Neville Longbottom and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter 13: 'Expecto Patronum'

'Lessons with Lupin' resumed a week after Christmas. Neville almost asked him about the Map but he thought it would go better if he waited for Luna to get back. He started Neville working on 'Remoramen' which was just 'Remora' with a bit more 'umph'. Despite his increase in confidence, he made almost no progress all week.

With the Hogwarts Express came the rest of the students and a return to their weekly class routine. For the first couple of days Neville was acutely aware of just how noisy the Castle was with everyone there, even while sitting alone in a room.

Luna told him what happened on her side of the Wizard Chess test. She moved her Pawn, but then it almost tipped over and slid back to its starting position. Then, she saw the letters H and I form, but they started on fire and it spread across the whole board. She brought another Wizard Chess Board so they could try again. They agreed to try etching this time since woodburning was obviously a bad idea.

Neville told her about learning 'Protego' pretty quickly, and then the snowball fight. He also told her about going to visit Hagrid and what he realized about Lupin and the Map. They agreed to ask him about it at their next lesson.

In Charms class Flitwick seemed to think Neville would suddenly be able to Cast flawlessly, but that ended quickly. He brought Neville in front of the class to introduce the Spell 'Carpe Retractum', but he ended up just standing there and waving his Wand for half the class. The more advice and instruction Flitwick gave, the more flustered Neville got.

In Divination Trelawney introduced them to Palmistry. When she called on Neville for her demonstration, he thought there might be some conspiracy to humiliate him this week. As she was reading his palm, she noted that he had a broken Life-Line. During her pause, he thought she would say he was going to die young, but instead she said he was accident prone.

There were several chuckles and at least one, "Well, duh." Neville wondered if Trelawney was going easy on him with this one. Hermione was really trying to bite her tongue, but gave in and listed multiple examples that were "common knowledge" which proved that very thing.

"Oh, my dear girl," Trelawney said to her, "stating such facts does not change what I have Divined, it merely proves that it's true."

Neville changed his mind about asking Lupin about the Map. In their next Lesson, Lupin had them pick up where they left off with the Disarming Charm. Over the next two weeks Luna's 'Expecto Patronum' grew into what Lupin called an Incorporeal Patronus. He also demonstrated an animal Patronus by producing his - a beautiful White Wolf.

Neville could still barely light up the tip of his Wand with the Spell. The calming exercises were helping, but mostly to keep from doing worse as he became more frustrated and discouraged. Because the Patronus Charm required one to tap into happy feelings and memories, Lupin was convinced that he just had a problematic conception of 'happy'.

Lupin told Neville in advance that their last lesson of January would have to be canceled. Neville guessed that Snape would be covering for Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and he was correct. The first thing that Snape did was to ask for their Werewolf Essays.

"How is it that Miss Granger is the only one to have completed it when you have had four months to work on it?"

Hermione had her hand up and said, "To be fair, Professor Snape, Professor Lupin said –"

"Do you really want to defend your classmates, Miss Granger?" Snape interrupted. "What makes you think that I will tolerate your incessant need to answer questions in this class when I don't tolerate it in my own?" He waited quietly with a cruel grin to see if Hermione would take the bait - she did not.