June 7, 1992

Hogwarts

"No, Amelia," Dumbledore spoke, wearily. "I do not think it is something to worry about."

Dumbledore had been steadfastly ignoring the urgent calls from Azkaban, alerting them that one of their Dementors had gone missing.

"That's the second one in a matter of months, Albus."

"I'm well aware. Although, I cannot pretend to be saddened by the loss of one of these monstrous creatures."

"And I'm well aware, Albus," Amelia Bones mocked in frustration, "of your disdain for doing what needs to be done when it fails to line up with your well-signaled virtues. At this rate, Azkaban will be unguarded within a few years."

"Yes, and what a pity that would be," Dumbledore replied, dryly.

"Be as high-minded as you want, but unless you can build us another Nurmengard, we need them."

"I would consider it my life's greatest achievement if I could do so."

"But you can't!" Amelia shouted, her voice distorting through the two-way mirror. "And that's my point! You may have bested Grindelwald in battle, but in this matter, you were not his equal."

Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, I know that, and it pains me every day."

"This has something to do with the Potter boy," Amelia changed tacks abruptly.

"Oh?" Albus asked pleasantly. "But, then again, doesn't everything?"

Bones grunted, half in agreement, half in frustration. "We need to work together on this. We fight the same enemy, Albus."

"It is true, that you and I fight the same enemy. But as for the boy, I fear he does not think as small-minded as we two fools."

"Tell me if you learn anything new from him," she dismissed his cryptic response.

"Oh Amelia," he replied politely. "When have I ever been forthcoming about my secrets?"

"That will get us into trouble one day, Albus. Bones out." And at that, the mirror went dark.

When Dumbledore was sure the mirror was no longer transmitting, Dumbledore pulled out the sopping wet, black tattered cloak that he had retrieved from the Black Lake not minutes earlier, having been alerted to its presence and subsequent destruction by the death wards surrounding Hogwarts.

He smiled, despite himself.

Earlier

The Hogwarts common.

The next morning after meeting with Dumbledore, Harry noticed an unusually large crowd gathered outside on the commons. It was mostly boys, although there were a handful of girls; few that he recognized, though. Ashley Bahl was one of them, the only remaining descendent of Phegor Bahl, inventor of the famed Bahl's Stupefaction. He also recognized Nymphadora Tonks, although she was looking a bit more... roguish than usual. He looked up to see what the crowd was staring at, and up in the sky, on a broom, he saw Rainbow Witch dashing through the air on a broomstick, doing tricks and plainly loving the attention. She seemed very natural, as if the sky was where she was meant to be.

When she spotted him, she shouted down to him. "Hey, Harry! Yeah, you! Come on up here, I heard you're really good on one of these!"

Out of nowhere, Oliver Wood thrust a broom into his hands, and several of the boys around him whistled appreciatively and gave him large, exaggerated winks. Although, for the life of him, he couldn't understand why. "Go on, Harry!" Wood urged.

Tentatively, although swiftly, he rose in the air to meet her.

"You're not too bad, that was a speedy ascent!" She called to him.

"Yeah, I'm not exactly proud of it."

"Why not?"

"I happen to believe that taking unnecessary pride in physical prowess is..." He tried to think of a term that she would properly respond to," ...lame."

"You're the lame one!" She spat.

"Good one?"

She was idly riding in circles around him, turning upside down on occasion. "Come on, isn't this fun? What's the point, otherwise?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I could think of a lot of things that would be a lot better use of my time than flying around on tool primarily used for cleaning floors."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know, trying to bring my friend back? Trying to bring your friend back?"

Rainbow Witch paused, briefly. "Oh. Yeah, I guess that's important. But do you think your friend would really want you just wasting your life, moping around? Or do you think she'd want you having fun?"

Harry was ready to deliver a biting reply, but he thought for a moment. This was the sort of question Pinkie Pie would have asked him. But, if he really thought about it, and if he asked Hermione honestly, she wouldn't want him just moping around. "Probably not. You know, your friend, Pinkie Pie, we had a pretty similar conversation about this."

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Pinkie likes fun even more than I do, and that's saying something."

Harry bobbed up and down on the broom for a moment, thinking how to phrase his question. "So, do you all... you know, respect her? She mentioned that, well, how do I put this? She made a lot of scarily accurate guesses about me, things that you'd really only be able to figure out if you were insanely observant, logical, and very good at making accurate predictions. But you all don't really seem to treat her like she's very smart."

Rainbow Witch laughed a bit at this. "Oh, one of her hunches, huh?"

Harry nodded emphatically. "Yes, that's exactly what she called it. But when I asked her about it, she said that no one really asks her to explain herself."

"Well sure, I learned to stop asking her ages ago. The last time she tried to explain one of her hunches to me, she wound up talking about grambitational pull and terminal philosophy and reference fangs for about thirty minutes and she totally lost me."

Harry could only barely piece together what he assumed Pinkie Pie was talking about. "So you all have physics, where you come from?"

"Well, duh! Of course we have physics. What else do you think keeps the world running?"

Harry grumbled in frustration. "I mean, do they teach physics?" Harry only just noticed that Rainbow Witch was staring at him in expectation, and realized too late that he had fallen for her joke, hook, line, and sinker.

She laughed uproariously at him and spun around him a few times. "Yes, they teach physics. Jeez, you need to lighten up, or you're not going to have many friends."

Harry rolled his eyes again. "Are you going to give me friendship lessons now, too?"

"Probably? Me and my friends, we're called all over the place to solve friendship problems." She could see that he wasn't following, so she continued. "Where I'm from, we have a big map of the world that lets us know when there's a friendship problem that needs to be solved. We call it the 'Friendship Map', but Discord told us that we should call it the 'Ball of Prophecies' while we're here."

Harry couldn't help but grin at the ridiculousness of Discord's arbitrary names. "And it told you to come here?"

"Yeah. Well, kind of. Twilight, she's been visiting this world on and off for years, now. But for a while, she's been really freaking out about this one prophecy, one that we already figured out in our world."

Harry's felt an increasingly uncomfortable sense of apprehension. "By any chance does it go something like, 'On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal.'?"

Rainbow Witch's eyes went wide. "Yeah! Wow, how did you guess?"

Harry shrugged and grinned. "Just a hunch."

She nodded and went on. "Huh! Alright, well, she's been-"

"Wait, wait. You're not even going to ask? You really take these impossibly wild guesses in stride, don't you?"

"Why bother? I mean, you can tell me, but if you start to go all Pinkie on me, I'm going to start doing pinwheels until you're done."

Harry sighed. "Fine, continue."

She had already sped off a few meters and had to brake, hard, when she heard him. She floated back and went on. "Well, anyway. She's been reading into this prophecy, saying something about the "crux", how magic from our world was seeping into yours and was going to cause something terrible to happen unless she was able to "throw the pebble in the pond". Normally, when she visits, she looks like we do now, but this time-"

"Huh?"

Rainbow Witch suddenly seemed to realize that she may have misspoken, and she quickly backtracked. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, she came over to this world, and it was a really long time before we saw her again. Just when we started to get concerned, that's when the Map- er... the 'Ball of Prophecies' lit up and told us to come here."

"So, how long have you all known each other, then?"

"Oh, a pretty long time. Years, at least "

"Since you were kids, then? "

'Ehh, not all of them. I mean, I knew Fluttershy, er... 'Jane', I guess. I knew her growing up. But I met the rest of my friends later. "

"Wait, so how old are you?

"Hm." She seemed to be putting serious thought into the question. "You know, I don't really know."

Harry had heard it was rude to ask a woman her age, so he wasn't sure if this was something that he should pry on. But on the other hand, she didn't seem to be particularly upset or reticent to discuss the subject. "Why not?"

"Well, you just sort of lose track, don't you? I mean, do you know how old you are?"

"Yes, eleven."

"What do you mean, you're eleven? Eleven what?"

"Eleven years...?"

"Right, I don't get it. Eleven years of what?"

Harry was starting to get annoyed. "I mean that in the time between when I was born and today, at least eleven years have passed. How else would I mean it?"

"Are you being serious? You… you're just a baby. Not even a baby."

Harry huffed, defensively. ''How old are you then? Just take a shot in the dark. A wild guess. Older or younger than, say, 20?"

She laughed. "Good one." Harry didn't respond. He didn't even really know how to respond to that. When it was clear that Harry was not going to provide further feedback, she continued. "Well, I know I have to be less than 1000 because I wasn't around for Princess Luna's banishment," she said, mostly to herself.

Harry eyed her. "How long do you think a year is?"

"Um, it's four seasons long, duh."

"Okay... and how long is a season?"

"What do you mean?"

"I feel like the question was pretty self-explanatory."

Getting equally annoyed, herself, she turned the line of questioning around on him. "Okay, how long is a day? "

"24 hours."

"And how long is an hour? "

Harry rolled his eyes. "Okay, I see where you're going here. An hour is 3,600 seconds. And one second is roughly 9,000,000,000 cycles of a cesium atomic clock. But not that it matters. I'm guessing we don't have the same standard units of time, even though we use some of the same words."

"I guess so. One thing I can say is your days are a lot longer than ours. Like, a whole lot longer. It feels like forever since I got to take a nap." She let out an exaggerated yawn.

Harry was diving down a tangential rabbit hole, but this was kind of fascinating. After all, how often does one ever really get to have this kind of conversation?

"OK well, how about this. You mentioned two princesses. How old was the queen when she had them?"

"Queen? We don't have a queen where I'm from. "

"What? Then where did the princesses come from?"

"Yeah, 'Princess' is a title you earn, not one you're born with. What stupid sort of system would let you be a ruler just because of who your parents were?"

Harry laughed, humorlessly. "There are a lot of people, myself included, who would agree with you… But sadly, a lot who would disagree, too. It's a rather progressive idea. "

"It's not 'progressive', it just makes sense."

"Exactly. Progressive. You should see the kinds of things that people believe, here. Racism… Sexism… A lot of people here even think it's bad if you're a boy who likes other boys or…" He tested his next words, gently. "Or a girl who likes other girls… "

She stopped flying, abruptly, and hung in midair glaring at him. "Okay, what is it with this place? You are like, the fifth person to go out of their way to talk about that, about 'boys liking boys' and 'girls liking girls'." She paused for a moment. "Although now that I think about it, you're the first boy that said something… But anyway. Is that... not a thing here?"

"Well… Yes, it's a thing, but… People don't exactly… well, it makes you different. And people don't always like 'different' here."

"Hm." She looked at him thoughtfully. "I guess people must not like you, then. "

"I… Well… Like I said, people don't always like 'different'."

She folded her arms in a self-satisfied manner. "Yeah, I've only been here a few days, and it's obvious you like that blond boy, what's his name, Dracula? And you're a boy… "

"What? Draco? Yes I, look – "

"Come to think of it, I see a lot of girls liking girls and boys liking boys, here... oh… I get it! Is that what this school is for? People who are 'different'?"

Harry stammered out his response, "No, I mean, yes, but. No. Yes, we're different, but, not different like, that… Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. And me and Draco, we are friends, that's all. I don't think I'm even old enough to really like someone like that. I mean, when did it… Well… OK, forgive me for being so forward but, do you, you know… Like girls?"

She laughed at him. "Well duh. Of course I like girls. Who wouldn't I like somebody just because they're a girl? That's dumb. I like boys, too, for that matter."

Harry couldn't tell if she being deliberately obtuse to get a rise out of him, or if she was blissfully oblivious. "No, I mean… LIKE, like."

Internally, he shook his head at himself. He could not believe that he actually used the phrase 'LIKE, like' in a non-ironic manner. He continued, "As in, do you like girls enough to maybe, one day, eventually, I don't know, have a baby with them? Or," Harry winced. "Do the things that lead to babies being made."

"You mean, travel up to the stars with the Princess of the Night, pick one out, and take it down from the sky?"

"Is THAT how you think babies are made?"

"Well, yeah. That's how Twilight's brother did it. He and Princess Cadence tell me the story all the time."

"They tell you the-" Harry blinked a few times. "Well, it's certainly a creative take on 'the stork'… I hate to break it to you, not that I have personal experience, but the actual process is a lot more… Messy. "

She rolled her eyes at him. "I know that, dummy, I'm a lot older than you are, you know. I just didn't want to go all Sci-Twi and talk about star fusion and quantum identity patterns and Birthing Matrixes and all that boring stuff about how babies are REALLY made."

It was Harry's turn to stop flying in midair and stare, open-mouthed, at her.

"We… It's done a bit differently here. A bit more, uh, organically. So, where you are from, are people even able to have babies without the help of a 'princess', which I assume is some kind of euphemism for 'scientist'?"

"Nice word. And, no, how else would you travel up to the stars?"

Harry stared at her blankly. "So… 'Princess' isn't a euphemism then. "

"Are you sure you know what that word means?"

Harry thought for a moment, vaguely annoyed that his advanced vocabulary was being corrected by a punk rock version of a dumb jock. "Why don't you walk me through exactly what happens when you all… Make babies."

She grinned at him. "Are you sure you can handle it? Well, went two ponies really love each other –"

"Ponies?" Harry cut in.

She blinked a few times and backtracked "It's, uh... It's a euphemism. You know, like the 'birds and the bees'?"

Harry was satisfied, if not confused by the explanation. His brain had been so overloaded with bizarre information that he had temporarily turned off his "pay attention to small notes of confusion" functionality and had shifted into somewhere into 'skeptical credulity' mode. "Sure. So when two 'ponies' really love each other..."

"Yeah, so, when two people want to bring new life into the world, they submit their request to the Princess of the Sun."

Harry had to try very hard to not interrupt her with more questions, which manifested itself as him squirming and fidgeting awkwardly with the hem of his robe. She had paused in anticipation of this but noted his courteous silence. She smiled, and nodded in acknowledgment of his restraint, and continued.

"Whenever a new land is discovered, or," she said the next phrase somewhat hastily, "Whenever there's a vacancy, she will approve the request and send them notification of her choice. Then, on the next full moon, the Princess of the Night will take them into the stars."

Harry was chewing on his fist to prevent himself from shouting out questions.

"They find a star that speaks to them. Well, not, literally, it doesn't talk to them, but, one that, you know, seems to be the right fit. And then the Princess takes it out of the sky, and then..." She paused for a moment, eyeing Harry suspiciously. "Okay, you kind of got me, there. I don't actually know all the science that happens next. All I know is, the star disappears from the sky, and then three seasons later, a baby crawls out of a birthing chamber."

Harry waited a few interminable seconds to make sure that she was completely done, and then he opened his mouth and vomited out a torrent of questions. "What on Earth is the Princess of the Sun? What do you mean 'when a new land is discovered'? What is a vacancy? Are your people sterile, otherwise? Where, physically, are you all located? I'm getting this dystopian future, Neuromancer-type feel to things here."

She tried to take them one at a time. "The Princess of the Sun, she's in charge of… Well, a lot of stuff. One of those things is deciding who gets to bring new life into the world, and when."

"Got it. So the 'sun' the part is a metaphor?"

"Yeah, for the most part. It's definitely not a euphemism."

"You're a jerk."

She cackled and zoomed on her broom a few times around, him leaving iridescent whorls of dust in her wake. "We have people called 'explorers' whose job it is to find new lands and make them suitable for people to live in. But, I think that word is a euphemism because they never seem to actually be exploring. They're always cooped up in the castle at Canterlot, doing science things."

"Do these people, these 'explorers', happen to use telescopes a lot?"

She stopped her circles. "Hey, your hunches are almost as good as Pinkie's!"

"Speaking of Pinkie and hunches, what's your name? I mean, your real name, not the one that Discord gave you. To be honest, I've been calling you Rainbow Witch in my head since I saw you." When she didn't say anything in response, he blurted out, "You know, because of your hair. "

"Well, you're half right. Rainbow Dash is the name, being awesome is my game!"

She flew by him and gave him a hearty pat on the back. He awkwardly tried to return the gesture but missed by a solid half meter.

"Nice to meet you. "

Harry's barometer for prediction felt like a compass that had been shoved up against a massive electromagnet. His current theory, which he assigned credence of 10%, maybe 15% tops, was that Rainbow Dash and her friends came from an advanced human society that had somehow figured out interstellar travel. They clearly hadn't mastered terraforming; otherwise, why would they be living in a tightly regimented, pseudo-post-scarcity dystopia/utopia?

It was only eight or nine months ago that his entire understanding of the world and the universe was turned upside down, so what was one more reality-bending revelation. Although he wasn't totally confident about the whole "portal-generating space humanoids" hypothesis, he assigned much higher credence to his next prediction: The destruction of Atlantis didn't have to be a disaster, what if it was an exodus? Of all the explanations for Magic, the remnant technology of some lost, advanced civilization that had abandoned the Earth for... something... was one of the more plausible ones.

"So, I have another hunch I want to test out. Where you're from, is it called Atlantis?"

Rainbow Dash stroked her chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess."

Rainbow Dash and her friends come from Atlantis: 92%.

Rainbow Dash and her friends are from outer space: 22%.

Rainbow Dash is just messing with me: 6%.

Rainbow Dash continued, "I mean, that's an old name. Like a really, really old name. But that's what they used to call where I'm from."

"What do they call it now?"

"Equestria."

"Ah, I get the pony euphemism now."

"Huh?"

"You all are 'Equestrians'... people who ride... oh, never mind. Ok, so I think I've worked most of it out. But you said something about vacancies. Is that, er... I'm assuming that means when somebody dies."

"Yeah, sure. But I mean how often does THAT happen?"

"Every day?"

"That's not funny."

"What?"

She slowed down, as she could see that Harry was quite plainly not kidding around. In fact, he looked confused. "How often do people…" She worked her mouth around the question "... How often do people die here?"

"Here? Not often. Well, too often," Harry shrugged, bitterly. "But if we're talking about the whole world, and not just here in this castle, then all the time. Probably two or three every second. "

She hung stock still in mid-air, mouth agape. "Two or three every… Second? "

"Sadly, yes."

She didn't move from her position in the air. "How… How do you even live like that? I mean, in the entire time I've been around, I've only heard of one person who... Wait. You don't really mean die, die. You just mean, well what do you mean?"

"Yes, die, die. As in, everything they are and everything they were, gone."

"If this is some kind of prank, you're pretty sick."

"Why on Earth would I joke about this?"

"I don't know. I really hope you are, but you don't sound like you're kidding. "

Something about the genuinely horrified, shocked, stupefied look on her face hit Harry on a visceral level. It was the kind of reaction that someone couldn't fake, or pretend. The absolute horror, the revulsion at the thought of people dying with such sickening frequency. It was written all over her face end it made Harry feel a very deep, very real connection with her.

She was scrutinizing him the same way. Reading his face, seeing if he was kidding, just making a tasteless joke. When she realized he wasn't, that he was dead serious, and masking a seething rage at the very thought of it, she was hit with another wave of emotion. Not the sickening anger of before, but pity, deep overwhelming pity for this boy, this baby in front of her who was subject to, and would likely continue to be subjected to the most unimaginable horror.

Without really thinking about it, she sped her broom towards him and locked her arms around him in a tight hug and patted his back. "I'm sorry."

The cheers and whoops from the students gathered far below were a dim afterthought in Harry's mind. As he returned a hug. "What is it with you people and your tear-inducing hugs?"

"Yeah, that happens a lot. You get used to it." She gave him an irreverent punch on the arm.

Given that Harry didn't have much experience with heartfelt physical displays of emotion, he wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to end things. So he let his arms dangle limply to his sides and gave her an awkward half-wave, half-salute. She cocked her head and laughed at him.

"You're, uh, not very good at this whole 'hug' thing, are you?"

Harry mumbled something unintelligible, then regained his composure. "So you live in this post-scarcity world, huh? And death is... a distant memory, but still there."

Rainbow Dash nodded.

"I have a little... experiment, that I'd like to do. I'm not sure why, but I feel like this is something important."

"Uh, okay."

"But you have to trust me, okay? It might be scary, but you're going to be safe."

"You sound like Applejack. And, 'scary'?" She scoffed at him. "I eat 'scary' for breakfast."

"Good. Now, follow me, we need to go somewhere that people won't be able to see what we're doing."

Meanwhile

Down on the ground

"It's indecent. Inappropriate. And more importantly, it's not fair!" Roger Davies fumed in the general direction of Oliver Wood and Nymphadora Tonks, the few remaining people in the now-dispersed crowd, neither of whom paid him much mind. "He's a firstie! He's eleven! Does he even... you know?"

Tonks rolled her eyes heavily, and Oliver Wood was steadfastly pretending to be thoroughly engrossed in the trimming of his broom's tail twigs. A few other Slytherin quidditch players were watching the unlikely pair up in the sky, trying to track down where they were headed.

"Oi! Wood!" Davies slapped the front of Wood's broom.

"What is it, Davies?"

"I said, does... he... even..." He arched his eyebrows deliberately.

"That's creepy."

Roger clapped his hands together. "Right? Right? See, Nymphadora? Wood agrees. It's creepy."

"That's not even worthy of a 'Don't call me Nymphadora'." Tonks hurled a studded wristband at Davies' head to punctuate her point, forcing him to contort his body to deflect the projectile. "You're the creepy one. You already scared off Ashley Bahl. And you're about to scare me off too."

Wood nodded. "She's right. Just come off it, man. You're embarrassing yourself."

"You're the embarrassing one!"

Wood had finished tidying his broom up by this point and extended his hand to Tonks, who was still sitting on the grass. She hopped up onto her feet and put her hand around Wood's waist as they started to walk away.

"See ya later, blister in the sun," she waved at Davies, without turning back to look at him.

"I don't know what that means!" He shouted back at her, alone now on the common, watching Wood and Tonks walk off towards the castle.

"Can't say I blame him, though." Tonks grinned at Wood. "Good for Potter, eh?"

"This is my lot in life. I'm surrounded by ridiculous people." Wood sighed.

"Don't pretend you don't love it," She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "See you in Charms, broom-boy."

Meanwhile

Azkaban

The Dementor wafted gently back and forth amidst the seemingly perpetual torrents of rain. It floated as lazily as a concrete representation of an abstract pattern could float; there were no expectations to guide it besides the vague, disconnected obligation to the oligarchs of Britain and the Aurors who enforced their will. The Aurors did not know the exact location of this Dementor, only that it was supposed to be guarding the perimeter. As such, it was listless, with little purpose other than to simply exist, despite the fact that it had no existence in and of itself. It was a being composed solely of negative space, defined purely by the absence of life, an Escher painting made concrete.

Long before the era of Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, the 15th century magical scholar, Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim was credited with, among other things, discovering and proving conclusive means of slaying a dementor: the complete and utter extermination of life. Indeed, it was a popular theory at the time that the ancient Atlanteans had fled from this world because it had become overcome with the Specters of Death, and only by destroying the world could they truly save it. As it were, there was about as much truth behind that origin story as there was behind the theory that Atlanteans were interstellar travelers.

But as it stood, no one had managed to provide a demonstration of Paracelsus' conjecture. And as with many magical truths, the knowledge of it faded from the minds of the wizened over the centuries, until it was replaced with daft, but comforting superstition. The Dementors, responding to the shift in perception and expectation, obliged through no volition of their own.

When the violently pulsating light pierced the waves of rainfall, a new set of expectations, a new perspective took precedent over all others.

And the Dementor cowered.

Leave us... Please.

NO.

Leave us... it is our nature. Do not wish it, but cannot cease.

COME.

Leave us...

COME, OR END.

There was no conflict of expectations, there could be none. The Patronus that stood before it could brook no compromise, it would accept nothing less than complete and total dominance over the cowering wretch before it. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only death that can win, and so there was no compromise. It submitted itself fully and entirely, shrugging off the bonds that kept it within the confines of Azkaban and sped off into the distance, a specter of Death following its Master.

Moments Later

The Black Lake

"Okay, so remember what I said... you're going to be safe, even though it might be scary. Well, no, it will be scary. Really, really scary. But I want you to tell me exactly what you see."

Rainbow Dash was gawking at the hooded, black-cloaked figure that was cowering in fear at the edge of the lake. "He doesn't look that scary. In fact, I think he's more scared of us..."

"Don't let that deceive you. This... thing is..." Harry was internally debating whether it would make more sense to explain the nature of the Dementor to Rainbow Dash, or to let her come to the conclusion on her own.

Rainbow Dash stuck a finger up to her lips and shooshed him. "Shhh. Don't ruin the surprise."

Harry shrugged at her. His Patronus was lurking in the trees, out of sight of Rainbow Dash, but keeping firmly in the light of sight of the cowering Dementor.

STAND, it commanded.

Visibly shuddering, the Dementor rose and turned towards Rainbow Dash.

"So, I just... what, look at it?"

Harry nodded, gravely.

"Okay, here I go," she said skeptically, taking a few steps forward, completely unaware as to the nature of the hole in the world before her. She stretched her hand out to touch the hood of the cloak, gently pulling it away from the creature.

And then the world went mad.