Yours, Luna Lovegood

Plans

As soon as the last drop of Intelligentia Concentrata touched the tip of her tongue, Hermoine Granger looked up with wide eyes.

"It's a ward. That's what we've been missing."

Luna was struck with sudden comprehension.

"Of course. A ward designed to dampen the influence of the dementors would weaken their field of emotional enchantment and strengthen the force of charms cast against them."

All that Harry had been reading, and everything they'd discussed, immediately fell into place. "That's what I was running toward in the alley. It didn't make sense to me. I can cast a Patronus — why would I run away from attacking dementors? I must have been running toward a ward."

He paused to retrieve Azkaban: A History from the dining room table, locating the relevant page and reading aloud. "In the early fifteenth century, a delegate council of witches and wizards were sent as ambassadors of the Noble Houses, to meet with representatives of the Dementor race. They were tasked with negotiating a contract stipulating terms for the perpetual enlistment of guards over the Azkaban population. A weeklong summit at Stonehenge resulted in formal proximity boundaries around prisoners, and strict limits regarding the use of the Dementor's kiss." "These contractual terms have been renewed every twenty years, a recurring negotiation commonly referred to as the Stonehenge Summit. In the late eighteenth century, management of the Azkaban guard population passed from the delegate council to the office of the Senior Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic, in cooperation with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Harry closed the book, shifting his gaze to Hermione. "It makes sense. Negotiations like that couldn't unfold without some sort of dampening field."

Luna nodded, reflective. "We need to find that ward and cast it in the alleyway."

Hermione furrowed her brow in concentration. "There's a cloth-bound book on the far wall of your library, Harry, entitled Protective Enchantments of the Early Renaissance. If the final form of the ward was crystallized in the early fifteenth century, that'd be the best place to start."

She paused, her glance shifting from Luna to Harry pensively. "The ward, however, is merely one aspect of the solution."

At this, Luna spoke, melodically reflecting in a distant sort of way. "Indeed, we need a spell powerful enough to kill Dementors." She frowned. "Unfortunately, the Patronus Charm, even in its most tangible corporeal form, has never so much as injured a Dementor. Theoretical texts suggest an emotional dynamic at play, overwhelming the Dementor's thirst so forcefully that they must flee. Yet the Patronus was only ever intended to be a guardian. That's the sense of the Latin phrase. Expecto, meaning 'I await,' Patronum, meaning 'a Guardian.'"

Harry was deep in thought. After a moment, he lifted his face to Hermione. "When was the last wizarding conflict involving Dementors?"

She nodded, following his logic. "If I remember correctly, it was the twelfth century. The Byzantine War, wherein the Thracian Sorcerers established a loose alliance with the Dementor race and thereby won the Macedonian front in 1189."

Harry's eyes brightened. "Hang on!" He disappeared, and after a few moments returned with a book entitled, The Spellcraft of War: Medieval Martial Charms and their Uses. "Perhaps this might come in handy."

***

The potion had made the experience of thinking carefully absolutely exhilarating. Suddenly they each had access to the totality of their cognitive associations, distant memories, even relevant sensory experiences.

Harry could recall, in a moment, the location of every book he'd taken note of in his library, even some that he'd hardly glanced at. The sum of his past work in Charms, History of Magic, and Defense Against the Dark Arts came to the surface of his memory as soon as he needed them. He felt that, every moment before this one, he'd been laboring in a thick fog, blindly attempting to draw connections, to realize a synthesis of thought beyond his reach. That fog had cleared, and suddenly his logic was bulletproof, his connections seamless, his conclusions profound.