WHO: Patty Stimpson and Alicia Spinnet WHERE: Diagon Alley WHEN: November 20, late afternoon WHAT: Patty encounters a Dementor WARNINGS: Just dementor sad feels and panicking Patty.
Patricia was very much over the chill in the air. It wasn’t the normal crisp chill of fall, it was different. At least she had a delicious latte to combat it for moment. Her hands wrapped around the warm cup. She took a tentative first sip and was met with was warmth and a whole lot of sugar. Patricia wasn’t ashamed to admit it, she had finally succumbed to the Gingerbread. Who cares! She couldn’t wait anymore. November -- was close enough to December right?
She paused, fished out her phone and snapped a selfie. She looked at it and shook her head, no no, that wasn’t right. Patricia posed again, trying find the perfect angle for face and coffee cup. Maybe that was okay. Nothing was looking right. The enthusiastic mood of earlier was fading quickly. She took another sip hoping it would bring back the enthusiasm that seemed like it was being sucked from her. She continued going through the motions of setting a filter and started typing something. Now it all felt fake though, nothing in the world felt good. It felt like she would never be happy again.
Patricia heard the screams of others, startling her into posting a half typed out wiztagram. She looked up to see a Dementor. Frozen with fear and the oppressive feeling doom. Panic began to set in, as we as natural for Patty. She dropped her latte as she fumbled for her wand. Grasping hold of the wand she began to hyperventilate. As if she could produce anything. She had being an utter failure in those lessons, like always. She could never do it, she was useless and good for nothing.
Negative thoughts running through her head, and quick uneven breathes. Within moments she joined her latte on the ground.
Alicia pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as she made her way through the alley to meet Patty. It had gone from being a chilly day to one that was brutally cold. The further she walked, the more the wind seemed to whip through her, chilling her down to the bone. She shivered and pressed in, tucking her chin into the folds of her coat. She couldn’t wait to join Patty for a warm cup of cocoa after this.
But as she came closer to where they were supposed to meet, she could sense something wrong. The sky seemed to go gray and Alicia felt a wave of sadness roll over her. Then she heard the screams.
She took off at a run, the cold forgotten in favour of urgency. She drew her wand from her pocket and held it tightly, ready to intervene in whatever was going on. But when the dementor came into view, she stopped in her tracks. It’d been some time since she’d seen one up close. It was as horrifying as she’d remembered. And it’d already seemed to have picked its latest victim and the sight filled her with dread.
With a deep breath, Alicia came quickly closer until she saw exactly who it was — “PATTY!”
The fall was not what brought Patricia around. It was the scream. Was it her own? Was it someone else’s? Patricia felt completely disoriented, trying to make sense of the sounds, the feeling of despair, and that throbbing pain in her head. Patty realized her hand was holding her wand and she gripped it stronger. As if something to ground herself and her focus she felt the world come into focus. Uh-oh, maybe she didn’t want it to come into to focus cause all she saw was a Dementor. “HELP ME!” Patricia yelled out in a panic. It was a wonder anything but sound came out.
Alicia’s heart was pounding, panic creeping in to dull her senses. But she remembered what she’d learned — what Harry had taught her — and took a deep breath. Lifting her wand, she thought back to the happiest moment in her life: it was the feeling she’d felt celebrating with her Gryffindor teammates after their first win since she’d made it on the team. It was the moment that validated all the time she’d spent on quidditch up to them, and the moment that proved to her that she never wanted to do anything else. She’d felt like she’d found a family in the Gryffindor quidditch team. It was everything.
“Expecto Patronum!” Closing her eyes, Alicia focused on the feeling, the exhilaration and joy, and refused to think about the dementor at all. She even refused to think of Patty and what would happen if she couldn’t perform the spell. Finally, after a long moment, a thread of silver ebbed from the end of her wand. Soon, it formed a buffalo that hovered in front of her before it charged off to attack the dementor.
Patricia felt like everything was going dark but then there was a flash of silver, a silver buffalo charged into view, barrelling towards the Dementor and driving it away. The Dementor retreated and instantly she started to feel a little better. The oppressive sadness vanishing, leaving the adrenaline of fear. She may feel better, but she wasn’t right. Her heart was racing, her breath was uneven. She had almost died — oh my god — she could feel the panic attack coming.
Turning she looked to Alicia her eyes wide with panic. Thank god, she was there. What would she have done? What would she have done if Alicia couldn’t have produced a patronus. All these thoughts were not helping her catch her breath. Patricia tried to focus on Alicia and center herself. What did they always say? Breathe in and then breathe out.
The instant the dementor began to retreat, Alicia surged forward. She ended up on her knees beside Patty, squeezing her friend’s hand tightly in hers. “Deep breaths, okay?” She tried to sound reassuring, but Alicia was practically gasping, her pulse racing. She forced herself to take her own advice, slowing her breathing as best she could. “You’re all right, Patty. You’re okay.”
The feeling of Alicia’s hands in her own grounded her more. She nodded her head as she tried to turn her short breaths into deeper ones. Alicia was right, she was okay. She was going to be fine. Deep breath in and then out. She tried to find a rhythm. Slowly her heart began to return to a normal pace and everything didn’t feel so intense. She felt her breathing return to normal. Letting go of Alicia’s hands she lunged forward wrapping her arms around Alicia in a frantic hug. “Thank you!”
“Of course! Don’t mention it!” But Alicia didn’t realize how shaken the encounter had left her until Patty pulled her into a hug. She slipped her arms tightly around her friend and let out a deep breath that seemed to rattle through her as her adrenaline wore off. They were both lucky she’d gotten there when she had.
She lingered there for a moment until she noticed the content’s of Patty’s latte splattered on the ground beside them. Even as she withdrew from their hug, she kept an arm around the other girl’s shoulders. “Let’s get some cocoa, okay? I’ll ask them to make it extra chocolatey. Take the edge off everything.”
Patricia nodded her head, “Yeah, that sounds good.” She said trying to force a smile onto her face and try to treat it like it was just another day. If she didn’t she was pretty sure she would end up in another panic puddle.