The seventh-year Defence Against The Dark Arts class had been looking forward to this particular lesson for months. Ever since buying their advanced text books from Diagon Alley during the summer and browsing through them in the evenings, the one spell that had especially stood out, the one they were all desperate to learn, was...
"The Patronus charm!" declared Professor Spungen, as soon as the class had filed in and the chatter had died down. As everybody took their seats, Professor Spungen continued. "A highly advanced charm, useful in combating Dementors and, as poor Flavius Belby once discovered, Lethifolds." Sitting at the back, a boy with greasy, black hair and a hooked nose coughed impatiently. "Yes, Snape?" Professor Spungen enquired. "I suppose you think you could do a better job of teaching this class, do you?"
"As a matter of fact, Professor," the boy responded irritably, "I think it too early in the lesson, as yet, for me to do anything but reserve my judgement for now." Professor Spungen gave a start, he wasn't used to Severus Snape showing insolence during class, obviously something had got the boy's back up. He also noticed that Snape's eyes kept on darting back and forth between the redheaded girl sat at the front and the perpetually bored black-haired boy in glasses, who at that moment was lounging in his chair and passing a slip of parchment to his neighbour, who was lazily waving his wand and making smoke rings appear out of it under the table.
"Potter! Black!" Professor Spungen barked. "Twenty points from Gryffindor! Now, pay attention, so I can teach you the theory. The incantation used to conjure a Patronus is Expecto Patronum. The word Patronus itself is Latin and means 'guardian', which it essentially is, the idea is that it forms a protective shield between yourself and the Dementor..."
However much Snape tried to pay attention to Professor Spungen's lecture on the etymology of everything Patronus-related, as usual, he had eyes for nobody but Lily Evans. Sitting four rows in front of him, taking notes with her head down, he couldn't help reflecting on their friendship as children, a friendship that had ended so abruptly two years ago. No, Snape told himself, don't think of that incident. He tried to block it out, and for a few seconds, he remembered the sight of her at that ball a few months ago, and he started to smile. His smile, however, turned into a scowl when he remembered how James Potter had asked her to dance, she'd accepted, and the next evening he'd spotted them embracing at the Gryffindor table during the meal.
SNAP. Snape hadn't noticed how tightly he'd been holding his quill, but now he was holding two distinctly separate pieces of feather. Shoot. Now he'd have to spend some money he didn't have on a new quill. The reality of that fact brought Snape out of his daydream and back to reality just in time to hear Professor Spungen say,
"The shape your Patronus will take depends on many different things. Everybody is different, and a multitude of factors including your personality, temperament, memory and past experiences will affect it. Expecto Patronum!"
The class hadn't been expecting a demonstration so quickly, and every single student had sat up, the better to get a good view of the shining silver boar that was now waddling around the classroom. Snape glanced at Lily, and saw her eyes light up in amazement, before she realised he was watching her and turned away, her face downcast. Snape scowled and turned to his notes. The boar faded, and Professor Spungen cleared his throat.
"Now you've seen my demonstration, I believe you're ready to attempt the Patronus charm yourselves. However, you need to remember that this is very highly advanced magic; you mustn't be surprised if it doesn't come the first time. The chances are that your thought just wasn't happy enough, if this is the case. Can you all stand up please, and form a line at the back of the classroom?"
The class obliged, and the desks and chairs were flung out to the sides of the classroom, freeing up the centre so there was enough space for everybody.
"Right, who's going first?" Professor Spungen asked eagerly. Snape withdrew to the very back of the line of students; after all, this was merely grandstanding. Of course, Potter would be the first to step forward, mahogany wand held aloft, with Lily's eyes on him.
"I'll do it, Professor!" James announced. Behind him, the fat Peter Pettigrew could barely contain his excitement. Snape still couldn't understand how that buffoon had achieved high enough marks in his OWL to get into the NEWT class, but he suspected Potter and Black had probably tried to help him to cheat. Lupin probably wasn't above acting as an accomplice either, prefect or no prefect; after all, HE went sneaking around the school once a month as a werewolf...
"Excellent!" Professor Spungen cried. "Let's see what you can do then, Potter!"
James closed his eyes for a second, flashed Lily a grin, raised his wand, and cried, "Expecto Patronum!" It came at once, a dazzling stag cantering away from James and circling the group of students, who were all milling around to watch.
"Oh, very good!" exclaimed Professor Spungen. "Ten points to Gryffindor! It's not every day you teach a class and somebody immediately gets it." James smirked at Sirius, as the stag went by for the third time before fizzling out. "Now, the rest of you try!"
The class split up and soon cries of "Expecto Patronum!" filled the classroom, in addition to copious amounts of silver vapour. Snape stood still where he was, watching his classmates try and fail to produce a Patronus, searching his mind for a strong enough memory to produce the class's best Patronus. He could see a stag, a big dog and a large wolf parading around a small group of people, but apart from the three, nobody was having much luck. Pettigrew was looking at his wand anxiously, having failed to even produce vapour, and Snape's own friends (if they could be called that) Avery, Mulciber and Nott hadn't managed to produce anything either.
Snape chanced a glance at Lily and noticed that her eyes were screwed up in concentration, while she muttered to herself. Eventually, she raised her willow wand and shouted "Expecto Patronum!" and the nondescript shape she'd been producing previously disappeared, to be replaced by a silver doe with large eyes and thick eyelashes. The rest of the class stopped attempting to conjure their own Patronuses, and the few that had been conjured flickered out, and the classroom fell silent as everybody's eyes were drawn to the doe, mesmerised by her beauty.
Professor Spungen was the one to break the silence. "Isn't it interesting," he said, "that in the one class we happened to find a stag and a doe?" Lily and James looked sheepishly at each other, and Snape could have hexed the latter. "Interesting indeed, that the characters of these two people invoke the similarities and differences of these two animals. The stag's impressiveness, the doe's beauty and compassion, the two animals are soulmates." Snape felt like killing. Preferably Potter. "What's even more fascinating is that this isn't just a case of one person copying the Patronus of another, which isn't uncommon for the person in love..."
Snape didn't hear any more of Professor Spungen's lecture, he simply froze where he was, in a panic, and tried to reason with himself. No, you're not in love, there won't be a problem. After a minute, he became aware that James Potter was poking him with his wand.
"Hey, Snivellus," he said softly. "Why haven't we seen your patronus yet? Scared you wouldn't be able to produce one? Scared your animal wouldn't be as impressive as mine? Scared we'll all see you for the oversized bat you are?"
"For your information," Snape retorted stiffly, "I've been observing these losers all fail to produce anything, and thinking about how great it will be when I manage to best you first time."
"Is that a fact?" James yawned. "Would you be willing to bet on that? Why don't you just go ahead and show us how great you are. Cast a Patronus right now in front of all of us, I dare you."
Snape felt his hatred bubble over. How dare James Potter turn it into a challenge? Come to think about it, how dare he have the other half of Lily's Patronus?
Now wasn't the time to get angry, Snape reasoned. He needed a happy memory to conjure this Patronus, and he was going to cast that Patronus, as now all eyes were on him and half of the class were jeering. To not cast one would be to admit defeat. No, he must rise to the challenge.
Snape racked his brains for the best memory of Lily he could find. He caught flashes of their childhood together, spending Christmases at the Evans' house, leaving frogspawn in Lily's sister, Petunia's pockets, being on the Hogwarts Express with Lily for the first time, there were so many memories he could have used. However, he then remembered a day just before the Christmas holidays in their third year, when they had gone down to Hogsmeade together, and she'd forgotten her scarf so they wrapped his around both of their necks and walked along together like that (probably looking like a right pair of idiots) for the entire afternoon. Yes, that memory would do nicely.
The class's jeers were starting to get louder, so before James could start accusing him of being chicken, Snape raised his wand to the sky and bellowed "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
A large, silver mass erupted from the wand and fell to the floor. It was dazzlingly bright and shone so luminously that the class all raised their hands in front of their faces, allowing for their eyes to adjust to the sparkling silver that was so much brighter than any of the other Patronuses had been. After ten seconds or so, Snape heard a gasp, and looked around to see Lily clutching James' arm. James himself looked furious, brandishing his wand threateningly in the direction of Snape's face. The class was utterly silent. Snape looked back to his Patronus, having adjusted to the light, and and immediately spotted the problem.
Oh no. OH NO. A doe...
Suddenly, the class burst into laughter. Sirius Black in particularly was finding the whole incident to be hilarious, he was clutching his side and roaring with laughter, evidently enjoying himself. The only people not laughing at Snape were Professor Spungen, who was looking thoughtful, Lily, who was now in tears and had hold of James so tightly he could have been her only tether to the ground, and James Potter himself, whose eyes were slits and whose wand was still pointing at Snape's face.
Without even waiting for Professor Spungen to pass a comment, Snape turned and fled from the classroom.