Black's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but Harry took a step back and pointed his wand at him.
" Harry, not now—" Black's voice was urgent, but he stopped mid-sentence.
Because those Dementor had closed in within ten steps.
The hem of the gray-black cloak brushed against the withered leaves on the ground, making a damp, rustling sound.
The cold was no longer just a coolness on the surface of his skin; Harry could feel his hands trembling, the silvery light at the tip of his wand flickering like a candle about to go out in the wind, and his head was already buzzing.
He tried desperately to recall the feeling of riding the broomstick: the wind, the cheers, Ron's silly grin.
But those images were like something soaked in ice water; no matter how hard you tried to grasp them, they would crumble into pieces the moment you reached out.
" Expecto Patronum!" he gritted his teeth and repeated.
The light at the tip of the staff flashed briefly, then went out—even faster than before.
His fingers were starting to stiffen, and he could barely hold onto his wand.
Ron held his wand up, but it was crooked and his lips were trembling; he couldn't utter a complete spell.
Hermione did recite it, and a small wisp of silvery-white mist emerged from the tip of her wand, but the mist dissipated before it could even take shape.
"No," Hermione's voice tightened, "I can't do it, my mind is filled with—"
She didn't finish her sentence, but Harry knew what she wanted to say: fear.
The closer the Dementor got, the further away the happy thoughts in your mind would drift, leaving only cold, wet, and suffocating things.
Black also took a step back, his hands clenched into fists and hanging at his sides, a look in his gray eyes that Harry couldn't decipher.
" Potter, I'm begging you." His voice was much lower than before. "I know you hate me, but it's not what you think. If you don't give me the wand now, we'll all be lying here."
Harry gritted his teeth and remained silent.
Does he hate him? He doesn't know.
All he knew was that this person was the traitor described in the book, the one who killed his parents.
But the words that person shouted at Peter while he was choking him didn't quite sound like it.
Just then, Peter suddenly darted out from behind the tree.
He had been cowering behind the tree, trembling for a long time, but now that he realized the Dementor were completely ignoring his rat-like brain, he became bolder and quickly turned back into a rat, scrambling and crawling in another direction.
Black whirled around. " Wormtail!"
He instinctively wanted to fall back up, but the Dementor had clearly targeted him and blocked his path.
By this time, the nearest Dementor had already approached.
A grayish-black hand emerged from beneath the cloak, as thin and withered as a few dry twigs, reaching straight toward Black's back.
"Watch out!" Hermione shouted.
Black lunged forward, rolling half a circle on the ground to dodge the hand, but since he didn't have a wand, he could only move closer to Harry.
Harry stood in front of him, wand raised, his mind a complete mess.
He didn't know why he was protecting Black; perhaps it was simply because the man's voice didn't sound like that of a bad person when he called him " Potter."
The Dementor were getting closer and closer.
Three, five, seven.
Cloak upon cloak, like a gray-black wall. Harry's vision began to narrow, and the buzzing in his ears drowned out all other sounds.
His mother's screams rang in his ears again, distant and indistinct, but they kept coming.
Harry's knees buckled, and he was about to fall again.
Just then, a beam of blue light crashed down from the sky.
With a muffled "bang," the blue light exploded into a blinding halo where it landed, the shockwave sending the nearest Dementor staggering back several steps.
The cloaks billowed out and retreated as if they had been burned.
In the center of the aperture, a figure in a black trench coat stood up.
The Purple-Patterned Fox-Face Mask gleamed coldly in the blue light, and the hem of the trench coat billowed backward by the gust of air before slowly settling down after several seconds.
"Wow," Allen looked down at his hands, then at the circle of Dementor around him, "This teleportation even has a landing effect? How come I didn't notice it before?"
He looked up and scanned the scene.
Three children: one with Scarhead, squatting on the ground, almost fainting; one with red hair, holding a crooked magic wand; and one with brown hair, his face as white as paper.
A emaciated, dirty man was squatting nearby, looking at him with a mixture of shock and fear.
Further out, there were dozens of Dementor.
"Good heavens," Allen muttered, "What's this all about?"
He didn't think much of the system mission when he received it at the villa; it was just a matter of dealing with a Dementor riot at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Only now, seeing the dense mass of gray-black cloaks, did he realize that this wasn't a riot; it was a massive, organized meeting.
Harry looked up and froze when he saw the fox mask.
"You--"
He recognized the mask.
It was reported in the newspapers that this mask appeared during the Hogwarts invasion and also during Fiendfyre's Fiendfyre on Diagon Alley.
"You're the one wearing the mask—"
"Shh." Allen waved his hand at him. "Don't rush to reminisce, let me take care of business first."
Allen stared at the nearest Dementor for two seconds. The thing was about seven or eight steps away from him, and the hand sticking out from under the cloak was as thin as a chicken claw that hadn't grown any flesh.
Its icy aura could make your teeth ache even from seven or eight steps away.
He knew, of course, that the Patronus Charm could exorcise Dementor. The question was, what level of Patronus Charm did he currently possess?
This is an advanced spell, and as a self-taught wizard, his mastery of it is far from satisfactory.
The circle of Dementor had already begun to move forward, tentatively approaching him.
Allen took a deep breath and pulled out the character card he had just drawn from the system panel.
[Limited Character Card ( James Potter ) activated. Duration: 5 minutes. Uses: 2/2 → 1/2.]
A surge of heat burst forth from his chest, flowing through his blood vessels into his limbs and bones. As it expanded outward from his chest, it felt as if someone had lit a bonfire inside him, so warm that he almost shivered.
The next moment, knowledge flooded his mind, and every detail of the Patronus Charm was instantly poured into his brain.
Allen unconsciously shifted his grip on the wand.
He moved his fingers up half an inch, pressing his thumb against the side edge of the staff. This position felt unfamiliar to him, yet it inexplicably felt natural.
"Goodness," he muttered to himself, " James's Patronus Charm is really something."
The Dementor on the other side has closed to within five steps.
Allen didn't hesitate any longer. He raised his wand high above his head, the tip pointing at the gray-black wall.
" Expecto Patronum!"
A beam of silvery-white light burst forth from the tip of his staff, more than ten times the amount he had anticipated.
The light tumbled, condensed, and stretched in mid-air, forming a clear shape within seconds.
A stag suddenly appeared.
A silvery-white stag stood in mid-air, its four hooves treading on invisible air, its antlers raised high, its entire body radiating a layer of almost tangible silver light.
Its fur was so shiny it looked as if someone had crushed up the entire Milky Way and smeared it on it; every inch of its outline was so clear it was almost blinding.
A warm feeling emanated from the stag.
Harry could feel the buzzing, cold stuff in his head receding.
His mother's screams seemed to fade into the distance. He slowly stood up, supporting himself on the ground, his eyes fixed on the silvery-white stag, his mouth agape, unable to close for a long time.
Of course, at this point Harry didn't know his father's code name, so upon seeing the stag, he could only marvel at how powerful the mysterious man in the trench coat's Patronus was.
Ron was stunned. His wand fell to his sides, and his lips moved slightly. " Merlin's beard..."
Hermione didn't speak, but her eyes were frighteningly bright, and she even held her breath as she stared at the stag.
Sirius Black looked up, staring blankly at the stag. He was speechless for a moment, his eyes welling up with tears; he was completely mesmerized.