Yes, in canon dementors can't be killed by magic or physical attacks, or even harmed. They can only scared off with the Patronus charm. Their numbers are some kind of function of the national mood, not a biological breeding process.

With that disclaimer out of the way, what fanon ways can you think of killing dementors that are interesting? Fics always use the cliché golden Patronus, but that's dull.

Here's a couple to get us started:

1. Get a goblin steel blade and imbue it with a Patronus charm. Stab the dementor.

2. Obliviate a person of all unhappy memories and have the dementor kiss that person. The perfectly happy soul and the dementor annihilate.

 

Fiendfyre.

 

Sex ritual involving Harry, Hermione and Fleur.

Plus Tonks. Always Tonks.

 

Would a Dementor's presence be felt if it were trapped in an unbreakable container of some sort?

 

It's been a while since I've read PoA, but is Lupin the source of the knowledge that dementors can't be killed? It's always struck me as odd that something that breeds yet cannot die hasn't overrun the earth.

 

Judging by the effect the dementors had on the train in POA, you can feel their chilling effects through walls for quite a wide area, but their ability to trigger sad memories and feed is limited to close proximity. Hell, memories didn't start replaying until the compartment door was opened.

That they cannot die does not mean their numbers cannot go down. Dementors don't seem to be biological organisms at all. JKR has said that they appear spontaneously wherever there is misery and decay - that's how they "breed", by spreading those things via their presence. But if they appear where there is misery and decay, it stands to reason that they disappear where misery and decay are absent.

 

Well. I myself am satisfied with the idea of them just starving to death, or, well, starving into nothingness. Dementors are creatures that are a metaphor for the oppressive feeling of depression, so the idea that you can't just kill them instantly and you have to let them dissipate by just not letting them keep feeding on your negative emotions fits in with the metaphor. Because depression is, y'know, a cunt.

But, the reviewers of my fic Incorruptible: The Dementor's Stigma - which featured Dementors not being killed at all by design to help with the whole apocalypse-y feel - thought they had some good ideas. Allow me to quote 'em, shall I.

"Another thing Dementors... I think the non-magicals would have nuked the Mist sooner or later when they figured out that something in the Mist was kill them... and I don't think the Dementors would have survived a nuclear bomb... heck maybe no magic known could destroy them, maybe not sword or guns... but napalm & nuclear bombs? Sure there is just so much anything can take before it get destroyed, and the Dementors are resilient yes, but they have a physical presence... and nothing ends a physical presence like high yield explosive."

"As to the Dementors I think that they can be destroyed with the use of Fiendfyre, it burns everything and is hard to contain but what is there to loose?" (Fuck you there's my sanity to lose at the fact you spelt lose as loose you asshole)

"How about mundane flam throwers? The dementors don't like flame so might be a defense."

"Why not use flame throwers against dementors and the zoms of course only in open areas or even Acid like Hydrofluoric sprayed on the dementors, nice muggle effect or even Sulfuric for fast action!"

If I ever get round to writing some kind of follow-up to Incorruptible, I will dedicate a scene to just mocking this lot. Fuckin' watch me do it. I will. I probably won't. But I might!

Sulfuric goddamn acid what the shit.

 

Be more interesting to come up with why they are immortal. You would think if you destroy the container, with say Fiendfyre, then nothing would survive. If they don't have a body, what happens?

Do they regenerate a new body over time? Have similar powers to a phoenix where they are in a constant cycle of rebirth?

 

Dragon vs. Dementor would be interesting. Or a nundu (toxic breath, and Dementors seem to "inhale" for lack of a better word) or a basilisk or an erumpent (stab it with the horn, inject the exploding fluid and watch the Dementor go boom).

 

• Swimdraconian had his Harry off dementors with a long dagger going for vitals like: heart, brain. I think some dark magic was also involved.Circular Reasoning chapter 13

• jbern made the enchanted cartridges with a Patronus 'packed' into it like a shaped anti-tank charge.

• The Veil in DoM and herding dementors through it.

I always preferred for dementors to be entombed deep beneath and left in their prison. A concept of immortal, indestructible menace always held some appeal to me in writing. But if I had to choose a fanon method of disposing of dementors I'd go with magic instead of physical or a mix of these two.


Anyone know of a fic where dementors were starved?

 

We've seen that they avoid patronuses. So if many patronuses surrounded some Dementor so that he couldn't escape, then maybe he would dissolve. I don't see any other way.

EDIT: I wonder now if Phoenix's song has an effect on them? Maybe it could drive them off or provide temporary protection to people.

 

Well, dementors are physical beings, aren't they? The one that showed up at the Hogwarts Express needed the train to stop, and then needed to open the compartment door. They're hindered by physical barriers, at least.

 

Physical, yes, in that they have a physical presence. Biological? Who knows. They might not even be made of matter. I certainly don't picture them as having organs and bodily fluids.

 

Reading it very literally, they are described as having scabbed hands, so have blood. Not sure how persuasive an argument this is, but having a decayed appearance suggests interaction with physical processes.

 

The Dementors could be easily contained with artificial constructs, golems and the like, wouldn't they? I mean, there's no way to influence that which has no soul or emotions.

Provided that Dementors have some kind of soul of their own, or if they keep parts of the souls they've taken from people they've Kissed before, could that/those be destroyed by some act of magic? I mean, surely Horcrux magic isn't the only soul-relevant magic to exist, is it? Some might have wanted to shred a part of their soul and keep it safe within a physical object, their phylactery as it were, but what if you simply wanted to shred someone else's soul to pieces? Could that, provided that Dementors had anything for the spell to target, work well on them?

Hmm, actually with what I've written it seems more likely like this soul-shredding spell might have created the very first Dementors who only kept a small piece of their soul before transforming into the abominations of despair that we all know, and thus they are bound to seek out other soul in order to try repair theirs, which is a futile effort because there's no such thing as soul-repairing shit.

I've gone off the tangent, haven't I? Apologies.

 

Ideas from Fanfiction so blatantly not mine.

A weapon made of the bones of a unicorn, a pure animal used in a corrupt way to kill a "evil" being.

Phoenix fire.

Feed them a newly born baby to kiss. This plays on the idea that Dementor arent very smart and just want to feed on anything. And in the act on devouring a 100% pure soul it destroys them. It would never work on any adult since everyone has some form of badness in them. And the act of feed a baby to a dementor is pretty twisted.

I cant quite remember it, but I remeber reading a fic where they tried to destroy a Horcrux via Dementor but as it feed it got caught in a loop, unable to suck it out fully but unable to stop feeding. I think the Dementor in that story eventually just disolved.

 

Say a dementor kissed a pregnant woman, what would happen to the baby?

 

That would be from my Mad Ideas.

The Dementor didn't fade away, but it was able to consume several others when they all got stuck trying to feed on the horcrux. I haven't resolved the problem yet, but this thread does offer some inspiration.

 

Given that I like having a feeling of unfair inequality present in works of fiction (to mirror the real world) I have absolutely no problems with Dementors being unkillable horrors.

That being said, this thread isn't about that. I'm thinking the song of a Phoenix could be harmful if not outright deadly to a Dementor.

 

You could try feeding them to something bigger and badder.