His Hope: Sirius Black's daughter Book 3

In the Hog's head

"A couple of people?" said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. "A couple of people?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," said Hermione happily. "Ron, do you want to pull up some more chairs?" I pulled her aside,

"Hermione, you do know that most of these people are not here for the "lessons" but for Harry right?" I said in concern. I was not sure that he could handle being bombarded by so many people.

"There is nothing I can do about it now." She whispered back.

The barman had frozen in the act of wiping out a glass with a rag so filthy it looked as though it had never been washed. Possibly he had never seen his pub so full.

"Hi," said Fred, reaching the bar first and counting us quickly. "Could we have. . . twenty-five butterbeers, please?"

"Twenty-four, and a firewhisky." I said going to stand next to Fred.

The barman glared at us for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had been interrupted in something very important, he started passing up dusty butterbeers from under the bar. "No firewhisky unless you are seventeen." He said going back to his rag. Well I tried.

"Cheers," said Fred, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these. . . ." Harry watched numbly as the large chattering group took their beers from Fred and rummaged in their robes to find coins. He looked nervous.

"What have you been telling people?" he said in a low voice to Hermione. "What are they expecting?"

"Er," said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well— er — hi."

The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry.

"Well . . . erm . . . well, you know why you're here. Erm . . . well, Harry here had the idea — I mean" — Harry had thrown her a sharp look — "I had the idea — that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts — and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us" — (Hermione's voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident) — "because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts"

"Hear, hear," said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened — "well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands." She paused, looked sideways at Harry, and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but the real spells —"

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too though, I bet?" said Michael Corner.

"Of course I do," said Hermione at once. "But I want more than that, I want to be properly trained in Defense because . . . because . . ." She took a great breath and finished, "Because Lord Voldemort's back."

The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slopped butterbeer down herself, Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch, Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry. This was exactly what I had been afraid of.

"Well . . . that's the plan anyway," said Hermione. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to —"

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice.

"Well, Dumbledore believes it —" Hermione began.

"You mean, Dumbledore believes him," said the blond boy, nodding at Harry.