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Yato walked into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom late on Sunday afternoon. Professor Daikoku was keeping his promise to teach him a spell, one that would help Yato if a Dementor attacked him again. If he could master it.
The professor raised his head at the squeak of door hinges and Yato’s entrance, dropping a potion bottle in his hand into a desk drawer before stepping around to greet him. The early spring sunlight lit the room adequately; no need for the extra candles that floated without purpose above them.
Professor Daikoku watched Yato as he shifted on the spot, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the professor.
“This is very advanced magic. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Yato nodded at the question. He wanted to learn this – no, he needed to learn this.
“The Patronus charm acts like a shield, using a positive force that the Dementor can feed on instead of its caster.” Professor Daikoku spoke as if he were teaching a full class, but his demeanour was more at ease, like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. Yato wondered if was anything to do with what he had been holding in his hand when he entered.
At Yato’s nod in the pause he took, Professor Daikoku continued. “To cast this charm, you need a memory. A happy, powerful memory.”
Professor Daikoku only stood a few steps away from Yato, but his gaze pierced right through Yato as he said this.
A happy memory? Yato was surprised, but masked it with a blank expression.
“Close your eyes and concentrate,” Professor Daikoku instructed.
Yato closed his eyes.
“Explore your past.”
He rather wouldn’t.
“Do you have a memory?”
Yato nodded. He had a memory, but if it was happy enough, or powerful enough, he didn’t know.
“Now speak the incantation, ‘Expecto Patronum’.”
“Expecto Patronum,” Yato echoed.
“Good.”
Yato opened his eyes at the sound of footsteps, finding Professor Daikoku walking over to a large chest at the side of the room. He could only guess that he would be practicing this spell for real.
“Wand at the ready,” Professor Daikoku said.
Yato pulled his wand from his pocket, holding it in front of him with a vice-like grip.
The latches clicked open slowly, and with a grunt, Professor Daikoku heaved the oak trunk open.
A cloud of dust and fabric blossomed from the trunk, floating metres overhead as it took in a breath of fresh air through its rotting mouth before its attention fell on Yato. It hunched over, face angled at him and a horrible gasping sound escaping the ragged folds of its clothed visage.
Yato felt his heart falter, sweat gathering in his palms. “Expecto Patronum!”
The Dementor leaned closer, hands reaching.
“Expecto Patronum!” The wand didn’t obey his hoarse voice.
“Expecto…” Yato could smell the foul stench of death coming from its agape mouth.
“Ex…pecto…”
Yato woke up on the floor, Professor Daikoku crouched by his side and breaking a slab of chocolate into pieces before handing it to him.
Yato took it, looking at the wooden case. “Why do you have a Dementor?”
Even if he was a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, no normal professor should have such a creature in their inventory.
“It’s a boggart,” Professor Daikoku said. He sat back on his haunches, hands dangling on his knees with a softened expression. “I assumed one would take the form of a Dementor, as you know what they can do to you.”
Yato looked at the floor, taking a small bite of the chocolate. Was he really that predictable?
Silence followed, punctuated by the ticking of a clock somewhere in the back office and the small snaps of chocolate.
“What was the memory?”
The suddenness of the question took Yato by surprise. He wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, just Hogwarts. Being here was by far the happiest he’d ever been.
“The first time I caught the Golden Snitch,” Yato lied.
Professor Daikoku’s brow etched itself back into its usual scowl. “That’s not nearly good enough.”
Yato looked away. What else was he meant to think of? He pushed himself to his feet, leaving the crumpled chocolate foil wrapper on the desk.
Professor Daikoku stood with him. “Try again.”
Yato let his eyes drift to a candelabra near the short staircase. He raised his hand, feeling the warm wrought iron, tracing the patterned carving with his fingers.
A happy memory…
There were none to be had in his past, but Yato dug deeper. He had spent his past four years living at Hogwarts and the Leaky Cauldron, but with those there were new memories. Ones that could be considered happy.
Christmas at Hogwarts in the snow, pelting his friends with snowballs until they were red-faced and breathless with laughter before they trudged back to the castle. Hiyori’s smile when he gave her the sakura bouquet. The warm glow of pleasure he had felt when he taught her to fly and played Quidditch with her and Yukine in the late summer evenings. Hiyori’s resurrection from petrification. Sneaking into Hogsmeade and drinking creamy butterbeer with frostbitten fingers warmed by the fire. Teasing his friends and being rewarded with their exasperated but playful smirks.
A smile flickered on Yato’s lips, fingers dancing around a candle flame – not too close to get burnt, but close enough that he could feel the sting of heat – as he reminisced.
“I want to try again,” Yato said, picking up his fallen wand. Professor Daikoku crossed to the trunk once more, nodding at Yato before lifting the lid.
The Dementor emerged once more, fixing on Yato and drifting down, black rags rippling in the air.
“Expecto Patronum!” Yato chanted. The Dementor came closer. A heat filled Yato’s chest, his jaw clenching as he brought his wand up and swung it back at the Dementor.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
A pure surge of power flowed through Yato, making him breathless with the force at which it channelled from his core to his fingertips and into his wand.
A brilliant stream of silvery blue erupted from the wand, pooling into a forcefield so powerful it made Yato’s hand shake, but he kept his wand focused on the Dementor as it was pushed back. Yato angled his wand, guiding the Dementor back down into the trunk, which Professor Daikoku slammed shut.
Yato fell back against the stone pillar of the staircase, drained but shaking with elation. He had done it.
A smile spread across Yato’s face, and Professor Daikoku seemed equally satisfied from the relaxed expression he wore, hiding a hint of a smile.
“Thank you,” Yato said. Professor Daikoku responded with a grunt to Yato’s thanks.
Even if he didn’t seem like the friendliest teacher, he had a kind heart.
~
Of course, Nora was waiting for Yato when he left the classroom - she’d apparently found out that Professor Daikoku was privately tutoring him. Yato wondered how she knew so much.
“You should be careful around him.” There was a hint of disdain in her voice, the same she used when talking about those she felt were beneath her. “His bite is worse than his bark.”
Yato ignored her comment. “What do you want?”
“You never came to see me.”
“Why would I come and see you?”
A hint of a smirk played on Nora’s lips, infuriating but childish in the way she mocked him. “Aren’t you angry I hurt your little mudblood friend?”
“Seeing her is more important than seeing you,” Yato said shortly.
He turned on his heel, making his way down the steep stairs of the tower. He could hear the gentle taps of her feet following him, but aside from that Nora made no noise. Once he had reached the ground floor Yato began making his way through the empty cloisters to the West Wing, which took him to the Hippogriffs.
Nora’s footsteps had ceased, but Yato knew she was still watching him. She called out to him.
“Don’t wander too far, Yaboku. You don’t know what’s waiting in the darkness.”
Yato spun on his heel, walking backward with his hands dug into his pockets. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Yato smiled. Her ominous threats meant nothing to him. Nora would never know the feeling he had, or what true friendship was. But from now on, he knew one thing.
“I’m not afraid anymore.”
~
Divination class with Madame Kofuku brought tarot predictions of betrayal, choice, and romance – a more interesting lesson compared to the previous class where students stared into crystal balls and waffled about seeing things that weren’t there. It had seemed, to Madam Kofuku’s disappointment, that no one had an ‘inner eye’.
Class was dismissed, and Hiyori, Yukine, and Suzuha headed down the North Tower’s spiral staircase to their next class. Suzuha chatted with Yukine, but his attention was on Yato, who he spotted leaning against the iron railing as if he were waiting for them.
They paused on the steps in front of Yato once they reached him.
Suzuha awkwardly greeted Yato before saying goodbye to Yukine, going ahead to his different elective class. Yato watched Suzuha go before looking back at Yukine, who wouldn’t meet his amused eyes.
“Don’t you ever go to class?” Yukine asked.
Yato shrugged. “Me and the professor aren’t exactly on good terms.”
Yukine sighed. “Did you try to hex the herbs again?”
“Maybe,” Yato said nonchalantly, looking behind Yukine. “Where’s Hiyori?”
“She’s right –” Yukine began, looking over his shoulder to jab his thumb in Hiyori’s direction, but she had vanished.
Yukine turned on the spot, confused.
“’Right…’?” Yato said.
“Where’d she go this time?!” Yukine was about to lose his mind. Hiyori was nowhere in sight amongst the crowds streaming down the spiral staircase. “We literally just came down from Divination!”
“Maybe she forgot something?” Yato suggested, looking up to scan the crowd.
“We’ll be late for class,” Yukine grumbled.
“I’ll go look for her,” Yato said.
“You’ll be late for class.”
Yato pretended not to hear Yukine, jogging up the steps against the flow of students.
He was nearly out of breath by the time he reached the top of the North Tower, with still no sign of Hiyori except for the ladder hanging down from the trapdoor that concealed the attic room.
Yato ungracefully clambered up into the murky Divination classroom, padding through quietly through the dark reception room.
In the classroom, he curtains were closed as usual, creating an ambiance of mystery coupled with the sickly smell of incense sending trails of smoke into the air. A small fire burned under a wide mantlepiece, a burnt copper kettle whistling over the flames. Blue and pink teacups hung on individual hooks adorned the entire back wall around the fireplace, some chipped, others not.
Deep crimson light cast shadows on the armchairs and small, circular tables that were littered with battered tarot cards.
Yato looked around. Still no Hiyori.
He came to the first table of the room, tilting his head to look at the discarded tarots. Yato didn’t believe in Divination; it was just nonsense and guessing, yet his fingers splayed the cards out to look at the faded pictures.
The High Priestess, The Lovers, The Tower… Yato flicked each card across the table as he scanned them, perhaps too roughly as the Tower card slid off the edge of the table and onto the floor.
Yato stooped down and picked it up, twirling the card in between his fingers with a final look around the room.
Where did Hiyori go? he wondered.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. Yato jumped out of his skin, spinning around but not being able to escape the vice-like grip Madame Kofuku had on him.
Her breathing was raspy, eyes unfocused and blown wide open under bouncing pink curls. A chill ran through Yato’s spine. Divination was one thing, but this…she was…
“Professor?” Yato voice dried up, and he could only utter that one word before Madame Kofuku’s eyes fixated on him.
Her hand gripped the curve of his shoulder so hard Yato could feel her fingernails breaking the skin. Her entire body trembled, mouth agape, but Madame Kofuku managed to speak in a dreadfully sinister voice.
“He is returning, Yaboku.”