Amie and the Army (Harry Potter fan-fic) Book 5 COMPLETED

Near miss

Later in the evening, after dinner, Amie and the others were met by Angelina as they entered the common room.
"No Quidditch practice," she said gloomly.
"But I kept my temper!" Harry exclaimed, shocked. "I didn't say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I -"
"I know, I know," Angelina nodded sadly. "She just said she needed a bit of time to consider."
"Consider what?" Ron said angrily. "She's given the Slytherins permission, why not us?"
"Oh, come off it, you know why," Amie said, downcast as she walked away from them to join her boyfriend in a corner, with Fred and Lee. As she walked she heard Hermione speak up -
"Look on the bright side - at least now you'll have time to do Snape's essay!"
Amie snorted.
"Hey Ames, heard the news?" George asked her as she walked up to them, sitting down on his lap.
"Umbridge is awful," Amie answered, burying her face in George's neck. 
"Good thing we have just the thing to cheer you up, then," George said, making Amie lift her head to look at him.
"They're finished?" she inquired, her face beaming as George nodded.
"Wanna help?"
"'Course I will!" Amie laughed. And so they spent the evening selling Skiving Snackboxes. Fred and George would take it in turns, taking a puking pastille, puking into a bucket and then forcing down the other end to make it stop, and getting cheers and applause from the crowd. Amie and Lee helped with vanishing the vomit and selling the boxes. It was getting late when the crowd finally dispersed, and even later when Fred and George had finally counted all their takings. 
"Come on, time for bed," Amie finally said, realizing it was getting close to the time Sirius would appear in the fire.
"Okay, mother," George joked, giving her a crooked smirk before before kissing her and heading upstairs with Fred and Lee. Amie thought he knew she was shooing them away, she saw him cast a glance over at the trio by the fire as he went.

"Finally, I was beginning to think they'd never leave," Harry said, putting away his books.
"You think I'd let them stay that long?" Amie gave him a pointed look.
"No, I -"
"I'm kidding, Harry," Amie smiled. At that moment, Ron, who was dozing in an armchair, grunted and awoke, and exclaimed, "Sirius!" looking into the fire. Amie and the others whipped around, seeing that Sirius head was, indeed, in the fire.
"Hi," Sirius grinned.
"Hi," Amie and the others said back, kneeling down on the rug. Crookshanks purred, trying to put his face close to Sirius', despite the heat of the fire.
"How're things?" Sirius asked.
"Not that good," Harry replied, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks away. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams -"
"Or Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" Sirius guessed.
Silence.
"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded.
"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," Sirius said, grinning broader still. "The Hog's Head, I ask you..."
"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" Hermione defended. "That's always packed with people -"
" - which means you'd have been harder to overhear," Sirius filled in. "You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."
"Who overheard us?" Harry asked.
"Mundungus of course," said Sirius, and when they all looked confused he continued, "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?" Sirius said, impatiently. "Keeping an eye on you, of course."
"I'm still being followed?" Harry said, angry.
"Yeah, you are," Sirius answered. "and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is to organize an illegal defense group."
But he didn't look angry or worried as he said this, he actually looked rather proud.
"Why was Dung hiding from us?" Ron asked, sounding disappointed. "We'd've liked to've seen him."
"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago," Sirius explained. "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?" Ron asked cautiously.

"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 turned to look at the other three -"advises Harry, Hermione and Amie 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?" Ron quickly inquired.
"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 silence again, as Crookshanks mewed and attempted to paw at Sirius head, and Ron fiddled with a hole in the rug.
"So you want me to say I'm not going to take part in the defense group?" he finally muttered.
"Me? Certainly not!" Sirius said, surprised. "I think it's an excellent idea!"
"You do?" Harry said, sounding hopeful.
"Of course I do!" Sirius said. "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!" Sirius said, impatiently. "This year we know that 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, looking thoughtful.
"Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!" Harry stared at her.
"I know it was... I just wondered what Sirius thought," she shrugged.
"Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in schol without a clue," said Sirius.

"Hear, hear," said Harry and Ron happily.
"So," Sirius continued. "how are you organizing this group? Where are you meeting?"
"That's where we're stuck at the moment," Amie spoke up. "Where could we all go?"

"How about the Shrieking Shack?" Sirius suggested.
"Hey, that's an idea!" Ron said, excitedly, but Hermione made a sceptical noise, so they all turned to look at her.
"Well, Sirius, it's just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school," Hermione explained. "and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could have all 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 of an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marqee -"

"Fair point," Sirius agreed, looking disappointed. "Well, I'm sure you'll come up with somewhere... There used to be a pretty roomy 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," Harry shook his head. "Caved in or something."
"Oh," Sirius frowned. "Well, I'll have a think and get back to -"
He broke off, looking tense and alarmed. He turned, looking sideways into the wall of the fireplace.
"Sirius?" Harry asked anxiously.

But he was gone. Amie turned to look at the others, they all looked as surprised as her.
"Why did he -?"
Hermione gasped in shock, leaping to her feet, staring at the fire. There, in the flames, was a stubby hand covered in rings, groping around as if trying to catch hold of something. They all ran, knowing it was Umbridge's hand in the fire.
"That was close," Amie whispered, once in the safety of their own dormitory. Hermione's wide eyes looked back at her.

The next morning Amie walked with George to breakfast, Fred and Lee had gone ahead.
"So what was last night about?" George asked her, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand as he held it.
"What?" Amie played innocence.
"Oh, don't even try that with me, Ames, I know you - we've been together almost a year, and we've been friends even longer. You wanted us to get out of the way, didn't you? I didn't say anything last night, you looked a bit stressed."
"I was, thank you for that," Amie nodded.
"You're not gonna tell me, are you?" George said, looking disappointed, but as if he knew it already and accepted the fact.
"It's not for me to tell," Amie said. "Sorry George. I'm sure one day you can know."
"That's okay, I guess." George smiled. "I mean, you told me about your biggest secret, you give and you take, right?"
"Right," Amie beamed at him, stopping to give him a quick peck on the lips, which only made him pout because it didn't last longer. Amie laughed at his expression.
"Come on, dopey, breakfast, remember?"

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SORRY. It's been over 5 months, longer than the last time. I don't mean to leave it for so long, but life is like that, busy...

I've started university and I moved in August. On Monday I start second term.

I hope you liked the chapter, though not that much happened I guess.

Comment, vote, follow! Bye! :)