pretty girl diggory- R.Weasley

5:12

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 and all four of them had managed to vanish their mice in Transfiguration (Hermione had actually progressed to vanishing kittens). Harry seemed to have told Ron about what Celeste had said, as he had basically gone back to normal, though always got a little upset when Daphne and Melody talked to Celeste about her dating life in front of him. Luke and Celeste didn't really talk, but she did try to smile at him when she passed him. Before the subject of lessons was broached again, on a wild, blustery evening at the end of September, when the four 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," Harry said grumpily. "Can't forget it, can we, with that hag teaching us —"

"I meant the idea Ron, Celeste, and I had" — Ron cast her an alarmed, threatening kind of look; she frowned at him — "oh, all right, the idea Celeste and 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.

"Well," he said slowly when he could not pretend to find Asiatic anti-venoms interesting much longer, "yeah, I — I've thought about it a bit."

"And?" Hermione said eagerly.

"I dunno," Harry said, playing for time. He looked up at Ron and Celeste.

"I thought it was a good idea from the start," Ron said, who seemed keener to join in this conversation now that he was sure that 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," Hermione said 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. So, what do you think? Will you teach us?"

"Just you, Celeste, and Ron, yeah?"

"Well," Hermione said, now 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 — and other bad people. 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 three 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," Hermione said seriously. "Look," she leaned toward him; Ron and Celeste leaned forward to listen too, "you know the first weekend in October's a Hogsmeade weekend? How would it be if we tell anyone interested to meet us in the village and we can talk it over?"

"Why do we have to do it outside school?" Ron said.

"Because," Hermione said, 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."

"Well, you can't blame him for wanting to get out and about," Ron said when Harry discussed his fears with him, Celeste, 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 lunatic elf now that Lyra is probably gone."