O, CURSED CHILD. ﹙ harry potter ﹚

LVI ; dumbledore's army

            "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 four 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.

            "anyways," said ron. "why's your hair all purple and blue, lara?"

            "why else?" said elara, grinning madly. "to piss off umbitch, of course."

            "oh... i thought maybe you were just going through a rebellious phase or something."

            "ron," sighed elara. "we're running an illegal defense group, we're going against the ministry, i'm part of a secret society, we all are in a rebellious phase."

             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. hermione and elara stayed up at in the gryffindor common room to wait for them to help with their homework.

             it was around eight thirty when elara fell into another vision. in this one, voldemort was angry because he wanted something done, and it wasn't happening fast enough. the vision shifted to the windowless corridor with a door at the end.

            when she woke, hermione informed her that she was going to go to bed. elara nodded. she left crookshanks curled in a nearby chair and an assortment of knobbly, knitted elf hats lying on a table by the fire. harry and ron stumbled in, soaking and disgruntled. turns out, harry had felt what elara saw. ron kept throwing them anxious glances, but harry pulled out his potions book and to put the finishing touches on his essay as elara tried to help fix his grammar. harry 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 and elara gave up on trying to help. they talked, well, more like elara talked and harry listened. he seemed far off and lost in thought. she didn't mind, however, as it was late and harry had had a rough day.