Chapter 29: The Sixth Secret: The Dementor’s Kiss

They had looked for almost four hours without any luck when Hermione remembered something. ‘Of course, how could I be so stupid?’ she said.

‘well what happened?’ asked Ron.

‘If I were Voldemort and I had to keep my soul somewhere, I would do it in Slytherine’s room. Not in these filthy places. Let’s go, we need to go down.’

And they ran downwards. There was no elevator so they had to go through the slippery, congested stairs which hadn’t been cleaned for years. There were trolley’s like gringotts, but they knew they’ll be caught if they use them. So they reached the bottommost floor. it was locked. There were no dementors there. haryy had also noticed that there was no death eater in Azkaban. The dementors were so efficient for Voldemort that he did not need any more security. They tried penetrating the door to Slyhterine’s room but failed. Even snuid could not help here.

‘what do we do now?’ asked Ron.

‘Break it, I guess’ said Harry.

‘No we can’t.’ said Hermione. ‘because it will tell the dementors that there are imposters in the jail and secondly, the door is magically protected so it can’t be broken.’

‘then what do we do?’ said Harry.

‘You do Harry. Use parseltongue.’ She said.

‘Oh yeah! Said Harry. But before he could say anything, Ron hissed something. and the door opened. Harry was shocked. When did Ron learn parseltongue? He thought, but Hermione was scandalized. It was as though she was counting the last minutes of her life.

Ron looked back and said, ‘what? Harry always makes this noise when he asks something to open up in parseltongue. I just imitated him.’

Harry relaxed, even took a sigh of relief. For a moment Harry had thought that Ron was Voldemort in disguise. They went inside the room. It was totally different from the other parts of Azkaban. It was not chilly, but Harry could sense pure evil in there. He was getting evil vibes from there. It was a big room which was brightly lit by fire torches. The room had a lot of cupboards which had things that looked like dark magic. In the middle of the room was a huge bed. But there was nothing special in the room. Nothing that could be a horcrux. And then Harry looked at the corner of the room. There was a fire place which had fire burning. Inside the fire was something shiny. He pointed it to Ron and Hermione. They decided to go there. Harry had just taken one step, when he was thrown back.

‘What do we do now?’ Hermione asked.

Harry knew what was now to be done. Sacrifice. He rubbed his hand with the sharp edge of the wall. It started to bleed. He dropped the blood on the floor and took another step. I worked. Ron Hermione also had to cut their hands and drop some blood on it. Then they walked inside. They walked near the fireplace, and saw what was inside it, it was a bone, a very old bone. Harry said, ‘Accio Bone’ but instead of the bone coming out, the whole room was engulfed in the fire for a second. The fire, Harry felt, was not hot, but ice cold indeed. Hermione had also felt the same thing. She tried to touch it with the tip of her finger.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH’ she screamed. The portion of her finger that had touched the fire had been cut completely.

‘Hermione’, said Harry ‘are you okay?’

‘no I’m not.’ She said, ‘but this can wait. We need to find out a way to take the bone out. Try parseltongue, Harry’

Harry tried, but nothing happened. What is it, he thought that can stop this kind of a fire? He tried to think hard and then he remembered… he had seen the speel before but never tried it. Grindelwald had used it on Dumbledore. Harry thought of giving it a try. He pointed his want at himself and shouted, ‘aqualter’ nothing happened. He tried again, this time, he felt his other hand had become liquid. He looked at his hand, it was water. He put his water hand in the fire. He felt a deep burning sensation inside him. The evil fire was penetrating him, it was unbearable. He took his hand out. It was not working. He then tried another spell, the one Dumbledore had used. He somehow felt he knew how to use this spell, he thought of his mother and father and of all the people who had died for him. He then pointed his wand at himself and shouted, ‘Blazio Patronum’ he felt the transformation, even though he could not figure out what he was but he knew the spell had worked. He was fire. He then mixed himself with the fire where the bone was kept. He could now move freely inside the fire. He held the bone and took it out.

He came out of the fire. He was still transformed into fire when Hermione was saying, ‘wow Harry, you did it.’

Harry looked at Ron and saw pure loathing on his face. And then Ron spoke, in a voice that Harry hated the most, in voldemort’s voice , ‘very good potter, but too bad your plan failed. I am coming there potter, and till then, my servants will take care of you.’

Harry was scandalized on what he heard. Just then the door opened and dementors entered. The caught Ron and Hermione but couldn’t come near Harry as he was still all fire. Then, Ron came back to his senses and started shouting for help. Somehow the dementors were not harming Ron, but they were moving closer to Hermione, and Harry knew that they were about to give her the dementor’s kiss.

Just when one of the dementor was about to do it and the distance between Hermione’s lips and it’s mouth was very less, Harry got the idea, he ran and put the bone between the mouth and her lips. The dementors mouth touched the bone and a loud cry erupted from the bone. Harry knew that dementors suck the soul and the bone had voldemort’s soul which was now destroyed by the kiss.

The dementors seemed to have realized what they had done and so they were backing off. Hermione got her wand and produced a patronus. The dementors left the room. Hermione said, ‘we need to get out fast. Harry, hold Ron. We can’t leave him here.’

Harry realized that he was now in his normal form. He and Hermione helped Ron in walking because he was extremely tired after being possessed by Voldemort. The snuid was still working, as they could move through the doors. Soon they were in the sea. Hermione found the boat through magic and soon they left, before Voldemort could come. Inside the boat, when Hermione saw Ron sleeping, she told Harry, ‘Harry, he’s it, Ron’s it… Ron is a horcrux.’