One Honest Heart

De'ment: To deprive of reason; to make mad. Derived from the Latin dementare. Also dementate (n. dementation). Forms the root of Dementor, one who dements.

- F&B Wizarding Dictionary, 1986 ed.

Dementor. A creature that sucks the happiness out of anyone in its close vicinity. Employed at Azkaban prison for its ability to dampen or, in extreme cases, completely obliterate the magic of wizards and witches subjected to its influence.

- Encyclopedia Magica, De-Dr, 1972 ed.

Of all the monsters outlined in this book, the Dementor is perhaps the most unforgivably evil. Its one defining motivation, its sole reason for existing, is to prey on the happiness of others, to create discord and fear and feed on the filthiest of emotions: hate and mindless fear. In extinguishing every last spark of hope, the Dementor turns its victim into a state beyond mere life or death; a state of existence so pitiful that even the cruellest of physical torture would be less demeaning.

The further the victim sinks into this state of anti-life, the weaker its magic will become and it will lose the very last hope for survival: the Patronus charm. Having thus debilitated its victim, the Dementor devours the final ragged remnants of that lost soul and leaves behind an empty shell, a demented body that cares not for survival and wastes away in the most degrading way conceivable.

Still, it cannot be said that the Dementor takes any perverse joy in these killing kisses. Its very coldness, its inability to feel any sort of compassion, its very repulsion of all the finer emotions is what makes the Dementor perhaps the foulest creature ever to walk the earth.

- Frederick Fallswipe, Musings on the Monster, 1912

- from the Song of the Empty Ones, modern text, from an incomplete thirteenth century manuscript

It might have been all the repeated mentions of Potter’s magnificent Patronus that first sparked the idea in my overworked mind. Anyone with half a brain could see that there was a connection between the Patronuses and the Dementors – but no one had wondered (as far as I could tell) what that connection really was. After all, Muggles don’t stop their morning procedures to contemplate how the toilet or the faucet work, nor do Witches and Wizards in general worry about how spells and charms operate – it is simply enough that they do.

Hence, my editor looked two steps away from pulling me off the story when I came in muttering about trying to find out how Patronuses work. He wondered – weighing his words between earnestness and sarcasm – if I had missed the Hogwarts class when Expecto Patronum was discussed. ‘Patronuses are the embodiment of their casters’ positive thoughts,’ he told me, quite possibly reciting old Flitwick’s lecture verbatim. If I didn’t believe him, I could check the library - ‘it’s called research.’

Though too tired to argue coherently, I asked him why those happy thoughts would attack the Dementors and why the latter would flee before the former. Before he fled from my unfocused, staring eyes and convoluted reasoning, my editor told me that if I wanted to know why Dementors feared embodied Happy Thoughts, I should go interview a Dementor or drop the story.

I did neither, of course. But I did go to the library, and I did interview, once again, the closest thing I could find to a companionable Dementor, though the First One would undoubtedly resent the comparison. My agitated mind simply refused to accept what was, I thought, a wishy-washy explanation of a spell that might provide an invaluable clue to solving the mystery of the Dementors.

At first, I thought I would get nothing but tedious repetition from the First One. The Dementors fear life, he said. They fear being infected by it. It was only after the interview, alone in the Pergamentus Library that the First One’s prattling came to make sense.

Ancient scrolls talk of the Empty Ones. Dementor was a term coined in 1616 by Akil Attenville, a witchdoctor criticising the use of the beings as guardians of the newly established Azkaban prison. He argued that a person’s sanity and soul should never be stolen in such a demeaning way, no matter the crime committed. Attenville meant that these Dementors reflected the demented attitude of a society gone mad. The Empty Ones dehumanised their creators and where we once had used mentors to guide people onto a better path, we now provided de-mentors to destroy a damage already done.

His arguments never quite gripped the conscience of the Prophet’s readers back when his heated articles were published, largely due to his highbrow rhetoric. I spent hours deciphering and summarising them for my first substantial piece in weeks. When my editor saw it, he nearly choked on the thick scent of controversy. But he published. And the debate was re-awoken, reaching heights that its long-dead originator could have only dreamed of.

I took a self-defence course. Times had been publicly acknowledged as bad for quite some time at that point and such pastimes flourished. Being confined to my flat, the office, and the occasional dull tea party or marginally festive cookery contest I was sent to cover, I had previously shunned such activity. Perhaps I felt unworthy of protection, even from myself.

But I did not attend this course to learn how to protect myself. Quite the opposite. I was well aware that, should I succeed, I was likely to put myself in more danger than ever before. Still, that treacherous road also led to possible success, and the Big Story. Thus, in keeping with the general direction of my research so far, I took a Patronus course.

Long before the reawakened discussion of ethical and moral aspects of the Dementors, the dark creatures had lodged themselves firmly in the public consciousness, not least due to their repeated attacks on the very symbol of Wizarding Goodness, the Boy Who Lived. The Dementors were more tangible monsters than the Death Eaters - and ones you could vanquish with a charm. A charm that worked for any occasion, if you could just learn to perform it.

In fact, specific Patronus courses were, and may still be, far more popular than the more general Defence Against the Dark Arts courses. There was just the one charm to master and one foe to wield it against.

Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, did neither cunning nor subterfuge well. In that, at least, it could not be denied but they were plain-dealing villains. Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, knew of neither shields nor curses. If you mastered the Patronus, you need not worry about being too ignorant to defend yourself; only whether or not your strength would suffice. The Patronus was, in all its simplicity, once mastered, the blunt weapon of the slow masses.

Dementors, unlike Death Eaters, did not turn out to be your next-door neighbour.

Dementors - dark, ominous, and simple-minded - turned into everyone's favourite monster, a count Dracula to be kept at bay with garlic and wooden stakes while the more earthly landlords leached the land through intangible shrewdness and political machinations. And as it has been throughout all of humanity's times of trial, there were people ready to profit on people's fear, to sell garlic and amulets, to teach the Patronus charm to those who had never grasped or been taught it at school.

And such a man was Henry Witherto, a spell researcher in desperate need of funding for his erratic and eccentric attempts to re-shape common spells and re-create lost ones. I chose his particular course not based on any shining reputation but rather on the gossip that filtered through the other groups I visited. Witherto was rumoured to be absent-minded enough to forget to turn up to his own sessions and ill-tempered enough to publicly chastise students for what he perceived as dull-wittedness. Of aristocratic lineage, Witherto had little patience for the very type of people his courses were aimed at: poorly educated commoners. However, he was also rumoured to be obsessed with the Patronus charm and, by default, the Dementors. In short, just the man I wanted.

Though, I must admit, I did start to doubt myself - more than usual even - after a few sessions with my ill-mannered teacher.