Writer's block has been a real bitch this year. Thank you to all the ones who stood by me and keep reading my stories, favoriting and following them. You guys rock :)

This is a little one-shot set in my Harry Potter AU, which can be found here in chapters 5, 6, 7, and 16. Based on a post by a friend on Tumblr, in which she talks about the shapes of Killian's and Emma's respective Patronus (Patronuses?). Hope you like it.

Emma sighed as she ran a hand through her hair and slumped forward until her forehead crashed with a soft thud against her wooden desk. The Interdepartmental Memos kept flying into her office and setting neatly on her books and basically on every flat surface of her office. She had never hated those freaking paper airplanes as much as she did now, but they couldn't be helped.

These were hard times, especially for the members of the Auror Office in the Ministry of Magic.

Things had been relatively calm in the four years Emma had spent working in the Office since completing her Auror training (something Killian always liked to boast about when they met new people as if she were the Madame Minister of Magic herself. That idiot.) (But then again she liked to boast about his successful trading company that in only a few years managed to supply almost every shop in Diagon Alley with magical artifacts, common and rare, from across the world. He almost always blushed).

However, about nine months before things had taken a turn for the worse when one of the most notorious wizards in the world, who went by Rumplestiltskin, managed not only to escape Azkaban, but to recruit half the population of Dementors and take them with him as his personal army. After long weeks of sleepless nights and extremely exhausting investigation, Emma and her fellow Aurors found out his motivations: he was after a mythical heirloom called The Sorcerer's Hat, said to have the power to channel enourmous amounts of magic. Their guess is that he wanted to use it to get rid of the need of a wand to channel his magic. Known for his ruthlessness and his thirst for power, he despised being dependent of a wand to exert all his dark abilities (especially after his own was so easily broken before his own eyes when he was taken to Azkaban). If he collected the power of enough strong wizards in the Hat, it would be enough for him to be impossible to defeat.

And Emma was not going to let that happen.

Especially not now that there was so much at stake for her and Killian, so many things she'd been looking forward too and dreading at the same time...

She shook her head against the desk. She hadn't told him yet. Between the draining job of trying to find out Rumplestiltskin's whereabouts and his own work keeping him away from her for days at a time sometimes, it had been impossible to find the right moment. But she needed to, she had to-

"Swan!"

Emma sighed.

Speak of the devil.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, raising her head to see her freshly-Apparated fiancé making his way towards her desk, kicking a few memos in the process.

"I had to come here for some work stuff," he said, scratching his ear, "and I thought to come by and say hello to my beautiful lass."

Before she noticed, he grabbed her hand and hauled her up from her seat, grabbing her head with his other hand and kissing her soundly, all in one smooth move. She momentarily forgot about dark wizards and the paper airplanes flying over their heads and that tiny but at the same time huge piece of news she had to share with him. She forgot about everything in favor of the feeling of his lips on hers, the way he massaged her scalp as if he knew she was stressed (of course he knew), the way his touch healed the little hole she always felt in her heart when they had spent too long apart.

After a little eternity that may have lasted mere seconds or full hours, she pulled apart slightly, just enough to chuckle breathlessly against his mouth.

"Easy, tiger, we're not at home."

"But we are alone," he said gravelly, tugging her hips closer to him. She shook her head and stepped back with an apologetic smile, which he answered with a huff. "You know, I always thought that thing about you calling me a tiger is quite ridiculous."

"You call me swan all the time."

"That is your name, love. Although I admit I think it is quite fitting for you." He leaned closer and planted a soft kiss in her cheek which definitely did not almost make her melt on the spot, nope. "Graceful. Beatiful. A proper swan."

"Shut up, you smooth talker," she replied vaguely, shaking her head and turning around to pick up a memo to hide the blush in her cheeks.

"Why are there so many memos here?" Killian asked, his eyes following the trajectory of three new ones that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Dunno. I guess I'd better start getting to them."

"I'll give you a hand," he said, grabbing a handful and starting to open them.

"Thanks," she replied, touched by his willingness to help her. "They're probably stupid administrative stuff. Maybe someone let a magical creature loose, or the toilets exploded again. It happens at least twice a month."

"Emma," he said after a while, in such a choked tone that it made her look up to him, and what she saw made her heart drop in her chest. He looked up from the memo he had been reading and his eyes were wide with terror in a way she had never seen in the eight years they had together. "Emma, this is-"

He was interrupted by a blast of silver light that entered the office and materialized into an enormous, beautiful wolf. The voice of Graham Humbert, her superior, roared from the Patronus, and as soon as Emma heard it, she unconsciously grabbed her desk for support with one hand and reached for her wand with the other.

This could not be good.

The Hat was found, and hidden safely in the Ministry. He doesn't know, but he suspects. Dementors spotted flying this way. Prepare for defense. The first battle starts now.

"Killian, go home," Emma said as soon as she found her voice back. The numbing panic had lasted only a few seconds, and now her heart was pumping hard in anticipation as her mind quickly went over everything she had learned over the years.

"And leaving you alone here? You are crazy, lass."

"Killian, this is my job, not yours, go now," she said, hearing how her voice got louder and more high-pitched with each word, but she didn't care.

"You are a dealer, I am the Auror."

"Darling, you are not my Savior, I am going to help you with this."

Damn, he could be so freaking annoying sometimes. "I am not alone here, Killian, the whole Auror Office plus the majority of the workers here are fully qualified to-"

"I don't bloody care!" he exclaimed, losing his temper as well. "I love you and I am going to fight right beside you, whether you like it or not. Besides, I'm already involved in this sh-"

"What do you mean, involved?"

Killian cursed loudly and ran a hand through his face, sighing loudly before replying. "It's what I was doing here. I'm a trader of rare magical objects, remember? And the bloody best out there. I was tasked by the Minister himself to procure the Sorcerer's Hat and bring it here."

The words barely registered in her brain when she took two long steps towards him and pushed him in the chest. Hard.

"You-" she seethed, barely being able to form the words due to her anger. "Is that why you went away so often lately? You were looking for the goddamn hat?! Risking your life, knowing he could easily track you down and kill you because of it? And you didn't think of telling me about it?!"

"The Minister forced me to take an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone. Including you." Emma could see the pain and regret and guilt in his eyes, but it didn't make her feel any calmer. "I'm sorry, love."

Her reply died on her lips as her office suddenly became darker. A chill ran down her spine and she saw the water in the jar on her cupboard turn into ice. She looked at Killian and, without thinking, grabbed his hand tight in hers.

"Let's get moving."

They barely managed to get to the hall when three black, ghostly figures crashed through the glass windows and flew directed towards them. Killian's hand tightened in hers and before she could cast her spell, she heard his clear, firm voice.

"Expecto Patronum!"

She had never seen his Patronus before, but it really shouldn't have surprised her when she saw a silver swan emerging from his wand, its neck curved in a half-heart shape and its wings unfolded, flapping against the Dementors and keeping them at bay long enough for them to run away.

They got to the intersection leading to the elevators, which was strangely deserted. Emma reasoned that the rest of the staff was probably in the main area of the Ministry, or defending the Hat, wherever it was hidden. Her eyes quickly scanned the aisles to check for a clear way when she caught sight of something that froze her blood.

A small female figure was lying on the floor, several Dementors circling over her like vultures. Emma recognized her as Elsa, who worked in a different area of the Ministry but was one of the closest friends Emma had made. She saw in horror who one of the deathly creatures slowly lowered itself over her, its hood slipping away from its non-existent face.

It was going to kiss her.

"NO!" she screamed as she raised her wand, but the dread, the despair, the fear, they were all too strong. She saw the silver swan again charging against the Dementors, but they were too many, at least two dozens. Killian and her were outnumbered, Elsa would receive a fate worse than death, and soon they would follow her, there was no way out...

"Swan..."

Emma heard Killian's strangled cry and turned around to face him for the first time since the attack started. Drops of sweat were running down his brow, his face scrunching with the effort of keeping the Patronus strong. He looked at her in the eye as he lifted their still-entwined hands and placed an encouraging kiss on her knuckles.

"Don't let them get to you, love. You got this."

Emma closed her eyes and let his words sink in. Her mind filled with the memory of him asking her to the Christmas Ball during that Transfiguration class in which everything started. It was so long ago, but it was still fresh in her brain as if it had happened the day before. The day they graduated from Hogwarts. Him placing an old ring on her finger, muttering how it was the last thing he had left from his mother. Then another image appeared clear in her mind. Not a memory, but just as strong all the same. Killian's too blue eyes in a smaller face, a younger face with her hair and his eyes and his dimples.

And then the spell blurted out from her lips and it was the easiest thing in the world.

A silver tiger joined the swan and together they blended into a blinding light that filled the whole floor and chased the Dementors away.

And then everything went black.

"So... a tiger, huh?" Killian asked her many hours later, after she had woken up in Saint Mungo's, after they had been assured by a nurse that her blackout was due to the exhaustion of performing such a powerful spell and she'd be alright in no time, after Graham had assured them that Elsa was out of danger and the Ministry had succeeded in sending away the Dementors with no casualties.

She rolled her eyes at his ridiculously pleased grin. What an idiot.

"Shut up."

"Never."

"You are one to talk. Yours is a swan."

"Aye. And yours is a tiger. I always knew you had a soft spot for my graceful, smooth moves."

"You are impossible." Emma said. She chewed her bottom lip for a few seconds before deciding to just go through with it, after all they had been through that day. "Speaking of, do you think a single Patronus can take the form of two separate animals?"

His eyebrows bunched adorably in his face and she thought she never loved him more than then.

"What do you mean, love?"

"It's just that in a few months there may be a little cub accompanying my tiger."

She bit the inside of her cheeks to contain the huge grin that threatened to break into her face when she saw comprehension dawning in Killian's eyes. Soon he was kissing her hard but reverently, cradling her face in his hands as if she were precious.

"Or perhaps a cygnet for my swan," he whispered, voice full of awe, before kissing her again.