Lesson 8: Dementors & Azkaban
If you have grown up in the wizarding world you know there is once place under no circumstances that you want to go to at any given time in your life and that place is Azkaban, the wizarding prison. Now, most people are good honest folk who will never need to see the inside of this place, some are wrongly accused of a crime and have had to endure Azkaban for a brief stay, and some, well, let’s just say they deserve their stay in Azkaban.
Azkaban is currently located on an island in the middle of the North Sea. This alone makes it near impossible to escape, because if you do, realistically where are you going to go? Azkaban is not the only wizarding prison to serve the magical population. In fact there are several others, but Azkaban is the prison that serves the magical area of Great Britain. What might come across as obvious, the prison is hidden from the muggle world and is unplottable to the magical world. This is to minimize break outs. It is said that more people who were set to Azkaban would go insane or die before they are released from the prison.
As mentioned above the prison is located in the middle of the ocean and is also surrounded with iron walls to protect it. There is said to be graveyard on the island where the dead prisoners were buried after they were removed from the prison. Most prisoners went insane after a few short months of their stay and others would stop eating, rather to starve themselves and wait for death then to endure the prison any longer. One might ask what caused all this depression and mayhem in the prison? Dementors of course.
Dementors are dark and foul creatures. They feed off human happiness and in turn caused depression and despair to all that are near them. The Dementors can and will perform what is known as “The Dementor’s Kiss” on someone, which in reality sucks out a person’s soul. Once the soul is gone the person is left in a vegetative state, unresponsive until their body dies.
The Dementors guarded Azkaban until they joined forces with Lord Voldemort, after he (we think) promised them they could wreak havoc on the magical world. Since Dementors hold no true loyalty towards any one side, they belong to the side which best benefits themselves. Once the war ended and a new Ministry of Magic was appointed, Kingsley Shacklebolt decided it was best to not return the Dementors to the prison as they could never be full trusted after their betrayal.There is no real way to kill a Dementor, but one can protect themselves from one by using the Patronus Charm. It is an advance spell, so we will not be practicing here in this class, but you are welcome to read up on it and learn more on your own. If you are attacked, and you survive, by a Dementor you can eat some chocolate to bring yourself out of the daze you are left with. Chocolate is said to warm the soul, so it only makes sense it would help you feel better from a “soul sucker” attack.