Questions about a Dementor's Nature (Re: Dementors and the MoM)

[meriaugust]

No: HPFGUIDX 124719


Jen wrote: 
snipping
 I'm torn about the future use of Dementors for plot purposes. 
> On one hand, JKR makes it clear we are going to see Dementors 
> outside Ministry control in the next book. What exactly that means, 
> whether Voldemort is capable of controlling them any better than 
> Fudge remains to be seen. 

Meri now, popping up from lurkdom: 
Excellent points, even those I had to snip. Who is to say that LV can 
actually control the Dementors? We know they followed MoM orders for 
a while, and we also know that they took orders from DU (in OOP when 
she tried to have them dement Harry and Dudley). But we also know (or 
are led to assume, via DD) that LV and his Death Eaters, and I am 
paraphrasing now, can provide better sport for the Dementors and 
their pleasures and powers than the MoM, and IIRC at the end of OOP 
they had abandoned Azkaban. Which all leads up to a few questions 
that have been stewing in my mind since I first read PoA: 

1) What exactly is a Dementor? I know that we know from JKR that they 
represent depression (and chillingly well, might I add), but where in 
the WW do they come from? They don't seem equipped for procreation, 
and unlike many of the other beasts and beings in the WW they didn't, 
IIRC, make an appearance in FB. Are they born? Were they created by 
some horrid experiment gone awry? Or are they manifested by negative 
human feeling (ala the slime in Ghostbusters II)? 

2) Do Dementors have free will? We can assume that, because they 
follow directions, they have some rudimentary understanding of the 
world around them, but can they choose to do things on their own? Are 
they creatures that are slaves like the house elves? Now, IMHO the 
things the MoM has asked them to do (namely guard Azkaban and suck 
out people's souls) have probably been things that the Dementors 
would enjoy in some sick, twisted way anyway. But what about now that 
they've abandoned Azkaban? Did they choose to do this or were they 
forced or coerced? 

3) Are the Azkaban Dementors the only ones in Britian? In the WW? In 
the world in general? Where do the other Dementors live? Are there 
other wizard's prisons that have Dementor guards? When did Dementors 
first appear? Do they predate LV? Did he create them? And how did he 
get them to be his allies in the first LV War? 

4) And lastly, but probably most importantly, how does one kill a 
Dementor? We know that the Patronus charm can drive them back and 
protect a person from being kissed, but how does one actually destroy 
a Dementor? If enough wizards got together and produced Patronuses at 
the same time would this kill a dementor? Or would it just take an 
enormous amount of positive energy? And what would have happened if 
Harry had been kissed by the Dementors? He's had "horrors in his 
life" that are incomprehensible but he's also filled with some 
mysterious power and has a great heart. Are these enough to protect 
Harry's soul from being sucked? 

Anyway. Just had to get those off my chest. 

Meri - back to lurking and stressing about school and wondering if a 
rousing chorus of "Kumbayah" by the Azkaban detainees might have 
driven a few Dementywhatsits away