Chapter 118 — What the Light Was For

We found no sign of Scabbers that night. Ron and I spread the map beneath a good lamp after dinner, comparing the passages around Gryffindor Tower with his list, and Harry joined us for part of the search. The parchment offered several people who would probably have preferred us to mind our own business, but nothing we could identify as Ron’s rat.

I closed it before the names began swimming together. We agreed to try again the following evening, and by the end of the week my notes contained a discouraging number of crossed-out locations. Ron stopped accusing Crookshanks in every conversation. He still watched the cat whenever their paths crossed, until Hermione took him away.

Luna sent her letter to her father, and Hermione went back to the library records when she could. Between lessons, searching and homework, Harry and I did the exercise Lupin had set us. Sometimes we talked afterwards; more often we sat at the same table, each leaving the other enough quiet to work.

My difficulty was remarkably persistent. I could turn remembering a pleasant afternoon into a task with an expected result before I had noticed doing it. By Friday evening, putting the notebook down had become part of the exercise. I managed to recall the window and Luna’s hand without immediately asking myself how useful the memory would be tomorrow.

The two Patronus strips were still in their separate covers when I took them to Defence on Saturday morning. Lupin checked that they were the ones prepared the previous week, then asked what we had done since. Harry answered without looking at the trunk. I set the paper down beside my brush and left him to describe his own progress.

We rehearsed the movement and words with our equipment at rest. Lupin reminded us where to stand and how he would stop the exercise, leaving a chair ready to one side. Only then did I take the first strip.

‘Ready?’ he asked. His wand rested above the lid while I closed my eyes for a moment.

I found the window, the folded notes and Luna’s hand waiting for mine on the walk uphill. This time, I let the memory lead a little further. I wanted another afternoon like it, and others after that, long enough into the future for us to have forgotten which one had started the habit.

There was room in that thought for my friends too. I wanted us older, still able to find one another when we no longer lived in the same castle. I didn’t need to invent every detail of those years to want the chance of reaching them.

‘Ready,’ I said, opening my eyes. Lupin used his spell to direct the boggart into the agreed shape as he lifted the lid.

The cold reached my face. I kept Luna’s hand in mind and released the paper with ‘Expecto Patronum!’ before the hood could claim the whole room.

Silver rose between us. It spread into a broad, bright curtain, high enough to hide the figure beyond it, with trembling edges that made me want to correct them. I let them tremble. The warmth I had brought into the room was still there, and the dark shape had stopped advancing.

For an instant, I wanted to drive it back as hard as I could. I caught that thought before following it and returned to the walk uphill, to wanting Luna beside me again. The light held, and I stayed behind it instead of pushing forward.

‘Good,’ Lupin said. ‘Keep it there.’ He moved along the edge of the cleared space, his wand ready.

The boggart recoiled towards the trunk as the silver brightened. Lupin ended the exercise before it could recover, breaking the terrible shape and shutting the lid. My light lingered for a few seconds, then faded around an empty patch of floor.

I was still standing when Harry shouted. I turned towards him, grinning so hard that I could feel it in my cheeks, and pointed at the place where the curtain had been.

‘Did you see that?’ I asked. He looked around the small room with exaggerated care before turning back to me.

‘It would have been quite difficult to miss.’ He came forward and clapped me on the shoulder, and I laughed with him. My hands were shaking, but I wasn’t searching for something to keep me upright.

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Lupin gave us a moment before asking me to sit. ‘A strong manifestation,’ he said. ‘You maintained it as the exercise changed. Well done.’

‘It still wasn’t an animal.’ I looked at the spent remains of the strip, then back at him. Even as I said it, I knew how ungrateful it sounded.

‘It was considerably more than you produced last week,’ Lupin replied, passing me water. ‘Let yourself notice that before you begin looking for the next thing.’

I drank, with Harry sitting close enough to keep exchanging delighted looks over the rim of my cup. Once my breathing had settled, Lupin asked what I had done differently. I tried to explain without turning it into an instruction I hadn’t properly tested.

‘I began in the same place,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t only looking backwards. I was thinking about what I wanted to keep having.’

Lupin waited while I found the rest. I told him about afternoons with Luna, about seeing my friends after Hogwarts, about being older and still knowing where to find each other. Harry listened with his wand forgotten across his knees.

‘None of that has happened,’ I added. ‘I know it hasn’t. Wanting it just felt as real as the parts we’ve already had.’

‘Hope,’ Lupin said quietly. He set his cup on the desk and looked towards the window for a moment. When he turned back, he asked Harry whether he wanted more time.

‘No,’ Harry said. ‘I think I know where to begin.’ He explained enough for Lupin to agree to the attempt, then took his place with the empty chair behind him. I stayed where I had been asked to sit.

Harry’s shoulders tightened as the trunk opened. The cold moved through the room, and his face went pale enough that I nearly spoke before he began. Then he raised his wand and forced the words out clearly.

‘Expecto Patronum!’ Silver mist gathered in front of him, uneven and much smaller than my curtain, but bright against the hood. The boggart slowed, and Harry’s next breath caught halfway in his throat.

‘You’ve got it,’ I said as the light thinned. ‘Stay with that.’

Lupin raised a hand towards me. I stopped, gripping my cup while Harry found his way back without another instruction from either of us. The mist gathered again, and the dark shape drew away from it.

Lupin ended the exercise before it could advance a second time. Harry swayed at the sound of the lid closing, reached back and found the chair with his own hand. I was beside him by the time he sat, and his nod answered my grin before he had breath for anything else.

Later, while Lupin checked the trunk, Harry told me what he had used. ‘The diary,’ he said. ‘And the photographs Hagrid gave me.’

I waited, keeping my chair beside his. He rubbed a finger along his wand and tried to explain the thought without making it sound like a memory he actually possessed.

‘They wanted me,’ he said. ‘I know that much. I kept thinking about coming home to them. What it would have been like before—’ He stopped, then tried again. ‘There was something there before all the rest of it.’

‘Yes,’ I said, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. He leaned against it, then sat up as Lupin came back to ask how he felt.

After a proper rest, we each made one more attempt. I used the last strip from the previous week, holding the light across the cleared space until Lupin stopped the exercise. It seemed less startling now that I expected it. I resisted the temptation to make it larger just to surprise myself again.

Harry’s mist wavered, then recovered. When the trunk closed for the last time, he stayed upright and came back to his chair looking tired and pleased. I collected both spent pieces from the floor and put them away separately from the empty covers. There would be fresh preparation before I could cast the spell again.

‘That’s enough for today,’ Lupin said. The boggart rattled the lid once, and neither Harry nor I chose to argue with the combined opinion.

Harry watched a final thread of silver fade near his wand. ‘When will it have a shape?’ he asked. Lupin smiled at the impatience in his voice.

‘I can’t give you a date. You’ve found something worth practising, and the next part will take its own work.’ He turned towards me as I began another question. ‘What is it, Oswald?’

‘Could you know the animal before it happens?’ I asked. When he said guesses weren’t always useful, I decided there was little point in making mine mysterious. ‘I wondered whether it would be a lion. That’s my Animagus form.’

Lupin’s hand stopped above the desk. Harry looked down at his knees, trying to contain a smile which became more obvious with every second of silence.

‘Minerva knows?’ Lupin asked at last. I assured him she did, that she had supervised the later practice, and that my registration was complete. He sat down again and waited for the account those words plainly hadn’t finished.

I told him about the first transformation and the review I had failed to wait for. The consequences and the work since took longer, particularly when Harry contributed the roar I had left out. Lupin listened to both the achievement and the mistake without treating either as a reason to dismiss the other.

‘You’ve had a demanding few months,’ he said. I admitted that parts of it were my own fault, and his glance towards Harry suggested he had gathered that already.

‘I would wait to see what your Patronus becomes,’ he added. ‘Having one answer about yourself needn’t settle every other question.’

I packed the empty covers beside my notes. There was still a great deal I couldn’t do, but two pieces of spent paper lay in their own wrapping to show what I had managed today. I let myself be pleased with them while Harry asked about next week.