The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was in an uproar. Reports that crossed Amelia Bones' desk indicated more than half the dementors had just been taken from Azkaban, and trying to pin down exactly who'd done this was difficult, as whoever it was had also taken a blasting curse to the cabinet that held the control devices a month ago. That wasn't even the worst of it. A single parchment had arrived on her desk from the Department of Mysteries, announcing the theft of a unique and exceedingly Dark relic called the Nazghul's Claw, which caused the horrendous creatures to treat the wearer as a queen bee, of sorts. What made it even scarier was the way it affected the wearer, eventually transforming them into a Queen Dementor. The last time there'd been one of those, Atlantis had fallen, and the magicals of the age had to drown their continent to stop her. As the alarms went off for the incursion at Hogsmeade, she was already giving orders to assemble teams for retrieval and containment, but with no control devices and the Patronus Charm being as difficult to master as it was (some senior aurors had yet to master it), this was a disaster of catastrophic proportions. Hogwarts itself was under siege...
Harry and Hermione emerged from the carriage they'd shared with Daphne, Ron, Susan and Neville, just in time to see the raised hand of the pink dementor and hear her order. As the vile creatures of darkness and terror began to spread out, the Chaotics didn't have time to think, snapping out their wands and calling their Chaos names to summon their new outfits. Raising their wands they called on the only spell they knew that might help, although with the miasma of terror and pain and sorrow the dementors were exuding, it was much harder than they'd ever dreamed to hold onto the joyous memories that fuelled the magical guardians.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" they chorused, and the silvery tigers and cobra raced out into the sky, hideously out numbered, but still causing the things pause. Neville and Susan could only spray forth the misty shield, but keeping the creatures from closing with them was also important.
Ron Weasley, Firefetch, could barely dredge up the courage not to run. As he looked down at the wand in his hand, he knew he was actually holding the others back, that a few months of self- improvement wasn't enough to make up for years of sloth and neglect, and that he was going to get them all killed. His mood spiralled downwards, his heart getting heavier and heavier, knowing that Harry would be first, with Hermione shortly afterwards, then Neville and Susan would fall together and the Dementors would kiss... Daphne... He met her eyes for an instant.
Ron was not the most clever of the group. The Chaos may have gotten along perfectly well without him, and his first reactions, quickly overcome, to his two friends being together was not the joy he knew they'd deserved but anger that he had nothing similar. But Daphne had agreed to go out with him, even if it was only for that day, he was supposed to make her happy. Rather than reach for a happy thought, Ron gripped his hand on the rage at these things for daring to strike at them today, of all days. And something in his mind clicked. You can't win a war fighting only from the defensive. The Patronus can't destroy them, it's made of happiness. Ron had his 'hands' full of anger. Anger destroys.
Following his impulse, Ron spoke. "Hermione, what's the Latin for 'destroyer'?"
"Really, Ron? Now you ask that?" She hurled another patronus tiger between the dementors and the Three Broomsticks. The ragged wights were avoiding Honeydukes' like the plague for some reason, and she idly wondered what happened if you force-fed one of them chocolate. "It's 'perditor', but I don't know if this is the right time for remedial languages." Her exasperated tone stopped dead in shock as the redhead stepped beyond the misty shield Neville and Susan were struggling to maintain, raised his wand and howled into the faces of the monstrosities.
"EXPECTO PERDITUM!" Fuelling his words with every ounce of anger he possessed, every drop of magic, the vast red gryffin he called forth shimmered translucently, and charged forth to do battle, leaving his friends in awe of him somewhat, even as he collapsed, gasping out one word, "anger", as he did.
Harry heard him. As his mate began a diagnostic spell she'd seen Madam Pomfrey perform on him countless times, as Neville shifted position to once more cover Ron, as Daphne dropped next to the redhead with unshed tears blurring her sight, Harry realised that what took every drop of Ron's magic to perform was far easier for him. Thinking back on his years with the Dursleys, Harry stepped up. The patronus tigers and snakes were overwhelmed by numbers, and Ron's gryffin perditus was faded away, leaving a swath of tattered cloaks tangling in the wind from slain dementors.
"Angry, huh? I can do angry." Harry modified Ron's Charm with a multiplier, a sort of meta-spell picked up in Arithmancy: "EXPECTO PERDITOR CENTUM!"
A hundred crimson tigers answered his call, and immediately raced into the village, as Harry centred his sights on the pink cloak. It was organising the creatures, commanding them, and Harry knew it had to go. Ignoring the screams of his friends, pushing aside the yell Hermione gave to come back, he charged down the street at the thing in pink, ducking and weaving as no other could, all his Quidditch skills coming into play while he was on the ground. At the last moment, he shimmered and changed, and it was Emerald leaping through the air in a mighty pounce that smashed his prey to the ground, his claws raking out the heart as his jaws tore away the head.
He was startled by the sprays of blood, and as the dementors fled the village in fear, as the aurors and castle staff began to arrive, he changed back, looked at what he'd done, who he'd killed, and screamed his pain to the skies.
In the castle above, Luna cried harder as her friends scream echoed through the corridors. Holding her tight and close, Ginny wept with her.
In the village, Neville and Susan sobbed, holding each other for comfort, not knowing what this meant for the Chaos. Behind them, Daphne cried softly, with Ron's head cushioned on her lap. Hermione walked up to Harry, the only one he'd let near him, and pressed herself against him. There were tears in her eyes also, but she only felt sad that he'd had to do it. She hadn't felt remorse at who he'd... slain, only that he'd been forced to. As Dumbledore directed the staff, and Amelia Bones the aurors, the two of them whispered quietly.
It was awful, Mai, he murmured as he held her close, breathing in the growing scent of cinnamon. I thought she was just a different sort of dementor, but... and Ikilled her! What kind of monster am I? I'm not even sorry she's dead, so what does that make me?
Hermione had no words for him, only a comforting purr that she unleashed in full fettle upon him. She held him and nuzzled the spot on his neck that exuded the scent of licorice and mint. After a few moments of silence, she answered him. It makes you, and me Duati Bast'et. She commanded those things to feed, and that crossed a line. That brought our oaths into play. As Duati Bast'et, we are keepers of that line. It's not that you feel bad about her, it's that it had to be done at all. Holding him tight, she passed a few pleasant minutes snatched from the very mouth of the hell that Hogsmeade could have become, and found them even more precious for that fact.
Albus Dumbledore shook his head, and turned to Madam Bones. "It's terrible of me to think it, but today we were lucky. There were only two children kissed, and three adults. When you consider how many of those terrors there were, that's a good thing."
Amelia was not in a good mood. That anyone had died was unconscionable, in her mind. They should have gotten her before this happened. There was only one conclusion she could draw. "Watch yourself, Dumbledore," she said. "There's no doubt in my mind that someone supplied her with a means to get that gauntlet. The Unspeakables had it under lock and key since before there was a Ministry, and that means there's someone in their ranks who's against Potter. Maybe they support Riddle, maybe not, but if they have even one unspeakable, they almost certainly have an auror or two, possibly more. My advice is that you actually invoke Hogwarts' exterritoriality agreement, and enforce it. Only invite those you trust within the wards." A quick glance towards the edge of the village showed her where the youngsters in basilisk-hide uniforms (and where had they gotten those?) had gathered. Harry might deny he was their leader, but obviously they all thought differently. As she approached she saw the two felines straighten suddenly, and dash off towards Madam Puddifoots'. Doubting that they were struck by an inexplicable and undeniable urge for tea, she followed at a jog, collecting Auror Trainee Tonks as she went.
As they arrived in front of the teahouse, Harry and Hermione looked around, trying to pin down where the crying was coming from. At last, they found it, unaware of the audience they'd acquired in the form of Madam Bones and Nymphadora Tonks. As Harry peeled apart the ragged remnants of a fallen dementor, Hermione lifted out the soul of Hannah Abbot, and the two of them, whispering assurances and platitudes, more concerned with tone than content, guided her to where her body lay, attracting a much larger audience as they did, helping the girl to lie-down in what would soon have been a corpse. Susan choked up as she saw her best friend's body and ghost, burying her head in Neville's shoulder, until he turned her around to see Hannah's body draw in a long and shaky breath, and sit up slowly, sobbing her gratitude to the felines, and mourning the other Kissed student, her date for the day, Ernie McMillan. Her desperate gaze tore at Harry's and Hermione's hearts, but the dementor that had consumed his soul was one of the few that escaped. Hunting it down would take too long, by the time they found it, Ernie's body would have perished. All they could do was hold her, and try to help her recover. Saving her wasn't much, compared to the destruction and horror that had reigned today, but it was something, a tiny light that pulled Harry a little further from the darkness his heart had been staring into, that had been staring back...
In Azkaban, a number of dementors returned from their foray to hunt and feed shaking and trembling with a wrongness about them, a wrongness that spread amongst the foul things that had remained as their experiences were shared. For the first time in a thousand years and more, the dementors knew terror. By Morning, there was not even a singe one of the creatures left in the prison, abandoning it to flee into the unpeopled North was the creatures' only hope for survival.