If you got a small animal as your 'Harry Potter' Patronus, there's a reason you should be upset
"Harry Potter" fans can finally take the long-promised Pottermore quiz to find out their Patronus.
A Patronus is a charm in the "Harry Potter" universe that's used to drive away soul-sucking Dementors. It's very difficult to conjure a corporeal Patronus ("It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," Harry says when Hermione struggles to make one), but if you can do it, it takes the form of your very own guardian animal.
So ... which animal did you get?
If it's something small, your Patronus is probably really lame.
People seem especially upset if they got a salmon - like Luna Lovegood actress Evanna Lynch. In the series, Lovegood's Patronus is a hare, but Lynch wanted a cat.
The thing about Patronuses is that we don't really know much about them. We know that they can only be conjured when the wizard or witch is thinking of a very happy memory. But they also seem to kind of have a life of their own. They tap into some deep part of you: Harry's Patronus is a stag, for instance, which is the same animal his father could transform into.
What we do know is that, in the Manichean world of J.K. Rowling, Patronuses are a good form of magic that serves partly as a foil to the bad magic of dementors. Patronuses are, in other words, a type of magic used for good to fight evil.
But how is your Patronus supposed to fight the bad guys if it's super tiny?
Look no further than a passage in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" that illustrates this point. When Harry and Hermione sneak into the Ministry of Magic in their quest to steal one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, they find Dolores Umbridge sentencing Muggle-born wizards - those who were born to non-magical parents - to Azkaban. The "courtroom" is filled with dementors, and Umbridge keeps herself safe with her own Patronus cat:
Later on, Harry stuns Umbridge, and her Patronus disappears. Harry casts his own Patronus - a big, badass stag - to keep back the dementors and escape from the courtroom.
And here's where "Harry Potter" fans should be disappointed in their smaller Patronuses. Harry's bigger stag warms up the entire room much better than Umbridge's Patronus cat:
Now, it's possible Rowling might explain away Harry's powerful Patronus by arguing that he either is more pure of heart than Umbridge or that he is a more powerful wizard.
Still, the more obvious solution is that the size of the Patronus - and thus the animal in question - matters.
Rowling's preference in Patronuses may even prove this point. At first, she got a pine marten (a kind of lame badger), but she decided the quiz wasn't finished. In the final version, she got a huge heron.
Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that I have a badass wolf.
