Emma Potter; Going to War

39: Meeting Dumbledore's Army

The happiness I had felt in the aftermath of The Quibbler interview had long since evaporated. As a dull March blurred into a squallyApril, my life seemed to have become one long series of worries andproblems again. 

Umbridge had continued attending all Care of Magical Creatureslessons, so it had been very difficult for Harry to deliver Firenze's warning--something about Hagrid's attempt not working-- to Hagrid. 

At last Harry had managed it by pretending to help me find my "lost" copyof Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and doubling back afterclass one day. When he passed on Firenze's message, Hagrid gazed at us for a moment through his puffy, blackened eyes, apparently takenaback. Then he seemed to pull himself together. 

"Nice bloke, Firenze," he said gruffly, "but he don' know what he'stalkin' abou' on this. The attemp's comin' on fine." 

"Hagrid, what're you up to?" I asked seriously. "Becauseyou've got to be careful, Umbridge has already sacked Trelawney andif you ask me, she's on a roll. If you're doing anything you shouldn'tbe —" '

"There's things more importan' than keepin' a job," said Hagrid,though his hands shook slightly as he said this and a basin full of knarldroppings crashed to the floor. "Don' worry abou' me, Harry, Emma jus' getalong now . . ." 

I had no choice but to leave Hagrid mopping up the dung allover his floor, but I felt thoroughly dispirited as I trudged back upto the castle. 

Meanwhile, as the teachers and Hermione persisted in reminding us, the O.W.L.s were drawing ever nearer. All the fifth years weresuffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after sheburst into tears during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupidto take exams and wanted to leave school now.

Futhermore, a few students of S.S. were part of the new "Inquisitorial squad" forced by there parents. Draco, Goyle, Crabbe, Zabini and Pansy included. 

"We won't tell them of course" Pansy assured me "but we really don't have a choice. . ." 

If it had not been for the S.S. lessons, I thought I wouldhave been extremely unhappy. I sometimes felt that I was livingfor the hours I spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard butthoroughly enjoying myself at the same time, swelling with pride as I looked around at my fellow D.A. members and saw how far theyhad come. 

Indeed, I sometimes wondered how Umbridge wasgoing to react when all the members of the S.S. received "Outstanding" in their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s. 

We had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody hadbeen very keen to practice, though as I kept reminding them,producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom whenthey were not under threat was very different to producing it whenconfronted by something like a dementor. 

"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," said Pansy brightly, watching her silvery cat-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirementduring our last lesson before Easter. "They're so pretty!" 

"They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protectyou,"I said patiently. "What we really need is a boggart or something; that's how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the boggart was pretending to be a dementor —" 

"But that would be really scary!" said Astoria, who was shootingpuffs of silver vapor out of the end of her wand. "And I still —can't — do it!" she added angrily. 

Draco was having trouble too. His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from his wand tip. 

"You've got to think of some happy memory," I reminded him.