[Part 9] "Harry Potter and Order of Phoenix" by Rowling J.K.

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CHAPTER XVII. EDUCATIONAL DECREE NUMBER TWENTYFOUR

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Harry felt happier for the rest of the weekend than he had done all term.

He and Ron spent much of Sunday catching up with all their homework again, and although this could hardly be called fun, the last burst of autumn sunshine persisted, so rather than sitting hunched over tables in the common room, they took their work outside and lounged in the shade of a large beech tree on the edge of the lake.

Hermione, who of course was up to date with all her work, brought more wool outside with her and bewitched her knitting needles so that they flashed and clicked in midair beside her, producing more hats and scarves.

The knowledge that they were doing something to resist Umbridge and the Ministry, and that he was a key part of the rebellion, gave Harry a feeling of immense satisfaction.

He kept reliving Saturday’s meeting in his mind: all those people, coming to him to learn Defense Against the Dark Arts... and the looks on their faces as they had heard some of the things he had done... and Cho praising his performance in the Triwizard Tournament.

The knowledge that all those people did not think him a lying weirdo, but someone to be admired, buoyed him up so much that he was still cheerful on Monday morning, despite the imminent prospect of all his least favorite classes.

He and Ron headed downstairs from their dormitory together, discussing Angelina’s idea that they were to work on a new move called the Sloth Grip Roll during that night’s Quidditch practice, and not until they were halfway across the sunlit common room did they notice the addition to the room that had already attracted the attention of a small group of people.

A large sign had been affixed to the Gryffindor notice board, so large that it covered everything else on there — the lists of secondhand spellbooks for sale, the regular reminders of school rules from Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training schedule, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog cards for others, the Weasleys’ new advertisement for testers, the dates of the Hogsmeade weekends, and the lost-and-found notices.

The new sign was printed in large black letters and there was a highly official-looking seal at the bottom beside a neat and curly signature.

——— BY ORDER OF ———

The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts All Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded.

An Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.

Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).

No Student Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.

Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.

Sighed:

Dolores Jane Umbridge

High Inquisitor

Harry and Ron read the notice over the heads of some anxious-looking second years.

“Does this mean they’re going to shut down the Gobstones Club?” one of them asked his friend.

“I reckon you’ll be okay with Gobstones,” Ron said darkly, making the second year jump.

“I don’t think we’re going to be as lucky, though, do you?” he asked Harry as the second years hurried away.

Harry was reading the notice through again.

The happiness that had filled him since Saturday was gone.

His insides were pulsing with rage.

“This isn’t a coincidence,” he said, his hands forming fists.

“She knows.”

“She can’t,” said Ron at once.

“There were people listening in that pub.

And let’s face it, we don’t know how many of the people who turned up we can trust... Any of them could have run off and told Umbridge...”

And he had thought they believed him, thought they even admired him...

“Zacharias Smith!” said Ron at once, punching a fist into his hand.

“Or — I thought that Michael Corner had a really shifty look too —”

“I wonder if Hermione’s seen this yet?” Harry said, looking around at the door to the girls’ dormitories.

“Let’s go and tell her,” said Ron.

He bounded forward, pulled open the door, and set off up the spiral staircase.

He was on the sixth stair when it happened.

There was a loud, wailing, klaxonlike sound and the steps melted together to make a long, smooth stone slide.

There was a brief moment when Ron tried to keep running, arms working madly like windmills, then he toppled over backward and shot down the newly created slide, coming to rest on his back at Harry’s feet.

“Er — I don’t think we’re allowed in the girls’ dormitories,” said Harry, pulling Ron to his feet and trying not to laugh.

Two fourth-year girls came zooming gleefully down the stone slide.

“Oooh, who tried to get upstairs?” they giggled happily, leaping to their feet and ogling Harry and Ron.

“Me,” said Ron, who was still rather disheveled.

“I didn’t realize that would happen.

It’s not fair!” he added to Harry, as the girls headed off for the portrait hole, still giggling madly.

“Hermione’s allowed in our dormitory, how come we’re not allowed — ?”

“Well, it’s an old-fashioned rule,” said Hermione, who had just slid neatly onto a rug in front of them and was now getting to her feet, “but it says in Hogwarts: A History that the founders thought boys were less trustworthy than girls.

Anyway, why were you trying to get in there?”

“To see you — look at this!” said Ron, dragging her over to the notice board.

Hermione’s eyes slid rapidly down the notice.

Her expression became stony.

“Someone must have blabbed to her!” Ron said angrily.

“They can’t have done,” said Hermione in a low voice.

“You’re so naive,” said Ron, “you think just because you’re all honorable and trustworthy —”

“No, they can’t have done because I put a jinx on that piece of parchment we all signed,” said Hermione grimly.

“Believe me, if anyone’s run off and told Umbridge, we’ll know exactly who they are and they will really regret it.”

“What’ll happen to them?” said Ron eagerly.

“Well, put it this way,” said Hermione, “it’ll make Eloise Midgen’s acne look like a couple of cute freckles.

Come on, let’s get down to breakfast and see what the others think...

I wonder whether this has been put up in all the Houses?”

It was immediately apparent on entering the Great Hall that Umbridge’s sign had not only appeared in Gryffindor Tower.

There was a peculiar intensity about the chatter and an extra measure of movement in the Hall as people scurried up and down their tables conferring on what they had read.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had barely taken their seats when Neville, Dean, Fred, George, and Ginny descended upon them.

“Did you see it?”

“D’you reckon she knows?”

“What are we going to do?”

They were all looking at Harry.

He glanced around to make sure there were no teachers near them.

“We’re going to do it anyway, of course,” he said quietly.

“Knew you’d say that,” said George, beaming and thumping Harry on the arm.

“The prefects as well?” said Fred, looking quizzically at Ron and Hermione.

“Of course,” said Hermione coolly.

“Here comes Ernie and Hannah Abbott,” said Ron, looking over his shoulder.

“And those Ravenclaw blokes and Smith... and no one looks very spotty.”

Hermione looked alarmed.

“Never mind spots, the idiots can’t come over here now, it’ll look really suspicious — sit down!” she mouthed to Ernie and Hannah, gesturing frantically to them to rejoin the Hufflepuff table.

“Later!

We’ll — talk — to — you — later!”

“I’ll tell Michael,” said Ginny impatiently, swinging herself off her bench.

“The fool, honestly...”

She hurried off toward the Ravenclaw table; Harry watched her go.

Cho was sitting not far away, talking to the curly-haired friend she had brought along to the Hog’s Head.

Would Umbridge’s notice scare her off meeting them again?

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But the full repercussions of the sign were not felt until they were leaving the Great Hall for History of Magic.

“Harry! Ron!”

It was Angelina and she was hurrying toward them looking perfectly desperate.

“It’s okay,” said Harry quietly, when she was near enough to hear him.

“We’re still going to —”

“You realize she’s including Quidditch in this?” Angelina said over him.

“We have to go and ask permission to re-form the Gryffindor team!”

“What?” said Harry.

“No way,” said Ron, appalled.

“You read the sign, it mentions teams too! So listen, Harry... I am saying this for the last time... Please, please don’t lose your temper with Umbridge again or she might not let us play anymore!”

“Okay, okay,” said Harry, for Angelina looked as though she was on the verge of tears. “Don’t worry, I’ll behave myself...”

“Bet Umbridge is in History of Magic,” said Ron grimly, as they set off for Binns’s lesson. “She hasn’t inspected Binns yet... Bet you anything she’s there...”

But he was wrong; the only teacher present when they entered was Professor Binns, floating an inch or so above his chair as usual and preparing to continue his monotonous drone on giant wars.

Harry did not even attempt to follow what he was saying today; he doodled idly on his parchment ignoring Hermione’s frequent glares and nudges, until a particularly painful poke in the ribs made him look up angrily.

“What?”

She pointed at the window.

Harry looked around.

Hedwig was perched on the narrow window ledge, gazing through the thick glass at him, a letter tied to her leg.

Harry could not understand it; they had just had breakfast, why on earth hadn’t she delivered the letter then, as usual?

Many of his classmates were pointing out Hedwig to each other too.

“Oh, I’ve always loved that owl, she’s so beautiful,” Harry heard Lavender sigh to Parvati.

He glanced around at Professor Binns who continued to read his notes, serenely unaware that the class’s attention was even less focused upon him than usual.

Harry slipped quietly off his chair, crouched down, and hurried along the row to the window, where he slid the catch and opened it very slowly.

He had expected Hedwig to hold out her leg so that he could remove the letter and then fly off to the Owlery, but the moment the window was open wide enough she hopped inside, hooting dolefully.

He closed the window with an anxious glance at Professor Binns, crouched low again, and sped back to his seat with Hedwig on his shoulder.

He regained his seat, transferred Hedwig to his lap, and made to remove the letter tied to her leg.

It was only then that he realized that Hedwig’s feathers were oddly ruffled; some were bent the wrong way, and she was holding one of her wings at an odd angle.

“She’s hurt!” Harry whispered, bending his head low over her.

Hermione and Ron leaned in closer; Hermione even put down her quill.

“Look — there’s something wrong with her wing —”

Hedwig was quivering; when Harry made to touch the wing she gave a little jump, all her feathers on end as though she was inflating herself, and gazed at him reproachfully.

“Professor Binns,” said Harry loudly, and everyone in the class turned to look at him.

“I’m not feeling well.”

Professor Binns raised his eyes from his notes, looking amazed, as always, to find the room in front of him full of people.

“Not feeling well?” he repeated hazily.

“Not at all well,” said Harry firmly, getting to his feet while concealing Hedwig behind his back. “So I think I’ll need to go to the hospital wing.”

“Yes,” said Professor Binns, clearly very much wrong-footed. “Yes... yes, hospital wing... well, off you go, then, Perkins...”

Once outside the room Harry returned Hedwig to his shoulder and hurried off up the corridor, pausing to think only when he was out of sight of Binns’s door.

His first choice of somebody to cure Hedwig would have been Hagrid, of course, but as he had no idea where Hagrid was, his only remaining option was to find Professor Grubbly-Plank and hope she would help.

He peered out of a window at the blustery, overcast grounds.

There was no sign of her anywhere near Hagrid’s cabin; if she was not teaching, she was probably in the staffroom.

He set off downstairs, Hedwig hooting feebly as she swayed on his shoulder.

Two stone gargoyles flanked the staffroom door.

As Harry approached, one of them croaked, “You should be in class, sunny Jim.”

“This is urgent,” said Harry curtly.

“Ooooh, urgent, is it?” said the other gargoyle in a high-pitched voice.

“Well, that’s put us in our place, hasn’t it?”

Harry knocked; he heard footsteps and then the door opened and he found himself face-to-face with Professor McGonagall.

“You haven’t been given another detention!” she said at once, her square spectacles flashing alarmingly.

“No, Professor!” said Harry hastily.

“Well then, why are you out of class?”

“It’s urgent, apparently,” said the second gargoyle snidely.

“I’m looking for Professor Grubbly-Plank,” Harry explained. “It’s my owl, she’s injured.”

“Injured owl, did you say?”

Professor Grubbly-Plank appeared at Professor McGonagall’s shoulder, smoking a pipe and holding a copy of the Daily Prophet.

“Yes,” said Harry, lifting Hedwig carefully off his shoulder, “she turned up after the other post owls and her wing’s all funny, look —”

Professor Grubbly-Plank stuck her pipe firmly between her teeth and took Hedwig from Harry while Professor McGonagall watched.

“Hmm,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank, her pipe waggling slightly as she talked.

“Looks like something’s attacked her.”

“Can’t think what would have done it, though... Thestrals will sometimes go for birds, of course, but Hagrid’s got the Hogwarts thestrals well trained not to touch owls...”

Harry neither knew nor cared what thestrals were, he just wanted to know that Hedwig was going to be all right.

Professor McGonagall, however, looked sharply at Harry and said, “Do you know how far this owl’s traveled, Potter?”

“Er,” said Harry.

“From London, I think.”

He met her eyes briefly and knew that she understood “London” to mean “number twelve, Grimmauld Place” by the way her eyebrows had joined in the middle.

Professor Grubbly-Plank pulled a monocle out of the inside of her robes and screwed it into her eye to examine Hedwig’s wing closely.

“I should be able to sort this out if you leave her with me, Potter,” she said.

“She shouldn’t be flying long distances for a few days, in any case.”

“Er — right — thanks,” said Harry, just as the bell rang for break.

“No problem,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank gruffly, turning back into the staffroom.

“Just a moment, Wilhelmina!” said Professor McGonagall.

“Potter’s letter!”

“Oh yeah!” said Harry, who had momentarily forgotten the scroll tied to Hedwig’s leg.

Professor Grubbly-Plank handed it over and then disappeared into the staffroom carrying Hedwig, who was staring at Harry as though unable to believe he would give her away like this.

Feeling slightly guilty, he turned to go, but Professor McGonagall called him back.

“Potter!”

“Yes, Professor?”

She glanced up and down the corridor; there were students coming from both directions.

“Bear in mind,” she said quickly and quietly, her eyes on the scroll in his hand, “that channels of communication in and out of Hogwarts may be being watched, won’t you?”

“I —” said Harry, but the flood of students rolling along the corridor was almost upon him.

Professor McGonagall gave him a curt nod and retreated into the staffroom, leaving Harry to be swept out into the courtyard with the crowd.

Here he spotted Ron and Hermione already standing in a sheltered corner, their cloak collars turned up against the wind.

Harry slit open the scroll as he hurried toward them and found five words in Sirius’s handwriting: Today, same time, same place.

“Is Hedwig okay?” asked Hermione anxiously, the moment he was within earshot.

“Where did you take her?” asked Ron.

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“To Grubbly-Plank,” said Harry. “And I met McGonagall... Listen...”

And he told them what Professor McGonagall had said.

To his surprise, neither of the others looked shocked; on the contrary, they exchanged significant looks.

“What?” said Harry, looking from Ron to Hermione and back again.

“Well, I was just saying to Ron... what if someone had tried to intercept Hedwig?”

“I mean, she’s never been hurt on a flight before, has she?”

“Who’s the letter from anyway?” asked Ron, taking the note from Harry.

“Snuffles,” said Harry quietly.

“‘Same time, same place’? Does he mean the fire in the common room?”

“Obviously,” said Hermione, also reading the note.

She looked uneasy.

“I just hope nobody else has read this...”

“But it was still sealed and everything,” said Harry, trying to convince himself as much as her.

“And nobody would understand what it meant if they didn’t know where we’d spoken to him before, would they?”

“I don’t know,” said Hermione anxiously, hitching her bag back over her shoulder as the bell rang again.

“It wouldn’t be exactly difficult to reseal the scroll by magic... And if anyone’s watching the Floo Network... but I don’t really see how we can warn him not to come without that being intercepted too!”

They trudged down the stone steps to the dungeons for Potions, all three of them lost in thought, but as they reached the bottom of the stairs they were recalled to themselves by the voice of Draco Malfoy, who was standing just outside Snape’s classroom door, waving around an official-looking piece of parchment and talking much louder than was necessary so that they could hear every word.

“Yeah, Umbridge gave the Slytherin Quidditch team permission to continue playing straightaway, I went to ask her first thing this morning.”

“Well, it was pretty much automatic, I mean, she knows my father really well, he’s always popping in and out of the Ministry... It’ll be interesting to see whether Gryffindor are allowed to keep playing, won’t it?”

“Don’t rise,” Hermione whispered imploringly to Harry and Ron, who were both watching Malfoy, faces set and fists clenched.

“It’s what he wants...”

“I mean,” said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his gray eyes glittering malevolently in Harry and Ron’s direction, “if it’s a question of influence with the Ministry, I don’t think they’ve got much chance. . . . From what my father says, they’ve been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years. . . . And as for Potter . . . My father says it’s a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off to St. Mungo’s. . . . apparently they’ve got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic . . .”

Malfoy made a grotesque face, his mouth sagging open and his eyes rolling.

Crabbe and Goyle gave their usual grunts of laughter, Pansy Parkinson shrieked with glee.

Something collided hard with Harry’s shoulder, knocking him sideways.

A split second later he realized that Neville had just charged past him, heading straight for Malfoy.

“Neville, no!”

Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville’s robes.

Neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.

“Help me!” Harry flung at Ron, managing to get an arm around Neville’s neck and dragging him backward, away from the Slytherins.

Crabbe and Goyle were now flexing their arms, closing in front of Malfoy, ready for the fight.

Ron hurried forward and seized Neville’s arms; together, he and Harry succeeded in dragging Neville back into the Gryffindor line.

Neville’s face was scarlet; the pressure Harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words spluttered from his mouth.

“Not . . . funny . . . don’t . . . Mungo’s . . . show . . . him . . .”

The dungeon door opened.

Snape appeared there.

His black eyes swept up the Gryffindor line to the point where Harry and Ron were wrestling with Neville.

“Fighting, Potter, Weasley, Longbottom?” Snape said in his cold, sneering voice.

“Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom, Potter, or it will be detention. Inside, all of you.”

Harry let go of Neville, who stood panting and glaring at him.

“I had to stop you,” Harry gasped, picking up his bag.

“Crabbe and Goyle would’ve torn you apart.”

Neville said nothing, he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.

“What in the name of Merlin,” said Ron slowly, as they followed Neville, “was that about?”

Harry did not answer.

He knew exactly why the subject of people who were in St. Mungo’s because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to Neville, but he had sworn to Dumbledore that he would not tell anyone Neville’s secret.

Even Neville did not know that Harry knew.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione took their usual seats at the back of the class and pulled out parchment, quills, and their copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi.

The class around them was whispering about what Neville had just done, but when Snape closed the dungeon door with an echoing bang everybody fell silent immediately.

“You will notice,” said Snape in his low, sneering voice, “that we have a guest with us today.”

He gestured toward the dim corner of the dungeon, and Harry saw Professor Umbridge sitting there, clipboard on her knee.

He glanced sideways at Ron and Hermione, his eyebrows raised.

Snape and Umbridge, the two teachers he hated most . . . it was hard to decide which he wanted to triumph over the other.

“We are continuing with our Strengthening Solutions today, you will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson, if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend — instructions” — he waved his wand again — “on the board. Carry on.”

Professor Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner.

Harry was very interested in hearing her question Snape, so interested, that he was becoming careless with his potion again.

“Salamander blood, Harry!” Hermione moaned, grabbing his wrist to prevent him adding the wrong ingredient for the third time.

“Not pomegranate juice!”

“Right,” said Harry vaguely, putting down the bottle and continuing to watch the corner.

Umbridge had just gotten to her feet.

“Ha,” he said softly, as she strode between two lines of desks toward Snape, who was bending over Dean Thomas’s cauldron.

“Well, the class seems fairly advanced for their level,” she said briskly to Snape’s back.

“Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus.”

Snape straightened up slowly and turned to look at her.

“Now . . . how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?” she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard.

“Fourteen years,” Snape replied.

His expression was unfathomable.

His eyes on Snape, Harry added a few drops to his potion; it hissed menacingly and turned from turquoise to orange.

“You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?” Professor Umbridge asked Snape.

“Yes,” said Snape quietly.

“But you were unsuccessful?”

Snape’s lip curled.

“Obviously.”

Professor Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.

“And you have applied regularly for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post since you first joined the school, I believe?”

“Yes,” said Snape quietly, barely moving his lips.

He looked very angry.

“Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?” asked Umbridge.

“I suggest you ask him,” said Snape jerkily.

“Oh I shall,” said Professor Umbridge with a sweet smile.

“I suppose this is relevant?” Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed.

“Oh yes,” said Professor Umbridge.

“Yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers’ — er — backgrounds . . .”

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She turned away, walked over to Pansy Parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons.

Snape looked around at Harry and their eyes met for a second.

Harry hastily dropped his gaze to his potion, which was now congealing foully and giving off a strong smell of burned rubber.

“No marks again, then, Potter,” said Snape maliciously, emptying Harry’s cauldron with a wave of his wand.

“You will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Harry furiously.

Snape had already given them homework, and he had Quidditch practice this evening; this would mean another couple of sleepless nights.

It did not seem possible that he had awoken that morning feeling very happy.

All he felt now was a fervent desire for this day to end as soon as possible.

“Maybe I’ll skive off Divination,” he said glumly as they stood again in the courtyard after lunch, the wind whipping at the hems of robes and brims of hats.

“I’ll pretend to be ill and do Snape’s essay instead, then I won’t have to stay up half the night . . .”

“You can’t skive off Divination,” said Hermione severely.

“Hark who’s talking, you walked out of Divination, you hate Trelawney!” said Ron indignantly.

“I don’t hate her,” said Hermione loftily.

“I just think she’s an absolutely appalling teacher and a real old fraud. . . . But Harry’s already missed History of Magic and I don’t think he ought to miss anything else today!”

There was too much truth in this to ignore, so half an hour later Harry took his seat in the hot, over-perfumed atmosphere of the Divination classroom feeling angry at everybody.

Professor Trelawney was handing out copies of The Dream Oracle yet again; he would surely be much better employed doing Snape’s punishment essay than sitting here trying to find meaning in a lot of made-up dreams.

It seemed, however, that he was not the only person in Divination who was in a temper.

Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Harry and Ron and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean, narrowly avoiding Seamus’s head, and thrust the final one into Neville’s chest with such force that he slipped off his pouf.

“Well, carry on!” said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high pitched and somewhat hysterical.

“You know what to do! Or am I such a substandard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?”

The class stared perplexedly at her and then at each other.

Harry, however, thought he knew what was the matter.

As Professor Trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teacher’s chair, her magnified eyes full of angry tears, he leaned his head closer to Ron’s and muttered, “I think she’s got the results of her inspection back.”

“Professor?” said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired Professor Trelawney).

“Professor, is there anything — er — wrong?”

“Wrong!” cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion.

“Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly. . . . Insinuations have been made against me. . . . Unfounded accusations levelled . . . but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not . . .”

She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses.

“I say nothing,” she choked, “of sixteen years’ devoted service. . . . It has passed, apparently, unnoticed. . . . But I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!”

“But Professor, who’s insulting you?” asked Parvati timidly.

“The establishment!” said Professor Trelawney in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice.

“Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the Mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know . . . Of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted. . . . It is — alas — our fate . . .”

She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, and then pulled a small, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, into which she blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry.

Ron sniggered.

Lavender shot him a disgusted look.

“Professor,” said Parvati, “do you mean . . . is it something Professor Umbridge . . . ?”

“Do not speak to me about that woman!” cried Professor Trelawney, leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing.

“Kindly continue with your work!”

And she spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.

“ . . . may well choose to leave . . . the indignity of it . . . on probation . . . we shall see . . . how she dares . . .”

“You and Umbridge have got something in common,” Harry told Hermione quietly when they met again in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

“She obviously reckons Trelawney’s an old fraud too. . . . Looks like she’s put her on probation.”

Umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.

“Good afternoon, class.”

“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted drearily.

“Wands away, please . . .”

But there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their wands.

“Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled ‘The Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack.’ There will be —”

“— no need to talk,” Harry, Ron, and Hermione said together under their breaths.

“No Quidditch practice,” said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the common room that night after dinner.

“But I kept my temper!” said Harry, horrified.

“I didn’t say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, I —”

“I know, I know,” said Angelina miserably.

“She just said she needed a bit of time to consider.”

“Consider what?” said Ron angrily.

“She’s given the Slytherins permission, why not us?”

But Harry could imagine how much Umbridge was enjoying holding the threat of no Gryffindor Quidditch team over their heads and could easily understand why she would not want to relinquish that weapon over them too soon.

“Well,” said Hermione, “look on the bright side — at least now you’ll have time to do Snape’s essay!”

“That’s a bright side, is it?” snapped Harry, while Ron stared incredulously at Hermione.

“No Quidditch practice and extra Potions?”

Harry slumped down into a chair, dragged his Potions essay reluctantly from his bag, and set to work.

It was very hard to concentrate; even though he knew that Sirius was not due in the fire until much later he could not help glancing into the flames every few minutes just in case.

There was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.

First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them.

Then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease.

Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry’s potions.

What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering, and Fred and George taking advance orders from the crowd, Harry was finding it exceptionally difficult to focus on the correct method for Strengthening Solutions.

Hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and sound of vomit hitting the bottom of Fred and George’s bucket were punctuated by loud and disapproving sniffs that Harry found, if anything, more distracting.

“Just go and stop them, then!” he said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered griffin claw for the fourth time.

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“I can’t, they’re not technically doing anything wrong,” said Hermione through gritted teeth.

“They’re quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves, and I can’t find a rule that says the other idiots aren’t entitled to buy them, not unless they’re proven to be dangerous in some way, and it doesn’t look as though they are . . .”

She, Harry, and Ron watched George projectile-vomit into the bucket, gulp down the rest of the chew, and straighten up, beaming with his arms wide to protracted applause.

“You know, I don’t get why Fred and George only got three O.W.L.s each,” said Harry, watching as Fred, George, and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd.

“They really know their stuff . . .”

“Oh, they only know flashy stuff that’s no real use to anyone,” said Hermione disparagingly.

“No real use?” said Ron in a strained voice.

“Hermione, they’ve got about twenty-six Galleons already . . .”

It was a long while before the crowd around the Weasleys dispersed, and then Fred, Lee, and George sat up counting their takings even longer, so that it was well past midnight when Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally had the common room to themselves again.

At long last, Fred closed the doorway to the boys’ dormitories behind him, rattling his box of Galleons ostentatiously so that Hermione scowled.

Harry, who was making very little progress with his Potions essay, decided to give it up for the night.

As he put his books away, Ron, who was dozing lightly in an armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, looked blearily into the fire and said, “Sirius!”

Harry whipped around; Sirius’s untidy dark head was sitting in the fire again.

“Hi,” he said, grinning.

“Hi,” chorused Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all three kneeling down upon the hearthrug.

Crookshanks purred loudly and approached the fire, trying, despite the heat, to put his face close to Sirius’s.

“How’re things?” said Sirius.

“Not that good,” said Harry, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks back to stop him singeing his whiskers.

“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.

There was a short pause.

“How did you know about that?” Harry demanded.

“You want to choose your meeting places more carefully,” said Sirius, grinning still more broadly.

“The Hog’s Head, I ask you . . .”

“Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!” said Hermione defensively.

“That’s always packed with people —”

“— which means you’d have been harder to overhear,” said Sirius.

“You’ve got a lot to learn, Hermione.”

“Who overheard us?” Harry demanded.

“Mundungus, of course,” said Sirius, and when they all looked puzzled he laughed.

“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?” said Sirius impatiently.

“Keeping an eye on you, of course.”

“I’m still being followed?” asked Harry angrily.

“Yeah, you are,” said Sirius, “and just as well, isn’t it, if the first thing you’re going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defense group.”

But he looked neither angry nor worried; on the contrary, he was looking at Harry with distinct pride.

“Why was Dung hiding from us?” asked Ron, sounding disappointed.

“We’d’ve liked to’ve seen him.”

“He was banned from the Hog’s Head twenty years ago,” said Sirius, “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?” said Ron, sounding apprehensive.

“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’s eyes turned to the other two — “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?” said Ron quickly.

“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 another pause in which Crookshanks, mewing, attempted to paw Sirius’s head, and Ron fiddled with a hole in the hearthrug.

“So you want me to say I’m not going to take part in the defense group?” he muttered finally.

“Me? Certainly not!” said Sirius, looking surprised.

“I think it’s an excellent idea!”

“You do?” said Harry, his heart lifting.

“Of course I do!” said Sirius.

“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!” said Sirius 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, a quizzical look on her face.

“Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!” said Harry, staring at her.

“I know it was. . . . I just wondered what Sirius thought,” she said, shrugging.

“Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue,” said Sirius.

“Hear, hear,” said Harry and Ron enthusiastically.

“So,” said Sirius, “how are you organizing this group? Where are you meeting?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a problem now,” said Harry.

“Dunno where we’re going to be able to go . . .”

“How about the Shrieking Shack?” suggested Sirius.

“Hey, that’s an idea!” said Ron excitedly, but Hermione made a skeptical noise and all three of them looked at her, Sirius’s head turning in the flames.

“Well, Sirius, it’s just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school,” said Hermione.

“And all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could all have 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 an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee —”

“Fair point,” said Sirius, looking slightly crestfallen.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with somewhere. . . . There used to be a pretty roomy secret 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,” said Harry, shaking his head.

“Caved in or something.”

“Oh . . .” said Sirius, frowning.

“Well, I’ll have a think and get back to —”

He broke off.

His face was suddenly tense, alarmed.

He turned sideways, apparently looking into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.

“Sirius?” said Harry anxiously.

But he had vanished.

Harry gaped at the flames for a moment, then turned to look at Ron and Hermione.

“Why did he — ?”

Hermione gave a horrified gasp and leapt to her feet, still staring at the fire.

A hand had appeared amongst the flames, groping as though to catch hold of something; a stubby, short-fingered hand covered in ugly old-fashioned rings. . . .

The three of them ran for it.

At the door of the boys’ dormitory Harry looked back.

Umbridge’s hand was still making snatching movements amongst the flames, as though she knew exactly where Sirius’s hair had been moments before and was determined to seize it.

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CHAPTER XVIII. DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY

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Umbridge has been reading your mail, Harry. There’s no other explanation.

“You think Umbridge attacked Hedwig?” he said, outraged.

“I’m almost certain of it,” said Hermione grimly. “Watch your frog, it’s escaping.”

Harry pointed his wand at the bullfrog that had been hopping hopefully toward the other side of the table — “Accio!” — and it zoomed gloomily back into his hand.

Charms was always one of the best lessons in which to enjoy a private chat: There was generally so much movement and activity that the danger of being overheard was very slight.

Today, with the room full of croaking bullfrogs and cawing ravens, and with a heavy downpour of rain clattering and pounding against the classroom windows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s whispered discussion about how Umbridge had nearly caught Sirius went quite unnoticed.

“I’ve been suspecting this ever since Filch accused you of ordering Dungbombs, because it seemed such a stupid lie,” Hermione whispered.

“I mean, once your letter had been read, it would have been quite clear you weren’t ordering them, so you wouldn’t have been in trouble at all — it’s a bit of a feeble joke, isn’t it?"

"But then I thought, what if somebody just wanted an excuse to read your mail?"

"Well then, it would be a perfect way for Umbridge to manage it — tip off Filch, let him do the dirty work and confiscate the letter, then either find a way of stealing it from him or else demand to see it — I don’t think Filch would object, when’s he ever stuck up for a student’s rights?"

"Harry, you’re squashing your frog.”

Harry looked down; he was indeed squeezing his bullfrog so tightly its eyes were popping; he replaced it hastily upon the desk.

“It was a very, very close call last night,” said Hermione.

“I just wonder if Umbridge knows how close it was. Silencio!”

The bullfrog on which she was practicing her Silencing Charm was struck dumb mid-croak and glared at her reproachfully.

“If she’d caught Snuffles . . .”

Harry finished the sentence for her.

“He’d probably be back in Azkaban this morning.”

He waved his wand without really concentrating; his bullfrog swelled like a green balloon and emitted a high-pitched whistle.

“Silencio!” said Hermione hastily, pointing her wand at Harry’s frog, which deflated silently before them.

“Well, he mustn’t do it again, that’s all."

"I just don’t know how we’re going to let him know."

"We can’t send him an owl.”

“I don’t reckon he’ll risk it again,” said Ron.

“He’s not stupid, he knows she nearly got him. Silencio!”

The large and ugly raven in front of him let out a derisive caw.

“Silencio! SILENCIO!”

The raven cawed more loudly.

“It’s the way you’re moving your wand,” said Hermione, watching Ron critically.

“You don’t want to wave it, it’s more a sharp jab.”

“Ravens are harder than frogs,” said Ron testily.

“Fine, let’s swap,” said Hermione, seizing Ron’s raven and replacing it with her own fat bullfrog.

“Silencio!”

The raven continued to open and close its sharp beak, but no sound came out.

“Very good, Miss Granger!” said Professor Flitwick’s squeaky little voice and Harry, Ron, and Hermione all jumped.

“Now, let me see you try, Mr. Weasley!”

“Wha — ? Oh — oh, right,” said Ron, very flustered.

“Er — Silencio!”

He jabbed at the bullfrog so hard that he poked it in the eye; the frog gave a deafening croak and leapt off the desk.

It came as no surprise to any of them that Harry and Ron were given additional practice of the Silencing Charm for homework.

They were allowed to remain inside over break due to the downpour outside.

They found seats in a noisy and overcrowded classroom on the first floor in which Peeves was floating dreamily up near the chandelier, occasionally blowing an ink pellet at the top of somebody’s head.

They had barely sat down when Angelina came struggling toward them through the groups of gossiping students.

“I’ve got permission!” she said.

“To re-form the Quidditch team!”

“Excellent!” said Ron and Harry together.

“Yeah,” said Angelina, beaming.

“I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to Dumbledore — anyway, Umbridge had to give in."

"Ha! So I want you down at the pitch at seven o’clock tonight, all right, because we’ve got to make up time, you realize we’re only three weeks away from our first match?”

She squeezed away from them, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from Peeves, which hit a nearby first year instead, and vanished from sight.

Ron’s smile slipped slightly as he looked out of the window, which was now opaque with hammering rain.

“Hope this clears up . . . What’s up with you, Hermione?”

She too was gazing at the window, but not as though she really saw it.

Her eyes were unfocused and there was a frown on her face.

“Just thinking . . .” she said, still frowning at the rain-washed window.

“About Siri . . . Snuffles?” said Harry.

“No . . . not exactly . . .” said Hermione slowly.

“More . . . wondering . . . I suppose we’re doing the right thing . . . I think . . . aren’t we?”

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

“Well, that clears that up,” said Ron.

“It would’ve been really annoying if you hadn’t explained yourself properly.”

Hermione looked at him as though she had only just realized he was there.

“I was just wondering,” she said, her voice stronger now, “whether we’re doing the right thing, starting this Defense Against the Dark Arts group.”

“What!” said Harry and Ron together.

“Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!” said Ron indignantly.

“I know,” said Hermione, twisting her fingers together.

“But after talking to Snuffles . . .”

“But he’s all for it!” said Harry.

“Yes,” said Hermione, staring at the window again.

“Yes, that’s what made me think maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all . . .”

Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all three of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.

“Let’s get this straight,” said Harry angrily, as they put their bags back on the floor.

“Sirius agrees with us, so you don’t think we should do it anymore?”

Hermione looked tense and rather miserable.

Now staring at her own hands she said, “Do you honestly trust his judgment?”

“Yes, I do!” said Harry at once.

“He’s always given us great advice!”

An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear.

Hermione watched Katie leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully.

“You don’t think he has become . . . sort of . . . reckless . . . since he’s been cooped up in Grimmauld Place?"

"You don’t think he’s . . . kind of . . . living through us?”

“What d’you mean, ‘living through us’?” Harry retorted.

“I mean . . . well, I think he’d love to be forming secret defense societies right under the nose of someone from the Ministry. . . . I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is . . . so I think he’s keen to kind of . . . egg us on.”

Ron looked utterly perplexed.

“Sirius is right,” he said.

“You do sound just like my mother.”

Hermione bit her lip and did not answer.

The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down upon Katie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.

The weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o’clock that evening, when Harry and Ron went down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, they were soaked through within minutes, their feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass.

The sky was a deep, thundery gray and it was a relief to gain the warmth and light of the changing rooms, even if they knew the respite was only temporary.

They found Fred and George debating whether to use one of their own Skiving Snackboxes to get out of flying.

“— but I bet she’d know what we’d done,” Fred said out of the corner of his mouth.

“If only I hadn’t offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday —”

“We could try the Fever Fudge,” George muttered, “no one’s seen that yet —”

“Does it work?” inquired Ron hopefully, as the hammering of rain on the roof intensified and wind howled around the building.

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“Well, yeah,” said Fred.

“Your temperature’ll go right up —”

“— but you get these massive pus-filled boils too,” said George, “and we haven’t worked out how to get rid of them yet.”

“I can’t see any boils,” said Ron, staring at the twins.

“No, well, you wouldn’t,” said Fred darkly, “they’re not in a place we generally display to the public —”

“— but they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the —”

“All right, everyone, listen up,” said Angelina loudly, emerging from the Captain’s office.

“I know it’s not ideal weather, but there’s a good chance we’ll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this so it’s a good idea to work out how we’re going to cope with them."

"Harry, didn’t you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?”

“Hermione did it,” said Harry.

He pulled out his wand, tapped his glasses and said, “Impervius!”

“I think we all ought to try that,” said Angelina.

“If we could just keep the rain off our faces it would really help visibility — all together, come on — Impervius! Okay. Let’s go.”

They all stowed their wands back in the inside pockets of their robes, shouldered their brooms, and followed Angelina out of the changing rooms.

They squelched through the deepening mud to the middle of the pitch.

Visibility was still very poor even with the Impervius Charm; light was fading fast and curtains of rain were sweeping the grounds.

“All right, on my whistle,” shouted Angelina.

Harry kicked off from the ground, spraying mud in all directions, and shot upward, the wind pulling him slightly off course.

He had no idea how he was going to see the Snitch in this weather; he was having enough difficulty seeing the one Bludger with which they were practicing.

A minute into the practice it almost unseated him and he had to use the Sloth Grip Roll to avoid it.

Unfortunately, Angelina did not see this.

In fact, she did not appear to be able to see anything; none of them had a clue what the others were doing.

The wind was picking up.

Even at a distance, Harry could hear the swishing, pounding sounds of the rain pummeling the surface of the lake.

Angelina kept them at it for nearly an hour before conceding defeat.

She led her sodden and disgruntled team back into the changing rooms, insisting that the practice had not been a waste of time, though without any real conviction in her voice.

Fred and George were looking particularly annoyed; both were bandy-legged and winced with every movement.

Harry could hear them complaining in low voices as he toweled his hair dry.

“I think a few of mine have ruptured,” said Fred in a hollow voice.

“Mine haven’t,” said George, wincing.

“They’re throbbing like mad . . . feel bigger if anything . . .”

“OUCH!” said Harry.

He pressed the towel to his face, his eyes screwed tight with pain.

The scar on his forehead had seared again, more painfully than in months.

“What’s up?” said several voices.

Harry emerged from behind his towel; the changing room was blurred because he was not wearing his glasses; but he could still tell that everyone’s face was turned toward him.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“I — poked myself in the eye, that’s all . . .”

But he gave Ron a significant look and the two of them hung back as the rest of the team filed back outside, muffled in their cloaks, their hats pulled low over their ears.

“What happened?” said Ron, the moment that Alicia had disappeared through the door.

“Was it your scar?”

Harry nodded.

“But . . .”

Looking scared, Ron strode across to the window and stared out into the rain.

“He — he can’t be near us now, can he?”

“No,” Harry muttered, sinking onto a bench and rubbing his forehead.

“He’s probably miles away. It hurt because . . . he’s . . . angry.”

Harry had not meant to say that at all, and heard the words as though a stranger had spoken them — yet he knew at once that they were true.

He did not know how he knew it, but he did; Voldemort, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, was in a towering temper.

“Did you see him?” said Ron, looking horrified.

“Did you . . . get a vision, or something?”

Harry sat quite still, staring at his feet, allowing his mind and his memory to relax in the aftermath of the pain. . . .

A confused tangle of shapes, a howling rush of voices . . .

“He wants something done, and it’s not happening fast enough,” he said.

Again, he felt surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth, and yet quite certain that they were true.

“But . . . how do you know?” said Ron.

Harry shook his head and covered his eyes with his hands, pressing down upon them with his palms.

Little stars erupted in them.

He felt Ron sit down on the bench beside him and knew Ron was staring at him.

“Is this what it was about last time?” said Ron in a hushed voice.

“When your scar hurt in Umbridge’s office? You-Know-Who was angry?”

Harry shook his head.

“What is it, then?”

Harry was thinking himself back.

He had been looking into Umbridge’s face. . . .

His scar had hurt . . . and he had had that odd feeling in his stomach . . . a strange, leaping feeling . . . a happy feeling. . . .

But, of course, he had not recognized it for what it was, as he had been feeling so miserable himself. . . .

“Last time, it was because he was pleased,” he said.

“Really pleased. He thought . . . something good was going to happen. And the night before we came back to Hogwarts . . .”

He thought back to the moment when his scar had hurt so badly in his and Ron’s bedroom in Grimmauld Place.

“He was furious . . .”

He looked around at Ron, who was gaping at him.

“You could take over from Trelawney, mate,” he said in an awed voice.

“I’m not making prophecies,” said Harry.

“No, you know what you’re doing?” Ron said, sounding both scared and impressed.

“Harry, you’re reading You-Know-Who’s mind. . . .”

“No,” said Harry, shaking his head.

“It’s more like . . . his mood, I suppose. I’m just getting flashes of what mood he’s in. . . . Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. . . . He said that when Voldemort was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I’m feeling it when he’s pleased too . . .”

There was a pause.

The wind and rain lashed at the building.

“You’ve got to tell someone,” said Ron.

“I told Sirius last time.”

“Well, tell him about this time!”

“Can’t, can I?” said Harry grimly.

“Umbridge is watching the owls and the fires, remember?”

“Well then, Dumbledore —”

“I’ve just told you, he already knows,” said Harry shortly, getting to his feet, taking his cloak off his peg, and swinging it around himself.

“There’s no point telling him again.”

Ron did up the fastening of his own cloak, watching Harry thoughtfully.

“Dumbledore’d want to know,” he said.

Harry shrugged.

“C’mon . . . we’ve still got Silencing Charms to practice . . .”

They hurried back through the dark grounds, sliding and stumbling up the muddy lawns, not talking.

Harry was thinking hard.

What was it that Voldemort wanted done that was not happening quickly enough?

“He’s got other plans . . . plans he can put into operation very quietly indeed . . . stuff he can only get by stealth . . . like a weapon. Something he didn’t have last time.”

He had not thought about those words in weeks.

He had been too absorbed in what was going on at Hogwarts, too busy dwelling on the ongoing battles with Umbridge, the injustice of all the Ministry interference. . . .

But now they came back to him and made him wonder. . . .

Voldemort’s anger would make sense if he was no nearer laying hands on the weapon, whatever it was. . . .

Had the Order thwarted him, stopped him from seizing it?

Where was it kept?

Who had it now?

“Mimbulus mimbletonia,” said Ron’s voice and Harry came back to his senses just in time to clamber through the portrait hole into the common room.

It appeared that Hermione had gone to bed early, leaving Crookshanks curled in a nearby chair and an assortment of knobbly, knitted elf hats lying on a table by the fire.

Harry was rather grateful that she was not around because he did not much want to discuss his scar hurting and have her urge him to go to Dumbledore too.

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Ron kept throwing him anxious glances, but Harry pulled out his Potions book and set to work to finish his essay, though he was only pretending to concentrate and, by the time that Ron said he was going to bed too, had written hardly anything.

Midnight came and went while Harry was reading and rereading a passage about the uses of scurvy-grass, lovage, and sneezewort and not taking in a word of it. . . .

These plantes are moste efficacious in the inflaming of the braine, and are therefore much used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts, where the wizard is desirous of producing hot-headedness and recklessness. . . .

. . . Hermione said Sirius was becoming reckless cooped up in Grimmauld Place. . . .

. . . moste efficacious in the inflaming of the braine, and are therefore much used . . .

. . . the Daily Prophet would think his brain was inflamed if they found out that he knew what Voldemort was feeling . . .

. . . therefore much used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts . . .

. . . confusing was the word, all right; why did he know what Voldemort was feeling?

What was this weird connection between them, which Dumbledore had never been able to explain satisfactorily?

. . . where the wizard is desirous . . .

. . . how he would like to sleep . . .

. . . of producing hot-headedness . . .

It was warm and comfortable in his armchair before the fire, with the rain still beating heavily on the windowpanes and Crookshanks purring and the crackling of the flames. . . .

The book slipped from Harry’s slack grip and landed with a dull thud on the hearthrug.

His head fell sideways. . . .

He was walking once more along a windowless corridor, his footsteps echoing in the silence.

As the door at the end of the passage loomed larger, his heart beat fast with excitement. . . .

If he could only open it . . . enter beyond. . . .

He stretched out his hand. . . .

His fingertips were inches from it. . . .

“Harry Potter, sir!”

He awoke with a start.

The candles had all been extinguished in the common room, but there was something moving close by.

“Whozair?” said Harry, sitting upright in his chair.

The fire was almost extinguished, the room very dark.

“Dobby has your owl, sir!” said a squeaky voice.

“Dobby?” said Harry thickly, peering through the gloom toward the source of the voice.

Dobby the house-elf was standing beside the table on which Hermione had left her half a dozen knitted hats.

His large, pointed ears were now sticking out from beneath what looked like all the hats that Hermione had ever knitted; he was wearing one on top of the other, so that his head seemed elongated by two or three feet, and on the very topmost bobble sat Hedwig, hooting serenely and obviously cured.

“Dobby volunteered to return Harry Potter’s owl!” said the elf squeakily, with a look of positive adoration on his face.

“Professor Grubbly-Plank says she is all well now, sir!”

He sank into a deep bow so that his pencil-like nose brushed the threadbare surface of the hearthrug and Hedwig gave an indignant hoot and fluttered onto the arm of Harry’s chair.

“Thanks, Dobby!” said Harry, stroking Hedwig’s head and blinking hard, trying to rid himself of the image of the door in his dream.

It had been very vivid. . . .

Looking back at Dobby, he noticed that the elf was also wearing several scarves and innumerable socks, so that his feet looked far too big for his body.

“Er . . . have you been taking all the clothes Hermione’s been leaving out?”

“Oh no, sir,” said Dobby happily, “Dobby has been taking some for Winky too, sir.”

“Yeah, how is Winky?” asked Harry.

Dobby’s ears drooped slightly.

“Winky is still drinking lots, sir,” he said sadly, his enormous round green eyes, large as tennis balls, downcast.

“She still does not care for clothes, Harry Potter. Nor do the other house-elves. None of them will clean Gryffindor Tower anymore, not with the hats and socks hidden everywhere, they finds them insulting, sir.

Dobby does it all himself, sir, but Dobby does not mind, sir, for he always hopes to meet Harry Potter and tonight, sir, he has got his wish!”

Dobby sank into a deep bow again.

“But Harry Potter does not seem happy,” Dobby went on, straightening up again and looking timidly at Harry.

“Dobby heard him muttering in his sleep. Was Harry Potter having bad dreams?”

“Not really bad,” said Harry, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“I’ve had worse.”

The elf surveyed Harry out of his vast, orblike eyes.

Then he said very seriously, his ears drooping, “Dobby wishes he could help Harry Potter, for Harry Potter set Dobby free and Dobby is much, much happier now . . .”

Harry smiled.

“You can’t help me, Dobby, but thanks for the offer . . .”

He bent and picked up his Potions book.

He’d have to try and finish the essay tomorrow.

He closed the book and as he did so the firelight illuminated the thin white scars on the back of his hand — the result of his detention with Umbridge.

“Wait a moment — there is something you can do for me, Dobby,” said Harry slowly.

The elf looked around, beaming.

“Name it, Harry Potter, sir!”

“I need to find a place where twenty-eight people can practice Defense Against the Dark Arts without being discovered by any of the teachers.

Especially,” Harry clenched his hand on the book, so that the scars shone pearly white, “Professor Umbridge.”

He expected the elf’s smile to vanish, his ears to droop; he expected him to say that this was impossible, or else that he would try, but his hopes were not high.

What he had not expected was for Dobby to give a little skip, his ears waggling happily, and clap his hands together.

“Dobby knows the perfect place, sir!” he said happily.

“Dobby heard tell of it from the other house-elves when he came to Hogwarts, sir. It is known by us as the Come and Go Room, sir, or else as the Room of Requirement!”

“Why?” said Harry curiously.

“Because it is a room that a person can only enter,” said Dobby seriously, “when they have real need of it.

Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker’s needs.

Dobby has used it, sir,” said the elf, dropping his voice and looking guilty, “when Winky has been very drunk.

He has hidden her in the Room of Requirement and he has found antidotes to butterbeer there, and a nice elf-sized bed to settle her on while she sleeps it off, sir. . . .

And Dobby knows Mr. Filch has found extra cleaning materials there when he has run short, sir, and —”

“— and if you really needed a bathroom,” said Harry, suddenly remembering something Dumbledore had said at the Yule Ball the previous Christmas, “would it fill itself with chamber pots?”

“Dobby expects so, sir,” said Dobby, nodding earnestly.

“It is a most amazing room, sir.”

“How many people know about it?” said Harry, sitting up straighter in his chair.

“Very few, sir.

Mostly people stumbles across it when they needs it, sir, but often they never finds it again, for they do not know that it is always there waiting to be called into service, sir.”

“It sounds brilliant,” said Harry, his heart racing.

“It sounds perfect, Dobby.

When can you show me where it is?”

“Anytime, Harry Potter, sir,” said Dobby, looking delighted at Harry’s enthusiasm.

“We could go now, if you like!”

For a moment Harry was tempted to go now; he was halfway out of his seat, intending to hurry upstairs for his Invisibility Cloak when, not for the first time, a voice very much like Hermione’s whispered in his ear: reckless.

It was, after all, very late, and he was exhausted.

“Not tonight, Dobby,” said Harry reluctantly, sinking back into his chair.

“This is really important.

I don’t want to blow it, it’ll need proper planning.

Listen, can you just tell me exactly where this Room of Requirement is and how to get in there?”

Their robes billowed and swirled around them as they splashed across the flooded vegetable patch to double Herbology, where they could hardly hear what Professor Sprout was saying over the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof.

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The afternoon’s Care of Magical Creatures lesson was to be relocated from the storm-swept grounds to a free classroom on the ground floor and, to their intense relief, Angelina sought out her team at lunch to tell them that Quidditch practice was canceled.

“Good,” said Harry quietly, when she told him, “because we’ve found somewhere to have our first Defense meeting.

Tonight, eight o’clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls.

Can you tell Katie and Alicia?”

She looked slightly taken aback but promised to tell the others; Harry returned hungrily to his sausages and mash.

When he looked up to take a drink of pumpkin juice, he found Hermione watching him.

“What?” he said thickly.

“Well . . . it’s just that Dobby’s plans aren’t always that safe.

Don’t you remember when he lost you all the bones in your arm?”

“This room isn’t just some mad idea of Dobby’s; Dumbledore knows about it too, he mentioned it to me at the Yule Ball.”

Hermione’s expression cleared.

“Dumbledore told you about it?”

“Just in passing,” said Harry, shrugging.

“Oh well, that’s all right then,” said Hermione briskly and she raised no more objections.

Together with Ron they had spent most of the day seeking out those people who had signed their names to the list in the Hog’s Head and telling them where to meet that evening.

Somewhat to Harry’s disappointment, it was Ginny who managed to find Cho Chang and her friend first; however, by the end of dinner he was confident that the news had been passed to every one of the twenty-five people who had turned up in the Hog’s Head.

At half-past seven Harry, Ron, and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, Harry clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand.

Fifth years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o’clock, but all three of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way up to the seventh floor.

“Hold it,” said Harry warningly, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with his wand, and muttering, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

A map of Hogwarts appeared upon the blank surface of the parchment.

Tiny black moving dots, labeled with names, showed where various people were.

“Filch is on the second floor,” said Harry, holding the map close to his eyes and scanning it closely, “and Mrs. Norris is on the fourth.”

“And Umbridge?” said Hermione anxiously.

“In her office,” said Harry, pointing. “Okay, let’s go.”

They hurried along the corridor to the place Dobby had described to Harry, a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy’s foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet.

“Okay,” said Harry quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch. “Dobby said to walk past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need.”

They did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-size vase on its other side.

Ron had screwed up his eyes in concentration, Hermione was whispering something under her breath, Harry’s fists were clenched as he stared ahead of him.

We need somewhere to learn to fight... he thought. Just give us a place to practice... somewhere they can’t find us...

“Harry,” said Hermione sharply, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.

A highly polished door had appeared in the wall.

Ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary.

Harry reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.

The walls were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor.

A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass that Harry was sure had hung, the previous year, in the fake Moody’s office.

“These will be good when we’re practicing Stunning,” said Ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.

“And just look at these books!” said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. “A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions... The Dark Arts Outsmarted... Self-Defensive Spellwork... wow...”

She looked around at Harry, her face glowing, and he saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right.

“Harry, this is wonderful, there’s everything we need here!”

And without further ado she slid Jinxes for the Jinxed from its shelf, sank onto the nearest cushion, and began to read.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

Harry looked around; Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Parvati, and Dean had arrived.

“Whoa,” said Dean, staring around, impressed. “What is this place?”

Harry began to explain, but before he had finished more people had arrived, and he had to start all over again.

By the time eight o’clock arrived, every cushion was occupied.

Harry moved across to the door and turned the key protruding from the lock; it clicked in a satisfyingly loud way and everybody fell silent, looking at him.

Hermione carefully marked her page of Jinxes for the Jinxed and set the book aside.

“Well,” said Harry, slightly nervously. “This is the place we’ve found for practices, and you’ve — er — obviously found it okay —”

“It’s fantastic!” said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.

“It’s bizarre,” said Fred, frowning around at it. “We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then...”

“Hey, Harry, what’s this stuff?” asked Dean from the rear of the room, indicating the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass.

“Dark Detectors,” said Harry, stepping between the cushions to reach them. “Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don’t want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled...”

He gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside it, though none was recognizable.

He turned his back on it.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and — er —”

He noticed a raised hand.

“What, Hermione?”

“I think we ought to elect a leader,” said Hermione.

“Harry’s leader,” said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad, and Harry’s stomach did yet another back flip.

“Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly,” said Hermione, unperturbed. “It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So — everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?”

Everybody put up their hands, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very halfheartedly.

“Er — right, thanks,” said Harry, who could feel his face burning. “And — what, Hermione?”

“I also think we ought to have a name,” she said brightly, her hand still in the air. “It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don’t you think?”

“Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?” said Angelina hopefully.

“Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?” suggested Fred.

“I was thinking,” said Hermione, frowning at Fred, “more of a name that didn’t tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings.”

“The Defense Association?” said Cho. “The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we’re talking about?”

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?”

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this.

“All in favor of the D.A.?” said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count.

“That’s a majority — motion passed!”

She pinned the piece of paper with all of their names on it on the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY across the top in large letters.

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“Right,” said Harry, when she had sat down again, “shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it’s pretty basic but I’ve found it really useful —”

“Oh please,” said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. “I don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”

“I’ve used it against him,” said Harry quietly. “It saved my life last June.”

Smith opened his mouth stupidly.

The rest of the room was very quiet.

“But if you think it’s beneath you, you can leave,” Harry said.

Smith did not move.

Nor did anybody else.

“Okay,” said Harry, his mouth slightly drier than usual with all those eyes upon him, “I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice.”

It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed.

Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up.

Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

“You can practice with me,” Harry told him. “Right — on the count of three, then — one, two, three —”

The room was suddenly full of shouts of “Expelliarmus!”:

Wands flew in all directions, missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air.

Harry was too quick for Neville, whose wand went spinning out of his hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks, and landed with a clatter on top of a bookshelf, from which Harry retrieved it with a Summoning Charm.

Glancing around he thought he had been right to suggest that they practice the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backward a few paces or wince as the feeble spell whooshed over them.

“Expelliarmus!” said Neville, and Harry, caught unawares, felt his wand fly out of his hand.

“I DID IT!” said Neville gleefully. “I’ve never done it before — I DID IT!”

“Good one!” said Harry encouragingly, deciding not to point out that in a real duel situation Neville’s opponent was unlikely to be staring in the opposite direction with his wand held loosely at his side.

“Listen, Neville, can you take it in turns to practice with Ron and Hermione for a couple of minutes so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing?”

Harry moved off into the middle of the room.

Something very odd was happening to Zacharias Smith; every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound.

Harry did not have to look far for the solution of the mystery, however; Fred and George were several feet from Smith and taking it in turns to point their wands at his back.

“Sorry, Harry,” said George hastily, when Harry caught his eye. “Couldn’t resist...”

Harry walked around the other pairs, trying to correct those who were doing the spell wrong.

Ginny was teamed with Michael Corner; she was doing very well, whereas Michael was either very bad or unwilling to jinx her.

Ernie Macmillan was flourishing his wand unnecessarily, giving his partner time to get in under his guard; the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them.

Luna Lovegood was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchley’s wand spinning out of his hand, at other times merely causing his hair to stand on end.

“Okay, stop!” Harry shouted. “Stop! STOP!”

I need a whistle, he thought, and immediately spotted one lying on top of the nearest row of books.

He caught it up and blew hard.

Everyone lowered their wands.

“That wasn’t bad,” said Harry, “but there’s definite room for improvement.”

Zacharias Smith glared at him.

“Let’s try again...”

He moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions.

Slowly the general performance improved.

He avoided going near Cho and her friend for a while, but after walking twice around every other pair in the room felt he could not ignore them any longer.

“Oh no,” said Cho rather wildly as he approached.

“Expelliarmious! I mean, Expellimellius! I — oh, sorry, Marietta!”

Her curly-haired friend’s sleeve had caught fire; Marietta extinguished it with her own wand and glared at Harry as though it was his fault.

“You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!” Cho told Harry ruefully.

“That was quite good,” Harry lied, but when she raised her eyebrows he said, “Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there . . .”

She laughed.

Her friend Marietta looked at them rather sourly and turned away.

“Don’t mind her,” Cho muttered.

“She doesn’t really want to be here but I made her come with me.

Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge, you see — her mum works for the Ministry.”

“What about your parents?” asked Harry.

“Well, they’ve forbidden me to get on the wrong side of Umbridge too,” said Cho, drawing herself up proudly.

“But if they think I’m not going to fight You-Know-Who after what happened to Cedric —”

She broke off, looking rather confused, and an awkward silence fell between them; Terry Boot’s wand went whizzing past Harry’s ear and hit Alicia Spinnet hard on the nose.

“Well, my father is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!” said Luna Lovegood proudly from just behind Harry.

Evidently she had been eavesdropping on his conversation while Justin Finch-Fletchley attempted to disentangle himself from the robes that had flown up over his head.

“He’s always saying he’d believe anything of Fudge, I mean, the number of goblins Fudge has had assassinated!

And of course he uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons, which he feeds secretly to anybody who disagrees with him.

And then there’s his Umgubular Slashkilter —”

“Don’t ask,” Harry muttered to Cho as she opened her mouth, looking puzzled.

She giggled.

“Hey, Harry,” Hermione called from the other end of the room, “have you checked the time?”

He looked down at his watch and received a shock — it was already ten past nine, which meant they needed to get back to their common rooms immediately or risk being caught and punished by Filch for being out-of-bounds.

He blew his whistle; everybody stopped shouting, “Expelliarmus!” and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor.

“Well, that was pretty good,” said Harry, “but we’ve overrun, we’d better leave it here.

Same time, same place next week?”

“Sooner!” said Dean Thomas eagerly and many people nodded in agreement.

Angelina, however, said quickly, “The Quidditch season’s about to start, we need team practices too!”

“Let’s say next Wednesday night, then,” said Harry, “and we can decide on additional meetings then.

Come on, we’d better get going . . .”

He pulled out the Marauder’s Map again and checked it carefully for signs of teachers on the seventh floor.

He let them all leave in threes and fours, watching their tiny dots anxiously to see that they returned safely to their dormitories: the Hufflepuffs to the basement corridor that also led to the kitchens, the Ravenclaws to a tower on the west side of the castle, and the Gryffindors along the corridor to the seventh floor and the Fat Lady’s portrait.

“That was really, really good, Harry,” said Hermione, when finally it was just her, Harry, and Ron left.

“Yeah, it was!” said Ron enthusiastically, as they slipped out of the door and watched it melt back into stone behind them.

“Did you see me disarm Hermione, Harry?”

“Only once,” said Hermione, stung.

“I got you loads more than you got me —”

“I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times —”

“Well, if you’re counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand —”

They argued all the way back to the common room, but Harry was not listening to them.

He had one eye on the Marauder’s Map, but he was also thinking of how Cho had said he made her nervous. . . .