Purple Rain.

Chapter Thirty-Five.

"Right," said Harry, when Hermione had sat down again, "shall we get practising 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. "If you think it's beneath you, you can leave." Smith did not move, nor did anyone else.
"Okay," said Harry, his mouth drier than usual with all those eyes on him, "I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."

(Y/n) lingered to the side as people paired together. She knew there was an uneven amount of members and wondered if it would be her or Harry that would be partnerless. If it was her, she assumed Harry would eventually drop his partner in order to monitor the group's progress. By the time pairs were formed, Neville, (Y/n), and Harry were the remaining three.

"Come on," Harry said, nodding (Y/n) over. "You can take over for me... 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. (Y/n) retrieved it with a Summoning Charm. Harry was quite 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 unaware, 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, go ahead and pair up with (Y/n) so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing."
Harry moved 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 flouring 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 was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchley's wand spinning out of his hand, at other times merely causing his hand to stand on end. Cedric and the boy Harry learned to be Anthony (more commonly known as Tony) Whitaker didn't seem to actually be duelling and, instead, merely taking turns practising silent Disarming spells. Daphne Greengrass seemed to be taking it easy on her little sister. (Y/n) would silently Disarm Neville before Summoning his wand back and occasionally giving Neville the opportunity to Disarm her. She smiled every time Neville shouted with glee.

"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..."
Harry moved 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 he 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!" Marietta's sleeve had caught on fire; she 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..."
Cho laughed. Marietta looked at them sourly before turning 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 how much he hurt (Y/n)..." She trailed off, throwing a glance towards the beaming girl in question. Terry Boot's wand went whizzing past Harry's ear and hit Alicia hard on the nose.
"I'd—"

"Well, my father is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!" said Luna proudly from just behind Harry. Cho pressed her lips together. Evidently, Luna had been eavesdropping on the 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?"

Harry looked down at his watch and recieved 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!" Dean said eagerly.

Angelina, however, said quickly, "The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!"

"Let's say next Wednesday, then," said Harry, "and we can decide on additional meetings then... Come on, we'd better get going..."
He pulled out the Marauders' 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, the Slytherins to the dungeons, 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 once 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 Marauders' Map, wondering what Cho was going to say before Luna interrupted.