Chapter 650: The First Meeting After the Holidays (Edited)

"Why isn't Harry here today?" a member of the Order of the Cat asked curiously at their first meeting after the Christmas holidays, on Monday night.

It had been agreed that they would be taught the Patronus Charm after the holidays, and the only one among them who knew the Patronus Charm, apart from Harry, was Fish.

"Well... Harry has to attend Potions class with Professor Snape every Monday," Hermione said. "So Fish will be teaching the Patronus Charm today."

...

There was an awkward silence.

It's not that everyone doesn't trust Fish's ability to teach, it's just that they can't help but feel a little nervous when they think about the previous special events.

"What do you mean by that?! Are you disrespecting Fish, nya?!"

(`н´)

Fish, who had been expecting a warm welcome, pouted and questioned.

"How could I? Fish is so good..." Cho Chang quickly reassured, "We were just worried about keeping up with you since you learn all your spells so quickly that you might feel impatient by then."

"No way, nya! Fish even taught Grawp!" (`´)

Fish said proudly, chin held high.

"And..." to boost everyone's confidence, Fish took the initiative to reveal, "Fish's Patronus Charm is a bit different, nya. Fish didn't learn it as quickly as Harry did back then."

Now everyone was truly surprised; Fish's learning speed was evident to all, and had he lost to Harry in learning the Patronus Charm?

So their interest was immediately piqued.

"The Patronus Charm, one of the most powerful and ancient defensive spells..."

Fish recalled what Professor McGonagall had said, repeating it all.

"...Although Minerva said that the power of a Patronus has little to do with its size, Fish still thinks it's better for it to be bigger, and Fish's Patronus is extra large!"

(ΦωΦ)

Fish lifted the tips of their toes, straightened their arms, and gestured, "And Fish's Patronus isn't an animal; it's a tree... Fish will invoke it to show you!"

With a sense of boasting, Fish drew out their wand.

But after glancing at the height of the room, they shook their head and said, "It's too low, we have to go to the Forbidden Forest, nya! Comey!"

Fish summoned the house-elves and instructed them to send all the members of the Order of the Cat to the Forbidden Forest.

Then they stood in front of everyone, raised the wand above their head, drew circles in the air, and uttered the words...

"Expecto Patronum!"

(ΦωΦ)つ━━☆*.

As Fish spoke the words, they also shook the wand and pointed it forward.

A bright silver-white smoke emerged from the wand's tip, quickly forming a silver-white tree... it had a somewhat simple shape and was bare, requiring careful inspection to find a few leaves on its branches.

But there was no need to worry about the shape of the tree at that moment, as the size of Fish's Patronus was so enormous that its sheer size exerted a lot of pressure on the crowd, leaving everyone amazed.

This increased the enthusiasm for learning as they tried to remember what made them happy and waved their wands, as Fish had taught them.

"Don't get discouraged, nya!" Fish encouraged them. "Fish and Harry did the same thing at the beginning, and it took them a long time to get it right!"

(`ω´)

They thought for a moment and shared their own experience of figuring out different happy memories.

"... So, you can continue trying different types of positive emotions and see which one works best, meow... Imagined memories are fine as long as they evoke positive emotions, like what happened to Fish when he imagined defeating Minerva. It didn't work, but it worked pretty well, meow."

The training continued, and surprisingly, the first person to successfully conjure a formless Patronus was Neville. Although he had improved greatly in recent times, it was still amazing to everyone.

"How did you do it?" Everyone gathered around and asked.

"I was thinking about when I used the Patronus Charm, when my mom and dad were cured..." Neville replied with a smile as he rubbed the back of his neck, briefly recounting his parents' situation.

Since Fish had cured his parents, Frank and Alice were getting better every day, and before returning to school, Neville was able to briefly communicate with them.

With the hope that they would recover, Neville didn't hide it as much as before but instead was happy to share his joy with the group.

"Oh! I know too!" exclaimed one of the other members. "A distant uncle of mine was at St. Mungo's at that time and accidentally broke his wand..."

"It was Huon, right? Fish remembers, meow."

Everyone gathered around Neville's Patronus for a moment to marvel, then they resumed practicing. Neville's success lifted the spirits of many, and the number of members producing silver-white smoke increased...

Unfortunately, for everyone except Neville, the smoke failed to stabilize and only lasted for a few moments before dissipating.

After a few more moments, Hermione's excited shouts suddenly sounded, "Fish! I did it!"

The crowd looked and saw a fist-sized cloud of silver-white smoke floating in front of her, not as solid as Neville's but also not dissipating, and dancing around under Hermione's control.

"Hermione, what memory are you using?"

Fish asked curiously.

Hermione blushed and shyly but proudly said, "Of course, it's the memory when you made me your girlfriend, Fish!"

She was met with envious and jealous looks from all the girls.

Spurred on by Neville and Hermione, a few more members of the Order of the Cat managed to summon formless Patronuses, from the Weasley twins and Cedric, who were good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, to Luna and Lavender, who weren't as skilled, and even Seamus, who had a tendency to make mistakes during training.

This also proved Fish's claim that the difficulty of the Patronus Charm was not so much in the standard form of casting it but in the emotional power of the spell.

The meeting soon ended, and the group wanted to continue practicing, but time didn't allow it, and they still felt mentally exhausted, even with the help of Fish's Stabilizing Charm.

So Fish called Comey and the house-elves to send the group back.

Then he took Hermione with him, intending to stay in the Forbidden Forest for a while.

"It's the first time Harry is going to Professor Snape's office for Occlumency lessons, so let's go back and see how he's doing," Hermione refused.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Snape as much as Sirius, it was just out of concern for her friend, and...

She wanted to know how Snape's teaching style differed from Professor McGonagall's.