Harry Potter Breaking Free

In response to the brilliantly lit Patronus effect, the Dementors screeched and wailed as if they were being tortured. They were also physically blasted away from the white light as if they were being hit by a fly swatter. Soon enough, what Dementors Harry could still see floating across the water, retreated en masse into the Forbidden Forest.

In the peaceful silence that the Dementors left behind, Harry could finally feel all of the damage that he'd managed to do to his body. Very abruptly, he gasped and dropped to his hands and knees, as his body released copious amounts of steam into the cool night air. At just a glance, Harry confirmed that his entire body was scorched with what looked like electrical burns or something similar. At first, he could only groan into his hands, as the damp grass cooled the skin of his forehead. As more time passed by however, Harry began to feel a little bit better and he hesitantly took a second look at his arm.

What Harry found this time was a welcome surprise to say the very least…

Upon further inspection, his burns weren't quite as bad as they'd initially looked. After stretching and flexing both his hands and his arms, Harry was pleased to find that he still had full mobility despite the red rawness of his skin. As his body's condition continued to improve, Harry suddenly felt capable of movement again, so he immediately turned his attention towards finding his friend. It didn't take long. Hermione was at the edge of the clearing, propped up on her elbows, coughing for breath and staring at him.

One thing was immediately obvious to Harry. If Hermione was seeking any kind of explanation from him then she was destined for disappointment. The fact of the matter was that he'd been looking for exactly the same thing from her. At this point, he was seriously hoping that his most scholastically inclined friend knew what the Hell was going on, because he didn't have a clue. Unfortunately, after taking just a single look at Hermione's visibly confused expression, Harry realized that she was just as lost as he was.

Damn...

In the end, Harry just shrugged his shoulders in a defeated fashion as he drew his glasses off his face. "I have literally no idea what just happened," he finally admitted in a somewhat sheepish tone of voice. "What part of all that did YOU understand?"

"Almost nothing," Hermione groaned back, as she finally retrieved some of the air that had been knocked out of her.

"Good. I appreciate the solidarity," Harry grumbled, mostly to himself.

It may have been the adrenaline or the near brush with death, but Hermione giggled and then laughed hard at Harry's immature muttering. He just sounded so sulky after having done something so incredibly, unbelievably impossible! When Hermione finally calmed down again and managed to push herself back up to her feet, she dusted herself off and then crossed her arms in a huff. "Harry, seriously. This is nothing new and you know it! Nothing ever makes sense when it comes to you... Look, I want to obsess over what just happened just like you do, but unfortunately, we don't have the time. We need to go now, Harry. We only have a matter of minutes to be at our next destination."

"Uh... Okay then. Fine. We'll freak out later. Good plan. I'm pretty sure Buckbeak's just over that rise there." Harry pointed at an outcropping of rocks in the distance.

Nodding her understanding, Hermione started jogging towards both Harry and the outcropping that he'd just pointed at. Then she very suddenly stopped in place, as she shivered from head to toe. It was only as Hermione approached Harry's side that she started to feel something extremely out of the ordinary…

It felt as if Hermione was walking up to a very strong electrical current, except that it wasn't really a physical force. Then, as she stepped even closer to Harry's side, goosebumps started forming along her skin and she knew exactly what she was feeling. Anyone who'd ever been around an extremely powerful wizard knew what this particular sensation was, but Hermione didn't know what to make of it…

An aura shroud at this distance, and with this much power?

The sensation Hermione was feeling was that of amazingly strong magical power saturating the very air all around her. It felt as if she was walking through a powerful wizard's aura shroud, but with one or two important distinctions. The aura shroud she was standing in wasn't being forced out by a wizard who was trying to intimidate her, but rather the magic was free floating and lazy. Looking over at Harry, Hermione saw that her friend was just standing there and cleaning his glasses.

This was... odd...

"Harry," Hermione began, in a somewhat strained tone of voice. "Can you dial down on the aura shroud please? You don't need to force out that much power anymore."