"Expecto Patronum!" Harry grits his teeth as he casts, narrowing his eyes behind the glass of his specs as he concentrates on the charm. A light, blue-silver mist springs forth from his wand tip, forcing the Boggart back slightly, and he lets out a sharp, irritated noise as he flicks his wand aside, giving up.

"Harry-"

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry repeats, and more mist springs from his wand, a little thicker this time and forming a heavy shield between him and the Boggart, forcing it back by a foot, but it's not enough - it's not corporeal, not yet, and Harry wants it to be. He's determined to get this spell right, if he has to practice every day between now and the day he dies. "Expecto-" Lupin's hand touches Harry's hand, stopping him short, and he gives a flick of his own wand, forcing the Boggart back into its wardrobe.

"Professor, I can do it," Harry argues, and Lupin gives a rueful little laugh, reaching for the bar of chocolate on his desk and offering Harry a few pieces, which he reluctantly takes. Lupin sits back against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at Harry with a fond smile. "I can."

"I have no doubts, Harry," he assures him quietly, watching Harry for a few minutes. "It's just a matter of finding the right memory. What are you concentrating on when you cast?" Harry thinks about it. He focuses on the feel of his wand in his hand, the shift of his arm and his hand as he moves it, the slight hiss of magic in the air as the Patronus comes forwards.

"Er," Harry says, glancing away for a moment, and Lupin laughs. It's a kindly laugh, and Harry sighs as he drops back against a desk. "It just feels- I don't know, stupid."

"A Patronus is a concentration of happy thoughts, of happy memories," Lupin explains, meeting Harry's gaze and looking at him seriously. Harry never feels like Lupin is talking down to him or patronizing him - he's not like some people when explaining a concept, and Harry's glad of that. "You're effectively creating an avatar the dementor is forced to concentrate on instead of yourself - by externalizing some of that happiness, you create a shield that the dementor can't quite attack. This isn't like a Cheering Charm or a Summoning Spell, Harry. It's more intuitive than that. You need a truly happy memory to anchor your Patronus to." Harry scans his mind, trying to pull at happy thoughts - seeing the presents beneath his Christmas tree in first year, seeing Hermione the next summer... Seeing the contract Sirius had laid out on a table for him to read, the one transferring Harry's care from Vernon and Petunia Dursley to Sirius Black.

"Once more," Harry says determinedly.

"You're very focused on something, once you want it, aren't you?" Lupin asks, and Harry gives a simple nod of his head; Lupin steps back and away from the desk, flicking the latch on the wardrobe open, and Harry stares at the "dementor" as it slowly pushes the wardrobe open, gliding out. Harry breathes in, and he focuses on everything he felt when he saw Sirius spread out the piece of parchment on the table, the relief, the excitement, the pure contentedness at the idea of living with anyone, anyone, other than the Dursleys, but especially with Sirius.

"Expecto Patronum!" A blue-mist shape glides through the air from Harry's wand: it's vague and only lasts a few seconds but Harry can see that it has four legs and a large body. He grins, and Lupin slides the wardrobe door shut behind the Boggart.

"Well done," he says quietly, honestly. "We'll have a corporeal Patronus out of you in no time, Harry."

---

"You don't seem too happy," Blaise says as he enters Harry and Draco's dorm room, dropping Draco's Nimbus 2001 onto his bed. He'd borrowed it to play a game with some of the fourth years out on the pitch, and now that he's inside Blaise is windswept and slightly muddy. Harry sighs, running his hand through his hair and setting a letter aside.

"I've just been getting a lot of the same letters," he admits. "Just a lot of nonsense, really. "Oh, I always knew he was innocent!" That kind of thing." He shakes his head, shoving his parchments and papers to the side of the bed so that Blaise can sit down. "Only Augusta Longbottom has referenced it honestly."

"What did the old bag say?" Blaise asks, and Harry pulls the parchment out from the pile, clearing his throat to read from it.

"Honestly thought Black would be in prison for years, but if he's innocent, he's innocent. Typical of the Ministry to fumble the Quaffle. Tell him hello. He won't care that I said so, arrogant little bastard that he always was, but it's polite." Blaise laughs, and Harry grins, setting Mrs Longbottom's letter back on the pile. Harry leans back, putting his feet in Blaise's lap, and asks, "You looking forward to the holidays?"

"Yeah, Mother and I are going to New York for the holiday," Blaise says casually as he leans back against the post of Harry's bed. "What about you? First Christmas with Black, eh?"

"That's right," Harry says, with a little grin on his face. "We're gonna meet up with Hermione and her parents on Boxing Day, and I've made plans to see the twins, too."

"Don't tell me those are the only people you're socializing with over the holiday?" Blaise asks, pinching his face in an obvious display of disgust, and Harry arches an eyebrow.

"Don't be snooty, Blaise, or I'll hex you out of the room."

"What I mean," Blaise amends, doing his best to make his expression a little more neutral, "Is that you should see more people. Proper people."

"Blaise."

"It's politics! You write everyone letters, but you should go to Christmas balls and the like. Especially with a Black as your guardian - there are expectations of a young man," Blaise says, and Harry rolls his eyes.

"That's why you and your Mum are going to New York, is it?" Blaise huffs, shooting him a scowl and shoving Harry's feet from his lap before he leaves the room. Harry sighs, but despite Blaise's general prejudices, Harry supposes he can't ignore everything the other boy had said. He reaches for his letter from Lucius Malfoy, scanning the page. It's politics, isn't it? Just politics.

---

"I'm not going to go," Hermione says sharply as she and Harry walk down towards the pen Professor Gudgeon had set up beside the Forbidden Forest.

"Hermione, come on, there'll be all sorts of important wizards and witches in attendance-"

"All of them bigots!" Hermione snaps, and Harry sighs, trudging along beside her. "I'm not going to go to a party hosted by Lucius Malfoy, Harry - he'd be happy if I were dead. Honestly, how could you think I'd want to come?"

"You could prove him wrong," Harry offers. "Look at Draco - you and him almost get on, sometimes."

"When he's utterly silent," Hermione says, "Though as soon as he opens his mouth I remember his true colours. It's like asking me to go to a dinner hosted by a Neo-Nazi, Harry."

"No, it's not!" Harry protests loudly. "It's not the same thing-"

"It's exactly the same thing." Hermione stops short, and Harry has to skid slightly on the wet grass to keep from going past her: she points her finger into his face as she meets his gaze, and he finds himself wishing her were, at the very least, the same height as her. She's had a growth spurt recently, and he's been rather left behind. "You can go, and you can drag Sirius along, but you're not going to get me to come. It's different for you, Harry - as soon as I walked into that Christmas gala in my dress robes, every eye would be on me, because they wouldn't recognize my name, and they'd know what I am. I'm not going to have dinner with people who'd like me and my parents dead." She stalks off, and Harry sighs, watching after her with a resigned expression on his face. It's not as if he can make her come with him.

The invitation for the gala had been printed in neat, green ink on fancy parchment, on Christmas Eve at Malfoy Manor. It had allowed for a plus one, as well as Sirius, but Harry supposes his plus one isn't going to be Hermione, and he's hardly going to invite just one of the twins, even if either of them would come.

"You're late, Mr Potter!" tinkles Professor Gudgeon as he rushes down the rest of the hill, and he gives her a shrug.

"Sorry, Ma'am," he says insincerely, and she gives a little, disapproving moue. Professor Gudgeon is wearing a set of robes today made of pink, satiny material, covered over with black polka dots and tied at the waist with a black sash: the skirt of the robes comes out from her body like a 50s party dress, and Harry can't help but think the ensemble is a little over the top for an afternoon of classes in the mud.

"Now, children," Gudgeon says, putting her chin high as she gestures to the pen behind her. "This afternoon we will be acquainting ourselves with the most noble of magical equines: the unicorn." Gudgeon's smile is momentarily fixed on her face, her made-up lips not moving and her eyes strangely frozen as she stares at Harry, and Harry shifts uncomfortably under her gaze, glancing at the others for help. None comes. "Why don't you introduce yourself first, Mr Potter?"

"Don't unicorns like girls, Professor?" Harry asks.

"Well, they prefer virgins as well, but they're just fine with me!" Gudgeon lets out her feminine little titter: nobody else laughs. "These unicorns are rather young, so they are not as cautious of men as older ones." Harry stares over the fence at the bright, white bodies of the six unicorns assembled, each of their horns seeming razor sharp in the afternoon sun.

"Right," Harry says awkwardly, and he moves to the fence, slowly climbing over and into the pen. He takes a slow step forwards: the unicorns assembled turn to look at him, and Harry doesn't like the looks in their eyes, nor the way their golden hooves shift in the grass. "It's okay," he says in what he hopes is an appropriately soothing tone, taking slow steps forwards. One of the unicorns turns its head abruptly towards him, lowering its forehead slightly so that its horn is roughly in line with Harry's head. "Or it's not," Harry corrects himself. Already halfway across the paddock, he begins to walk rapidly to the side, towards the edge of the fence, but four of the unicorns are already walking slowly towards him, lowering their heads and shielding the other two, which he thinks are the males, from Harry.

Harry turns and just runs to the edge of the paddock, throwing himself over the fence as the unicorns give chase, skidding to a stop at the edge of the fence.

"Right!" Harry says to them, breathing a little heavily. "Glad to see we don't get on." One of the unicorns tosses its head and lets out a whinny, glaring at Harry as if he's just tried to kill one of them.

"Potter! What are you doing!?" Professor Gudgeon calls from the other side of the fenced-in area, and Harry stares at her.

"Uh, not letting a unicorn make me into a kebab!" Harry snaps back. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He can see Draco trying not to laugh, hiding his mouth behind his hand, but Hermione is shifting anxiously from one foot to the other, looking at Harry with obvious concern on her features.

"Come here!" Harry sighs, beginning to walk around the edge of the paddock, but there's a loud splintering of wood from beside him, and he stares at the fencing as it just crumbles into wood shavings, leaving a two metre gap in the fence. The four female unicorns, who'd been returning to the males, turn and look at Harry.

"Hermione!" Harry yells, not breaking the stare he keeps up with the biggest female unicorn. "How fast can a unicorn run!?"

"Faster than you, Potter!" shouts back Theo before Hermione can reply, "Start running and weave!" Harry doesn't need telling twice. He shoots back into the Forbidden Forest, throwing himself over tree roots and through little ditches, doing his best to weave one way and then the next to make it more difficult to run after him in a straight line. Throwing himself forwards and into a piece of trunk, he crawls forwards and inside, ducking down to try and keep himself hidden.

He hears the pound of hooves on the ground around him, and he waits for a few minutes before he slowly pulls himself out of the trunk he'd hidden in: as he stands, the wood behind him comes apart with an odd ripping sound, and he turns to stare at it.

With a sick, discomforting feeling, he realizes he isn't looking at a piece of wooden trunk, but a thick, yellowing snake skin, at least six feet across.

Swearing under his breath, Harry begins to run back to the edge of the forest, and he heaves in breaths as he goes back to Professor Gudgeon and the rest of the students, who are staring at Harry in obvious horror. "I need to go up to the castle," he says firmly.

"Class is still in session, Mr Potter," Gudgeon says sharply.

"Well, class nearly just killed me, so I'm going up to the castle," Harry retorts, and he ignores the woman as she yells "Ten points from Slytherin!" after him.

---

"Professor Snape, sir," Harry says as he pushes open the door to the Potions classroom, and his head of house gives him a withering stare from behind Luna Lovegood's cauldron. Luna gives him a little smile and a wave, which Harry awkwardly returns. "Uh, it's not exactly an emergency, but it could become an emergency, sort of, maybe."

"What are you blabbering about, Potter?" Harry gives Snape an urgent look, glances at his students, and tries to silently convey that he doesn't want to impart this information in front of Snape's second year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Sighing, Snape says, "Into my office, Potter. I'll deal with you in a moment." Harry nods, pulling the Potions door shut.

Just before the latch clicks, he hears Luna say, "He'd be rather dashing if he wore the right sort of chain mail, don't you think, Professor?"

---

"Does she always talk to you like that?" Harry asks as Snape enters his office a few minutes later, and Snape stares at him. "Luna, I mean?"

"Mr Potter," Snape says in a low, threatening tone, "If this query is why you have interrupted my lesson, very bad things will happen to you."

"No," Harry hurries to say, "No, um, some unicorns nearly killed me just now-"

"What?"

"And when I ran into the forest to get away from them, I found a snake skin. A, uh, a really big snake skin." Snape is silent for a few moments.

"The Basilisk has shed its skin?" Snape asks slowly: Harry gives a nod of his head.

"Which means it's still alive," Harry says, and Snape pinches the bridge of his nose, setting his other hand on the back of his chair. "Should I tell Dumbledore?" Snape pauses for a few long moments, and then gives a nod of his head.

"Go. The current password is Aniseed Balls." Nodding his head, Harry rushes out, and hopes that Dumbledore is in his office. God knows this isn't the time for the headmaster to go wandering.