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Part Two

"Harry."

Harry blinked and opened his eyes. Madam Pomfrey wasn't letting him out of the hospital wing for right now, even though he hadn't really been injured when he fell from his broom with hundreds of Dementors swarming onto the Quidditch pitch. She had talked about shock and the like, and Harry supposed that there might be something to that. Although he was most upset about his broom breaking.

Professor Lupin was standing next to Harry's bed with tears in his eyes. Harry resisted the urge to pretend he hadn't heard and go back to sleep.

"I'm so sorry," Lupin whispered, with his voice sounding broken. "I thought—I thought the Dementors would stay off the school grounds…" He wiped at his eyes, then straightened up and gave Harry what Harry thought was supposed to be a reassuring smile. "But Professor Dumbledore has banned them from the grounds now, so there won't be any more incidents like that."

Harry widened his eyes a little. "I thought I saw a Patronus. Was that yours?"

"No, Professor Dumbledore's. His is a phoenix." Lupin smiled more genuinely. "I just wanted to tell you so that you would feel safer."

"I thought you said before this that I didn't need to know the Patronus Charm, professor."

"You still don't need to. That's why I apologized, because I thought the Dementors would never come onto the grounds. But you still don't need to learn the Patronus Charm."

"Why don't you want me to learn it, professor?"

Lupin looked at Harry closely, as if seeing him for the first time. Harry sat up and rubbed his eyes, reaching for his glasses on the side table. Lupin promptly hushed him, giving Madam Pomfrey's office door a nervous look.

"Why don't you want me to learn the Patronus?"

"It's not that I don't want you to learn it, Harry. It's that it takes so much time, and you could spend that time better."

"Doing what?"

"Playing Quidditch, for one."

"With what broom?"

Lupin hesitated, and blinked. Then he laughed a little uncomfortably. "I'm sure that you'll be able to find one among the school brooms that will work for you."

"They're not in very good shape."

Lupin shook his head and leaned in to speak earnestly and quietly. "I want you to understand that you have nothing to fear, Harry. The Dementors are hunting for Sirius Black, not you. Please stay calm and promise me that you're not going to practice dangerous magic outside of class."

"I would never practice Dark Arts, professor."

Lupin gave Harry a sharp look, which proved he was smarter than Harry had thought he was. "I didn't mean Dark Arts. I mean magic like the Patronus, which can put a tremendous strain on your magic while you're so young."

I wasn't too young to face Quirrell. I wasn't too young to face the basilisk.

But Lupin hadn't been at Hogwarts for those times, and Harry could see from the stubborn glitter in the professor's eyes that he'd made up his mind. So Harry sighed and bowed his head. "All right," he mumbled. "I just—can you promise that I'll be safe?"

"I promise it, Harry."

Lupin turned and left the hospital wing after squeezing Harry's shoulder once. He was smiling. Harry lay still and stared up at the ceiling and felt a little bad about lying to the first decent Defense professor they'd had.

But he had to. It was too important to keep practicing. Maybe Harry would have stopped if it was just him, but there were all the rest of his friends, too, who wanted to learn the Patronus, and who could be threatened by the Dementors. Harry didn't believe that Professor Dumbledore would be able to keep them off the grounds.

They just came on for no reason. It's not like Sirius Black was attending the Quidditch game. Why would they back off now?

But he wasn't going to say any of that. And he was glad that Lupin apparently hadn't seen the little flash of silver that Harry had managed to conjure when he saw the Dementors heading towards him, before they'd overwhelmed him and he'd fallen. At least he'd managed a little.

"Potter."

Harry turned around and put his back to the wall behind him, promptly. That was something he had been practicing with the others in the Room, and this growly voice was a good reason to do it.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah?" Harry stared up at Marcus Flint, of all people, who loomed in front of Harry and actually looked a little uncomfortable. "Prove it."

"See?" Flint held out empty hands. "No wand."

"You don't need your wand to hurt me. Just your fists."

Flint blinked a few times and glanced around as if he thought Harry might be accusing someone standing behind him. "That's Muggle stuff," he said finally. "Crabbe and Goyle do it. Not me."

"Okay," Harry said slowly. He still couldn't see any reason that the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team would have approached him just outside the Great Hall. He was kind of glad that Ron and Hermione were still eating lunch, though. They would probably have made this worse. "What do you want?"

"Saw the Dementors attacking you."

"Yeah, I think everyone did."

Flint ignored that, staring at Harry from under his heavy brows. "I saw the little silver thing you conjured."

"No one will believe you if you tell them."

Flint laughed, a grating sound that Harry didn't think he'd ever heard before. "'Course not. Not going to tell them, either. Just wanted to know how you learned. And if the person who taught you would teach me."

Harry stared at him in shock. Flint was several years older than Harry, not just a few, since he'd had to repeat one year, and he wanted Harry to teach him?

Not that he knew it was Harry teaching and learning with his friends. He probably thought it was a professor.

"I learned by myself," Harry said at last. Flint probably wouldn't believe him, and would then leave him alone, which was the best outcome, as far as Harry was concerned.

"Can't have."

"What? Why not?"

"Because then your friends would have been raising a fuss about you running off and leaving them." Flint rumbled a laugh as Harry stared at him. "Shouldn't think you're invisible even off the Quidditch pitch, Potter."

Harry bit his lip and restrained the temptation to blurt out that he was invisible sometimes. Just because Slytherins got under his skin didn't mean that he had to yell at them. "Well, it's kind of true. I learned practicing with my friends. I asked Professor Lupin, but he said he wouldn't teach me. He thinks I'm too young."

Flint studied Harry harder than Harry thought he might ever have looked at anything except the Quaffle. Then Flint said, "That group of yours got room for one more?"

"You—you can't possibly."

"Why not?"

"Studying with Gryffindors? One of whom's a Muggleborn?" Harry straightened up, since it seemed Flint wouldn't curse or try to beat him up right away after all, and stared skeptically at the other boy. "No, I don't believe that you would do something like that. That you would want to do something like that."

"The Dementors are worse than studying with a Muggleborn. And I already told you, Potter. Not Crabbe or Goyle. Not Malfoy."

Was that Flint's way of saying that he wasn't really a blood purist? Harry studied him, but Flint had apparently said all he was going to say. He stood there with his arms folded and just waited.

"I'll have to talk to the others," Harry said at last. "See how they feel about it, and if they believe you'd betray us."

"Fine," Flint said. "I'll come talk to you after breakfast Monday morning and see what they said." And he turned and walked away as if Harry was of no account to him at all.

Harry stared after him and wondered when his life had got so weird.

"Flint? A Slytherin? Fred and George hate him! No way can we let him in on a secret like this!"

"Are you sure that he isn't a blood purist, Harry?" Hermione was very pale and clutching her wand like she thought she would have to duel Flint in a second.

"He seemed to be saying that," Harry mumbled. "But I thought we should ask Fred and George." And he turned and looked at the twins, who were poking at a wall of the Room that had turned into a curtain of dark blue crystals. "Come on. What do you think of Flint?"

Fred and George exchanged looks that went on for so long Harry was sure they would speak against Flint joining them. Then Fred shrugged. "It's true that we've never heard him make a blood purist comment."

"But he does hate Gryffindors," George said. "So once he sees the kind of spells we're studying here, he might think he can use us for target practice."

"We'll change his mind if that starts," Harry said, and turned around to look at Neville and Ginny and Luna. "What do you lot think?"

Neville and Ginny both looked startled that he was asking their opinion, and looked at each other a lot more helplessly than the twins. "It's y-your group," Neville said. "You could invite Flint if you wanted."

Harry narrowed his eyes at Neville. "It's our group. And if Flint's bullied you or something, then I want to know."

"He's never done it. I don't think he knows I exist."

Ginny nodded "The same with me. Luna?"

"He probably knows that I exist. I believe he was there when I was Sorted last year."

"No, I mean, has he ever said anything cruel to you? Or stolen your things the way some of your Housemates have?"

Luna cocked her head thoughtfully. "No. It's strange, isn't it, that eagles steal more often than snakes? Do you think it has something to do with eagles stealing food from other birds in the wild?" She stood up, eyes widening. "I never thought of that. I must write these thoughts down."

A desk popped into being in front of her, complete with parchment, ink, and quill. Luna skipped over and began to scribble on it.

Harry looked around at his other friends. Hermione was the one who stayed still the longest, but at last she nodded and said, "We'll take a chance. I don't think anyone should have to face the Dementors without a Patronus."

"All right. I'll tell Flint that we're accepting him."

Merlin, my life is so weird.

Harry stood up when he saw Flint coming down the corridor towards him. They were in a different part of the dungeons than where everyone went for Potions class (and also a different part than the Slytherin common room, not that Harry thought the Slytherins knew he knew that). Flint had agreed to meet him there so no one would see Harry Potter walking beside him.

And he had agreed to come alone. Harry narrowed his eyes at Blaise Zabini, a boy in his own year, who was following along in Flint's wake.

"Stop scowling, Potter," Zabini said with a breezy tone. "I blackmailed Flint into letting me come. He didn't really have a choice."

"No one else agreed on you," Harry said. "We all had to agree on Flint."

"What are you, the Wizengamot?"

"No, I'm the one who's learning the Patronus Charm with a group of my friends and doesn't have to take you to them."

Zabini lost his smile. "Listen, Potter, if those things come onto the school grounds, we're all in danger. Don't you see that this is bigger than House rivalries or blood purity? We should be inviting everyone, really, but I understand why you want to leave out people like Malfoy and the ones who would go running to the professors to report we were breaking the rules. I'm neither, so I'm here."

"I know that I heard you laughing at least once when some of the Quidditch team was joking about blood purity."

Flint folded his arms and scowled, but said nothing. He obviously considered that this was a conversation between Zabini and Harry.

"Didn't you listen to anything I just said?"

"Sure. I also don't want to invite the kind of person to learn with us who thinks nothing of blackmailing people."

"Pardon? I considered whether this was the best opportunity for my blackmail on the Slytherin Quidditch Captain carefully before I deployed it."

"Stop joking, Zabini."

"Fine. Listen to me, Potter. I won't betray you if you let me come along. I won't make comments about blood purity to anyone. I'll learn whatever spells you're practicing, and I can show you some useful ones that they don't teach in Hogwarts."

"And if we don't let you come along?"

"I'm afraid that my feet might just lead me to Professor Snape's office. It's like they have a mind of their own sometimes. Troublesome, but they're good feet on the whole."

Harry stared at Zabini. Zabini beamed at him. Harry finally turned away, shaking his head.

"Fine, but don't blame me if you get Obliviated the minute we get in there," he said over his shoulder.

"I can teach you more powerful mind-altering spells than a Memory Charm."

Harry just nodded. He kind of disliked how tempted he was by that, but Zabini didn't need to know it.

He already knows too bloody much.

"What is Zabini doing here?"

"He made an argument I couldn't refuse."

"I threatened to blackmail him and go straight to Snape to talk about your Defense group," Zabini explained, looking around the Room with interest. At the moment, there was one huge wall of mirrors that Neville and Luna were using to help them studying their own wand movements, one corner that provided sand and leaves and other materials that people could Transfigure, and the usual fireplace, couches, bookshelves, and targets. "I like it. Accepting me was a good decision on your part."

Hermione and Ron turned to frown at Harry. He shrugged helplessly, and then turned to Flint. "I'm still working on the Patronus Charm. Do you want to watch me do it first, or do you want to do something else?"

"I'm going to watch you practice, Potter. That's the only reason that I'm here."

Being the subject of Flint's intense, critical stare while he practiced put Harry off his stride a little, but he at last got the same flash of silver that he had during the Quidditch game. Flint leaned closer as if he could make out the traces of Harry's wand passing through the air. Zabini wandered over from a bookshelf.

"Why did you want to learn the Patronus anyway?"

"The Dementors overwhelmed me on the train. And Professor Lupin said they wouldn't come onto the grounds, but you saw how wrong he was."

"Ah," Zabini breathed. "I did wonder why you weren't asking the first competent Defense professor we've had for help."

Harry grimaced, hoping that he hadn't just handed Zabini more blackmail material. But he had no time to worry about it. He still wanted to master the Patronus more than he had so far, and Flint was making little impatient gestures with his hand.

Harry turned back to practicing.

"Where's Luna?"

Harry looked up from arguing with Hermione over whether they should try to put more Runes and Arithmancy into their Defense group, since she was the only one other than Zabini taking the classes. "What?"

"Where's Luna?" Ginny repeated. She was staring in worry at the Ravenclaw table. "I don't see her anywhere, and it's not like her to be late to breakfast."

Harry sat up, staring around. Ginny was right. He had thought Luna was eating down at the other end of the Ravenclaw table, but she wasn't there, either. He looked towards the entrance of the Great Hall, just in case she was coming in right now. The doorway was empty except for a few Slytherins trailing in.

Harry shoved his chair back.

"Harry? Harry, calm down! She might be okay."

"But she might not be, Hermione," Harry said, and glared at the Ravenclaws. Luna hadn't wanted to tell them who the worst of her bullies were, just going on about Nargles, so Harry didn't know if any of them had done anything. But he was sure that someone had.

"Harry, wait, here she comes."

Harry sighed with relief as he watched Luna skip into the Great Hall. Ginny immediately ran over to her, and they stood talking for a minute before Luna veered down to sit at the end of the Ravenclaw table nearest the Gryffindor one. Harry sat down, too, but not before catching her eye. Luna smiled and waved at him.

"Is she okay?" Harry asked Ginny.

"Yeah." Ginny smiled at him. Harry thought all of them were improving in confidence with the Defense group, but the best thing for him personally was that Ginny had stopped blushing and stuttering at him. "Luna woke up this morning and found one of her roommates had opened her trunk and taken her shoes. So Luna took her wand and used the Knockback Jinx to fling her into the wall."

Harry laughed. "Good for her!"

"Did she get in trouble with Professor Flitwick?" Hermione asked, leaning around Harry.

"Get in trouble for what?" Ron plopped down in the seat next to Harry, yawning and reaching for tea.

"No. The girl said she would go tell him, but Luna said that she would tell him about the stealing, and the girl backed down." Ginny reached for her own wand holster, looking down the Gryffindor table at one of the upper-years, Cormac McLaggen.

"Just remember that he might go to Professor McGonagall," Harry said under his breath as he reached for his own teacup.

"He couldn't," Ginny said cheerfully. "People would think he was a coward, especially since he's two years older than me."

Harry nodded and faced Hermione again. She had her eyebrows raised, but a second later she smiled and said, "I think we could really benefit from Runes, Harry."

Harry happily settled back into the argument, waving at Luna when she waved at him again. Things were going really well.

"Harry? Stay behind after class, please."

"What did you do?" Seamus whispered as he gathered up his books behind Harry.

Harry shrugged. Seamus wasn't a close friend or part of his Defense group, and he didn't need an explanation. "I don't know."

The others filed out, giving Harry curious or sympathetic looks. Harry watched as Lupin locked the door of the classroom. Was he going to offer Harry Patronus lessons again? That would be ironic, when Harry really didn't need them. He could form a silvery shield that would move around now, and he was getting closer to an animal every day.

"Harry, I have something very serious to talk to you about."

Harry restrained the temptation to ask if the "serious" was about Sirius Black. Lupin didn't look like he would appreciate the joke. "All right, sir. What is it? I thought I did all right on our practice exam."

Lupin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "It's about the speed with which you've been casting your spells."

"The—speed?" Harry blinked. He hadn't thought that was a problem. If anything, he was pretty sure that casting spells fast was a good thing for someone who wanted to protect themselves.

Lupin leaned back against the restored grindylow tank and sighed as he ran his hand through his shaggy grey hair. He really did look awful a lot. "It suggests that you're practicing spells outside of class, and also that your first response in a lot of situations might be a violent one. Speed like that is something a professional dueler needs, but not a thirteen-year-old."

"Even when it comes to Dementors? Or fighting Voldemort?"

Lupin flinched hard enough that Harry thought he might break the glass and send the grindylow spilling out again. "What? Harry, you know that You-Know-Who is dead and isn't coming back into the school any time soon—"

"I suppose no one told you, sir. During my first year, the Defense professor we had, Quirrell? Voldemort was on the back of his head. He was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, and Ron and Hermione and I had to stop him."

Lupin looked for a second like he was going to vomit. "Why—why did you have to face him?"

"Well, he was trying to steal the Stone! He could have come all the way back to life. And we did try to tell professors, but they just ignored us or tried to tell us it was none of our business. But he would have got the Stone if we hadn't gone down there."

Lupin put one hand over his face. Harry just stood there, with no idea what Lupin was feeling. Upset? Afraid? Hysterical?

Lupin finally lowered his hand, and Harry saw. He looked tired. "Harry, a situation like that is not going to happen again."

"With respect, sir, how do you know? It happened last year, too. The shade of Voldemort possessed someone, and—"

"It is against the rules to practice spells outside of class."

"Yeah, but people do it all the time. The Weasley twins do it, because that's the only way they could play pranks. Why am I the only one who gets in trouble for it? Have you talked to them about it?"

Lupin just stared at him, as if he didn't know what to say. He probably didn't. Harry folded his arms and glared back.

"You do not need to do this, Harry," Lupin finally said, on a sigh. "When—if You-Know-Who comes back, then older people will fight him, not you."

"That hasn't happened three times in a row, why should it happen next time?"

"Harry—"

"You won't even teach me the Patronus to protect myself from Dementors. Why should I think that you care?"

Lupin swallowed. Then he said, "I have—something to tell you. I was a very good friend of your parents, and I was devastated by their deaths and Sirius's betrayal. I just want to make sure that you're safe, Harry. That you won't turn to violence as your first response to situations with other students. That you won't run into danger. I don't know about—You-Know-Who, but I know that you might run after Sirius Black, and—"

"I'm not going to. And where were you all these years? Why didn't you show up and protect me from Voldemort if it's such a big deal to you?"

"I'm sure that your family protected you—"

"They're Muggles who hate magic. They couldn't protect me from Voldemort even if they wanted to. And they don't want to. They would probably cheer as he killed me."

Lupin opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Harry watched him steadily, waiting for something, but in the end, it was only that Lupin closed his mouth and said, "You're still not supposed to be doing magic outside of class."

Harry stared at him.

"If I catch you doing that, I will have to take points, Harry."

"Fine. Can I go now?"

"Just consider what it would mean, if you used a spell so fast that you injured a classmate. That's all I'm asking, just for you to think about it," Lupin said, with stupid earnestness, and flipped his wand to let Harry out of the classroom.

Harry walked out, aching in a way that he never did when he was dueling someone else in their Defense group. He paused when he realized that Hermione and Ron and Neville were all waiting for him.

"What did Professor Lupin say?"

"He thinks I'm using magic outside of class, and I should stop before it makes me violent, and it's against the rules, and adults will protect me, and I shouldn't have to worry about Voldemort or think violence is the answer, and he knew my parents but buggered off somewhere instead of ever making sure that I was all right in the Muggle world."

There was a long pause. Then Ron said, "Well, he's of no bloody help, then."

Harry nodded, and then took a deep breath. "Come on. I want to go practice the Patronus some more."

"Do you think you should, Harry? I mean, you already look so stressed…"

"I'm going to master this because Lupin doesn't think I can."

"Expecto Patronum!"

The gasps of awe from Harry's friends as a silvery dragon unfolded its wings in the middle of the Room were nice, but the satisfaction he felt was deeper and more personal.

Take that, everyone who thinks I don't need to know.