"I could go with somebody, somebody else who also wants them gone -" Miranda begins, but Karen is already tugging her away.

Emma leaves reluctantly, but is finally shooed out by Madam Pomfrey. Once outside, she turns to Karen and Miranda. "I'm so, so sorry, I had no idea!"

"Don't be sorry, if we hadn't come along Professor Fisher would have gone in alone and fainted and he'd probably be dead and that wouldn't help Jenny at all," says Miranda.

"If you hadn't come along. I didn't do anything."

"What did you do, anyway...?"

"I cast a Patronus, just like in the book. Expecto patronum and thinking of something happy and -" She demonstrates the wand motion, still holding her second, overpowered, supposedly chimaera-hair wand. "And then it worked like that and I'm not totally sure why, but I bet I could do it again."

"Weird," Emma shivers. "Do you think using that wand helped?"

"Maybe. I'm going to try it with the other wand, but - I tried to make Patronuses before, with my regular wand. They didn't work, I just got mist. I don't know if I could do it this time because I had to or because I tried the overpowered wand."

"I hope I never have to," Emma says vehemently, "that was so scary. Thank you, thank you, thank you." Then she pauses, realization dawning. "Oh Merlin what am I going to tell my parents?!"

"Maybe you should find out what Professor McGonagall is going to tell them, first?" suggests Karen.

"Yeah," Emma sighs. "I wouldn't quite put it past them to get mad at me for not telling them immediately anyway, but- the Headmistress said to wait, so I'll wait. Do you guys have any idea what you'll say to your parents...?" Not focusing on Miranda here, nope.

"I'm going to owl Renée and tell her exactly what happened and see if she'll try to find a way for me to do it again sooner than McGonagall has in mind. If she doesn't, well, I would've probably had to wait till I was of age anyway."

"Dear Mum and Dad, one of my friends got lost in the woods, and me and Miranda went with the one who reported her missing and a professor to find her, and the professor was useless but Miranda beat the monster and we are all okay?"

"It sounded like she just wasn't comfortable being the one sending you to dangerous places?" Emma volunteers tentatively. "I bet if you found an Auror who would let you tag along over the hols or something, she'd- okay, she's probably complain, but I bet she'd let you."

"I'm going to definitely write Aurors and anybody else who might be able to bring me places to Dementor-hunt," agrees Miranda. "Especially if it turns out I can't figure out what I'm doing special to make it a killing instead of a chasing Patronus."

Emma manages to summon up a smile. "If the special wand is part of it, I think it might not catch on quick."

"Well, I'm not sure what else I'd be doing different, unless it matters very much what your happy thought is."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"You're going to be famous, Miranda," says Karen certainly. "You're definitely the first and maybe the only ever Dementor destroyer and you're awesome."

Miranda giggles.

"Killing Dementors is up there with like... being Harry Potter," Emma agrees, hushed. "No one's ever killed one."

"I don't know if I'm quite Harry Potter level. It didn't really - it could have rushed us or something and it didn't. I wasn't fighting, it was like the Dementor was a curse that was just sitting there and then I countered it. And then it was over."

"...baby Harry Potter?" Emma suggests after a moment's thought. "Not all the stuff he did in school, but- only person to survive the Killing Curse, only person to kill a Dementor? That's kinda the same level."

"I think I'm like between grownup Harry Potter and baby Harry Potter. Because baby Harry Potter didn't do anything at all, he was just lucky, and I did a thing."

"Yeah, of course, totally," Emma hurries to assure her. "I just meant- the fame side."