"When we were sent by the ministry to basically kill you, well, we took the opportunity to turn you into one of us," a different dementor jumped in to explain. This one, Harry decided had an aura similar to Hermione's. He was thinking Jean for a name since it was Hermione's middle name. "With the danger you seem to be in, you'd be safer as a dementor, and we were kind-of hoping you'd help us with something too ."
"It took him five months to come find us," Drake still grumbled. "I doubt he's intelligent enough to be of any help."
"(Drake), that's enough! You will be silent, or you can go guard that annoying Lestrange woman," a very McGonagall-like dementor scolded him; Athena Harry decided as a name. "Don't listen to him Harry, we know this has all been a huge adjustment for you. We wouldn't have sent the insensitive (Drake) to be the one to change you if we thought any of the rest of us could do it."
"It's really difficult to pull out a soul and not consume it," Jean continued the explanation. "The willpower is unimaginable." Drake looked very smug at that. "Or the pigheaded stubbornness, however you want to look at it." Drake was now glaring, though how Harry knew with the hoods was beyond him. It was like his aura was glaring.
"Ok…" Harry was very confused. The dementors were trying to help him all along, and apparently the ministry wanted him dead as well as Voldemort. What was going on? "I don't understand. You said you needed my help?"
"The ministry idiots stopped reading our mail," a dementor that had an aura so similar to Ron's that Harry immediately named him Ronnie huffed out.
"What does that mean exactly?" Harry asked, not feeling any less confused.
"Oh dear, we really should start from the beginning," Athena said airily. "Well, first of all, we have a contract with the British Ministry of Magic to guard Azkaban Prison for them. However, this contract was up about a decade ago. We've been having communication issues though since our letters seem to be put in some sort of eternal limbo and they cannot understand our spoken language."
"Why don't you just get a house elf to interpret for you?" Harry asked, wondering if they really turned him into a dementor just to be an interpreter.
All the dementors looked at each other in shocked confusion. "Er, we didn't know they understood us," Ronnie finally explained with a shrug. "They avoid us so much, I don't think we've ever actually been in the same room with one. It's not even like house elf soul would taste good, can you imagine? It'd be like eating grass!" All the dementors, Harry included, shuddered.
"So, your contract is up, and you need it renegotiated?" Harry clarified. "And you want me to talk to the ministry?"
"That or we want to move somewhere else, but we don't want to leave the prison unguarded. That would be irresponsible," King added in. "We don't understand. Is the ministry corrupt or just completely incompetent? We've been owling them for years, and they never respond. Take that Sirius Black bloke, we owled them as soon as he arrived that he was a dog animagus and needed a different cell we didn't have set up, and no one got back to us. Then, we owled them that he was obviously not imprisoned for the crimes he was accused of since his soul didn't taste good. The eviler and more corrupt the soul, the better it tastes. A soul that tastes that bland has no reason to be in maximum security."
"We get offers from other wizard prisons all the time, and we would like to consider accepting one," Athena said. "Also, the Dark Lord has been asking us to join his side. We aren't sure that's the right move for us though. You seem to be in the middle of everything, and we figured you would know what was going on. Is the ministry evil or is the Dark Lord?"
At that, Harry just shrugged. "I don't know, maybe both," was the most honest answer he could give. "I think the ministry is more incompetent than evil though…maybe. Umbridge is definitely evil. Voldemort is the worst of the worst though. (Drake) should know if he ate part of his soul."
"Best soul I've ever eaten," the dementor answered wistfully, seeming to be caught up in memory. "It was sweet and spicy and just delicious."
Harry's mind was whirling as the soul from the locket and the diadem could have been described the same. Was it possible they were pieces of Voldemort's soul as well? "Er, well, so you see, evil. Do you want to have a contract with an evil person?"
The dementors all looked at each other questioningly. "The souls he'd give us would probably taste horrible," Ronnie remarked with a shrug. "That's assuming he'd be going after good people."
"Very true," King nodded in agreement. "Maybe we should consider one of the other prison offers? There was that one on an island in the Caribbean. It would be nice and warm there."
Harry nodded, knowing the draw of that. Even now that he'd released his aura, it would still be nice to be in a warmer climate. It was hard to stay warm in this body. "So, are we going to the Caribbean then?" He asked happily.
"What 'we?'" Drake drawled questioningly. "Don't you have your own life? If you take care of your old body, it should last you most of your life unless someone kills it. Dementor lifespans aren't much longer than wizards."
"Don't be a prat (Drake)," Jean admonished him. "If Harry wants to join us, he can. Harry dear, you aren't bound by our contracts because we always add in a loophole where only spawned dementors are included; you were made not spawned but created. It gives us wiggle room in case we need someone who is freer to move about, like in this situation. It helps that no one outside of our species knows we can do this."
"We really could use your help in handling all this mess with the humans though if you're willing?" King asked hopefully. "If we didn't think it'd lead to a mass breakout, we would have left back when our contract ended. It's not good business to be seen as unreliable guards though."
"We would be happy to have you if you want to throw your lot in with us. We thought you'd want to stay with your friends and family though," Athena added in kindly. "That's why we were very clear with (Drake) that he had to leave you your body. We meant to keep you safe, not force you to follow our ways."
Harry was taken aback and reevaluating everything he knew to be true in the world. These dementors were looking out for him. They made him indestructible and left him the ability to remain with his friends. They healed a part of his soul he didn't even know was damaged. He had wondered why he felt so much better and lighter after he was attacked; he just didn't know he'd been living with a parasite at the time. The monsters that he had feared more than anything else in the world were just another species, one that was caught between bureaucracy and evil in a war they didn't understand and where they had limited means of communication with others. Maybe this was where he belonged. Maybe this was where he could atone for being a curse on those he loved.
"I think I'd like to stay for a while and learn more about you all," he finally said slowly. "I think maybe this is where I should be. My friends really don't need me back there. I would only end up hurting them anyway."
Jean put a skeletal arm around Harry just as Hermione would do, which would have caused him to tear up if he still had eyes. "I doubt that, Harry, but we are happy to keep you as long as you want," the dementor said as the group made their way back towards the prison. "Hey, you hungry? We're going to make a pass through maximum security soon. You want to join?"
"I could eat," Harry smiled, pulling a tube of lip balm out of his pocket and applying it as the dementors marveled around him.
"You have any more of that?" Athena asked in interest.
"Sure, I have a lot," Harry passed over another tube as the dementors excitedly passed it around, applying it. Harry grimaced, really hoping there weren't any dementor germs, but decided not to mention it.
....
Want to read ahead by more than 60 chapters. Then join my pa*treon now.
Link: pa*treon.com/Amelie796 (Remove the *)
Also you can read till chapter 17 chapters for free.