The Last Slytherin - Chapter 48

After buying necessary books at Flourish and Blotts shop, Neal and Tracey went to Madam Malkin for new robes and later went through various shops to buy all the necessary stuff. While they were returning to the leaky cauldron where Edward and Dulcie are waiting for them, they stopped near Quality Quidditch supplies as they saw a crowd in the shop staring at something.

Both of them entered the shop and heard their murmurs. Filled with curiosity, Neal edged his way inside and squeezed in among the excited witches and wizards until he glimpsed a newly erected podium, on which was mounted the most magnificent broom he had ever seen in his life.

He heard murmurs in the crowd, “the prototype just came out”. “dad, it’s the fastest broom in the world, isn’t it? please buy it for me”. The proprietor of the shop told the crowd, “Irish International Side’s just put in an order for seven of these beauties!. And they are the favorites for the World Cup next year”.

Then Neal looked at the sign next to the broom which stated its description. The thing which excited him the most was its acceleration. It can go 150 miles per hour in ten seconds. For him who uses a burst skill, he can even reach that speed in three seconds if he has this broomstick.

Then, one wizard asked, “excuse me, how long would it take if I order one?”. Hearing him, everyone turned their attention toward a certain wizard. The shop proprietor replied calmly, “it might take a couple of months. But the price isn’t fixed right now. You can only pay 1000 galleons as a deposit. After your broomstick is ready, we’ll return the change after calculating all the costs”. Hearing it, many wizards threw the thought of ordering it. Neal too returned to Tracey who was standing at the back as he wasn’t interested in buying that.

While walking together, she asked, “I thought you would buy it for sure. It isn’t an overprice for you”. Neal replied, “it’s not that I can’t afford it. It’s just my funds in the vault left by my parents are limited, right now. Until I graduate, I don’t want to needlessly spend all the money and depend on Avery family later”.

Tracey grinned, “don’t need to worry about it. We can let Malfoy sponsor the team, later”. Neal knocked on her head lightly and scolded, “Hey, you shouldn’t use your friends like that”. Tracey rubbed her head and pouted, “well, we’re Slytherins. We tend to use other people”.

Neal snapped at her, “what did you say?”. Tracey replied, “I’m just kidding, alright”. Then she saw the Ice cream parlor and dragged him there to buy one.

As the summer vacation is finished, they board the train and sat together with Draco and Daphne. After hearing a piece of grave news from them, Tracey was shocked and screamed, “no, it’s not possible. How can Prof. Lockhart resign from his post without saying anything to us?”.

Neal, on the other hand, smiled brightly, “it’s a great news Draco. So, who is our new professor?”. Draco replied, “not sure about that. by the way, did you hear about Sirius Black’s escape from Azkaban?”. Tracey stopped her moping and immediately became interested in the topic.

She asked him, “Azkaban? But isn’t it impossible to escape from that prison? No one to date managed to escape”. Daphne replied, “yeah, I heard from my father. The Whole Ministry is in chaos and the minister even deployed the Azkaban guards to station themselves around entrances to the school grounds”.

Neal asked in a surprise, “how can Dumbledore allow Dementors to surround the school?”. Tracey asked, “Dementors? So, you call guards of a prison, Dementors? A strange name indeed”. Neal replied, “it isn’t some organization’s name, Tracey.

They are magical creatures, widely considered to be one of the foulest to inhabit the world. Dementors feed on human happiness and thus generate feelings of depression and despair in any person 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”, rendering a person an ’empty-shell’. Now, do you understand how dangerous they are?.

What’s more dangerous is that they are amortals. You can’t kill them. You can only shield yourself by driving them away. As he’s explaining further, it began to rain heavily on the outside. A while later, the train started to slow down.

Daphne asked, “We shouldn’t have reached Hogsmeade station by now, right?”. Neal replied, “of course, no. It’s hasn’t even gotten dark yet on the outside”. Neal looked outside, “can’t see anything clearly because of this heavy rainfall but it seemed like the train’s stopping in the middle of nowhere”.

Tracey, who was nearest to the door, got up to look into the corridor. All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments. The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks.

Neal stood up, “I’ll go and ask the driver what’s going on”. “wait, I’ll come with you”. Daphne stood up to follow him, Neal nodded, “fine, let’s go”. Both of them started walking in the corridor slowly and started to feel cold all of a sudden. The windows are slowly freezing while they saw a dark wraith-like creature entered the train and started to move along the corridor.

Daphne whispered while her legs started to shiver, “what is that?”. Neal spoke, “stay behind me. I’ve seen the picture of it in one of the books in the restricted section. That is a dementor”. He pulled his Basilisk wand and woke it up with parseltongue, “Awake”.

Meanwhile, inside that specific compartment, Harry, Hermoine, Ron, Neville were wondering what’s going on and an ȧduŀt man was sleeping heavily leaning his head on the window. Ron got frightened when they saw some dark-wraith like creature opened the door.

Then the thing beneath the hood, whatever it was, drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings. An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his ċhėst. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his ċhėst, it was inside his very heart.

As Harry being slowly getting collapsed on the floor, the ȧduŀt man woke up at last. He pulled out his wand and just when he’s about to chase it away, he heard someone shouted, “Expecto Patronum”.

As Neal shot the Patronus charm, a silvery light engulfed the corridor as a snake identical to Isle flew towards the Dementor and chased it away from there to outside.

As the ȧduŀt man put his head of that compartment with his wand, he saw Neal chasing the dementor away and called him out, “Mr. Slytherin?”. Neal looked at him in a surprise when he stepped out, “werewolf guy?”.