Chapter 476 - 27: Aftermath Again

Chapter 476: Chapter 27: Aftermath Again

It was not as though the sun had been forcibly dragged back into the sky. Instead, brilliant daylight filled the heavens so completely that not a single shadow remained anywhere at Hogwarts. Students who had already begun dinner inside the castle crowded around the windows to stare outside, yet despite the bizarre phenomenon, not one of them felt the slightest unease.

The purely evil creatures surrounding the Forbidden Forest did not even have time to react before they were forced away. More than that, they had not merely been driven off—they had been destroyed in the truest sense.

The Patronus Charm was an extremely difficult spell. Many wizards could not summon a complete, corporeal Patronus at all. Although it was a spell capable of countering Dementors, casting it with those creatures already so close was no easy matter. When one’s happiness was constantly being drained away, how could one calmly search for a happy memory and use it to cast the spell?

A complete Patronus usually took the form of an approachable animal, such as a rabbit or deer. Sometimes it might even be a wolf. The form was not necessarily permanent either; a change in the caster’s state of mind could cause the Patronus to take on a different shape.

The daylight lingered in the sky for more than ten seconds. Yimi’s incomplete Patronus had no physical form whatsoever. Even so, Harry and the others vaguely felt as though something was brushing against them—or perhaps merely moving closer to Yimi, who had cast the spell.

Ron lay on the ground with his arms crossed, much like those centaurs who spent every night staring at the stars. His eyes were wide as he gazed up at the sky. After a long while, he finally managed to ask in a dry voice, "What kind of spell was that?"

"The Patronus Charm," Black answered. He pushed himself upright with one hand, looking utterly baffled. "It shouldn’t look like that. You’re supposed to summon an animal. At worst, it should be a silver light or a mist-like cloud. Did you hide the form of your Patronus? Even then, it shouldn’t look like that... It shouldn’t be that huge!"

"I think I saw Jesus!" Hermione said, turning toward them.

Harry looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. "You’re religious?"

"I’m not, but I really think I saw him. He appeared for a little over a second. It was obvious! Didn’t you see him? Right where the Dementors were a moment ago." Hermione turned toward Harry, only then noticing that the lenses of his glasses were covered in cracks from the Whomping Willow.

She pointed her wand at them. "Reparo."

"I saw a person. Who’s Jesus?" Ron asked.

Now Hermione and Harry both gave him strange looks. "You don’t know? Then why do you celebrate Christmas?"

"Because you get presents. Does there have to be some other reason? Adults probably know." Ron suddenly looked enlightened. "Wait, is that Santa Claus you used to talk about?"

"..."

"So you used one spell and summoned Jesus. How did you do that?" Hermione looked eagerly at Yimi, hungry for an explanation.

The little kitty opened and closed her mouth, unable to think of any good English equivalent for the word she wanted to use: "old geezer."

"I told you, that spell isn’t normally like this. Everyone’s Patronus is different. I’ve never seen anything like yours." Black tried to lift the unconscious Peter, but could not budge him. Peter was simply too fat, while Black was far too thin.

Only after Harry came over to help could they barely drag him along.

Black looked at Yimi again. "You really know the Patronus Charm?"

The little girl was not even old enough to attend Hogwarts!

"I think we shouldn’t stay here," Ron said, glancing nervously around. He did not understand why everyone found the spell so astonishing.

Now that the threat of the Dementors was gone, he finally remembered the vow he had made not long ago never to enter the Forbidden Forest again. Hagrid had once said that he had released a gigantic spider in here, and spiders were the thing Ron feared most in the world.

"I agree. Could you give us a hand, little cat?" Harry gave up on trying to carry Peter and asked Yimi for help.

"Harry..." Black began, confused by the request, only to watch the little girl cheerfully agree, lift the short, plump man straight over her head, and start running back the way they had come.

Black swallowed the rest of what he had been about to say and changed his question. "Are you sure that’s the way we came from?"

"Her nose is really good," Hermione said, the first to follow. She kept glancing back toward the spot where she had seen the saintly figure moments earlier.

Just before leaving the Forbidden Forest, Harry looked back and saw centaurs he had encountered before gathered at a distance, watching them. None seemed interested in coming over to speak. They merely kept their distance, pointing and whispering among themselves. Harry could not tell whether they were saying anything unpleasant.

After causing such an enormous commotion, there was no hope of keeping things quiet. When Harry headed toward the Whomping Willow to retrieve his broom, he saw numerous professors emerging from the castle. Professor McGonagall was using Finite Incantatem to release Snape from the Full Body-Bind Curse.

"The little one came by my place earlier. She turned out to be an... I mean, she caught a rat there."

Hagrid was explaining things to an anxious McGonagall. "She put some kind of thing on her wand and hit the rat from hundreds of meters away. Then Hermione chased after her. Even a Basilisk wasn’t a match for her, so I thought she definitely... Who’s that? Sirius Black!"

He spotted the approaching group, his expression changing instantly as he pulled out a wand that looked overly long in anyone else’s hands. The other professors also raised their wands, suddenly tense.

Hagrid’s impression of Sirius as a criminal was especially strong because he had run into him on the very day everything happened. Sirius had even given Hagrid his flying motorbike. Hagrid had always felt he should have realized something was wrong back then and stopped him.

"No! Hagrid! Sirius isn’t the criminal! Put him down, little cat!" Harry hurriedly stepped in front of Black. The last "him" naturally referred to Peter, whom Yimi was still holding over her head.

"Okay." Yimi simply dropped Peter. He hit the ground with a muffled grunt.

Professor Sprout lowered her head for a closer look. "Merlin’s beard—Peter Pettigrew! We all thought he’d been dead for twelve years!"

"What in the world is going on?" McGonagall hurried over and immediately picked Yimi up. At this point, she almost wished Yimi could enroll a few years early. At least school rules might restrain the little thing somewhat and keep her from running around everywhere.

"It was all his doing!" Black kicked Peter hard. Peter did not make a sound this time, which told Black that he was already awake and merely pretending to be unconscious because he did not dare face anyone.

"That’s enough. Step back! Drop your wand and let the children explain!" Professor McGonagall held Yimi with one arm and pressed her wand against Black’s chest with the other, forcing him away.

As she spoke, the other professors kept their eyes on Black too, ready in case he did anything suspicious.

Ron saw that Snape, now free again, looked utterly murderous.

His own expression froze. He hurriedly appealed to McGonagall. "Professor, Harry knows everything. Can I go back first? We were attacked by Dementors just now, and at this moment I desperately need to see Percy to soothe my soul."

McGonagall tightened her hold on Yimi. Her voice carried obvious anger. "Dementors? I can’t believe it. They actually entered Hogwarts! Go find your brother, child. We have things under control here."

Ron gratefully headed for the castle, denying Snape the immediate opportunity for revenge—even if he was only postponing the inevitable.

"Who attacked you, Severus?" McGonagall then asked Snape, making his expression turn even darker.

He glared viciously at Black. "We should arrest the criminal first. Then we can interrogate him slowly with Veritaserum."

Harry hurried to explain. "Sirius is innocent, Professor. Back then they secretly changed the Secret-Keeper to Pettigrew. Pettigrew betrayed my parents and blew up a whole street of Muggles. He’s an Animagus and has been living as a rat in Ron’s family all these years!"

"He’s also the reason the Dementors came after us. If the little cat hadn’t cast the Patronus Charm, we’d all be dead," Hermione added.

"Animagus? Patronus Charm?" McGonagall looked down at the little one sitting quietly in her arms and noticed that whenever Yimi’s feet left the ground, she seemed to grow sleepy.

McGonagall set her down and looked at Harry and Hermione. "So you’re saying the sky lighting up just now had nothing to do with the two of you?"

"It was the little cat," Hermione answered. "Her Patronus Charm summoned a real god."