Emma Potter; Going to War

20: Dates with Draco

A week had passed and my periods were finally over. As were my detention with Umbridge. As was the time spent with Draco's sweatshirt. He took it back from me, how dare he? Well, jokes on him; I stole it back.

Hermione made  no mention of Harry and me giving Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons for two whole weeks after her original suggestion. Harry's detentions with Umbridge were also finally over (we doubted whether the words now etched on the back of our hands would ever fade entirely); Ron had had four more Quidditch practices and not been shouted at during the last two; and all 4 of us had managed to vanish our mice in Transfiguration (Hermione and I had actually progressed to vanishing kittens), before the subject was broached again, on a wild, blustery evening at the end of September, when the four of us of were sitting in the library, looking up potion ingredients for Snape. 

"I was wondering," Hermione said suddenly, "whether you'd thought any more about Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry, Emma."

 " 'Course we have," said Harry grumpily. "Can't forget it, can we,with that hag teaching us —"

 "I meant the idea Ron and I had" — Ron cast her an alarmed,threatening kind of look; she frowned at him — "oh, all right, the idea I had, then — about you both teaching us."

Harry and I did not answer at once. Harry pretended to be perusing a page of Asiatic Anti-Venoms, And I continued to write because we did not want to say what was in our minds.

The fact was that we had given the matter a great deal of thought over the past fortnight, we talk alone. Sometimes it seemed an insane idea, just as it had on the night Hermione had proposed it, but at others, we had found ourselves thinking about the spells that had served us best in our various encounters with Dark creatures and Death Eaters — found ourselves, in fact, subconsciously planning lessons. . . . 

"Well," Harry said slowly, when he could not pretend to find Asiatic anti-venoms interesting much longer, "yeah, we — we've thought about it a bit."

 "And?" said Hermione eagerly. 

"I dunno," said Harry, playing for time. He looked up at Ron.

 "I thought it was a good idea from the start," said Ron, who seemed keener to join in this conversation now that he was sure that Harry and I were not going to start shouting again.Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"You did listen to what we said about a load of it being luck, didn't you?" I asked

 "Yes, Emma," said Hermione gently, "but all the same, there's no point pretending that you're not good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, because you are. You were the only people last year who could throw off the Imperius Curse completely, you can produce a Patronuses,you can do all sorts of stuff that full-grown wizards can't, Viktor always said —"

 Ron looked around at her so fast he appeared to crick his neck; rubbing it, he said, "Yeah? What did Vicky say?

""Ho ho," said Hermione in a bored voice. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang." 

Ron was looking at Hermione suspiciously.

"You're not still in contact with him, are you?"

 "So what if I am?" said Hermione coolly, though her face was a little pink. "I can have a pen pal if I —" 

"He didn't only want to be your pen pal," said Ron accusingly. 

Hermione shook her head exasperatedly and, ignoring Ron, who was continuing to watch her, said to Harry and me, "Well, what do you think?Will you teach us?"