Athenys knocked on the door of the classroom three times, yet there was no answer, then was about to knock again when the door opened and Lupin stood in the doorway.

"Ah, Athenys, come on in." She walked in and noticed a large trunk sitting in the corner of the room.

"Erm, Professor, I was wondering what this lesson is for?"

Lupin walked to his desk and motioned for her to sit down. She shuffled over and noticed the blocks of chocolate sitting on his table as he also took a seat.

"Well, Athenys, Professor Dumbledore spoke to me about your incident yesterday on the train, which he heard about from the trolley lady, who was there at the time the dementor was there?"

"Yes, she was, and so was Theo." Oh no, what if this spread to the rest of the school, just like Harry's incident did? "Does anyone else know?"

"No, you need not worry. Professor Dumbledore spoke with Mr Nott yesterday as well, he agreed to keep this incident quiet." She released a breath, "However, there are other things you need to worry about, especially Dementors."

She interrupted, "Why was it only me and Harry who were attacked?"

Lupin wrung his hands together, "Well yes, the only people attacked were you and Harry, yet the reasons as to why each of you were targeted are very different from each other. Harry's reason I can figure out, and I wish to only enclose that information with him. Yours, however, I still cannot. Especially since you had managed to send them away just from a scream?"

"Well, yeah, except I don't really know why."

She felt quite irritated not knowing why it was her. Was it because she had a speciality? Or a weakness?

"Our lesson today isn't on talking about why they attacked you," Lupin continued, "It's about-"

"Fighting the dementors?" A silence followed, eventually broken by Lupin.

"Defending yourself from them."

"Is it hard?"

"Quite a complicated piece of magic, yes. I don't expect you to get it the first time, but-"

"Well I'll give it a shot." She blurted out, and Lupin's mouth hinted a smile as he paused, then stood up and walked towards the trunk.

"Inside here, Athenys, is a boggart. Do you know what a boggart is?"

She remembered the time she went to Abraxas's house and he explained what a boggart is, since he apparently wanted to get rid of one in his house.

"Yes, I've heard what it is."

Lupin nodded, "Good, good. Now in here there is boggart, and once I open it the boggart will transform into a dementor. This is what we'll be practising with for the next few lessons."

He waited for her to nod and continued, "The spell you have to use is Expecto Patronum."

"Expecto Patronum," She echoed, "But what makes it such a difficult spell?"

"The difficult part is your mindset, and actually conjuring the spell. Done correctly, it will reveal your Patronus, which will take up a form, most likely an animal. To do this, you have to think strongly of your happiest memory."

The next few minutes she listened extremely intently to Lupin as he explained about Patronuses. She was so determined on proving herself with this. She took four attempts and fails each time, followed by Lupin handing her chocolate each time. However, she did see wisps of silvery blue from her wand the fourth time. She nibbled on the chocolate and Lupin insisted that they stop for now, but each time her failure fuelled her, making her more and more determined to achieve this.

She stood up for the fifth time and concentrated on her happiest memory as Lupin opened the trunk and a black mass of robes and wisps formed out of it and she shouted, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" She felt a gush of air and her wand vibrating as she watched a bubble-like shield of silver erupt from her wand and she held it for a few seconds, until she noticed a small body forming, however it disappeared before she can see what it was, as the dementor went back into the trunk and Lupin shut the lid down.

"Well done! That was excellent!"

She couldn't help the smile which broke across her face and the feeling of pride which glowed within herself. She actually did it, although she was exhausted.

"Very nice job, Athenys. For your first lesson you've done extremely well, especially having your Patronus starting to take shape!"

"Did you see what it was, Professor? The shape?"

Professor Lupin handed her a huge piece of chocolate, "The shape wasn't clear enough for me to see what it was, however I'm pretty sure I saw wings."

After a few seconds of catching her breath she gathered her things and walked back to her dormitory after bidding goodnight to the Professor.


"Honestly, I can't believe we have an oaf teaching Care of Magical Creatures," Malfoy said, and he didn't care to keep his voice down while walking to class, "This will be the first thing I tell Father in my next letter to him!"

"I don't think he'll be that bad," Athenys said to Daphne, making sure Malfoy would hear, "I mean he seems to know a lot about the subject."

"Of course, he would!" Pansy joined in, "He's probably lived with creatures most of his life!" This was followed by roars of laughter by her classmates.

Despite how horrible she felt inside about Hagrid, she knew there was no point in arguing with them, so she just shook her head and walked away from the group, desperately hoping that Hagrid's first lesson wouldn't be a disaster.

But of course, it was ruined thanks to Malfoy.

The next few days the only thing she heard the Slytherins talking about was Malfoy's incident with Buckbeak.

"Of course, I won't be able to do any homework in this state," Malfoy whined while they were all in the common room.

"Oh Draco, I can't believe he wasn't fired!" Pansy said while stroking his arm.

"Believe me, Father will have that oaf out of this school in no time!"

Athenys was trying to block their voices out of her head, since she was trying to study, but she couldn't hold it in much longer.

"You do realise that Hagrid clearly told us that those creatures are easily offended, don't you?"

"That beast doesn't need an excuse to attack anyone. I hardly did anything!" Malfoy fought back.

"You called it an ugly great brute! Maybe if you weren't so stuck up, you would've noticed that what you said was insulting!"

Athenys felt her face become really hot, and Malfoy's pale face had become a dark shade of crimson. Both were staring at each other with fury while the entire common room had fallen silent, looking at the scene in front of them, until the silence was broken by Pansy.

"Come on, Draco, you should go rest." She placed a hand on his shoulder but he shook it away and walked to the couch by the fireplace to join Theo.

Athenys broke away from the glare that Pansy was giving her and looked back down at her book. The next hour or so no one talked to her, and she was careful not to make eye contact with anyone. She couldn't figure out why she would even try to knock some sense into any of them. They would never change their ways. Eventually she felt the room go silent, and looked around to see that the only person remaining in the common room besides her was Draco. He seemed deep in thought while staring at the fireplace, and the flames revealed the softened features of his face. There were no signs of sneering or smirking. It was just… him. However, from his expression she could tell his pride was clearly hurt. It was quite the rare sight, and Athenys started to feel a little bad about shouting earlier.

Although, she couldn't help but wonder, why would he be so affected by her insult? It wasn't like him to get so offended by what other people say, since the worshipping he gets from the likes of Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy were enough to feed his pompous demeanour ten-fold.

Swallowing her pride, she walked towards him and cleared her throat, "You know, I would say I'm sorry but you can't deny that I had a point there."

"What do you want, Seraphina?" He drawled without looking at her.

"I want to knock some sense into you."

He scoffed, "Try doing that to yourself."

She frowned, "Wow, you really are stuck up."

He stood up and walked to her until he was towering over her, "Honestly, Seraphina, who's side are you on?"

"Why does there have to be a side on everything!"

"Because we're Slytherins! We have our own side! Ever since this school was built we've been the outcasts, in case you haven't noticed after being in this school for three years already!"

She had never heard of Draco talking about Slytherin house like this. He had always mentioned it as the best house with the most prestigious people, but never anything as low as 'outcasts'.

"We became outcasts because we made ourselves the outcasts."

He mocked a tiny laugh, "You have no idea. You don't notice how Gryffindor is always glorified or how the other two houses worship them? Honestly, it's rather pathetic. Not that I would care anyway, I couldn't care less about any of them."

Athenys was left speechless. She couldn't deny that what he was saying wasn't entirely false.

He continued, "But then again what would you know? You're just a half-blood. You didn't grow up knowing the true state of things."

Athenys crossed her arms and scoffed, "It always comes back to that, doesn't it?" she spat, "Muggles, half-bloods, pure-bloods. Always the same circle of topics."

"Of course, it does, Seraphina. It has everything to do with it."

"How? How is it that every conversation I have with you has to do with you hating Muggles?"

"Did you even do your homework? Did you not see about the witch-burnings?"

"Honestly Draco, that was centuries ago!"

"Oh, you don't think a similar thing is happening now? Haven't you wondered why this stupid Ministry forces the entire magical community to live in hiding?"

The worst feeling overcame Athenys, as she realised that she couldn't argue against him. What he was saying was making sense, but she would never tell him that.

He suddenly lowered his voice, bringing his face up close to hers, "You just wait, until this muggle-loving Ministry is taken over by someone who will change everything."

Athenys narrowed her eyes, "You sound so sure about that."

"Because I am sure about it," he whispered, as Athenys felt her stomach drop.


"Are you ready, Athenys?"

"Yes, I am." It was her first attempt for her second lesson and she decided that she wasn't going to leave the lesson until she found out what her Patronus was.

"On three then. One, two, three…"

"Expecto Patronum!" Only a few wisps came out of her wand, "Expecto PATRONUM!" Yet again only wisps, and she began to black out, "Expec.." and all turned black.

She woke up feeling immense disappointment and immediately reached for the chocolate in Lupin's hand.

"It's OK, Athenys, it's only your first attempt for today."

"I'll try again."

He walked to the trunk and counted to three, as she gained her balance and focused, hard. The trunk opened, but this time she was ready.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" She felt her wand vibrate and saw it producing masses of silvery blue. She suddenly felt a surge of wind as a small ball starts to form, which produced wings, then claws and finally fully formed, then disappeared before she could admire its beauty for too long. She heard the thud of the trunk lid, and Lupin looked up at her, eyes wide.

"Dragon. Your Patronus is a dragon."

"A baby dragon," Her eyes were still wide with astonishment, "It was beautiful."

"Indeed," Lupin stood up and smiled, "Very beautiful."


Note: So sorry about the super late chapter update. I had to wait until the holidays to write this chapter and parts of the next few chapters to come. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you so much to the people who reviewed, especially DanteVirgil09 for the tips and lovely comments!