but it no longer made him shiver from fear. “I have…a couple of reasons. One selfless. One selfish. Which would you like to hear?”

His snort brought a new burst of giggles. “Gee when you put it like that. Both please. I’m a little tired of not knowing things.”

She floated silently for a moment. “I need to know how this happened. I need to know why I am like this. I am different than other Dementors now. I can feel other emotions. I can feed and stop myself. I can deny the Hunger. I cannot be the only one.”

Her arms wrapped around herself. “I must learn more. Learn what I am. Perhaps find a way to change others. To see if they can be like me. Since you are the reason I am like this, I thought it would be best for your aid. You can see things from a wizard’s side. I will see things from a Dementor’s side. Together, we can learn more. Perhaps…I may even learn my name.”

“That makes sense. Since you’ve saved me twice now, I’ll be happy to help. Less…hungry…Dementors can only be a good thing. For wizards and witches and Dementors.”

They lapsed into silence.

“And the other reason?”

“I would not let you lose your soul.” The heavy statement was said lightly. “I would not allow you to become a Husk. You have suffered enough in your short life. That fate will not be yours, as long as I can prevent it.”

If she saw him blush she made no sign of it.

“Uh….thanks. I guess,” he said knowing full well how lame it sounded and it made him blush harder.

“You are welcome. Take care Harry Potter, we will meet again.” The Dementor drifted away, sinking deeper into the Forbidden Forest and the dark places in the woods.

“Wait!”

She paused; her ragged robes just barely visible.

“Which reason was the selfish one?”

She giggled again. “I suppose we will find out when things come to an end.”

He knew she had left completely because he could no longer feel the Aura. He shivered slightly, as if a blanket was suddenly taken away. Despite the bright sunlight, the warm air, the returning birdsong, he felt adrift for some reason. With a shy smile he walked back towards the castle. “I suppose so.”