PATRONUS GLITCH

Hermione was surprised as she got the charmed note from Harry, and didn't bother to put away her notes on her desk as she made her way to the Ministry lifts to the Auror office.

He specifically mentioned to not use the Floo. I didn't know that there was any problem with them. As she made her way onto the lift, another note flew into her hands. He could have just sent word via Patronus.

Patronus Charms are failing, and it's not just mine. Do NOT attempt to cast one in a confined area. Better hurry. - Harry

Hermione looked at the piece of parchment and realized she was about to do that herself. As the lift dinged at its destination, Hermione grimaced as she made a mental list of books she could research on this.

"Thanks for coming. I was showing the rest of the Aurors here how to send a message via Patronus and this happened."

Harry's stag patronus was galloping, but not able to move anywhere. It grew in side, the brightness starting to blind everyone, until it seemed to explode and collapse back into a tiny form of itself, galloping uselessly in the same position.

"That's been happening for the past ten minutes, then Ron tried his." Harry nodded to a distraught looking Ronad who was poking a luminescent form of his Terrier Patronus which was laying on its side.

Is it dead? Hermione wondered as she saw Ron poke at it with his wand uselessly. Their relationship had been rocky as of late, and she remembered how Luna mentioned that Terriers were playful animals and pointed out how his Patronus seemed to enjoy chasing Hermione's Otter one.

"Hey 'Mione, can you cast yours?" Ron pleaded, "I keep casting and he keeps falling over like he's... you know..."

Hermione frowned, imagining her happiest moment as she spoke the incantation. When Ron offered to help get the House-Elves out of harms way at the Battle of Hogwarts.

"Expecto Patronem." Silvery-white vapor came out of her wand, attempting to coalesce into a shape, only to dissipate into murky fog.

"Try a better memory." Ron urged, making Hermione want to huff at him in frustration. Maybe that memory doesn't make me as happy as it used to. She thought about the split second when Harry proved that he wasn't dead, and that Snape was Dumbledore's man all along.

"Expecto Patronem!" The vapor solidified and came out in its otter form, freezing in place as it seemed to vanish entirely only to then fully reappear like a flickering light.

"Yours is glitching too." Ron said, upset that Hermione's Patronus wouldn't revive his own. Hermione had always had problems with this spell, but never like this.

She thought back on receiving her NEWT exam scores while she was home having a BBC marathon with her father. She made record-high scores in every NEWT exam in history, save for Potions and Divination.

"EXPECTO PATRONEM!" The lights went out in the Auror's offices as the white light eminated from her wand, coalescing into an animal too large to be her otter as it howled and ran down the stairwell to the lower levels.

The lights flickered back to life there, and the Aurors around them mumbled to themselves about what they had just seen. Ron, however, looked livid.

"I always knew there was something going on between you and Lupin."

Hermione was trying to make sense of things as she automatically corrected him. "That's Profess- oh, forget it. Why would you think that?"

Ron pointed at the doorway to the stairs that the incorporeal animal ran through. "You can't deny the big bad wolf was yours."

Hermione's eyes fastened to the door in horror. Her Patronus changed, sure, but the words seemingly scorched onto the door in the wolf's wake sent chills down her spine.

"Harry, grab your cloak. Grab your decoys. Grab everything."

Hermione kept her wand out as she ran after her new Patronus, which seemed to be an easy enough task as the wolf-shaped burn on the door had, in crisp and impossible-to-ignore letters, spelled out the two words she wasn't ever expecting to see here.

BAD
WOLF