Chapter Text
“Hagrid! You can’t bring a dementor into the castle. You need to be getting rid of it right this instance!”
Septima Vector clearly did not share Hagrid’s sentiments, who was still cooing softly to the raggedy bundle clinging to his face.
“Nellie is a she, not an it!”, Hagrid cried emphatically, “And she’s just a little baby. Perfectly harmless!”
Minerva silently wondered how one would even go about determining a dementor’s gender but quickly decided that this was neither the time nor the place for such serious scholarly inquiry.
“But SHE is a danger to the student population. Don’t you remember the other year? The dementors almost sucked Harry Potter’s soul out… twice!”, Pomona cut in.
“Don’t you worry about that. Lil Nell would do no such thing! She’s being fed nothing but ethically sourced souls. She’s practically a vegetarian, she is!”
Hagrid kept petting the little dementor who seemed to have grown more and more curious about the dour looking Potions master standing next to Minerva.
“Forgive me, Hagrid”, Minerva interrupted finally, “But how exactly does one ethically source a soul for a dementor to consume?”
At this point, Hagrid turned bright red and started to stutter and mumble something about how the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest had apprehended a group of thestral poachers and donated them “to a good cause”.
Nellie meanwhile seemed to have let go off Hagrid’s beard and had started to slowly, tentatively drift around the Great Hall, peeking under tables and inspecting the corners for anything of interest, while the teachers kept discussing the safety concerns of having a dementor reside on the castle grounds once more. Even if it was “just a baby”.
Hagrid obviously and vehemently defended Nellie, saying she couldn’t suck out anybody’s soul, even if she wanted to, since she was still being spoon fed as she learnt how to nourish herself, and that she was capable of producing mild anxiety at best. In fact, he swore, she had mostly been snacking on nightmares on top of her quasi-vegetarian thestral poacher soul snacks, and Hagrid swore he had never slept better in his life.
The subject of the discussion had by then taken a renewed, special interest in Severus Snape who had stalked over to the Head table to refill his coffee, while also considering asking Minerva for another swig from that trusty flask of hers.
Nellie seemed absolutely entranced by the man’s swishing black robes and tried her absolute hardest to imitate him and make her own tattered cloak swirl around just as impressively. Unfortunately, even baby dementors apparently went through a toddler stage of figuring out how to work their own feet (or whatever it was that made them float), and thus she kept stumbling instead and getting all tangled up in her own robes.
Minerva had to work especially hard to hide the smile on her face when she saw that while Severus was scowling fiercely at the young dementor, she also noticed him quietly casting the same charm on Nellie’s cloak that made his own robes swish and swirl so effectively. After all, Minerva had always known he would make an excellent father one day.
Pomona Sprout’s voice eventually broke through Minerva’s revery, “Can we please get back on topic and discuss how to keep our pupils safe and protect their emotional well-being if they are to be exposed to this dementor?”
Albus Dumbledore, who up until that point had been merely watching the conversation in silence with nothing but a mad twinkle in his eyes, smiled brightly, opened his arms wide and said,
“Ah, my dear, I may have just the solution for that!”
And this is how, a few days later at the Welcome Feast, each Hogwarts pupil was greeted by a pile of chocolates at their seat, accompanied with a little note that featured a cheerful little drawing of a black shape and the following text:
“Hello, my name is Nellie! Sorry if I am scary and disturb you. I am still just a baby, and this is frightening for me, too, since I don"t know how to communicate effectively yet. Please take these chocolates as an apology for the disturbances I might cause, and don"t blame my dad and guardians: they"re trying their best."