Chapter 17

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You wake up the next morning to sunlight streaking through the window. It's a Saturday, so you don't have to hurry out of bed. You glance over towards Hermione's bed and see that it is empty. You sigh with relief as you were not ready to talk to her yet.

You decide to throw on some clothes quickly and head down to get some breakfast. You grab some jeans and a hoodie from your trunk, and are just finishing putting you shoes on when the door opens and Hermione walks in. She sees you looking at her and appears slightly awkward.

"Good morning y/n," she says. "We need to go to Hogsmeade, there's a meeting."

"A meeting, what's it about?" you ask.

"Just grab your coat, we'll explain on the way," says Hermione.

When you go downstairs into the Gryffindor common room you see Harry and Ron waiting for you. Soon the four of you have left the castle and are walking towards Hogsmeade together.

"So what's going on?" you ask.

"We've been talking. We need someone to teach defense against the dark arts, and we think Harry is the person to do it," says Hermione.

"But it's mad, who would want to be taught by me," says Harry. "Everyone thinks I'm a nutter."

Hermione leads the way to a door. "This is the place," she says. "I thought we should use somewhere quiet."

You all go inside the empty room and wait. Before long more of the other children start to join you. Soon the small room is full and it's time for the meeting to start. Hermione stands up awkwardly and starts to speak.

"Umm, so, we all know why we're here," she says. "We need a proper teacher. Someone who has experience defending themselves against the dark arts."

Everyone looks around uncertainly.

"Is it true you can produce a patronus charm?" asks Luna.

"Yes, he can, I've seen it," says Hermione.

"And he killed a basilisk," says Neville.

"Yes, that all sounds good," says Harry. "But you don't know what it feels like when it happens in real life."

"You're right, we don't," says Hermione. "That's why we need you to teach us."

Around the room the other children murmur and nod with approval. Then one by one they come forward and sign up to join Dumbledore's Army.

With the meeting now over, you all head back to Hogwarts.

"Right, first we need to find somewhere to practice without Umbridge finding out," says Harry. "So let's all split up and see if we can find somewhere suitable."

You all nod in agreement, and when you reach the castle entrance everyone heads off in different directions.

You are not really sure where to start as you don't know the castle that well. You decide to head up to the third floor corridor and start opening doors at random to see what is behind them.
You find a couple of storage cupboards first, full of mops and other cleaning materials. Next door you open is the History of Magic classroom, so that's no good.

You try another door and find another empty classroom, but this one has sheets over the desks and looks like it has been unused for a while. Maybe this would work, you think. You head inside the room to take a closer look around.

You are just pulling the sheet off of the teacher's desk at the front when you hear a noise behind you. When you spin round you see Draco standing in the doorway. He looks at you and smirks.

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