The Rule Of The Hunt

The Rule of the Hunt

Admittedly, my first thought when I processed what I was seeing, was something like 'Fuck Yeah!'.

In a single instant, the unthinkable had happened, and Tom was dying.

The boy because of whom I had almost turned grey with worry, was the only element in my life that I was unsure about. He represented that one conundrum that I seemed unable to solve: I knew the pros and the cons of either having him live or having him die. Time and time again, I went over them as logically as I could despite my personal preference for 'letting' him live, exploiting the benefits of his existence in a way that would change my life and the world for the better despite whatever damage he'd ever grow up to cause.

The Diadem had exposed my own ruthlessness several times: that contraption had hammered again and again the point that the option of 'killing' Tom was only fueled by my fear. Fear of feeling guilty over the crimes he'd commit, fear of being unable to oppose him if the time came, and most worringly, fear of being irrelevant. Maybe it was a stupid reason to act as I did, but... I just couldn't help it.

That fear of irrelevance was that which pushed me towards dreaming what should have been impossible back at Ollivander's. That fear had basically fueled my conscious choice of raging against the odds since day one, to push and dig and thunder and scream as I tried to reshape the world to something that pleased me.

With the Hydra dead, and Minerva already running forward towards Riddle, who was truly helpless for the first time since I knew him, I was left, for a handful of incredibly long seconds, completely reeling: it could end here. Zero effort on my part, or a token of it to fool Minerva, and I'd be done. I'd be free to just live my life, to leave Dumbledore to take care of everything, and... What then?

Tom hadn't even tried to make it look like he saved me for the sake of it: I knew that he had already thought of leveraging my life to better his own. That was just how he operated: everything in the world was there on a scale of how much useful it could be to him, and on that basis he took decisions. I knew that in my place, he'd be as calculating as I was.

From over the shoulder of Minerva, who had already set his arm in a straight, conjured cast, Riddle's eyes met mine, and I felt incredibly cheated.

I stepped forward while my mind took a completely different direction, my focus already on the consequences and possible gains of the decision I had made. And even as I felt myself slipping a bit more into the megalomania that never stopped growing under the surface, I couldn't help bu think it: If he dies, it will be because he needs to. And since I was going to be potentially directly responsible for any disaster he commited, I knew that if he'd had to die, it'd be by my hand.

With that resolve clear in my mind, I thought furiously about the possibilities, and by the time I reached Minerva, I knew what to do: it'd be hardly the worse thing I'd ever done, and nor nearly as dangerous as running around with werewolves, at least for me.

"Riddle." My curt tone snapped Minerva out of her panicked fretting while I could visibly see Tom using all of his skill in the mind arts to keep himself from falling unconscious.

I pressed firmly against the cloth folded on his bleeding wound: "If we do nothing, you'll die."

I talked over Minerva's Scottish burr while Riddle inhaled sharply, his mind warring between the pain and the fear: "If I take the time to brew the necessary antidote, you'll die before it can help you." This part has the added value of being true.

And concluding my brief speech, I spoke once more: "Or I can do the impossible, but you'll both have to trust me, and not waste my time by asking endless questions: frankly, it's your only chance at survival."

Before my life as Rubeus Hagrid, I once read about how the mind could take two different directions when pushed to the breaking point: it could either stop, sending the victim into catatonia, or it could operate full-throttle, making use of everything it had to find a solution. Probably Dune, it is always Dune when it sounds so smart and concise. And under my attentive gaze, I saw Riddle's mind ravenously tear through what I said him, what I meant, almost as fast as the words fell from my lips.

He raised his unwounded arm to stop Minerva while his eyes never left mine: "Do it."

I could feel it almost physically: trust born of despair. His exceptional brain immediately picked up what the options were, recognized that I was the only one in a position to help, probably realized that I was being as calculating as he had been when he saved me, and decided. That was all there was to it: the cold, inhuman logic that had historically allowed humans to survive the impossible.

And then I began giving orders like I had done it a hundred times before, it was only theory, but an extremely solid one, and frankly, I had done more with less: "Minerva, collect the nine heads of the Hydra, bring them here, then transfigure the clearing: we need a flat surface at least 3 meters by 3."

I conjured a strap and secured it around the cloth I had been keeping pressed against the wound caused by the Hydra: "Riddle, you need to breathe slowly, and do everything in your power to keep your heart from hammering in your chest. Talking makes it beat faster, so just focus on your breathing, and swallow this."

While he forced himself to swallow a bezoar, which wouldn't be enough to fight off the venom, but would keep him alive for a little while, I tapped just below his hip, and a numbing charm reduced the tension in his muscles as the pain he felt lessened. I repeated the process over his broken arm only to rise to my feet and stride quickly towards the main body of the creature we had just killed.

It was a pity losing one of its most valuable parts, but it was the optimal course that I could see now that I had decided to save Riddle. This had an enormous potential, on several levels, and I didn't have the time to consider every implication, only the most immediate ones, and it was already too late to stop.

Once more I fell into the mindset necessary for the spell I had improvised successfully to save Minerva from the Hydra, another thing that I'd need to truly think about, and once I used my size to roll the body of the magical creature on its side, my wand was thrust forward and dragged across its hide. The work was rough, and it was far from how I thought I would conduct my first rendering: my spell wasn't made for delicate, precise work, and the dead flesh that had been still warm under my fingers cracked angrily as it froze over.

With a bit of finagling, I carved out the misshapen lump that was the Hydra's heart: it was an ugly, scaly thing with a form that I could barely make heads or tails of. It seemed to follow the classical snake's heart anatomy: three chambers only, and while that would have been interesting and worth investigating in another context, I instead quickly settled it over the ground while I summoned a nearby basketball-sized rock.

It left the ground with a slight tremor, dragging after it lumps of dirt and splintered pieces of roots, and landed in my outstretched palm: I immediately began with targeted gouging charms: Transfiguration wouldn't be adequate, I needed a bowl made of rock, not something with a Shape that suited my needs.

The surface of my target cracked and splintered away, while I worked, and I stopped only when Minerva arrived by my side: "By Morgana's..." I saw her almost physically restrain herself from going on a tangent, only to keep talking as her practicality took over: "I did what you asked, what now?"

"I need water from the nearest creek, and my satchel of ingredients: apparate back to the shack, get me the satchel, and pour the water in a transfigured bucket, four or five liters will be enough." my eyes met hers before she could Apparate away, and I stared into her pupils, blown wide with fear, only to add: "The water mustn't be conjured, understand?"

After her nod, I walked over to Tom with the stone that I was slowly carving into a bowl, and looked him as he kept his eyes closed and tried to do as I asked him: "I'll need you for some creative Mind Arts when the moment comes."

His breath quickened for an instant as he looked at me, only to regain control of himself with the absolutely inhuman precision and ease that I expected of him. At his quirked eyebrow, I explained: "I need you to keep to the forefront of your mind the concept of a predator's success: what I need is for you to take the cat within Minerva's hunter's mindset, and align it with my understanding of the ritual we're going to perform."

I set the complete stone bowl by his side before striding across the smooth transfigured stone that Minerva prepared: by hand, I took each of the Hydra's heads, and in groups of threes, I described as many equilateral triangles as vertices of a bigger triangle, of course, it was still equilateral.

As I worked, I spoke out loud, knowing that Riddle would need a little groundwork to not get lost in what he'd see: "Three times three, extremely stable, Arithmancy tells us that much. You, Minerva, and I, three hunters for one prey: and to the victor, so to speak, go the spoils."

I made sure that the geometry was on point before returning to Riddle, whose dark eyes never left me despite his growing pallor: "If you stray, even for an instant, from what you need to take, you'll die, and likely give me a headache." I grinned at the scowl that he didn't manage to hide, "If you try to take anything that isn't offered, the ritual will see you as something trying to hunt me and Minerva, and given the contrast with the geometry at play, you'll die, technically, you'll die three times, but that's speculation..."

Minerva appeared with a crack and her expression immediately became horrified as she identified the beginning of the ritual I had set up: "By Merlin..."

Grateful for the distraction, I levitated the bowl so that it sat in the middle of the larger triangle, only to take Tom and lift him in my arms to deposit him in one of the three triangles described by the Hydra's heads: "You'll need to fold together my understanding of the ritual with the hunter's mindset that is her other form, and give back the result to both of us.

Tom was extremely aware of the fact that talking, at least standing to what I had said him, would only accelerate his demise, so he simply glared at me while he hissed with pain, and I simply nodded back seriously: it wouldn't do to mock his powerlessness now. "The main problem with rituals involving more than one person is that even the faintest unbalance behind the common intent can make everything go catastrophically wrong: I'm setting up a ritual to have us hunter 'conquer', the Hydra we just defeated. But the creature attacked us first, and one of us thinking predatorily about any of the other two will put him on the Hydra's side, so to speak, and basically he'll be consumed along with the property that we're going to subsume from the creature."

I settled Riddle in one of the three triangles described by the Hydra's heads: he was less than half a meter from the centre of the much bigger triangle that I had drawn, and I made sure that everything was equally distanced before directing Minerva to another triangle.

"This is my version of a pepper-up: you'll feel it." I explained as I handed him the vial: "It will give you the energy to stand and do what you need, but it will also set your heart on a race that will make the venom in you kill you in a matter of minutes."

I settled the stone bowl in the exact center point of the configuration and I casually lit a fire under it. As I poured some water from the bucket that the Gryffindor witch had brought to me, I explained what she'd need to do: "The brew I'm preparing will be the one shaping, with its story, the purpose of the ritual." and before she could interrupt, as she wasn't forced to keep her mouth shut in fear of dying faster, I went ahead: "What you need to do, Minerva, is to keep to the forefront of your mind your Animagus' understanding of the hunt, Tom will nudge your thoughts in the necessary way, hold that understanding, do the same with my understanding of the ritual, match those two perspectives, and at his nod, we'll be taking a peek into his mind to synchronize, so to speak, our mindset."

"I never practiced with Legilimency!" the Animagus objected only for Riddle to shake his head slowly and point at himself before nodding.

Still somewhat pleased at the situation that forced Tom to keep his mouth shut, I translated: "He'll take care of it."

"I don't think this is wise." she objected, "Rubeus, rituals are dangerous, how do you even know..."

I began to explain without interrupting my movements: "Slughorn told it in his very first lesson: every potion is a story."

My hands moved while I took bay and olive leaves, only to shift to work with a pestle. Where the leaves had been added whole to maintain a background of enduring conquest, as I used them to call respectively upon the longevity of the olive trees and as the symbol historically used by roman emperors to grasp the meaning of victory. The carnivorous slugs' shells I was grounding into fine dust would be needed to summon both the concept of defense and that of hunger, which was the primal reason for hunting. Ground as they were, they'd suffuse the potion along with the olive and bay leaves that were already following a clockwise pattern.

What I was going to brew after all was meant to work with the natural order of things: the hunter gained from the hunted it defeated. I was preparing the ritual with a single, precise purpose: to grant immunity from Hydra venom, nothing more, nothing less. That had arguably the secondary effect that any venom less potent than it would likely be ineffective on us for the rest of our lives. Permanency after all was the main selling point of Rituals. It was a minor thing, but it was fundamental not to try to tweak things for personal advantage.

It was going to be complex enough with 3 active participants, any personal aims I could have for Parseltongue, which was something I would love to study, would completely send the ritual tits-up. Never mind trying to take something from Minerva's Animagus status. No, the only element of the ritual that had to give, so to speak, was the Hydra we had conquered, and us three needed to be equal receivers of the boon I was aiming for.

My research and experiments to find a cure for Lycanthropy aided me here: the solution was in overcoming the danger, not fleeing it. I kept talking before Minerva could hex me: "What he neglected to mention, is that every potion is a localized ritual, in which the magic properties available by sacrificing ingredients are shaped into a concentrated result."

Stirring clockwise three times with one of the bloodied fangs of the Hydra, I imbibed the concoction with the presence of our conquered enemy, and after adding the ground shells, I repeated the motion. "Rituals are at once much simpler, as far as preparing and organizing ingredients go, than Potion Making. Of course, they are also more dangerous, and more often than not permanent. Can you guess why?"

Minerva looked still scandalized, but the raised eyebrows on Riddle told her that I wasn't spouting bullshit. Even lacking my innate talent for potions, even without having the undisputed genius of Tom, she was as sharp as they came: "Given how you phrased it... because the people involved in a ritual are part of the story?"

I smiled sharply at her as I added the third set of ingredients meant to set the stage of the story this ritual was meant to tell: "But once told, a story remains, doesn't it? Burned in the memories of those that have heard it, written the blood of those that were present in it, empowering the magic of those that took an active part in it, singing in the souls of those that have been a part of it."

"So you could kill us all." she correctly concluded from my explanation while Riddle was staring at me with wide, wide eyes. I knew that he knew that my mention of memories, blood, magic, and soul was a direct derivation from what he had told me once before: 'I read that the mind exerts Will, the body has strength, magic holds Power, and that the soul is a reflection of them all.'

I also saw the outrage in his conflicted expression: to him, that tidbit had merely been some obscure reference, something that briefly caught his attention only to be discarded when it lacked an immediate purpose. He was now conflicted between being engrossed in my explanation and despising me for having made something out of a piece of information that he deemed useless.

"Of course, one of the best solutions to the volatility inherent of putting yourself in a ritual is basing it on the number three," I added as I added silvers of oak's bark and a single scale that I had taken from the dead magical creature whose venom was slowly but surely killing Tom. The oak was the tree of kings, symbolizing rulership, while through the scale I grasped towards the shedding of the skin, which in this context was meant to signify an overcoming of past weaknesses. In particular, now we were all vulnerable to Hydra's venom, and after the ritual, we wouldn't be.

Ultimately, there wasn't time for me to sit down and explain everything in detail, as on Riddle's pale face I could now see the faint outline of his darkening veins. As soon as the concoction was ready, I summoned the Hydra's heart that I had retrieved from the carcass, and kept it levitating above the potion that simmered of a uniform grey above the stone bowl. I walked toward Tom and handed him the uncorked vial he was meant to down.

I helped him to his feet, and with the bloodied fang I had used to stir the concoction in the stone bowl, with no warning, I quickly jabbed his left hand: he left out a pained wheeze as the fang parted skin and flesh with insulting ease: "It can't kill you twice." I reassured him.

Walking towards Minerva, I saw her conflicted between berating me, crying because of Tom's imminent demise, and running away from my madness: still, she was a Gryffindor at heart, and she had decided to trust me: "It's the only way." she said it to reassure herself as much as to seek confirmation in my eyes.

She must have seen something she approved of, because with her lips pursed in a thin line, she extended her left hand once I arrived close enough. With a thin smile, I repeated the motion, and Minerva's eyes scrunched for an instant when the pain registered.

I walked over to my position, and stabbed my own left hand: I had to employ a bigger dose of strength, as my skin was far more sturdy than one of my companions, but I too felt the bite of the Hydra, and immediately, the slowly creeping venom through my veins: "We're all equally marked now." I nodded to Tom, and I brought all my focus to bear on the ritual while I threw the fang away, as it had completed its purpose, linking us together with the concoction that shaped the bulk of the ritual's purpose.

Riddle, downed the vial I had handed him and immediately grasped his wand once more, his dark eyes meeting Minerva's green ones when she nodded: the urgency of the moment enough to push her hesitation aside: as she submerged herself into the peculiar mindset that she had spent considerable time building with Dumbledore, I noticed her body language shift minutely. Her shoulders went a bit lax while her knees bent minutely, and her hand twitched minutely, as if she was barely able to contain the nervous energy that coursed through her.

Riddle stood straighter while my version of a Pepper Up gave him a jolt, and his eyes were hungry as he understood what Minerva had been building with the Transfiguration Professor: it took him maybe a minute, and once he was done, he retreated from the witch's mind. She didn't give any reaction to that, and it was comprehensible, as Riddle wasn't meant to attack her, only to understand. His fear for his life was the best assurance I could have asked for that he wouldn't be where he didn't need to.

When it came my turn, I remained impassible, my mind in that odd balanced point between abstract meaning and its counterpart in reality: every element of the ritual, from the stab wounds on our left hands to the way I had placed the Hydra's heads, was kept at the same time at the forefront of my consciousness. And Riddle saw it: and I felt him. There was no meeting of minds, focused as I was on the Ritual, I simply felt something that did not belong observing, evaluating, and reaching the understanding that I so readily offered.

We wouldn't need to think exactly the same thing in the same way, as the bulk of the work when it came to directing the ritual would be done by the brew in the stone bowl, but our intent had to be in synch, and the words that we'd speak out loud had to be said at the same time.

Maybe half a minute after his mind had retreated, my eyes met his, and I was the one to observe the meaning of my ritual through the lenses of an animal's primal understanding of the hunt: convoluted as it was, it added something deep that I could feel with the entirety of my being, something undefinable, something that only Minerva could have added to the situation at hand.

I spotted Minerva's flinch when Riddle did what he had to to make her grasp the combined comprehension born from my understanding and her Animagus' instinct, but it didn't matter, we were ready. The rest of the world seemed to fall away and disappear as we were left in a triangle, each of us with three Hydra's heads at our feet, surrounding a stone bowl with a lit fire underneath. Above it, spinning lazily maybe a handspan over the liquid, was the hydra's heart.

Guided by our now shared understanding of the ritual, empowered by the truly primal mindset of the Animagus among us, we spoke as one:

"Heads of the won, at the feet of the winners."

On the stage set by the grey potion simmering in the basin, it was as if the Hydra had just opened its eyes: present and uncontested as it still had to meet with the hunted turned into hunters, it made the liquid spin lazily, as if a dark shape moved just beneath the surface of the liquid. As an answer to the words spoke, the fire leaped from under the stone bowl to the Hydra's heads sitting in a triangle at our feet, and it immediately assumed a white coloring while the macabre trophies burned without smoke or smell.

Lit by the heatless flames at our feet that described changing shadows across our features, we continued without hesitation. We used our wands to cut ourselves and levitate three drops of blood each into the brew:

"Blood of the victor, to conquer the loser."

The brew boiled violently as it recognized the beginning of the conflict it would be describing: inside of the potion, it was as if Minerva, Tom, and I had just entered the stage. The hunt that the potion had been prepared to describe now had the two acting parts, and only needed the conclusion. Again as one, we pointed our wands at the heart that was still levitating above the stone bowl:

"Heart of the hunted, to be consumed by the hunter."

The potion's chaotic boiling point quieted immediately as it was delivered a conclusion: the story it held was perfectly stable. It had a beginning in the Hydra's heads that burned smokelessly at our feet, a development in our appearance marked by the addition of blood to the brew, and a conclusion in the heart that was being consumed by the concoction.

The heart fell into the brew, and in a flash of white, the heads that burned away into nothingness, along with the potion that disappeared, taking with it the fire that had been burning under it.

Even if 'disappeared' wasn't correct: I could feel it, searing for a single instant along my veins, and the creeping presence of the venom was conquered as the ritual took effect. It was done in an instant, every element that had been used for the ritual was consumed in a magic that had no immediate, visible effect.

Well, almost: Riddle let out a gasp as he fell forward, but his face was flushed, and there was a wild, unrestrained smile on his visage. His eyes were wide as he caught himself with his only working arm, his knuckles splitting on the ground as he refused to let go of the yew wand in his hand, but that he was aware of the results of the ritual was obvious.

Minerva ran to him immediately, her worried eyes roaming over his wounded for as she reassured herself of his health.

Still weak because of the blood loss, Riddle was little more than a doll in her hands as she started to nag him about everything under the sun, and I couldn't help laughing at the image.

That of course, was a mistake, as Minerva whirled on me with a crazed glint in her eyes: "And you, don't get me started with..."

I tuned her out as my eyes instead fell on what was left of the Hydra's carcass: there was still much that could be valuable or at least useful, and I couldn't help the flood of joy that coursed through me. This, I realized, this is what I want to do.

How could I not? With Tom and Minerva, we had bested a Hydra, and I successfully created a ritual that made use of all of our talents: this was what magic was meant to be, this is how a wizard was meant to live.

With a spark of inspiration, I raised my wand, channeling that unbridled joy that made me feel truly alive, in a manner that I hadn't felt since when my wand had chosen me at Ollivander's, and cast: "Expecto Patronum!"

At the white starlight that blossomed from my wand, Minerva's voice quieted, and even the exhausted Tom looked flabbergasted at the surge of magic that took a defined shape amidst us, only for my eyebrows to climb as I observed the animal that observed me with eyes made of the purest light.

AN

I guess this is the breaking point for some readers. Yeah, Tom survives, and this will be a more interesting story because of it.

Killing Tom like this would be really underwhelming, wouldn't it? If I allowed Riddle to die like this, I would basically steal away that very conflict that is the main interesting point of the MC's character. Not only that, I'd be cutting short with no true reason for it all the work that I've put into making the Riddle of this fic into something different than the one you find everywhere.

I'm surprised that I have to remind this to some of the readers, but given some of the reviews and PMs, I'll try: every character in this fic has been canon until the first point of contact with the MC. The entire point of Medling Giant (besides me playing with magic as I love to do) is to see the world massively derail from its accepted course (either by butterfly effect or by direct intervention).

This Riddle has undoubtedly the potential of tearing apart Magical Britain as his canonical counterpart, that is, just as this Hagrid has the potential of becoming a Groundskeeper and spending the next 50 odd years being utterly irrelevant.

When Riddle dies, If he dies, it will be because of a more or less conscious decision on the MC's part: from the author's POV, killing him off this randomly would be absolutely nonsensical. As one of the main elements of this story, Tom is one of the parts that I want to keep around to allow myself to shape the world, but more importantly, the context of his death will have to impact meaningfully the story, erasing him in this chapter would have killed the biggest engine I have to keep the MC somewhat interested with interacting with others.

The death of any of the characters that I've spent time on needs to have an impact on the fic: having him die like this would likely only obtain the death of Minerva's adventuring spirit, which is something I've spent a lot of time enforcing, and would turn Hagrid in the standard SI-character that finds absolutely no meaningful match during the entirety of his life.

Basically, without Tom as an equal, Meddling Giant would turn out exactly like 'The Bigger Picture', my first ever fic which is of course terribly lacking in several aspects.

And this is the last time I address this particular topic: it is interesting, I won't deny it, but I feel like I've explained what I think thoroughly.

Life Debt:

I'm really sure that it's something that even in canon doesn't justify extreme changes in personality. It is a concept that has been expanded to a ludicrous level in fanfiction, only because Pettigrew had a moment of uncertainty at Malfoy Manor. Harry spared him once, and when he reminds him of it, Peter wavers in his dedication to the dark lord.

Personally, I think that Rowling had to belatedly confirm that 'never killing' is the right thing to do in any case, despite the fact that sparing Pettigrew directly led to Voldemort's resurrection, so she casually dropped a sudden, unexplained change in Peter's behavior for a single instant during the Deathly Hallows.

Just like the 'blood pact' of the most recent and terrible series of Fantastical Beasts between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, I dislike when magic is used instead of character development to justify a particular choice. (I've already explained why Hagrid not apparating away and killing Paul is forced by the ritual, but it's a minor thing, and one that has been justified).

Had Hagrid been forced to save Riddle by this 'Life Debt' I would have simply pushed back once more the occasion to have the MC finally make a bold choice that cements his character even further: one thing is to exploit events that take place around you, another entirely is to oppose them directly.

This is the third such choice that Hagrid makes: the first was about exploiting his father's death, the second was to get involved with Paul and Marie. There is of course a common theme, but the direction that I had it take isn't one that I've seen done yet.

Every piece of magic that can be established at any point with mysterious consequences capable of 'dictating' instead of merely 'influencing' future choices is simply bad writing. Of course, everything that happens shapes the personality of the characters, just as the choices they make is shaped by their character, but I find the idea of writing characters as mere puppets of casual causality absolutely meaningless.

On the chapter proper:

Did you like the ritual? As always, I've taken those elements that I've already exposed here and there across this fic and dragged them to their logical extreme. What I want to clarify immediately is that none of the characters will go on a hunting rampage assimilating passive benefits from the animals they hunt: as I've made abundantly clear, immunity from the venom of one particular creature isn't really that big of a gain when you risk your life. None of them will suddenly gain the Hydra's regenerative powers, none of them but Tom will speak Parseltongue, and only Minerva is an Animagus at this point in time.

I explained it along this chapter, hinted at it previously, and introduced it in the very first chapters of this story: rituals are fucking dangerous, if you're not as specific as possible, they can have terrible consequences, and the MC isn't stupid enough to attempt some fuckery right now, not when he has just been almost killed with his last attempt at healing Lycanthropy.

Patronus:

I've voluntarily kept quiet on the Patronus' form: in theory, I want it to symbolize the best features of the caster's character. I always find the difference between an eventual Animagus and his Patronus to be very interesting to explore magically.

On the whole, Rubeus is callous, predatory, a loner by choice. He's also constantly dreaming of more: more magic, more knowledge, more unique things that only he feels like he can do. He has this absurd huger for sheer creation that he's willing to keep Riddle breathing only because of the advantages it brings him.

Besides the more obvious 'Bear' that doesn't really fit with its obsessive need for more and more magic, or the 'Goshawk' that doesn't quite fit with his 'living and let live' attitude, I've also discarded the classical variations of reptiles because I want the Patronus to be something powerfully connected with the better sides of his personality.

I also want to avoid the clichè of a magical creature as a Patronus: as they can change along a wizard's life, I see no reason to immediately jump off the deep end and give him a phoenix (banal) a dragon (a bit nonsensical) a thestral (much more appropriate for Harry Potter post Deathly Hallows) or a unicorn (of course he's not innocent enough for that).

Also because I find hilarious the contrast, I've thought about a Beaver: they are a recognized plague in some environments, as they repeatedly build dams capable of changing completely their ecosystem and bringing to ruin entire other species. It's kind of ridiculous, especially when placed in contrast with the MC's size, but each dam is an engineering marvel, and I did quote the Song of Durin previously (You should all go on you-tube and search 'acapella Durin song', if you don't know it already, you heathens).

Gimme some ideas for the Patronus please (with the reasoning, and no, the rule of 'cool' isn't enough)!