Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix By J.K. Rowling Part 6

It was the first time she had ever said Voldemort’s name and it was this, more than anything else,
that calmed Harry. Still breathing hard, he sank back into his chair, becoming aware as he did so
that his hand was throbbing horribly again. He wished he had not smashed the bowl of Murtlap
essence.
“Well… think about it,” said Hermione quietly. “Please?”
Harry could not think of anything to say. He was feeling ashamed of his outburst already. He
nodded, hardly aware of what he was agreeing to. Hermione stood up.
“Well, I’m off to bed,” she said, in a voice that was clearly as natural as she could make it.
“Erm… night.”
Ron had gotten to his feet, too.
“Coming?” he said awkwardly to Harry.
“Yeah,” said Harry. “In… in a minute. I’ll just clear this up.”
He indicated the smashed bowl on the floor. Ron nodded and left.
“Reparo,” Harry muttered, pointing his wand at the broken pieces of china. They flew back
together, good as new, but there was no returning the Murtlap essence to the bowl.
He was suddenly so tired he was tempted to sink back into his armchair and sleep there, but
instead he forced himself to his feet and followed Ron upstairs. His restless night was punctuated
once more by dreams of long corridors and locked doors and he awoke next day with his scar
prickling again.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN


In the Hogs Head
Hermione made no mention of Harry giving Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons for two
whole weeks after her original suggestion. Harry’s detentions with Umbridge were finally over
(he doubted whether the words now etched into the back of his hand would ever fade entirely);
Ron had had four more Quidditch practices and not been shouted at during the last two; and all
three of them had managed to Vanish their mice in Transfiguration (Hermione had actually
progressed to Vanishing kittens), before the subject was broached again, on a wild, blustery
evening at the end of September, when the three of them were sitting in the library, looking up
potion ingredients for Snape.
“I was wondering,” Hermione said suddenly, “whether you’d thought any more about Defense
Against the Dark Arts, Harry.”
“Course I have,” said Harry grumpily, “can’t forget it, can we, with that hag teaching us -”
“I meant the idea Ron and I had -” Ron cast her an alarmed, threatening kind of look. She
frowned at him, “- Oh, all right, the idea I had then - about you teaching us.”
Harry did not answer at once. He pretended to be perusing a page of Asiatic Anti-Venoms,
because he did not want to say what was in his mind.
He had given the matter a great deal of thought over the past fortnight. Sometimes it seemed an
insane idea, just as it had on the night Hermione had proposed it, but at others, he had found
himself thinking about the spells that had served him best in his various encounters with Dark
creatures and Death Eaters - found himself, in fact, subconsciously planning lessons…
“Well,” he said slowly, when he could no longer pretend to find Asiatic Anti-Venoms interesting, “yeah, I - I’ve thought about it a bit.”
“And?” said Hermione eagerly.
“I dunno,” said Harry, playing for time. He looked up at Ron.
“I thought it was a good idea from the start,” said Ron, who seemed keener to join in this
conversation now that he was sure Harry was not going to start shouting again.
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“You did listen to what I said about a load of it being luck, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Harry,” said Hermione gently, “but all the same, there’s no point pretending that you’re not good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, because you are. You were the only person last year
who could throw off the Imperius Curse completely, you can produce a Patronus, you can do all sorts of stuff that full-grown wizards can’t, Viktor always said -”
Ron looked round at her so fast he appeared to crick his neck. Rubbing it, he said, “Yeah? What
did Vicky say?”
“Ho ho,” said Hermione in a bored voice. “He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn’t,
and he was in the final year at Durmstrang.”
Ron was looking at Hermione suspiciously.
“You’re not still in contact with him, are you?”
“So what if I am” said Hermione coolly, though her face was a little pink. “I can have a pen-pal
if I -”
“He didn’t only want to be your pen-pal,” said Ron accusingly.
Hermione shook her head exasperatedly and, ignoring Ron, who was continuing to watch her,
said to Harry, “Well, what do you think? Will you teach us?”
“Just you and Ron, yeah?”
“Well,” said Hermione, looking a mite anxious again. “Well… now, don’t fly off the handle
again, Harry, please… but I really think you ought to teach anyone who wants to learn. I mean,
we’re talking about defending ourselves against V-Voldemort. Oh, don’t be pathetic, Ron. It
doesn’t seem fair if we don’t offer the chance to other people.”
Harry considered this for a moment, then said, “Yeah, but I doubt anyone except you two would
want to be taught by me. I’m a nutter, remember?”
“Well, I think you might be surprised how many people would be interested in hearing what
you’ve got to say” said Hermione seriously. “Look,” she leaned towards him - Ron, who was still watching her with a frown on his face, leaned forwards to listen too - “you know the first
weekend in October’s a Hogsmeade weekend? How would it be if we tell anyone who’s
interested to meet us in the village and we can talk it over?”
“Why do we have to do it outside school?” said Ron.
“Because,” said Hermione, returning to the diagram of the Chinese Chomping Cabbage she was
copying, “I don’t think Umbridge would be very happy if she found out what we were up to.”
Harry had been looking forward to the weekend trip into Hogsmeade, but there was one thing
worrying him. Sirius had maintained a stony silence since he had appeared in the fire at the
beginning of September; Harry knew they had made him angry by saying they didn’t want him
to come - but he still worried from time to time that Sirius might throw caution to the winds and
turn up anyway. What were they going to do if the great black dog came bounding up the street
towards them in Hogsmeade, perhaps under the nose of Draco Malfoy?
“Well, you can’t blame him for wanting to get out and about,” said Ron, when Harry discussed
his fears with him and Hermione. “I mean, he’s been on the run for over two years, hasn’t he, and I know that can’t have been a laugh, but at least he was free, wasn’t he? And now he’s just shut up all the time with that ghastly elf.”
Hermione scowled at Ron, but otherwise ignored the slight on Kreacher.
“The trouble is,” she said to Harry, “until V-Voldemort - oh, for heaven’s sake, Ron - comes out
into the open, Sirius is going to have to stay hidden, isn’t he? I mean, the stupid Ministry isn’t
going to realize Sirius is innocent until they accept that Dumbledore’s been telling the truth about him all along. And once the fools start catching real Death Eaters again, it’ll be obvious Sirius isn’t one… I mean, he hasn’t got the Mark, for one thing.”
“I don’t reckon he’d be stupid enough to turn up,” said Ron bracingly. “Dumbledore’d go mad if
he did and Sirius listens to Dumbledore even if he doesn’t like what he hears.”
When Harry continued to look worried, Hermione said, “Listen, Ron and I have been sounding
out people who we thought might want to learn some proper Defense Against the Dark Arts, and
there are a couple who seem interested. We’ve told them to meet us in Hogsmeade.”
“Right,” said Harry vaguely, his mind still on Sirius.
“Don’t worry, Harry” Hermione said quietly. “You’ve got enough on your plate without Sirius,
too.”
She was quite right, of course, he was barely keeping up with his homework, though he was
doing much better now that he was no longer spending every evening in detention with
Umbridge. Ron was even further behind with his work than Harry, because while they both had
Quidditch practice twice a week, Ron also had his prefect duties. However, Hermione, who was
taking more subjects than either of them, had not only finished all her homework but was also
finding time to knit more elf clothes. Harry had to admit that she was getting better; it was now
almost always possible to distinguish between the hats and the socks.
The morning of the Hogsmeade visit dawned bright but windy. After breakfast they queued up in
front of Filch, who matched their names to the long list of students who had permission from
their parents or guardian to visit the village. With a slight pang, Harry remembered that if it
hadn’t been for Sirius, he would not have been going at all.
When Harry reached Filch, the caretaker gave a great sniff as though trying to detect a whiff of
something from Harry. Then he gave a curt nod that set his jowls aquiver again and Harry
walked on, out on to the stone steps and the cold, sunlit day.
“Er - why was Filch sniffing you?” asked Ron, as he, Harry and Hermione set off at a brisk pace
down the wide drive to the gates.
“I suppose he was checking for the smell of Dungbombs,” said Harry with a small laugh. “I
forgot to tell you…”
And he recounted the story of sending his letter to Sirius and Filch bursting in seconds later,
demanding to see the letter. To his slight surprise, Hermione found this story highly interesting,
much more, indeed, than he did himself.
“He said he was tipped off you were ordering Dungbombs? But who tipped him off?”
“I dunno,” said Harry, shrugging. “Maybe Malfoy, he’d think it was a laugh.”
They walked between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars and turned left on to the
road into the village, the wind whipping their hair into their eyes.
“Malfoy?” said Hermione, skeptically. “Well… yes… maybe…”
And she remained deep in thought all the way into the outskirts of Hogsmeade.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Harry asked. “The Three Broomsticks?”
“Oh - no,” said Hermione, coming out of her reverie, “no, it’s always packed and really noisy.
I’ve told the others to meet us in the Hog’s Head, that other pub, you know the one, it’s not on
the main road. I think it’s a bit… you know… dodgy… but students don’t normally go in there,
so I don’t think we’ll be overheard.”
They walked down the main street past Zonko’s Wizarding Joke Shop, where they were not
surprised to see Fred, George and Lee Jordan, past the post office, from which owls issued at
regular intervals, and turned up a side-street at the top of which stood a small inn. A battered
wooden sign hung from a rusty bracket over the door, with a picture on it of a wild boar’s
severed head, leaking blood on to the white cloth around it. The sign creaked in the wind as they
approached. All three of them hesitated outside the door.
“Well, come on,” said Hermione, slightly nervously. Harry led the way inside.
It was not at all like the Three Broomsticks, whose large bar gave an impression of gleaming
warmth and cleanliness. The Hog’s Head bar comprised one small, dingy and very dirty room
that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so
encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with
the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be
compressed earth, though as Harry stepped on to it he realized that there was stone beneath what
seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.
Harry remembered Hagrid mentioning this pub in his first year: “Yeh get a lot o’ funny folk in
the Hogs Head” he had said, explaining how he had won a dragon’s egg from a hooded stranger
there. At the time Harry had wondered why Hagrid had not found it odd that the stranger kept his
face hidden throughout their encounter; now he saw that keeping your face hidden was
something of a fashion in the Hog’s Head. There was a man at the bar whose whole head was
wrapped in dirty grey bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some
smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth; two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a
table in one of the windows; Harry might have thought them Dementors if they had not been
talking in strong Yorkshire accents, and in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with
a thick, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused
the veil to protrude slightly.
“I don’t know about this, Hermione,” Harry muttered, as they crossed to the bar. He was looking
particularly at the heavily veiled witch. “Has it occurred to you Umbridge might be under that?”
Hermione cast an appraising eye over the veiled figure.
“Umbridge is shorter than that woman,” she said quietly. “And anyway, even if Umbridge does
come in here there’s nothing she can do to stop us, Harry, because I’ve double- and triplechecked
the school rules. We’re not out of bounds; I specifically asked Professor Flitwick whether students were allowed to come in the Hog’s Head, and he said yes, but he advised me
strongly to bring our own glasses. And I’ve looked up everything I can think of about study
groups and homework groups and they’re definitely allowed. I just don’t think it’s a good idea if
we parade what we’re doing.”
“No,” said Harry dryly, “especially as it’s not exactly a homework group you’re planning, is it?”
The barman sidled towards them out of a back room. He was a grumpy-looking old man with a
great deal of long grey hair and beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.
“What?” he grunted.
“Three Butterbeers, please,” said Hermione.
The man reached beneath the counter and pulled up three very dusty, very dirty bottles, which he
slammed on the bar.
“Six Sickles,” he said.
“I’ll get them,” said Harry quickly, passing over the silver. The barman’s eyes traveled over
Harry, resting for a fraction of a second on his scar. Then he turned away and deposited Harry’s
money in an ancient wooden till whose drawer slid open automatically to receive it. Harry, Ron
and Hermione retreated to the furthest table from the bar and sat down, looking around. The man
in the dirty grey bandages rapped the counter with his knuckles and received another smoking
drink from the barman.
“You know what?” Ron murmured, looking over at the bar with enthusiasm. “We could order
anything we liked in here. I bet that bloke would sell us anything, he wouldn’t care. I’ve always
wanted to try Firewhisky -”
“You - are - a -prefect,” snarled Hermione.
“Oh,” said Ron, the smile fading from his face. “Yeah…”
“So, who did you say is supposed to be meeting us?” Harry asked, wrenching open the rusty top
of his Butterbeer and taking a swig.
“Just a couple of people,” Hermione repeated, checking her watch and looking anxiously towards the door. “I told them to be here about now and I’m sure they all know where it is - oh, look, this might be them now.”
The door of the pub had opened. A thick band of dusty sunlight split the room in two for a
moment and then vanished, blocked by the incoming rush of a crowd of people.
First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma
Patil with (Harry’s stomach did a back-flip) Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends, then
(on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by accident) Luna Lovegood; then
Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan,
Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait down her back whose
name Harry did not know; three Ravenclaw boys he was pretty sure were called Anthony
Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny blond boy
with an upturned nose whom Harry recognized vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff
Quidditch team and, bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan,
all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko’s merchandise.
“A couple of people?” said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. “A couple of people?”
“Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular,” said Hermione happily, “Ron, do you want to pull up
some more chairs?”
The barman had frozen in the act of wiping out a glass with a rag so filthy it looked as though it
had never been washed. Possibly, he had never seen his pub so full.
“Hi,” said Fred, reaching the bar first and counting his companions quickly, “could we have…
twenty-five Butterbeers, please?”
The barman glared at him for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had
been interrupted in something very important, he started passing up dusty Butterbeers from under
the bar.
“Cheers,” said Fred, handing them out. “Cough up, everyone, I haven’t got enough gold for all of
these…”
Harry watched numbly as the large chattering group took their beers from Fred and rummaged in
their robes to find coins. He could not imagine what all these people had turned up for until the
horrible thought occurred to him that they might be expecting some kind of speech, at which he
rounded on Hermione.
“What have you been telling people?” he said in a low voice. “What are they expecting?”
“I’ve told you, they just want to hear what you’ve got to say,” said Hermione soothingly; but
Harry continued to look at her so furiously that she added quickly, “you don’t have to do
anything yet, I’ll speak to them first.”
“Hi, Harry,” said Neville, beaming and taking a seat opposite him.
Harry tried to smile back, but did not speak; his mouth was exceptionally dry. Cho had just
smiled at him and sat down on Ron’s right. Her friend, who had curly reddish-blonde hair, did
not smile, but gave Harry a thoroughly mistrustful look which plainly told him that, given her
way, she would not be here at all.
In twos and threes the new arrivals settled around Harry, Ron and Hermione, some looking
rather excited, others curious, Luna Lovegood gazing dreamily into space. When everybody had
pulled up a chair, the chatter died out. Every eye was upon Harry.
“Er,” said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. “Well - er - hi.”
The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to
Harry.
“Well… erm… well, you know why you’re here. Erm… well, Harry here had the idea - I mean”
(Harry had thrown her a sharp look) “I had the idea - that it might be good if people who wanted
to study Defense Against the Dark Arts - and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish
that Umbridge is doing with us -” (Hermione’s voice became suddenly much stronger and more
confident) “- because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts -” (“Hear, hear,” said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened) “- Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands.”
She paused, looked sideways at Harry, and went on, “And by that I mean learning how to defend
ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells -”
“You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?” said Michael
Corner, who was watching her closely.
“Of course I do,” said Hermione at once. “But more than that, I want to be properly trained in
defense because… because…” she took a great breath and finished, “because Lord Voldemort is
back.”
The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho’s friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down
herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave
an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even
eagerly, at Harry.
“Well… that’s the plan, anyway” said Hermione. “If you want to join us, we need to decide how
we’re going to -”
“Where’s the proof You-Know-Who’s back?” said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather
aggressive voice.
“Well, Dumbledore believes it -” Hermione began.
“You mean, Dumbledore believes him,” said the blond boy, nodding at Harry.
“Who are you?” said Ron, rather rudely.
“Zacharias Smith,” said the boy, “and I think we’ve got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who’s back.”
“Look,” said Hermione, intervening swiftly, “that’s really not what this meeting was supposed to
be about -”
“It’s okay, Hermione,” said Harry.
It had just dawned on him why there were so many people there. He thought Hermione should
have seen this coming. Some of these people - maybe even most of them - had turned up in the
hopes of hearing Harry’s story firsthand.
“What makes me say You-Know-Who’s back?” he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the
face. “I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you
didn’t believe him, you won’t believe me, and I’m not wasting an afternoon trying to convince
anyone.”
The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. Harry had the impression
that even the barman was listening. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag, making it
steadily dirtier.
Zacharias said dismissively, “All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got
killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory’s body back to Hogwarts. He didn’t
give us details, he didn’t tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we’d all like to know
-”
“If you’ve come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can’t help
you,” Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did
not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith’s aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho.
“I don’t want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that’s what you’re here for, you might as well clear out.”
He cast an angry look in Hermione’s direction. This was, he felt, all her fault; she had decided to
display him like some sort of freak and of course they had all turned up to see just how wild his
story was. But none of them left their seats, not even Zacharias Smith, though he continued to
gaze intently at Harry.
“So,” said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. “So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we’re going to do it, how often we’re going to meet and where we’re going to -”
“Is it true,” interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, “that you can produce a Patronus?”
There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.
“Yeah,” said Harry slightly defensively.
“A corporeal Patronus?”
The phrase stirred something in Harry’s memory.
“Er - you don’t know Madam Bones, do you?” he asked.
The girl smiled.
“She’s my auntie,” she said. “I’m Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So - is it really
true? You make a stag Patronus?”
“Yes,” said Harry.
“Blimey, Harry!” said Lee, looking deeply impressed. “I never knew that!”
“Mum told Ron not to spread it around,” said Fred, grinning at Harry. “She said you got enough
attention as it was.”
“She’s not wrong,” mumbled Harry, and a couple of people laughed.
The veiled witch sitting alone shifted very slightly in her seat.
“And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore’s office?” demanded Terry Boot. “That’s what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…”
“Er - yeah, I did, yeah,” said Harry.
Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender
Brown said “Wow!” softly. Harry was feeling slightly hot around the collar now; he was
determinedly looking anywhere but at Cho.
“And in our first year,” said Neville to the group at large, “he saved that Sorcerous Stone -”
“Sorcerer’s,” hissed Hermione.
“Yes, that - from You-Know-Who,” finished Neville.
Hannah Abbott’s eyes were as round as Galleons.
“And that’s not to mention,” said Cho (Harry’s eyes snapped across to her; she was looking at
him, smiling; his stomach did another somersault) “all the tasks he had to get through in the
Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and
things…”
There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table. Harry’s insides were squirming.
He was trying to arrange his face so that he did not look too pleased with himself. The fact that
Cho had just praised him made it much, much harder for him to say the thing he had sworn to
himself he would tell them.
“Look,” he said, and everyone fell silent at once, “ I… I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be
modest or anything, but… I had a lot of help with all that stuff…”
“Not with the dragon, you didn’t,” said Michael Corner at once. “That was a seriously cool bit of
flying…”
“Yeah, well -” said Harry, feeling it would be churlish to disagree.
“And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer,” said Susan Bones.
“No,” said Harry, “no, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I’m trying to make is -”
“Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?” said Zacharias Smith.
“Here’s an idea,” said Ron loudly, before Harry could speak, “why don’t you shut your mouth?”
Perhaps the word ‘weasel’ had affected Ron particularly strongly. In any case, he was now
looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias
flushed.
“Well, we’ve all turned up to learn from him and now he’s telling us he can’t really do any of it,”
he said.
“That’s not what he said,” snarled Fred.
“Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?” enquired George, pulling a long and lethal looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko’s bags.
“Or any part of your body, really, we’re not fussy where we stick this,” said Fred.
“Yes, well,” said Hermione hastily, “moving on… the point is, are we agreed we want to take
lessons from Harry?”
There was a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing, though
perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in Fred’s hand.
“Right,” said Hermione, looking relieved that something had at last been settled. “Well, then, the
next question is how often we do it. I really don’t think there’s any point in meeting less than
once a week -”
“Hang on,” said Angelina, “we need to make sure this doesn’t clash with our Quidditch practice.”
“No,” said Cho, “nor with ours.”
“Nor ours,” added Zacharias Smith.
“I’m sure we can find a night that suits everyone,” aid Hermione, slightly impatiently, “but you
know, this is rather important, we’re talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort’s Death Eaters -”
“Well said!” barked Ernie Macmillan, who Harry had been expecting to speak long before this.
“Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we’ll do
this year, even with our OWLs coming up!”
He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry “Surely not!” When nobody
spoke, he went on, “I, personally am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless
teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know-
Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells -”
“We think the reason Umbridge doesn’t want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” said
Hermione, ”is that she’s got some… some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in
the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he’d mobilize us against the Ministry.”
Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up,
“Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army.”
“What?” said Harry, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.
“Yes, he’s got an army of Heliopaths,” said Luna so lemnly.
“No, he hasn’t,” snapped Hermione.
“Yes, he has,” said Luna.
“What are Heliopaths?” asked Neville, looking blank.
“They’re spirits of fire,” said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever, “great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of -”
“They don’t exist, Neville,” said Hermione tartly.
“Oh, yes, they do!” said Luna angrily.
“I’m sorry, but where’s the proof of that?” snapped Hermione.
“There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you’re so narrow-minded you need to
have everything shoved under your nose before you -”
“Hem, hem,” said Ginny, in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people
looked around in alarm and then laughed. “Weren’t we trying to decide how often we’re going to meet and have defense lessons?”
“Yes,” said Hermione at once, “yes, we were, you’re right, Ginny.”
“Well, once a week sounds cool,” said Lee Jordan.
“As long as -” began Angelina.
“Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch,” said Hermione in a tense voice. “Well, the other thing
to decide is where we’re going to meet…”
This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent.
“Library?” suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.
“I can’t see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library,” said Harry.
“Maybe an unused classroom?” said Dean.
“Yeah,” said Ron, “McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard.”
But Harry was pretty certain that McGonagall would not be so accommodating this time. For all
that Hermione had said about study and homework groups being allowed, he had the distinct
feeling that this one might be considered a lot more rebellious.
“Right, well, we’ll try to find somewhere,” said Hermione. “We’ll send a message round to
everybody when we’ve got a time and a place for the first meeting.”
She rummaged in her bag and produced parchment and a quill, then hesitated, rather as though
she was steeling herself to say something.
“I - I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also
think,” she took a deep breath, “that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we’re doing. So if you sign, you’re agreeing not to tell Umbridge or anybody else what we’re up to.”
Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully wrote his signature, but Harry noticed at once
that several people looked less than happy at the prospect of putting their names on the list.
“Er…” said Zacharias slowly, not taking the parchment that George was trying to pass to him,
“well… I’m sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is.”
But Ernie was looking rather hesitant about signing, too. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.
“I - well, we are prefects,” Ernie burst out. “And if this list was found… well, I mean to say…
you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out -”
“You just said this group was the most important thing you’d do this year,” Harry reminded him.
“I - yes,” said Ernie, “yes, I do believe that, it ‘ s just -”
“Ernie, do you really think I’d leave that list lying around?” said Hermione testily.
“No. No, of course not,” said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious. “I - yes, of course I’ll sign.”
Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though Harry saw Cho’s friend give her a rather
reproachful look before adding her own name. When the last person - Zacharias - had signed,
Hermione took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd
feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.
“Well, time’s ticking on,” said Fred briskly, getting to his feet. “George, Lee and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we’ll be seeing you all later.”
In twos and threes the rest of the group took their leave, too.
Cho made rather a business of fastening the catch on her bag before leaving, her long dark
curtain of hair swinging forwards to hide her face, but her friend stood beside her, arms folded,
clicking her tongue, so that Cho had little choice but to leave with her. As her friend ushered her
through the door, Cho looked back and waved at Harry.
“Well, I think that went quite well,” said Hermione happily, as she, Harry and Ron walked out of
the Hog’s Head into the bright sunlight a few moments later. Harry and Ron were clutching their
bottles of Butterbeer.
“That Zacharias bloke’s a wart,” said Ron, who was glowering after the figure of Smith, just
discernible in the distance.
“I don’t like him much, either,” admitted Hermione, “but he overheard me talking to Ernie and
Hannah at the Hufflepuff table and he seemed really interested in coming, so what could I say?
But the more people the better really - I mean, Michael Corner and his friends wouldn’t have
come if he hadn’t been going out with Ginny -”
Ron, who had been draining the last few drops from his Butterbeer bottle, gagged and sprayed
Butterbeer down his front.
“He’s WHAT?” spluttered Ron, outraged, his ears now resembling curls of raw beef. “She’s
going out with - my sister’s going - what d’you mean, Michael Corner?”
“Well, that’s why he and his friends came, I think - well, they’re obviously interested in learning
defense, but if Ginny hadn’t told Michael what was going on -”
“When did this - when did she -?”
“They met at the Yule Ball and got together at the end of last year,” said Hermione composedly. They had turned into the High Street and she paused outside Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop, where
there was a handsome display of pheasant feather quills in the window. “Hmm… I could do with
a new quill.”
She turned into the shop. Harry and Ron followed her.
“Which one was Michael Corner?” Ron demanded furiously.
“The dark one,” said Hermione.
“I didn’t like him,” said Ron at once.
“Big surprise,” said Hermione under her breath.
“But,” said Ron, following Hermione along a row of quills in copper pots, “I thought Ginny
fancied Harry!”
Hermione looked at him rather pityingly and shook her head.
“Ginny used to fancy Harry, but she gave up on him months ago. Not that she doesn’t like you, of course,” she added kindly to Harry while she examined a long black and gold quill.
Harry, whose head was still full of Cho’s parting wave, did not find this subject quite as
interesting as Ron, who was positively quivering with indignation, but it did bring something
home to him that until now he had not really registered.
“So that’s why she talks now?” he asked Hermione. “She never used to talk in front of me.”
“Exactly,” said Hermione. “Yes, I think I’ll have this one…”
She went up to the counter and handed over fifteen Sickles and two Knuts, with Ron still
breathing down her neck.
“Ron,” she said severely as she turned and trod on his feet, “this is exactly why Ginny hasn’t told
you she’s seeing Michael, she knew you’d take it badly. So don’t harp on about it, for heaven’s
sake.”
“What d’you mean? Who’s taking anything badly? I’m not going to harp on about anything…”
Ron continued to chunter under his breath all the way down the street.
Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry and then said in an undertone, while Ron was still muttering
imprecations about Michael Corner, “And talking about Michael and Ginny… what about Cho
and you?”
“What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly.
It was as though boiling water was rising rapidly inside him; a burning sensation that was
causing his face to smart in the cold -had he been that obvious?
“Well,” said Hermione, smiling slightly, “she just couldn’t keep her eyes off you, could she?”
Harry had never before appreciated just how beautiful the village of Hogsmeade was.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four
Harry felt happier for the rest of the weekend than he had done all term. He and Ron spent much
of Sunday catching up with all their homework again, and although this could hardly be called
fun, the last burst of autumn sunshine persisted, so rather than sitting hunched over tables in the
common room they took their work outside and lounged in the shade of a large beech tree on the
edge of the lake. Hermione, who of course was up to date with all her work, brought more wool
outside with her and bewitched her knitting needles so that they flashed and clicked in midair
beside her, producing more hats and scarves.
Knowing they were doing something to resist Umbridge and the Ministry, and that he was a key
part of the rebellion, gave Harry a feeling of immense satisfaction. He kept reliving Saturdays
meeting in his mind: all those people, coming to him to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts…
and the looks on their faces as they had heard some of the things he had done… and Cho praising
his performance in the Triwizard Tournament – The knowledge that all those people did not think him a lying weirdo, but someone to be admired, buoyed him up so much that he was still cheerful on Monday morning, despite the imminent prospect of all his least favorite classes.
He and Ron headed downstairs from their dormitory, discussing Angelinas idea that they were to
work on a new move called the Sloth Grip Roll during that night’s Quidditch practice, and not
until they were halfway across the sunlit common room did they notice the addition to the room
that had already attracted the attention of a small group of people.
A large sign had been affixed to the Gryffindor noticeboard; so large it covered everything else
on it - the lists of secondhand spellbooks for sale, the regular reminders of school rules from
Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training timetable, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog
Cards for others, the Weasleys’ latest advertisement for testers, the dates of the Hogsmeade
weekends and the lost and found notices. The new sign was printed in large black letters and
there was a highly official-looking seal at the bottom beside a neat and curly signature.
BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS
All student organizations, societies, teams, groups and clubs are henceforth disbanded.
An organization, society, team, group or club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or
more students.
Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).
No student organization, society, team, group or club may exist without the knowledge and
approval of the High Inquisitor.
Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organization, society, team, group or club
that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.
Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor
Harry and Ron read the notice over the heads of some anxious-looking second-years.
“Does this mean they’re going to shut down the Gobstones Club?” one of them asked his friend.
“I reckon you’ll be okay with Gobstones,” Ron said darkly, making the second-year jump. “I don’t think we’re going to be as lucky, though, do you?” he asked Harry as the second-years hurried away.
Harry was reading the notice through again. The happiness that had filled him since Saturday
was gone. His insides were pulsing with rage.
“This isn’t a coincidence,” he said, his hands forming fists. “She knows.”
“She can’t,” said Ron at once.
“There were people listening in that pub. And let’s face it, we don’t know how many of the people who turned up we can trust… any of them could have run off and told Umbridge…”
And he had thought they believed him, thought they even admired him…
“Zacharias Smith!” said Ron at once, punching a fist into his hand. “Or - I thought that Michael
Corner had a really shifty look, too -”
“I wonder if Hermione’s seen this yet?” Harry said, looking round at the door to the girls’
dormitories.
“Let’s go and tell her,” said Ron. He bounded forwards, pulled open the door and set off up the
spiral staircase.
He was on the sixth stair when there was a loud, wailing, klaxon-like sound and the steps melted
together to make a long, smooth stone slid. There was a brief moment when Ron tried to keep running, arms working madly like windmills, then he toppled over backwards and shot down the newly created slide, coming to rest on his back at Harry’s feet.
“Er - I don’t think we’re allowed in the girls’ dormitories,” said Harry, pulling Ron to his feet and trying not to laugh.
Two fourth-year girls came zooming gleefully down the stone slide.
“Oooh, who tried to get upstairs?” they giggled happily, leaping to their feet and ogling Harry
and Ron.
“Me,” said Ron, who was still rather disheveled. “ I didn’t realize that would happen. It’s not
fair!” he added to Harry, as the girls headed off for the portrait hole, still giggling madly. “Hermione’s allowed in our dormitory, how come we’re not allowed -?”
“Well, it’s an old-fashioned rule,” said Hermione, who had just slid neatly on to a rug in front of
them and was now getting to her feet, “but it says in Hogwarts A History, that the founders
thought boys were less trustworthy than girls. Anyway, why were you trying to get in there?”
“To see you - look at this!” said Ron, dragging her over to the noticeboard.
Hermione’s eyes slid rapidly down the notice. Her expression became stony.
“Someone must have blabbed to her!” Ron said angrily.
“They can’t have done,” said Hermione in a low voice.
“You’re so naive,” said Ron, “you think just because you’re all honorable and trustworthy -”
“No, they can’t have done, because I put a jinx on that piece of parchment we all signed,” said
Hermione grimly. “Believe me, if anyone’s run off and told Umbridge, we’ll know exactly who
they are and they will really regret it.”
“What’ll happen to them?” said Ron eagerly.
“Well, put it this way” said Hermione, “it’ll make Eloise Midgeon’s acne look like a couple of
cute freckles. Come on, let’s get down to breakfast and see what the others think… I wonder
whether this has been put up in all the houses?”
It was immediately apparent on entering the Great Hall that Umbridge’s sign had not only
appeared in Gryffindor Tower. There was a peculiar intensity about the chatter and an extra
measure of movement in the Hall as people scurried up and down their tables conferring on what
they had read. Harry, Ron and Hermione had barely taken their seats when Neville, Dean, Fred,
George and Ginny descended upon them.
“Did you see it?”
“D’you reckon she knows?”
“What are we going to do?”
They were all looking at Harry. He glanced around to make sure there were no teachers near
them.
“We’re going to do it anyway of course,” he said quietly.
“Knew you’d say that”‘ said George, beaming and thumping Harry on the arm.
“The prefects as well?” said Fred, looking quizzically at Ron and Hermione.
“Of course,” said Hermione coolly.
“Here come Ernie and Hannah Abbott,” said Ron, looking over his shoulder. “And those
Ravenclaw blokes and Smith… and no one looks very spotty.”
Hermione looked alarmed.
“Nevermind spots, the idiots can’t come over here now, it’ll look really suspicious - sit down!”
she mouthed to Ernie and Hannah, gesturing frantically to them to rejoin the Hufflepuff table.
“Later! We’ll - talk - to - you - later!”
“I’ll tell Michael,” said Ginny impatiently, swinging herself off her bench, “the fool, honestly…”
She hurried off towards the Ravenclaw table; Harry watched her go. Cho was sitting not far
away, talking to the curly-haired friend she had brought along to the Hog’s Head. Would
Umbridge’s notice scare her off meeting them again?
But the full repercussions of the sign were not felt until they were leaving the Great Hall for
History of Magic.
“Harry! Ron!”
It was Angelina and she was hurrying towards them looking perfectly desperate.
“It’s okay,” said Harry quietly, when she was near enough to hear him. “We’re still going to -”
“You realize she’s including Quidditch in this?” Angelina said over him. “We have to go and ask
permission to re-form the Gryffindor team!”
“What?” said Harry.
“No way,” said Ron, appalled.
“You read the sign, it mentions teams too! So listen, Harry… I am saying this for the last time…
please, please don’t lose your temper with Umbridge again or she might not let us play any
more!”
“Okay,okay,” said Harry, for Angelina looked as though she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t
worry, I’ll behave myself…”
“Bet Umbridge is in History of Magic,” said Ron grimly, as they set off for Binns’s lesson. “She
hasn’t inspected Binns yet… bet you anything she’s there…”
But he was wrong; the only teacher present when they entered was Professor Binns, floating an
inch or so above his chair as usual and preparing to continue his monotonous drone on giant
wars. Harry did not even attempt to follow what he was saying today; he doodled idly on his
parchment ignoring Hermione’s frequent glares and nudges, until a particularly painful poke in
the ribs made him look up angrily.
“What?”
She pointed at the window. Harry looked round. Hedwig was perched on the narrow window
ledge, gazing through the thick glass at him, a letter tied to her leg. Harry could not understand
it; they had just had breakfast, why on earth hadn’t she delivered the letter then, as usual? Many
of his classmates were pointing out Hedwig to each other, too.
“Oh, I’ve always loved that owl, she’s so beautiful,” Harry heard Lavender sigh to Parvati.
He glanced round at Professor Binns who continued to read his notes, serenely unaware that the
class’s attention was even less focused upon him than usual. Harry slipped quietly off his chair,
crouched down and hurried along the row to the window, where he slid the catch and opened it
very slowly.
He had expected Hedwig to hold out her leg so that he could remove the letter and then fly off to
the Owlery but the moment the window was open wide enough she hopped inside, hooting
dolefully. He closed the window with an anxious glance at Professor Binns, crouched low again
and sped back to his seat with Hedwig on his shoulder. He regained his seat, transferred Hedwig
to his lap and made to remove the letter tied to her leg.
Only then did he realize that Hedwig’s feathers were oddly ruffled; some were bent the wrong
way, and she was holding one of her wings at an odd angle.
“She’s hurt!” Harry whispered, bending his head low over her. Hermione and Ron leaned in
closer; Hermione even put down her quill. “Look - there’s something wrong with her wing -”
Hedwig was quivering; when Harry made to touch the wing she gave a little jump, all her
feathers on end as though she was inflating herself, and gazed at him reproachfully.
“Professor Binns,” said Harry loudly, and everyone in the class turned to look at him. “I’m not
feeling well.”
Professor Binns raised his eyes from his notes, looking amazed, as always, to find the room in
front of him full of people.
“Not feeling well?” he repeated hazily.
“Not at all well,” said Harry firmly getting to his feet with Hedwig concealed behind his back. “I
think I need to go to the hospital wing.”
“Yes,” said Professor Binns, clearly very much wrong-footed. “Yes… yes, hospital wing… well,
off you go, then, Perkins…”
Once outside the room, Harry returned Hedwig to his shoulder and hurried off up the corridor,
pausing to think only when he was out of sight of Binns’s door. His first choice of somebody to
cure Hedwig would have been Hagrid, of course, but as he had no idea where Hagrid was his
only remaining option was to find Professor Grubbly-Plank and hope she would help.
He peered out of a window at the blustery, overcast grounds. There was no sign of her anywhere
near Hagrid’s cabin; if she was not teaching, she was probably in the staff room. He set off
downstairs, Hedwig hooting feebly as she swayed on his shoulder.
Two stone gargoyles flanked the staff-room door. As Harry approached, one of them croaked,
“You should be in class, Sonny Jim.”
“This is urgent,” said Harry curtly.
“Ooooh, urgent, is it?” said the other gargoyle in a high-pitched voice. “Well, that’s put us in our
place, hasn’t it?”
Harry knocked. He heard footsteps, then the door opened and he found himself face to face with
Professor McGonagall.
“You haven’t been given another detention!” she said at once, her square spectacles flashing
alarmingly.
“No, Professor!” said Harry hastily.
“Well then, why are you out of class?”
“It’s urgent, apparently,” said the second gargoyle snidely.
“I’m looking for Professor Grubbly-Plank,” Harry explained. “It’s my owl, she’s injured.”
“Injured owl, did you say?”
Professor Grubbly-Plank appeared at Professor McGonagall’s shoulder, smoking a pipe and
holding a copy of the Daily Prophet.
“Yes,” said Harry, lifting Hedwig carefully off his shoulder, “she turned up after the other post
owls and her wing’s all funny, look -”
Professor Grubbly-Plank stuck her pipe firmly between her teeth and took Hedwig from Harry
while Professor McGonagall watched.
“Hmm,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank, her pipe waggling slightly as she talked. “Looks like
something’s attacked her. Can’t think what would have done it, though. Thestrals will sometimes
go for birds, of course, but Hagrid’s got the Hogwarts Thestrals well-trained not to touch owls.”
Harry neither knew nor cared what Thestrals were; he just wanted to know that Hedwig was
going to be all right. Professor McGonagall, however, looked sharply at Harry and said, “Do you
know how far this owl’s traveled, Potter?”
“Er,” said Harry. “From London, I think.”
He met her eyes briefly and knew, by the way her eyebrows had joined in the middle, that she
understood ‘London’ to mean ‘number twelve, Grimmauld Place’.
Professor Grubbly-Plank pulled a monocle out of the inside of her robes and screwed it into her
eye, to examine Hedwig’s wing closely. “I should be able to sort this out if you leave her with
me, Potter,” she said, “she shouldn’t be flying long distances for a few days, in any case.”
“Er - right - thanks”‘ said Harry, just as the bell rang for break.
“No problem,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank gruffly, turning back into the staff room.
“Just a moment, Wilhelmina!” said Professor McGonagall. “Potters letter!”
“Oh yeah!” said Harry, who had momentarily forgotten the scroll tied to Hedwig’s leg. Professor
Grubbly-Plank handed it over and then disappeared into the staff room carrying Hedwig, who
was staring at Harry as though unable to believe he would give her away like this. Feeling
slightly guilty, he turned to go, but Professor McGonagall called him back.
“Potter!”
“Yes, Professor?”
She glanced up and down the corridor; there were students coming from both directions.
“Bear in mind,” she said quickly and quietly, her eyes on the scroll in his hand, “that channels of
communication in and out of Hogwarts may be being watched, won’t you?”
“I -” said Harry, but the flood of students rolling along the corridor was almost upon him.
Professor McGonagall gave him a curt nod and retreated into the staff room, leaving Harry to be
swept out into the courtyard with the crowd. He spotted Ron and Hermione already standing in a
sheltered corner, their cloak collars turned up against the wind. Harry slit open the scroll as he
hurried towards them and found five words in Sirius’s handwriting:
Today, same time, same place.
“Is Hedwig okay?” asked Hermione anxiously, the moment he was within earshot.
“Where did you take her?” asked Ron.
“To Grubbly-Plank,” said Harry. “And I met McGonagall… listen…”
And he told them what Professor McGonagall had said. To his surprise, neither of the others
looked shocked. On the contrary, they exchanged significant looks.
“What?” said Harry, looking from Ron to Hermione and back again.
“Well, I was just saying to Ron… what if someone had tried to intercept Hedwig? I mean, she’s
never been hurt on a flight before, has she?”
“Who’s the letter from, anyway?” asked Ron, taking the note from Harry.
“Snuffles”‘ said Harry quietly.
“‘Same time, same place?’ Does he mean the fire in the common room?”
“Obviously,” said Hermione, also reading the note. She looked uneasy. “I just hope nobody else
has read this…”
“But it was still sealed and everything,” said Harry, trying to convince himself as much as her.
“And nobody would understand what it meant if they didn’t know where we’d spoken to him
before, would they?”
“I don’t know,” said Hermione anxiously, hitching h er bag back over her shoulder as the bell
rang again, “it wouldn’t be exactly difficult to re-seal the scroll by magic… and if anyone’s
watching the Floo Network… but I don’t really see how we can warn him not to come
without that being intercepted, too!”
They trudged down the stone steps to the dungeons for Potions, all three of them lost in thought,
but as they reached the bottom of the steps they were recalled to themselves by the voice of
Draco Malfoy who was standing just outside Snape’s classroom door, waving around an official looking piece of parchment and talking much louder than was necessary so that they could hear
every word.
“Yeah, Umbridge gave the Slytherin Quidditch team permission to continue playing
straightaway, I went to ask her first thing this morning. Well, it was pretty much automatic, I
mean, she knows my father really well, he’s always popping in and out of the Ministry… it’ll be
interesting to see whether Gryffindor are allowed to keep playing, won’t it?”
“Don’t rise,” Hermione whispered imploringly to Harry and Ron, who were both watching
Malfoy, faces set and fists clenched. “It’s what he wants.”
“I mean,” said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his grey eyes glittering malevolently in
Harry and Ron’s direction, “if it’s a question of influence with the Ministry, I don’t think they’ve
got much chance… from what my father says, they’ve been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur
Weasley for years… and as for Potter… my father says it’s a matter of time before the Ministry
has him carted off to St. Mungo’s… apparently they’ve got a special ward for people whose
brains have been addled by magic.”
Malfoy made a grotesque face, his mouth sagging open and his eyes rolling. Crabbe and Goyle
gave their usual grunts of laughter; Pansy Parkinson shrieked with glee.
Something collided hard with Harry’s shoulder, knocking him sideways. A split second later he
realized that Neville had just charged past him, heading straight for Malfoy.
“Neville, no!”
Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville’s robes; Neville struggled frantically, his fists
flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.
“Help me!” Harry flung at Ron, managing to get an arm around Neville’s neck and dragging him
backwards, away from the Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle were flexing their arms as they stepped
in front of Malfoy, ready for the fight. Ron seized Neville’s arms, and together he and Harry
succeeded in dragging Neville back into the Gryffindor line. Neville’s face was scarlet; the
pressure Harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words
spluttered from his mouth.
“Not… funny… don’t… Mungo’s… show… him…”
The dungeon door opened. Snape appeared there. His black eyes swept up the Gryffindor line to
the point where Harry and Ron were wrestling with Neville.
“Fighting, Potter, Weasley, Longbottom?” Snape said in his cold, sneering voice. “Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom, Potter, or it will be detention. Inside, all of you.”
Harry let go of Neville, who stood panting and glaring at him.
“I had to stop you,” Harry gasped, picking up his bag. “Crabbe and Goyle would’ve torn you
apart.”
Neville said nothing; he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.
“What in the name of Merlin,” said Ron slowly, as they followed Neville, “was that about?”
Harry did not answer. He knew exactly why the subject of people who were in St. Mungo’s
because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to Neville, but he had sworn to
Dumbledore that he would not tell anyone Neville’s secret. Even Neville did not know Harry
knew.
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their usual seats at the back of the class, pulled out parchment,
quills and their copies of One Thousand Magical Herb s and Fungi. The class around them was
whispering about what Neville had just done, but when Snape closed the dungeon door with an
echoing bang, everybody immediately fell silent.
“You will notice,” said Snape, in his low, sneering voice, “that we have a guest with us today.”
He gestured towards the dim corner of the dungeon and Harry saw Professor Umbridge sitting
there, clipboard on her knee. He glanced sideways at Ron and Hermione, his eyebrows raised.
Snape and Umbridge, the two teachers he hated most. It was hard to decide which one he wanted
to triumph over the other.
“We are continuing with our Strengthening Solution today. You will find your mixtures as you
left them last lesson; if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend -
instructions -” he waved his wand again “- on the board. Carry on.”
Professor Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner. Harry was
very interested in hearing her question Snape; so interested, that he was becoming careless with
his potion again.
“Salamander blood, Harry!” Hermione moaned, grabbing his wrist to prevent him adding the
wrong ingredient for the third time, “not pomegranate juice!”
“Right,” said Harry vaguely, putting down the bottle and continuing to watch the corner.
Umbridge had just got to her feet. “Ha,” he said softly, as she strode between two lines of desks
towards Snape, who was bending over Dean Thomas’s cauldron.
“Well, the class seem fairly advanced for their level,” she said briskly to Snape’s back. “Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I
think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus.”
Snape straightened up slowly and turned to look at her.
“Now… how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?” she asked, her quill poised over her
clipboard.
“Fourteen years,” Snape replied. His expression was unfathomable. Harry, watching him closely,
added a few drops to his potion; it hissed menacingly and turned from turquoise to orange.
“You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?” Professor Umbridge
asked Snape.
“Yes,” said Snape quietly.
“But you were unsuccessful?”
Snape’s lip curled.
“Obviously”
Professor Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.
“And you have applied regularly for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post since you first
joined the school, I believe?”
“Yes,” said Snape quietly, barely moving his lips. He looked very angry.
“Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?” asked
Umbridge.
“I suggest you ask him,” said Snape jerkily.
“Oh, I shall,” said Professor Umbridge, with a sweet smile.
“I suppose this is relevant?” Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed.
“Oh yes,” said Professor Umbridge, “yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of
teachers - er - backgrounds.”
She turned away, walked over to Pansy Parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons.
Snape looked round at Harry and their eyes met for a second. Harry hastily dropped his gaze to
his potion, which was now congealing foully and giving off a strong smell of burned rubber.
“No marks again, then, Potter” said Snape maliciously, emptying Harry’s cauldron with a wave
of his wand. “You will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating
how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Harry furiously. Snape had already given them homework and he had Quidditch
practice this evening; this would mean another couple of sleepless nights. It did not seem
possible that he had awoken that morning feeling very happy. All he felt now was a fervent
desire for this day to end.
“Maybe I’ll skive off Divination,” he said glumly, as they stood in the courtyard after lunch, the
wind whipping at the hems of robes and brims of hats. “I’ll pretend to be ill and do Snape’s essay
instead, then I won’t have to stay up half the night.”
“You can’t skive off Divination,” said Hermione severely.
“Hark who’s talking, you walked out of Divination, you hate Trelawney!” said Ron indignantly.
“I don’t hate her,” said Hermione loftily. “I just think she’s an absolutely appalling teacher and a
real old fraud. But Harrys already missed History of Magic and I don’t think he ought to miss
anything else today!”
There was too much truth in this to ignore, so half an hour later Harry took his seat in the hot,
overperfumed atmosphere of the Divination classroom, feeling angry at everybody. Professor
Trelawney was yet again handing out copies of The Dream Oracle. Harry thought he’d surely be
much better employed doing Snape’s punishment essay than sitting here trying to find meaning
in a lot of made-up dreams.
It seemed, however, that he was not the only person in Divination who was in a temper.
Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Harry and Ron
and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean,
narrowly avoiding Seamus’s head, and thrust the final one into Neville’s chest with such force
that he slipped off his pouffe.
“Well, carry on!” said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high-pitched and somewhat
hysterical, “you know what to do! Or am I such a sub-standard teacher that you have never
learned how to open a book?”
The class stared perplexedly at her, then at each other. Harry, however, thought he knew what
was the matter. As Professor Trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teacher’s chair, her
magnified eyes full of angry tears, he leaned his head closer to Ron’s and muttered, “I think she’s got the results of her inspection back.”
“Professor?” said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired
Professor Trelawney). “Professor, is there anything - er - wrong?”
“Wrong!” cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. “Certainly not! I have
been insulted, certainly… insinuations have been made against me… unfounded accusations
leveled… but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not!”
She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from
under her glasses.
“I say nothing,” she choked, “of sixteen years of devoted service… it has passed, apparently,
unnoticed… but I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!”
“But, Professor, who’s insulting you?” asked Parvati timidly.
“The Establishment!” said Professor Trelawney, in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. “Yes, those
with eyes too clouded by the mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know… of course, we Seers
have always been feared, always persecuted… it is - alas -our fate.”
She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, then she pulled a small
embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, and blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves
blowing a raspberry.
Ron sniggered. Lavender shot him a disgusted look.
“Professor,” said Parvati, “do you mean… is it something Professor Umbridge -?”
“Do not speak to me about that woman!” cried Professor Trelawney, leaping to her feet, her
beads rattling and her spectacles flashing. “Kindly continue with your work!”
And she spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her
glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.
“… may well choose to leave… the indignity of it… on probation… we shall see… how she
dares…”
“You and Umbridge have got something in common,” Harry told Hermione quietly when they
met again in Defense Against the Dark Arts. “She obviously reckons Trelawney’s an old fraud,
too… looks like she’s put her on probation.”
Umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of
great smugness.
“Good afternoon, class.”
“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted dully.
“Wands away, please.”
But there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their
wands.
“Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled
‘Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack’. There will be -”
“- no need to talk,” Harry, Ron and Hermione said together, under their breaths.
“No Quidditch practice,” said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Ron and Hermione entered
the common room after dinner that night.
“But I kept my temper!” said Harry, horrified. “I didn’t say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I -”
“I know, I know,” said Angelina miserably. “She just said she needed a bit of time to consider.”
“Consider what?” said Ron angrily. “She’s given the Slytherins permission, why not us?”
But Harry could imagine how much Umbridge was enjoying holding the threat of no Gryffindor
Quidditch team over their heads and could easily understand why she would not want to
relinquish that weapon over them too soon.
“Well,” said Hermione, “look on the bright side - at least now you’ll have time to do Snape’s
essay!”
“That’s a bright side, is it?” snapped Harry, while Ron stared incredulously at Hermione. “No
Quidditch practice, and extra Potions?”
Harry slumped down into a chair, dragged his Potions essay reluctantly from his bag and set to
work. It was very hard to concentrate; even though he knew Sirius was not due in the fire until
much later, he could not help glancing into the flames every few minutes just in case. There was
also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George appeared finally to have
perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a
cheering and whooping crowd.
First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit
spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them. Then he would force down the
purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease. Lee Jordan, who was
assisting the demonstration, was lazily Vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same
Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harrys potions.
What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering and the sound of Fred and George taking
advance orders from the crowd, Harry was finding it exceptionally difficult to focus on the
correct method for Strengthening Solution. Hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and the
sound of vomit hitting the bottom of Fred and George’s bucket were punctuated by her loud and
disapproving sniffs, which Harry found, if anything, more distracting.
“Just go and stop them, then!” he said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered
griffin claw for the fourth time.
“I can’t, they’re not technically doing anything wrong,” said Hermione through gritted teeth.
“They’re quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves and I can’t find a rule that says the other idiots aren’t entitled to buy them, not unless they’re proven to be dangerous in some way and it doesn’t look as though they are.”
She, Harry and Ron watched George projectile-vomit into the bucket, gulp down the rest of the
chew and straighten up, beaming with his arms wide to protracted applause.
“You know, I don’t get why Fred and George only got three OWLs each,” said Harry, watching
as Fred, George and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd. “They really know their stuff.”
“Oh, they only know flashy stuff that’s of no real use to anyone,” said Hermione disparagingly.
“No real use?” said Ron in a strained voice. “Hermione, they’ve made about twenty-six Galleons
already.”
It was a long while before the crowd around the Weasley twins dispersed, then Fred, Lee and
George sat up counting their takings even longer, so it was well past midnight when Harry, Ron
and Hermione finally had the common room to themselves. At long last, Fred had closed the
doorway to the boys’ dormitories behind him, rattling his box of Galleons ostentatiously so that
Hermione scowled. Harry, who was making very little progress with his Potions essay, decided
to give it up for the night. As he put his books away, Ron, who was dozing lightly in an
armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, and looked blearily into the fire.
“Sirius!” he said.
Harry whipped round. Siriuss untidy dark head was sitting in the fire again.
“Hi,” he said, grinning.
“Hi,” chorused Harry, Ron and Hermione, all three kneeling down on the hearthrug. Crookshanks purred loudly and approached the fire, trying, despite the heat, to put his face close
to Sirius’s.
“How’re things?” said Sirius.
“Not that good,” said Harry, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks back to stop him singeing his
whiskers. “The Ministry’s forced through another decree, which means we’re not allowed to have Quidditch teams -”
“Or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?” said Sirius.
There was a short pause.
“How did you know about that?” Harry demanded.
“You want to choose your meeting places more carefully,” said Sirius, grinning still more
broadly. “The Hog’s Head, I ask you.”
“Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!” said Hermione defensively. “That’s always
packed with people -”
“Which means you’d have been harder to overhear,” said Sirius. “You’ve got a lot to learn,
Hermione.”
“Who overheard us?” Harry demanded.
“Mundungus, of course,” said Sirius, and when they all looked puzzled he laughed. “He was the
witch under the veil.”
“That was Mundungus?” Harry said, stunned. “What was he doing in the Hog’s Head?”
“What do you think he was doing?” said Sirius impatiently. “Keeping an eye on you, of course.”
“I’m still being followed?” asked Harry angrily.
“Yeah, you are,” said Sirius, “and just as well, isn’t it, if the first thing you’re going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defense group.”
But he looked neither angry nor worried. On the contrary, he was looking at Harry with distinct
pride.
“Why was Dung hiding from us?” asked Ron, sounding disappointed. “We’d’ve liked to’ve seen
him.”
“He was banned from the Hog’s Head twenty years ago,” said Sirius, “and that barman’s got a
long memory. We lost Moody’s spare Invisibility Cloak when Sturgis was arrested, so Dung’s
been dressing as a witch a lot lately… anyway… first of all, Ron - I’ve sworn to pass on a
message from your mother.”
“Oh yeah?” said Ron, sounding apprehensive.
“She says on no account whatsoever are you to take part in an illegal secret Defense Against the
Dark Arts group. She says you’ll be expelled for sure and your future will be ruined. She says
there will be plenty of time to learn how to defend yourself later and that you are too young to be
worrying about that right now. She also” (Sirius’s eyes turned to the other two) “advises Harry
and Hermione not to proceed with the group, though she accepts that she has no authority over
either of them and simply begs them to remember that she has their best interests at heart. She
would have written all this to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you’d all have been in real
trouble, and she can’t say it for herself because she’s on duty tonight.”
“On duty doing what?” said Ron quickly.
“Never you mind, just stuff for the Order,” said Sirius. “So it’s fallen to me to be the messenger
and make sure you tell her I passed it all on, because I don’t think she trusts me to.”
There was another pause in which Crookshanks, mewing, attempted to paw Sirius’s head, and
Ron fiddled with a hole in the hearthrug.
“So, you want me to say I’m not going to take part in the Defense group?” he muttered finally.
“Me? Certainly not!” said Sirius, looking surprised. “I think it’s an excellent idea!”
“You do?” said Harry, his heart lifting.
“Of course I do!” said Sirius. “D’you think your father and I would’ve lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?”
“But - last term all you did was tell me to be careful and not take risks -”
“Last year, all the evidence was that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry!”
said Sirius impatiently. “This year, we know there’s someone outside Hogwarts who’d like to kill us all, so I think learning to defend yourselves properly is a very good idea!”
“And if we do get expelled?” Hermione asked, a quizzical look on her face.
“Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!” said Harry, staring at her.
“I know it was. I just wondered what Sirius thought,” she said, shrugging.
“Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue,”
said Sirius.
“Hear, hear,” said Harry and Ron enthusiastically.
“So,” said Sirius, “how are you organizing this group? Where are you meeting?”
“Well, that’s a bit of a problem now,” said Harry. “Dunno where we’re going to be able to go.”
“How about the Shrieking Shack?” suggested Sirius.
“Hey, that’s an idea!” said Ron excitedly, but Hermione made a skeptical noise and all three of
them looked at her, Sirius’s head turning in the flames.
“Well, Sirius, it’s just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you
were at school,” said Hermione, “and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you
could all have squeezed under a single Invisibility Cloak if you’d wanted to. But there are
twenty-eight of us and none of us is an Animagus, so we wouldn’t need so much an Invisibility
Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee -”
“Fair point,” said Sirius, looking slightly crestfallen. “Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with
somewhere. There used to be a pretty roomy secret passageway behind that big mirror on the
fourth floor, you might have enough space to practice jinxes in there.”
“Fred and George told me it’s blocked,” said Harry, shaking his head. “Caved in or something.”
“Oh…” said Sirius, frowning. “Well, I’ll have a think and get back to -”
He broke off. His face was suddenly tense, alarmed. He turned sideways, apparently looking into
the solid brick wall of the fireplace.
“Sirius?” said Harry anxiously.
But he had vanished. Harry gaped at the flames for a moment, then turned to look at Ron and
Hermione.
“Why did he -?”
Hermione gave a horrified gasp and leapt to her feet, still staring at the fire.
A hand had appeared amongst the flames, groping as though to catch hold of something; a
stubby, short-fingered hand covered in ugly old-fashioned rings.
The three of them ran for it. At the door of the boys’ dormitory Harry looked back. Umbridge’s
hand was still making snatching movements amongst the flames, as though she knew exactly
where Sirius’s hair had been moments before and was determined to seize it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dumbledore’s Army
“Umbridge has been reading your mail, Harry. There’s no other explanation.”
“You think Umbridge attacked Hedwig?” he said, outraged.
“I’m almost certain of it,” said Hermione grimly. “Watch your frog, it’s escaping.”
Harry pointed his wand at the bullfrog that had been hopping hopefully towards the other side of
the table - “Accio!” - and it zoomed gloomily back into his hand.
Charms was always one of the best lessons in which to enjoy a private chat; there was generally
so much movement and activity that the danger of being overheard was very slight. Today, with
the room full of croaking bullfrogs and cawing ravens, and with a heavy downpour of rain
clattering and pounding against the classroom windows, Harry, Ron and Hermione’s whispered
discussion about how Umbridge had nearly caught Sirius went quite unnoticed.
“I’ve been suspecting this ever since Filch accused you of ordering Dungbombs, because it
seemed such a stupid lie,” Hermione whispered. “I mean, once your letter had been read it would
have been quite clear you weren’t ordering them, so you wouldn’t have been in trouble at all - it’s a bit of a feeble joke, isn’t it? But then I thought, what if somebody just wanted an excuse to read your mail? Well then, it would be a perfect way for Umbridge to manage it - tip off Filch, let him do the dirty work and confiscate the letter, then either find a way of stealing it from him or else demand to see it - I don’t think Filch would object, when’s he ever stuck up for a student’s rights? Harry, you’re squashing your frog.”
Harry looked down; he was indeed squeezing his bullfrog so tightly its eyes were popping; he
replaced it hastily upon the desk.
“It was a very, very close call last night,” said Hermione. “I just wonder if Umbridge knows how
close it was. Silencio.”
The bullfrog on which she was practicing her Silencing Charm was struck dumb mid-croak and
glared at her reproachfully.
“If she’d caught Snuffles -”
Harry finished the sentence for her.
“- He’d probably be back in Azkaban this morning.” He waved his wand without really
concentrating; his bullfrog swelled like a green balloon and emitted a high-pitched whistle.
“Silencio!” said Hermione hastily, pointing her wand at Harry’s frog, which deflated silently
before them. “Well, he mustn’t do it again, that’s all. I just don’t know how we’re going to let
him know. We can’t send him an owl.”
“I don’t reckon he’ll risk it again,” said Ron. “He’s not stupid, he knows she nearly got
him. Silencio.”
The large and ugly raven in front of him let out a derisive caw.
“Silencio. SILENCIO!”
The raven cawed more loudly.
“Its the way you’re moving your wand,” said Hermione, watching Ron critically, “you don’t want to wave it, it’s more a sharp jab.”
“Ravens are harder than frogs,” said Ron through clenched teeth.
“Fine, let’s swap,” said Hermione, seizing Rons raven and replacing it with her own fat bullfrog.
“Silencio!” The raven continued to open and close its sharp beak, but no sound came out.
“Very good, Miss Granger!” said Professor Flitwick’s squeaky little voice, making Harry, Ron
and Hermione all jump. “Now, let me see you try, Mr. Weasley.”
“Wha—? Oh - oh, right,” said Ron, very flustered. “Er - silencio!”
He jabbed at the bullfrog so hard he poked it in the eye: the frog gave a deafening croak and
leapt off the desk.
It came as no surprise to any of them that Harry and Ron were given additional practice of the
Silencing Charm for homework.
They were allowed to remain inside over break due to the downpour outside. They found seats in
a noisy and overcrowded classroom on the first floor in which Peeves was floating dreamily up
near the chandelier, occasionally blowing an ink pellet at the top of somebody’s head. They had
barely sat down when Angelina came struggling towards them through the groups of gossiping
students.
“I’ve got permission!” she said. “To re-form the Quidditch team!”
“Excellent!” said Ron and Harry together.
“Yeah,” said Angelina, beaming. “I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to
Dumbledore. Anyway, Umbridge had to give in. Ha! So I want you down at the pitch at seven
o’clock tonight, all right, because we’ve got to make up time. You realize we’re only three weeks away from our first match?”
She squeezed away from them, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from Peeves, which hit a nearby
first-year instead, and vanished from sight.
Ron’s smile slipped slightly as he looked out of the window, which was now opaque with
hammering rain.
“Hope this clears up. What’s up with you, Hermione?”
She, too, was gazing at the window, but not as though she really saw it. Her eyes were unfocused
and there was a frown on her face.
“Just thinking…” she said, still frowning at the rain-washed window.
“About Siri— Snuffles?” said Harry.
“No… not exactly…” said Hermione slowly. “More… wondering… I suppose we’re doing the
right thing… I think… aren’t we?”
Harry and Ron looked at each other.
“Well, that clears that up,” said Ron. “It would’ve been really annoying if you hadn’t explained
yourself properly.”
Hermione looked at him as though she had only just realized he was there.
“I was just wondering,” she said, her voice stronger now, “whether we’re doing the right thing,
starting this Defense Against the Dark Arts group.”
“What?” said Harry and Ron together.
“Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!” said Ron indignantly.
“I know,” said Hermione, twisting her fingers together. “But after talking to Snuffles…”
“But he’s all for it,” said Harry.
“Yes,” said Hermione, staring at the window again. “Yes, that’s what made me think maybe it
wasn’t a good idea after all…”
Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all three of them
lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.
“Let’s get this straight,” said Harry angrily, as t hey put their bags back on the floor, “Sirius agrees with us, so you don’t think we should do it any more?”
Hermione looked tense and rather miserable. Now staring at her own hands, she said, “Do you
honestly trust his judgment?”
“Yes, I do!” said Harry at once. “He’s always given us great advice!”
An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear. Hermione watched Katie
leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione
spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully.
“You don’t think he has become… sort of… reckless… since he’s been cooped up in Grimmauld
Place? You don’t think he’s… kind of… living through us?”
“What d’you mean, ‘through us’?” Harry retorted.
“I mean… well, I think he’d love to be forming secret Defense societies right under the nose of
someone from the Ministry… I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is…
so I think he’s keen to kind of… egg us on.”
Ron looked utterly perplexed.
“Sirius is right,” he said, “you do sound just like my mother.”
Hermione bit her lip and did not answer. The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down on Katie
and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.
The weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o’clock that evening, when
Harry and Ron went down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, they were soaked through within
minutes, their feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass. The sky was a deep, thundery grey
and it was a relief to gain the warmth and light of the changing rooms, even if they knew the
respite was only temporary. They found Fred and George debating whether to use one of their
own Skiving Snackboxes to get out of flying.
“… but I bet she’d know what we’d done,” Fred said out of the corner of his mouth. “If only I
hadn’t offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday.”
“We could try the Fever Fudge,” George muttered, “no one’s seen that yet -”
“Does it work?” enquired Ron hopefully, as the hammering of rain on the roof intensified and
wind howled around the building.
“Well, yeah,” said Fred, “your temperature’ll go right up.”
“But you get these massive pus-filled boils, too,” said George, “and we haven’t worked out how
to get rid of them yet.”
“I can’t see any boils,” said Ron, staring at the, twins.
“No, well, you wouldn’t,” said Fred darkly, “they’re not in a place we generally display to the
public.”
“But they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the -”
“All right, everyone, listen up,” said Angelina loudly, emerging from the Captain’s office. “I
know it’s not ideal weather, but there’s a chance we’ll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this
so it’s a good idea to work out how we’re going to cope with them. Harry, didn’t you do
something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that
storm?’
“Hermione did it,” said Harry. He pulled out his wand, tapped his glasses and said, “Impervius!”
“I think we all ought to try that,” said Angelina. “If we could just keep the rain off our faces it
would really help visibility - all together, come on - Impervius! okay. Let’s go.”
They all stowed their wands back in the inside pockets of their robes, shouldered their brooms
and followed Angelina out of the changing rooms.
They squelched through the deepening mud to the middle of the pitch; visibility was still very
poor even with the Impervius Charm; light was fading fast and curtains of rain were sweeping
the grounds.
“All right, on my whistle,” shouted Angelina.
Harry kicked off from the ground, spraying mud in all directions, and shot upwards, the wind
pulling him slightly off course.
He had no idea how he was going to see the Snitch in this weather; he was having enough
difficulty seeing the one Bludger with which they were practicing; a minute into the practice it
almost unseated him and he had to use the Sloth Grip Roll to avoid it. Unfortunately, Angelina
did not see this. In fact, she did not appear to be able to see anything; none of them had a clue
what the others were doing. The wind was picking up; even at a distance Harry could hear the
swishing, pounding sounds of the rain pummeling the surface of the lake.
Angelina kept them at it for nearly an hour before conceding defeat. She led her sodden and
disgruntled team back into the changing rooms, insisting that the practice had not been a waste of
time, though without any real conviction in her voice. Fred and George were looking particularly
annoyed; both were bandy-legged and winced with every movement. Harry could hear them
complaining in low voices as he toweled his hair dry.
“I think a few of mine have ruptured,” said Fred in a hollow voice.
“Mine haven’t,” said George, through clenched teeth, “they’re throbbing like mad… feel bigger if anything.”
“OUCH!” said Harry.
He pressed the towel to his face, his eyes screwed tight with pain. The scar on his forehead had
seared again, more painfully than it had in weeks.
“What’s up?” said several voices.
Harry emerged from behind his towel; the changing room was blurred because he was not
wearing his glasses, but he could still tell that everyone’s face was turned towards him.
“Nothing,” he muttered, “I - poked myself in the eye, that’s all.”
But he gave Ron a significant look and the two of them hung back as the rest of the team filed
back outside, muffled in their cloaks, their hats pulled low over their ears.
“What happened?” said Ron, the moment Alicia had disappeared through the door. “Was it your
scar?”
Harry nodded.
“But…” looking scared, Ron strode across to the window and stared out into the rain, “he - he
can’t be near us now, can he?”
“No,” Harry muttered, sinking on to a bench and rubbing his forehead. “He’s probably miles
away. It hurt because… he’s… angry.”
Harry had not meant to say that at all, and heard the words as though a stranger had spoken them
- yet knew at once that they were true. He did not know how he knew it, but he did; Voldemort,
wherever he was, whatever he was doing, was in a towering temper.
“Did you see him?” said Ron, looking horrified. “Did you… get a vision, or something?”
Harry sat quite still, staring at his feet, allowing his mind and his memory to relax in the
aftermath of the pain.
A confused tangle of shapes, a howling rush of voices…
“He wants something done, and it’s not happening fast enough,” he said.
Again, he felt surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, and yet was quite certain
they were true.
“But… how do you know?” said Ron.
Harry shook his head and covered his eyes with his hands, pressing down upon them with his
palms. Little stars erupted in them. He felt Ron sit down on the bench beside him and knew Ron
was staring at him.
“Is this what it was about last time?” said Ron in a hushed voice. “When your scar hurt in
Umbridge’s office? You-Know-Who was angry?”
Harry shook his head.
“What is it, then?”
Harry was thinking himself back. He had been looking into Umbridge’s face… his scar had
hurt… and he had had that odd feeling in his stomach… a strange, leaping feeling… a happy
feeling… but of course, he had not recognized it for what it was, as he had been feeling so
miserable himself…
“Last time, it was because he was pleased,” he said. “Really pleased. He thought… something
good was going to happen. And the night before we came back to Hogwarts…” he thought back
to the moment when his scar had hurt so badly in his and Ron’s bedroom in Grimmauld Place…
“he was furious.”
He looked round at Ron, who was gaping at him.
“You could take over from Trelawney, mate,” he said in an awed voice.
“I’m not making prophecies,” said Harry.
“No, you know what you’re doing?” Ron said, sounding both scared and impressed. “Harry, you’re reading You-Know-Who’s mind!”
“No,” said Harry, shaking his head. “It’s more like… his mood, I suppose. I’m just getting flashes of what mood he’s in. Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. He said that when Voldemort was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I’m feeling it when he’s pleased, too…”
There was a pause. The wind and rain lashed at the building.
“You’ve got to tell someone,” said Ron.
“I told Sirius last time.”
“Well, tell him about this time!”
“Can’t, can I?” said Harry grimly. “Umbridge is watching the owls and the fires, remember?”
“Well then, Dumbledore.”
“I’ve just told you, he already knows,” said Harry shortly, getting to his feet, taking his cloak off
his peg and swinging it around him. “There’s no point telling him again.”
Ron did up the fastening of his own cloak, watching Harry thoughtfully.
“Dumbledore’d want to know,” he said.
Harry shrugged.
“C’mon… we’ve still got Silencing Charms to practice.”
They hurried back through the dark grounds, sliding and stumbling up the muddy lawns, not
talking. Harry was thinking hard. What was it that Voldemort wanted done that was not
happening quickly enough?
“… he’s got other plans… plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed… stuff he can only
get by stealth… like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.”
Harry had not thought about those words in weeks; he had been too absorbed in what was going
on at Hogwarts, too busy dwelling on the ongoing battles with Umbridge, the injustice of all the
Ministry interference… but now they came back to him and made him wonder… Voldemort’s
anger would make sense if he was no nearer to laying hands on the weapon, whatever it was.
Had the Order thwarted him, stopped him from seizing it? Where was it kept? Who had it now?
“Mimbulus mimbletonia,” said Ron’s voice and Harry came back to his senses just in time to
clamber through the portrait hole into the common room.
It appeared that Hermione had gone to bed early, leaving Crookshanks curled in a nearby chair
and an assortment of knobbly knitted elf hats lying on a table by the fire. Harry was rather
grateful that she was not around, because he did not much want to discuss his scar hurting and
have her urge him to go to Dumbledore, too. Ron kept throwing him anxious glances, but Harry
pulled out his Charms books and set to work on finishing his essay, though he was only
pretending to concentrate and by the time Ron said he was going up to bed, too, he had written
hardly anything.
Midnight came and went while Harry was reading and rereading a passage about the uses of
scurvy-grass, lovage and sneezewort and not taking in a word of it.
These plants are most efficacious in the inflaming of the brain, and are therefore much used
in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts, where the wizard is desirous of producing hot-headedness and recklessness…
… Hermione said Sirius was becoming reckless cooped up in Grimmauld Place…
… most efficacious in the inflaming of the brain, and are therefore much used…
… the Daily Prophet would think his brain was inflamed if they found out that he knew what
Voldemort was feeling…
… therefore much used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts…
… confusing was the word, all right; why did he know what Voldemort was feeling? What was
this weird connection between them, which Dumbledore had never been able to explain
satisfactorily?
… where the wizard is desirous…
… how Harry would like to sleep…
… producing hot-headedness…
… it was warm and comfortable in his armchair before the fire, with the rain still beating heavily
on the windowpanes, Crookshanks purring, and the crackling of the flames…
The book slipped from Harry’s slack grip and landed with a dull thud on the hearthrug. His head
rolled sideways…
He was walking once more along a windowless corridor, his footsteps echoing in the silence. As
the door at the end of the passage loomed larger, his heart beat fast with excitement… if he could
only open it… enter beyond…
He stretched out his hand… his fingertips were inches from it…
“Harry Potter, sir!”
He awoke with a start. The candles had all been extinguished in the common room, but there was
something moving close by.
“Whozair?” said Harry, sitting upright in his chair. The fire was almost out, the room very dark.
“Dobby has your owl, sir!” said a squeaky voice.
“Dobby?” said Harry thickly, peering through the gloom towards the source of the voice.
Dobby the house-elf was standing beside the table on which Hermione had left half a dozen of
her knitted hats. His large, pointed ears were now sticking out from beneath what looked like all
the hats Hermione had ever knitted; he was wearing one on top of the other, so that his head
seemed elongated by two or three feet, and on the very topmost bobble sat Hedwig, hooting
serenely and obviously cured.
“Dobby volunteered to return Harry Potter’s owl,” said the elf squeakily, with a look of positive
adoration on his face, “Professor Grubbly-Plank says she is all well now, sir.” He sank into a
deep bow so that his pencil-like nose brushed the threadbare surface of the hearthrug and
Hedwig gave an indignant hoot and fluttered on to the arm of Harry’s chair.
“Thanks, Dobby!” said Harry, stroking Hedwig’s head and blinking hard, trying to rid himself of
the image of the door in his dream… it had been very vivid. Surveying Dobby more closely, he
noticed that the elf was also wearing several scarves and innumerable socks, so that his feet
looked far too big for his body.
“Er… have you been taking all the clothes Hermione’s been leaving out?”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Dobby happily. “Dobby has been taking some for Winky, too, sir.”
“Yeah, how is Winky?” asked Harry.
Dobby’s ears drooped slightly.
“Winky is still drinking lots, sir,” he said sadly, his enormous round green eyes, large as tennis
balls, downcast. “She still does not care for clothes, Harry Potter. Nor do the other house-elves.
None of them will clean Gryffindor Tower any more, not with the hats and socks hidden
everywhere, they finds them insulting, sir. Dobby does it all himself, sir, but Dobby does not
mind, sir, for he always hopes to meet Harry Potter and tonight, sir, he has got his wish!” Dobby
sank into a deep bow again. “But Harry Potter does not seem happy,” Dobby went on,
straightening up again and looking timidly at Harry. “Dobby heard him muttering in his sleep.
Was Harry Potter having bad dreams?”
“Not really bad,” said Harry, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “I’ve had worse.”
The elf surveyed Harry out of his vast, orb-like eyes. Then he said very seriously, his ears
drooping, “Dobby wishes he could help Harry Potter, for Harry Potter set Dobby free and Dobby
is much, much happier now.”
Harry smiled.
“You can’t help me, Dobby, but thanks for the offer.”
He bent and picked up his Potions book. He’d have to try to finish the essay tomorrow. He
closed the book and as he did so the firelight illuminated the thin white scars on the back of his
hand - the result of his detentions with Umbridge…
“Wait a moment - there is something you can do for me, Dobby,” said Harry slowly.
The elf looked round, beaming.
“Name it, Harry Potter, sir!”
“I need to find a place where twenty-eight people can practice Defense Against the Dark Arts
without being discovered by any of the teachers. Especially,” Harry clenched his hand on the
book, so that the scars shone pearly white, “Professor Umbridge.”
He expected the elf’s smile to vanish, his ears to droop; he expected him to say it was
impossible, or else that he would try to find somewhere, but his hopes were not high. What he
had not expected was for Dobby to give a little skip, his ears waggling cheerfully, and clap his
hands together.
“Dobby knows the perfect place, sir!” he said happily. “Dobby heard tell of it from the other
house-elves when he came to Hogwarts, sir. It is known by us as the Come and Go Room, sir, or
else as the Room of Requirement!”
“Why?” said Harry curiously.
“Because it is a room that a person can only enter,” said Dobby seriously, “when they have real
need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always
equipped for the seeker’s needs. Dobby has used it, sir,” said the elf, dropping his voice and
looking guilty, “when Winky has been very drunk; he has hidden her in the Room of
Requirement and he has found antidotes to Butterbeer there, and a nice elf-sized bed to settle her
on while she sleeps it off, sir… and Dobby knows Mr. Filch has found extra cleaning materials
there when he has run short, sir, and -”
“And if you really needed a bathroom,” said Harry, suddenly remembering something
Dumbledore had said at the Yule Ball the previous Christmas, “would it fill itself with chamber
pots?”
“Dobby expects so, sir,” said Dobby, nodding earnestly. “It is a most amazing room, sir.”
“How many people know about it?” said Harry, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“Very few, sir. Mostly people stumbles across it when they needs it, sir, but often they never
finds it again, for they do not know that it is always there waiting to be called into service, sir.”
“It sounds brilliant,” said Harry, his heart racing. “It sounds perfect, Dobby. When can you show me where it is?”
“Any time, Harry Potter, sir,” said Dobby, looking delighted at Harrys enthusiasm. “We could go
now, if you like!”
For a moment Harry was tempted to go with Dobby. He was halfway out of his seat, intending to
hurry upstairs for his Invisibility Cloak when, not for the first time, a voice very much like
Hermione’s whispered in his ear: reckless. It was, after all, very late, he was exhausted, and had
Snape’s essay to finish.
“Not tonight, Dobby,” said Harry reluctantly, sinking back into his chair. “This is really
important… I don’t want to blow it, it’ll need proper planning. Listen, can you just tell me
exactly where this Room of Requirement is, and how to get in there?”
Their robes billowed and swirled around them as they splashed across the flooded vegetable
patch to double Herbology, where they could hardly hear what Professor Sprout was saying over
the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof. The afternoons Care of
Magical Creatures lesson was to be relocated from the storm-swept grounds to a free classroom
on the ground floor and, to their intense relief, Angelina had sought out her team at lunch to tell
them that Quidditch practice was cancelled.
“Good,” said Harry quietly, when she told him, “because we’ve found somewhere to have our
first Defense meeting. Tonight, eight o’clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas
the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls. Can you tell Katie and Alicia?”
She looked slightly taken aback but promised to tell the others. Harry returned hungrily to his
sausages and mash. When he looked up to take a drink of pumpkin juice, he found Hermione
watching him.
“What?” he said thickly.
“Well… it’s just that Dobby’s plans aren’t always that safe. Don’t you remember when he lost
you all the bones in your arm?”
“This room isn’t just some mad idea of Dobby’s; Dumbledore knows about it, too, he mentioned
it to me at the Yule Ball.”
Hermione’s expression cleared.
“Dumbledore told you about it?”
“Just in passing,” said Harry, shrugging.
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” said Hermione briskly and raised no more objections.
Together with Ron they had spent most of the day seeking out those people who had signed their
names to the list in the Hog’s Head and telling them where to meet that evening. Somewhat to
Harry’s disappointment, it was Ginny who managed to find Cho Chang and her friend first;
however, by the end of dinner he was confident that the news had been passed to every one of
the twenty-five people who had turned up in the Hog’s Head.
At half past seven Harry, Ron and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, Harry clutching
a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand. Fifth-years were allowed to be out in the corridors
until nine o’clock, but all three of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way
along the seventh floor.
“Hold it,” Harry warned, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping
it with his wand and muttering, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
A map of Hogwarts appeared on the blank surface of the parchment. Tiny black moving dots,
labeled with names, showed where various people were.
“Filch is on the second floor,” said Harry, holding the map close to his eyes, “and Mrs. Norris is
on the fourth.”
“And Umbridge?” said Hermione anxiously.
“In her office,” said Harry, pointing. “Okay, lets go.”
They hurried along the corridor to the place Dobby had described to Harry, a stretch of blank
wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy’s foolish attempt to train trolls
for the ballet.
“Okay,” said Harry quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would be ballet teacher to watch them. “Dobby said to walk past this bit of wall three times,
concentrating hard on what we need.”
They did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-sized vase on its other side. Ron had screwed up his eyes in concentration; Hermione was
whispering something under her breath; Harry’s fists were clenched as he stared ahead of him.
We need somewhere to learn to fight… he thought. Just give us a place to practice… somewhere they can’t find us…
“Harry!” said Hermione sharply, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.
A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. Ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary.
Harry reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door and led the way into a spacious
room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.
The walls were lined with wooden bookcases and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions
on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as
Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors and a large, cracked Foe-Glass that Harry was sure had hung, the
previous year, in the fake Moodys office.
“These will be good when we’re practicing Stunning, “ said Ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.
“And just look at these books!” said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the
large leather-bound tomes. “A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counter-Actions…
The Dark Arts Outsmarted… Self-Defensive Spellwork… wow…” She looked around at Harry,
her face glowing, and he saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced
Hermione that what they were doing was right. “Harry, this is wonderful, there’s everything we
need here!”
And without further ado she slid ‘Jinxes for the Jinxed’ from its shelf, sank on to the nearest
cushion and began to read.
There was a gentle knock on the door. Harry looked round. Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Parvati
and Dean had arrived.
“Whoa,” said Dean, staring around, impressed. “What is this place?”
Harry began to explain, but before he had finished more people had arrived and he had to start all
over again. By the time eight o’clock arrived, every cushion was occupied. Harry moved across
to the door and turned the key protruding from the lock; it clicked in a satisfyingly loud way and
everybody fell silent, looking at him. Hermione carefully marked her page of ‘Jinxes for the
Jinxed’ and set the book aside.
“Well,” said Harry, slightly nervously. “This is the place we’ve found for practice sessions, and
you’ve - er - obviously found it okay.”
“It’s fantastic!” said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.
“It’s bizarre,” said Fred, frowning around at it. “We once hid from Filch in here, remember,
George? But it was just a broom cupboard then.”
“Hey, Harry, what’s this stuff?” asked Dean from the rear of the room, indicating the
Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass.
“Dark detectors,” said Harry, stepping between the cushions to reach them. “Basically they all
show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don’t want to rely on them too much,
they can be fooled…”
He gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside
it, though none was recognizable. He turned his back on it.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and - er -” He noticed a
raised hand. “What, Hermione?”
“I think we ought to elect a leader,” said Hermione.
“Harry’s leader,” said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad.
Harrys stomach did yet another back-flip.
“Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly,” said Hermione, unperturbed. “It makes it
formal and it gives him authority. So - everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?”
Everybody put up their hand, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very half-heartedly.
“Er - right, thanks,” said Harry, who could feel his face burning. “And -what, Hermione?”
“I also think we ought to have a name,” she said brightly, her hand still in the air. “It would
promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don’t you think?”
“Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?” said Angelina hopefully.
“Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?” suggested Fred.
“I was thinking,” said Hermione, frowning at Fred, “more of a name that didn’t tell everyone
what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings.”
“The Defense Association?” said Cho. “The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we’re talking
about?”
“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledores Army, because
that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?”
There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this.
“All in favor of the D.A.?” said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. “That’s a
majority - motion passed!”
She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it on to the wall and wrote
across the top in large letters:
“Right,” said Harry, when she had sat down again, “shall we get practicing then? I was thinking,
the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it’s pretty basic but I’ve found it really useful -”
“Oh, please,” said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eye s and folding his arms. “I don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”
“I’ve used it against him,” said Harry quietly. “It saved my life in June.”
Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.
“But if you think it’s beneath you, you can leave,” Harry said.
Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.
“Okay,” said Harry, his mouth slightly drier than usual with all these eyes upon him, “I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice.”
It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed.
Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up. Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.
“You can practice with me,” Harry told him. “Right-on the count of three, then-one, two, three-”
The room was suddenly full of shouts of Expelliarmus. Wands flew in all directions; missed
spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Harry was too quick for Neville,
whose wand went spinning out of his hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks and landed with
a clatter on top of a bookshelf, from which Harry retrieved it with a Summoning Charm.
Glancing around, he thought he had been right to suggest they practice the basics first; there was
a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in Disarming their
opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their
feeble spell whooshed over them.
“Expelliarmus!” said Neville, and Harry, caught unawares, felt his wand fly out of his hand.
“I DID IT!” said Neville gleefully. “I’ve never done it before - I DID IT!”
“Good one!” said Harry encouragingly, deciding not to point out that in a real duel Nevilles
opponent was unlikely to be staring in the opposite direction with his wand held loosely at his
side. “Listen, Neville, can you take it in turns to practice with Ron and Hermione for a couple of
minutes so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing?”
Harry moved off into the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Zacharias
Smith. Every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, his own wand would fly
out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound. Harry did not have to look far
to solve the mystery: Fred and George were several feet from Smith and taking it in turns to
point their wands at his back.
“Sorry, Harry” said George hastily, when Harry caught his eye. “Couldn’t resist.”
Harry walked around the other pairs, trying to correct those who were doing the spell wrong.
Ginny was teamed with Michael Corner; she was doing very well, whereas Michael was either
very bad or unwilling to jinx her. Ernie Macmillan was flourishing his wand unnecessarily,
giving his partner time to get in under his guard; the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but
erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them; Luna
Lovegood was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchley’s wand spinning out
of his hand, at other times merely causing his hair to stand on end.
“Okay, stop!” Harry shouted. “Stop! STOP!”
I need a whistle, he thought, and immediately spotted one lying on top of the nearest row of
books. He caught it up and blew hard. Everyone lowered their wands.
“That wasn’t bad,” said Harry, “but there’s definite room for improvement.” Zacharias Smith
glared at him. “Let’s try again.”
He moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions. Slowly, the
general performance improved.
He avoided going near Cho and her friend for a while, but after walking twice around every other
pair in the room felt he could not ignore them any longer.
“Oh no,” said Cho rather wildly as he approached. “Expelliarmious! I mean, Expellimellius!! I -
oh, sorry, Marietta!”
Her curly-haired friend’s sleeve had caught fire; Marietta extinguished it with her own wand and
glared at Harry as though it was his fault.
“You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!” Cho told Harry ruefully.
“That was quite good,” Harry lied, but when she raised her eyebrows he said, “Well, no, it was
lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there.”
She laughed. Her friend Marietta looked at them rather sourly and turned away.
“Don’t mind her,” Cho muttered. “She doesn’t really want to be here but I made her come with
me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge. You see - her
mum works for the Ministry.”
“What about your parents?” asked Harry.
“Well, they’ve forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge, too,” said Cho, drawing
herself up proudly. “But if they think I’m not going to fight You-Know-Who after what
happened to Cedric -”
She broke off, looking rather confused, and an awkward silence fell between them; Terry Boot’s
wand went whizzing past Harry’s ear and hit Alicia Spinnet hard on the nose.
“Well, my dad is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!” said Luna Lovegood proudly from just behind Harry; evidently she had been eavesdropping on his conversation while Justin Finch-Fletchley attempted to disentangle himself from the robes that had flown up over his head. “He’s always saying he’d believe anything of Fudge; I mean, the number of goblins Fudge has had assassinated! And of course he uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons,
which he secretly feeds to anybody who disagrees with him. And then there’s his Umgubular
Slashkilter —”
“Don’t ask,” Harry muttered to Cho as she opened her mouth, looking puzzled. She giggled.
“Hey, Harry,” Hermione called from the other end of the room, “have you checked the time?”
He looked down at his watch and was shocked to see it was already ten past nine, which meant
they needed to get back to their common rooms immediately or risk being caught and punished
by Filch for being out of bounds. He blew his whistle; everybody stopped shouting
“Expelliarmus” and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor.
“Well, that was pretty good,” said Harry, “but we’ve overrun, we’d better leave it here. Same
time, same place next week?”
“Sooner!’ said Dean Thomas eagerly and many people nodded in agreement.
Angelina, however, said quickly. “The Quidditch season’s about to start, we need team practices
too!”
“Let’s say next Wednesday night, then,” said Harry, “we can decide on additional meetings then. Come on, we’d better get going.”
He pulled out the Marauder’s Map again and checked it carefully for signs of teachers on the
seventh floor. He let them all leave in threes and fours, watching their tiny dots anxiously to see
that they returned safely to their dormitories: the Hufflepuffs to the basement corridor that also
led to the kitchens; the Ravenclaws to a tower on the west side of the castle, and the Gryffindors
along the corridor to the Fat Lady’s portrait.
“That was really, really good, Harry” said Hermione, when finally it was just her, Harry and Ron
who were left.
“Yeah, it was!” said Ron enthusiastically, as they slipped out of the door and watched it melt
back into stone behind them. “Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?”
“Only once,” said Hermione, stung. “I got you loads more than you got me -”
“I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times -”
“Well, if you’re counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand
out of my hand -”
They argued all the way back to the common room, but Harry was not listening to them. He had
one eye on the Marauder’s Map, but he was also thinking of Cho saying he made her nervous.