bookishwench | Fic: The Other Defense (HP, Luna)

“Hello.”

Whatever the Dementor had been expecting, it wasn’t that. The blonde girl didn’t look pleased to see it, of course, but she didn’t run back down the corridor shrieking or start mumbling incoherently like some of the other students it had encountered had done. Instead, she stood quite still, much the same way she might if she happened across a stray dog that might be either friendly or rabid, but which could undoubtedly outrun her.

Dementors did not know logic, only hunger, and it had been too tempted by the school to remain in its proper place. The wizard with the long white beard would be furious at it, but not surprised. He had suspected this might happen, and he was right. The other Dementors were even now becoming too distracted with the banquet of young, careless, succulent emotions to care much for any consequences.

That was how it had found itself almost floating along the third floor corridor. It was otherwise deserted, except for the girl. The other students were attending some sort of group event on the grounds, and it was drawing the Dementors like ants to a picnic, but this one human had remained behind for some reason. The Dementor itself had wandered into the castle by chance as it followed in the direction of its brethren, and it had caught sight of the girl looking out a large window. It had been open, and before she had even registered what was happening, it had drifted into the otherwise empty corridor.

She had, of course, drawn her wand. The girl was no fool.

“Professor Lupin explained to the second years about Dementors,” she said, her voice shivering slightly, but her wand arm remained steady.

There was nowhere for her to run even if she wanted to. Her choices were to remain where she was, vainly try to flee down the corridor, or jump out a window forty feet to the ground below. Her options weren’t good, particularly since it could move far faster than she would ever suspect.

“He tried to show us the spell to repel you, but none of us managed it. Professor Lupin said that’s perfectly normal considering how young we are. He’s very nice, even if no one else has figured out he’s really a werewolf yet. At first I thought he was a Pendibulous Snarvast, because they go into seclusion at the full moon, too, but I’ve seen him eat chocolate without turning into a noxious purple mist, so that’s the only other option. Oh, I would never tell anyone that, but then, you don’t speak, do you?”

The Dementor regarded her with a mixture of confusion and some small degree of interest. It had only a vague idea what she was talking about, but that was less unusual than her apparent lack of fear.

“Anyway, Professor Lupin said you suck all the good memories from people and leave them with the worst ones. That’s horrid, of course, but then he said something odd. He said you do that because you have no good memories of your own, so you steal them from others,” she said. “I can’t help feeling that’s rather sad, even if you do suck the souls out of people.”

It was getting hungry again, and he could just start to taste the delicious memories the girl in front of him carried: memories of time spent with a father, of reading favorite books, of noticing pretty flowers. There were many of a woman who was her mother, but those were tinged with sadness, and it had a brief flash of some sort of accident she had witnessed, one that had taken the woman’s life. That would be the one it would leave uppermost in her mind, though it felt the slightest twinge of regret for that for the first time in its life.

“So, I can’t repel you. But I can do this,” she said, and her wand glowed. “Orchideous!”

It had been half expecting a defensive spell, but instead, a single yellow daisy fell from her wand to the ground. Keeping her eyes on the Dementor all the while, she bent and picked up the flower.

“These always look cheerful,” she said, then, taking a breath, she extended the flower towards the Dementor. “Go on. It’s for you.”

The Dementor had the odd experience of feeling awkward. It more shuffled than floated closer, and it allowed its scab-covered, skeletal hand to peek forth from the sleeve of its robe. Its fingers closed clumsily around the stem, and she let go of the daisy as it lifted it towards its veiled face.

“There you are,” she said, and it looked back at her to find the girl actually smiling at it. “It’s not much of a happy memory, I suppose, but it’s better than nothing, and you didn’t have to steal it.”

It looked back at the flower, then at the girl again. She still looked like her memories would be absolutely scrumptious, and it drew in a rasping, ravenous breath, but it couldn’t dislodge the picture of the daisy from its mind. With a weak shudder, it turned and flew back out the open window, hearing the girl’s relieved sigh as it left.

“You’re welcome!” she called after it, and he could just make out the image of her skipping down the hallway through the rain-spattered windowpane.