WHO: Barnaby Snell. WHAT: ONGOING: Dementors are still being sighted with more frequency across wizarding Britain. WHEN: 16 September 2017, afternoon. WHERE: Hogsmeade. WARNINGS: Dementors.
Hogsmeade was bustling with energy. A constant stream of people hurried along the cobblestone streets, and Barnaby Snell caught snatches of conversations as they passed by. “It’s a shame Diagon Alley is overrun,” one woman said, just as another man proclaimed, “I know it’s insensitive of me, but I wish they’d do something about all those vagrant-looking people in Diagon.” And so, filled with guilt or disgust (or both), people flocked to Hogsmeade rather than Diagon Alley for their Saturday afternoon shopping.
Baz felt a pinprick of guilt as he hovered outside the boarded up window of Ollivander’s, a wave of shame that rippled from his head to his toes. He didn’t want to see them either. Not when there wasn’t anything he could do to help.
He pushed the thought aside in favor of something lighter, something easy, something normal.
It was a nice day, at least. He usually walked at a brisk pace, but the streets were clogged with more pedestrians than usual, so he settled for leisurely strolling past the shops. Baz glanced at the small crowd clustered around the entrance of Honeydukes and smiled. Shopping for birthday presents was never easy, but he was pleased with his gift for Jeremy. Pleased enough that he kept peering into his comically oversized Honeydukes bag and snickering to himself.
Distracted as he was, he didn’t notice the burly man exiting The Magic Neep with an armful of bags. They collided with an ‘oof’ and a string of violent swears, and produce began tumble to the sidewalk. Baz winced as he rebounded from the man, his expression contrite.
“I’m so sorry,” Baz began, just as the man snapped, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”
Baz knelt down to help pick up some of the vegetables that had escaped from the man’s bag: squash, sweet potatoes, onions. The man was still grumbling under his breath as Baz said, “You’re right, I was an idiot. Sorry about that.”
“I bet you were looking at one of those mobiles, weren’t you?”
Baz fought the urge to roll his eyes as he offered the man a small smile. “No, I was just amused at my own ingenuity. No millennial corrupting mobiles here.”
“Wizard corrupting, if you ask me,” the man groused, and Baz did roll his eyes. “They ought to be binned and burned, and that’s not the least of—”
He felt it before he saw it.
A cloying darkness swept over him. There was a thud as the man let his bag of groceries drop to the sidewalk. Baz felt a chill deep in his bones as the Dementor glided toward them. His skin felt cold and clammy as he stared at the approaching creature, its gray, scabbed hand outstretched. Fuck fuck fuck, he thought desperately.
He struggled to breathe.
Baz slowly took one step backward, then another, as he fumbled for his wand. His throat seized up. Behind him, a woman screamed.
Pitch-like darkness swallowed him and this was it, these were his last moments and he was going to die no worse he wasn’t going to have a soul and his parents were gone and his sister would be alone no not alone but with Rhys and please no he didn’t want to die this wasn’t right and it was too cold too cold it was beneath his skin and
The darkness receded.
Baz blinked blearily around the street. The dementor was gone. Pale and shaken, he had a white-knuckled grip on his wand and the Honeydukes bag. Part of him wanted to stay, to help others, to help pick up the scattered vegetables dotting the sidewalk, but he wanted to go. He wanted to go home, to be safe, to pretend none of this had ever happened.
He vanished before the man could ask, “Are you okay?”