𝗗𝗜𝗘 𝗔 𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗟𝗘 ☼ 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘆

↘︎ chapter fifty-six

56 | Harry Potter will teach students DADA

When Marley Macmillan entered the pub, it was really overcrowded, and the bartender also seemed surprised. Fred made his way to the counter and began to count everyone. After counting them, he asked for 28 butterbeers.

"Take out your money and pay, midgets! I'm not that rich." he shouted to the group.

Everyone started digging in their pockets for galleons and paying while the bartender pulled out empty and dirty glasses with butterbeer. Harry stared blankly at the whole group, glancing between it and Hermione, who was smiling nervously. The group pulled some chairs and sat against Harry, Ron, and Hermione with their drinks in their hands and waited. Hermione stood first.

"Thank you so much that you're here." she cleared her throat. "As you already know, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher doesn't want us to teach magic and we only read textbooks in her classes. Harry had... Uhm, I had this idea that we need a better teacher who would teach us real magic secretly. A lot of us have OWLs at the end of the year and part of them is practical exercise. We must know how to protect ourselves and how to use magic because... becausee Lord Voldemort has returned."

Hermione shivered and there was a mutter in the group. That was the first time Marley had heard her friend calling Voldemort by his real name. The Hufflepuff skinny boy who was sitting next to Ginny, opened his mouth.

"Do you really believe this? Or because just Dumbledore believes him?" and he pointed at Harry, whose face was pale like canvas. Suddenly, Harry stood up from his seat and watched everyone separately. When his eyes met Marley's, his sister smiled encouragingly to him.

"Yes, because I saw him and I fought with him." he said and swallowed the lump from nerves that had formed in his throat. "You don't know what is like to be on the edge of death and have to fight with someone. And you don't have enough time to decide which spell you have to use. The tension is much worse than what you had practised previous years. If you're in school and make a mistake, someone can fix you up and try again tomorrow. But in real life if you mess up, you'd be dead in seconds. I'm not here to tell you about my experience so if anyone had come to listen the story from last June, but not with the desire to learn how to defense themselves, it's free to go."

No one moved. Everyone glared at Harry, even this Hufflepuff boy. Marley had seen him a couple of time on the Hufflepuff table but never knew his name.

"But what you did... is just luck." this boy protested again and Harry clenched his jaw.

"Of course it is." he replied. "That's what I kept saying to Ron and Hermione. What happened after the end of the Triwizard Tournament, was a total luck but if I had made one wrong move, I wouldn't have been here now. Yes, during the year you heard a lot of rumours about me and some of them were true. Maybe I really made this things, but never did it without some help."

"Is it true three years ago you fought with the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets?"  asked Susan Bones from Hufflepuff and tossed her braid behind her back.

"Or that you fought with thousand dementors?"

"Can you really summon a Patronus?"

Everyone started talking one after the other, and Harry agreed with everything. Because it was true. Harry had done so many things that even Marley couldn't think to do. It took a lot of courage to do something like that. And some of the students continued to believe the rumours in Daily Prophet and not respect Harry.

The Hufflepuff boy, whose name turned out to be Zacharias Smith was looking at him without a lot of trust. Marley really wanted to slap him in the face. Why was here if he didn't like Harry or trust him? Marley finally couldn't stand this disrespect, she was filled with anger and she didn't realise when she spoke up: