stardust ⋮ george weasley

seventy-seven :

S E V E N T Y - S E V E N

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At the first Dumbledore's Army meeting after returning from winter holidays, Harry had decided that he would teach everyone how to perform the Patronus Charm. Even though there wasn't any dementors present, he still thought it was useful to start teaching it.

After several failed attempts at producing more than a corporal Patronus, Adeline closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She found it difficult to focus in on a memory, so she instead chose a feeling – the overwhelming feeling of happiness she felt in the late nights giggling with Estelle, Ophelia, and Melanie as they devoured Chocolate Frogs and talked about everything and anything in between. The sparks of joy she felt when George wrapped his arms around her and seemed to make the whole world dissolve around them.

Once she opened her eyes, Adeline said with conviction, "Expecto patronum!"

Shockingly, a beautiful swan emerged from Adeline's wand. Adeline started wide-eyed as it flew gracefully around the room, making turns around students heads and flying through other Patronuses.

Now that hers was cast and she had a better handle on how to cast the spell, she focused her attention on seeing what her friends' Patronuses were. Adeline giggled as a large badger appeared out of Ophelia's wand and started flitting around the room, tripping over Melanie as it ran through her and her Patronus, an Irish Wolfhound. Flying around her head were two magpies and when she turned her head, she saw Fred and George's wands high in the air as they guided their Patronuses around the room.

For George, casting the Patronus had been much easier than he had expected it to be. He thought about the pure joy he felt the first time he had kissed Adeline in the snow at the Yule Ball over a year ago, and his magpie appeared on only his second attempt casting the charm.

George walked up behind Adeline and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Care to tell me what your memory was?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," She teased, shoving his face away as he leaned in closer.

George might've been able to close the small gap between their lips if a Patronus in the shape of a badger hadn't run through the pair and separated the two. "C'mon, you lot, don't traumatize the first years!" Ophelia loudly cackled.

Adeline would've shot back a remark that the way Ophelia acted at a recent seventh year party had certainly traumatize more than a few Hogwarts students, but something distracted her. Small particles of dust fell on Adeline's shoulders, and when she looked up, she saw that it had fallen from the ceiling.

Then the room began to rattle.

At first, Adeline thought it might've been a spell that went wrong. But then the room rattled a second time, and a small piece of the wall where the entrance was came flying off and landed at Harry's feet.

Instinctively, everyone in that room seemed to know what was about to happen, raising their wands and pointing them at the wall. Adeline and Cedric stepped in front of a small group of first and second years, who were also holding their wands up. But, Adeline could see the way their wands trembled in their hands, making her hold up her own wand just slightly higher.

Then the room exploded – both metaphorically and literally. As the wall came blasting apart, Adeline immediately casted a Shield Charm, preventing the young students from getting battered too much about the exploding rock. Once the dust had settled, students were running in every direction, casting spells randomly as they avoided Professor Umbridge's or any of the Inquisitorial Squad's grasps.