Into The Light (Golden Trio Era) {2}

Sign The Parchment

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he defended himself.  "That's not what he said," Fred snarled.  "Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" inquired George, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags the held tightly in their arms.  "Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said Fred causing a smile to grow on Mikayla's face.

"Yes, well," said Hermione, trying to steer the conversation back to Defence. "moving on.... the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?" There was a murmur of agreement, Zacharias refused to acknowledge her question and sat with his arms folded.  "Listen, I mean, I can't do this all by myself..." Harry spoke up.  "What d'you mean? Our teacher needs a teacher?" Michael Corner asked, standing up just a bit to look over everyone's heads.  "No, I mean, I need help." He looked at Mikayla. "You want to me help you teach them?" Mikayla asked, perplexed.  "You've been there through almost everything. You know a fair bit of the stuff I do, I think you'd do just fine."  "I... er... don't think I'd be that useful.." Mikayla admitted "C'mon Mikayla! The more people to teach us, the better we'll learn." Avery said merrily. "I guess, sure." Mikayla a nervous smile towards the room.

"Right," said Hermione, sighing in a relieved fashion. "Well, then, the next question is how often we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week-"  "Hang on," said Alicia, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."  "No," said Cho, "nor with ours."  "Nor ours," added Zacharias.  "I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," said Hermione, tapping her finger on her leg impatiently, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters-"  "Well said!" piped Ernie Macmillan. "Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our O.W.L.s coming up!"  He looked around waiting for anyone to disagree, when nobody spoke, he went on, "I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher upon us at this critical period. Obviously they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells -"  "We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defence Against the Dark Arts, is that she's got some... some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry." Hermione explained.  "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army." Luna said in a soft voice, that sounded completely sure of what she was saying.  "What?" said Harry, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information. "Yes, he's got an army of heliopaths," said Luna in all seriousness.  "No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione.  "Yes, he has," said Luna.  "What are heliopaths?" asked Neville, looking blankly at them both.  "They're spirits of fire," said Luna, her eyes giant eyes opened wide so they made her look even more mad. "Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of-"  "They don't exist, Neville," said Hermione tartly. "Oh yes they do!" said Luna angrily.  "I'm sorry, but where's the proof of that?" snapped Hermione.  "There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you-"  Mikayla cut Luna off, "Excuse me! Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and get Defence lessons?"  "Yes," said Hermione as she straightened herself in her chair. "yes, we were, you're right..."  "Well, once a week sounds cool," piped Lee Jordan.  "As long as-" began Alicia.  "Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," said Hermione in a tense voice. "Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet..." This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent. "Library?" suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.  "I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library, the lessons will be a bit more physical than Umbridge's..." Mikayla spoke logically.  "Maybe an unused classroom?" said Dean.  "Yeah," answered Ron, "McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard..." "Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," said Hermione.

"We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and a place for the first meeting."  Hermione rummaged through her bag and pulled out parchment and a quill, then hesitated, rather as though she was coaching herself to say something. "I-I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think," she took a deep breath,  "that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge- or anybody else- what we're up to." The foursome put their names down first, hoping that would encourage the rest of them. First Hermione in neat cursive, then Ron with inconsistent sizes of letters and loops, Harry with his messy scrawl, then Mikayla's in her neat calligraphy. Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully put down his signature, but more faces looked a bit uneasy and opposed to writing their names down on the parchment.    "Er..." said Zacharias slowly, not taking the parchment that George was trying to pass him.  "Well... I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is." But Ernie was looking rather hesitant about signing too. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.  "I — well, we are prefects," Ernie burst out. "And if this list was found... well, I mean to say... you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out..."  "You just said this group was the most important thing you'd do this year," Harry reminded him.  "I- yes," said Ernie, "yes, I do believe that, it's just..."  "Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" said Hermione impatiently.  "No. No, of course not," said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious."I- yes, of course I'll sign." Nobody raised objections after Ernie, Cho's friend did give her a bit of a nasty look when she had to sign, though. When the last person- Zacharias- had signed, Hermione took the parchment back and placed it carefully into her bag. 

"Well, time's ticking on," said Fred hastily, getting to his feet."George, Lee, and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we'll be seeing you all later." In groups of friends the rest of the students left as well. Cho took a long time to fasten her bag shut obviously hoping to chat with Harry, but her friend stood beside her, arms folded, clicking her tongue, so that Cho had little choice but to leave with her soon. Her friend swept her toward the door, she looked back and waved at Harry, who gave a quick smile.  "Well, I think that went quite well," said Hermione, grinning as the four walked out of The Hog's Head into the warm sunlight, Harry and Ron still clutching their bottles of butterbeer.  "That Zacharias bloke's a wart," said Ron, who looked grim as he watched him disappear into the distance.  "I don't like him much either," admitted Hermione, "but he overheard me talking to Ernie and Hannah at the Hufflepuff table and he seemed really interested in coming, so what could I say? But the more people the better really- I mean, Michael Corner and his friends wouldn't have come if he hadn't been going out with Ginny-"  "Hermione." Mikayla spoke disapprovingly, reminding Hermione that Ginny's dating life was supposed to be a secret around Ron. Ron choked on his last swallow of butterbeer and sprayed it down his front.  "He's WHAT?" said Ron, baffled, outraged, and disgusted at the same time. "She's going out with- my sister's going- what d'you mean, Michael Corner?"  "Well, that's why he and his friends came, I think- well, they're obviously interested in learning defence, but if Ginny hadn't told Michael what was going on-"  "When did this- when did she- ?"  "They met at the Yule Ball and they got together at the end of last year," said Mikayla calmly. They turned onto the main street, Hermione paused outside Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, where there was a display of pheasant-feather quills in the window."Hmm... I could do with a new quill." She turned into the shop and they followed her in.