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I tried to talk to Lupin about extra classes to learn Patronus, but he refused. He disagreed, saying, "Very busy, no way, a lot of work." However, I persuaded him to at least show us Patronus so that it would be easier for us to master it. He showed and not even just a mist, a cloud, or a shield, but a corporeal form - a wolf. This allowed us to include attempts to conjure Patronus into our training. It was not easy, and the cloud of blue mist began to appear only after two weeks - the problem was in the memories, or rather, in the emotions. Trying to "fake" the happiest memory, we achieved the same result as with the real one. In the end, we began to simulate happiness in emotions. The effect was the same, but if I put a lot of effort into it and even pumped some magic, the fog was very voluminous, and there was a lot of it. I especially had a lot of fog.
Our training with Hermione took on a much calmer form, and we began to throw spells at each other much less often. Now it is like in the first year, if not even slower, and we had to practice all over again, using each other's wands. But after a week of practicing, when we picked up our wands, we could cast spells more easily, and wand movements were almost completely out of use. According to Hermione's assurances, soon, she would be able to discard words in about a third of her arsenal as well. Though, she would still have to pronounce them mentally and conjure all the same on the exhale.
I changed my personal physical training a little and began to lean more on working with my own weight and with transfigured ankle weights, horizontal bars, and various shells, simultaneously stretching all the muscles that I could stretch. While still a growing organism and magic allowed to spit on recovery periods and diet - work and eat, eat and work!
In the forbidden section, as before, we read books in order to learn, and if Hermione has a naturally perfect memory, then I had to strengthen my brain with hemomancy. Although in recent years of such practice, such a load is given to me incomparably easier.
In the evenings, I stubbornly stripped and dismantled a basilisk for parts. With its size, it could be considered another training in both magic and physics. I had no free time at all, even to just sit and look out the window, so with a hemomancy increase in my general physical and mental stamina, I literally crawled into bed after an evening shower.
Shivering from a sudden gust of cool morning wind, I walked to the exit of the Astronomy Tower - I did not wait for dawn, though, what nonsense? It's kind of cloudy.
I was one of the first to go down to the Great Hall, but Hermione was already sitting at the table and, without enthusiasm, was picking oatmeal on her plate.
"Hi," I sat down next to her with a smile, immediately grabbing the breakfast that appeared in front of me.
"Hi."
"Why so gloomy?"
"I'm having a bad morning."
"I see. You're thinking about Halloween being a starting point for trouble, aren't you?"
"Not really. Do you feel cold?" a little sharply and unexpectedly, Hermione looked me in the eye.
"Cold?"
"Not now, in general."
"Generally ..." thinking, I began to remember my feelings in general and from the castle in particular. "I can't say with certainty. Dementors?"
"From the looks of it," Hermione shivered. "It's weak, not unlike that incident on the train. Very weak, but so intrusive. As soon as I get distracted from something, my attention switches to it. Not critical, not harmful, but..."
"Like a slight intrusive pain in the tooth. And it doesn't bother you, but you can't stand it either."
"Yeah, right," the girl nodded and, gathering her will into a fist, began to consume her breakfast.
"Looks like your sensitivity to magic is growing faster than your occlumency skills."
Hermione only shrugged. Glancing over at the professors' table, I could not help but notice the gloomy Flitwick and Dumbledore. However, as soon as anyone turned to them, they immediately smiled, as if all was well. Flitwick is definitely more sensitive to magic than other wizards, as he himself said about this feature of semi-humans. Dumbledore is just a strong and experienced wizard, which you cannot become without a developed sensitivity to magic. Oh, what is it like for the prisoners of Azkaban then?