But it was close; it was already March 1991.
So there was still a long time before the status of Azkaban prison guard would be stripped away; there was no need to worry about losing her official position, for at that time, she wouldn’t even have this warm meal she had now.
When the iron rice bowl was smashed and she was chased around by wizards, getting Expecto Patronum shoved in her face—who could stand that kind of life?
She had felt the power of Expecto Patronum from the Ministry of Magic’s stationed members; it felt just like the scalding water burns from her past life, except it was a burn from all angles with no blind spots.
Naturally, she had howled and hidden away, recovering for a week before she felt hungry enough to go back to work.
In retaliation, she had snuck into their office and stolen the sweets and chocolates of these stationed members, causing them to blame each other, thinking someone else had eaten them.
After all, Dementors didn’t need such things.
The reason she chose to stay near these stationed officials was that in Azkaban, only they still retained a bit of vitality, making all the Dementors drool, so no colleagues blamed her for not being able to control herself.
These prison guards restrained the Dementors while watching over the prisoners to ensure they didn’t actually die.
This place was truly a Dementor’s hell, and it was just too boring.
She felt she was gradually becoming like those prisoners; they were in prison, and she was also serving a life sentence.
She didn’t want to truly become a Dementor.
So she began recording the current time at the top of Azkaban and started studying her own kind as well as herself.
Positive emotions and positive memories were a Dementor’s food; if they didn’t feed, it was very likely that the Dementor would vanish.
And if they ate enough, enough to be full, then two Dementors would split to create a new one, and the number of Dementors would increase.
This was something she learned from her seniors; after all, there hadn’t been any new Dementors added here for a long time.
As a species, Dementors would also instinctively over-reproduce.
Dementors possessed a low-level ability similar to Legilimency; they could communicate simple information with each other through emotions or thoughts, and could also communicate simple information with Ministry of Magic officials in this way.
But for some reason, she could only receive information unilaterally and couldn’t transmit it for the time being.
Some Dementors comforted her, saying she was still quite young, so she couldn’t learn it for now; usually, Dementors would master all skills within a year.
As for the Dementors Kiss, the most complete way of feeding, it was like pulling out the roots of chives that could be harvested repeatedly.
This was the only perk in the high-security prisoner area, being able to eat one’s fill in a single meal.
However, apart from the time when Lord Voldemort fell, such opportunities had been rare since.
She had only heard of it; only a few seniors had such wonderful memories.
It made her determined to taste it if she had the chance.
And Expecto Patronum was probably the magic Dementors hated the most, like a snowman encountering sunlight.
Sometimes people from the outside would Apparate over, just like the stationed officials here; basically, she could only look and not eat, so it was better to be out of sight, out of mind.
So, she began to slack off to her heart’s content, starting to browse through those happy memories she had absorbed—memories from the prisoners.
The inadvertent magical knowledge within, combined with the Harry Potter movies she had watched in her past life, gave her a preliminary impression of this magical world.
Moreover, the prisoners locked in Azkaban were basically guys who had a few tricks up their sleeves.
Although Dementors couldn’t cast spells like wizards and didn’t have wands, she still enjoyed it tirelessly.
Although the memories were extremely fragmented, over time, she had gained some understanding of the courses at Hogwarts, and even had some knowledge about other schools.
She even pieced together a relatively advanced and complete practice method for Occlumency, as well as a large amount of experience in using Dark Arts, which basically came from that group of Death Eater; the happy memories of those Death Eater were actually about torturing others.
Especially the memories of using the Cruciatus Curse—there were simply too many; pieced together, they were the most complete memories, enough to open a crash course directly.
She also read them with great interest.
It was just a pity that most of them were fragmented; she had even secretly tried, and sure enough, Dementors couldn’t learn human spell-casting.
The only thing that could be called a spell for a Dementor was that Dementors Kiss.
And one couldn’t try it casually in Azkaban.
She decided to stay here for a while, researching these memories personally; perhaps there was a way to solve her current problem.
Anyway, she was idle, so she might as well.
Then try to see if she could cast spells using a wizard’s wand; once this thought emerged, it was as insatiable as hunger.
Perhaps this was the secret to why wizards could cast spells.
Perhaps she still had a human soul; perhaps she could also use a wand.
She started paying attention to the whereabouts of every prisoner’s wand.
She noticed that when light-crime prisoners were released, their wands would be returned from the security desk.
That time gap—from the prisoner getting the wand to being sent away—was her rare opportunity.
Thus, she decided to go steal a wizard’s wand.