A/N: I meant to post this chapter last week, then we had a surprise swim meet, so I moved it to the Friday two days ago, but then, get this, another swim meet! So, now that my busy week filled with three swim meets and one pep band is over, here's my late chapter publication! Yaaaay :')

Harry Potter is not mine as much as I wish it was T-T

I hope you all enjoy this late chapter!


Hermione clutched her books to her chest protectively as she skittered through the seventh floor. She had a small skip in her step, and she nibbled on her bottom lip in anticipation. Finally, Christmas was just around the corner, and this was their last lesson before the break.

The Room of Requirements, Harry had found thanks to Dobby, had become a hotspot of students and spells since their idea to start their own defense class. No one had the audacity to tell an authority figure or Umbridge's new patrol about it, of course, since Hermione had charmed the signup sheet with, what she imagined, to be a fairly tame curse.

She had finished her laps around that sweet spot of the entrance when two enormous oak doors with elaborate designs suddenly grew in front of her. Eagerly, she pushed them open to find that familiar dueling room ready for using.

It was fairly empty per usual, seeing as she was always one of the first people to arrive just to make sure everything was ready for Harry's lesson. Shelves upon shelves of books on defensive spells, curses, and counter curses lined the walls of the room, with comfortable chairs and cushions scattered throughout. It was, admittedly, larger and more empty this time for the lesson, but everything seemed to be in order.

That was, until, Hermione spotted a younger girl nestled into a chair writing on top of a book.

"Erm— Hello? Are you here for the lesson?" She said slowly, craning her neck for a better look at the girl. When she did lift her head, Hermione immediately recognized her as Astoria, her long, chocolate brown hair still glowing against her pale skin as it had been doing for the past two-and-a-half years and her piercing blue-gray eyes sending chills down her back.

"Oh! Er— Hi," She stammered, a pretty shade of pink dusting lightly against her cheeks. "Yes, I" — she let out a nervous giggle — "I've just arrived here not too long ago; I hadn't anything else to do,"

Hermione offered her a smile as she set her things down on a small table that had conjured up before her. "That's perfectly fine, I just get here before the boys to make sure everything's 'right as rain', as my dad says,"

Astoria had a slight look of confusion on her face before she gave a small "Oh!" in realization. "You mean Harry and Ron," she stated more than asked. "Well, that makes sense. I overheard one of the Quidditch captains saying they needed to have a short meeting after lunch today when I passed by, and I assume Ron went with Harry to wait for him."

"Honestly, I'm starting to question where their priorities lie," Hermione sighed in mock disappointment and began making her way closer to Astoria, who laughed. She took a seat next to the younger girl on one of the soft, circular bean bags.

Astoria stuck her hand out rather suddenly, her cheeks stained the color of roses but a confident grin on her face. "I know we've sort of known each other through this, but maybe introductions wouldn't be too awful, so— Astoria Greengrass," She babbled, shifting herself so that she was fully facing the older girl.

Hermione smiled (she hoped it wasn't as toothy as it felt), and gently gripped her hand with Astoria's. "Hermione Granger," she returned kindly, giving her hand a small shake. A thought passed through Hermione's mind about how not-Slytherin Astoria seemed to be at the moment. Of course, it had only been five minutes since they'd officially met, but still…

"You know," Astoria began to say with a small chuckle, "I've never seen chairs quite like these before. Are they Muggle ones?"

"Well, yes, but we use normal chairs for sitting at dining tables and desks and things, too. These are more comfortable seats for reading or drawing, like one of my cousins has at his place." said Hermione. "I think I had something similar when I was younger, but my parents sold it after it got too nasty to keep."

"Oh," Astoria breathed in understanding, then she laughed. "My father would kill me if I brought one of these home! If they found out I was doing this, I'd be sent straight home and schooled there for the next four years,"

Hermione watched her face carefully as she spoke and saw how her smile flickered as she went on about her sister. Of course, Hermione had memorized who was on Umbridge's inquisitorial squad and Daphne was (surprisingly) not one of them. She supposed it was maybe a rule their parents had given her, just to make sure the Pure-blooded ideals stuck with Astoria.

"Would they really do that?" She asked with a gaze somewhere in-between skeptical and concerned. Astoria shrugged.

"Maybe," she sighed, "maybe not. I used to believe them, their view on supremacy. They told my sister to keep me from any — um — distractions," Her cheeks tinted another glowing red color and her eyes dipped away from Hermione's for just a second.

"And those distractions are?" Hermione pushed along; her eyebrow raised.

"W-well, there are a lot of people in this school that my parents would be afraid of me befriending or — Merlin forbid — falling in love with that would pose a threat to the line," She explained hurriedly. "I guess it didn't work as well as they thought,"

Hermione nodded in agreement and the two fell into silence. She could see a twinge of sorrow behind Astoria's eyes but decided against saying anything until the other girl spoke up once more.

"Unless it's some form of confidentiality, could you possibly let it slip about what we're doing for this lesson?" She asked, with a jokingly mischievous glint in her eyes.

Hermione chuckled lightly. "Patronus Charms," She stated simply. Astoria's eyes widened considerably.

"B-but those are more difficult than anything we learn through all seven of our years here!" She gasped. "You really expect us to learn them in less than a day?"

"Well, if it's any consolation," Hermione muttered with a roll of her eyes and a rather embarrassed blush, "I haven't exactly done one, either."

Astoria snorted in disbelief, and Hermione glared at her. "Oh, please, don't do that! We both know you'd be able to cast one your first try."

"One could only hope." Hermione responded dryly. "Harry is better than I am when it comes to defense. He's been able to do this since Third Year,"

Hermione was certain, all the way to the day she would inevitably die, that if Astoria had been taking a sip of any sort of drink, she would have been hacking in shock by the way her eyes absolutely bulged from her head.

"W-What?" She sputtered, scanning Hermione over for even the faintest hint that she was kidding, but all she got was a shit-eating smirk and a shrug from the older girl. Astoria opened her mouth, possibly to give her some snarky or annoyed response, when the giant oak doors that had suddenly reappeared opened with a loud, echoing creak that bounced off of the much emptier space in the large room.

Harry and Ron strode into the room, chatting idly about, what Hermione had correctly guessed was, Quidditch. Their two bags landed on the table with a thud, right next to Hermione's, who had stood to join them on the other side of the room.

"Any news for Quidditch?" She asked slightly laconically, as if they had missed the entire lesson because of the meeting. Ron scoffed.

"It's not that bad, Hermione. I don't get why you hate it so much…"

"Well, you went with Harry for no reason," Hermione shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, I wanted him to," Harry cut in, casually reaching into his bag to pull out his wand. "He wanted to know if it was about the next match, which it was. Right after break," he added, then turned to look at her. "Will you be coming to watch?"

Despite herself, she chuckled breathily. "Wouldn't miss it." Harry grinned at her and turned back to his bag, where he began pulling out the books on defense spells Hermione had given him.

She turned around and found Astoria with her head down, a book open in her lap that looked to be about magical creatures. She began to walk towards her, opening her mouth to offer her Harry's book before the lesson would start, when a couple of younger students from Gryffindor walked through the oak doors that had, once again, appeared against the wall.

Astoria looked up and put the book back on its shelf, slung her bag over her shoulders and moved further down the room before Hermione had the chance to say anything else. Her attention was drawn back to Harry, however, when he tapped her arm and told her to gather any other books on Patronus casting if any of the younger students needed it for references.

Hermione found herself scanning shelves for books as more students filed into the hidden room, and Astoria began to fade against the growing crowd.


Hermione was almost stunned at how the seemingly small room was able to fit so many students. Shouts, cries, and constant mutterings of annoyance of "Expecto Patronum!" filled the area, everything lit up with a dim, blue glow from the small wisps of smoke emitting from the ends of wands to the large, smoke-like animals that flew around the room in some sort of dance. Intense emotions of joy, happiness, and overwhelming feelings of all the good things there could possibly be swirled through the atmosphere.

Even that couldn't make Hermione feel better about not being able to cast anything more than a thin stream of light.

Harry's instructions rang in her head, over and over, and she took a breath. Happiest memory. Every good memory you have. She shut her eyes and breathed inwards. She collected images of her mother and father taking her on birthday trips, of her favorite band she went to see in concert, of her mother rocking her to sleep after a nightmare, going down to see Hagrid with Harry and Ron…

"Expecto Patronum."

A fresh wave of joy flooded through her senses, her eyes welling up with tears of happiness as those memories multiplied tenfold. She slowly opened her eyes to see an otter smiling at her, squeaking playfully and doing flips and turns in the air. She laughed, a breathless, little noise, as it floated around her, as if it were swimming in water. It moved so gracefully as it went, twisting and dancing around with ease.

Curiously, she watched as her otter shot upwards, flipping around the length of the room with chirping and squeaking excitedly. A loud screech drew Hermione's attention, and she watched with wonder as a large hawk flapped around her otter, both of them letting out noises of playfulness. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to follow whichever string of light led to the hawk, but all of them were blending into each other, and her head began to hurt from trying to follow them all.

She looked back to the hawk and her otter, where it flipped and encircled the hawk as the other animal squawked joyfully and flapped its wings in excitement. A small grin crept up on her face. It didn't really matter too much, anyways. Whomever the Patronus belonged to, she would find them someday.

After all, it could've just been one of her friends the trail led to. She would just have to be patient.


A/N: The art for chapter 1 is coming with the next update on AO3 and Wattpad (since I wanted to get this done more than the art seeing as the story is more important lol). I'm not entirely sure how long it will be for the next update since most info for swim meets comes out literally the day before they happen (gotta love school communication), but I'm hoping it won't be too long.

I hope you liked this update and I'll return with a fresh batch of more fluff and angst in the next one! Until then, have a great week! 3

~Eclipse