"But he forgot that only a pure heart and joyful emotions could summon a Patronus. For the first time in history, people saw what happened when a powerful but despicable wizard attempted this magic: twisted maggots shot from Lachidian's Wand and quickly devoured his body."
An illustration filled the page: a fallen wizard crawled with large gray maggots, each resembling a short white earthworm. Magic made both the figure and the maggots writhe on the page, and Will frowned at the sight.
He turned to the final page. The story had a happy ending.
As in countless fairy tales, the villagers hailed Ellius as a hero. He married Eliana, and they lived happily ever after. The villagers drove off the Dementors and razed Lachidian's Castle.
After finishing the slim storybook, Will fell into thought.
Will had not read it simply for the story. Fairy tales and fables in the Wizarding World usually held at least a grain of truth, like The Tale of the Three Brothers in The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
The youngest of the three brothers, Ignotus Peverell, was Harry's ancestor, and his Invisibility Cloak was one of the genuine Deathly Hallows.
The Tale of Ilius was not as widely known as The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but it, too, contained something worth considering.
For instance, did the maggots summoned by Lachidian's Patronus Charm, which then devoured him, prove that the charm had another side?
Could an evil wizard summon a Patronus?
Will knew that Umbridge, nicknamed the Pink Toad, could cast the Patronus Charm. As for whether she was evil...
In the original timeline, she had imposed an oppressive regime on Hogwarts, driven away Dumbledore, restricted the Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons students needed, concealed the truth from the outside world, and tried to