Purple Rain.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," Zacharias said.

"That's not what he said," snarled Fred.

"Don't you listen?" (Y/n) taunted.

"Would you like us to clean your ears out for you?" George offered, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of his Zonko's bags.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stuck this," said Fred.

"Yes, well," said Hermione hastily, "moving on... the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"
There was a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing, though perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in George's hand.
"Right," said Hermione, looking relieved that something had at last been settled. "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 Angelina, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No," said Cho," nor with ours." She nodded her head at (Y/n).

"Nor ours," Cedric added.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," said Hermione, slightly impatiently, "but, you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters—"

"Well said!" barked Ernie Macmillan, whom Harry had been expecting to speak long before this. "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 impressively, as though waiting for people to cry, "Surely not!" 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," said Hermione, "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."

Nearly everybody looked stunned at Hermione's news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."

"What?" said Harry, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.

"Yes, he's got an army of heliopaths," said Luna solemnly.

"No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione.

"Yes, he has," Luna said.

"What are heliopaths?" asked Neville, looking blank.

"They're spirits of fire," said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever. "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—"

"Hem, hem," said Ginny in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and get Defence lessons?"