part 9
“Look,” Harry 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 someone 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.
“Are you trying to show us you can?” said Celio as he lost his temper, before Harry could speak, “Why don’t you shut your mouth if you can’t?”
Celio wanted to rip the blonde’s eyes out. Perhaps it was showing on his face because Zacharias flushed, opening his mouth to retaliate.
“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 Weasley twin 1.
“Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?” inquired Weasley twin 2, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko’s bags they had brought in with them.
“Or any part of your body, really, we’re not fussy where we stick this,” said twin 1.
“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 stayed quiet. He was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in Weasley twin 2’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 Johnson, lead of the Gryffindor quidditch team, “we need to make sure this doesn’t clash with our Quidditch practice.”
“No,” said Cho, “nor with ours.”
“Nor ours,” added Zacharias Smith.
Everyone looked at Celio, expecting him to chip in about Slytherin quidditch. “What? I don’t play.”
“I’m sure we can find a night that suits everyone,” said Hermione, slightly impatiently, “but you know, this is rather important, we’re talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort’s Death Eaters -”
“Like this knob.” Smith bit out, looking at Celio.
“Wanna go?” Celio shot back coolly. “I can guarantee I know magic you’ve never heard of.”
“Well said!” barked a different Hufflepuff, ignoring the sudden conflict. “Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we’ll do this year, even with our O.W.L.s 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 upon 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 Defence 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 mobilise 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 solemnly.
“No, he hasn’t,” snapped Hermione.
“Yeah Hermione, haven’t you heard?” Celio backed Luna up, having entirely no idea what they were talking about. Luna gave him an approving, slightly unfocused, look.
“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 eyewitness accounts, just because you’re so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you-”
“Hem, hem,” said the girl Weasley 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 get Defence lessons?”
“Yes,” said Hermione at once, “yes, we were, you’re right…”
“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 a girl after a few moments.
“I can’t see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library,” said Harry.
“I, on the contrary, see her being amazed and very welcoming.” Celio grinned. The girl Weasley looked at him with a small grin.
“Maybe an unused classroom?” said a Gryffindor.
“Yeah,” said Ron, “McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practising for the Triwizard…”
“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.