[quote=@TheHangedMan]
[@Tatsua Aiisen] You shouldn't be worried about starting a debate, otherwise we'd be stuck wondering 'what is dis?' and twiddle our thumbs until nothing happens, that being said . . .

I agree and disagree with you. From what I've seen, the Patronus is a relatively simple spell to learn circa sixth year. From what I've read, the Harry Potter world is heavily dependent on innate talent for casting magic. Who teaches you what actually plays little part in casting the more advanced spells. Honestly, Harry learned it in his third year while the others learned it in their fifth year; irregardless of the circumstances, a sixth year learning about it shouldn't be too unusual - impressive, yes, but not unusual - as they're one year close to graduation. 

As for [i]why[/i] and [i]how[/i] they learned it, that is entirely up to the person playing. I just want to point out that it's not impossible or unusual for a sixth year to learn said spell.

[sub]Also I have to laugh at Dumbledore's Army being called 'elite' - that's one gross overstatement, and Harry himself was not exactly a prodigy with magic. Talented, yes, but overall not very impressive; his magical talent was based on his dueling skills and reflexes rather than any actual genius in spell casting.[/sub]
[/quote]

It's great to see somebody who's actually good at talking about these things. Naturally, I disagree with you, as for my reasons...

[hider=So we don't clog up the OOC too much]While much of a wizard's abilities are a result of talent, and hard work can nearly accomplish nothing to improve oneself beyond your base limits, for advanced magics such as the Patronus Charm it would be necessary to obtain special training to use it. That is, you would need somebody knowledgeable in its use (which is rare enough as is) to personally tutor you on how to use the charm, and you would have to be one of the rare individuals capable of preforming it.

As for Harry Potter not being a particularly "genius" wizard, that isn't really the point. The only reason Harry was able to master the Patronus charm was that he had special circumstances surrounding him, which spurred a veteran DADA specialist to personally tutor him in the Charm, which if I recall correctly took a few months for him to produce even the lowest level (despite him being rather good at DADA). Animal-form Patronuses are even harder to get a mastery of.

Oh and, the statement of "Elite few" regarding Dumbledore's Army was referring to the fact that it was only the most talented in their group who were able to get a hang on it. The only reason any of them were able to learn the Patronus charm was that one of its rare practitioners taught them directly. Without the necessity of Umbridge's tyrannical rule, it's doubtful that anybody in the school would even be given a chance to learn the charm.

Anyways, back on topic, I think that the Patronus Charm is not actually that easily learned. It's a post-NEWT level charm that relies on extremely unstable and unreliable mental states, requiring a very strong willpower and bursting natural talent, as well as an amount of training with spellwork to properly master its base functions. 

As a whole, I'd say that only the most skilled DADA students would even have the possibility of using the Patronus charm, let alone conjuring an animal form effortlessly and finding the obscure scenarios where they might be taught it.[/hider]