Disclaimer: James and Lily Potter belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter 12: Grubbly-Plank

The Patronus

Wednesday, March 20, 1996.

Amelia Bones frowned as she read the report from Dumbledore from last night. There was not a lot regarding the war: just two more names for the list of potential Death Eater targets. And he warned her that that coming days could lead, indirectly, to increased public interest in the prophecy about Harry Potter, which would be a pain. And of course, there was Percy Weasley's report of an alarming number of safety and security issues at Hogwarts from two years ago, which she had a nasty feeling was only going to get longer. Maybe she should go back up to the school herself for tomorrow's reading.

But mostly, she was concerned about Dumbledore's report regarding the horcruxes. The man had, in fact, had a breakthrough last night from the books. He was now confident that Voldemort had six horcruxes in total. (Precisely how confident, she wasn't certain. They were banking rather a lot on the premise that the books would follow narrative convention and end with Voldemort's final defeat.) Of those, the tally stood at one destroyed and two more located, if she counted the snake. In all, four of the remaining five were positively identified, or near enough. Not great, but it could be worse.

And Dumbledore was advising her not to go after the one lead they had because of the danger level, and because he expected there would be more information forthcoming. She could tolerate that for now. She had enough to do as it was. But she sent a note back warning him that her patience was wearing thin.

Minerva frowned as she read the note she'd received her own note from Albus. She could at least credit him with acting quickly. It had transpired that Mad-Eye's eye, needing to see through many layers of solid objects—desks, entire people, walls, and more—could see through clothes if he wanted, but only if he was actively trying. He'd admitted that to Albus, and Albus seemed to believe him. It was tricky to do it, or so he said—all the more so if the clothes were skintight, making it near-impossible to distinguish between the layers. Even spotting concealed weapons held directly against the skin didn't require that much effort.

That was assuming Mad-Eye wasn't lying—never a sure thing with him. But Moody was trusted by Albus and vouched for by the DMLE both, so it was acceptable among the powers that be for him to bring his eye into the school. Although she wondered if the Board of Governors had properly considered the issue.

All of which was moot because it wasn't Moody using it all last year, but Barty Crouch Junior, a known Death Eater. What had he done with that eye? Since the younger Crouch had had his soul sucked out on Fudge's orders (or at least Fudge's carelessness), they couldn't ask him. And since all of his personal effects had been left in the school and searched, he probably hadn't done anything nefarious liking smuggle photographs out of the school.

Minerva laughed bitterly. No, he'd only gone and helped resurrect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. A garden-variety pervert would be bad, but that was one of the few things that were worse.

Meanwhile, there was still her idea of reading ahead in the later books. She would make time for that this afternoon, at least for a quick look, but for now, she had more pressing concerns, in the form of a knock on her door, and she suspected she knew from whom. She quickly filed Albus's note out of sight, and bade her expected visitor come in.

True to his word, Potter had brought his copy of the third book back early this morning with his redactions marked—along with more questions.

"Professor, from the reviews on the cover, it looks like these books are, like, bestsellers in the muggle world?" the boy said nervously.

"Are they? I confess I had not looked that closely at them," she said. She took the book now and examined the dust jacket, and her eyes widened when she saw the reviews: praise heaped on Potter's life story from major muggle newspapers she remembered from her own childhood. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. "The next Lord of the Rings?"

"You know them, Professor?"

"Of course, I—oh, you wouldn't know, Potter. Like you, I am a half-blood, grown up in the muggle world—though with a much better family situation, I assure you. I have read The Lord of the Rings." And how eerie that she had discussed the trilogy with Albus and Severus just last night.

"Right, er…do you know how big these books get?" Potter asked, still uneasy. "Like, what do the later books say?"

An interesting question—and an important one, she realised. Fiction though they were—or though they were marketed, at least—if the Harry Potter books became truly famous in the muggle world, it could be a serious issue for the Statute of Secrecy. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose I could look…" She didn't go digging for the entire series, but she pulled her copy of the sixth book out of her desk drawer. This one, it turned out, did not have any reviews printed. She checked the dust jacket inside and out, and she saw a synopsis of the book printed twice, a brief "about the author" note that claimed that Joanne Rowling had come up with the idea for Harry Potter whilst riding a train from Manchester to London. And then…

"What the bloody hell?!" she exclaimed.

"Professor?" Potter said in alarm.

Minerva turned pink with embarrassment at became caught out swearing by a student. "Ahem, excuse me Potter. I would appreciate it if you didn't mention that. It's just that I saw this line here." She turned the book around to show him, pointing to the note in the bottom corner of the jacket:

"J. K. Rowling has also written two other companion books, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in aid of Comic Relief."

"What the bloody hell?" Potter repeated, and Minerva was forced to stifle a laugh to keep from cracking up. When he realised what he'd said, he started laughing too, albeit briefly. But after a beat, he demanded, "There are more books?!"

"It would appear so. More worryingly, these are our books—written by wizards, for wizards. For them to get into the muggle world…"

"But…you don't have them, do you?" he asked.

"Certainly not. This it the first that I've heard of any others."

"Well, then, where are they—Professor?" Potter added quickly.

"I wouldn't know, Potter. They may be nowhere. We never did find out where Umbridge got them in the first place…" She paused as she remembered a very similar conversation two weeks ago. "Although…Potter, when we were first discussing the books, you mentioned a room on the seventh floor where they might have come from?"

"Right…yes, I remember, Professor," he said, brightening. "That's where we've been having our defence lessons. Er, I told Professor Dumbledore about that. And, well, if the books really did come from the castle, that seems like the way to do it."

Potter explained the Room of Requirement to her, how to open it and the sorts of things it could do. Producing books from years the damn future, which looked for all the world like they came from a muggle bookstore, author profile, reviews, and all, seemed like a stretch by any magical standards. But then again, Hogwarts was old and filled with long-forgotten enchantments. Even Albus didn't know all of its secrets. It seemed at least as likely as anything else.

"Thank you, Potter," she told him. "I will investigate that this afternoon. You had best get along to breakfast, now. We have another long day ahead."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat together at breakfast and found themselves looking over a short note from Percy—one sent to Harry, in fact—addressing one of the questions they had had yesterday:

Dear Harry,

I figured you had a right to know this information since it's not a secret, and the story we're reading is about you, even if I don't understand all of it yet. I have also sent my findings on to Professor McGonagall and Director Bones. You asked me what became of the other "fragments" Minister Fudge mentioned being found of Peter Pettigrew. I looked up Fudge's original incident report of the incident between Black and Pettigrew, and frankly, I was shocked at how shoddily it was written. I could cut him some slack, considering that Black was laughing maniacally and claiming that he did it, which would in principle negate the need for forensics, but that's no reason to ignore proper procedure—

Ron snorted loudly. "Hah! Typical Percy," he said.

—Besides which, it's not clear how coherent Black was at the time or if anything he said could be trusted. Regardless, reading it now, it looks like Fudge was more interested in getting a high-profile arrest than in actually documenting the scene.

As for Pettigrew himself, I had to go to the Coroner's report to learn more. It turns out that Pettigrew's finger was the only identifiable piece of him that was found. Given that you say he's still alive, it seems like he faked the rest of the evidence. I know he must have got the blood from somewhere, and reading between the lines, I think he must have had a handful of raw meat that he sprinkled around the crime scene, and maybe cut off some hair as well.

Notwithstanding Fudge's incompetence, you should remember that there were also twelve very real muggle bodies lying around the scene, and while they were mostly intact, it would have been difficult to sort out all of the smaller pieces. If Pettigrew had been the only purported victim, or if there were only one or two others, the Coroner might have tested more of the residue and found that it was fake. As it was, Fudge should have looked closer, but it's understandable that they sorted out all of the identifiable body parts and called it a day.

Your friend, I hope,

Percy

"That's…disgusting," Hermione said. "But another dead end, I guess. Though I still think muggles would have been more careful about potential human remains."

"What were we actually looking for there?" Ron asked her.

"I…I don't know, I suppose," she said. "The way the explosion was described was odd, and I wondered if there was someone to be blamed for bungling it."

"We already knew that was mostly Fudge, didn't we?" said Harry.

"And Barty Crouch Senior," she pointed out. "He was the one who sent Sirius to Azkaban without a trial."

"Course, seeing as they're both dead, there's not much we can do about it, is there?" added Ron.

"Yeah, I guess," answered Harry. He read over Percy's letter again. Something was bugging him about it—something in the back of his mind. He thought back to what he knew of that day…He had it. "Hold on," he said. "Wormtail just had a handful of raw meat on him? Was he preparing to frame Sirius all day?"

Hermione and Ron looked at each other in surprise.

Ron shrugged: "Dunno. Could be."

"Maybe it was part of his plan," Hermione suggested. "Fudge did say Wormtail found Sirius, not the other way around."

Harry shook his head: "No, I can't see that. Wormtail was too big a coward. Besides, Sirius was definitely hunting him down. He told us so."

"Didn't Sirius say Wormtail was afraid of the other Death Eaters coming after him because he was with Voldemort that night?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow: "More afraid of them than he was of Sirius."

"Well, of anyone, then. Maybe he wasn't planning on a fight, but he was planning to fake his own death somehow. He could've…he could've blown up his own safehouse and put the Dark Mark over it. He was a Death Eater. He must have known how."

That one, Harry could see. The timing was a little odd, but then, there was about about the timing of that day that was odd. And Wormtail was certainly paranoid enough to be planning to fake his death before Sirius found him. Well, it was annoying not knowing for sure, but it was a minor point in the book overall.

And they had to cut the discussion off soon enough, as Professor McGonagall called for order to begin the reading.

"Thank you for indulging us in this once again," she told the assembled students and staff after breakfast had concluded. Of course, some of the students surely liked these diversions, but for many of them and all of the teachers, these readings were really more trouble than they were worth, she thought. "I repeat that tomorrow will be the last day for this, but again, the interested parties believe it is important for this information to become widely known. Professor Grubbly-Plank, you have the next chapter."

"Yes, Headmistress," the Care of Magical Creatures teacher said. She took up the copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and turned to: "Chapter Twelve: The Patronus."

The chapter began with the continuation of Harry's and Ron's argument with Hermione over the Firebolt. Harry had, in fact, been worried about the teachers damaging it at the time, which looking back, maybe he should have mentioned, but McGonagall hadn't seemed in a mood to listen. Ron had got Wood all excited about it before Harry could stop him, which probably hadn't helped matters.

On the bright side, Professor Lupin had finally got around to scheduling Harry's Patronus lessons, though still working around his illness.

"'I said I wonder what's wrong with Lupin, and you—'

"'Well, isn't it obvious?' said Hermione, with a look of maddening superiority.

"'If you don't want to tell us, don't,' snapped Ron.

"'Fine,' said Hermione haughtily, and she marched off."

"Why didn't you tell them if you figured it out so easily?" asked Ginny.

"I wanted to protect Professor Lupin's secret," Hermione said. "I thought Professor Dumbledore must have had a good reason to trust him, even if he was a werewolf. But I was also surprised no one else had figured it out, so I got a bit annoyed about it…And those two were being prats."

"Hey!"

"Well, that's fair," Ginny agreed.

"Hey!"

In the book, Harry went to his first Patronus lesson that week, and Lupin explained that Harry would be able to practice the spell on a boggart, since the boggart would turn into a dementor for him. Hermione made a note of that in preparation for the Patronus lesson Harry wanted to have with the DA, although there wasn't a lot they could do with it. As far as she knew, Harry was the only person in the group whose boggart was a dementor (although maybe that would change after this book reading). Plus, they didn't have any boggarts on hand.

"Is that what took so long?" Ron wondered at the explanation. "It can't have been hard to find a Boggart in Filch's filing cabinet. It probably would've been clear when Filch ran away screaming that Fred and George had pranked his office."

Their friends laughed, but Harry shrugged; "He said the lessons at the beginning of the year cleared out the castle, and it took a while for another boggart to appear."

"'The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon — hope, happiness, the desire to survive — but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can't hurt it.'"

"You know, I've never quite understood how that works," Hermione mused at Lupin's explanation of the Patronus. "I understand how it protects you, but how does it drive the dementors away? It seems like it might even attract them."

"Well, part of it is, they can't feed on it," Neville spoke up, to the surprise of the others. "That's why they can't hurt it. And my Uncle Algie says it's like water. You need it to live, but too much, and you drown—except with dementors, it's more like fire…if that makes sense?"

Everyone looked at him in surprise. "Wow, Neville, how'd you know all that?" asked Parvati. "I've never heard those things before."

Neville blushed, but shrugged awkwardly. "Old pureblood family, plus my uncle's an Unspeakable. Even just what he can tell us, I've learnt a lot." He didn't mention, but Harry could guess that he also had more reason than most to learn about dementors.

Harry, to Lupin's surprise, actually made something happen with the spell on the first try—a very small something, but still impressive for anyone, much less a Third-Year. And he moved straight on to the boggart-dementor.

"I'm not sure he should have gone straight to the dementor on the second try," Hermione pointed out.

"I dunno, it kind of worked," Harry offered. "I mean, not at first, but I don't think I would've been prepared for the dementor no matter when he did it."

Harry's happy memories, though, left something to be desired: the first time he rode a broom, winning the House Cup, and finding out he was a wizard, which was better, but even that was mostly his joy at being able to leave the Dursleys. It was a valid happy memory, but didn't exactly feel like the right kind of happy memory. And it didn't help that he was feeling conflicted; a part of him wanted to hear his parents again, even under the influence of the dementor. Harry tried to ignored the pitying looks he got from the others on hearing that.

The second time he tried the spell against the dementor was even worse:

"'Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—!'

"The sounds of someone stumbling from a room—a door bursting open—a cackle of high-pitched laughter—"

A shudder ran through the Great Hall on hearing even more of the story, confirming things that were only speculated upon all those years ago. (Voldemort himself had alluded to it in first book, but not the details.)

Neville, however, was giving Harry a funny look. "Harry, that…that doesn't make sense," he said.

"What do you mean?" Harry said, maybe a bit snappishly.

"Why did—he ask your mum to stand aside and not your dad? Your dad was a pureblood, and your mum was a muggle-born."

Harry opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. That didn't make sense. He remembered Voldemort's words in his first year: Your mother needn't have died. At the time, he was focused on Voldemort coming after him. But why? Sure, his father had fought, while his mother had only shielded him with her body, but why would Voldemort care? Why didn't he just laugh and kill her like his dad? In fact, why didn't Voldemort kill his dad faster? Harry tried to picture the scene, and that only made it worse, not just emotionally, but in terms of making sense. He realised with a start that he didn't know what his parents' house had looked like. But he could only guess that his dad had been in a confined space with nowhere to run, facing a powerful wizard who thought nothing of using the unblockable killing curse. He didn't want to sell his dad short, but he thought it was a good bet Voldemort could have killed him before he finished calling out his warning.

"I…I don't know," He said finally. "Maybe Voldemort was just toying with them. I mean, he probably would've killed them anyway, right? And it's not like my mum would've really stood aside."

Neville frowned sadly: "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The Harry in the book fainted twice against the boggart-dementor, and Lupin told him to ease off, but Harry stubbornly wanted to face it one more time. And Lupin, perhaps unwisely, let him. But this time, it actually worked. It seemed that learning he would be leaving the Dursleys was the right kind of happy memory, and concentrating on that happy enough memory did keep the dementor at bay, pure and simple. The Patronus, even before it appeared, held off the memory of his parents' deaths to a distant, indistinct screaming, and the spell soon formed into a silver shield, blocking it from reaching him.

Up at the High Table, Percy looked on with wide eyes. "That was extremely impressive for a first session," he said. He knew part of the story, of course, from the antics at the next Quidditch match, but not precisely how it had come about. "Many fully qualified wizards don't even bother going past the shield stage if they try at all. To get to that point right away at thirteen is unheard-of."

"Mister Weasley, I've found that when Potter's involved, the unheard-of eventually becomes the inevitable," McGonagall said drily, "usually in a far more disruptive way." Some of the students laughed, and Harry glared at the Weasley Twins when they joined in.

Harry stayed focused on Quidditch through his lessons, and fortune seemed to be favoring them for once, as Slytherin narrowly defeated Ravenclaw in their next match. "…According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if they beat Ravenclaw too. He therefore increased the number of team practises to five a week."

"That seems rather excessive, don't you think, Headmistress?" Professor Sprout interrupted. "Besides which, they didn't fail to win the previous year for lack of talent."

"I tend to allow my Quidditch Captains to exercise their best judgement on such things, Professor Sprout," McGonagall replied. "Wood may have been more fanatical than most, but I would have reined him in if I received complaints from the other members of the team."

"And did you inform the team that they could come to you if they had complaints?" Professor Sinistra pointed out.

McGonagall looked chagrined, and quiet whispers broke out around the Great Hall. That question coming from the new Head of Gryffindor was especially awkward. Harry was startled, too. He had to admit, he'd never thought to complain to McGonagall about his workload, Quidditch or otherwise. Complain to his friends, sure, and Hermione might have done if she thought it was excessive, but, well, her idea of "excessive" was somewhere out in the realm of using a time machine to take extra classes. In fact, in the story, she still seemed to be doing worse that he was. By that point Ron was actually gathering some pretty solid evidence that Hermione was regularly in two classes at once, something Harry might have found very suspicious if he'd been paying attention, but by that point, he was too busy to care.

Oliver wasn't helping, in more ways than one.

"'Bad news, Harry. I've just been to see Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt. She — er — got a bit shirty with me. Told me I'd got my priorities wrong. Seemed to think I cared more about winning the Cup than I do about you staying alive. Just because I told her I didn't care if it threw you off, as long as you caught the Snitch first.' Wood shook his head in disbelief. 'Honestly, the way she was yelling at me . . . you'd think I'd said something terrible.'"

"Really, Headmistress," said Professor Sprout, "by that point, I really hope you at least considered relieving him of his captaincy."

"I did, and I told him so," McGonagall said, "though I'm not sure it properly penetrated at the time."

In the book, Harry was not satisfied with his progress on the Patronus Charm, but Lupin still thought it was impressive and assured him it was good enough that he wouldn't fall off his broom again. He even rewarded Harry with a celebratory Butterbeer (which Harry had to cover for himself that he'd tried it before). And then Harry had to go and ruin the mood.

"They drank the butterbeer in silence, until Harry voiced something he'd been wondering for a while.

"'What's under a dementor's hood.'

At that point, Professor Grubbly-Plank paused and had the sense to scan down a few lines after all the horrors the books had shown so far. She was surprised to see this part wasn't crossed out. McGonagall had told them that Harry had redacted the most personal parts of the book. (Although she was also surprised that the memory of his parents' deaths hadn't been redacted.) She had to wonder what was. "Hm…I think maybe we ought to skip this part," she said. Then, more quietly, "For the sake of the younger students. Headmistress?"

Harry couldn't hear all of it, but he could guess. He hadn't thought of that problem. He'd thought since he'd come so close to it at the end of that year, there was no reason to leave it out.

Up at the High Table, Minerva sighed. She wasn't aware of this specific conservation, but she knew full well how the ending of that year had gone. She glanced at Albus, but he sent her a look that indicated it was her decision. "I think we should go through with it, Professor Grubbly-Plank. I'm afraid the matter will come up again before the end of the book. And—well, you weren't here yet, but we could hardly keep it from the younger students when it was in the morning paper at the time."

Grubbly-Plank accepted this and continued reading Lupin's explanation of the Dementor's Kiss. There was shock and even a whimper or two from the First- and Second-Years even at his clinical description of it, but Harry knew it wouldn't be anywhere near the most disturbing part of the book. And most everyone in Third Year and up had learnt about the Kiss when the Daily Prophet had announced it had been authorised on Sirius. Harry hadn't much noticed the reactions at the time, but he knew vaguely that it hadn't been so widely known before that. After all, Sirius had been the first person in generations actually sentenced to the Kiss, and that only because Azkaban seemingly couldn't hold him. It was a definite novelty at the time.

Harry was again embarrassed, as he was last night, at his past self thinking that Sirius deserved the Kiss. He had no idea how most of the students would feel about that, but there was no time to dwell on it as the story continued, and immediately after that conversation, McGonagall had given him back his Firebolt.

"'See, Hermione? There wasn't anything wrong with it!' said Ron.

"'Well—there might have been!' said Hermione. 'I mean, at least you know now that it's safe!'"

"And really, from our point of view at the time, it should have been odd that it was," Hermione added in the present. "I never did understand where it could have come from until Sirius told us."

Unfortunately, those good feelings were interrupted by Scabbers faking his death. That was an especially difficult time for everyone involved; Ron just buried his head in his hands at how he'd treated Hermione over it, and over Peter bloody Pettigrew!

"You know, I gotta wonder, Ron," Dean said, "how'd you even know those were cat hairs you found. How did you know they weren't your own hairs?"

"Don't remind me," Ron groaned.

"You know, they might have been, considering," Hermione added.

"I said don't remind me," he grumbled. "I'm sorry, okay. I was freaking out, and I was wrong."

"I'm not mad anymore, Ron," Hermione assured him. "It just seemed so strange at the time. In fact, I wonder if he even meant to leave the hairs there. Maybe it was only meant to be the bloodstains. That seems like it would be enough. But either way, I can't really blame you. I made the same mistake the year before, if you recall."

Ron snorted and cracked a smile. "That's right. That was messed up, but at least I didn't turn myself into a cat."