The Dawn of Darkness || T. Riddle

Chapter 20: Dementors and Ghosts

Chapter 20: Dementors and Ghosts

They were closing in on Estela. Tom could see their thin, bony hands slowly reaching out from beneath their cloaks. Two of them – and they were large ones too – larger than all the other ones he had seen.

He was waving his wand in an almost foolish manner, uttering the spell over and over. The only spell he would probably never master. And no matter how many times he tried, he could not cast the patronus charm.

He sought Alden for assistance, but he was in trouble himself. He was being pushed back against the wall by a large group of dementors. But despite the obvious fact that he was cornered and undoubtedly defeated, he continued to wave his wand and cast patronuses. One after the other. Until the mighty bear that had once come bounding out of his wand was little more than a tendril of silver light.

Tom's attention returned to Estela and their gaze locked in a desperate plea of help. He could see the fear and hopelessness swirl behind her misty eyes. She was begging him to help her. Pleading that he'd do something.

But he couldn't.

The larger of the two dementors swooped down on her, drinking up the frozen night air along with it as it closed the dark space between them. He saw Estela's eyes flutter, as though she was becoming less conscious by the second, and he tried again to produce a patronus.

It was hopeless.

Think. He told himself. Concentrate.

He needed a happy memory to cast the spell. An extremely happy memory. He had read about dementors and the patronus charm in his third year at Hogwarts, but he had made no trouble to comprehend the spell. It was a spell he figured he'd never have use for. It was a spell that bored him. For why would he teach himself such a light spell when there were so much more interesting things he could be learning about by delving into the dark arts?

Focus.

He fixated his gaze on the dementor hovering above Estela. He closed his eyes and thought. Searched his mind for a time he had been happy. Something. Anything. But it was difficult. Extremely difficult.

He remembered feeling exhilarated and elated when he murdered his family in Little Hangleton. He remembered the fleeting sensation of dark delight that coursed through his veins as he discovered he was the heir of Slytherin and held power beyond anything he thought. He remembered what was probably the happiest moment of his childhood – when a strangely dressed man with auburn hair came to visit him at Wool's Orphanage and told him he was a wizard. That was the happiest moment of his entire life, he supposed, and so he thought about it.

He remembered the way his heart skipped a beat when his wardrobe caught fire. He remembered the way his chest tightened when he realised he would be leaving the orphanage and joining people like him. And the moment he was proved right in the fact that he wasn't a freak. He wasn't mad. But that he was powerful.

His eyes shot open. "Expecto patronum!" He shouted, and his lips parted slightly at the sight of the large serpent slithering out from the tip of his wand. It slinked through the air, much dimmer than Alden and Estela's patronuses, but a patronus nonetheless. It made its way towards the two dementors, and when it reached them they stopped.

They both turned, simultaneously, towards him and he could feel them watching him from somewhere beneath their hoods, and hear their rattling breath like an evil wind around him. The nearest Dementor seemed to be considering him. Contemplating the reason as to why they weren't drawn to him – why they hadn't noticed him until now.

Tom wasn't scared. He felt nothing other than a trivial alarm for Estela, whose legs looked like they were about to collapse from beneath her. And Tom was just glad he had distracted the dementors for some time.