Sarah received a number of surprises upon her arrival to St. Mungo's the following Friday. As usual, she went to Jacob's room first thing, only to find it empty, his bed cleaned and ready for the next patient.
"If he's checked out without telling me," she muttered, but her anger deflated when she remembered Merula's warning.
Was this what she'd been trying to say? Had Jacob been kidnapped by R?
She fled from the room to the Janus Thickey Ward, where she found her friends doing their daily check-ins with their patients.
"Jacob's gone," she wheezed. "I was just in his room--"
Penny stepped up. "He's fine. He's just been moved to another ward. Madam Strout just went looking for you to tell you."
"Oh." Sarah let herself relax a little. "Why did they move--Talbott!"
She pointed to the corner of the room then sprinted out the door. Penny called out to her, but Sarah kept running, poking her head into room after room along the corridor, looking for the thing she'd spotted float through the wall. Talbott joined her at once, taking every other room, until they reached the end of the corridor and the alchemy room.
This time there were several healers working in the alchemy room, including a white-haired witch who looked up from her blood-replenishing potion long enough to yell, "No running in here!" and overpour her powdered snake fangs. The mixture boiled instantly and she swore as she stepped back and vanished the contents, forced to restart.
"There!" Talbott said, pointing to the ceiling.
Sarah saw the ghostly blue-white light just as the creature disappeared through the ceiling.
"You two!"
Another healer, a bald man with caramel skin and glasses, stomped over. Sarah thought he looked familiar, and supposed he might have been one of the healers that had helped to revive Jacob.
"What are you doing in here?"
Sarah glanced at Talbott. She figured he wouldn't want their motives revealed to everyone in St. Mungo's. Talbott remained impassive.
"Looking for another student," he said.
The healer made a show of looking around the room. "Well, they're not here, so get lost!" he barked.
"Sorry," Sarah muttered. She and Talbott backed away while the wizard loaded potions onto a cart he was clearly planning to distribute throughout the hospital.
Talbott stopped outside the corridor. "So I'm not going mad! You saw it too!"
"I did. But Talbott...it's not a ghost."
"What? What is it then?"
"A patronus," she said gently. "A corporeal patronus."
"I...I don't..."
Sarah took out her wand. "Expecto Patronum!"
A burst of bright light emerged and materialized in the form of a labarador retriever. The dog pranced around about them, emitting the same ghostly glow and blue-white whisps of light as the swan.
Talbott watched it. "Oh. Right. Of course." He looked down at his Ravenclaw robes. He scoffed. "Idiot."
Sarah let her patronus fade away. "You're not an idiot. It's the anniversary of your mum's death. I probably would've jumped to the same conclusion."
He nodded, but still kept his eyes down. Finally, he said, "What's a swan patronus doing here, anyway?"
"That," she said, "is an excellent question. Patronuses are protectors, usually from dementors or lethifolds."
YOU ARE READING
Hogwarts Mystery Year 7
FanfictionIt is Sarah Spellman's final year at Hogwarts. The vaults have been vanquished, and no one has heard from R since they failed to uncover what was hidden in the vaults. Sarah's friends are eager to put the past behind them and enjoy their final year...
