Can A Phoenix Love A Lion? (Hermione Granger x Male Reader)

29. A Dead Man in the Corridor

Almost a month later, once the holidays finished, on a Thursday evening, Y/N found himself in the History of Magic classroom. He stood in the corner of the room while Harry paced back and forth as they waited for Lupin.

Five minutes later Professor Lupin turned up, carrying a large chest, which he heaved onto Professor Binns's desk.

"There you are," Lupin said, almost as if he hadn't believed they would really show up. "Are you sure about this, Harry? You know, this is very advanced magic, well beyond the Ordinary Wizarding Level."

"I'm sure," Harry said. "If Y/N can do this, so can I."

"So . . ." Professor Lupin had taken out his wand and indicated that they should do the same. "The spell that I am going to try and teach you is called the Patronus Charm. Did you ever hear of it?"

Harry shook his head.

"No? Well, Y/N, if you please?"

"Well, when the charm works, it conjures a Patronus," Y/N said. "It's like a kind of anti-dementor—it works as a shield, with the dementor feeding on it rather than on the wizard. It's a kind of positive force."

"What does a Patronus look like?" Harry said curiously.

"Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it," Lupin said.

"And how do you conjure it," Harry asked.

"With an incantation," Y/N told him. "But in order for it to work, you need to think of a particularly happy memory."

"Right," Harry said, looking as though he tried to recall something from a very distant past.

"The incantation is this—" Lupin cleared his throat. "Expecto Patronum!"

"Expecto Patronum," Harry repeated in a mumble. "Expecto Patronum."

"Very good," Lupin said, smiling. "Right, then—shall we? Wand at the ready. Y/N, prepare yourself. It's up to you to deal with it if Harry can't."

"Yes," Y/N said, gripping his wand and moving a little behind Harry, into the middle of the deserted classroom.

Lupin grasped the chest and pulled.

A dementor rose slowly from the box, one glistening, scabbed hand gripping its cloak. The lamps around the classroom flickered and went out. The dementor stepped from the box and started to sweep silently toward Harry, drawing a deep, rattling breath. A wave of piercing cold broke over the room.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto—"

Harry fell flat on his back, his wand rolling away from his hand.

Y/N raised his own wand, but before he could even begin to think of anything—

Crack!

It was not a dementor he had in front of him, but a mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole. Venom dripped from two enormous fangs the size of his chest. The enormous basilisk, bright, poisonous green, thick as an oak trunk, raised itself high in the air and its great blunt head prepared to strike as it had been in the Chamber of Secrets, ready to kill him and Harry. . . .

"Riddikulus!" Y/N cried.

The giant serpent hiccupped and shrank, becoming smaller and smaller until it became a cuddly toy of itself.

"It was . . . a boggart?" Y/N gasped.

"Indeed," Lupin said. "I couldn't bring a real dementor inside the castle."