"Expecto Patronum," Not for the first time, wispy white vapors poured out of my aspen wand.

During the past month, I had spent some of my free time working on the patronus charm. I figured the better I got at manipulating my mind, the easier it would be to get a handle on occlumency. While I had finally found success with occlumency, I was still working on the patronus charm in my spare time. I hadn't yet succeeded in creating a corporeal patronus, but I had at least managed the wispy vapors that would offer partial protection from a dementor.

Being able to handle dementors was high on my list of priorities. Considering the mass breakout of Azkaban, the dementors surely will follow Voldemort.

Out of all the magical creatures that I have studied, dementors are one the most dangerous. To date, not one dementor has ever been killed. For now, they are immortal beings. Not in the sense that they don't age, but rather no known spell can kill them. Well, at least not yet, I'm sure it is theoretically possible to create a spell that would kill them, but currently, nothing fazes them.

Many witches and wizards have tried to bring one down in the past, from the killing curse to fiendfyre, nothing works. That's why the Ministry made a deal with the dementors to guard Azkaban, who knows what would have happened if they refused to cooperate.

What's even more horrible about dementors is that they were created through extremely twisted dark magic. A talented dark wizard named Ekrizdia back in the 15th century is responsible for creating them.

Ekrizdia enchanted the Island of Azkaban to be impossible to find and started his mad experiments. Not much is known about everything he was up too, but upon his death, other witches and wizards discovered his island and fortress where they found the horrors he left behind.

Some have speculated that the origins of dementors lie with the dark magical creature known as the lethifold. A lethifold resembles a black cloak roughly half an inch thick and appears slightly thicker if the creature has recently digested a victim. It glides along surfaces in an unknown form of locomotion in search of its prey, humans. It attacks at night, when the target is asleep, by suffocating and then digesting them.

There are a couple of reasons why some speculate that the origins of dementors can be found with lethifolds. One apparent reason is that lethifolds have an eerie similarity with the cloaks that surround dementors. And the other is that when a lethifold attacked Flavius Belby in his sleep, he discovered that the patronus charm could force a lethifold to retreat.

Turning my thoughts back to the patronus charm, I decided to concentrate on another memory. This time, I focused on an older memory, back to when Sasha and Rebecca had just been born, and I was allowed to hold them for the first time.

"Hey Alex," Anna chipper voice rang out from behind me.

"Expecto Patronum," I called out half a second later.

For the first time, a bright silvery light shot out of my wand and zoomed across the room.

Turning in surprise, I saw Anna had arrived in the Room of Requirement. We had planned on doing some more practice with our dueling skills. Anna was looking up towards the ceiling in wonder.

"What is that?" she asked in wonder.

Looking back, I saw what she was staring at my patronus. Flying around the room in circles was a glowing silver red-tailed hawk with a three-foot wingspan.

"It's my patronus," I replied proudly.

I was ecstatic that I had finally been able to summon my patronus. I hadn't been in a huge hurry to complete the spell because I knew that we wouldn't see a dementor for a few more years.

I planned to master the spell this year and teach it to my friends next year. I was confident that if Harry could learn how to summon a patronus in his third year going up against a boggart pretending to be a dementor, that my friends could also learn how to summon one in their third year as well.

I smiled at the sight of my patronus flying around. I had lucked out in getting such a cool animal. What was even better was that it could fly, while it may not seem like flying patronus matters at all. Most of the time, a person's patronus is the same as their animagus form.

Thoughts of soaring through the sky with the wind beneath my wings appeared in my head. One day, I will become an animagus, and I hope it's the same as my patronus.

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Interrupting my thoughts, Anna interjected, "How in Merlin's sweaty socks are you to summon a patronus? Aren't they supposed to be incredibly difficult to summon, even for fully trained wizards?"

I grunted, "The spell itself isn't difficult. What's difficult is getting your head in a certain frame of mind, which is happiness. Once you start learning how to control your emotions on command, it becomes easier to use spells that require emotions to work."

What I didn't tell her was I had spent the last five months practicing how to control my emotions with occlumency. All that work is what helped me learn the spell in a month.

Seeing how impressed she was, I added, "It's not that impressive. Casting the spell in a bright room with no cause for fear isn't anything to brag about, who knows how it would have gone if an actual dementor had been here."

Anna looked taken aback, in a slightly confused tone she asked, "Why are you so worried about dementors? Don't they work for the Ministry of Magic? It's not like we have any reason to come in contact with them.

Thoughts of a dementor on the Hogwarts Express came to mind. "Don't be so sure," I mumbled. "Besides, It never hurts to be prepared."

My patronus did a few more circles before landing on my shoulder, after admiring it for a few more seconds I let it dissipate.

Changing the subject, I asked, "So, are you ready to practice?"

As Anna looked at me, a predatory look appeared on her face. Anna had taken to dueling like a fish to water, and lately, she had begun our dueling succession with a surprise attack. Seeing how it looked like she was going to draw on me, I protested, "Hold on, Anna. Let the room set up a ring before we start."

She fluttered her lavender eyes in an attempt to act innocent like there was no way she could be up to anything, but I had little sisters, I knew that look. More than once I told her that I think her Slytherin is showing, but all she did was smirk at me.

Before I knew it, a dueling ring had slowly formed around me, that little sneaky Slytherin. She must have requested the Room of Requirement to form the dueling ring to form around us.

We both stared at each other like hawks hunting for mice. I saw Anna try to slowly and subtly twist her wrist to the right. I grinned, we had made a small game of trying to force our opponent to draw first. Her little wrist twist was a feint trying to get me to make the first move.

Turning the tables back on her, I acted as I fell for her ploy and threw my arm out. She quickly responded by moving to withdraw her wand from her new dueling hostler. Once it was clear that she was drawing her wand, I brought my wand from my hoster as well.

I had a new one as well, as the one I got from the Room of Requirement was ancient. My dad had taken on the challenge of designing a new hidden holster, I had gotten him to design one for Anna as well.

He had come up with a new innovative, simplistic design. Now, my dueling hostler was a small wrist strap, on the bottom side was a narrow two-inch metal tube that had an extension charm attached inside of it. When my wand was retracted, the whole thing disappeared seamlessly into the tube. The design was a lot more comfortable and less bulky than my old design.

Shooting Anna a taunting smirk, I teased, "I win again."

She narrowed her eyes at my remark and threatened, "We'll see who has the last laugh."

Done with talking, she pointed her wand at me and started casting, "Dextra Firmus."

A yellow burst of light came flying at me from across the room. Timing it just right, I chanted, "Protego."

A glowing white shield shimmered into existence surrounding me. When Anna's spell hit my shield, it went bouncing off back towards her. Lately, I had been practicing angling the shield to send the spell back at the caster.

"Really," I mocked, "The jelly-fingers curse is amateurish at best."

Anna retorted, "If you can't hold your wand, you can't cast spells."

This time, Anna sent two spells at me. I think she was hoping that my shield would block the first spell and fade right as the second would hit me,

Wanting to take her off guard, instead of casting the shield charm, I jumped out of the starting circle while pointing my wand at her and shouted, "Aurisursum Deorsum."

Anna, not expecting me to leave the circle, was caught off guard and got hit by my spell. For a second, she smiled, thinking that the spell must have fizzled out.

Just as she was about to say something, she went tumbling to the floor with a yelp.

Groaning from the floor, Anna cried, "What did you hit me with."

I laughed when I saw her try and push herself off the ground unsuccessfully, and a few moments of trying, she closed her eyes, gave up, and lied back down.

Trying not to smirk, I explained, "That was the dizzy-ear hex. Once you're hit with it, it's almost impossible to remain upright."

"How long does it last?" She pleaded.

"Only a few minutes." I comforted.

"You're going to pay for this," Anna warned. "Just... once the room stops spinning."

We spent another hour testing ourselves against one another. True to her word, she paid me back a few times. Her strategy revolved around a constant barrage of spells. To counter her approach, I liked to use shields and counterspells and then attack when she was least expecting it.

The following day, I had my new least favorite class. True to my prediction, for the last week, Professor Snape seemed to have resolved himself to testing me each day.

He kept up a constant barrage of mental attacks, holding my shields took almost all of my concentration. As a result, my potions suffered. My only comfort is that he has shown that it is possible to multitask

At the end of the class, Jessica tapped me on the shoulder on her way out and teased, "If your not careful, Alex. You'll lose your top spot in Ravenclaw."

Rather than respond, I let out a groan from the table. My head was pounding from the effort it took to maintain my shield. The only thing that brought me any comfort was that today seemed a little easier than the last time.

Hopefully, I will get to the point where I can maintain the shield and function normally.