After repairing the massive hole blasted through the roof of the carriage, Kyle made his way toward the very last car of the train.
An otter—Hermione's corporeal Patronus—came drifting out from that final carriage, indicating that she was right there.
But whose Patronus was that wolf-shaped one?
Kyle couldn't quite figure it out, but he would know soon enough once he arrived.
On his way to the last carriage, every student Kyle encountered looked at him with eyes full of awe and reverence.
The reason was simple: Kyle had just manifested his Susanoo, standing tall atop the train cars while unleashing a brutal slaughter upon the Dementors. Looking every bit like a majestic god of war, the sheer spectacle of it had been utterly breathtaking.
Kyle quickly located Hermione and Hannah Abbott, who were sharing a compartment. Ginny Weasley was also sitting with them.
On the upholstered seat opposite them, Harry Potter looked deathly pale, as though he had just suffered through a severe illness. Ron Weasley and a brown-haired wizard wearing shabby, threadbare robes were hovering anxiously around Harry, leaning down to check on his condition.
The brown-haired wizard was breaking a large slab of chocolate into smaller pieces and handing them to Harry.
"Here, eat this. It will help."
Harry took the chocolate but didn't eat it yet. Instead, he asked, "What was that thing?"
"A Dementor. One of the guards of Azkaban," Kyle's voice rang out from the doorway of the compartment.
"Kyle!"
The brown-haired wizard turned his head as well. Upon seeing Kyle's face, a look of surprise flashed across his features. "You're the student who was just up on the roof? The Dumbledore child?"
"That's me," Kyle said, extending his hand toward the man. "Hello, Professor Lupin."
"You know who I am?"
Kyle pointed to the luggage rack just above and behind the man. A battered small suitcase rested there, with the name "R.J. Lupin" stamped in one corner, though some of the letters had already peeled away.
Every year brought many new faces to Hogwarts. Aside from the incoming first-year young witches and wizards, the only other possibility was a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Furthermore, that wolf-shaped Patronus from earlier had undoubtedly been cast by Professor Lupin.
Professor Lupin offered a small smile. Students nowadays certainly possessed sharp observation skills.
The girl named Hermione Granger had also caught that very same detail the moment she stepped into the compartment. More importantly, Miss Hermione Granger had just successfully cast a full Patronus Charm, and her Patronus had even manifested in a solid, corporeal form.
Lupin suddenly wondered if he was simply falling behind the times. Had the wizarding world become so intensely competitive that mere third-year students were already capable of casting the Patronus Charm?
It wasn't just the fully formed corporeal Patronus either; there was also that bizarre magic Kyle had unleashed just moments ago. It had only taken Lupin a few glances to deduce that it was a complex combination of three distinct spells: Fiendfyre, Protego, and the Patronus Charm.
Setting the latter two aside for a moment, to master the Fiendfyre Curse in one's third year alone was... Even if this child bore the surname Dumbledore, it still failed to explain such a rule-breaking, unnatural level of talent.
Lupin's thoughts drifted briefly to the old man imprisoned in the high tower of Nurmengard. He glanced at Kyle's face, noting that the boy didn't bear that strong a resemblance to Headmaster Dumbledore in his youth.
But surely, that is highly improbable...
Just then, Harry's slightly weak voice sounded from behind them. "That thing just now... er, the Dementor, was it driven away? I think I heard someone screaming just now."
"No one was screaming," Ron said, looking somewhat bewildered. "The Dementors were all driven off by Hermione and Professor Lupin."
Kyle squeezed his way into the compartment. Finding it a bit cramped, he drew his wand and cast an Undetectable Extension Charm on the space. The interior of the compartment instantly expanded several times over.
Harry wiped away the cold sweat that was still continuously breaking out across his face. "Did any of you... pass out just now?"
He looked around at everyone in the compartment, realizing that he was the only one drenched in a cold sweat. Embarrassment began to creep over him. Why was everyone else perfectly fine while he alone had been scared out of his wits?
Oh, wait—there was also Ginny. She was curled up in a corner, weeping softly, looking in a state not much better than his own.
Noting the confusion and doubt in Harry's eyes, Kyle offered an explanation:
"Dementors feed on positive human emotions. They force people to relive the most terrifying, darkest memories buried deep within their minds. Because of this, the effect a Dementor has on those who have endured a tragic past is amplified significantly."
Harry listened to Kyle's explanation in a daze.
In his semi-conscious state moments ago, he had distinctly heard a woman's bloodcurdling scream, and a blinding flash of green light had consumed his entire field of vision. Could that have been the memory of Lord Voldemort casting the Avada Kedavra curse on him all those years ago?
If that were the case, it was hardly surprising that the Dementor's influence affected him far more drastically than the others.
As for Ginny, her profound terror stemmed from her experience the previous year, when she had been possessed by Tom Riddle's diary and subsequently dragged into the Chamber of Secrets.
The reactions of both individuals were completely beyond their control; it wasn't a matter of them simply being weak. This explanation made Harry feel considerably better.
Kyle pointed to the chocolate held in Harry's hands. "Eat it. Chocolate stimulates the body to secrete dopamine, inducing a feeling of happiness and joy. It will help you overcome the negative side effects brought on by the Dementors."
Harry only fully grasped the latter half of the explanation, but he numbly took a bite of the chocolate anyway. To his immense surprise, a sudden wave of warmth radiated outward, spreading all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes.
Over the next hour, the Hogwarts Express continued its steady journey along the railway tracks.
By the time a thoroughly disheveled, shivering Dolores Umbridge managed to crawl back up onto the viaduct, the train was already dozens of miles away. The Dementors that had once swarmed the sky were gone without a trace, leaving behind only a few scattered shreds of black cloth on the ground to silently attest to their grim presence.
Completely disregarding the muddy puddles around her, Umbridge slumped down dejectedly onto the wooden railway sleepers.
It was over. Her political career was completely ruined.
Two hundred Dementors constituted a massive portion of their entire population. Backed by a handful of Aurors to lead them, such a concentrated force would have been more than enough to overthrow the Ministry of Magic of a small nation. Yet, under her direct command, while executing an incredibly straightforward inspection of the Hogwarts Express, this entire legion had been completely annihilated?
This operation to search the Hogwarts Express had been her idea in the first place. It was only after a massive amount of "persuasion" that she had secured permission from Minister Cornelius Fudge.
She had envisioned this as an easy way to pad her political resume; after all, the Hogwarts professors had already arrived at the castle by this time, leaving only helpless students on board who should have been utterly defenseless against Dementors. Even if there happened to be an exceptionally gifted student or two who had mastered the Patronus Charm before graduation, it shouldn't have mattered.
This was merely supposed to be a standard search operation; they weren't going to harm the students. The students would have no reason to use magic to defend themselves, meaning the operation she spearheaded should have faced zero resistance.
Umbridge's calculations had been flawless, save for one fatal oversight: the presence of a mini Dark Lord on the train—Kyle.
While Kyle had a soft spot for magical creatures, he harbored absolutely no affection for dark entities like Dementors.
An ugly, vile species like that is better off driven to early extinction.
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