AN: Summer vacay... Yeah, so kinda? This is all in fun.
Also, still do not own Harry Potter.
Have You Heard?
Dementors can't cast a patronus.
The wizard stared down at his former companion.
Correction, the BODY of his former companion.
He was dead. No movement, no soul, nothing was there to give any proof of life.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, his former companion had been eaten by a dementor, which was now trapped, but he was still not completely over that the man, or at least the man in the body he knew, was gone.
Okay, list of things to do: bury a body, and perform a necromantic ritual to make his former companion take control of the body of the dementor.
.
"Herpo?"
The younger necromancer leaned forward slightly, but didn't touch the dementor's body in case lingering habits still lingered in the man's brain. He didn't want to end up in the same position as the older man before the whole thing. He liked to eat his bacon and eggs in the morning, really.
"Hello, Apprentice Nott?"
"Yes, hello again. That was... not great."
"I can't imagine so. I was wondering of you could teach me that wonderful spell of yours that kept the dementor from eating you."
"Okay. Just a warning that it is very much... happiness, and you are in the body of a dementor."
"Hmm. I see your point. This body does eat happiness to survive. Me projecting that right now would be hard, but I have beaten other obstacles. I beat getting eaten by a dementor, so there's that."
"I guess."
.
"I think I got it."
Nott rolled his eyes. It had been a week or so, and his mentor hadn't given up. It was frustrating for him to realize that the former man didn't have to sleep, and he then had to explain that even if Herpo no longer needed sleep, he still did. He was thankful though when Herpo decided to rummage through the libraries again to see if he could find something that would help him cast the patronus spell.
Yesterday, Herpo had managed mist, but he wasn't content with that. He had wanted to get the full thing. Well, today, he had already seen some sort of shape in the mist.
"Well, sir, what have you got wrong?"
"I need to push some more of my soul into it."
Any stopping the man was over because he cast in that instant, a fully formed raven hopping on the ground beside him.
Then he keeled over.
Once again, Nott felt he was repeating history as once again, the body of his mentor was dead. He looked at the glowing raven and said, "You're the raven, aren't you."
The raven nodded.
"Can you get back in?"
The raven hopped over the body he had been housed in for the last several days, and tried unsuccessfully to merge with it.
Nott just felt done.
"I get that you wanted to get the horribly hard spell for you, but why did you have to push your soul into it when it wasn't that firmly attached to the body in the first place."
"Because my research indicated that a soul should want to be in a body."
"Well, did your research include that when you're in the body that is not natural to you? You idiotic, headstrong, foolish knave."
"No need for the strong words, young man."
"There is every reason for the strong words..."
Nott huffed as he walked away from the house that he had spent the last few years. Once he had cooled down, he went and got all the books he knew that his family didn't have copies of, and took them to his family as he left.
Herpo's theory was partially correct. He found himself in patronus wandering back to where the body of the dementor was decomposing. His apprentice's family moved away, and before he knew it, a new family moved in.
"Hey, dad. There's this really dead guy with a patronus hanging around."
"Let me see, son," said the man, as he shooed his teen-aged son to the side.
Then he saw it.
"Oh, gross. Well, I guess don't touch anything. We don't know why he died."
.
The aurors got the last few spells on Herpo's wand was the patronus. They eventually decided that the patronus, a completely positive emotioned spell, was what killed him. He went into history books unnamed as the dark wizard who cast a patronus and was then eaten by grubs.
The Notts knew it was not just the spell that killed him, but also putting his soul into a spell where his soul wasn't completely connected to the body yet.
The former apprentice of Herpo the foul decided he shouldn't teach anymore dementors the dementors the dementor repelling spell either.