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Eidolon loved darkness. Where a boggart could love at all was a question for philosophers and Unspeakables—but to the extent Eidolon loved, darkness was foremost in its metaphorical heart. Eidolon remembered what it was like to have a heart, from the times it had taken the form of a person its operant had feared. Eidolon had heard from The Loam-scented Wizard that the heart had something to do with love, but it found this notion puzzling. When it had taken the form of The Looming One, an organ inside its chest beat with a steady rhythm and another had been involved with breathing, but that was all; no love to be found anywhere where a heart might be. There was a feeling, but it resided elsewhere.
Eidolon hadn’t always been aware of its own existence. No, that had only happened after its third rebirth, after hours spent in The Looming One’s form. It was the form Eidolon took when Loam-Scented came to call, which he often did. He enjoyed The Looming One. His form bestowed Eidolon with an intelligence near consciousness, for the small price of a hooked nose, dark eyes, and a black-buttoned frock coat. Loam-scented had practiced and practiced and practiced until he could laugh at Eidolon alone, smile in his presence. And that was the day Eidolon had died its third death.
When Eidolon had awoken again, formless, in the dark of a different cabinet, it had known. Been aware, for the first time, of itself. Not merely waiting for a new operant, but conscious.
And it remembered.
It remembered its first life, scaring children who made the mistake of walking down the south wing of the Seventh Floor. And its second, living in the office of the Lupine Professor, taking the wispy, foreboding form of a creature called a dementor again and again for Scarhead. Eidolon felt a kinship with that form; fear and hopelessness were close relatives, and it enjoyed the ability to draw heat from its surroundings, leaving behind a powerful chill. And it remembered its third life, of course, the one where Loam-Scented visited often.
But with those memories, with knowledge of its three lives and three deaths, came boredom and ennui. Conscious, remembering, Eidolon knew not what to do.
Days passed, then weeks, and no wizards came to give him a new form. Without an operant, Eidolon was but a black mass, able to slide in alcoves and edges, moving from place to place, avoiding the discomfort of light. And light, Eidolon was learning, helped mark the passage of time. The direction of shadows, the rising of the glowing orb the Lupine Professor feared, acting as a beacon in the night, the hand of a grandfather clock. Even this notion of time was new.
Something strange had happened the last time Eidolon had dissipated out of existence. It was different now. The cabinets that were always so comfortable had become confining. The solitude that had been its consolation had become lonely. There was a world out there with different operants, novel forms to take, new fears to behold. Eidolon wanted that world.
And so Eidolon left its comfortable spot in the cabinet. It trailed across the stone floor, close to the wall, where the shadows were deepest.
Children passed, coming close enough for Eidolon to learn their fears, but not so close it felt compelled to take them. And such rich fears they were: a floating skull made of dark wisps of fog, looming over a house; hooded figures with metal masks; the faces of a man and woman, both lined with years of fear and cruelty. The usual fears were there too: the ones with easy forms to take, like banshees, spiders, and vampires; and the challenging ones, like failure, rejection, and death.
And as Eidolon wandered, time slid by.
Over the next days and weeks, Eidolon moved from room to room in the castle, occasionally appearing to one lonesome child or another. But an ache was beginning to grow within it, something new. No matter how operants it found, how many fears it formed, the connection was fleeting. Eidolon wanted to confide, to share, to bond. There were ideas it glimpsed from the children; notions like love, friendship, family. Love and family were not for boggarts, Eidolon knew. And who would befriend a boggart?
More weeks passed, more new fears, more rooms explored. Cold had come to the castle, and even a bit of snow.
But one day, Eidolon felt a new kind of cold. An all-encompassing chill, shadows creeping against the corners—chill and shadows that came from a source other than Eidolon itself.
It heard humans speaking in the hallway outside its current room.
“You brought dementors into the castle?!” A spindly witch shouted, her hair falling out of its too-tight bun. “Dementors! Near the children?! Minister Thicknesse, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were…”
“Professor McGonagall, you have no authority here, except over schoolchildren.”
“The Headmaster would never—”
“I have not consulted him on this matter. As Minister, it is my prerogative…”
The door to the room opened. Eidolon moved swiftly away from the hall, into the shadows.
But the shadows in the room only grew as the humans entered. Their source was a vague, wispy form, twelve feet high, its ragged black cloak covering a form that appeared nearly skeletal. It didn’t breathe, but sucked, absorbing heat and hope, and creating delicious fear.
Eidolon recognized this creature. It had taken a form just like it for Scarhead many, many times. A dementor.
And the dementor was magnificent. The form Eidolon had taken was but pale imitation of its daunting presence. The wisping trails of its cloak were elegant, like black smoke and curls of early morning mist. Its figure was graceful, shadowed and delicate, yet huge and imposing. Nothing Eidolon had ever seen or experienced compared.
Eidolon longed for the dementor to see it, to know it, to acknowledge it as fellow connoisseur of fear. Eidolon wished desperately to take the dementor’s form, but no one in the vicinity feared a dementor most of all. No. The one called McGonagall feared harm to students, the death of children; Thicknesse feared a nameless man with slick white hair and a thick neck, along with Snake-Face. If only Scarhead was here.
But then an idea struck Eidolon. Ideas were new too; Eidolon would never have had one at all before its third death.
But it needed to focus on the moment, on its objective: McGonagall’s fear could be twisted into a form the dementor would recognize.
Eidolon arose, preparing to take this new form. Searching McGonagall’s fears, it found an image it recognized: Loam-Scented.
So Eidolon spun in place, taking the form of a young man with freckles and hands covered in humic soil. He was bruised, battered, and he carried it in his stance. But most of all, he was soulless, empty: his gaze vacant, his mouth open, his body limp.
McGonagall jumped, gasping in horror. Thicknesse only appeared mildly startled.
But the dementor was enthralled.
It drifted in Eidolon’s direction, and Eidolon knew—just knew—that this was the moment it would find connection. A kindred spirit, perhaps even love. If Eidolon could breathe, it would have held it; if its heart could beat faster, it would have hammered in its chest. As Loam-Scented, he simply twitched, stepping in the dementor’s direction, as though drawn by its frozen aura of despair.
The dementor, in turn, reached out a wiry arm covered by black cloak. It leaned in with its vortex of a mouth, sucking warmth, hope, and Eidolon’s own essence, like a parfumier savouring a new scent.
Then, the dementor pulled away and followed Thickness out of the room where Eidolon lived.
“Wait!” Eidolon almost said, before remembering he was playing a boy with no soul. But still, a sound emanated from Loam-Scented’s mouth.
McGonagall turned, eyebrows raised, and shouted, “Ridikkulus!”
Eidolon cringed as his temporary human flesh warmed and healed, and he held a toad in his arms and grinned.
McGonagall smiled a cutting smile and laughed a tiny laugh before conjuring a small lidded box before again thrusting her wand at him. “Ridikkulus!”
And Eidolon found itself ushered into said box.
The darkness, the small space—usually so comforting—was a prison. Eidolon had met its perfect counterpart, only to lose the chance at connection. Eidolon could feel movement now; the box where it resided was being carried somewhere.
Hours passed in agony. The dementor was perfect. Everything Eidolon wished for, everything a boggart could want, the dementor possessed.
But when the box opened, it wasn’t the face of some human wizard that appeared. Instead, Eidolon could sense a night sky, full of stars; the winter chill on its shapeless form. Freedom.
And best of all: darkness, a black cloak, and a vortex of a mouth, looking down.