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"Good punch, Miss Diggory."
────⍣☆☾☼✧☼☽☆⍣────
Harry was in Professor Lupin's classroom, practicing the Patronus charm.
He had failed the first two times since his memories weren't strong enough. He thought of the first time he rode a broomstick and the time Gryffindor won the house cup in his first year.
Lupin was hesitant about letting him try for the third time, for Harry heard his mum and his dad this time when he fainted.
"Harry- perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced... I shouldn't have suggested putting you through this...."
"No!" said Harry. He got up again. "I'll have one more go! I'm not thinking of happy enough things, that's what it is... Hang on..."
He racked his brains. A really, really happy memory...one that he could turn into a good, strong Patronus...
And then it hit him. The happiest he'd ever felt. The happiest he'd always feel. It wasn't a memory or an incident, it was a person.
Y/N Diggory.
Harry concentrated hard on how he'd felt every time he was with her. How happy and safe she'd make him feel. When she stayed with him in the hospital wing after he fell off his broom, when she made him smile in the Great Hall in their sleeping bags, how she made him feel better when he was insecure about the boggart situation, how she comforted him about Black's betrayal, when he first met her in the Hogwarts Express.
Just her.
"Ready?" said Lupin, who looked as though he were doing this against his better judgment. "Concentrating hard? All right- go!"
He pulled off the lid of the case for the third time, and the dementor rose out of it; the room fell cold and dark-
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry bellowed. "EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
The screaming inside Harry's head had started again- except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio- softer and louder and softer again- and he could still see the dementor- it had halted- and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Harry's wand, to hover between him and the dementor, and though Harry's legs felt like water, he was still on his feet- though for how much longer, he wasn't sure.
"Riddikulus!" roared Lupin, springing forward.
There was a loud crack, and Harry's cloudy Patronus vanished along with the dementor.
"Excellent!" Lupin said, striding over to where Harry sat. "Excellent, Harry! That was definitely a start!"
