Grandmum Lise insisted that Alex stay in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend, with Madam Pomfrey to keep an eye on him when she had to leave for shift at St. Mungo's. He didn't argue or complain, especially after the look that his mother gave him. He instead asked his mother to pack up the shattered remnants of his Nimbus Two Thousand One and had Ron put it away in his trunk for him. Alex knew he was being stupid, knew that the Nimbus was beyond repair and that Sirius was going to get him a Firebolt for Christmas, but he couldn't help it; he felt as though he'd lost one of his best friends.

Alex also found out why his parents and paternal grandparents had been at the match. While nobody had foreseen the dementors appearing on the Snitch, Aunt Maria did have a vision Thursday night of him lying in hospital wing after falling off his broom. That had alarmed the family enough that his parents and paternal grandparents had decided to show up for the match, so that they could try to prevent the vision from happening, or at least lessen the impact of the fall. However, they hadn't told him, since they didn't want to worry him or have him actually fall in the course of trying to avoid doing so.

Alex had a stream of visitors, including the rest of his family dropping by for a couple hours on Sunday morning, all intent on cheering him up. Hagrid sent him a bunch of earwiggy flowers that looked like yellow cabbages. The Ravenclaw quintet turned up with some Muggle sweets that Adam and Leah's mother had sent them and a get-well card they had made, which sang shrilly unless Alex kept it shut under his bowl of fruit. Jonas and Esther came by with their friends, who had formed a 'Slytherin quintet', with get-well cards that they had made, and Astoria passed on a couple of chocolate frogs from her sister Daphne and Tracey, saying that they would have come themselves, but didn't want to cause any trouble with their roommates

The Gryffindor team visited again on Sunday morning, this time accompanied by Oliver, who told Alex (in a hollow, dead sort of voice) that he didn't blame him in the slightest. Aunt Maria and Uncle Tobias frowned, and after the team had left, Aunt Sarah said, "I can understand getting obsessed over Quidditch, but I can't understand becoming so obsessed that you forget that a match is not worth the life of one of your players."

Granny Ilsa nodded and was about to add to that, but at that point, Cara and Cedric came in. "Hello, everyone," Cedric said respectfully. He then rushed over to the side of Alex's bed. "Are you feeling better, Alex? Cara told me what happened to your broom. I'm really sorry about everything that happened to you at the match. I didn't even know that the dementors caused you to fall at first. When I asked Cara about it, she said she thinks your confrontation with You-Know-Who and Professor Quirrell your first year must have affected you badly enough that it's the bad memory the dementors bring forth."

Actually, that was a plausible explanation for why Alex was affected worse than any other student by the dementors, so he decided that if anyone else questioned him about it, he would use that, since he couldn't reveal the truth. He shot Cara a grateful look for coming up with that explanation and then said, "Cedric, it's all right. I'm better now, and nothing that happened at the match was your fault."

"But there still should be a rematch," Cedric protested. "You only missed catching the Snitch and fell off your broom because of the dementors. If they hadn't appeared on the pitch, you would have beaten me to the Snitch. And the weather conditions didn't really help. You wear glasses, so the rain would have made it difficult for you to see unless you spelled them to repel water. Also, I'm a bit bigger than you, so the wind wouldn't have blown me off course as much as it did you. If we'd had an even playing field, I know Gryffindor would have won."

"Cedric, there was nothing anyone could have done about the weather," Alex said patiently. "And nobody predicted that the dementors would leave the front gate and come to the pitch. Hufflepuff won fair and square, so please accept that."

"I guess," said Cedric, still looking rather regretful. "Here. Cara says that they're some of your favorite sweets?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and two wrapped Chocoballs.

"Yes they are," replied Alex. "Thanks, Cedric."

"You're welcome. I hope you continue getting better." Cedric smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes, which were still full of regret, and then bid everyone in the room a good day and left the hospital wing.

Alex unwrapped one of the Chocoballs and ate it, as Cara said, "Not everyone on the Hufflepuff team is exactly happy that Cedric wanted a rematch. You know Zacharias Smith? The guy in your year who looks disdainful most of the time and is a Chaser? He was happy that Hufflepuff won and kept protesting when Cedric was calling for a rematch. Kept ignoring the fact that the dementors showed up and you almost died. Smith was the only one, though. I honestly don't know how he ended up in Hufflepuff, unless he didn't fit in any of the other houses. He really doesn't show the qualities of loyalty and fair play."

"Every house has it's good and bad members," Alex pointed out. "Wormtail was in Gryffindor, after all, and he ended up betraying his friends and joining Riddle. Cormac McLaggen's a braggart and embodies most of the negative traits of Gryffindor. And Vera says that Ravenclaws value those that are different, but obviously not everyone in that house actually does so, since some of them were making fun of Luna for being, what's the word, eccentric."

"Kids can be cruel," Hermione pointed out (the rest of the Gryffindor quintet refused to leave Alex's side except to sleep, eat, and use the bathroom). "I was teased for being a bookworm and a know-it-all in primary school, and the accidental magic didn't exactly help matters."

"That's true," said Cara, making a face. "Every school is going to have at least one bully. Alex, are you sure you're better?"

"Madam Pomfrey gave me a once-over earlier this morning," said Alex. "And Grandmum Lise will probably drop by before she has to go to work tonight to make sure I am fit enough to attend classes tomorrow. I feel fine. Oh, and thank you for coming up with that explanation about why the dementors affect me so much. I should have thought of that when Adam and Leah were speculating about it on the Hogwarts Express."

"Well, Cedric was curious about why the dementors had that kind of effect on you, and since I couldn't tell him the truth and saying that I didn't know or brushing him off would probably cause him to ask you, I had to come up with something. That sounded plausible enough, since most people probably would be scared enough at facing Riddle that they'd faint or at least be badly shaken if a dementor caused them to remember the incident."

"Well, if anyone else asks, I'll use the explanation you came up with, Cara."

Cara sat with him for fifteen more minutes, though she spent most of it talking with parents. After that, she left for lunch, and the aunts and uncles, plus Granddad Eli and the maternal grandparents, bid Alex good-bye and left as well. Ron and Hermione left to have a quick lunch, with Beth and Neville staying behind to keep Alex company as he ate the lunch Madam Pomfrey brought him, and when the former two returned twenty minutes later, the latter two left for their lunch. The four had been doing that so that he would always have someone with him at mealtimes.

Later in the afternoon, when there were no other visitors except for Ivan and Vera, who had dropped by again to see how he was, Alex finally brought up the subject of the memory that the dementors brought forth. To keep Madam Pomfrey from overhearing anything in her office, Ivan did a spell that his godfather had taught him that would do exactly that.

"Well, you're just going to have to learn the Patronus Charm so that you don't keep being affected like this," said Vera. "The adults in the family were thinking that you ought to learn, after what happened at the match, but were concerned about your age. There is a reason why the spell is N.E.W.T.-level."

"But you know how to do the Patronus Charm already, when you're supposed to learn it sometime this year," Alex pointed out.

"Yes, but I learned it over the summer, Alex," Vera said. "Not three years before I was supposed to. On the other hand, you are quite advanced when it comes to defensive spells, so you could be able to master it now."

"Then could you teach me?" Alex glanced at his friends, and added, "And Beth and our friends, if they want to?"

"I'm sorry, but I've got prefect duties and schoolwork, so I wouldn't have much time to spare on tutoring sessions. Why don't you ask Professor Lupin? He should be able to teach you and your friends, and Cara and Ivan. They should learn the Patronus Charm too. Not David and his friends, or Jonas and his friends, though, since they're still too young for something this advanced."

"All right," said Alex. "I'll ask Uncle Remus tomorrow after class. He should be completely recovered and resume teaching then. So, Beth and friends, do you want to take Patronus lessons too?"

The rest of the Gryffindor quintet said that they did, so they decided that they would all approach Professor Lupin after Defense class tomorrow. At that point, Grandmum Lise arrived. Ivan hastily took down the anti-eavesdropping spell and the group moved to the other side of the room so that Alex could have his brief check-up in private.

"Well, you appear physically fine," Grandmum Lise pronounced at the end. "You can attend classes tomorrow, Alex, but please take it easy. As for your psychological health, it's not easy getting over the memories that dementors bring out in you. Before they were driven away, I started remembering things from my time in the concentration camps, and you can imagine the nightmares I had when I went to sleep after my shift today. Talk with your sister, cousins, and friends whenever the memories of your biological parents' deaths are bothering you, all right? Or use Cara's two-way mirror if you want to talk with one of the adults in the family. We are here for you."

"Thanks, Grandmum Lise," responded Alex. "I will."

Grandmum Lise smiled and then looked at her watch. "And my shift starts in half an hour, so I'll take my leave. It'll take me at least ten minutes to walk to the front gate so that I can Apparate to St. Mungo's. I love you, Alex."

"I love you too, Grandmum." She patted him on the shoulder, bid a quick good-bye to the other people in the hospital wing, and left.

While having his friends and family around helped him, it didn't do anything for giving him a good night's sleep. Instead, Alex slept fitfully, sinking into dreams full of clammy, rotted hands and petrified pleading, jerking awake to dwell on again on his biological mother's voice. The last time he woke up, it was to a dream of his adoptive mother standing protectively in front of toddler versions of him and Beth, looking utterly terrified and begging for their lives, while Voldemort on the back of Quirrell's head pointed a wand threateningly at her and demanded that she stand aside.

After Alex managed to recover somewhat from the dream, he looked at his watch and saw that it was six in the morning. Ron had brought him his mirror that connected him to the rest of the Gryffindor quintet, so Alex grabbed it and tapped it with his wand, whispering "Beth Romanov."

A couple of minutes later, Beth and Hermione's faces appeared in the mirror. "You're lucky I got up an hour early to get some studying in and saw Beth's mirror flashing, Alex," Hermione said. "I woke her up so she could answer you."

"So what do you need?" asked Beth, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"I had a bad dream, and wanted to talk to you about it," Alex replied. "If you want to join in, Hermione, you can. But could you two go down to the common room? I don't want to disturb your dormmates or have them overhear anything that they shouldn't."

Beth and Hermione did so and then Alex quietly told them about the dreams he had. When he was done, Beth said, "It's the dementors. You know Grandmum Lise said she had some nightmares related to her surviving the Holocaust because they appeared at the match. If they hadn't been driven away when they did, or they'd been closer to her, she'd probably have passed out too, considering the horrors she experienced."

Recalling what he had read in Grandpa Vladek's account of his time in the camps, Alex couldn't help but shudder. "Anyway, I think the last dream I had was the worst, Beth. I don't actually remember Lily Potter, outside of what the dementors bring out, so seeing Mum standing in front of toddler versions of us, facing Riddle as I saw him last and begging for our lives..."

Beth winced. "I suppose you're going to need to ask Madam Pomfrey for some Dreamless Sleep Potion, if you keep having dreams like that."

"I guess," said Alex. "But it can only help so much. I can't keep taking the potion, since Granny Ilsa told us that it can be addictive."

"Well, you can take some tonight, and just talk with us," said Hermione. "We're your friends and here for you. Talking about things can help you get over them."

"I'll do that, Hermione. Thanks." He looked at his watch again and said, "I'm going to get up now. See you at breakfast later." He tapped the mirror with his wand, ending the connection, and got out of bed.

It was something of a relief to return to the noise and bustle of the main school on Monday, where he was forced to think about other things, even if he hasd to endure Theodore Nott's taunting. Nott was almost beside himself with glee at Gryffindor's defeat, and during Potions, muttered comments about how it was too bad that the dementors couldn't have finished Alex off or that he deserved what had happened after being the cause of Mr. Nott being arrested. The Gryffindors finally had enough and when Professor Snape was busy helping Tracey Davis with her potion, Seamus flung a crocodile heart at Nott, which hit him in the face, while the others hissed threats at him and Lavender got up and dumped a bottle of gold glitter on him.

Nott shrieked in outrage, causing Professor Snape to look up from Tracey's cauldron. "What is going on here?" he demanded.

By this point, Lavender had returned to her seat and hastily tucked the empty bottle in her pocket, and all the other Gryffindors had sat down too, so there was just Nott standing angrily, gold glitter on his hair, a wet, slimy streak on his face, and the crocodile heart lying on the desk in front of him. "Mr. Nott, what in Merlin's name happened to you?" Snape asked.

"It's the Gryffindors!" Nott spat. "One of them, I didn't see who, threw this crocodile heart at me, and Brown dumped the glitter."

"Excuse me, Professor Snape," Daphne piped up. "Nott making comments about how Alexander Romanov deserved what happened to him at the match and that it was too bad the dementors didn't finish him off. That's why the Gryffindors did that."

"I thought after what happened last week you would have all learned to not cause disturbances in my class!" Snape snapped, a look of fury on his face. "Since you seem to have instigated things, Mr. Nott, you have a week of detention with me, and fifty points will be taken from Slytherin. It pains me to have to take points from my own house, but perhaps it will get through to you to behave yourself. As for Gryffindor, you also lose fifty points. Just because someone is being rude doesn't mean that you can retaliate in this way. Miss Brown, since you dumped glitter on Mr. Nott, you have detention tomorrow night. I will inform Professor McGonagall of what happened and you will serve it with her. Who threw the crocodile heart?"

There was no response until Professor Snape threatened to take another fifty points if someone didn't step forward. Seamus raised his hand and admitted it was him, so he was given detention with Professor McGonagall as well. Professor Snape then dismissed Nott so he could clean up, and informed the class that the next person who misbehaved would lose one hundred points and have two weeks of detention.

In the afternoon's Defense Against the Dark Arts class, the Gryffindors spent an enjoyable lesson learning about hinkypunks, a little one-legged creature that looked as though it were made of wisps of smoke, rather frail and harmless-looking. They liked to lure travelers into bogs, using the lantern dangling from their hands to do so. When the bell rang, everyone gathered up their things. The Gryffindor quintet were the only ones that didn't leave, however.

Professor Lupin looked a little surprised to see all five of them. "I had planned to have a word with Alex, but I didn't expect all five of you to need to speak to me in private," he said. "I heard about what happened at the match. I'm sorry about your broom, Alex, but at least Sirius said he was going to get you a new one for a Christmas present. How are you feeling?"

"Better," Alex answered. "Though I've been having some bad dreams related to the memory the dementors bring out in me. Anyway, what we wanted to talk to you about was seeing if you could teach us the Patronus Charm. I don't want what happened at the match to happen again, and my parents were thinking that I should learn, though there was some concern about my age. And if you're willing to teach me, you might as well teach Beth too, since we learn everything together, and our friends decided that they wanted to learn as well."

"And Cara and Ivan also wanted to learn," added Beth.

"Well, Ivan, Fred, and George did mention that they wanted to learn the Patronus Charm after their class this morning," said Professor Lupin thoughtfully. "And I have no objection to teaching you five. It would be a useful spell to learn. However, practical lessons will have to wait until next term, I'm afraid. I have a lot to do before the holidays. In the meantime, I'd like you to read up on the theory, and practice saying the spell without your wands. When the holidays are over, I'll schedule some lesson times for you five, Ivan, and Fred and George that won't interfere with the Gryffindor Quidditch practices. As for Cara, she can join us if it doesn't conflict with the Hufflepuff practices, or I'll schedule a different time for her."

"Thank you, Professor Lupin," said Hermione. The others echoed the thanks and then they left the classroom.

What with the promise of anti-dementor lessons from Professor Lupin, the thought that he might never have to hear his biological mother's death again, and the fact that Ravenclaw flattened Hufflepuff in their Quidditch match at the end of November, Alex's mood took a definite upturn. Gryffindor were not out of the running after all, although they could not afford to lose another match. Oliver became repossessed of his manic energy, and worked his team as hard as ever in the chilly haze of rain that persisted into December. Due to his broom being destroyed and the fact that he wasn't getting a replacement until Christmas, Alex had resumed using the team broom at practices, necessitating Ron using his Cleansweep Seven.

Meanwhile, there was no hint of a dementor within the ground. Dumbledore's anger seemed to be keeping them at their stations at the entrance. Two weeks before the end of term, the sky lightened suddenly to a dazzling, ioaline white and the muddy grounds were revealed one morning covered in glittering frost,. Inside the castle, there was a buzz of Christmas in the air. Professor Flitwick had already decorated his classroom with shimmering lights that turned out to be real, fluttering fairies. The students were all happily discussing their plans for the holidays. Hermione wasn't going home for the holidays, but instead had elected to accept Beth and Alex's invitation to spend Christmas with their family, as she was curious how the Romani celebrated.

To everyone's delight, there was to be another Hogsmeade trip on the very last weekend of the term. "We can do all our Christmas shopping there!" exclaimed Hermione delightedly. "Mum and Dad would really love those Toothflossing Stringmints from Honeydukes."

On the Saturday morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Vera accompanied the Gryffindor quintet on the way to the front entrance, doing the Patronus Charm so that the dementors would keep their distance and not bother Alex as much. "If the secret entrances that led out to Hogsmeade weren't either guarded, caved in, or have the Whomping Willow over them, I'd have you use one so you could bypass the dementors entirely, Alex," she said.

"It's all right, Vera," said Alex. "At least you're here to keep them away."

Once at Hogsmeade, Vera left them, after telling them to get her once they were ready to return to Hogwarts so that she could keep the dementors away on the way back in. The quintet assured her that they would and then headed for Honeydukes to pick up some sweets.

In mid-afternoon, after having lunch and butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks, they found Vera, sitting at a corner table with Percy, the remains of their lunch between them and nursing cups of coffee. "Oh, are you guys ready to leave?" asked Percy, since Vera currently had her cup to her mouth.

"Yes, we are," said Neville.

"All right, just let us finish our coffee and pay for our meal," said Vera, setting down her cup. "Percy, whose turn is it to pay?"

"I paid for lunch at our last Hogsmeade visit," Percy replied, "so it's your turn. Good thing too, since after all the Christmas shopping I did today, I don't think I have enough left over to cover both our meals."

"Well, if it had been your turn, I'd just propose that we split the bill and you could have paid for lunch next time," said Vera. "If you'll excuse me." She drained her cup, then fished out a Galleon and a couple Sickles from her purse and went up to the bar to pay the bill.

"So the two of you alternate who pays for meals on your dates?" asked Hermione interestingly.

Percy nodded. "It's that, or we split the bill. I don't have enough pocket money to be able to afford to pay on all our dates, and Vera doesn't either."

Vera returned from paying, putting the few Knuts she got in change in her purse. "So are you guys ready to go now?" There were nods, so Vera and Percy made sure they were properly bundled up, gathered up their bags with their purchases, and then escorted the Gryffindor quintet out of the inn.