The sounds of someone stumbling from a room—a door bursting open—a cackle of highpitched laughter—

“Harry! Harry… wake up…”

Lupin was tapping Harry hard on the face. This time it was a minute before Harry understood why he was lying on a dusty classroom floor.

“I heard my dad,” Harry mumbled. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him—he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it…”

Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.

“You heard James?” said Lupin in a strange voice.

“Yeah…” Face dry, Harry looked up. “Why—you didn’t know my dad, did you?”

“I—I did, as a matter of fact,” said Lupin. “We were friends at Hogwarts. Listen, Harry—perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced… I shouln’t have suggested putting you through this…”

“No!” said Harry. He got up again. “I’ll have one more go! I’m not thinking of happy enough things, that’s what it is… Hang on…”

He racked his brains. A really, really happy memory… one that he could turn into a good, strong Patronus…

The moment when he’d first found out he was a wizard, and would be leaving the Dursleys for Hogwarts! If that wasn’t a happy memory, he didn’t know what was… Concentrating very hard on how he had felt when he’d realized he’d be leaving Privet Drive, Harry got to his feet and faced the packing case once more.

“Ready?” said Lupin, who looked as though he were doing this against his better judgment. “Concentrating hard? All right—go!”

He pulled off the lid of the case for the third time, and the Dementor rose out of it; the room fell cold and dark.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Harry bellowed. “EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

The screaming inside Harry’s head had started again—except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio—softer and louder and softer again—and he could still see the Dementor—it had halted—and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Harry’s wand, to hover between him and the Dementor, and though Harry’s legs felt like water, he was still on his feet—though for how much longer, he wasn’t sure—

“Riddikulus!” roared Lupin, springing forward.

There was a loud crack, and Harry’s cloudy Patronus vanished along with the Dementor; he sank into a chair, feeling as exhausted as if he’d just run a mile, and felt his legs shaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Lupin forcing the Boggart back into the packing case with his wand; it had turned into a silvery orb again.

“Excellent!” Lupin said, striding over to where Harry sat. “Excellent, Harry! That was definitely a start!”

“Can we have another go? Just one more go?”

“Not now,” said Lupin firmly. “You’ve had enough for one night. Here—”

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<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
Something whooshed suddenly out of the end of his wand; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.	\|	He handed Harry a large bar of Honeydukes’ best chocolate.

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