5 Chapter - 5 : Lightning Part - 2
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"Harry! HARRY!" Hermione slapped her friend's face several times, but he was completely unresponsive.
Luna stepped forward and took a sip of her chocolate milk, then leaned forward to kiss Harry's unresponsive lips, using the action to transfer the chocolate milk from her mouth to his. Then she stroked his neck to urge the fluid down his passage without choking him.
Harry shivered a moment, and his color got slightly better, but he was still deathly pale. A professor came running up, someone they didn't know, which pretty much meant he was this years new DADA teacher. Stopping in quickly to check on Harry, the man exclaimed, "What happened here, what's wrong?"
"The Dementors tried to kiss, Harry," Hermione stated softly, in fear.
"They seemed to like the dark, so I tried to drive them off with a flash of my camera," Colin hefted the device uncertainly.
"The Patronus charging up the hall seemed to help as well," Luna mused, then pondered aloud. "I wonder what happens to a dementor if it's forced to drink chocolate milk?"
"I sent that," Lupin replied, referring to the patronus, ignoring the chocolate milk comment, and still worriedly checking over Harry. "Come, one of you, look after him. I've got to talk to the conductor of this train. We've got to get Harry to Hogwarts as soon as possible. He's still very close to death, I'm afraid. I fear we may not have stopped that dementor in time."
Hermione broke down crying on the spot.
Luna began calmly writing.
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The car was full of eye-witnesses, so news spread across the train very fast that Harry Potter had been at least partially kissed by a dementor. The news was treated very soberly by most, and when Draco chose to gloat about it, an irate seventh year threw him off the moving train as they just happened to be crossing a bridge.
Crabbe and Goyle got thrown off moments later.
The train piled on the steam, going far faster than was usual, and a touch faster than was safe. They arrived at Hogsmead station in record time, and Harry's clammy and unresponsive form was bundled into a waiting carriage, which sped off before all of the others, pouring on speed to get to Hogwarts at the fastest rate possible.
He was met at the front steps by Dumbledore, who'd been alerted by owl, and the old man immediately examined him and pronounced, "Harry is still alive, if only barely. Quickly, we have little time to waste."
The patient was taken immediately to the hospital wing to be treated by Madam Pomphrey, who began feeding him chocolate and potions.
"We're losing him, Albus!" she proclaimed, once the latest potions had failed to take hold and change his condition.
"I think not," the Headmaster calmly replied, raising one arm and calling, "Fawkes!"
The phoenix appeared in a burst of fire, settled on the head of Harry's hospital bed, and began crooning. The boy immediately settled and started showing signs of improvement.
Moments later Pomphrey confirmed that the crisis had passed, and that the phoenix song seemed to have started a recovery. Albus fondly patted his shoulder, and spoke to the school nurse, "Continue in your care, Poppy. I shall leave Fawkes to keep young Harry company through the night. I feel sure that phoenix song will prove to be the cure needed."
It was a very subdued school who met for the Welcoming Feast in the Great Hall, and though the Headmaster's declaration that Harry would recover did serve to improve the mood somewhat, it never did become a festive atmosphere.
Luna excused herself early to go wandering off into the Forbidden Forest. When she came back, she had a unicorn calmly trotting at her heels, which she led directly into the hospital wing, and which curled up around Harry, nurturing him and licking him like a young foal.
As it did, the chill seemed to break. And that, combined with the phoenix song, seemed to make all of the difference.
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Early at breakfast the next morning, while Harry was still unconscious, owls flew in distributing papers. The very shocking front page article showed a picture taken by Colin Creevely of a very dramatic moment, with a dementor bending low over Harry Potter, extending its tentacles around his face so it could begin to feed, before backing up and starting over again.
The banner headline read, "Ministry Guardians Attempt To Murder Potter!"
The article below that read, "Guardians appointed by the Ministry to protect Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, from escaped murderer Sirius Black, tried to kill him themselves last night, delivering the dreaded dementor's kiss after stopping the Hogwarts train and incapacitating our..."
Fudge's term of office was over before ten o'clock that morning, as public outcry was nearly insane. His senior undersecretary Dolores Umbridge and most of his administrative staff were removed with him, as his term of office came to an abrupt and very nasty end.
Rumors had it that Aurors had to escort the politicians out of the country for fear of reprisals by angry mobs.
The dementors got withdrawn from around Hogwarts by the interim Minister as detrimental to the very purpose they'd been placed there for, and were gone before Fudge was even out of the country.
Luna's only comment on seeing the front page was to remark that her father must not have had space to publish the story she wrote in the Quibbler due to his ground breaking theory about murtlap poisonings, and so sold it to the Prophet.
The housemate she'd mentioned this to stared down at the byline in frank disbelief to note that, indeed, that article had been written by none other than Luna Lovegood.
Around noon came the heartening news that Harry had woken up just fine.
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