Ch 7: Patronous

Room of Requirements.

As Harry walked around, he spoke to the students with a tone of encouragement. "Make it a powerful memory, the happiest you can remember. Allow it to fill you up," he said to them.

He stopped by Seamus and gave him a reassuring nod. "Keep trying," he urged the Irish boy.

Approaching the Weasley twins, Harry said, "George, Fred, give it a shot." George waved his wand and a tiny spark of silvery light appeared but quickly extinguished. Undeterred, the twins continued to try.

Addressing the whole class, Harry explained, "A full body Patronus is the most difficult to produce, but a shield form can be equally useful against a variety of opponents."

Suddenly, a stream of silvery light shot up from the wand of a red-haired girl. The light swayed as a silvery white horse took shape from the stream.

"Fantastic, Ginny!" Harry praised loudly.

Amidst the crowd of students, Mike persistently tried to cast the patronus charm. With each wave of his wand and a silent incantation, a stream of silvery white light would shoot up, yet his patronus refused to take shape. It seemed that his memory was not strong enough to evoke the greatest joy in him.

Mike stopped and took a deep breath, reflecting on his happy memories. As he walked down memory lane, he reminisced about his childhood in his previous life. Although his family was not wealthy, they were happy. Mike's mother had four sisters, all married and had children. During festivals and holidays, they would all gather at his grandparents' house, where he and his cousins would play until midnight, with even his aunts joining in the fun.

As Mike remembered those happy times, a broad smile spread across his face. He was sure he could now produce a corporeal patronus. Pointing his wand upwards at an angle, he shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"

A thick silvery-white beam of light shot up from his wand, pulsing waves radiating outwards and drawing the attention of the other students. They all looked to Mike, the first-year prodigy.

"Screee!"

A high-pitched cry, a combination of a scream and a musical trill, echoed through the hall. As everyone turned to the source of the noise, they saw the thick stream of light gather into a sphere, taking on the appearance of an egg. Suddenly, two wings sprang from the sides of the spherical light as it transformed into the mythical phoenix that everyone knew.

"Screee!" The silvery-white phoenix cried out once again as it flew around the hall, spreading its joy at finally emerging from its shell.

Mike's successful casting of the patronus charm had outshone all previous successful attempts.

As the phoenix vanished, the students' cheers echoed throughout the hall, and Mike couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. It was not just any patronus that he had conjured; it was a magical creature, a phoenix. He had heard that only one person was able to conjure a patronus of a magical creature, that was Albus Dumbledore.

Suddenly, Mike's eyes glowed with a pale blue light as he had a vision, a vision of the immediate future. In his vision, he saw the entrance wall being blasted apart, revealing Umbridge and her cronies. Then, just as suddenly, his vision ended.

"Ah, it's too late," Mike cursed under his breath. "I shouldn't have forgotten."

He realized that he had overlooked a crucial detail from the plot of the Harry Potter movies. The DA, or Dumbledore's Army, was eventually caught by Umbridge, which led to Dumbledore being fired from his position as the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Mike couldn't believe that he had missed such an important piece of information. He felt a sense of guilt and regret wash over him as he realized that he could have warned his fellow DA members about the potential risks of being caught.

Moments later, the entrance wall of the Room of Requirement was blasted open, just as Mike had seen in his vision, catching the students off guard. As the dust settled, they saw Dolores Umbridge, accompanied by Filch the caretaker, and some Slytherin students.

Umbridge's face was seething with anger, yet there was a hint of excitement as she had finally found evidence to oust Dumbledore and Harry.

As Umbridge's gaze fell upon the group of students, Mike felt his heart skip a beat. He could see the anger and excitement in her eyes.

Mike knew why Umbridge had a hint of excitement in her eyes. She had finally found enough leverage to oust Dumbledore from his post of Headmaster.

...

An hour had passed when Mike received the official news - the news that he dreaded the most. Dumbledore, the wise and powerful headmaster of Hogwarts, had been charged with sedition and conspiracy.

Mike's heart sank as he heard the news, knowing that Dumbledore's absence meant the end of the seeming peaceful days at Hogwarts.

The Ministry of Magic had appointed Dolores Umbridge as the new headmistress of Hogwarts. She was the same woman who had terrorized the students with her cruel methods of punishment during her previous tenure at the school.

Mike couldn't help but feel a sense of unease, knowing that dark days were coming for Hogwarts.

...

The next day began with a bang as the Weasley twins retaliated against Dumbledore's expulsion by setting off a crate of Wildfire Whiz-Bangs fireworks inside the castle.

Their mischievous behavior continued in the upcoming weeks, but on April 22, they were caught by Filch turning a Hogwarts corridor into a swamp. As a result, they were expelled.

Mike recalled from the movies that the Weasley twins went on to open their own joke shop following this incident.

...

Despite the occasional laughter elicited by the Weasley twins' pranks, the suffocating atmosphere created by Umbridge's progressively stricter rules overshadowed any joy at Hogwarts. The school felt more like a concentration camp than a place of learning. Mike endured, knowing that the situation would soon come to a head in the battle at the Ministry.

However, Mike was in a conundrum when he thought about the battle. As far as he could remember, Sirius, Harry Potter's godfather, had died in that fight. He couldn't decide whether he should try to save Sirius, and he wasn't even sure if he was capable of doing so. All he knew was that Sirius had died during the battle, although he wasn't sure of the exact time.

Mike hesitated to intervene directly in the battle because he feared attracting the attention of powerful individuals like Voldemort and his Death Eaters. He wasn't even sure if Dumbledore was completely trustworthy. But, he also couldn't forget how Harry had helped him master practical spells during their DA meetings. He didn't want to be an ungrateful person and the guilt of not trying to save Sirius would eat him up in the future.

After much contemplation, Mike decided to try to save Sirius. He wouldn't intervene directly, but rather use indirect means to rescue him.

...

To better prepare himself, Mike had already made his decision to fill the remaining soul canvases with the most suitable abilities.

In order to gain the ability to fly, he chose the Pixie over a broomstick. This was because Pixies are wingless flyers and would allow him to gain the ability of flight. He was unsure about the broomstick, as his major concern was whether he would gain the ability to fly or just the ability to materialize a broomstick. Choosing the Pixie seemed like a safer option.

Regarding the remaining two soul canvases, Mike made the decision to select the Time-Turner and a creature known as the Wampus cat.

After carefully considering and reflecting upon his abilities, he realized that he had a significant weakness in his reflexes, despite possessing many powerful abilities. He estimated that he could outduel every member of the DA except for Harry Potter without using his exclusive abilities, due to Harry's exceptional reflexes.

It was no coincidence that Harry had survived so many dangerous encounters.

So, he ultimately chose the Wampus cat for its extraordinary reflexes. The creature was known to move with lightning-fast speed, making it almost impossible for others to catch it. Its ability to outrun arrows and walk on its hind legs were just a few of the many physical feats that demonstrated its incredible reflexes.

The Battle at the Ministry occurred during the owls exam. Realizing he had a month and a half to acquire the necessary abilities, Mike gave himself a one-month limit and began his daily penance of drawing the Time-Turner.

It took almost two weeks for Mike to master the diagram of the Time-Turner, including its tiny engravings. The process was more cumbersome than he anticipated, just like when he practiced drawing the phoenix. On the night of May 8, Mike waited until everyone in the Gryffindor dorm was asleep before entering the familiar dark void.

There, he chose one of the three blank Soul Canvases floating around and, fixing the canvas before him, he carefully etched every detail of the Time-Turner diagram onto it. The process was long, but Mike persevered. After the last stroke of the wand, the canvas glowed with a bright, almost blinding, golden light, and Mike felt a familiar warmth envelop him. Moments later, he discovered that he had gained another powerful ability - the ability to travel through time. Though powerful, Mike hoped he wouldn't have to use it.

He followed the same process for the next two abilities. First, he practiced drawing the figures of the Pixie and Wampus cat until he was confident enough to draw them on the Soul canvases. As the month of May drew to a close, he etched image of each.