Glory |A. Potter|

Thirty-One

"Expecto Patronum."

Albus paid no heed to Jane's murmur, and he paid no attention to her groan when she failed to cast the Patronus Charm for yet another time. His eyes, instead, were drawn on the chessboard laid out in front of him, eyes moving from Scorpius's white pieces to Ramona's black ones. This game of chess had been going on for about half an hour now, and even though Albus had been a spectator in many chess games, especially when he was younger, this time, he couldn't tell who was winning. He pushed himself to focus on the game of chess. He knew, if he didn't, his mind would go back to smoking and how he was supposed to be having a cigarette this late into the night, in front of the fireplace of his common room, with almost all students gone. He was trying to quit smoking, though. It was just the start, and so far, he was attempting to distract himself with any means possible. He had even welcomed Cleopatra's jump on his lap and had proceeded to pet her until she started purring. Anything to keep his mind off of his packet of cigarettes in his dormitory. He told himself he would throw it out tomorrow morning.

"Expecto Patronum."

"That sounds like a failure even to my own ears," he spoke up out of the blue as Ramona moved a bishop and brought Scorpius to send her a heated glare while she just smirked in triumph. His eyes were still on the chessboard until he heard Jane's sigh. He looked over, caught her gaze. "I didn't mean you aren't doing well. Because you are, this is an incredibly hard spell. But you need to believe in yourself to do it. If you think you are going to fail then you actually will."

"Well, it's not like it's given me a sign I'm going in the right direction," Jane huffed. Albus raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, since when do charms give you signs? If you wanted a sign you should have chosen Divination."

"Oh, make yourself useful and speak when you have something nice to say."

His eyes widened. Scorpius and Ramona stopped playing, both sending a subtle look her way. Jane let out a defeated sigh, her whole body shagging. There was a beat of silence, a moment when Albus, Scorpius and Ramona exchanged a look, communicating in silence and realising that this wasn't the best time to antagonise her. Albus had already spoken, though. Her outburst was unexpected – in all years of them being classmates, he had only ever heard her snap once more, to him, months ago at a Care for Magical Creatures lecture. It seemed like he had a knack for upsetting her.

"That was out of the blue, I know," she murmured, her eyes on her wand. "I understood what you meant."

"You just need to believe in yourself and have faith in your memory," Albus replied, his tone so low it was hardly heard. His eyes had stopped being so wide and he had partly gotten over the surprise of her outburst, but his voice was still gentle as he attempted to not scare her away. "There is no way you can't do it when you are so good at everything else."

"Albus is right," Scorpius spoke up, "I won't ever manage to cast the Patronus Charm probably but that's because I'm terrible at charms. You are different. You can find a good enough memory."

"Nothing comes to mind, though," she whined lowly, "I've tried."

"Think of what makes you happy," Albus suggested, "just focus on that and let the feeling consume you."

"Now that's hard," Ramona piped in, "when was the last time you let an emotion that wasn't annoyance or triumph consume you, Jane?"

She scowled, "That was uncalled for."

"Yeah, you focus on your game," Albus sent her a look and Ramona let out a brief chuckle as she turned back to her game just in time for Scorpius to make his move. Albus turned his gaze back to Jane. "Come on, keep trying."