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05- Patronus Charm

December 10

December was my favourite month. It held my birthday and Christmas, two of my favourite celebrations. The snow, the fires, everything about December was magical, especially at Hogwarts. It just was the best month of the year, period.

"Eight days till you turn 18 Avery, excited?" River asked with a smile on her face.

"No. I don't want to think about it River, please don't bring it up."

Her smile dropped, "What? Why?"

"I like being 17, 18 means I'm an adult, and I'm not ready for that."

She started smiling again, "For Merlin's sake  you're so dramatic, you're turning 18 not 45."

"I might as well be."

"You'll be legal, you can drink legally, there's so many perks."

I gave her a look and smiled. "Yeah like I haven't been drinking underage for years now."

She laughed and put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed my side.

"Shut up, you're going to have a great birthday, just wait."

We were sat on benches outside, the snow slowly fell on our hair and we were freezing, but it was peaceful and so neither of us complained.

"If you say so." 

Eventually though the snow kept falling on my eyelashes and it was irritating me, so we decided to go inside back into the castle where it was warm. I tugged her arm to get up, we had on our Slytherin scarves around mouths and we were mumbling into them, mindlessly chattering, barely understanding what the other was saying as we walked back into Hogwarts.

"We've got Defence Against the Dark Arts now anyway." 

Draco and Blaise had approached in front of us, both wearing their scarves and wearing black leather gloves. Blaise was smoothing his hair down, trying to get rid of the snow, Draco was brushing the snowflakes off of his cloak.

"Alright River?" Blaise asked politely, though I could see the tiniest bit of awkwardness seep through his voice.

"Yeah? You?"

"We've got Lupin." He said whilst nodding.

We all made our way to his classroom. Lupin came in a few minutes later, his nose red from the cold and he too was shaking his hand through his hair to get the snow out. He stood tall at the front and rubbed his hands together, signalling that he was ready to start the lesson.

"Right, we're doing the Patronus charm today."

Immediately I tensed. We had learnt about patronuses in fifth year theoretically, but we weren't expected to actually produce them until seventh year. I turned to Draco and he too looked uneasy. Happy memories were the foundation for a Patronus charm. I didn't have many of those and I knew Draco didn't too.

"This is advanced, complex stuff so I'm spreading it out over the course of the next few lessons, not everyone will get it the first few times around, but we'll get there."

This is a fucking nightmare.

"The incantation is "Expecto Patronum" but the incantation alone isn't enough. You need to think of a happy memory, one powerful enough to shield off a dementor." He explained. He carried on explaining and as soon as he said "Right let's get started, everyone up with your partners" Draco turned to me.

"Wanna get out of here?"

"Duh." 

He smiled and nodded, we were at the back of the class anyway, he wouldn't notice if we slipped out, he was preoccupied with helping Neville. Once his back was turned, we bolted, laughing as we made our way to our spot, the astronomy tower.