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

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 124815


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Bethany" <bethanymil79 at y...> 
wrote:

Bethany:
> And as far 
> as experiencing the dementors afterward, he had already done that 
on 
> the Hogwarts Express (Chapter 5 - POA).  

Geoff:
Yes, but not in the same way.

'An intense cold swept over them all. HArry felt his own breath catch 
in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his 
chest, it was inside his very heart...

Harry's eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn't see.He was drowning 
in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was 
baing dragged down, the roaring growing louder...

And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, 
pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move 
his arms, but couldn't.. a thick white fog was swirling around him, 
inside him - '
(POA "The Dementor" p.66 UK edition)

Nasty. But compare with...

'The nearest Dementor seemed to be considering him. Then it raised 
both its rotting hands - and lowered its hood.

Where there should have been eyes, there was only thin, grey, scabbed 
skin, stretched blankly over empty sockets. But there was a mouth... 
a gaping, shapeless hole, sucking the air with thesound of a death-
rattle.

A paralysing terror filled Harry so that he couldn't move or speak. 
His Patronus flickered and died.

White fog was blinding him. He had to fight... expecto patronum... he 
couldn't see... and in the distance he heard the familiar 
screaming... expecto patronum... he groped in the mist for Sirius and 
found hisarm... they weren't going to take him...

But a pair of strong, clammy hands suddenly wrapped themselves around 
Harry's neck. They were forcing his face upwards... he could feel its 
breath... it was going to get rid of him first... he could feel its 
putrid breath... his mother was screaming in his ears... she was 
going to be the last thing he ever heard...'
(POA "The Dementor's Kiss" p,281 UK edition)

By now, Harry knows about the Kiss. He knows that he is facing the 
loss of his soul. this is a different ball game to the earlier one. 
He is not just going to faint... This is going to be the end of young 
Harry Potter - he is about to become a living cabbage until the 
mystery Patronus appears. This experience is one which Harry isn't 
going to wish on anybody. Not only is he the only one to escape an 
Avadra Kedavra spell but possibly one of the few to have a face to 
face contfrontation with a Dementor and come out in one piece.

No. That is one earth-shattering experience for our friend.