Written In The Stars V -[Harry Potter xF!Oc]

Chapter Thirteen: Dumbledore's Army.

As soon as she sat down next to Ron, a head popped out of the fireplace.

"Sirius!" Ron and Mel exclaimed together.

"Hi," He smiled.

"Hi," They all responded, kneeling around the fire.

"How're things?"

"Not that good," said Harry. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams —"

"— or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" said Sirius.

A second passed.

"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded.

Mel pulled Grey away from the fire while Hermione kept Crookshanks far from it as well.

"Who didn't know about that?" Mel said grumpily.

"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," said Sirius, his grin only getting wider. "The Hog's Head... How's your Grandad, Mel?"

Ron and Harry, who had no idea of what that meant, turned to look at her with confusion. Mel let out another groan.

"I had to play dumb and pretend I didn't know him," She looked at the boys with a tense expression. "The bartender's my grandad."

"What?!" Ron and Harry asked at the same time.

"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" said Hermione. "That's always packed with people —"

"— which means you'd have been harder to overhear. You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."

"Who overheard us?" Harry demanded.

"Mundungus, of course," said Sirius laughing. "He was the witch under the veil."

"That was Mundungus?" Harry said. "What was he doing in the Hog's Head?"

"What do you think he was doing?" said Sirius. "Keeping an eye on you, of course."

"I'm still being followed?" asked Harry in outrage.

"Yeah, you are, and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defence group."

"Why was Dung hiding from us?" asked Ron. "We'd've liked to've seen him."

"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago, and Mel's gran' 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?" said Ron fearfully.

"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 advises Harry and Hermione 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?"

"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."