the marriage stone (Discontinued)

Chapter 29 Understanding Duty

"Tell me about the Dementors," he asked.

Asgeir frowned, but nodded in agreement and in the light of the fire Harry could see a couple of thin streaks of silver in the man's hair. "What do you know of Azkaban prison?"

Harry shuddered. "I know it's guarded by Dementors," he said, guessing that this was the information pertinent to the conversation.

"It was not always guarded by Dementors," Asgeir told him. "Before the Dementors it was guarded by trolls. But trolls are remarkable stupid creatures and the prison was never very secure. About a hundred and fifty years ago someone came up with the idea of finding a darker creature to guard the prison. There were stories back then about a place called the Well of Despair and a terrible creature that lived at the bottom. Men from the Ministry of Magic came here to the Winter Lands looking for this Well of Despair. They found it deep in the heart of our woods. It was sealed with an enormous capstone. They used their magic to remove the capstone and waited for this creature to emerge. At midnight, on New Years Eve, two Dementors emerged from the Well. The Ministry wizards took those Dementors and set them to guard Azkaban.

"One year later on New Years Eve, two more Dementors emerged from the well and the Ministry took them as well. For fifty years they came here once a year and took the Dementors that came up from the Well of Despair. By the end of those fifty years they had one hundred ruthless guards for Azkaban Prison and they did not return again."

Harry pulled his jacket more firmly around his shoulders, thinking of the Dementors that still guarded Azkaban to this day, the creatures that were still hunting for his godfather. "What does that have to do with the Dementors that are here?"

"When the Ministry left the Winter Lands, they failed to replace the capstone over the Well of Despair. By then that area of our woods had been deemed cursed by our people and claimed by the Grendlings, and no one ever went there any more. We did not know that the Well was still open. On New Years Eve two more Dementors emerged from the Well, but this time there was no one there to take them away. Years went by and every year two more Dementors appeared. Eventually my people took notice and realized what had happened. But by then there were dozens of Dementors roaming free in our land. We petition the Ministry to return and seal the Well and take the Dementors away. But they did not answer our summons. It seemed that the Wizard who had orchestrated the deal with the Dementors, and the wizard who had unsealed the capstone in the first place had died. Our request went unnoticed.

"At that time the Wizard Grindelwald was threatening the world and the Ministry was at war trying to stop him. Our requests took a back seat to that battle. The years went by, Grindelwald was defeated, but still our pleas went unheard. Eventually He Who Must Not Be Named rose to power and the Winter Lands were all but forgotten. A hundred years have gone by and the Ministry still ignores us. My people have lived in these lands for three thousand years. We know how to fight the Grendlings and the Giants and the Black Wyrms that dwell in the mountains. But we have no defense against the Dementors. No way to stop them when they swallow up our villages and devour the souls of our children. And still the Ministry ignores us." There was anger in his voice, and a terrible rage in his eyes.

Harry sat in silence for a moment, trying to absorb what he had heard. One hundred years - that meant that there were at least two hundred Dementors roaming free in this land. A veritable army of darkness.

"I still don't understand," Harry informed him. "You must have a thousand wizards in this fortress alone. Dementors can be driven away with a Patronus."

"You have to be able to cast a Patronus, Harry," Alrik told him.

"All it takes is a powerful memory," Harry insisted. "I can teach you. I learned to cast one when I was thirteen."