Harry Potter: Westeros’s Plant Life
0217 Dementors

After Adrian finished speaking, the corridor fell silent once again.

Harry's expression grew somber as he knew exactly what the Dementors that Adrian had just mentioned were—they were said to extremely evil creatures.

He turned slowly to observe his companions. Hermione had reluctantly lifted her head from her book, and Ron was also looking at him curiously..

"What did you hear?" Hermione asked.

Harry's throat felt dry as sandpaper.

"Dementors," He replied. "Someone outside was talking about Dementors patrolling the corridor."

"Dementors?" Hermione's voice cracked slightly.

"Dementors!" Ron's exclamation was louder, more panicked.

"What are those exactly?" Harry's question came out in a rush as he did not fully know about Dementors.

Ron drew a shuddering breath, his mind involuntarily conjuring images of the Azkaban.

"They're creatures that feast on human happiness," He explained. "The moment you encounter one, every joyful memory you've ever had simply... vanishes. Do you remember when Hagrid was taken away by the Ministry last year? They took him to Azkaban prison. That hellish place is crawling with Dementors—they use them to break the spirits of the prisoners."

Harry's entire body trembled in a reflex shudder. He naturally knew about Azkaban. It was the wizarding world's most famous prison, and also the most dangerous one. Black had escaped from there.

"But what could they possibly want here?" Ron's voice was stressed, almost pleading. "Why would they be on the Hogwarts Express?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione set aside the book in her hands. "They must be here for Black—that escaped prisoner everyone's been talking about. The Ministry probably deployed them to recapture him."

Ron scratched his head in confusion. "But that doesn't make sense, If Black managed to escape from Azkaban in the first place, wouldn't he know how to handle Dementors? Why would he be afraid of them now?"

Hermione's lips pressed into a thin line. "That's a question for the Ministry officials to puzzle over, not us, our job is to follow Professor Westeros's instructions and stay safely inside this compartment. We're protected here."

Harry nodded slowly, but even as he did so, a cold knot of dread was forming in his stomach. Something felt wrong—terribly, inexplicably wrong..

Minutes crawled by like hours. The only sounds were the steady patter of rain against glass and the distant rumble of the train's engine.

Then, cutting through the relative silence, came something else—a sound that made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand up.

It was subtle at first: a soft rustling, like fabric brushing against stone, accompanied by an almost imperceptible scratching noise.

"God, it's freezing in here," Ron muttered, his breath beginning to mist in the suddenly cold air. He glanced toward the rain-streaked window, where the droplets seemed to be moving more slowly. His shoulders hunched inward as he tried to conserve body heat.

"I can feel it too," Hermione agreed, her voice tight with suppressed fear. She wrapped her arms around herself.

Harry's own body was responding to the supernatural cold that seemed to seep through the walls themselves. It seemed as if the temperature in the compartment had suddenly dropped.

Without a doubt, something was now wandering in the corridor outside their compartment.

Fortunately, they wouldn't suddenly burst into the compartment.

"Squeak... eeeeh!"

Just then, the rat Scabbers in Ron's pocket suddenly became agitated.

With lightning speed, it jumped onto the table and dove headfirst into the box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

"Scabbers! What's gotten into you?" Ron's voice was sharp with alarm as he lunged forward to rescue his pet. His hands moved quickly as he took out the trembling rat from the candy box, placed it in his palm and began gently stroking it.

However, no matter how he comforted it, Scabbers just curled up into a ball, and began trembling continuously.

"You really should take him to see a magical veterinarian," Hermione observed. "And before you say anything, Crookshanks isn't even here, so you can't blame my cat this time."

Ron's expression grew pained. "Scabbers doesn't trust strangers, I tried taking him to a pet healer once, but he bit the poor woman so badly she nearly needed stitches. Besides, she said he was perfectly healthy—just quite old for a rat."

"How old is he, exactly?" Hermione's curiosity was piqued despite their circumstances.

Ron shrugged helplessly. "Nobody knows for sure. Percy was already carrying him around when he started at Hogwarts, and that was years ago. Before that, he belonged to one of my older brothers."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up.

"That's impossible," She said flatly. "Ordinary rats can't live that long. For Scabbers to be that old, it must be a magical mouse, or he has some special bloodline, like my Crookshanks with his Kneazle heritage."

"Oh, here we go again with your precious cat," Ron muttered, but his heart wasn't in the usual banter. His attention was focused on Scabbers, who continued to tremble as if he'd seen his own death approaching.

Creak.

Just then, their compartment door suddenly shook.

The three people in the compartment stopped what they were doing and looked at each other.

Obviously, no one should be coming at this time.

"Who's there?" Harry shouted loudly.

Silence.

The absence of response was somehow more terrifying than any answer could have been. For a moment, they began to relax, convincing themselves that they'd imagined the sound, that their nerves were simply playing tricks on them.

Then the door pulled open.

A figure wrapped entirely in heavy black robes stood in the doorway.

The three were stunned for a moment—they didn't recognize this person, who was clearly not a Hogwarts professor.

"Who are you?" Harry demanded loudly.

The stranger silently stepped aside and made a gesture.

Harry saw a dark, shadow-like thing float over.

He had never seen this thing before, but he could guess that this should be a Dementor from Azkaban.

Because every time that dark thing came closer, Harry felt his heart being squeezed.

At this moment, Harry turned to look at Ron and Hermione. Ron's face had turned pale, and Hermione was gripping the edge of her seat tightly with her fingers.

Finally, that thing floated into the compartment. Under its tattered cloak, withered hands were faintly visible, and the air was filled with a suffocating chill.

Harry's lungs seized up as if he'd been plunged into arctic waters. The sensation of drowning filled his chest, and panic began to hook at the edges of his consciousness.

"GET OUT!" Hermione's voice exploded through the compartment. She had somehow found the strength to leap to her feet, her wand clutched in her trembling hand. "GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

The Dementor showed no reaction to her. If anything, it seemed to draw even more closer to Harry with interest.

Harry's world began to narrow to a pinpoint of consciousness. His ears were filled with sounds that seemed to come from nightmares—the crash of breaking glass, the screech of metal on metal, and underneath it all, a woman's voice screaming in terror.

"This doesn't comply with regulations, sir."

A gentle and familiar voice reached Harry's ears.

With tremendous effort, Harry managed to lift his head, his vision swimming as he struggled to focus.

The scene in front of him astonished him.

Professor Westeros had appeared at the door at some point, his slender fingers easily grasping the Dementor's "scruff," pulling it out like lifting a disobedient cat.

"Take care of Harry," He said to Hermione. "I'll return shortly to check on you all."

Hermione nodded dumbly, her brain still struggling to process what she was witnessing.

As the compartment door clicked shut behind Adrian, all three collapsed into their seats as if strings holding them up had been cut. The warmth began to return to the air, and with it, the ability to think clearly.

In the corridor outside, Adrian adjusted his grip on the struggling Dementor while using his free hand to smooth out the wrinkles in his sleeve. The creature's cloak rose and twisted in mid-air, its movements becoming increasingly frantic as it realized the futility of its situation.

The Dementor's struggles intensified, and Adrian's fingers tightened around it. Immediately, the creature froze as if struck by lightning, its entire form going stiff. It was as if some invisible force had wrapped itself around the Dementor, compressing it into submission.

Seeing this, Adrian felt slightly relieved—ever since he had gained those mysterious energies from the Tree of Wisdom, Dementors could no longer harm him.

Those forces seemed to naturally counter Dementors. Just like the Dementor in front of him, it dared not make any movement in his grasp.

Satisfied that the creature was properly subdued, Adrian turned his attention to the Azkaban guard who had been watching the entire exchange with an expression of absolute bewilderment. The man's mouth hung open, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the Dementor dangling from Adrian's hand.

"Now then, sir," Adrian said, his voice maintaining its gentleness. "I distinctly remember giving you clear instructions that these creatures were not to approach the student compartments under any circumstances. I believe I deserve a reasonable explanation for this breach of protocol."

The guard remained silent, his gaze fixed on the impossible scene in front of him. In all his years of working with Dementors, he had never witnessed anything like this. These creatures were supposed to be nearly impossible to control, even for trained professionals.

Yet here was a Hogwarts professor handling one like it was nothing more than a troublesome house cat.

"Hey, sir." Adrian reminded again. "Answer my question, or I'll have to take some measures that neither of us would want to see."

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