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As though it had sensed everyone's gaze, the Dementor stooped. One hand stretched out from under its cloak. The hand gave off a faint glow, gray, thin, and scabbed, like something dead that had soaked in water and rotted.
Several wands pointed at it, but Harry and the others did not dare attack rashly, because they did not know what the thing in front of them was.
The Dementor did not care at all whether it was being pointed at by wands. Ordinary spells had no effect on them. Only a few spells, such as the Patronus Charm, could affect or repel them.
Its head slowly turned toward Harry, seeming very interested in him.
The Dementor wanted to approach Harry.
Harry felt as though a void had opened beneath the thing's hood, drawing everything around it in.
His head felt a little dizzy.
A sudden, brilliant white light appeared without warning and blasted the Dementor out of the compartment.
"Mr. Dementor, I believe this is not where you should be."
Dudley walked out of the compartment and looked down at the Dementor, his voice steady and controlled.
"I will count to three. If you do not leave, then do not leave at all."
The Dementor let out an angry hiss, but that white light seemed to have injured it badly. It could not even rise again.
"Three."
Dudley immediately shouted the number three.
As for one and two, who had said he had to start from one?
Starting directly from three was perfectly reasonable, right?
Even a creature like a Dementor, whose intelligence was uncertain at best, seemed stunned for an instant. If it had a face, it would definitely have looked astonished.
That was not playing fair.
"Very good. I will regard this as a provocation."
The last time Dudley had gone to Azkaban, he had not found a chance to bring back any of its local specialties. He had felt rather regretful about that. Unexpectedly, today this specialty had delivered itself to his door.
He could not let that go to waste.
And so Dudley silently took the red-and-white ball from his waist.
There was clearly more than one Dementor aboard the Hogwarts Express. The cold aura still spread through the carriages.
"Get out of here!"
A roar came from a compartment not far away.
Dudley saw a silver light rise. A wolf made entirely of silver light knocked another Dementor out.
The Patronus Charm.
And it was already a corporeal Patronus.
After knocking down that Dementor, the silver wolf did not stop. It charged toward the other compartments.
A somewhat shabby-looking man walked out of the compartment. After seeing Dudley standing outside as well, he gave a slight nod.
Dudley rubbed the ring on his finger and suppressed the urge to catch another Dementor, then nodded back.
Before long, the cold feeling in the carriage disappeared. The lights on the train were restored, and everything became bright again.
Soon, the Hogwarts Express also began moving normally.
"Harry, are you all right?"
Dudley walked back into the compartment and slowly closed the door.
"I'm fine. Just a little uncomfortable."
Harry's lips were only slightly pale.
"Drink some cola."
Dudley took a bottle of cola from his left pocket and handed it to Harry.
Harry tilted his head back and gulped the whole thing down.
"Burp."
Harry let out a loud belch and immediately felt much better.
"What was that?" Ron stared curiously at the empty bottle.
He had wanted to ask Harry for a taste, but Harry had finished it in one go. Smelling the lingering scent in the air, Ron found it fascinating.
"Cola. Want one?" Dudley took another bottle from his pocket.
"Gulp."
The moment Ron swallowed his first sip of cola, he was instantly won over by the unfamiliar drink.
"It's good. Much better than cherry juice," Ron praised sincerely.
Do not think this was strange. Wizards looked down even on Muggle-made weapons, let alone Muggle drinks.
A bunch of stubborn old traditionalists.
After drinking more than half, Ron finally remembered his friend and said to Neville, "Neville, don't you want to try some?"
Neville looked at the mouth of the bottle, which Ron had just drunk from, and hurriedly waved his hands in refusal. "No, thanks. I drank a lot over the holiday."
Ron: "!!!"
Just how many good things had they eaten behind his back over the holiday?
"Dementors? That thing just now was a Dementor?"
After recovering a little, Harry hurriedly asked.
He had only heard the name Dementor recently, because they had practiced that spell.
"I read a description of them in a book. They are extremely terrifying Dark creatures. They suck away people's happiness, leaving only the worst and most painful memories behind. They can also suck out a person's soul and turn them into a kind of living corpse."
Encyclopedia Hermione immediately spoke up with the information she knew.
"I remember that they are supposed to be controlled by the Ministry of Magic. At present, most of them are supposed to be in Azkaban. There should be almost no wild Dementors outside."
The Ministry publicly claimed that Dementors were under its control. As for the truth, only Minister Fudge knew.
"It is a pity we have not practiced our Patronus Charms enough yet."
Hermione spoke with some regret. A few silver threads appeared at the tip of her wand, but they could not hold a fixed shape.
"If only we could do it like Dudley just now."
Or perhaps Dudley's Patronus Charm was also not practiced enough, and it was simply brute force making up for finesse.
After she finished speaking, Harry and Neville also took out their wands. A few silver threads likewise emerged from the tips of their wands.
Ron, who had finished the cola, frowned slightly and realized something was wrong.
"Wait. You all learned the Patronus Charm?"
Was he the only one who had not?
Everyone nodded at Ron.
Harry even chose the perfect moment to twist the knife. "Malfoy learned it too."
Ron: "..."
Neville followed up as well. "We also learned a lot of dueling techniques. I can cast some fairly strong Transfiguration spells now too."
Ron: "..."
In Transfiguration, Ron had always been stronger than Neville. Transfiguration was Neville's weak point.
And now, from the look of things, he might not even be as good as Neville anymore.
"Right, Ron. Malfoy said that once school starts, he would be very happy to teach you some Defense Against the Dark Arts techniques."
Neville's final sentence was like an arrow piercing Ron's heart.
At that moment, Ron felt his soul leave his body.
It had only been one holiday. Why did it feel as if he had missed so much?
Next time, he would rather not travel at all.
Ron secretly made up his mind.
He absolutely refused to become the one at the bottom of the disciplinary group.
Was there a possibility that during the holiday, all the other young witches and wizards had simply been playing like mad, and only Dudley and the others had worked even harder than they did at school?
Mm. The main problem was this.
Dudley and the others were grinding too hard.
Really grinding.
If they kept grinding like this, maybe in another two years they would be able to beat experienced Death Eaters into the ground.
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