A/N: I don't own Harry Potter.
This is something that I meant to write a while ago. It is my entry in The Acrostic Competition.
Prompt: Patronus
Patrick Moore had always been an average boy. That never changed, even when he found out that he was a wizard. The average, brown-haired boy who played football in the park on Saturdays grew into the average, brown-haired muggleborn wizard who knew his spells well enough to pass but never well enough to be exceptional. He was sorted into Hufflepuff, too, and that meant that he was cosidered more average than most by quite a bit of the population.
After he graduated, Patrick married a sweet, quiet witch and took a small, menial job in the Ministry of Magic. His life was average, mundane, and predictable.
Then the war started. It didn't truly affect him at first. (Why would it? It was just the delusional ramblings of a boy that broke under pressure.) But then things started to happen. He was no longer safe. He was no longer average. He was a Mudblood. He was scum.
Running for his life from the very government he had served was the most terrifying thing he had ever done. He could never've imagined that it would ever come to this.
Over the many months that he lived as a fugitive, he had many close calls. Patrick was not a brave man by nature, and each encounter with danger sent him further and further into a state of panic. The worse came on a lonely Tuesday. He was cold, and wet, and scared, and hungry. The last thing he needed to worry about was a dementor.
Nerves threatened to overtake him. He knew what spell it would take to drive off the soul-sucker. He knew. He didn't think that he could cast it. How could he? It took a lot of power to cast a Patronus! But, if he didn't, he would be a hollow shell, worse than dead. Pulling together every ounce of resolve that he never knew he had, the average, brown-haired muggleborn thought of the day his sweet, quiet witch had pledged to love him and stand by him for the rest of their lives. Then he said the incantation. "E-expecto Patronum!"
Utter joy and relief filled him as the silvery form of a house cat burst forth from the end of his wand to drive the dark creature away. He had done it! Him! He had cast a Patronus!
Sometimes being average is perfectly alright. But, sometimes, when they need to be, the the most average of people can be extraordinary. Patrick Moore was an extraordinary wizard. (And it only took him an encounter with a dementor to prove it to himself.)