Close-up of a black fine line script tattoo reading Expecto Patronum on a person's shoulder, against a dark background.

Expecto Patronum script on shoulder

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a tattoo of the words Expecto Patronum written in flowing black script across the skin of a shoulder. The linework is fine and even, with the capitals and looped letters drawn in a single continuous stroke, and the ink is a solid dark black. The lettering sits diagonally across the upper part of the frame, with soft lighting and a dark, out-of-focus background.

Lettering Fine line Shoulder Script Phrase

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marjorie,

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The runner beans have gone over, and I've given up on the slugs, but the greenhouse is still standing, which is more than I expected after that gale. Ruth's boy has been coming through the side gate every afternoon to help with the potting. He is nine and quite convinced the shed door sticks because something is sitting behind it. Last Tuesday he stood in front of it with a bamboo cane held like a wand and shouted the words from the back of his reading book. Expecto Patronum, over and over, until the sparrows left the hedge.

I didn't laugh, though I wanted to. I remembered Frank doing exactly the same thing in 1974, the winter the boiler went and he had to crawl under the house in his good trousers. He said the words were only Latin for "I expect a guardian", and the trick was to mean them. You couldn't just shout. You had to picture the thing you were guarding.

So I asked the boy what he would summon. He thought for a long while, then said a hedgehog, because hedgehogs were brave and went out at night when nobody else would. I told him that was a fine guardian and he should hold the picture steady. He looked so serious, pushing his cane into the compost bed.

When I came out this morning the shed door was open, and a little card hedgehog had been wedged under the latch with its ink still wet. He had written the words underneath in his best joined-up hand, as if it were a letter, and signed it with a flourish.

Love, Edie