Готовый перевод Тейлор Поттер и философский виал / Taylor Potter and the Philosophical Vial: Глава 3. Дементоры

Chapter 3. Dementors
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Security measures were tightened not only in enclaves like Toybox Alley, but also on platforms 9 and 3/4. Just under the cover of the Stranger's effect, a cape scanner in PRT uniform stood, carefully examining children and their parents. A column pricked Taylor's finger to take a blood sample, while drones flew overhead.

Taylor ducked into the first available compartment. A half-sitting, half-lying adult cape occupied the corner. Darkness oozed from under his fingernails in thin, quickly dissipating streams, and his head was also shrouded in a cloud of darkness. Judging by the movements and vibrations of his body, he was sleeping and snoring, but the cloud of darkness seemed to obscure the sounds. It all looked extremely suspicious. After settling an additional squad of flies on him, Taylor quietly moved to the next compartment, which was still empty.

Taylor had barely taken her place in the compartment when Amy burst in.

"Oh-oh-oh, finally," she moaned, falling face forward. "I'll lie like this until Wormwarts."

"What's wrong with her?" Taylor asked Lisa, who had joined them, puzzled.

"A month," Amy muttered incoherently, sitting up and brushing a strand of her formerly chestnut-colored hair, now bleached white-red by the sun, from her face. "A month! A month of trudging through deserts, thorns, pyramids, and desert coyote dens! I'm exhausted, and all I want is to fall face-first and not get up for another month."

With these words, she fell again.

"But you've become stronger," Taylor encouraged her, "look how your muscles have filled out... everywhere."

"Because of this month of catching the Marquis, we arrived to pick up the costumes an hour before the train! Even Madame Sabah Malkin can't sew that fast! So they gave me Crystal's old suit, and it's too tight," Amy complained, without looking up.

"We'll definitely buy you a suit," Lisa pursed her lips. "We can visit Wormsmeade now!"

"What Wormsmeade?" Taylor asked, alarmed.

"Part of Wormwarts' pocket dimension, a special student enclave, accessible on weekends starting in your third year, upon presentation of parental permission, or upon reaching adulthood if you're still a Wormwarts student," Lisa explained. "Cape residents also live there, various shops operate, and some classes are held there as part of the program preparing young capes for life in the big world."

"Wait," Taylor frowned, "so if they're holding classes there, why do they need permission?"

"Permission to visit and spend money, well, as we had fun at Toybox Alley!"

"Oh, no," Amy groaned. "I only had fun at Cactus Shit Alley!"

"Hey, didn't they wash your mouth with soap for such words?" Lisa asked cheerfully.

"Soap... I want to wash with it," Amy continued to whine.

"Wait, so what about the permit to Wormsmeade?" Taylor persisted.

"You should have received a special form by mail for your parents or guardians to fill out."

Taylor rummaged through her tablet and found this special form, and her anger soured. The letter had arrived, or rather, had been sent, during the days when the tablet was in the safe (Taylor had been punished for flies in the soup and cockroaches in the compote, to be honest), and then so much mail had piled up that the notice from Wormwarts had simply gotten lost. Even if Taylor had noticed it, it would have been after the tablet had been confiscated. Go back and ask her aunts to sign the permit? Never!

"We should press Glenn to settle this. He's the Minister. He can approve any form," Lisa noted, "but don't worry, we'll think of something. We'll find a way. Look, they even hacked the Cage, we can handle Wormwarts!"

"Seriously?" Taylor perked up.

She knew that their strength would not be enough, but she really wanted to believe in her friend.

"Of course," Lisa nodded. "I have... connections."

Granger raised her eyebrows meaningfully and flashed her green eyes.

“Okay,” Taylor nodded. “And what does this preparation consist of?”

"So you lived in your Little Bay, and then you ended up in Toybox Alley for a month," Lisa waved her hand. "Did you understand everything?"

"Well, not always," Taylor admitted.

"But you were being watched, the minister helped you, and anyway, you have the power of insects," Lisa bent three fingers one after the other. "Besides, you're a Tactician and have repeatedly found yourself in trouble worthy of adult capes."

All five fingers were bent and Lisa seemed to be shaking her fist at Taylor.

"Now imagine an ordinary young Cape, raised in an ordinary family, and then studying at Wormwarts. The school certainly resembles an enclave—with its abundance of superpowers and idiots—but that doesn't mean Wormwarts is one. Life in the enclave is a bit... peculiar, let's say."

Taylor nodded, recalling some of the details of her month in Toybox Alley.

"There's nothing complicated about it," Amy groaned. "No need to hide, just use your powers and live peacefully! And not like ours: don't heal that, don't fly there, don't burn them with laser beams from your eyes, don't shine your aura."

Now Taylor remembered Amy's younger sister, Vicki, with her aura. And her boundless fanaticism and adoration for Taylor, no, the Girl-Who-Lived.

"It always seems easier when you don't know the details," Lisa grinned. "So, you get the idea, right?"

Taylor nodded. Life in the enclave was for those who grew up among ordinary people; life among people was for those who grew up in the enclave. How did they provide for so many people, she wondered?

"There are special programs. There are relatives willing to help," Lisa said, as always, "reading her mind." "There are decorations—testing grounds, like Quidditch pitches. Of course, there's also the students learning the lessons themselves, but it's all a matter of survival and preserving the Statute, so the schools are trying."

"Fine," Taylor grumbled, feeling strangely resentful of her lack of permission.

As if Sophia or Emma would have agreed to sign it! If only her parents were alive. If only she had a normal guardian. If only!

"Well, tell us, desert maiden," Lisa said to Amy in a singsong voice, "did you manage to catch Marcus?"

"No," came a muffled voice. "We just rubbed it all off into one big callus!"

"Why did you even try to catch him there?"

"How should I know? Go ahead and ask Mom and Dad what brought them there! I was actually objecting! I'd rather have lived with Taylor in Toybox Alley for a month!"

"Yeah, the three of us would have a blast there," Lisa beamed. "And if we invited all our friends, the enclave would definitely be shattered! By the way, that's a great idea, let's invite all our friends!"

"Where do you get your friends from, Granger?" came a mocking voice from the door.

Max Malfoy, accompanied by the ever-present Birman twins, grinned in the doorway.

"What, Weasley," Malfoy grinned even more, "I heard your family fled into the desert faster than their own squeal, as soon as the Marquis's escape happened!"

"We caught him!"

"Or they scared them away with the stench of your sweat!" Malfoy laughed. "Really, Potter?"

"It's true," Taylor agreed. "I'm not going to shower or wash my socks for another couple of months, so I can shove them under the Eidolorin team's noses after we win the Quidditch match."

"Ha-ha-ha-ha, you will sniff our socks and bow humbly before the white master!"

With these words, Max moved on.

"Who's that white master here?" Amy asked belatedly. "Is it him? I'll paint him black!"

"And Eidolorin will become a Blackerin!" Taylor laughed.

“Oh, screw them,” Lisa waved it off, “let’s actually invite some friends instead!”

Taylor looked at her in surprise; Granger usually never missed an opportunity to gossip, using her powers, but then it occurred to her. Right, gossiping would be more fun with the other Herofindors!

Almost until they reached Wormwarts, they chatted cheerfully, sharing snacks and stories about their summer. Taylor told the story of how she'd carried off her aunt in a swarm, and Amy shared her adventures in the Mexican steppes. The story of how Carol, while "in the bushes," almost sat on a cactus and from then on did everything on the fly drew particular laughter. Taylor also unwittingly stunned Chris Longbottom, a young Tinker and also a student of Herofindor. Somehow, she hadn't considered the idea of ​​simultaneously showing both the ++Firebolt and Crookshanks in his presence. The spider was certainly alive, but it was also artificially bred, with the help of biotinkers, and therefore struck a tinker chord in Chris's soul.

"Have you thought about taking them apart and crossing them with each other?" Chris asked.

"What do you mean?" Taylor didn't understand. "Make flying spiders?"

The friends had fun for a long time, imagining miniature jetpacks on spiders and other insects.

"It seems someone heard us and decided to bring this idea to life!" Taylor exclaimed cheerfully, sensing the flying robots ahead.

Large ones, true, but they are flying.

"There's a whole flock of them!" Taylor continued to cheer as robots suddenly appeared behind her, to the side, and above her.

The train shuddered and began to stop, and Lisa suddenly clutched her head and groaned. A chill ran down Taylor's spine, causing a shiver and headache.

"What's going on?"

"Are you all right?"

Amy placed her hand on Lisa's forehead and frowned. The cold was growing stronger, intensifying, the robots outside were getting closer. The headache was growing, but Taylor, stubbornly clenching her teeth, refused to give in to it. She pulled the insects closer, but they moved sluggishly, literally freezing in mid-flight.

"What, what's going on?" cries were heard.

"It's the de-de-de-dementors," Amy responded, clicking her teeth and almost biting off her tongue.

As if hearing her, one of the robots flew up to the window of their compartment, hovered behind it, and then suddenly extended something like tentacles, grabbed hold, and pried the window open. It retracted, unerringly heading for Taylor. She tried to attack with a swarm, but the Dementor radiated waves of cold. Taylor tried to strike with her baton, but she, too, was slowing down, her thoughts were jumbled, her will weakening. She wanted to lie down and give up, not move.

"Get away! Get away!" the door to the compartment swung open and Taylor was enveloped in darkness.

At first, she thought she'd lost consciousness, but then realized she wouldn't have been able to think then. Then she realized that an adult cape had come running from the neighboring compartment, bathing everything in the darkness seeping from his hands. Taylor also realized she could feel the cold spreading throughout the train, and that she herself was lying on the floor.

Then the train suddenly seemed to be flooded with light from within, and the robots retreated. The train moved off again.

“My head,” Lisa wheezed on the floor, rolling her eyes.

"Relax, don't move," Amy whispered to her, trying to ease the pain. "Taylor, are you okay?"

“Not good too,” Potter replied, not even trying to get up.

"Drink this," said the adult cape, taking out a thermos. "Hot chocolate will help you get back the warmth and calories."

“I never thought Dementors were so terrible,” Chris whispered, picking up a glass of chocolate.

"In fact, they are even more terrible," the adult cape said sympathetically.

"Who are they?" Taylor asked.

"The guard robots of the Cage, a prison for the most vile capes. Now that a breakout has occurred, Dementors have scattered throughout the enclaves, trying to find the escapees. A Dementor is a Destructive Mental Security Robot. They carry special devices that suppress mental activity. "You, young miss, are, I presume, a Thinker?" he asked Lisa.

She nodded.

Dementors target them first. The cold makes the living sluggish, and they also tend to emit a special, invisible gas that confuses the mind, preventing capes from using their superpowers. They are equipped with weapons, of course, but their most important weapon is the so-called Dementor's Kiss.

"A kiss?" Taylor asked hesitantly.

"An injection of special inhibitors right here," the hand pointed somewhere above the forehead, "into the area that gives capes their superpowers. Due to the design of the Dementor robots, the injection is carried out by special syringes located behind the faceplates, making it appear as if the Dementor is kissing the victim. After the injection, the cape loses its superpowers and is easily transported to the Cage."

"Lose it forever?" Taylor exclaimed in horror, immediately realizing the question's stupidity.

If the capes lost their power there forever, there would be no point in the Cage, the security, and most importantly, no one would panic about the escape.

"Sometimes it's permanent," came the terrifyingly serious reply. "The injection isn't always precise, and the capes tend to resist."

"Excuse me, who are you?" Taylor asked what should have been asked right away.

"Many people think that Dementors are something that the lessons I'll be teaching at Wormwarts are supposed to protect against," he replied flowerily, laughing at the puzzled faces. "The Dark Powers! Come on, D.A.D.P. – Defense Against Dark Powers – have you really never heard that abbreviation?"

The friends shook their heads, because for them, it was a subject: “Defense and Defense, Tactics and Strategy.”
T.N.

"Okay," he chuckled and introduced himself. "Brian Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Powers teacher, at your service."

Taylor had a crush on two previous teachers, and now, with horror, she felt history repeating itself. But the previous two DADP teachers were connected to the Dark Cape! Could this really happen again?

"Although, in reality, Dementors are the complete opposite, and they have special devices and sensors that make them highly sensitive to anything dark. Although it's possible that the Dementor was simply a fan of yours, Miss Potter."

Taylor felt embarrassed, scared, and blushed slightly.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Who doesn't know The Girl Who Lived? Okay, I'll get ready. We're almost to Wormwarts."

Half a minute later, a signal sounded indicating the approach to the school of Caping and Parahumanism.
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