Ch. 100 Protego Sanctum

The rest of the school year itself was calm in all honesty. The only extra problems occurring this year were mostly worries from the 'deranged murderer' on the loose and the gloomy atmosphere Dementors brought to the castle.

Both were completely understandable from an objective point of view. This is how humans will react instinctively when a threat to their lives and safety is introduced. They experience heightened tension in their bodies to ready themselves for potential dangers, burden their minds to kept constant vigilance, small events can lead to mistrusts, increased number of conflicts due to bravado, dick measuring or tense emotions, and weariness because of the constant strain people are under from the above.

The Dementors seem to constantly suck the warmth from the air and from people, with their growing numbers around the school affecting teens and kids alike. This sense of emptiness has been a constant struggle for students and has become more obvious as people are trying to combat the feeling through various means such as the cheering charm, dreamless sleep potions and binging on chocolate to mitigate the effects.

Luckily enough for some though, my Patronus class has been helping spread some positivity to Hogwarts as my friends, successful students and even some professors join in to stave the tide of oppression. You could now catch glimpses of a variety of silvery animals flying through the castle to lift the spirit of others, making for a truly magical sight. The rules were even specifically adjusted to allow for the charm to be used within the castle due to its positive effects on the student body.

The club was in full swing as many were having official duels to blow off steam, resolve conflict or just to better themselves and feel like they can at least put up a fight against Black. Although the pre-OWL students were more affected by the happening of the year, it helped that they had a place like this, filled with skilled duelers.

The Exchange was basically self-running now, with many older students helping the younger ones and each other, plenty of people trying to practice difficult spells and using my study guides to improve themselves. Cedric has been going from strength to strength under my tutelage, having a qualitative improvement in his abilities to guide others. He saw a rise in all of his grades, his practical abilities and he felt more sure of himself in almost all areas. He actually told me that it was an intoxicating feeling to have such rapid improvements in himself. I have also let him be in charge of the Exchange completely at least once a month to gradually help him feel comfortable with the responsibility.

In the mean time, the canon was pretty much just happening.

After his talk with me, Harry broke out of his immature actions towards Hermione and made up with her, losing any reason to be mad at her when the broom was returned before the kid had to play a proper match. The problem was with Ron. So although he has improved significantly compared to the weak, jealous and cowardly version, he his still quite upset at his 'pet's' disappearance/death at the hands of Hermione's cat. So although he isn't mad at her for the broom, he's still upset over how things are going on that front. But at least Harry is acting as a mediator this time around and helping the girl not hurt so much, with Ron giving the silent treatment instead of full on avoiding her.

Harry's brain was filled with Quidditch because of his captain, unable to worry about pretty much anything else. Now I sorta understand why Oliver is acting like this. It's his last year, because of me and my friends, Ravenclaw has been at the top ever since he took charge, they have a good team but have never won, so he worries about his plans to go pro. But this is wrecking the other aspects of his teammates personal lives at the moment and he's mixing his person goals too much. I just worry that the boy who is supposed to face fucking Voldemort should probably not be forced to give so much of a shit over a sport, but what do I know about preparing a kid for his future.

Anyway, although the Gryffindor team has excellent chasers and great teamwork between the twin beaters, Christian could fly circles around them still and kept the score as close as possible. They were unable to pull away from the back and forth score, making it so that Harry has to delay our new Seeker Cho from getting the Snitch. It came to the point where Oliver had to give up on winning by a large margin and focus on the next game instead since they couldn't pull ahead no matter what they did, so Harry now went after the Snitch actively. Then the idiots from Slytherin in the form of Draco, Crabbe, Goyle and Troll-face tried to sabotage the kid by dressing as Dementors, making him shoot off a nice looking Patronus for a third year, then catching the snitch to secure victory.

That night however, Sirius made another visit to the Gryffindor dorms and got to the third year rooms in search of Peter. Unfortunately he had already hid himself somewhere in the castle to avoid Black, since he knew Sirius knew he was Ron's pet. This resulted in a pretty scared Ron as he woke up to find a 'deranged murderer' slashing his bed curtains in frustration, a severely punished Neville for losing the entire weeks passwords and having them fall into Blacks hands, and the Fat Lady returning to her post with new guards to protect her after the crazy knight replacement was fired.

This event set off another school wide search involving me, with Snape once again suspecting Lupin, but nothing came of it.

Time went on, I'm sure that Professor Lupin now has the Marauders map and knows Pettigrew might still be alive. The kids learned that I was properly keeping Buckbeak safe, when Malfoy was taunting them about its impending execution, but Hagrid told them that this was no longer the case because of an official notice from the ministry.

I might have had the people in charge of the disposal of dangerous creatures write a false statement of guilt and sent it myself to a certain noble house, whilst having further notices of the changes in the case 'temporarily' lost. The receiver of said false statement never even checked with those who wrote it as he simply believed this was obvious with him holding them by the nuts. It just brings a smile to my face when he was dancing to my tune. Hermione still punched the little wimp in the face though, which just made my little fan heart smile a bit.

Anyway, the last game Quidditch game of the year happened and by some divine intervention (I blame She-who-must-not-be-named or I might get in trouble~), Gryffindor beat Slytherin with just enough points to win the cup this year.

Aside from basically watching a combination of the movies and books come to life, while managing my own additions and helping my friends, I've had tremendous success in developing one of my final two mastery projects.

The spell's name is Protego Sanctum, my Defense Against the Dark Arts project. This is the only existing defense purely against the Dark Arts. It is the complete opposite of Protego Diabolica which is designed to stop the physical body of ones enemies.

By its nature, the spell is the closest thing in existence to holy magic besides the Patronus. It's duty is to stop dark magic, repel dark creatures such as Dementors, and provide strong resistance against those steeped into the dark arts. I designed it to work as a quick combat barrier or as a longer lasting protective defense. It's spell motion should require close combat users to mark the space by pointing the wand and basically drawing it in the air, then using the necessary magic and intent to form the barrier.

It has high requirements from the user, as no one who hasn't gone through a second magical maturation will be able to use the spell, and no one who has practiced dark arts enough to have a trace of it on their souls can use this either. The second requirement is the intent behind the spell: strong desires to protect, intense memory when one wished to protect others, desire to repel the dark arts completely and the need to care when casting the barrier.

But with the strict requirements comes the rewards. From what I've tested, this is now the only known spell in existence that can protect you from and dispel the three Unforgivables. That's right. I figured out a way to stop the killing curse through pure spell casting. I mean, I had about half a dozen sure fire ways of doing it, by conjuring something to take the hit, transfiguring the environment to act as a shield, summon an object to take the hit, etc. The notion that it's unstoppable was always overrated in my mind. Yes it was the deadliest spell in existence, still is too. You get hit and you're done, but it's perfectly defendable when you have some skills. Although this spell can't purify tainted or dark objects like Horcruxes, it will not permit them within its bounds either and force them out. And due to the intense emotional requirements, it has a degree of sentience imparted by the caster to fulfill its role.

If you wondered how I tested this, well it's pretty simple. I still have a certain vanishing cabinet pair linked to Micheal Folster's home and I invited Oliver over, since pretty much all senior Aurors know some of the dark arts to defend against them properly, and had him shoot the Killing Curse on the shield erected around a dummy. The results were that nothing he tried from what he knew worked. We even got Scott to help us with the Imperius Curse and that's how we saw that it washes that away too. Unfortunately, because Oliver has used these kinds of spells a bit too much, the barrier offers slight resistance against him and telling me he will likely never be able to cast the spell itself. But surprisingly, Scott was actually able to get a feel for it, meaning he's never used the Dark arts and has the qualifications to learn the spell.

'The Golden trio doesn't have anyone with a particularly strong magic core amongst them, Harry being the closest to it but the blood wards are using a lot of it. So teaching them will have to wait. My friends should be able to do it be next year or the year after that. Tory has sworn she's never used any dark arts, finding it the tool of the weak willed and lazy. James and Christian find them abhorrent in general so they also avoid it. The only other requirement would be their cores, and after going through my special training for years, Tory will experience hers on her birthday and my two mates will probably feel it by the time we graduate.' I thought to myself has I figured out who I should let in on this.

'Oh well, that's for later. For now I just have to finish my exams like I usually do and then it's time for me to mess with Lucius face to face.' I thought to myself with a great big smile.

"I can't wait." I said with my face transforming into a devilish smile.