“Come on, Tally! This is an important one, and if you ever want to do well in the Ministry…”

“All right, Lucia, I heard you the first time!” Tally was getting annoyed. Why on earth would she need to learn how to produce a Patronus charm to succeed in the Ministry? There hadn’t been a Dark wizard attack since Grindewald. Some of the boys had joked about Dark forces coming out of the forest, but everyone knew the magical world was completely safe.

She was seventeen years old, and although her N.E.W.T.’s were behind her, Tally would be interviewing at the Department of Magical Catastrophes in a month. There was a small practical portion of the interview, and her best friend Lucia, a Defense whiz, was trying to teach her a Patronus charm. Even Lucia had only accomplished it this year, but Tally was determined to achieve the difficult spell.

“One more time, Tall,” Lucia pleaded, her dark eyes showing frustration as she pushed her reddish brown braid out of her face and brandished her wand. “Expecto Patronum.”

“Expecto Patronum,” Tally muttered, tucking a stray blonde hair back into her bun. “I’ve got the incantation down, Luce. Can we move on?” Lucia shot her a look, but continued.

“Now what you have to do is think of the happiest memory you can imagine. That’s what makes the spell work. You have to really feel the moment-” she paused as Tally giggled.

“‘Feel the moment’? Sorry, but it sounds like a greeting card.”

“Fine,” Lucia huffed, throwing her hands up into the air in defeat. “Fine. You can just not learn the spell and get a lousy job filing papers for the rest of your life at the Ministry, while all around you, people are rising to the top because they bothered to learn the stupid spell!” Tally managed to hide her grin.

“All right already. Feel the moment. Right.”

But what moment to use? Ever since Tally had found out she was a witch and was coming to Hogwarts, it seemed her life was full of happy moments. When she met Lucia? No; their friendship had come gradually, not in a moment. Her first kiss? No, too clichéd. Maybe when her little sister was born six years ago? Wait, never mind, Tally had been jealous of the new baby. What could she use?

And suddenly, she knew. It should have been obvious, but it had happened before she had come to Hogwarts, and she had mostly blocked all memories before that September 1st. But she couldn’t remember ever being happier, and she remembered that happiness as the memory filled her.

It had been five years since the accident, but the damages would remain forever. The girl had lived, but her hopes and dreams had died along with the drunken driver that had hit her mother’s car, paralyzing the girl completely.

The girl’s name was Tally.

It was Tally’s eleventh birthday, and her grandparents had just left to go home. Tally was sitting in her wheelchair by the window, watching the cars go by. Her parents were in the kitchen arguing again. This time it was over Tally’s schooling, an argument they had been having continuously over the last few months. Tally didn’t know where she would be going in the fall, but she prayed she would be able to leave the house.

That was when the fireplace exploded.

Tally’s parents ran yelling out of the kitchen where the fireplace used to be as a man in long purple robes followed them calmly, smiling at Tally as he pushed his glasses up onto his nose.

“Hello, dear,” the man said, kneeling next to Tally’s wheelchair. “Did you ever feel like you were different?”

He didn’t realize the absurdity of his statement. Instead he turned to Tally’s parents and, over the course of several hours, explained that Tally was a witch and that the neighbor’s cats hadn’t changed colors by themselves.

“Tally’s case is unusual, however,” the man said as he sipped at a cup of tea that he had conjured out of thin air. “She is severely handicapped, and we’re simply not equipped to deal with that at Hogwarts.” Tally’s heart sank. Of course it was too good to be true. “So if you would take her to St. Mungo’s in London, we have some Healers waiting to cure her.”

The rest of the day was a blur as the man explained that a new magical healing had been developed that could cure witches and wizards of paralysis. He said the spells involved in the healing had only recently been developed, so Tally would have to spend the summer in London. That is, if she chose to attend Hogwarts and be healed.

It only took fifteen minutes to pack her bags.

“I think I have one,” Tally whispered, still remembering the joy of her healing, how she had taken her first steps since the accident only a month after the healings began, how on September 1st she had entered Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a completely normal witch.

“Remember,” Lucia told her, smiling at the happiness on her friend’s face, “Expecto Patronum.”

And as the memory washed over her, Tally held her wand up and shouted, “EXPECTO PATRONUM…”

Tally felt a rumbling in the pit of her stomach, and out of her wand shot a silver ghost of a man wearing long robes and smiling at Tally as he pushed his glasses up onto his nose. He circled around, still smiling, before slowly fading away into nothingness. As Tally fell onto her back, exhausted, she grinned at a shocked Lucia.

“You did it, Tall! But what was that?” Tally hesitated at first. In all their years of friendship, Lucia had never heard about Tally’s accident. Perhaps it was time she had.

“Before Hogwarts, I was- I was paralyzed. And that man was James Turner. He worked for the Ministry of Magic. Something to do with education. He told me that I could go to Hogwarts and that they could cure me. He- he sort of saved my life.” Lucia sunk down to the floor in shock, and Tally managed to grin at her.

“Lucia?”

“Yes, Tally?” Lucia whispered.

“I thought you should know…. I felt the moment.”

*

Ten years later, Tally sat in the hospital once more, but this time for a more commonplace reason. As her husband Edward Potter looked on, she held her newborn son in her arms. Their silence was interrupted as Lucia spoke from the corner of the room.

“Any thoughts on names?” Edward and Tally looked at each other, smiling, before Tally answered.

“We’ll name him James. James Potter.”