Chương 158: Ch150- Boggart

Cassian opened the door after two short knocks and found Harry and Neville standing outside, looking like they'd just wandered in from two entirely different disasters. He leaned against the frame.

"What happened to the rest of your gang? Get caught in a turf war with the elves?" Harry scratched at his nose.

"We didn't come together. Just ran into each other here." Cassian glanced between them.

"Hm." He stepped aside.

"Well, get in then." They filed in without saying anything else. Neither looked injured. Just weirdly quiet. Harry headed for the nearest chair, dropped into it unsure what to do with his limbs. Neville hovered awkwardly until Cassian nudged a stool toward him with his foot. The silence stretched, all creaky floorboards and unsaid things. Then Neville cleared his throat.

"Today in Defence," he started, "Professor Lupin showed us Boggarts." Cassian winced.

"Lovely. Nothing quite like unpacking your deepest fear in front of thirty other hormonal thirteen-year-olds. Lupin's really got a flair for trauma-based learning." Neville ducked his head.

"Yeah. Bit embarrassing. Mine turned into Gran." Cassian blinked. Not the worst fear he'd heard, but it gave him pause. He knew Neville adored his gran, even if the woman could flatten a Dementor with a glare. Neville was scared of her, yes, but that sort of affection didn't usually translate into Boggart-level terror. Unless... Neville sat up a bit straighter.

"It's not her, really. Not exactly." He glanced up, quiet but clear.

"I think... it's what she thinks of me. Or what I think she thinks. Like, if I disappoint her. Or don't turn out how she hoped." Cassian gave the boy a nod.

"Alright. That's some self-awareness you're packing there, Longbottom. You sure you're thirteen?" Neville gave a tiny smile.

"Sometimes I feel older."

"Yeah. That'll happen when your worst nightmare's familial expectations instead of the usual 'death, fire, and snake with too many teeth.'" Cassian turned toward Harry.

"And you?" Harry didn't answer right away. His gaze flicked to everywhere but him. Then he said, quiet, "Dementor."

"That'll do it." Harry rubbed a hand over the side of his neck.

"It-it wasn't just the shape. I could hear something. Screaming. My mum, I think." Neville looked over, startled. Harry kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

"It's like... everything else disappears, and that's all that's left. Just her voice, and it's awful. I don't even remember her, but somehow—" He broke off. Cassian didn't interrupt. Then Harry looked up.

"Why does it do that?" Cassian got up and filled the kettle, wand tapped against the side before it started heating. He reached for the mugs without looking, set two on the counter, and added cocoa to each. His own tea went into a third.

"So..." He said, sliding the mugs across the table toward them.

"Normally, we'd have this chat one-on-one, Potter. Makes it easier. People open up more when they're not sitting next to someone who's just heard about their emotional collapse. But you two..." He tilted his head.

"You're not all that different." Harry and Neville glanced at each other, then back down. Neville traced the edge of his mug with a finger. Harry stared into the steam. They'd been hanging around more lately, library corners, shared mutterings over essays, but Harry realised, with a small jab of guilt, that he didn't actually know Neville all that well. He made a quiet note to fix that. Later. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Cassian took a slow sip, then set his cup on the desk.

"Right. First thing, let's get this out of the way. I don't get it." Both of them blinked.

"I don't," he repeated.

"I haven't lived it. Haven't stood where you did. Haven't felt half of what you feel. So I won't give you some over-polished adult talk pretending I understand." Neither spoke, but both sat straighter. Grateful for honesty.

"Potter. A Dementor's not just a nasty floating cloak with bad breath. It's a creature made of rot. Born from it. Doesn't kill you, just rips the good stuff out till there's nothing left worth stealing. And it does that by pulling up every memory it can scrape from the underside of your ribs. Doesn't care if you've buried it. Doesn't even care if you remember it." Harry swallowed hard. Cassian looked at him.

"That's not your fault. You don't get to choose what surfaces. You didn't invite it in." Neville sat a little straighter, watching him intensely. Cassian turned to him.

"Same goes for you. Your gran might scare the trousers off the Ministry, but what you're afraid of, that you'll fall short, that she'll be disappointed, that's a real fear. And it's not petty. It's not small." Neville blinked, fingers curling tighter around the mug.

"You know what I saw when I faced one?" They both looked up. He sipped his tea.

"Me. Sitting in a room, alone. Nothing left. Not a sound, not a soul, just me, my mask cracked and the slow realisation that I'd made it that way." The room held still. He glanced over.

"So yeah. We all get different horrors. Doesn't mean yours are any less real. Or less painful." Neville looked away, but this time it wasn't with shame. Just thought. Harry cleared his throat.

"So... how do you stop it?" Cassian tilted his head.

"You don't." Harry blinked. Neville looked vaguely betrayed. Cassian shook his head, chuckling.

"You're both clever. I said Dementors feed on positive emotions, yeah? Hope, joy, all the nice, shiny things. So why do you think they drag up your worst memory, not the happiest ones?" Neville's brow furrowed, lips twitching. Harry's eyes stayed down. Then Neville said, "Because... they're trying to smother the good stuff?" Cassian pointed at him.

"Close." Harry frowned.

"Bad calls good?" Cassian gave him a nod, tipping his cup.

"Almost. Without contrast, you don't get happy or sad. Just... beige. If you've lived a rotten life, even lukewarm soup feels like celebration."

"Dementors don't pull your good memories," Cassian said.

"Because if they did, your brain would lock them up tight. Shut the door. Block it out." Harry's grip on the mug tightened.

"But they go the other way," Cassian went on.

"They drag out the worst. The part of you that still flinches. So what happens? Your brain scrambles. Tries to fight back. Tries to drag something, anything, up that's still warm." Neville blinked slowly.

"To balance it."

"That's the whole game. Call up your worst, let you panic your way to something bright, and then, bam, they feed on that instead." Neville grimaced.

"That's awful." Cassian shrugged.

"Well, they're not known for table manners." Harry's fingers clenched harder.

"So the screaming... that wasn't even what they were after."

"No," Cassian said.

"It's bait. They hook your fear to dig up your best. Then drain it." Both boys sat in silence. Cassian blew out a breath.

"As I said. You don't stop fear. Fear's not your enemy. It's the reason you lot didn't run headfirst into a Hungarian Horntail at age six. It's a warning bell. Humanity's most ancient perk. Bit like an internal howler, shouts when something's about to eat you, crush you, or embarrass you in front of your peers." Neville gave a nod. Cassian's gaze flicked between them.

"Both of you are Gryffindors. House of bravery and questionable decisions." Harry snorted. Neville cracked a reluctant smile.

"There's no courage without fear," Cassian said.

"That's not me being nice. I really mean it. Courage isn't walking through fire without flinching. That's just stupidity. Courage is knowing it might burn and walking anyway." Harry leaned back a little, the tight set of his shoulders easing. Neville was watching the table now, not the floor. Cassian tapped the edge of his cup.

"You're allowed to be scared. Doesn't make you weak. Makes you aware. That's a bloody strength, if you use it right." Harry looked up.

"Professor... c-could you teach me the Patronus?" Neville's head turned sharp. He looked almost startled, then nodded quickly.

"I'd like to learn too. If that's alright." Cassian tilted his head.

"You lot are barely past Boggarts. Bit ahead of the curriculum, aren't we?" Harry didn't flinch.

"I just... what the Dementor did, what I heard—" Cassian gave a slow blink.

"Also, wouldn't it make more sense to ask Lupin?" Harry frowned.

"I don't know what to feel about him, Professor. He is..."

"Complicated?" Cassian offered, already turning back toward the kettle.

"A bit grey round the edges? Looks like he hasn't slept since he was nine?" Harry gave a tight shrug.

"He's kind. I don't mean he's a bad person. Just—" Cassian sighed, it seemed, boy still carried some resentment.

"I'll tell you this," he said, after a pause.

"Remus Lupin is the sort of man who'd let himself burn if it meant someone else stayed warm." Harry looked away.

"And yeah, he should've come to see you. Should've written. But people are good at guilt, Potter. Better at it than grief." Harry's jaw twitched.

"Then maybe he should say that."

"Maybe," Cassian agreed. Then, eventually, he nodded.

"Fine. But I need to ask him. It's his class anyway. And I'll need his Boggart." He hesitated.

"Don't want to kidnap a Dementor." Neville nearly choked.

"Can you?"

"No." Cassian snorted.

"Probably." Neville still looked vaguely horrified. Harry shook his head, muttering, "That'd be the worst thing to go missing.

'Oh no, the soul-sucker's on holiday, last seen near the Hufflepuff kitchens.'" Cassian smirked, raising his mug.

"Now that's the sort of headline I'd frame." They sat for a moment. Then Cassian clapped his hands.

"Alright, out. Homework, corridors, teen angst. Go be children." Neville stood, half-reluctantly.

"Thanks, Professor." Cassian gave him a thumbs-up.

"Tell your gran she's terrifying."

"I do," Neville said.

"Doesn't help." Harry lingered at the door.

"You think I can really learn it? The Patronus." Cassian looked over at him.

"I think if you couldn't, I wouldn't bother wasting my Sunday afternoons." That seemed to settle something. Harry gave a small nod, then turned and left.