Dementors are Creepy!
Normally I get all my meta for a situation out in the act of ficcing, but in this case I finished writing the fic ( Rebirth), and it only ended up addressing one aspect of the train of thought that I’d had.
See, the other night, I was rereading Deathly Hallows - it’s been a slow reread in between other things to catch all the details I missed the first time around - and when I got to the chapter where Harry is in Hogsmeade with the Dementors, I started to wonder.
What would have happened if Harry had been Kissed by a Dementor?
Would it have taken his soul, and left him a shell that was taken over by Lord Voldemort’s soul, sort of a more physically-based version of what was going down with Tom and Ginny in Cos?
That was the premise of my recent fic Rebirth, which I had a lot of fun with, spinning out what Lord Voldemort’s soul-bit could accomplish in Harry Potter’s body. I mean, some fun has to be had with the whole Harry-is-a-Horcrux bit, which has some delicious possibilities.
But that was only one aspect of the complications of a Horcrux being Kissed. I based that on the assumption that the Dementor would take the more innocent, unbroken soul, because that would taste much sweeter.
Would it have taken Voldemort’s soul? Could it have? Dementors feed on happiness, and I’d imagine that the portion of soul wouldn’t have much to offer a Dementor, but could Harry on a subconscious level have offered up the invading soul in lieu of his own?
What would this have done to the Dementor? Would it have just... digested it, or would the magical-ness of the Horcrux have infected the dementor? Or would the Dementor be sufficiently magical to destroy the Horcrux?
Would it have taken both souls?
And this leads to a much bigger question:
What happens to souls that Dementors eat?
I doubt JKR will ever answer these questions to any satisfaction, so I just made up my own ideas about things. It seems terrible, monstrously so, for souls Dementors Kiss away to never make it to any destination beyond. To hold souls within them and burn them like fuel. Maybe the remnants of the souls seep bit by bit into the beyond. Maybe there they reform, slowly, in a state like Purgatory.
Or maybe they are forever trapped inside the Dementor. Do Dementors die? Patronuses simply drive them away (I have to wonder what their natural habitats are) so do they simply exist for their lifespan - whatever that might be - then dissipate?
Are the souls it consumes freed when it dies, or is their fate still tied to the Dementor’s after death?
Any way it crumbles, the Dementor is easily the most terrifying creation of JKR’s. The use of them in the court system, especially, is perturbing. Passing judgement not just on the mortal span of life, but having a creature at their disposal that actually consumes the souls of the condemned?
That is horrific beyond words.
And the indiscriminate use, on people who haven’t even been tried properly - I know JKR said it was a mark of the Ministry’s corruption, but it is shocking that no one within the society has really said anything against it, and Dementors have evidently been in use for quite a while, before Voldemort’s rise to power.
JKR makes it sound as though the Ministry has been restored to sunshine and daisies after his fall, but honestly, it sounds to me like the problems have been rooted in so deep that it seems impossible for a complete overhaul to be accomplished.
But who decided that using Dementors would be a grand idea? Do they even know what they do to souls? The Wizarding World in general seems more confident about knowledge of the presence of souls and life after death than the Muggle - the presence of Dementors and their ilk, of spells to create Horcruxes, the presence of ghosts and Inferi - all provide concrete evidence on these matters. But at the same time...
At the same time, they seem much more willing to perform acts with unknown repercussions, and this is a really disturbing trend.
Like I said, I honestly doubt JKR will ever answer these questions. I doubt that I want her to, really. But basically?
All this boils down to, “Dementors really creep me out.”
See, the other night, I was rereading Deathly Hallows - it’s been a slow reread in between other things to catch all the details I missed the first time around - and when I got to the chapter where Harry is in Hogsmeade with the Dementors, I started to wonder.
What would have happened if Harry had been Kissed by a Dementor?
Would it have taken his soul, and left him a shell that was taken over by Lord Voldemort’s soul, sort of a more physically-based version of what was going down with Tom and Ginny in Cos?
That was the premise of my recent fic Rebirth, which I had a lot of fun with, spinning out what Lord Voldemort’s soul-bit could accomplish in Harry Potter’s body. I mean, some fun has to be had with the whole Harry-is-a-Horcrux bit, which has some delicious possibilities.
But that was only one aspect of the complications of a Horcrux being Kissed. I based that on the assumption that the Dementor would take the more innocent, unbroken soul, because that would taste much sweeter.
Would it have taken Voldemort’s soul? Could it have? Dementors feed on happiness, and I’d imagine that the portion of soul wouldn’t have much to offer a Dementor, but could Harry on a subconscious level have offered up the invading soul in lieu of his own?
What would this have done to the Dementor? Would it have just... digested it, or would the magical-ness of the Horcrux have infected the dementor? Or would the Dementor be sufficiently magical to destroy the Horcrux?
Would it have taken both souls?
And this leads to a much bigger question:
What happens to souls that Dementors eat?
I doubt JKR will ever answer these questions to any satisfaction, so I just made up my own ideas about things. It seems terrible, monstrously so, for souls Dementors Kiss away to never make it to any destination beyond. To hold souls within them and burn them like fuel. Maybe the remnants of the souls seep bit by bit into the beyond. Maybe there they reform, slowly, in a state like Purgatory.
Or maybe they are forever trapped inside the Dementor. Do Dementors die? Patronuses simply drive them away (I have to wonder what their natural habitats are) so do they simply exist for their lifespan - whatever that might be - then dissipate?
Are the souls it consumes freed when it dies, or is their fate still tied to the Dementor’s after death?
Any way it crumbles, the Dementor is easily the most terrifying creation of JKR’s. The use of them in the court system, especially, is perturbing. Passing judgement not just on the mortal span of life, but having a creature at their disposal that actually consumes the souls of the condemned?
That is horrific beyond words.
And the indiscriminate use, on people who haven’t even been tried properly - I know JKR said it was a mark of the Ministry’s corruption, but it is shocking that no one within the society has really said anything against it, and Dementors have evidently been in use for quite a while, before Voldemort’s rise to power.
JKR makes it sound as though the Ministry has been restored to sunshine and daisies after his fall, but honestly, it sounds to me like the problems have been rooted in so deep that it seems impossible for a complete overhaul to be accomplished.
But who decided that using Dementors would be a grand idea? Do they even know what they do to souls? The Wizarding World in general seems more confident about knowledge of the presence of souls and life after death than the Muggle - the presence of Dementors and their ilk, of spells to create Horcruxes, the presence of ghosts and Inferi - all provide concrete evidence on these matters. But at the same time...
At the same time, they seem much more willing to perform acts with unknown repercussions, and this is a really disturbing trend.
Like I said, I honestly doubt JKR will ever answer these questions. I doubt that I want her to, really. But basically?
All this boils down to, “Dementors really creep me out.”