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The Spell in the Grade 7 Textbook


“DEMENTORS!” Sirius shouted, the moment they were in their dormitory, “HERE AT HOGWARTS! Is Dumbledore mad? How could he let the fucking Minister do this? How could Minchum ever dream -- terrible idea! Terrible idea! And what of Moony? WHAT OF MOONY!” Sirius flung his book bag so hard against the floor that everything in it came spilling out in a great tidal wave of stuff across the floor - his guitar’s strings squealing as it slid across the carpet.

“What about me?” Remus asked. He was the last of the four through the door and he paused to shut it and wave his wand at the handle, “Colloportus,” he murmured.

“Full moon nights,” James said ominously. “I was wondering the same thing.” He glanced at Sirius, “I mean, they’ll be looking for - for threats… and… and I’m guessing werewolves… given, you know, Fenrir’s helping Moldy Voldy and all…”

Remus stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn’t even thought of that. It had never occurred to him to worry - never occurred to him that the Shrieking Shack was technically off the grounds and that technically what the four of them did each month - romping about through the Forbidden Forest - was actually trespassing, as Dumbledore had warned them against. He paled a bit.

Peter, surprisingly, was the one that said, “Well, obviously we’ll need to go and protect him against them, won’t we?”

Sirius, James, and Remus all looked at Peter in surprise.

“What?” Peter asked. “It is obvious, isn’t it?”

“Well - yes,” said Sirius, “It’s just that by you suggesting it you’ve just saved us the next hour of arguing with you about why it’s obvious.”

James laughed.

Remus looked nervous. “Guy… I don’t know. I don’t want you lot risking yourselves for my benefit. I mean --”

“Stop. Stop right there.” Sirius put his hand over Remus’s mouth and stared him in the eyes. “The bloody day I let you go out into the darkness to be surrounded by a trillion soul-sucking leech spirits when you’re already depressed enough during full moon times is the day I bleedin’ die, Rey. I will not allow it. No. You will not be alone with those… those things. The full moon is hard enough on you without those things making it worse. I’ll bloody slay every one of them!”

“But how?” James asked, “I mean, how does one protect oneself against a dementor? They’re spirits, sort of, aren’t they? You can’t very well pick up a sword and slash it to death or anything, and - and I mean what are we supposed to do against them? Hardened criminals in Azkaban can’t even defeat them!” He looked nervous now, too.

“Bleedin’ hell, Potter, don’t go soft on me.”

“I’m not going soft on you,” James said, “I just don’t see how we’re going to do it.”

Remus stared at his hands. “Well. I did.. I did read… something…” he paused. “But I dunno if it’s a good idea. It - it was in the Grade 7 Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook.”

“Grade Seven?” Sirius asked, “Moonpie, why in hell were you reading grade seven? You know we’re only in five, yeah?”

Remus flushed. “Well I - I finished six and --”

“Is there a book in the library you haven’t read yet, Moony?” laughed James.

“Maybe a couple ‘round the Arithmancy section,” Remus joked.

Peter shook his head in awe. “Probably not even kidding, you nutter.”

“Well c’mon then, out with it,” Sirius commanded, “What’s the thing you read? I’m betting it’s ruddy brilliant.”

Remus took a deep breath and went over to the bookshelf and dug about until he found the Defense Against the Dark Arts: Grade 7 textbook he’d borrowed from the library back in December and carried it over to the desk. They all all gathered around, looking over his shoulder and over the edges of the desk as he flipped the book open and started moving through the pages. Finally, he stopped and waved his palm at the page. “There we are. The Patronus Charm. It conjures a sort of protective shield -- a thinking, moving entity that actively protects you. It’s made of happy thought and feelings, it’s made of the core of your joy. So it’s the ultimate anti-dementor remedy. Thing is, it’s advanced, even for year seven, according to this book. Far beyond Ordinary Wizarding Levels.” He looked ‘round at them.

“Piece of cake,” Sirius sad, “Look, if we can become animagi, we can do this lot. It can’t be that hard. What do you do? Bet we can do it in one go. C’mon, read the directions, Rey.”

Remus sighed, “It’s advanced, Sirius - it’ll take time, loads of practice, you’re not going to get it in the first ---”

Read it,” Sirius interrupted him.

Remus sighed, rolling his eyes, and read, “You have to think of your happiest memory, your most vivid, powerful, happiest memory.”

Sirius nodded, “Alright. Got it.”

James nudged Peter and whispered, “Two sickles, he can’t do it in one.” Peter smirked and nodded. He had more faith in Sirius’s ability than James did.

Sirius waited.

“Alright,” Remus sighed again. “Now you swoosh your wand a bit like this --” Remus waved his to demonstrate, “And you say Expecto Patronum.”

Sirius drew a deep breath, thought really hard on his memory, and swooshed his wand, “Expecto Patronum!” he cried in a bellowing voice.

Nothing happened.

James held out his palm and Peter dug about in his pockets for the sickles, the coins clinking in James’s hand.

Remus didn’t have to say I told you so, it was clearly written upon his face. He stared at Sirius, one eyebrow raised, and Sirius grumbled something that sounded an awful lot like so what if you were right and he said, “There must be more to it than that.”

“That’s all the textbook says. It says those are the two steps, then there’s this: Even though the Patronus Charm sounds quite simple, it is actually one of the trickiest defensive spells that a wizard or witch can learn. It is also one of the most useful. Conjuring a Patronus - whether vague or corporeal - will prove difficult, especially to a person whose heart is impure or darkened by symptoms of depression or anxiety. The Patronus Charm finds its roots in the same ancient places as love magic - in that true, pure joy is found at the core of all magic that is good. The Patronus and the memory associated with casting it, must be made of the purest sort of happiness, the sort that cannot be stolen. This is the true power of the Patronus.

Sirius’s mouth twitched.

Peter looked lost, “I’ll never cast it.”

“Sure you will, Pete,” James said optimistically, though he secretly agreed. Peter was nothing but a ten stone ball of anxiety.

Remus said, “Maybe we could bring this to Defense Against the Dark Arts and ask the Prewetts about it. I reckon Gideon and Fabian would be right pleased to at least explain it a bit, especially given that the dementors are surrounding the school. Wouldn’t even look weird to be asking - we could just be nervous about it.”

“Yeah, it won’t be like going to McGonagall and asking her theoretical questions about animaguses,” James pointed out.

“Animagi,” Peter corrected.

“Or asking Dumbledore about theoretical werewolves,” added Sirius, nodding, “Good plan, Moony.”

Remus put a bit of parchment into the page to mark it and put it with his Year 5 textbook on the desk, “Alright. That settled. Let’s go to bed. I’m ruddy tired and sooo cold.”

Sirius leaped over his guitar and swept Remus’s red sweater with the wolves on it and tossed it to him, “Here, I had this in my bag in case you got cold on the train.”

Remus looked thankful and tugged the oversized sweater over his head. He’d eaten quite well at the Potters over the holiday, so the hollow shadows in his cheeks that had developed over the early part of December were gone and for this Sirius was very thankful. However, Remus was certainly still far too thin. He and Peter were on opposite ends of the scale - quite literally, as Remus was the tallest of them by far and Peter the shortest by far. Remus slid his wand onto the nightstand and pulled the blankets down before going for the flannel pyjama pants that Mrs. Potter had given him for Christmas.

Sirius looked out the window as the others changed, his mind wandering, his hands in his leather jacket’s pockets. He stared past his reflection, over the trees, over the snow that was just beginning to fall, and he wondered what Harold Minchum really was thinking, assigning Dementors to guard the grounds of Hogwarts… It seemed so obvious that such a thing would be an absolutely terrible idea… yet there it was, happening before his very eyes. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he stared off at the moon shining and the shadows of thestrals flying above the treetops… wondering where the dementors were now, if they were already lurking among the trees that he knew so well, looming in all the secret places the boys had found, contaminating everything that he held dear.

If there was one thing that Sirius Black hated -- it was the thought of the darkness and pain that he imagined came with the presence of dementors.

He shivered.