Harry Potter and Percy Jackson half-blood heroes (Book 5)

Chapter 18

I'll bet you wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione?" asked Parvati, smirking. It was breakfast time a few days after the sacking of ProfessorTrelawney and Parvati was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.

"Not really," said Hermione indifferently, who was reading theDaily Prophet. "I've never really liked horses."

"Well, I am never going to date you, Granger." Percy joked but Hermione looked at him before quickly saying. "I'm joking!"

"He's not a horse, he's a centaur!" said Lavender, sounding shocked. 

"A gorgeous centaur . . ." sighed Parvati.

"Yeah well, keep that to yourself," Percy said.

"Either way, he's still got four legs," said Hermione coolly. "Anyway, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?"

"We are!" Lavender assured her. "We went up to her office to seeher, we took her some daffodils — not the honking ones that Sprout'sgot, nice ones. . . ."

"How is she?" asked Harry.

"Not very good, poor thing," said Lavender sympathetically. "She was crying and saying she'd rather leave the castle forever than stayhere if Umbridge is still here, and I don't blame her. Umbridge washorrible to her, wasn't she?"

"I've got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible,"said Hermione darkly.

"Impossible," Percy said.

"She can't get any worse than she's been already," said Ron tucking into a large plate of eggs and bacon.

"You mark my words, she's going to want revenge on Dumbledorefor appointing a new teacher without consulting her," said Hermione, closing the newspaper. "Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze. . . ."

After breakfast Hermione departed for her Arithmancy class while Percy went for muggle studies and Harry and Ron followed Parvati and Lavender into the entrance hall, heading for Divination.

As a dull March blurred into a squally April, his life seemed to have become one long series of worries and problems again. He could not take the apparition exam since he would turn seventeen after April and it looked like Umbridge was definite in sacking Hagrid that she had continued attending all Care of Magical Creatures lessons.

Meanwhile, in the D.A, they had started work on Patronuses, which everybody hadbeen very keen to practice. But since Percy had already mastered the charm, he decided to help those who couldn't master it.

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

"They're not supposed to be pretty, they're supposed to protect you," said Harry 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 Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapor out of the end of her wand. "And I still —can't — do it!" she added angrily.

Percy walked over to Hermione's Patronus, a shining silver otter, who was gamboling around her.

"They are sort of nice, aren't they?" she said, looking at it fondly

"Yeah. They are," said Percy whose wolf Patronus started to chase Hermione's otter.

"I think I know what that means," said Hermione.