Dura Lex Magica

agra-el

Dura Lex Magica

Big D vs Dementors

Harry Potter, the boy who survived again, was sinking deeper into the depths of depression. He relived the events of June twenty-fourth over and over again.

"Kill the excess!" And the green flash blinds Harry, even though his eyes are closed.

"Kill the excess!" and Cedric Diggory, the real Hogwarts champion, drops dead with his arms outstretched.

"Kill the excess!" and the scar, unbearably, to the point of blindness in his eyes, which hurt before, explodes with such fierce pain that Harry adds his lunch to the cemetery soil.

For more than a month, this "kill too much" did not leave the boy for a minute. At night, in nightmares that began with flying through space and ended with cold, cruel laughter, during the day, Harry's thoughts kept returning to the green flash and what preceded it. The green flash and the sound of Cedric's body falling merged in his head with the green flash, Voldemort's devilish laughter and his mother's desperate cry, which he regularly dreamed of, starting with that train ride when, before his third year, the dementors supposedly checked the train, but in fact they came to "dine" on the fresh emotions of innocent children, as well as Later, during the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match.

He almost never dreamed of the sequel, how Pettigrew the rat revives the Snake-faced. During the day, he lamented every time that he got into a stupor and could not fight back against the rat. Constant vigilance, of course! Why didn't he shout to Cedric when he felt the pain in his scar?: "Run"? After all, I knew that the scar starts to hurt right next to Voldemort! Why did he even start playing the noble game and invite Cedric to take up the cup together? Was it because Cedric had told him how to solve the egg's riddle? It was "you to me, I to you"! Harry told him about the dragons, and Cedric thanked him in return. Was it because the yellow-and-blacks had stopped wearing the "Potter the Stinker" badges, and he thought they were being shamed by Cedric? Why? He couldn't find an answer to that question.

And friends. His friends did not write to him about what was happening in the magical world. A single note, signed by both of them at once, assured him that everything was in order, and friends were busy with important business, details at the meeting. Because of his worries, he did not even remember his birthday, and he perceived the lack of mail as punishment for being abnormal.

Yes, Harry blamed himself for everything. Maybe he really is abnormal, as he was called all his conscious childhood? Maybe he really shouldn't be around normal people, no matter if they're ordinary people or wizards? ""Maybe Malfoy was right when he launched the fashion for those badges at Hogwarts with the inscription "Let's support Cedric— the Real Champion", turning into "Potter the Stinker"? He didn't even pay attention to Dudley's bullying and insinuations about Cedric, whose name Harry screamed in his sleep and occasionally muttered in his waking life. My cousin eventually fell behind, seeing that his teasing didn't have any effect anyway. He even stopped brushing Harry with his shoulder as he passed him, and tried to lead his gang away as soon as he saw Potter wandering around Little Wing. Maybe the fat man was a jerk (1), but he wasn't a fool, and the oddities in his cousin's behavior bothered him a lot.

So it happened that evening. As soon as he noticed Harry standing in the shade of a large lilac bush on Magnolia Street, staring wildly towards the sunset, Dudley began to say goodbye to his friends. When everyone had gone their separate ways, he walked over to the bush and pulled Harry by the arm.

"Hey, you're crazy! You'll catch a cold, the night is coming soon. Let's go to the hut."

Harry followed his cousin without a word. At that moment, several things happened at once. First of all, it got colder. Secondly, it became impenetrably dark, as if it were not late twilight, but a dark night in the fog. Harry drew his wand on reflex. Dudley looked around, barely able to make out his cousin's figure a step away from him. Harry was acting weird. At first, having clearly got into a fighting stance, the young man suddenly collapsed to his knees, clutching his head with both hands. His wand fell out of his hand and rolled towards Dudley.

Dudley felt himself slipping into depression, no worse than he had seen his cousin in the last month. He remembered all the worst moments of his life. How ashamed he felt every time Harry got hurt for his antics. He was ashamed that Harry was being scolded for his good grades, as if he was cheating, but Dudley was just glad that no one believed the crazy one. How ashamed he was when he and his friends took away the little things from the kids, but he couldn't back down, because he was the "big De", only the balls were cooler than him! He remembered how much it had hurt him when that crazy giant had conjured a pig's tail for him.

"P-Potter, what is this?" he barely managed to get out of himself, also falling to his knees and unconsciously picking up his wand. "Are these your tricks?"

"No," Harry replied, holding his head and swaying like a madman. "These are... dementors."

"H-what other... mentors?"

"The Guards of Azkaban..."

Then, out of the misty darkness, a jelly appeared, which in itself would hardly have affected Dudley's horror-hardened brain if it hadn't been for the aura of horror that spread from this something.

"They... feed on people's souls... run, Dad! Run!"

Then Dudley noticed a wand in his hand. Looking at Harry's inappropriate behavior, he pulled himself together and asked, waving his wand in the manner of a fairy godmother:

"What should I say? Gibberish? Sim-selabim? Akhalai-mahalai? Hocus pocus?"

"N-no..."

"So what?" Come on, give birth faster!"

"Expecto... Patronum..."

At that moment, a misty haze jumped out of the wand in Dudley's hands, throwing the jelly back a couple of steps.

"In! It's working! Expecto... whatever his name is... The patronum!" Dudley shouted.

Nothing happened. The figure hovering a step away from the ground in front began to approach. Dudley felt a similar horror from behind.

"You... can't..." Harry managed to choke out, blindly clutching at the air with his right hand. "Give me..."

Dudley obediently put his wand in his hand.

"Expecto...Patronum..."

The wand released another batch of silver mist. The creepy figure in front retreated a couple of steps again. The feeling of terror from behind only intensified. Dudley hauled Harry to his feet with difficulty, grabbing his armpits.

"Damn, Harry! Come on, get it together!"

"I can't," Harry said faintly. "Run!"

"Well, no, brother! You won't get rid of me that easily! Come on! Let's! I'm with you!" Dudley was shouting in his ear. Dudley hugged him tightly under his arms, as if he was afraid Harry would just spill onto the floor..

"Are you... with me?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"With you, with you! Come on, conjure up your gibberish! Show them where the crayfish hibernate!(2) Come on, I got you! Together we are a force!"

Dudley didn't see the silly smile spreading across the young wizard's face. He was more worried that someone's icy hands began to cover his throat, and from horror he could barely keep the anal sphincter in check.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry spoke clearly.

A silvery silhouette of a red deer burst out of the wand and pounced on the cloaked figure. He pulled it up on its horns, and the dementor, howling in pain and despair, flew away. The silver deer turned around and galloped right through the youths. At the same time, the guys felt happiness and peace for a moment, and then they heard the howl of the retreating creature again. The deer galloped around the cousins, touched both of them with its ghostly muzzle and scattered into a million silver stars, which soon went out.

"Don't put your wand away, you stupid boy", The boys heard it as soon as the dark fog cleared, and the fading sunset and the first stars became visible.

Old Figg was standing next to him, hunched over with a purse in her hands.

"They can come back! I'm going to kill this Fletcher!" She grumbled. "He's gone somewhere again at exactly the moment when he's needed!"

"Who's Fletcher?" Harry asked, leaning heavily on his cousin.

"It doesn't matter. Run into the house and don't come out! I'll contact Albus."

"Do you know Dumbledore?" the young man was surprised.

"Of course I know! Hurry up!"

"Are you a sorceress?"

"No, I'm a squib! Stop talking, move it!"

And the old woman walked briskly to her house, periodically looking back to see if the boys had obeyed her or not.

Harry barely managed to hobble home with Dudley's help. When she saw that her son was practically carrying his cousin, Petunia burst out laughing and helped him sit him down on the sofa.

"What's wrong, Duddie? What has this lunatic done again? One minute he's shooting something under the windows, the next he's not coming home! Is he drunk?"

"No, Mom, the dementoids attacked us. We were just walking home...."

"What? Dem-mentors? Are they the ones who guard their crazy prison?"

"How do you know about them?" Dudley was surprised.

"It doesn't matter! So what were they doing here? Have you come for his soul? Did he do something to them?"

"I don't know, Mom..."

Then a barn owl flew in through the window, which was open due to the summer heat, and dropped a letter with an official-looking stamp on it. Petunia picked up the envelope and tore it open.

"Mr. Potter... Patronus spell... eliminated... destroyed!" She muttered, glancing through the letter from the Ministry of Magic. "I've finished playing! That's it, no more magic for you! You're going to go to school like a normal person!"

Vernon, who had been watching TV and watching the unfolding events only out of the corner of his eye, muttered approvingly. Dudley snatched the letter from his mother and read it.

"Well, they're... holy shit! Is it that they don't control their dementaries, and then they expel them from school for self-defense? And they break the wand! Bro, fuck this ballet, come on, I'll break your wand myself?! At least it won't hurt so much. Or you can break it yourself."

At that moment, a disheveled owl flew into the living room and dropped another letter into Harry's lap. More precisely, a note.

"Dumbledore... Don't leave your uncle and aunt's house... don't give up the wand... Mr. Weasley," Harry had read it in the manner of Petunia a minute earlier. "I don't understand anything...."

Harry was still sitting in prostration, but something in his behavior had barely changed noticeably. Dudley even thought there was a glimmer of life in his cousin's dead eyes.

"So what happened there?" Vernon muttered.

Dudley told him in detail. Well done, son! No matter how crazy your cousin is, you saved him! Vernon, who had a mustache, nodded approvingly.

"Come on, Dad! If it weren't for that expected Patronus of his, we'd both have been caught there. I wish I could run away from them, these creatures fly through the air like demons!"

"They are demons," Petunia said faintly, heading for the kitchen. "Do I need to arrange some tea..."

"Aunt Petunia!" Harry called out to her, slightly perked up. "Chocolate is better, if possible. He helps after contact with dementors, Professor Lupin taught us in the third year. When the dementors checked on us on the train, many of the guys felt sick, so he fattened everyone up with chocolate. And then they were the only ones who saved themselves all year."

"Lupin? Another friend of your daddy's?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"Okay. There was cocoa somewhere, and you can cook it for a long time, so you can drink it with boiling water."

Dudley stormed upstairs and came down a few minutes later with a few chocolate bars.

"Here you go," he muttered sheepishly, awkwardly thrusting a couple at Harry.

Then another one flew in the window (or the same one — will it sort them out?) The barn owl dropped the letter from the Ministry on the table again.

"Who's working for them at this hour?" Vernon was surprised, trying to open the letter. "It's empty..."

"Uncle Vernon, I think the text is hidden from normal people", Harry said, taking the letter from his uncle.

"What do you mean, boy? That Petunia and Dudley are crazy?"

"No, they're not magicians. They're like old Figg, apparently."

"What do you mean, "like old Figg"?"

"Squibs. It's like magicians, but without the abnormalities."

"I don't understand anything!" Vernon looked visibly angry. "Can you explain it in a human way?!"

"I don't really know myself.... It's just that sometimes wizards have descendants like that who can't do magic. They call them squibs and banish them to the ordinary world. Sometimes they are killed so that they "do not disgrace the noble family." We need to contact Hermione for details, she knows everything about us...."

"Is that the shaggy-haired one who pecked you on the cheek at the train station?" Vernon grinned through his mustache.

"Did you bite?" Harry was surprised.

He had absolutely no memory of saying goodbye to his friends after leaving platform nine and three quarters.

"Boy, what's the matter with you? You've been walking around all summer!"

"They say here that they won't break the stick yet, but your training has been suspended and the hearing will take place on the twelfth anyway", Dudley commented after reading the letter over Harry's shoulder. "And yes, Harry, can you tell me who Cedric is? Why shouldn't he be killed? ""Why are you screaming in your sleep, "Daddy, save him!" and "Mommy, save him!"? What's going on out there, in this Magland of yours?"

Harry grinned in spite of himself, but immediately became serious and dropped his head, hugging it with his hands. Petunia brought a tray from the kitchen with tea for herself and Vernon and cocoa for the children.

"Indeed, it's better!" Dudley said, taking a big bite of a chocolate bar and washing it down with cocoa. "Mad... Harry, come on, drink! I told you so myself. And tell me."

Harry obediently took a sip from the cup handed to him and took a bite of the candy bar his cousin had helpfully unwrapped.

"It all started when someone put my name in a Goblet of Fire...." He began thoughtfully. "Or maybe not, probably even earlier. Last summer, when my scar suddenly hurt at night and I had a prophetic dream."

The Durseyes listened to the young man's story as if spellbound. Even the owl that flew in about a third of the story, leaving the howler, and the howler itself that opened with the words "Petunia, remember my last!" did not make them distract from the story. Another letter, also brought by an owl, Harry casually commented as "This is from his godfather, he also writes not to twitch and sit still," after which he continued the story.

"Fuck..." after listening to the end, Dudley did not hold back and expressed himself more strongly than before.

"I agree, son. And I won't even make you wash your mouth with soap", Vernon replied to this. "Boy, won't this Voldy-Schmoldy of yours come to us for you?"

Looking at his seriously worried uncle, Harry simply replied that, according to Dumbledore, there was some kind of blood protection on the house, and that was why he had to return here every year. So that no Voldemort mutt could find him.

"Then how do their owls fly to you? And what was it like in the first letter?" Petunia took the first note from Mafalda Hopkirk and read: "`Representatives of the Ministry will visit you soon to destroy your magic wand.' Can't anyone get in with them?"

Harry looked at his aunt blankly. Then he looked at his uncle. Then at Dudley. The latter, despite the seriousness of the situation, openly laughed.

"And which one of us is dumb, Potter? Dad, you said you were going to take a couple of weeks off, like this," He nodded his head at Harry. "Maybe you can take all four?"

"Uncle Vernon! You need to change your place of residence urgently! To hell with Dumbledore's blood protection! I will not forgive myself if you are also because of me...."

"What are you talking about, kid? These people of yours have police too! Why not demand protection from them? Yes, I'll go to the normal police!"

"Uncle, the Statute!"

"Fuck your Statute! Do you think I'm completely stupid or something? I'll tell them that sectarians are threatening us, and I'll describe it in as much detail as possible! Well, I don't believe that the Queen and the Prime Minister are unaware of your abnormalities! Surely they have some special powers for this! We just need to find them. And certainly, if not our sergeant, then the inspector of Surrey should be aware of your affairs! Otherwise, we would all have been dancing to the tune of your Schmold Voldes and other Dumbledores long ago!"

With a menacing flourish of his moustache, Uncle Vernon took out a reference book from the bedside table in the hallway and began leafing through it.

"Vernon, are you going to call the police at night?"

"What else can we do if these lunatics didn't even give us the opportunity to call their police?"

"The Aurora."

"what?"

"The police are called Aurors in the wizarding world, and their employees are called aurors," Harry explained.

"Even with marshmallows!" Vernon snapped, continuing to flip through the directory.

When he found the right number, he immediately picked up the phone.

"The police? Oh, it's you, Rudy! Is Ferguson still in his room? Already? All right, Constable, quiet watch for you!"

Vernon dialed a new number.

"Mike? It's the Dursleys. Yeah, same to you. Well, yes. Listen, there's a hundred-pound deal here. Yeah, yeah... Anyway, do you know anything about dementors? There are some strange things going on here. No? It's a pity, it's a pity... You do this, not to the service, but to friendship, pass it on to the authorities there, to your inspector. Yeah. Yes, tell him this: `Dementors were seen in Little Whinging on the evening of August second.' He'll understand. And if not, ask him to pass it on to the authorities. Tell them they're threatening civilians. Am I not a civilian or something? Well, Fergusson, will you come to my place for brandy? Okay, come on. And that, Mike, I'm not kidding. If you want, take a breathalyzer and come to me. Or let me drop by on my own. No? Well, thanks then! Good night, yeah!"

Vernon hung up the phone with satisfaction.

"That's it, basta, babies! Now we are waiting. Kid, if you don't care anymore, then don't hide your stick. How do you say your dementoids appear?"

After listening to Dudley's story once more, Vernon nodded his head and held up his index finger.

"Here! Got it, kid? As soon as it gets sad, we all gather in a bunch and eat chocolate. Son, do you have a lot more?"

"There'll be half a box," Dudley replied, thinking for a moment.

"Uncle Vernon," Harry began hesitantly, "why are you helping me?"

"No one can say that the Dursleys abandoned their kinsman in trouble!" He thundered.

"And why, well..." Harry hesitated again, "did you... earlier?"...

Vernon stared at the embarrassed young man and sighed.

"Tuney, show him."

"Maybe you shouldn't?"

"It is necessary, Tuni, it is necessary! Bring it!"

Aunt Petunia went up to the bedroom and returned about five minutes later.

"Dumbledore left this in the basket where you were dropped off." She said, handing Harry a piece of parchment.

The young wizard read the letter carefully. Then again. And more. The content has not changed.

"It can't be... I don't believe it!"

The letter fell out of his hand, and Harry put his head in his hands for the umpteenth time that evening. Dudley picked up the fallen piece of parchment and read it.

"F'u-it'!" He whistled. "Have we really been dancing to that Dumby's tune all this time?"(3) Pa?"

"It turns out that way!" Vernon spread his hands. "What's wrong? Have you forgotten about your tail already?"

"No, I just remembered today. Right in front of the fucking dementors...." The fat man shuddered. "Well, you damn it! But I really thought that you can't treat this normally, because he's not normal. This year is just..." Dudley waved his hand.

"Are you okay, kid?" Vernon asked Harry.

He raised his head.

"No. It's not okay. But I can handle it, I'm not normal!" Harry grinned.

"Come on, tell me what else interesting happened there. Or is it just this year?"

Harry laughed hysterically. There was not just liveliness in his eyes, but a kind of maniacal fire.

"Something happened every fucking year! Troll, baby dragon, Quirrelmort, basilisk, dementors, werewolf, animagus godfather, animagus traitor, time tra..." he broke off. "Anyway, shit happened. I'll be talking about it for two hours."

"We're not in a hurry, are we, Tuni? By the way, arrange another cup of tea!"

* * *

The night passed quietly, even though it was well past midnight. Vernon had already sorted out all of Harry's adventures, proving to him how two and two make four, that even for a school of lunatics, everything that happened to him was abnormal. At first, Harry wanted to send letters to Ron, Hermione, and Sirius, but Uncle Vernon talked him out of it. And that's right, since Sirius has already written to him, then he should be aware, and since Arthur has written, then Ron most likely knows. In the end, Harry still sent Hedwig to Hermione, briefly describing what had happened. The owl never came back.

Harry seemed to come alive, despite what had happened. Or maybe because of that. He spent two days rereading textbooks and even managed to write a couple of essays for the summer. On Friday evening, the fourth, a policeman with two diamonds on his shoulder straps showed up at their house. He introduced himself as Inspector Alan Craggs (4). And he didn't come alone. With him was a man in a cassock, at the sight of whom Vernon was tense, but when he saw the colorat, he relaxed. However, the robes of wizards are not visually very different from the cassocks of the clergy. The inspector introduced his companion as Ricardo's father.

"You can just say Richard. You're not Catholic, are you?"

The audience shook their heads.

"And a young man, as a wizard, shouldn't call me "father" at all,"" Ricardo grinned, boring Harry with piercing brown eyes. "Tell me what's going on with the dementors."

1) I remind you, this is not a physiologism, but a state of mind, therefore, through "a".

2) Show 'em they are messing with the wrong person!

3) Wordplay: dumb — English dumb.

4) Alan Craggs