Dementors? As Gideon understood it from his father, they had been haunting the coastal towns of Scotland for the past few years. The idea that they might be in London, attacking in broad daylight, just didn't seem possible.
'Dementors?' Gideon asked, scanning his surroundings. 'Where?'
'You can't see them?' Mrs Maxwell asked her son. She had suspected as much, but for a moment wondered how the eerie sight before her could possibly be absent from someone's vision.
'No! What should we do?' said Gideon with trepidation.
'It's going to be fine, honey! There are only two, I can handle them no problem, just stay behind me.'
Suddenly the two large, hooded figures slowly hovering towards them sped forwards.
Sarah Maxwell was prepared. It had been a while since she had used the spell intended to repel the foul beasts, but she was adept at doing so. Her Auror husband had made sure of that, back when the previous Minster for Magic had first announced his intention to dismiss the abhorrent guards of Azkaban, the wizarding prison.
She would not allow these parasites to lay one scabby finger on her son. Sarah Maxwell focused her thoughts, flourished her wand and recited the incantation with purpose, 'Expecto Patronum!'
The Dementors stopped in their tracks, but nothing happened. Her signature animal-shaped Patronus was nowhere to be seen. It was a difficult spell, after all. Deflated for a moment, Sarah refocused her mind, drew strength from her happiest memories, and tried again as the Dementors resumed their charge, 'Expecto Patronum!'
Again, no magic was produced, not even a whisp of light, and this time the Dementors did not stop. As the black-cloaked creatures were almost upon her, she tried one more time to produce the repelling magic with more force than before, 'EXPECTO PATRONUM!' she yelled to no avail, 'No, it can't be...'
'What's the matter?' Gideon asked with concern.
Mrs Maxwell ignored her son. She had to confirm her suspicion while there was still time, 'Stupefy!'
When her wand failed to produce the Stunning Spell's jet or red energy, Sarah Maxwell immediately realised what was wrong. She never imagined the issue would arise in a situation like this, though, and it was almost certainly too late to do anything about it. Even so, she told her son, 'Gideon, run!'
'Wha-what? I-I can't just l-leave you!' Gideon said, practically frozen in fear but recognising the severity of his mother's tone.
'Gideon! Run, NOW!' she cried, her expression more serious than Gideon had ever seen.
His shaky legs felt like they were glued to the floor, but he lifted them one after the other with some effort, slowly built-up momentum and began to flee. He looked back to see his mother standing with her feet and hands wide apart as if attempting to block the way of the invisible pursuers.
Tears filled Gideon's eyes as he heard his mother's voice behind him, 'Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expec-no!'
Gideon kept moving, his heart racing, but suddenly, he found himself on the ground. An unseen force pulled at his arm, flipped him over like a pancake and pinned him to the floor by pressing down on his collarbone. As it did, he saw, barely ten feet away from him, his mother was also on her back. She was struggling fiercely, seemingly against the air, her wand lying out of her reach.
'Mum!' he called out futilely.
Gideon couldn't understand how this could be happening. He couldn't do anything, he was a useless Squib, but why hadn't his mother's spells worked?
'Get away from my son!' Mrs Maxwell screamed repeatedly in protest.
Tears were streaming down Gideon's face now as he lay there helpless. A blurry distortion seemed to be affecting his mother's face, and she began to resist less and less until she finally stopped moving. Gideon's heart was beating out of his chest. When a small, flickering light emerged from her mouth, Gideon knew instinctively it was a bad sign.
A horrid sensation washed over him; he was next. He felt like he had been plunged into cold water as warmth seemed to drain from his body. He remembered overhearing a classmate at Middling explaining what Dementors did. They literally sucked the happiness out of a person, or even, their soul. The nasty feeling hit him again and unwanted images began to invade his thoughts.
Memories from his days at Johnston Primary flashed before his eyes. The times he was bullied, the times he couldn't keep up with the other children, the times he realised he was different. His heart continued to beat rapidly as the memories became clearer. He remembered his last day of primary school, the dodgeball incident and Jason Crawley's grinning face.
Gideon was weakening but he refused to give up. He pushed as hard as he could against the unseen, clammy grip of the foul-breathed entity. He experienced a familiar, ominous sensation and his head began to pound as hard as his heart.
The Dementor's cruel power forced him to relive the feelings of loneliness and uncertainty from the summer before secondary school, a short haircut he'd once had that left his mismatched eyes uncovered for months, watching his mother disappear through the bus window as a baby, spotting Alex Grimsby at Diagon Alley.
The pounding in his head increased as visions of his more painful memories surfaced: Rolling on the floor screaming, surrounded by dodgeballs; twisting and shaking in his childhood pushchair; writhing in agony in the dining room after learning he was a Squib; and the hazy image of an unknown young woman reaching for him before being cloaked in flame. As these darker memories infested his mind, so did the head-splitting pain that had occurred during each of them.
The pain took him over for the first time in almost two years, and his body began thrashing wildly. Desperate to do something, anything to save himself and his mother, Gideon battled to stay conscious, and tried to use his flailing movements to break free from the Dementor. However, it was just too strong, and he was too weak.
As the worst parts of his life filled his brain and the sounds of his own screams filled his ears, Gideon thought his head was surely going to split open this time. In mere moments he would be killed. It was only a matter of whether he would pass out first. He fought to the end, but as the pain in his head reached a higher point than he had ever experienced, Gideon's mind finally gave out, and he had no awareness of what followed.
Gideon's body stopped moving and his arms flopped down beside him. In an instant, the air around him changed. The Dementor's cloak and hood whipped behind it as if caught in a strong wind, revealing its sickening eyeless face. Then, without warning, a beam of white light erupted from Gideon's left eye and shot into the sky above, blasting the Dementor away from him.
Just as the injured monster rounded on him, and its partner lowered its mouth over Mrs Maxwell's, Gideon's limp body began to rise off of the ground of its own accord. His skin began to radiate an orange aura and crackle dangerously as if he was short-circuiting.
Ignorant to this, the blind, wounded Dementor pounced with a vengeance just as fissures formed in the ground beneath them, and suddenly, a cascade of crimson fire burst from Gideon's body in every direction like a terrible, blooming flower.
The Dementor above him took the full force of the blast and was vaporised instantly. The one hovering over Mrs Maxwell was also caught in the wave of fire, and fled the scene, trailing flames like a comet.
Gideon's body fell unceremoniously to the floor, his limbs at odds like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The left side of his face was bleeding profusely while the mass of scarlet fire dispersed as it rose into the air.
The open space around him was left with no evidence of what had transpired other than the web of cracked earth where he lay, the scorch marks surrounding him, and the burns that marked his mother.
***
It was the sound of screaming that brought Gideon out of his unconscious state. The screams were again his own. Overcome with pain and emotion he was in a delirious state. He struggled fiercely against the Healers of St Mungo's as though he was still fighting the Dementors, but they too overpowered him and then used magic to restrain his arms and sedate him.
Still convinced he and his mother were in danger, Gideon's mind fought against the powerful magical drugs, and he began to drift in and out of consciousness. Every now and then he would catch bits and pieces of the conversations going on around him, though, his mind was still clouded and confused.
'Clean up all that blood, so we can see what we're dealing with here,' a masculine voice said at one point.
Then later, a woman commented, 'I've never seen anything like this, are we sure about the witness statement?'
In another semi-lucid moment, Gideon heard a different female voice tell her colleagues, 'We've done all we can. It will heal but it will take time and continued care.'
As his mind began to calm down, he noted a voice to his right. Evidently, one of the Healers tending to him was not too happy about it.
'They don't pay me enough for this!' he heard her gripe. 'Should be in the basement with the other monsters, if you ask me!'
Once, he caught a glimpse of an older Healer with cropped grey hair and sparkling, gold-rimmed glasses. Before he fell back to sleep, he noticed that she had her wand over him and was muttering quietly to herself.
Sometime later, Gideon was pulled out of his slumber once more by raised voices. This time, he was just about alert enough to make out his father's tall shape in the middle of the hospital ward, though he was having trouble focusing. He watched the blurry figure gesticulate wildly while yelling at another man. Somehow his angry presence was comforting.
'You were supposed to be on watch, Coleridge!' Gideon faintly heard his father shout. 'First, you let someone charm a car to mow him down in broad daylight, then fail to catch the wizard responsible, and now you allow Dementors... Dementors to attack MY WIFE!'
'Sir, please!' replied the man that Gideon couldn't quite make out, 'The incident with the car, I did save the boy, after all! And as for today's attack, there was no way I could have known about the Dementors, or that Sarah would have deviated from the approved travel plan.'
'Don't you DARE blame her!' barked Mr Maxwell furiously before storming out of the ward. The other man moved closer and as he did, became just clear enough for Gideon to recognise before once again succumbing to the magical sleep aid. It was the mysterious bearded stranger who had saved his life almost two years ago!
***
After noticing Gideon's continued attempts to fight his medicine, the Healers had to give him a stronger dose. There were times when he felt almost conscious but simply couldn't wake up. Most of the time, though, he was lost in a dreamless state, free of thought or worry.
When he finally awoke, he had no idea how much time had elapsed, or indeed, where he was. The small amount of light shining in the window let Gideon know it was sometime early in the morning. As he sat up on the unfamiliar feeling mattress, he looked around the large room and discerned it to be a hospital ward. There were several other beds in the ward, though they all had curtains drawn around them.
Feeling confused and quite thirsty, he made to get to his feet. However, he found that his arms would only move so far from the bed. There were thin metal bands on each of his wrists, which seemed to be magnetised to the bed frame.
As he realised that he was restrained, Gideon began to panic. He also realised; he was only seeing out of his right eye. Something was obstructing the other, though he couldn't even raise an arm far enough to reach it.
He took a deep, calming breath, tried to relax his mind, and attempted to remember how he had ended up in this predicament. He recalled vague memories of conversations he had overheard, and then, the look on his mother's face as she battled an invisible attacker.
The Dementors! It all rushed back to him. He had to get to her, but then, that had already happened, hadn't it? It was over, he had survived somehow. They were safe now. Still, he wanted to see her with his own eyes.
'Hello?' Gideon called out hoarsely. 'Is anybody there? Hello?'
'Oi! Keep it down, would'ya!' growled a throaty voice from across the room.
'Did someone call?' came a different voice as a female Healer entered the ward.
'Oh, bleedin' 'eck!' the throaty voice added.
'Err, that was me,' Gideon whispered. 'Could you tell me what happened to—'
'Oh my!' said the Healer in alarm before dashing back out of the room, the sound of her shoes noisily resounding off the tiled floor.
'People are tryna geh some sleep 'ere!'
Gideon was instantly annoyed, but since he was reluctant to continue disturbing the other patients, and given that he didn't have a choice, he waited as the sun rose for someone else to arrive.
His family would surely be in to see him soon anyway. Unable to doze off, he kept himself distracted by counting the ceiling tiles. After his fifth round of doing so, and the room filled with sunlight, the Healer finally returned with a second lime-robed woman.
As her golden chain and spectacle frames sparkled in the morning light, Gideon thought she looked vaguely familiar, 'How are you feeling, Mr Maxwell?'
Gideon was inclined to be snappy about having waited for so long, not to mention being magically tied down against his will, but there was something both calming and commanding about the older woman's demeanour.
'I-I'm fine,' he said, 'I just want to see my mum. Please.'
'I'm Chief Healer Dandridge,' she said, ignoring his request. 'How much do you remember about what happened to you?'
'I remember that we were attacked, but I couldn't see by what, my mum said it was Dementors,' he recounted. 'I don't remember anything else because of my condition.'
'Condition?' she enquired.
'Actually, I've got lots of them, anaemia, asthma and other things. I've always been sick, but the one I mean affects my head. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I eventually black out from the pain.'
'And that happened during this incident?' she prodded.
'Yes. I tried my best to stay awake... But I guess someone got to us in time.'
'I see,' she said empathetically. 'Well, Gideon, we do need to have a serious conversation. It wasn't supposed to happen just yet, but you seem to have a natural resistance to our sleeping draughts, and I'd rather not administer anymore.'
The Healer smiled at this, as did Gideon, taking it as a compliment of sorts.
'Now, you did suffer an injury during the attack. Your left eye and the surrounding tissue were damaged, but our best Healers have worked on you and in time, you should heal nicely. Until then, your wound will need regular care from a Healer, do you understand?'
'Yes,' Gideon answered.
'Good. We had to restrain you, so you didn't disturb it in your sleep. I'm going to release your restraints now, then,' she said, drawing her wand. She pointed it at each of Gideon's hands in turn, and the bands disappeared.
Free of the bands, Gideon felt an instant relief. The Healer took his hands and carefully guided them around his head so he could gently feel where the bandages were. There was a large soft padding over his eye, and the bandages covering it went across the top of his nose, all the way around his head and up the left side of his face.
Gideon imagined he must look like a mummy, which reminded him, 'When can I see my mum? Do my family know I'm awake?'
'I have someone waiting who would like to talk to you, Gideon,' the Healer said, signalling to the other to fetch them, and ignoring his question again.
She returned momentarily, leading a brown-suited man with golden, blonde locks down the ward to Gideon's bed.
Chief Healer Dandridge started to introduce him, 'Gideon, this is Jonathan—'
'Mr Grimsby?' Gideon asked in surprise upon recognising the occasional visitor to his home.
'That's right, how are you doing, Gideon?' Jonathan Grimsby responded.
That seemed like a silly question to Gideon. He was far more concerned with why this man was here, and why his family were not. However, he tactfully remained quiet and waited to see what Mr Grimsby would say to fill the silence.
'Well, of course, you aren't. I'm sure things must be a bit confusing for you right now. I'm here because there are some matters that we need to discuss.'
Again, Gideon allowed the silence to speak for him, and Mr Grimsby conjured up chairs for him and Healer Dandridge with an almost gold-coloured wand from his jacket's breast pocket.
Jonathan Grimsby sat down and began, 'I think the first thing I should tell you, is that the incident with the Dementors happened over a month ago.'
'A month!' Gideon exclaimed, abandoning his plan to stay quiet.
'When you were brought in, you weren't in a fit state,' Mr Grimsby explained. 'Our ability to recover physically is linked to how we function mentally. The Healers gave you immediate treatment, but what you really needed was time. The second thing I should tell you is that your mother is alive.'
Gideon was relieved. As he felt his shoulders relax, he was surprised by just how tense he had become and had to straighten his back to shake out a crick in his neck. For a moment, he felt some of the happiness the Dementor had stolen from him return to his body.
Then, Mr Grimsby continued, 'However, she is currently in the hospital's critical care wing. I'm afraid to say, we don't know if she's going to pull through.'