Unity & Perseverance

A Decleration of Love

A/N: Theo and Amelia have a little time alone together... where Theo admits something ;)

That Saturday was a Hogsmeade weekend, and it seemed every student had the same idea: to start buying Christmas presents for friends and family. Those in the DA in particular were ladened with bags - everyone had made so many friends, it was hard to keep track of who to buy for. Harry was thankful that there was another Hogsmeade weekend two weeks from now - he was definitely needing more time to gage his friends' ideas of what they wanted in order to narrow down what to buy them.

During the DA session that evening, Harry was very impressed that some Patronuses had started to emerge throughout the Senior group. It was mostly among the sixth and seventh years that were getting closer to achieving their corporeal forms, but some of the fifth years were catching up. About halfway through the session, Terry Boot managed to conjure up a Patronus, which took the form of a sparrowhawk. Everyone applauded him, and Terry basked in the praise, rightly so. Next to achieve it was some seventh years; among them Angelina, which he was delighted at. Hermione's took the form of an otter, Ron's a Jack Russell dog, Amelia's a leopard, and Dorea's was an Irish Wolfhound dog - Harry couldn't help but think it looked a lot like Padfoot.

Luna managed to stay pretty focused, as her patronus - a hare, - sped around the room before returning to her wand. Blaise Zabini, on his fifth attempt, managed to conjure up a Patronus that seemed to resemble a barn owl. Ginny produced a spectacular horse. Harry noticed Theo getting a bit stressed out with himself, he was having a bit of trouble. Harry kind of wished Professor Flitwick was here to give advice, as plenty of people were still struggling and he couldn't get round them all. He went over. "Don't push yourself too hard, Theo," he said, placing a hand on his friends shoulder.

"I don't think my memory is happy enough," Theo said weakly, "I'll keep at it though."

By the end of that session, only two more people had managed to conjure up a Patronus, but more and more people had managed to produce ropes of silver from the end of their wands, rather than just little wisps. He stood near the front. "I'm really, really impressed with you all today." He said, smiling, "Next session, I think we'll have a break from Patronuses, and get back to learning more spells. Keep practising at your Patronuses, though! There's no rush at all to get it under your belts. Next week, I think it will be the last session before the holiday's, to give us a break, as there'd be no point learning anything new on the final week before break." The room let out 'aww's' at that, but understood. Everyone praised Harry when the house elves arrived to take everyone back to their dormitories.

On Sunday, which was normally the quieter and less-busy days of Hogsmeade weekends, Harry, Amelia and Dorea went to the Three Broomsticks for lunch with Sirius. It felt weird having something akin to a catch-up, as they had Sirius for Astronomy, and they lived under the same building 24/7, yet both students and teachers had barely a day to themselves nowadays. Sirius was telling them about how his days were basically planning lessons, teaching, marking, eating, and sleeping - a routine repeated five days of the week. " Never become a teacher, guys, it'll consume half your life." Sirius had half-joked as they sipped butterbeer. "How is it, having Remus back teaching?"

"It's so much better, we're finally learning stuff!" Harry replied, the girls agreeing.

Sirius grinned knowingly. He would have invited Remus to their lunch, but he was attending a teachers meeting with McGonagall in his stead - where, unbeknownst to the Gryffindor fifth years, they were actually meeting to discuss each student's marks in classes so far. Sirius made a note to ask his best friend about how the three people in front of him were getting on grades-wise, as fifth year was a tough year, and they looked a bit worn out.