'If a patronus always represents the casters true love, what about Dumbledore's phoenix, Harry's stag and Ginny's horse?
My understanding is that the form of one's Patronus represents one's happy memories. If the memories are mostly about one person the Patronus represents that person, but if they are from a variety of sources they end up as the sum of what the caster likes and thus represent the caster (or the caster's happy side). I would think that for someone like Harry, who used his Patronus from an early age to save himself and others from dangers the feeling of power and protection from the ability to cast the Patronus becomes such an important memory that the Patronus becomes self-enhancing. For Severus, his life was so bleak most of the time, I think his happiest memories were from the time between first noticing Lily and coming to Hogwarts, when he had hope his life would turn out good once he was among wizards. Which never happened.
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Date: 2009-08-07 05:41 am (UTC)My understanding is that the form of one's Patronus represents one's happy memories. If the memories are mostly about one person the Patronus represents that person, but if they are from a variety of sources they end up as the sum of what the caster likes and thus represent the caster (or the caster's happy side). I would think that for someone like Harry, who used his Patronus from an early age to save himself and others from dangers the feeling of power and protection from the ability to cast the Patronus becomes such an important memory that the Patronus becomes self-enhancing. For Severus, his life was so bleak most of the time, I think his happiest memories were from the time between first noticing Lily and coming to Hogwarts, when he had hope his life would turn out good once he was among wizards. Which never happened.