Dementor

A Dementor is a soul-sucking fiend. They served as the guardians of the Azkaban until the events of the fifth book.

Dementors have a generally human shape, approximately three metres in height, but covered in dark, hooded cloaks which reveal only grey, decayed hands and faces. The creatures have no eyes, and a large hole where the mouth should be, which is used for sucking the soul out of the victim in a process called the "Dementor's Kiss". They are said grow like fungi in the darkest, dankest places, creating a dense, chilly fog.

Being blind, Dementors sense and feed on the positive emotions of human beings to survive, forcing them to relive their worst memories. The very presence of a Dementor makes the victim's surrounding atmosphere grow cold and dark, with increasing effects as the number of Dementors rise. Those kept in the company of a Dementor for too long become depressed, and are often driven insane, which is the main source of Azkaban's well-deserved horrible reputation. Their source of sustenance allows the Ministry of Magic to reluctantly employ them: Dementors are at least intelligent enough to be greedy, and to obey as long as doing so provides them with sustenance. In 1995, a Dementor accompanies Cornelius Fudge as a bodyguard, and Dementors are depicted as obeying simple instructions from wizard authorities (e.g. escorting prisoners into and out of the courtroom), but the precise extent to which wizards and Dementors can communicate with each other is unclear. Possibly Dementors react to raw emotion rather than to actual spoken words.

Dementors are invisible to Muggles, but affect them in the same way. While at least one Squib, Arabella Figg, has claimed to see a Dementor, it was later found out to be a lie.

Protection from Dementors
One of the few ways to shield oneself from Dementors is to use the difficult Patronus Charm to drive them away. The charm summons a Patronus: the magical manifestation of good will, providing varied levels of protection against the Dementors' influence, based on the caster's strength as a wizard. Only when summoned by an experienced caster, will the Patronus take the form of an animal significant in some way to the individual. While the lower level Patronus is more amorphous and ephemeral. Corporeal Patronuses will chase down Dementors and force them to flee the vicinity. An incorporeal Patronus can only slow a Dementor down, as if the thing is walking through quicksand, and tends not to last long. Chocolate is an effective first aid to mild cases of contact.

Dementor's Kiss
In addition to feeding on positive emotions, Dementors can perform what is known as the Dementor's Kiss where the Dementor latches its mouth onto a victim's and sucks out the person's soul. The victim is left as an empty shell, incapable of thought and with no possibility of recovery. It is believed existing after a Dementor's Kiss is worse than death: as a person's soul is their self, to be "kissed" by a Dementor is to cease to exist, and yet also remain. The Ministry of Magic occasionally allows this as a punishment. It is implied by some wizards that receiving the Kiss is a fate too horrible for any criminal, and as such the Dementor's Kiss. Muggles who have had their souls sucked out in a Dementor's attack would mistakenly be thought to suffer from the medical condition known as Persistent Vegetative State by Muggle doctors, since after the 'kiss' the victim would no longer experience any brain activity despite no damage done to the brain itself. This makes Dementors even more terrifying, since they will attack both Wizards and Muggles alike (yet only magical beings can see their attacker). It is unknown as to what happens to a person who possesses one or more horcruxes if they suffered a Dementor's Kiss.

Harry Potter's encounters with Dementors
Harry Potter first encountered Dementors during the school year of 1993-1994, when they were sent to guard Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry against Sirius Black, who had recently escaped Azkaban Prison. Harry, whenever he got near one, was forced to relive his worst memory: hearing the last moments of his parents before they were murdered by Lord Voldemort. The first of these encounters was on the Hogwarts Express, during which he was protected by his Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin. While the Dementors were at Hogwarts, headmaster Albus Dumbledore warned the Hogwarts students not to give the Dementors any reason to harm them.

Harry endured a second encounter with a group of Dementors during a Quidditch game, which caused him to lose consciousness and suffer a fall from his broom. He was that time rescued by Dumbledore, who slowed Harry's fall then drove the Dementors away with a patronus.



To overcome the Dementors, Harry asked Lupin for assistance. Lupin taught Harry the Patronus Charm. When Harry finally mastered the Patronus Charm, his Patronus took the form of a silver stag. Harry failed to produce a fully formed Patronus when he and Sirius were attacked by a group of Dementors. The two were saved however by the intervention of a powerful and fully formed Patronus, which had in fact been conjured by Harry himself, who had used a time turner to travel back into the past from three hours in the future. (This technically counts as both Harry's third and fourth encounters with the Dementors, since, due to his time traveling, he experienced this same encounter twice.)

Harry's fifth encounter was in an alley near his home on Privet Drive, when he and his cousin Dudley Dursley were ambushed by two Dementors (sent secretly and illegally by Dolores Umbridge). He was able to successfully use the Patronus Charm and was subsequently rescued by a Squib named Arabella Figg. He then had his final encounter with hundreds of Dementors during the final battle of Hogwarts, but due to the horrific events he had seen, including the death of Fred Weasley, Harry was unable to conjure a Patronus to get rid of them. However, he was saved by Seamus Finnigan, Luna Lovegood, and Ernie Macmillan, who drove them off.

Separation from the Ministry
Dementors served the Ministry of Magic as the guards of Azkaban because it allowed them to feed on the emotions of their human victims. However, by July 1996,most of the Dementors of Azkaban staged a mass revolt against their employers to join Lord Voldemort.

In 1996, the Dementors from Azkaban joined Voldemort and were multiplying, thus causing an "unseasonal" July mist. Cornelius Fudge also admited they are factors in the British Prime Minister's recent decline in terms of public approval, as they were making people less happy in general. Professor Snape also requested a report on Dementors, when Harry disagreed with Snape on the method for confronting a Dementor. One could interpret this to mean there is more than one way to repel a Dementor (we assume Harry chooses the Patronus Charm).

When Kingsley Shacklebolt was Minister for Magic, Dementors were no longer used by the Ministry of Magic.