Chapter 5: Progress
Harry visited Remus after their successful History prank. He knocked on the door to his office, which immediately opened and Remus peeked his head out. "Oh! Hello, Harry. I was wondering when you'd come to visit your spare godfather," he said, winking, when he spotted it was Harry outside his door.
Harry grinned. "Well, I had lots to do this week, you know. Pranks to pull, friends to catch up with, boyfriends to impress."
Remus laughed heartily and let him in. "Tea?"
Harry nodded happily and sank down into one of the two armchairs in the room. Remus called for a house elf and politely asked for tea, which appeared on the coffee table not two seconds after the elf squeaked in happiness and disappeared. Once they'd made up their tea the way they liked it, Remus leant back in his own armchair and sighed, content. "So, cub, what can I do for you?"
"I just wanted to talk, mostly. Also, I wanted to tell you about what happened on the train." Harry sat up excitedly. "I managed to produce a full-bodied Patronus!"
Remus' eyes were wide as he nodded. "I heard something of the sort, but one can never be too sure of the truth behind a rumour. What memory did you think of?"
Harry blushed. "It… well, remember when you showed me the memory of Mum singing to me and telling me she loved me, no matter what?"
Remus smiled sadly. "I do, and I daresay that is the best memory I could have thought of for you to use. I'm so proud of you, doing something that most adult wizards can't. This really goes to prove how powerful you are; it's probably a very good thing you have such a powerful wand, one with a dual core, no less. I dare say that any lesser wand would probably have been fried by the amount of magic you regularly push through it."
Harry agreed, then a thought came to him. "Remus, you know lots about animals, right?"
Remus nodded.
"Well, I was wondering if I could cast my Patronus, and you could maybe tell me what it is? I mean, I can't exactly cast it and look through books to see what it is, can I?"
Remus laughed. "I suppose you can't. Well, all right then. Cast it, but if you can't manage it right now, don't worry. Just because you cast it once, doesn't mean you can all the time, and if you can't I can get the memory from you and look at it in the Pensieve."
Harry took a deep breath and nodded, then stood up and closed his eyes and thought of the memory. The love he felt from his mother filled him up, and a slight smile unknowingly made its way onto his face. Remus knew he'd manage to cast it.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry incanted, opening his eyes, and the small ape Patronus burst from his wand and made one circuit around the room, floating over the desk and the armchairs, then stopped next to its maker and looked around expectantly.
Remus stood and made his way towards the Patronus, crouching down once he reached it. He looked carefully at the face and the way it held itself. Nodding in agreement with himself, he stood, his knees creaking, and sat back down in his seat. "You can let her go now, Harry," he suggested.
Harry let the spell go and sat back down, breathing deeply. "Well?" he asked between gasps.
"Your Patronus is a female Bonobo Ape, Harry. Bonobos are well-known to be fun-loving, matriarchal, and peaceful. This makes sense, because Patroni represent their casters, and you are fun-loving, and would prefer to live a peaceful life, even if so far you haven't managed to achieve it this year," he said, winking. "As to the matriarchal aspect, I can only guess that it took this form because of the love you felt from Lily in that memory. You see, contrary to what I told you and your friends, when I first started teaching you the Patronus Charm, about needing a happy memory to fuel it, you need more than simple happiness. You need to feel love—unconditional, all-consuming love—and let it fill you up. Sirius and I truly hadn't expected you to come into contact with a Dementor so early on in your life, but we taught the Patronus Charm to you all in the same way we were taught in seventh year. The realisation that feeling love in a memory overpowers feeling happiness or joy in one is something that every person needs to make for themselves. If you simply tell someone they need to think about love, it'll often lead to blushing and disbelief. I suppose I could have told you all to think about what you feel when you're held by your mother, but you and Neville don't have any memories of that kind, and that would have led to trouble and both of you feeling like you'll never manage it."
Harry was listening intently, soaking in the extra information greedily. True, it was a hard pill to swallow that there were some things that he had to figure out himself in regards to magic, but he understood what Remus was saying. "So, how did all that transfer into me getting a Bonobo Ape as a Patronus?" he asked.
"There are three types of Patronus forms: the first is a physical representation of your animal form, so basically what your Animagus would be; the second is a manifestation of something you deeply desire or love, which is the most common cause of your Patronus changing form into an animal with similar qualities to those your desire or loved one has, so like mine is a Grim-hound and Sirius' is a wolf, when they used to be the other way around when we were younger; the third is an animal based on the first memory you used to successfully cast a full-bodied Patronus. I think you have the third one, since I remember you telling me about that prank you and your friends pulled at the beginning of last year, with giving everyone the snouts or noses of their inner animal. If I have it right, your Animagus form is most likely an ermine, like your snout from the prank. You can't have the second type, since from what I know of those you love, I don't think that the Bonobo fits any one of them. That leaves the third one."
After that, they talked of other things, like how Harry was doing in his classes, and what was going to be the the future of the History prank. Their visit ended with Remus telling Harry that Sirius was finally taking steps to oust Dumbledore from his Chief Warlock and Supreme Mugwump positions in the Wizengamot and ICW respectively, and that Sirius would start to teach the Marauders' Recruits the Animagus transformation over winter break. They were all to prepare for it by meditating for at least fifteen minutes each day before they went to sleep, and slowly increase the meditation to half an hour over the five weeks until the break.
oOoOo
Time faded into an almost monotonous stream of classes and homework, although the History classes were just getting better. By the beginning of November, they'd worked their way through the other two Star Wars movies, Jurassic Park, and the Indiana Jones movies, which all provided some entertainment while still being informative and full of history. The Indiana Jones movies were particularly interesting, because Myrtle had them writing essays on the magical artifacts found in them, and the history behind them.
Then, the day before their first Quidditch match, two things happened very close to one another. The first was that they watched Ghostbusters in History, and the tale spread throughout the school very quickly, terrifying the ghosts of the school, until Myrtle quickly took them aside to explain that it was actually just part of a larger prank. For the rest of the month, it was common to find groups of people singing the theme song throughout the school.
The second thing that happened was that Harry had discovered Luna standing next to his bed that morning, and had dragged him with her to the Room of Requirement. She'd told him to ask for the Room of Hidden things, and when he'd done that and asked her for an explanation, she told him that the Grey Lady, who it turned out was actually Helena Ravenclaw, had confessed to her where Ravenclaw's diadem was, because she had thought that the Ghostbusters story was true and she'd decided to tell someone what her deepest secret was, and where it was hidden. She'd told Luna (because she trusted that Luna was, above all, good to the core) that a man called Tom Riddle had defiled it with Black Magic, and then hidden it from the world, trusting that he was the only one who could find that particular room, despite the obvious sign that it was where lost objects were taken by the elves if there was no name anywhere on them, hence the name Room of Hidden Things.
After that revelation, Harry called Dobby and asked him if he could bring Draco and Remus, because he knew that Draco's magical aura sensitivity would help them pinpoint the location of the possible Horcrux, and because he knew if he didn't include one of his guardians or Professor Snape, then all three of them would kill him.
Once the two had arrived, it took a little bit less than half an hour to find the beautiful diadem, which was swiftly placed in a transfigured wooden box by Remus. Once that was done, Remus left the three of them to look through the room while he took the Horcrux through the Floo in his office and straight to Gringotts for the Horcrux-tracking procedure the Goblins had unearthed in Egypt and told them about.
Draco ended up calling Dobby to get the rest of their group so they could go through the entire room and look for anything useful. He was gobsmacked when he found a collection of rare jewels, each of them a different size ranging from smaller than his pinky fingernail to as big as his fist. Hermione and Luna, of course, ended up salivating over a huge collection of books about lots of different subject, some of them looked like they were at least seventy years old. Fred and George found some antiquated prank items from fifty years ago which still had the Zonko's label on them. Harry found a small stack of wands, and although some of them were broken in some way, most of them still seemed to be in working condition. Neville discovered that there was an old Venomous Tentacula plant in a corner of the room, and told them he'd be back once the place was more cleaned up with Professor Sprout to get it out of there.
Once they'd thoroughly explored the room to their heart's content, they left, promising the things they'd discovered that they'd be back to take them to a better place where no one would be able to steal them away. Then it was off to Quidditch practice for the twins, Harry, and Draco, since Oliver was being even more fanatical than usual in his last year at Hogwarts.
