Encounters With Very Dangerous Creatures
The Dairies of the Lucky Survivors

Near one o'clock in the morning, as I began at last to feel drowsy, I heard a soft rusting close by. Believing it to be nothing more than the leaves of the tree outside, I turned over in bed, with my back to the window, and caught sight of what appeared to be a shapeless black shadow sliding underneath my bedroom door. I lay motionless, trying sleepily ti divine what was causing such a shadow in a room lit only by moonlight. Undoubtedly my stillness lef the Lethifold to believe that its potential victim was sleeping.

To my horror, the shadow began to creep up the bed, and I felt it's slight weight upon me. It resembled nothing so much as a rippling black cape, the edges fluttering slightly as it slithered up the bed towards me. Paralysed with fear, I felt its clammy touch upon my chin before I sat bolt upright.

The thing attempted to smother me, sliding inexorably up my face, over my mouth and nostrils, but still I struggled, feeling it wrapping its coldness about me all the while. Unable to cry for assistance, I groped for my wand. Now dizzy as the thing sealed itself about my face, incapable of drawing breath, I concentrated with all my might upon the Stupefying Charm and then - as that failed to subdue the creature, though blasting a hole in my bedroom door - upon the Impediment Hex, which likewise availed me naught. Still struggling madly, I rolled sideways and fell heavily to the floor, now entirely wrapped in the Lethifold.

I knew that I was about to lose consciousness completely as I suffocated. Desperately, I mustered up my last reserve of energy. Pointing my wand away from myself into the deadly folds of the creature, summoning the memory of the day I had been voted President of the local Gobstones Club, I performed the Patronus Charm.

Almost at once I felt fresh air upon my face. I looked up to see that deathly shadow being thrown into the air upon the horns of my Patronus. It flew across the room and slithered swiftly out of sight.