Dementor

A Dementor is a non-being and Dark creature, considered one of the foulest to inhabit the world. Dementors feed upon human happiness, and thus cause depression and despair to anyone near them. They can also consume a person's soul, leaving their victims in a permanent vegetative state, and thus are often referred to as "*soul-sucking fiends*". They are known to leave a person as an 'empty-shell'.

There are certain defences one can use against Dementors, specifically the Patronus Charm. Dementors hold no true loyalty, except to whomever can provide them with the most people to feed off. They cannot be destroyed, though their numbers can be limited if the conditions in which they multiply are reduced, implying that they do die off eventually.

## History

The island in the North Sea on which the wizard prison is built has never appeared on any map, wizard orMuggle. Perhaps the first resident, the sorcerer 'Ekrizdis', who practised the worst kinds of Dark magic, constructed a fortress and lured Muggle sailors there to torture and murder them. After his death, the variousconcealment charms placed on the island faded, and the Ministry became aware of the mysterious site's existence. Those who entered to investigate the island came across Dementors. Fearing the potential reprisals of these dark entities should anyone try to evict them from their home, the Ministry decided to let the sizable colony stay, unmolested and unchecked.

When Damocles Rowle was elected Minister for Magic in 1718, he insisted on using Azkaban instead, seeing the Dementors as an advantage because using them as guards would save expense, time, and trouble. This plan was eventually put into motion and, despite protests, Azkaban remained the prison of the wizarding world, mostly because of the complete lack of breakouts and breaches of security. From that point on, the Dementors served the Ministry of Magic as the guards of Azkaban, as it let them feed on the emotions of the prisoners within its walls. Somewhere between 1733 and 1747, Minister Eldritch Diggory visited Azkaban, and was horrified that the Dementors there brought nothing but death and insanity to the prisoners. He formed a committee to find alternate solutions, the least of which was to remove the Dementors, which sparked an argument that the Dementors might abandon the prison and head for mainland if they are deprived the souls of the prisoners. Diggory died of Dragon Pox while in office, thus disabling the committee to find alternates for Azkaban.

   Although many in the wizarding world felt they could rest easier in the knowledge that Dementors guarded Azkaban, making it virtually impossible for dangerous criminals to escape, some believed the Dementors to be untrustworthy, fearing their potential change allegiance to any dark wizard who could offer them more victims than the Ministry. Albus Dumbledore, in particular, thought it was a mistake for the Ministry to ever ally with such creatures, though Alastor Moody thought violent criminals such as Death Eaters deserved such treatment.

## Description

### **Appearance**

Dementors have a humanoid shape, approximately three metres, or 10 feet high, and are covered in dark hooded cloaks of long ripped black cloth, making them closely resemble wraiths. Its body is greyed and decayed looking, like a decomposing corpse, and its breath sounds rattling, like it is trying to "suck more than air" out of a room. Its hands are "*glistening, greyish, slimy-looking, and scabbed*". They seem to exude cold.

A Dementor's face has empty eye sockets, covered with scabbed skin. There is a gaping large hole where the mouth should be, which is used for sucking the soul out of the victim in a process called theDementor's Kiss, leaving victims in a state generally considered worse than death. The Dementor pulls back its hood and sucks out its victim's soul, leaving the person an empty shell, alive but completely, irretrievably 'gone'. Unlike other creatures, who move through some means of physical support, Dementors can fly freely. The books describe them as able to glideover the ground only, and in any case, they cannot pass through solid obstacles.

Dementors are also known to be blind, as they do not have any eyes. However, they can sense whether a presence is near them or not, by sensing the victim's emotions.

### **Nature and behaviour**

Dementors seem to suck all the light and happiness from the air as they draw long rattling breaths, and cause darkness to close in everywhere and the victim to feel incredibly cold. They can glide toward a victim without sound, and they are sentient enough to taste and sense fear, being drawn to it and the promise of positive memories that it can feed off of. They are also intelligent enough to be greedy: they obeyed the Ministry of Magic for years because, in guarding Azkaban, they were provided with sustenance of any remaining hope or happiness in the prisoners. They can understand and follow at least simple instructions, which allowed a Dementor to act as a bodyguard to Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge in 1995,and for them to escort prisoners in and out of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission courtroom in 1997.

They could communicate what they had heard Sirius Black saying in his sleep to the Ministry in 1993, implying that they can speak or otherwise communicate with wizards. Albus Dumbledore also said that Dementors are vicious creatures and won't distinguish between those they hunt and those that get in their way. He also informs the students to give Dementors no reason to harm them, saying that forgiveness is not in a Dementor's nature.

Outside of Azkaban, Dementors appear to hunt for prey in groups of variable size, from as small as two to as large as greater than twenty. They appear to attack by first surrounding their targets, cutting off any escape, then descending upon them all at once to feed.

## Abilities

Being blind, Dementors sense and feed on the positive emotions of human beings in order to survive, forcing their victims to relive their worst memories over and over again. The very presence of a Dementor can make the victim's surrounding atmosphere grow cold and dark, and as the number of Dementors increase, so do the effects. Those that are kept in the company of a Dementor for too long tend to become depressed, and are often driven insane, which was the main source of Azkaban's well-deserved horrible reputation when they still guarded its prisoners. After spending only a few months there, Rubeus Hagrid claims he wished he would die in his sleep.

Dementors rely fully on their ability to sense emotion and physical and/or mental health to track the movements of the prisoners in their care, and are generally unable to distinguish one person from another if both are in similar physical or mental condition. They were unable to identify Mrs Crouch being sneaked into Azkaban disguised asBartemius Crouch Jr using Polyjuice Potion, or Barty Crouch Jr being sneaked out disguised as his mother, since both were ill nearly to the point of death, as divulged by Bartemius Crouch Jr under the influence of Veritaserum in 1995 (though it may be that they simply did not care who they were sucking happiness from so long as they were "fed"). They can also not distinguish between humans and animals very easily; Sirius Black, an Animagus, escaped from Azkaban in his dog form. When he became his dog form during imprisonment, the Dementors thought he was losing his mind as his emotions were less human in his animagus form.

Also, Dementors can fly freely without support. It is stated by Remus Lupin that, if a wizard remains in close contact with Dementors for an extended period of time, a Dementor can drain a wizard of his powers. This is not touched upon after being mentioned, so the truth to this statement is unknown. If this is the case, however, it would make Dementors the only known being to permanently render a wizard without magic.

## Protection from Dementors

No one has ever demonstrated the ability to kill a Dementor, by *Avada Kedavra* or otherwise, implying that they can not be killed through physical means, but can only be driven away or temporarily kept at bay. One of the few ways to shield oneself from Dementors is by the very difficult Patronus Charm to fend them off.The charm summons a Patronus, a magical manifestation of good will and happiness, providing varied levels of protection against the Dementors' influence, based on the caster's strength as a wizard. With sufficient ability, a single wizard can hold off dozens, if not hundreds, of Dementors with a single corporeal Patronus, as Harry Potter demonstrated during his third year at Hogwarts when he drove off a big horde of Dementors seeking to consume Hermione Granger, Sirius Black, and Harry's past self.

As the Patronus is not alive, the Dementor cannot feed on it. Only when summoned by an experienced caster will the Patronus take the form of an animal significant in some way to the individual. While the lower level Patronus was more amorphous and ephemeral, corporeal Patronuses chase down Dementors and force them to flee the vicinity.An incorporeal Patronus only slows a Dementor down,as if the creature is walking through quicksand, and tends not to last long.