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I know the Patronus Charm is the only effective spell against Dementors - but does any other spell have an effect on a Dementor?

E.g. in The Order of the Phoenix Mundungus Fletcher was supposed to look for Harry Potter in Little Whinging. If he had not left he would have had to help Potter with the Dementors. But I really doubt that he was able to perform the Patronus Charm so he would have tried any other spell on the Dementors.

edit: What are the other ways of tackling dementors? and How can Voldemort counter a Dementor? are related to this question but both do not answer how especially spells could have affected Dementors. Mundungus Fletcher couldn't have helped Harry Potter just by controlling his feelings, becoming an Animagus or getting a ghost, he would have tried something like the Stunning Spell - maybe without any success.

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  • I recall in the film at least of OotP, when Harry reaches his wand while he's pressed against the underpass wall by a dementor he initially taps it and a spark is emitted and a sharp crack is heard which causes it to release him and retreat slightly, after which he casts the Patronus to save himself and Dudley. So they can be startled at least? However he says no words when he does this so I don't know which spell he uses in this instance to initially get the dementor off of him.
    – Ongo
    Commented Feb 10, 2021 at 13:35

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Not an ideal answer, but I'm going with possibly.

In the film adaptation of Order of the Phoenix Harry briefly repels a dementor with an unnamed spell as can be seen in this clip here at around the one minute mark.

In the books, there's this excerpt from Half Blood Prince:

Having wasted a lot of time worrying aloud about Apparition, Ron was now struggling to finish a viciously difficult essay for Snape that Harry and Hermione had already completed. Harry fully expected to receive low marks on his, because he had disagreed with Snape on the best way to tackle dementors, but he did not care: Slughorn's memory was the most important thing to him now.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Chapter 21: The Unknowable Room

Snape could be being hypercritical here for the sake of snubbing Harry, but the fact there is room to disagree means there must be other methods. However, it is not described if the disagreement refers to spells or something else, for example (pure speculation here) a potion perhaps which makes the user more resistant to a dementor's effects.

So there are other methods to deal with a dementor, and from the OotP film we know there's at least one spell which does affect them, but I couldn't find anything specific I'm afraid.

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    Probably Snape wanted the patronus charm as an answer but Harry suggested that transforming to a dog was more effective in the long run... Commented Feb 10, 2021 at 17:12
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    @atakanyenel I mean for, let's say, a fortress full of dementors, I have heard transforming into a dog is a great way to slip out...
    – Ongo
    Commented Feb 10, 2021 at 18:22

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