Chapter 220: The Dementors Are Here~
"Or, maybe there are just so few competitive sports for wizards, and Quidditch is the most popular, or perhaps the only one, which is why everyone is so tolerant of one game?"
When you put yourself in the shoes of the fans, it's not that hard to understand.
When Dylan arrived at the Quidditch pitch, the bad weather limited visibility. The place was packed with people. Despite the stormy rain, almost all of Hogwarts' students and teachers had gathered in the stands around the pitch.
Some people didn't use spells to repel the rain and were holding umbrellas, but they were immediately blown away. Dylan even saw a leather glove, he didn't know whose, get caught in the wind and lifted into the air. It looked like a wounded white bird, flying over his head.
"Hmm... it feels like it belongs to Madam Pince." But how could a glove on someone's hand be blown away?
As Dylan was thinking, he suddenly heard a shout.
"Over here, Dylan!"
Dylan looked up and immediately saw Neville's wet, round face. Neville was peering out from the dense crowd, waving his wand vigorously to show Dylan where he was. Dylan pushed through the crowd and squeezed in. He used a spell to dry Neville and the seat, then slowly sat down.
—He didn't know why they were suffering like this to watch a game. He could have been doing a few more experiments instead.
"Oh, thank you—Dylan!" Neville yelled at Dylan. He had no choice. The howling wind and thunder blurred the sounds. If he didn't shout loudly, he wouldn't be heard at all.
Dylan shook his head without speaking. Neville then squinted, trying to look at the Quidditch pitch. With Dylan there, the invisible umbrella over Dylan's head also extended to cover Neville. The raindrops approaching them would hit a transparent barrier, change direction, and slide down the edges to the ground. Not a single drop touched them.
"Dylan, can you see them? I think I see Harry and the others entering the field!"
The wind and thunder blurred the sound, making it impossible for the people in the stands to even hear the announcer. The heavy rain disrupted their vision, acting like a curtain. The downpour created layer upon layer of blurry boundaries in front of their eyes. Neville was squinting hard, trying to see more clearly, but could only make out a red mass moving around on the field.
Dylan's eyes were covered in magic, allowing him to see more clearly. He nodded. "Yes, Harry and the others are on the field!"
"Oh! I hope they have good luck!" Neville hoped.
Dylan looked at the dark, oppressive sky and let out a chuckle. "Right." In this kind of weather, it would truly take luck to find and catch the Golden Snitch without resorting to some clever tricks.
"Hey, Dylan! Block the rain for us too! Please!" On Neville's other side, Ron had been squinting for a long time, unable to see clearly and constantly trying to avoid getting wet. When he turned his head, he saw that Neville only had to focus on watching the game, as Dylan had already solved his problem with the rain. Ron couldn't help but yell out.
Dylan rolled his eyes but still raised his wand. He cast the spell on Ron and Seamus and the others. Immediately, they also began to repel the rain.
The game had already started, but they couldn't even see the scoreboard clearly. But if you watched long enough, you could see people flying back and forth on the field. Ron and the others were shouting excitedly as if they were seeing everything clearly.
Dylan didn't know what they were shouting about. He looked at the field and could see Cedric's tall figure steadily moving through the curtain of rain. It had to be said that height gave a person an advantage. At the very least, even with such heavy rain, Cedric wasn't being blown all over the place and wobbling every now and then like the other younger students, especially Harry.
Time passed. The sky grew even darker, further hindering visibility. Dylan glanced at the scoreboard—even he couldn't see it clearly. But it was worth noting that in Quidditch, scoring wasn't that important. After all, to win, the score needed to be quite high.
It would take a very long time to meet the winning conditions by just scoring goals normally. It was possible to play all day and not reach that goal. However, as soon as someone found the Golden Snitch, the game would immediately end. So, in Dylan's opinion, Quidditch was really just a race to see which team could find the Golden Snitch first.
But it was precisely because Quidditch had this kind of ultimate-weapon-like rule that made Dylan unable to understand why this game was considered exciting. It was just a back-and-forth for a while, and in the end, it all came down to whose Seeker was lucky enough to catch the Golden Snitch first.
"Hmm, maybe my thinking is limited. While the Hogwarts House Cup is hard to win with goals, maybe it's more possible in the World Cup?" Dylan clicked his tongue. He was used to having a thought about something, then coming up with another thought and overturning his previous one. A.k.a., a debate with himself.
But Dylan felt that having his brain debate with itself was a good thing. It could improve his thinking ability and keep him from being confined to one area, giving him a wider perspective and allowing him to explore more possibilities.
Dylan looked around. People would occasionally yell, but for the most part, they were silent. This was because, unlike Ron, who would inexplicably yell whenever he saw someone do something, people from other houses were doing their best to figure out who was flying back and forth in front of them so they could better judge the situation on the field. But in the end, they were all just identifying the players by the colors of the two teams' uniforms.
But then, Neville suddenly gasped. "I think I saw the Golden Snitch?"
Ron's eyes immediately widened, and he became excited. "What? The Golden Snitch? Who saw the Golden Snitch? Where is the Golden Snitch? Has a Seeker already made a move? Which team's Seeker? Quick, give Harry a signal so he can go and fight for it!"
Ron's voice was loud. And he wasn't just yelling himself; he was also craning his neck, wide-eyed, and grabbing the people around him, constantly asking questions while his eyes darted back and forth on the field.
Seamus, who was sitting right next to Ron, was so annoyed he wanted to choke him. "Anyway, with a game this exciting, even if someone died right in front of us, no one would notice, right?" However, it was clear that he could only fantasize about this. When Ron grabbed his arm and shook him back and forth again, Seamus finally couldn't take it anymore and yelled at him, "Damn it! Now—shut your mouth! Be quiet for a minute!"
Dylan ignored their squabble. Instead, he looked to the other side. Something seemed to have happened on the field. Following that, an extremely sharp whistle sounded. The whistle made Ron and Seamus briefly quiet down. But Ron's eyes immediately widened again. "What? What's going on? What happened? What did I miss?"
"Enough! You didn't miss anything! The game was just paused!" Seamus shook off Ron's hand.
"Huh? The game was paused? Why was it paused?"
Seamus was speechless. "Maybe because both teams heard you yelling for no reason! They've had enough of you too!"
Ron shook his head with a look of disbelief. "I don't believe that!"
Seamus just sighed and rubbed his forehead.
Just then, Hermione, who was sitting in the row below Ron, looked forward. She tried to see through the thick curtain of rain to understand what was going on, but could only make out that the people on the field seemed to be huddled together. The people in red were all gathered together, and so were the Hufflepuff players.
Hermione's eyes darted around. "I think maybe I should go and help Harry."
She quietly left the area covered by Dylan's magic, pulled her rain hood down, and squeezed through the crowd, heading towards the people in red jerseys below the stands.
Dylan closed his eyes. At this moment, a familiar presence was subtly spreading in their direction. Slowly opening his eyes, Dylan looked to his left.
"It's my little A and little B."
—And the presence of other Dementors.
It seemed that the joy of the game had attracted the attention of the Dementors. And, because the game was being played in such bad weather, all the teachers and students seemed to be more spirited than in previous matches.
"Is there a chance to catch a few more Dementors this time?" He didn't need to feed little A through G these days. The Ministry of Magic was raising the creatures for him. Dylan was a little nostalgic for his little A and the others.
In any case, while the number of Dementors was finite, the Ministry wouldn't notice if a few were missing. After all, no one was counting the Dementors every day. They just needed to know that none of them were wandering around outside of their control.
When Dylan captured Dementors, he would put them into his own world. So, even if the Ministry of Magic had some way of sensing Dementors, it wouldn't be able to detect them. And now that he had sent little A through G back, he could catch some new ones and retrain them...
It seemed like a good idea!
While Dylan was pondering how to avoid the other professors and capture a few new Dementors to put into his world, Hermione hurried back. This time, she came directly to Dylan, her voice a bit excited.
"Dylan! That waterproof spell you used isn't something the professors taught you, is it?"
Dylan raised an eyebrow and nodded. "No, it's a spell I innovated. I improved upon the Waterproofing Charm and combined a little bit of the Levitation Charm with it."
Hermione nodded. "I had an idea when you cast that spell on me, and I just went to Harry and used a Waterproofing Charm on his glasses."
"—I'm so glad I learned that spell! It worked great; Harry can see more clearly now!"
In a match in this kind of weather, being able to see clearly meant having a significant advantage, which was why Hermione was so excited.
Dylan smiled and nodded. "That's a good idea. Harry will definitely be able to use it, but you should sit down. Something is coming."
Hermione was stunned. "Something? What's coming?"
Dylan shrugged. "Maybe a kind of non-being that can eat your soul?"
"What?!"
Hermione immediately had a thought, and her eyes widened in disbelief. "Are you talking about—Dementors?"
Hermione's voice was so loud that Neville, who was next to Dylan, also heard her. His eyes also widened, and his face was filled with shock. "How is that possible? This is a Quidditch match, and we're at Hogwarts! Headmaster Dumbledore said they were not allowed on school grounds!"
Dylan didn't answer immediately because the air was starting to fill with a coldness—a chill that seemed to pierce one's bones. It was completely different from the cold air brought by the heavy rain. It wasn't a physical coldness; it was a cold that seemed to come from the depths of the soul, as if it could freeze the soul itself.
Hermione shivered. "This feeling..." She and Neville both looked up. It wasn't just them; many students around them were also shaking and looking up.
"Oh my God!" Neville's heart leaped into his throat.
Above the gray curtain of rain, dozens of dark figures wrapped in tattered cloth were silently approaching. Their black robes surged and swirled without a hint of wind, as if stirred by some invisible force. Under their hoods were bottomless black holes—like vortices that could swallow light. Wherever they went, the cheers abruptly stopped.
The stands fell into a deathly silence. In the air, countless strands of emotion slowly converged and were then sucked into the mouths of these creatures.
"Why are they here... and openly feeding!" Hermione said, perplexed. Even though these creatures were feeding on the collective positive emotions of everyone in the stands, rather than targeting a single person and consuming their memories directly, this still shouldn't be happening!
Suddenly, Hermione thought of Harry. Wait a minute! Would Harry be affected by these Dementors? She remembered how on the train, a Dementor had dared to attack Harry directly. Given the current situation, there was no telling what might happen to Harry!
Hermione quickly turned and looked down at the stands.
....
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