Chapter Forty-Nine, Patronus Class and Apologies

Upon their arrival back to Hogwarts after the Yule holidays, Hermione immediately sought out Izzy in the Gryffindor Common room acting as if nothing had happened, however, after thinking over everything and taking Fred's and the others perspective into consideration Izzy had decided that Hermione would have to prove she was sorry and apologise to her face before she accepted it.
"But I already apologised to you!" Hermione complained with a frown upon her face after being told as such when she joined Ron, Neville and Izzy by the fire who were joined by Celeste Bryn, Lee Jordan, Kellah Johnson, Fred Weasley who sat on the sofa with Izzy with her curled into his side, and George Weasley and Angelina Johnson who shared an armchair together.

"By letter." Lee piped up. "That's not really how anyone should apologise whether you two got each other gifts or not."
"I'm sorry Hermione, but it's happened too many times now, that I wish you to prove you actually mean what you say." Izzy insisted, a sad smile on her lips. "It's time to put your words into action. Thank you for the gifts, I really appreciate them. Thank you all for them." she added to the others. "I'm going to head to bed. Goodnight everyone. Night Freddie." Izzy leaned down to kiss her boyfriend and betrothed sweetly. When they pulled back Fred had a goofy, blissed-out grin on his face that Lee and George couldn't help but to tease him.

As Izzy climbed the stairs to the girls dormitories a light laugh slipped past her lips as she could hear Ron and Neville moaning and groaning in disgust at seeing their sister kissing while Kellah, Celeste and Angelina cooed at her and Fred. However a smirk appeared on her lips as she knew Ron had a crush on Kellah and couldn't wait to return the teasing when the two of them finally got together. For all they've done is steal looks at each other when they thought the other wasn't looking.

As she took off her dressing gown, hanging it over the back of the chair beside her bed, kicked off her slippers and snuggled down under the covers to ward off the chill air, Izzy couldn't help but pray to Merlin that her sleep wouldn't be interrupted by nightmares as it had ever since that night on the train but had worsened from the fiasco of the Quidditch game against Hufflepuff.

*** 

A week into the new term, her papa, Remus, finally called her into the Defence classroom after dinner once she had finished her homework. Izzy of course understood why as he was helping the fifth and seventh years get ready for their O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts, not to mention the exams that were coming up for the other years as well – including her own – but that hadn't helped the rising anxiety and fear she felt every day she looked out of the window and saw the Dementors and remained unprotected from them.

"I'm sorry sweetheart." Remus apologised, hugging his daughter close to him when she entered the classroom playing with the sleeves of her robe.
"It's okay Papa." Izzy immediately reassured him, looking up at him with a sweet smile. "I know you've been busy with all of the exam preparations, homework and classes. Not to mention your furry little problem." As those particular words slipped past his daughter's lips an uncontrollable laughter slipped past Remus's.

"Oh you do remind me of your father sometimes, cub." Remus laughed, brushing away the tears on his cheeks and bestowing a kiss to her forehead.
"Which one?" Izzy asked cheekily but with a desperate desire to know, which only caused Remus to hold her tighter for a moment.

"All of us." Remus returned, smiling at the happiness that exuded her. "Now, are you sure about this, cub? This is very advanced magic....well beyond the Ordinary Wizarding Level." He asked, double checking she still wanted to do this.
"I'm sure." Izzy replied firmly, determined as she extracted herself from his arms.
"Well, everything is prepared." Remus nodded to the large chest over by the stairs to his office. "Now the spell I'm going to teach you is called the Patronus Charm. Have you ever heard of it?" He asked, leading them over to the chest. He knew how much his daughter loved to read and learn new things, so he was curious to see if she had ever come across it.

"Yes." Izzy nodded her head decisively. "It's a positive force that acts like a shield between the witch or wizard and the Dementor, so it feeds on it rather than them. It also takes a very strong and powerful happy memory to create a Patronus and its form is different for each person. There are rare cases where witches and wizards who are soulmates have the same form. Like my mum and dad who had a doe and a stag. They can be used to send messages, and they can also change if the wixen has suffered a great emotional upheaval either due to love or grief."

"Well done sweetheart!" Remus praised with a wide grin. He remembered at Yule how Izzy had soaked up that story of her parents having matching Patronus forms when she had informed the portraits of Lily, James, Mia and Monty that he would be teaching her the Patronus Charm when term began because the Dementors were too interested in her. If anger could be used to bring a portrait to life then it most certainly would have then. All four of them had been apoplectic with rage at the idiocy of Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic as a whole. "Ten points to Gryffindor." He added, winking playfully at Izzy trying to get her to relax as he knew this would be traumatic for her while also praising her intellect.

"Close your eyes." Remus instructed. "Concentrate and explore your past. Do you have a memory?" he asked as he smiled at his daughter who nodded nervously; she was almost jittering on the spot. "Allow it to fill you up. Lose yourself within it. Then speak the incantation, 'Expecto Patronum.'"
"Expecto Patronum." Izzy whispered.
"Very good." Remus praised as he circled his daughter. "Shall we?" He asked double checking as he came back to the chest, hands resting on the lid, at Izzy's nod he continued.

"Wand at the ready." Waving his hand over the lid the locks click as they opened and he lifted the lid, revealing a Dementor that rose out of the chest to loom threateningly over Izzy, the candles started to flicker and die as coldness seeped throughout the room snuffing out the light and any warmth.

"Expecto Patronum!" cried Izzy, her voice wavering as screams started to ring in her ears, and this time they weren't her mother's but her father's. "Expecto..."Expecto...Expecto... Expect..." She fought valiantly against the darkness and coldness that had seemed to have fused itself with her bones, but it was too much as it enveloped her entirely leaving her with nothing but darkness as she heard her father, James, call out to her mother. Telling Lily to take their daughter and run while he held off Voldemort.

She heard herself as a baby scream and call out for her father. As her mother ran upstairs to her nursery holding her tightly to her chest, the battle he held against Voldemort before he too was killed. Then she heard her mother killed once again before she was successfully roused from the icy grips of darkness that held onto her, making her relive her worst memory. She knew her father died thinking both she and her mother had escaped; which made it all the more painful.
"Cub!" Remus's alarmed voice and worried face greeted from above her as she came around, lying sprawled on the classroom floor where she had collapsed. "Are you alright?" he asked worriedly, gently brushing away her tears.

"I heard Daddy too this time, Papa!" Izzy wailed, throwing her arms around his neck and holding tightly as if she feared he would disappear right before her very eyes. "I don't want to hear them dying anymore! Daddy James told Mum to take me and run, that he would hold off Voldemort. They duelled until he..." she trailed off sobbing for a while until she finally composed herself.
"I know you don't want to cub; your Dad and I don't want you to remember that night and neither do your grandparents or Lily and James.

We want you to remember that you are loved beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is how they would want to be remembered." Remus soothed as he helped her sit up and get slowly to her feet. "Take deep breaths. It's all right. I didn't expect you to do it the first time, what with that memory. Here, eat this. You'll feel better." He handed her a chocolate frog from the pocket of his jumper as he went and relit the candles around the room.
"That's one nasty Dementor." Izzy muttered, staring at the Chocolate Frog box for a moment seemingly deep in thought before she decided to open it.

"Oh, no, no, no. That was a Boggart, cub. A Boggart. The real thing will be worse. Much, much worse. But out of interest what memory did you choose?"
"The first time I rode a broom." Izzy replied, leaning against the wall.
"That's not good enough. Not nearly good enough." Remus stated a frown creasing his brows causing his scars to seem harsher and fresher in the light of numerous candles.

A frown mirrored on Izzy's as she moved over to a candle closest to her playing with the flickering flame lost in thought as she tried to think of a memory that would be strong enough to stand against the Boggart let alone the real thing but there was only one that kept coming to mind.
"There's another but it's not exactly happy." Izzy mused, her emerald eyes were vacant and unseeing as she played with the flame. "Well it is, it's the happiest I've ever felt. But it's complicated."

"Is it strong?" Remus asked, he hated seeing her going through this. Seeing how much it truly affected her and this was only a Boggart. He hated that she struggled to find a happy memory, and that the first one that came to mind is when she came to Hogwarts.
"Yes." She muttered, turning back around to face him, wand in hand.
"Then let's give it a try. Do you feel ready?" Remus asked, always ready to put her wellbeing first, emotional and physical. In lieu of answering Izzy just simply raised her wand in the direction of where the Boggart will rise from the chest. Following her lead, Remus once again  waved his hand over the locks and lifted the lid, releasing the Boggart Dementor from the chest.

"Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!" This time Izzy stayed on her feet as a silvery-white mist burst from her wand creating a shield between her and the Boggart Dementor. Remus laughed in delight. He was beyond proud of his daughter as she was incredibly powerful for her age to create even the strong mist part of the charm. She was the youngest ever to be able to produce such a spell as due to what was required to withstand the Dementors it would normally only be wixens who were of age to be able to use such a spell and sometimes even then some could not cast it.

But to hold one for more than a few moments, Remus could safely say he was beyond proud. The beaming smile never left his lips as Izzy directed the Boggart back into the chest with shrouded mist.
"Well done, Izzy! Well done!" Remus praised, waving his hand he relocked the chest once more as she slumped tiredly against the wall.
"I think I've had enough. For today." She clarified.
"Yes. Sit down. Eat this, it helps. It really helps." Remus snapped off a bit of his own personal chocolate he had on him as he sat down beside his daughter wrapping an arm around her and pressing a kiss into her forehead.

"Just so you know, Izzy... I think you would have given James, Sirius and I a run for our money, but mainly James and Sirius. They were the best at Defence out of the three of us, and that is saying something!"
"I was thinking of Daddy James. And Mum. Seeing their faces. They were talking to me. Just talking. That's the memory I chose. I don't even know if it's real, but it's the best I have. Or rather did have, as I have you and Dad now and the portraits of them and my grandparents." Izzy muttered sadly. With that announcement Remus simply held her tighter, closer to him.

"Its okay to miss them, Izzy." Remus whispered reassuringly. "Sirius and I miss them every day but what gives us strength to get up every morning is you."
"You and Daddy won't leave me will you, Papa?" Izzy asked emotionally, her eyes wide and pleading.
"We're not going anywhere. I promise." Remus swore, holding her tightly as the pair took solace from each other before it was time for Izzy to head back to the Gryffindor common room.

When Izzy finally returned to Gryffindor Tower it was to find that the common room was practically empty save for Hermione who sat staring into the dying fire that cast shadows and a soft glow across the common room.
"Hermione?" Izzy asked, concerned as it seemed she hadn't heard her enter.
"Oh! Izzy, I've been waiting for you!" Hermione gasped, jumping from the armchair as if she'd been electrocuted, her heart racing as she prepared herself to have this conversation before Izzy rushed off to bed as it would seem she had a draining lesson.
"Are you all right?" Izzy asked, concerned, but what she really wanted to do was to go to bed after the day she's had, but most especially the lesson just now with her Papa. She knew it would be draining but she didn't know it would be this bad.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." Hermione gasped. "Wait!" She exclaimed loudly when Izzy made her way to the dormitory. "I just wanted to say that I've been thinking over what you said, and I realise I haven't been a great friend to you Izzy or the others but especially you. And you've been nothing but kind to me no matter how I treated you. When I told my mother and father what happened between us they were disgusted with me and grounded me for the whole break. We didn't go on our annual Christmas or Yule skiing holiday because of it." Hermione took a deep breath as she realised she was going completely off topic and tried to start again.

"What I'm trying to say is, that I apologise. I'm so sorry for how I've treated you and what I've done. I know I have said that one too many times before repeating my mistakes so I'm going to prove to you how sorry I am instead of just saying it. But I really hope one day you can come to forgive me, and we can be just like we were." Hermione apologised sincerely this time, her brown eyes begging Izzy to forgive her. Izzy's emerald eyes assessed Hermione, trying to find the lie within her eyes, but it seemed like she was telling the truth.
"Thank you for apologising, Hermione." Izzy muttered through a yawn. "It means a lot, but right now I can't forgive you but if you truly mean it and keep to your word-"

"I do!" Hermione hurriedly promised, interrupting Izzy.
"Then I don't see why we can't work our way back to it." Izzy smiled, but it looked more like a grimace as the memory the Boggart Dementor brought up was still surging through her brain.
"How was it?" Hermione asked unsurely, noticing how drained and out of sorts Izzy was.
"Good. Draining but good." Izzy replied through yet another yawn. "I can produce the shrouded mist shield. Just got to work on it and practice until I can produce the full-body one."

"That's great Izzy! I'm happy for you and proud of you." Hermione said with a tense smile but there was some pride in there as well.
"Thanks Hermione. If you don't mind, I'm going to head to bed. Feeling pretty drained." Izzy muttered tiredly, fighting to keep her eyes open. She felt like passing out there and then on the rug of the common room.
"Of course." Hermione readily agreed as she saw how truly tired the smaller teen was. She actually feared Izzy would pass out before she reached her bed. "Good night." As Izzy tripped and stumbled up to bed, Hermione sat back in front of the dying fire, hugging her dressing gown tighter to ward off the cold as she thought of ways in which she can prove how truly sorry she was to Izzy.

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Author's note: DO NOT ask me to update in any way shape or form. There are other ways of telling me what you thought of this. Anyone who does will get one warning before they are blocked.