"Ex...expecto...patronum..."

The silver mist burst forth from Harry's wand and hovered feebly before the dementors before fading away into nothing. Harry fell to the ground, exhausted. This was it. He was done, spent, and the dementors would have their meal. With his mother's screams and his father's panicked shouts ringing in his mind, he couldn't even find it in him to be upset at his coming death. Maybe...maybe now he'd finally see them again.

'I thought...I thought it'd protect me?'

Harry would have laughed, had he still had the capacity for it. Protect him? When had anything ever protected him? The Dursleys, the stone, the basilisk...sure, he'd had help with some things, but he was never one to be kept from danger and protected. All his life, he'd dealt with things himself.

Suddenly, he realized exactly why his patronus never worked. He'd wanted something to protect him from dementors, but the patronus required a happy thought...and he'd never be truly happy if he was being protected. Mustering the last dregs of his strength, he stood tall, raised his wand, and pulled forth the happiest thought he could.

'I'm going to look after myself!'

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

He merely smiled as the silver form erupted around his wand. It was fitting to his location, he thought, that in this castle in the scottish highlands, he would summon forth a mighty claymore as his patronus. Moving his left hand below his right, he took the sword in a two handed grip, finding it to be both as light as air and as solid as the sword of Gryffindor. He looked at the dementors cowering back from the silvery form, and smirked.

"Corporeal Patronus, bitches."

Then he charged.