Chapter 705: Ambushed, Death Eaters and Dragons
On the last day of July, after a fruitless morning, Kyle and Cedric decided to temporarily end their hunt for Dementors.
The primary reason was that ever since The Daily Prophet had published news about the reward, most of the wandering Dementors had mysteriously disappeared.
Of course, this didn't mean they had all been replaced by Galleons. A reward of one hundred Galleons was tempting, but there weren't that many witches and wizards capable of defeating Dementors—at least not quickly or consistently.
Kyle surmised that most of the missing Dementors had likely gone into hiding. After all, Death Eaters read newspapers too. With Dementors now seen as coveted prizes instead of terrifying threats, Voldemort would surely take steps to protect his allies.
Still, this development wasn't entirely bad. At least Muggles wouldn't be at risk of encountering Dementors for now. Additionally, forcing the creatures into hiding might make it easier to track and round them up later. The real challenge was discovering exactly where they had gone, but that was a problem for Dumbledore to solve.
Having made their decision, Kyle and Cedric prepared to return to the Ministry of Magic. However, there was still one more address in their records—a new report that had just come in.
The address had only appeared minutes earlier, suggesting that someone had recently spotted traces of a Dementor and alerted the Ministry. Since they were already out in the field, Kyle and Cedric decided to check it out before calling it a day.
"Do you think someone will get there before us this time?" Cedric asked as they flew toward their destination.
"Who knows?" Kyle replied. "But the report only came through recently, so I doubt anyone else has made it there yet."
"Finally," Cedric muttered, rubbing his forehead. "I don't care, though. You have to give me three days off when we get back."
"Don't you enjoy flying?" Kyle teased with a grin. "Quidditch matches can last a week. How can you expect to be a professional player if you can't handle this?"