What REALLY Happens to Your Soul after a Dementor’s Kiss

The line between the living and the dead is unquestionably a blurry one in Harry Potter. This is reinforced by the prevalence of beings that skirt these two planes of existence. Ghosts and Dementors are some of the first that come to mind.

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The Enigma of the Soul in the Wizarding World

Perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of death in the world of Harry Potter pertains to the soul. You can:

Split it
Curse it
Anchor it to the living world through dark and forbidden magic

The soul in the wizarding world is more than just a metaphysical concept; it’s a tangible, manipulable force that reflects the very essence of a person’s being. In many cases, interfering with the proverbial dance of death and tampering with the soul leads to a less-than-favorable outcome.

Horcruxes: A Testament to Dark Magic

The existence of Horcruxes is a testament to this, where a piece of one’s soul can be severed and hidden within an object, granting the curator a twisted form of immortality.

However, this comes at a tremendous cost, for each act of soul-splitting requires the most heinous crime of all: murder, irreversibly scarring the soul and condemning the wizard to a life of spiritual mutilation.

Sinister Forces Beyond Horcruxes

But the consequences of tampering with the soul are not limited to the dark magic of Horcruxes. The wizarding world is fraught with other sinister forces that prey upon the soul, leading to outcomes just as terrifying.

The Dementors: Embodiments of Despair

Among these, Dementors stand out as one of the most feared creatures, embodying the very essence of despair and hopelessness. Unlike Horcruxes, which represent the deliberate, self-inflicted damage to one’s own soul, Dementors attack the soul from the outside, draining you of the very life force that makes you who you are.

And this got me thinking, what happens to the soul afterward? Do you become a part of that Dementor, or are you banished to a shadowy abyss with other victims of Dementors?

Discussing the Fate of Souls

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.

The existence of a soul is a somewhat abstract concept, making it quite difficult to define. However, the generally accepted concept of a soul is that it’s a kind of immaterial, spiritual essence, an actuating cause of an individual’s life.

The Soul: A Vital Force

It’s what makes us tick and it certainly has no scientific explanation.
It’s the soul that Dementors feed on, pieces of the soul that Voldemort imparts into objects, and it’s the soul that Avada Kedavra, purportedly, rips out of the body.

The soul is what keeps our corporeal form earthbound, and that’s why it plays a significant role in the conversation surrounding the wizarding afterlife.

You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working, but you’ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery; you’ll just exist as an empty shell, and your soul is gone forever.

The Soul as an Immaterial Yet Vulnerable Entity

Harry Potter very much perpetuates the idea that ultimately, the physical body is merely a shell, a vessel that merely transports the vital life force within. And because the soul is immaterial, it exists forever.

However, just because the soul isn’t a physical thing, that certainly doesn’t mean that it’s invulnerable. When a Dementor administers its kiss, it sucks out the victim’s soul, leaving behind a soulless, empty shell. This fate is considered worse than death, as it robs the individual of their very humanity, condemning them to an existence devoid of consciousness or identity.

The Dementor’s Kiss: A Fate Worse Than Death

They call it the Dementor’s Kiss, said Lupin, with a slightly twisted smile. It’s what Dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and suck out his soul.

Harry accidentally spat out a bit of butterbeer. – What? They kill?

Oh no, said Lupin. Much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working, but you’ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery; you’ll just exist as an empty shell, and your soul is gone forever. Lost.

Theories on the Fate of the Soul

But what does Lupin mean by lost? I’ve got a few theories.

The Case of Barty Crouch Jr.

In the Harry Potter books, there is surprisingly only one person who is successfully kissed by Dementors: Barty Crouch Jr. Harry, Sirius, and Dudley are attacked as well, but they’re all able to narrowly escape, instead only suffering the consequences of the kiss while it’s happening.

In The Goblet of Fire, it’s eventually revealed that the Alistair Moody teaching at Hogwarts that year was actually Barty Crouch Jr. under the influence of Polyjuice Potion. When he’s finally captured, he confesses everything to Dumbledore under the influence of Veritas’ serum. Things were starting to unravel, and soon he would stand trial.

However, before Barty could testify before the Wizengamot, he met a fate worse than death. A Dementor, brought along by Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge for protection, administered the Dementor’s Kiss to Barty on-site, effectively sealing his fate.

Crouch Jr.’s death signaled the end of the Crouch family bloodline, and what became of Crouch’s soulless body afterward remains unknown. In fact, we don’t hear about him ever again.

The Fragmentation of Self

This guy tricked everyone for an entire school year by flawlessly impersonating Moody, gaining the trust of students and staff alike, while executing Voldemort’s plans from within the heart of the wizarding world.

His deception was so thorough that even Dumbledore, with all his wisdom and experience, was kept in the dark until the very end. It sort of seems like he had a big enough impact to at least be mentioned.

I can’t help but wonder if his particular fate, being kissed by a Dementor, has something to do with this.

Remus Lupin said it himself: After a Dementor attack, you’ll have no sense of self, and I’m going to interpret this in two ways:

The obvious: You are stripped of your memories, drained of joy, and robbed of the very life force that makes you, you. You become a shadow of your former self, unable to recall the emotions that once defined you.
The deeper, more insidious interpretation: Fragmentation of the soul, a piercing that extends even to those around you. From the moment the Dementor kisses you, it’s as if you never existed at all. Your self ceases to exist. What remains is a soulless, catatonic body—a hollow shell devoid of identity or consciousness.

The Consequences of Soul Loss

As the soul departs, so too does the essence of who you were, causing memories of you to gradually fade into obscurity. No memory, no anything. In this way, being kissed by a Dementor truly is a fate worse than death, because even in death you can be remembered, but without a soul, you are nothing. The only thing left behind is the empty shell of your actions.

While the physical deeds you performed remain, the essence of who you were—your personality and identity—dissolves. You become little more than a shadow or a face that is impossible to fully recall. Supporting this is the fact that Barty Crouch is never mentioned by name ever again.

He’s only referred to as the imposter Moody or other vague descriptors. Effectively, Dementors commit a sort of spiritual mutilation, and I suspect that this fate is reserved for anyone who is unfortunate enough to have a run-in with a Dementor.

The Fate of the Soul After Death

As for where the soul actually goes, I’ve got a few clues. As it would appear, some witches and wizards actually get to choose their fate upon dying, deciding between moving on to the afterlife or remaining in the world of the living. This is because, from the moment you die, your soul lives on separate from your physical body.

Death doesn’t necessarily mean that this process was painful or traumatic; it’s just something that has to happen at the point of death. The decision element would explain why ghosts exist, as they are individuals who made the choice to return to the mortal plane due to unfinished business.

The Path of the Soul

For those who haven’t made peace or resolved their unfinished business, the soul’s journey can take darker paths.
Instead of finding rest, they might become trapped in limbo, caught between the realms of the living and the dead.
Their presence may be a haunting reminder of their unresolved conflicts or regrets, causing distress to both themselves and those still living.

This limbo state is a shadowy existence, where the soul is neither fully at peace nor completely freed from its earthly ties, representing a fate far more unsettling than the afterlife’s natural conclusion.

The Idyllic Afterlife vs. Limbo

The alternative, which is never clearly defined, is an idyllic place akin to a state of nirvana. Here, your soul lives on in its purified state, in a place with all of the other souls that made the same decision to move on—a place where its subjects are released from the cycle of death and rebirth.

But if you got kissed by a Dementor, this is probably not where your soul is going. J.K. Rowling even confirmed in an interview that limbo is where you’d be trapped if your soul was damaged, and much like producing Horcruxes or drinking unicorn blood, I think that receiving a Dementor’s Kiss would fit the bill for damaging a soul.

Conclusion

If you don’t want to end up in purgatory, avoid Dementors.

And that’s it for this blog. Did you ever wonder what happened to the lingering souls of Dementor’s victims? Well, now you know. Or at least you sort of know.