Chapter 23 - Ch:23

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As the class prepared Harry got a bit worried. His first thought was that this boggart might change into Lord Voldemort who was certainly frightening enough to be anyone's worst fear. But Harry realized he wasn't actually worried about that. He had escaped from Voldemort three times and beaten him twice, in Harry's opinion it was his mother who had beaten him that first time, so he wasn't scared of Tom Riddle. In fact Harry thought Voldemort was actually rather silly. His title as an evil wizard was an anagram of his full actual name Tom Marvollo Riddle. Which means the man had chosen out the letters to make 'I am Lord' and then just rearranged the rest until he had something pronounceable and vaguely scary sounding. His name could just as easily be Dam Lori Dolemvort and it was impossible to find him intimidating after realizing that.

What Harry was really worried about was if the boggart changed into the utterly alien Elder Brain or the Ulitharid that had so casually considered murdering Harry to study his corpse. Or even one of the dementors that could force him to hear what he was certain had been the dying words of his own mother echoing in his head. How could he make any of those things seem funny or laughable in the least?

It won't come to that. Esharry reassured him. This boggart must be able to read minds to find out what it should change into. We can use our own powers to feed it false information. Then we can trick it into starting off as something creepy but harmless, like an Intellect Devourer.

A what? Harry asked inside his head. Oh you must have seen them. Esharry insisted. Back in the colony? Those adorable little brains with legs running around everywhere. They're so cute and cuddly but they freak most people out, so you could deal with that quite easily. Harry did remember seeing something like that. This would work. But afterwards he would have to have a serious conversation with Esharry over what the words cute and cuddly actually meant.

Once Professor Lupin was certain everyone was ready he threw open the door to the cupboard that the boggart was contained within. Sure enough a towering Professor Snape came out since Nevil was standing closest to the cupboard. Just as the boggart Snape began to berate the clumsy boy, Nevil shouted "Riddikulus!" And cast the spell.

With a crack the boggart Snape changed so that it was wearing an old worn dress, was carrying an overly large and paisley pattern handbag and was wearing an enormous hat with a stuffed vulture on the top. It was the kind of clothes worn by Nevil's grandmother who had raised him and the boggart Snape looked ridiculous in them. Nevil laughed at the sight and the boggart backed away from him as if struck.

After that each student took it in turn to face the boggart and ward it off. Parvatti got a mummy which she made trip on its own bandages. Seamus got a banshee which he made to cough and rasps as if it had lost its voice. Dean got a hand that crawled about on its own until Dean's spell left it trapped in a mouse trap. Ron got a giant spider which he forced to lose all its legs as they flew off in different directions so it was left rolling on the ground.

The legless spider came close to Harry and Harry felt the boggart reach towards his mind with a thin wisp of mental power. Harry was ready to feed it the image of a skeleton that he could easily make fall to pieces when Professor Lupin got between him and the boggart so it switched targets. With a crack the boggart became a white disk surrounded by thin mist hanging in the air. Lupin almost lazily used the spell that dropped the boggart to the ground as a cockroach.

Finally Nevil faced it once more and when he had once again forced the boggart Snape into his grandmother's clothes he gave it such a mighty laugh that the boggart exploded and fled.

The class was a resounding success as far as everyone was concerned. Though Harry wondered why Professor Lupin had stopped him from facing the boggart. He worried that the man thought less of him since he had collapsed from just being in the same room as a dementor, perhaps he thought Harry just wasn't up to facing much. His friends reassured him this couldn't be the case. And indeed in subsequent lessons as they moved on to Red Caps and Kappas, Professor Lupin gave Harry just as much chance as anyone else to brave these challenges. He was even quite impressed when Harry showed how a wizard could use the descendo charm to make a kappa bow and thus briefly paralyze itself as the water spilled out of its head

All and over, Harry was quite glad to be back at Hogwarts and was looking forward to the rest of the year.

As the school year gave way to October things were going about as well for Harry as they ever had in any school year. The only classes that gave him any trouble were potions, where Professor Snape continued to make it his mission in life to ruin everything for Harry, and Divinations where his death was still predicted at least once a class. Even those weren't too bad since his grades were improving in potions despite Snape's best efforts and Divinations had grabbed Harry's attention in a way no other class had yet.

Not because of anything Professor Trelawney did mind you, or even because the textbook gripped his attention. In fact the way the class was set up did everything it could to frustrate Harry and Esharry both. Divination was in the words of Hermione a terribly wooly subject. Vague in its methods but rigid in its interpretation it lended itself well to being as annoying as possible.

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