"Hello, Harry," Professor Lupin greeted the boy with a friendly smile on his face. Stepping aside to allow the Gryffindor to enter his office, he asked, "do you want some tea before we begin?"

Harry looked around the professor's office curiously. The last time he had seen it, the walls had been plastered with pictures of the very inhabitant of the office himself. And while he was glad that Lupin hadn't done the same, the emptiness of the room was almost worse than the blinking and twinkling it had been filled with during Lockhart's time. It looked as if the new teacher hadn't bothered to unpack more than absolutely necessary, and Harry wondered how long the man planned to stay.

"Ehm, no, thank you," Harry hurriedly answered when he became aware that Lupin was still eyeing him questioningly. "I'd rather if we begin immediately."

"Very well, then, Harry. Why don't you have a seat, I believe it would be prudent to go through the theory first before we actually try the spell," he gestured to the rickety chair in front of his desk.

Obediently, Harry sat down, and while he waited for the man to take the seat opposite of him, he briefly wondered why Lupin kept calling him 'Harry'. All of the other teachers referred to the students by their last names. And now that he thought about it, he couldn't recall the professor addressing any other student by their resepctive first name. Except him.

Somehow, this made Harry feel uncomfortable. He had never met the man before, he knew virtually nothing about him. Lupin, on the other hand, probably thought that he knew everything about the boy-who-lived, as did most people in the wizarding world.

Normally, Harry would only be annoyed by this - as far as he was concerned, all those people were simply daft, believing that a child could have defeated Voldemort and than survived all kinds of ridiculous adventures during his childhood. He wasn't the character from a fairy tale - he was a boy, a completely average third-year!

However, there was something in the DADA-teacher's behaviour that made Harry more than just angry or uncomfortable. The man behaved as if he and Harry were close friends, as if they had known each other for years. And those looks... they suggested some type of intimacy that simply didn't exist. If he had a choice, he'd rather not be alone in a room with the man.

But as things were, Lupin was the only teacher who had offered him any real help in defending himself against the Dementors. And if he wanted to survive the school-year, he'd better accept the man's proposal.

"Well, Harry, the charm I'm going to teach you is a difficult one. Many full-grown witches and wizards are unable to produce a patronus. It requires immense control over your mind as well as magical power. However, I'm confident that with enough practice, you will be able to learn it."

Harry had the distinct impression that the professor had wanted to say more, but he just swallowed and continued in the same cheerful voice, which didn't sound entire natural.

"As I have said, the ultimate goal is to produce a corporeal patronus, though even a non-corporeal one can be of great avail when being confronted with Dementors and related creatures. A patronus is a physical embodiment of everything good in your life, of all your happy memories, so to say. As it cannot experience despair, the Dementors cannot cause it any harm. Thus, a strong enough patronus can dispel Dementors, while weaker, non-corporeal ones can at least buy you time."

"The incantation for the Patronus-Charm is fairly simple. It will do nothing if not spoken with the right intention in mind, though. We will practise the wording first. Without wand, please. Now, please repeat after me," Professor Lupin made pause and Harry sat up straighter, "Expecto Patronum. Ex-pec-to Pa-tro-num."

Harry rehearsed the two words silently for a few times. They didn't seem particularly complicated. Then, he tried to speak them out loud, "Expecto Patronum."

"Very good, Harry, yes, very good. Now, I'm afraid that this is only the easy part. In order to achieve anything, you need to concentrate on all the happiness that is present in your life. At the beginning, it's easier to focus on one or two happy memories instead of actual happiness. However, the spell will be more effective once you have learned to extract the instances of happiness out of several memories and combine them to one single emotion."

Harry looked at Lupin in bewilderment. That sounded a lot like those esoteric rubbish some of his Aunt's friend spouted every now and then.

Lupin had apparently noticed Harry's less than thrilled expression. "You don't need to worry about this just yet, Harry. For now, it will be enough if you just recall the happiest memory you have and concentrate on the feeling you had in that particular situation. This way, you should still be able to produce a patronus. However, if you some day wish to become more proficient in this branch of magic, you'll need to work on your abilities to separate the emotions you experienced in one situation from your thoughts and the actual events that occurred, and then working with all of these separately. It'll help you in other branches of magic as well."

"Right," Harry nodded. Concentrating on a happy memory while stating the incantation didn't sound too complicated. "Ehm, will we go out in order to practise or will you bring one of the Dementors inside?" he tried his best not to let his nervousness show, though he wasn't sure how convincing he was.

"What- no, Harry, it will probably take you quite some time until you can cast the charm successfully even without a Dementor present. And even at this stage, you will not yet try it out on a real Dementor but on a Boggart."

"A Boggart?" Harry asked, feeling nauseous. Ever since the... incident he had been even more afraid of Boggarts than of Dementors. He almost snorted at the thought of what form a Boggart would take on if he had to face it now. Perhaps there was a way to find out what those creatures truly looked like.

"Yes, but don't worry," Lupin smiled reassuringly, "I will simply cast a stunning spell at the Boggart as soon as it has assumed the form of a Dementor. It will be unable to shift forms then, and you can practice as long as you need to without having to worry about it taking on the appearances of any other humans or beings you might be afraid of."

"Okay," Harry answered. He still wasn't completely comfortable with the idea, but it surely was better than to allow the Boggart to change its form at its leisure. "So, for now I will just practise the Expecto Patronum spell, yes?" he clarified.

"Yes," Lupin confirmed, "we'll better stand up, then you can move around more freely."

Harry did as he was told. Lupin swished his wand and the desk as well as the chairs floated to one side of the room, leaving a large open space in the middle of the office.

Lupin stepped to Harry's side, probably only to have a better look at whether Harry made any mistakes. Still, the man's close proximity made him feel uneasy.

"If you have chosen a happy memory, just begin casting the spell. I will observe you and intervene if necessary."

Harry took a deep breath. He already had decided on which memory he would take. He couldn't remember having ever felt as happy as he had during the first time he had ridden on a broom.

He concentrated on the incredible feeling of racing through the air. Raising his wand, he stated as clearly as possible, "Expecto Patronum!"

Nothing happened.

Well, perhaps he just hadn't concentrated hard enough. "Expecto Patronum!" Harry tried again, "Expecto Patronum!"

But no matter how hard he focused on the memory, there was no sign that his wand was more than an ordinary stick and the words he was saying again and again more than nonsensical expressions.

After what had to be ten minutes of unsuccessful attempts to produce a patronus - or at least get any reaction at all - Harry lowered his wand and looked at his teachers, slightly confused. He hadn't expected to get it perfect within just a few minutes, but surely there had to happen at least something, hadn't there?

"That was really good, Harry," Lupin said encouragingly, "I didn't expect you to cast the spell successfully during our first lesson - quite the contrary. It's a bit unusual that you don't get any reaction at all, sure, but it's not unheard of. Some people simply take longer to get the hang of the spell than others."

"Now, it's getting late and I don't want you to miss curfew. I'd suggest that we meet two times a week in order to practise. Does that sound agreeable, or do you think it's too much? I know that third-year can be rather busy with the new electives and everything...?"

"No, two times a week is good," Harry hurriedly said, "I'll need to speak with Wood, though, he tends to schedule Quidditch-practices quite spontaneously."

"All right. What about this Friday? Then you have a few days to practise on you own. That's very important, Harry, especially if you struggle a bit with getting used to the type of magic necessary to produce a patronus."

Equally relieved and disappointed, Harry left the DADA-Teacher's office. Disappointed because he hadn't managed to make anything happen and relieved because the Professor crept him out.

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Friday evening came and went and Harry was no closer to producing a patronus than he had been after his first private lesson with the DADA-teacher. The two of them agreed on meeting each Tuesday and Friday evening to practise, and with Quidditch-training and homework for two additional subjects, Harry's weeks became quite busy. He wouldn't have minded if he at least had made some improvements in his patronus lessons, however, that wasn't the case.

After a few weeks, even Lupin - who had until then been very confident that Harry's magical abilities were up to the task - seemed to become more and more doubtful. So instead of letting Harry try to cast the spell again and again, the professor moved back to the theory and questioned Harry on the memories he was using when attempting the charm.

At that point, Harry himself had already started to wonder whether the happiness he had felt during his first broom ride was strong enough, and so he had already tried out several different memories on his own. Therefore, he wasn't convinced that choosing yet another one would do any good.

When he told Lupin about the images he had used until then, he was surprised that the teacher didn't consider them strong enough. If neither flying nor winning the house cup, passing all of his exams (including potions) or finding out that he was a wizard and would leave the Dursleys in order to go to a magical school was strong enough, what else would be? He simply didn't have any really happy memories from the time before his 11st birthday.

The weird look Lupin gave him when Harry admitted the latter didn't help matters, as he became increasingly wary about what to tell the man and what to better keep silent about.

Some people might thought it comforting when a teacher was particularly nice to you after confessing that your home-life wasn't ideal, but Harry only became more distrusting at the shift in his professor's behaviour. He neither wanted nor needed the man's pity!

He was perfectly capable of dealing with the Dursleys himself, he had done so for twelve years already. No one else had ever questioned his relatives' behaviour towards their nephew, not even Hagrid who had seen first-handedly how they treated him.

And he didn't appreciated the fact that Professor Lupin seemed to take advantage of the Dursley's shortcomings in order to get closer to Harry himself.

Because this was what had happened after Harry's confession about the first ten years of his life. The questions the teacher had then started to ask had absolutely nothing to do with finding a happy enough memories to make the patronus charm work for Harry. No, they became more and more personal and more of that kind that a good friend would ask, but certainly not a teacher.

What was worse, though, was that Professor Lupin constantly invited Harry into his quarters even outside of their classes, or that he had actually tried to hug his pupil after a particularly strenuous lesson. Such kind of behaviour simply was inappropriate for a teacher, Harry thought.

In short, Harry really was unsure whether it was a good idea to continue with the patronus lessons, especially since he had yet to make any progress whatsoever.

When he didn't have school, private lessons or Quidditch-training, Harry continued to hide in the library. He felt much more comfortable in the dusky, quiet hall than in the common room, where every few minutes someone would try to engage him into a conversation, which mostly turned out to be attempts to get more information about his Boggart and everything it entailed.

Even though they still sat next to each other in classes, he hadn't really spoken to Ron and Hermione for weeks. Sometimes, he felt lonely, but most of the time he was grateful for being alone. If he was alone, he didn't need to pretend to be in a good mood, to be someone he was not.

A few times, the female one of his (former?) best friends had tried to speak to him, so Harry had taken to avoid her in order not to be faced with the witch's awkward questions.

Honestly, it wasn't her damned business how much Harry ate or slept or whether his grades were dropping! The school-year had barely started, the final exams were miles away! And for his eating and sleeping habits, well, he was absolutely sure that even someone like Ron would lose his appetite if his thoughts constantly revolved around blood, torture and whom you could still trust.

While the amount of time he spent hidden away in the library hadn't helped Harry's grades, he had found out something that might be of crucial importance for his private lessons with Lupin.

In a desperate attempt to further his ability to fight off Dementors, he had skimmed through several books about dark creatures and how to deal with them. In some of these books, it had read that some people simply were unable to produce a patronus at all, no matter how hard they tried. Namely, people who had either practised a considerable amount of dark magic and people who had been exposed to too many instances of the same kind of magic.

Harry was fairly certain that he had never cast a spell that could be considered dark. And while the magic that had killed Quirrell at the end of his first year might have been dark, this bout of magic had nothing to do with him. It had been Voldemort's intention to kill Harry and his mothers determination to save her son that had lead to Quirrell being reduced to a pile of ash, certainly nothing Harry had done.

And even if that incident in the deepest dungeons of the castle was considered dark magic in the eyes of the patronus charm, it was by no means enough to satisfy the criteria of 'repeated and regular use of dark magic' that was necessary to exclude you from being able to produce a patronus.

Evidently, it was all but impossible that his inability to produce the Dementor-fighting being was due to wielding dark magic. The only other option was, though, that he himself had been the victim of dark curses powerful enough to leave a permanent trace. The Cruciatus Curse and peculiar rituals surely qualified as such.

But it couldn't be! Because everything those Death Eaters had done to him the night he had lost his parents only were some crazy dreams, hallucinations, figments of his imagination! Harry didn't want to believe that anything of the incidents he kept seeing had truly happened, he couldn't believe it. Because if he did, how was it possible to survive with such a knowledge?

The fragments of conversation he could remember - no, fragments his fantasy had made up! - not only hinted at Voldemort not really being gone (that Harry already knew) but that he, Harry, was the key to bring the evil wizard back.

If that was true... no, if that had been true, than Harry wouldn't be at Hogwarts, go to school as if he was an ordinary boy, return to his non-magical relatives each summer, who would be completely unable to defend themselves if Voldemort used the holidays to break out of where he was trapped in Harry's body - or come back in any other fashion.

If Voldemort could return because of Harry's survival, surely the ministry would have put him down by know, wouldn't it? They had stationed Dementors around a school because of an escaped Death Eaters, there was no way that they would allow a boy that kept Voldemort alive to roam a castle full of children.

Even though, the nagging feeling that there was some truth behind what he witnessed in his dreams and when facing Dementors wouldn't leave Harry alone.

What if the ministry simply didn't know that the boy-who-lived was also the boy-who-kept-he-who-must-not-be-named alive? As far as he knew, Voldemort hadn't exactly been close to the government, so this was a very real possibility.

And then there was Dumbledore.

Dumbledore, who had done nothing to prevent Harry from running head-first into situations that might have very well killed him. Dumbledore, who was said to know everything that was going on at his school and still hadn't managed to figure out that it had been a Basilisk who had been attacking students on two separate occasions during the last fifty years, something a second year had accomplished (albeit a rather intelligent one, to be fair). Because it was ever so far-fetched that the heir of the house of the snakes attacked muggleborn with, well, a snake, Harry thought cynically.

And at the end of his first year, why was it that exactly when Harry had desperately needed an adult that took him seriously both portkeys and apparation as well as the floo-network had been out of order? If she had wanted, Professor McGonagall could have contacted her employer within minutes, if only to make sure that there really was not a jot of truth in the claims of the three firsties.

Now that he thought about it, Harry remembered other instances that made him question what Dumbledore's real motives were.

The troll at Harry's first Halloween at the school. Why had the headmaster sent the students out of the safety of the Great Hall out into the castle, where somewhere, a murderous creature was lurking?

Allowing man-eating spiders to live in a forest near a school full of adventurous and often reckless students.

Gifting Harry with his father's invisibility cloak to allow him to get into even more mischief (or worse). Of course, he couldn't prove that one, but how likely was it that James Potter had given such a valuable cloak to someone who coincidentally had almost the same handwriting as Dumbledore?

When the man wanted to kill Harry, why not murdering him directly, letting it look like an accident? Why those elaborate traps?

Or perhaps Dumbledore wanted to somehow test his famous student? Assess his magical strength, his ability to cope with dangerous situations, determine how far he would go to protect the ones he loved?

That seemed much more likely, considering that the teachers (and sometimes the headmaster himself) had made sure that Harry and his friends would learn just enough to survive their adventures.

But why would Dumbledore do such a thing? Yes, Harry was aware that he was considered special by most wizards and witches, but an intelligent man like the headmaster, who additionally knew everything about Harry's performance in class, should by now know that while he might have done something extraordinary in the past, by now Harry was only an ordinary boy.

Why all those effort, why all this scheming, testing and manipulation? It didn't make sense!

Any yet, and yet... with the arrival of the Dementors, the doubt what Dumbledore's real intentions regarding his famous student were had been planted firmly in said student's mind. Harry didn't believe that he would ever be able to trust the man as completely as he had before.

Since the day he had practically rescued Harry from his Boggart, Snape had taken to observe his most-hated student more closely, just as he had promised himself that he would. What he learned was, at the very least, worrisome.

Over the past few weeks, Potter's behaviour had changed dramatically. No longer was he the rash, easily to provoke Gryffindor. Hardly ever he rose to Snape's baits. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice most of the insults and snide remarks the Potion Master threw at him during lessons. His complete and utter ignorance of his most-hated teacher would have been quite a Slytherin thing to do, if it hadn't been for the fact that Snape wasn't the only teacher the boy refused to pay attention to.

Quite the contrary, actually. From what he overheard in the teacher's room, Potter hadn't actively participated in any class since he had been released from the infirmary. Not only that, his homework - if he done it at all - was sloppy and by no means adequate, even in subjects he had previously shone in.

That really puzzled the potion professor. He knew for a fact that Potter spent practically his entire free time in the library. Initially, he had rather hoped that this was an attempt by the boy to distract himself from the awful memories the Dementor's had awoken in him. His hopes had quickly been dashed when he had taken a look at the books the Gryiffindor had perused, though.

This had been a relatively easy task. Several years ago, the librarian had had enough of the mess the students made when they were supposed to put the books they had used back to the right places on the shelves on their own. Rather than going through each and every feet of shelves to find misplaced books, Madame Pince had set up special baskets in which the students had to deposit books they no longer needed. Every few hours (or whenever one of the baskets was full), she would empty it with some rather ingenious spells she had created herself, and the books would find their way back to the right shelves on their own.

Thus, Snape only had to rummage through the basket Potter had put his books into before the librarian could clean up.

What he found had been rather disconcerting.

The Gryffindor Golden Boy was practically absorbing every bit of information he could get about the activities of the Death Eaters during the war. That he wanted information about the female follower of the Dark Lord that had shown up in the teacher's room, that, Snape could understand. But why for Merlin's sake was the boy almost equally obsessed with Yaxley? He couldn't have encountered the Death Eater who had escaped justice and left Britain shortly after his trial, could he?

From the books that listed all known followers of the Dark Lord, including the crimes they had committed and their sentences, and the texts about pure- and halfblood families, Snape concluded that Potter must be searching for one particular wizard or witch, though he had no idea who this could be. Surely the lists of Death Eaters should have answered all of the Gryffindor's questions?

More concerning than his attempts to gain information about a subject Binns didn't cover in History of Magic, though, was that Potter had tried learn more about dark curses - which couldn't have been an easy task, since he obviously didn't have the permission to read through books from the restricted section.

That he had read through books about Dementor's and how to fight them, on the other hand, didn't surprise Snape. Every sensible person would do this, and he was actually glad that the boy seemed to take this threat seriously.

The potion master knew, of course, that one of his colleagues had started to give Potter private lessons to help him to master the patronus charm, the only really effective weapon against Dementors.

At first, Lupin had been more cheerful than he had ever seen the man before, which was probably due to the fact that he got to spend more time with the only thing left from his old friends (Snape sneered at the very thought of the so-called 'Marauder's'). And additionally, the werewolf probably thought that by helping Potter now, he could make up for the twelve years during which he had acted as if his deceased friend and Lily never had had a child.

The initial enthusiasm had long since made way for increasing frustration on Lupin's side, though. The man couldn't comprehend the fact that Harry seemed to be less gifted than both of his parents. And Potter's rather obvious lack of fondness for his father's friend didn't help matters either.

While Snape didn't care for Lupin's feelings in the slightest, he was rather surprised by Potter's apparent wariness towards the wolf.

When he had heard that Dumbledore had hired Lupin of all people as the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, one of his first thoughts had been that it would be a nightmare to deal with Potter when he had the support of one of his father's buddies. Thus, Snape was appropriately puzzled by how the Gryffindor behaved around the DADA-teacher.

Then, however, it wasn't as if Potter had fulfilled any other of his expectations. Not this year.

He hadn't sneaked out of school to hunt Black down on his own. He hadn't given interviews to the Daily Prophet about how he felt that the man who had (by all intents and purposes) murdered his parents had escaped from a high-security cell in Azkaban. And he certainly didn't enjoy the attention he got as the tragic hero who had witnessed how his mother had been slaughtered by the Dark Lord. And that he had, in fact, witnessed the whole event from just a few feet away, that had been made abundantly clear by his Boggart - something the whole castle had talked about for several weeks, Snape couldn't have helped to notice.

But while all of those occurrences and shifts in Potter's behaviour were disquieting, the more immediate issue was a different one: The boy's physical condition had deteriorated noticeably over the last few weeks.

The dark shadows under the Gryffindor's eyes suggested that he hadn't had a decent night's sleep for quite some time, and his paleness now rivalled Snape's own.

The most alarming sign that something was really wrong was the boy's severe weight-loss, though.

The Potion Master didn't believe that all of this could be explained by a few bad memories and some whispering amongst the students. He was well aware that Potter had endured similar treatment from his peers last year, and then, it had hardly seemed to bother him at all.

No, Snape was positive that there was something else behind the boy's behaviour.

Normally, he wouldn't have paid any attention to whatever ludicrous problem a student that wasn't in his house might have. But this was Harry Potter, the boy destined to one day defeat the Dark Lord once for all. Therefore, allowing him to waste away was simply not an option.

And if he had become just a little bit curious about what was going on inside his most-hated student's mind, well, that just would made the egregious task of keeping an eye on Potter and, if necessary, reversing any blemish, a little less egregious.