chapter eleven : in the Hog's Head
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Juniper didn't hear anything about Harry and her teaching the others Defence Against the Dark Arts for two whole weeks. She was getting impatient and was about to go and look for Harry, when Hermione approached her.
"June, a word please?"
Juniper nodded and followed her towards a deserted corridor. "Is Harry going to do it?"
"Yeah," Hermione said. "It took some convincing but he'll come."
"Great," June said. "Who else is coming?"
"Well — er — I had the idea of telling anyone who might be interested to meet us in the Hog's Head in the Hogsmeade weekend," Hermione told her and June nodded.
"That's smart, we don't want Umbridge knowing what's happening," June said. "I'll ask around and see who else is interested."
"Great," Hermione said, nodding. "Then I'll see you in the Hog's Head."
"See you there."
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The Hog's Head was not at all like the Three Broomsticks, June realized as she set foot in it.
It comprised one small, dingy and very dirty room that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be compressed earth, though as June stepped on to it she realised that there was stone beneath what seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.
Juniper quickly ordered a Butterbeer before moving towards the furthest table from the bar where Harry, Hermione and Ron were already sitting.
"Hi," June greeted them. "Hermione, do you know how many people will come?"
"Er — I guess a couple of people, but they should be here any minute — oh, look, this might them now."
The door of the pub had opened. A thick band of dusty sunlight split the room in two for a moment and then vanished, blocked by the incoming rush of a crowd of people.
First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with Cho Chang and one of her usually-giggled girlfriends, then Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Angelina, Alicia, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait down her back whose name June did not know; Liam, Cedric, three Ravenclaw boys she was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boott then Mabel Longbottom — Neville's younger sister and Ginny's best friend — and Ginny, followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom June recognized vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and, bringing up the rear, Fred, George and Lee, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.
"A couple of people?" Harry said, turning to Hermione. "A couple of people?"
"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," Hermione said happily. "Ron, do you want to pull up some more chairs?"
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," Fred said, reaching the bar first and counting his companions, "could we have . . . twenty-eight Butterbeers, please?"
The barman glared at him for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had been interrupted in something very important, he he started passing up dusty Butterbeers from under the bar.
"Cheers," Fred said, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these . . ."
Juniper watched as the large chattering group took these beers from Fred and rummaged in their robes to find coins. She was a bit blown away. When Hermione asked her to train a couple of people she certainly didn't expect that many.
"What have you been telling people?" Harry asked Hermione in a low voice. "What are they expecting?"
"I've told you, they just want to hear what you've got to say," Hermione said soothingly; but both Harry and June continued to look at her so furiously that she added quickly, "you don't have to do anything yet, I'll speak to them first."
"Hi, Harry," Neville said, as he slid onto the seat next to June.
In twos and threes the new arrivals settled around, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Juniper, some looking rather excited, others curious. When everybody had pulled up a chair, the chatted died out. Every eye was upon Harry and June.
"Er," Hermione said, 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 and June.
"Well . . . erm . . . well, you know why you're here. Erm . . . well, Harry and June have had the idea — I mean" (Harry and June had thrown her a sharp look) "I had the idea — that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defence 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 more stronger and more confident) "— because nobody could call that Defence Against the Dark Arts —" (Hear, hear," Anthony Goldstein said and June immediately took a liking to him) "— Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands."
She paused, looked sideways at Harry and June, and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells —"
"You want to pass you Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too, though, I bet?" Michael Corner said.
"Of course I do," Hermione said at once. "But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defence because . . . because . . ." she took a great breath and finished, "because Lord Voldemort is back."
The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slipped 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 and June.
"Well, that's the plan, anyway," Hermione said. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to —"
"Where's the proof You-Know-Who is back?" the blond haired Hufflepuff player said in a rather aggressive voice.
"Well, Dumbledore believes it —" Hermione began.
"You mean, Dumbledore believes him," the blond boy said, nodding at Harry.
"Who are you?" Ron asked, rather rudely.
"Zacharias Smith," the boy said, "and it think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him think You-Know-Who is back."
"Look," Hermione said, intervening swiftly, "that's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about —"
"It's OK, Hermione," Harry said, making June raise an eyebrow. "What makes me say You-Know-Who is back?" he asked, looking Zacharias straight in the face. "I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you won't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."
The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. June had the impression that even the barman was listening. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag, making it steadily dirtier.
Zacharias said dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Black got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought her body back and she somehow survived the Killing Curse which is impossible."
"Look," June said, standing up. "I don't know why or how I came back." She did know but she sure wasn't going to tell them. "Perhaps it's a family trait," she added, a bit more lightly and a couple of people laughed at this. June nodded at Hermione, indicating that she could continue.
"So," Hermione said, her voice very high-pitched again. "So . . . like I was saying . . . if you want to learn some defence, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to —"
"Is it true," the girl with the long plait down her back interrupted, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus? We all know Juniper can, but can you?"
There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.
"Yeah," Harry said slightly defensively.
"A corporeal Patronus?"
"Er — you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" Harry asked.
The girl smiled. "She's my auntie," she said. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So — is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"
"Yes," Harry said.
"Blimey, Harry!" Lee exclaimed, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"
"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," Fred said, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."
"She's not wrong," Harry mumbled, and a couple of people laughed.
"And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" Terry Boot demanded. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year . . ."
"Er — yeah, I did, yeah," Harry said.
Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said "Wow!" softly.
"And in our first year," Neville said to the group at large, "he saved the Philological Stone —"
"Philosopher's," Mabel corrected him.
"Yes, that — from You-Know-Who," Neville finished.
Hannah Abbott's eyes were as rounds as Galleons.
"And that's not to mention," Cho said, "all the tasks Harry and Juniper had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year — getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromentula and things . . ."
There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table and June grinned as she saw Harry's cheeks burn up at Cho's words.
Someone was having a crush, June thought.
"Look," Harry said, and everyone fell silent at once, "I . . . I don't want to sound like I'm modest or anything, but . . . I had a lot of help with all that stuff . . ."
"Not with the dragon, you didn't," Michael Corner said at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying . . . and June, your Patronus was amazing!"
Juniper smiled. "Thank you, Michael."
"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer," Susan Bones said.
"No," Harry said, "no, OK, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is —"
"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" Zacharias Smith said.
"Here's an idea," Ron said loudly, "why don't you shut your mouth?"
Perhaps the word 'weasel' had affected Ron particularly strongly. In any case, he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias flushed.
"Well, we've all turned up to learn from them and now he's telling us he can't really do anything of it," he said.
"That's not what he said," Fred snarled.
"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" George enquired, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags.
"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," Fred said.
"Yes, well," Hermione said hastily, "moving on . . . the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry and June?"
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 on Fred's hand.
"Right," Hermione said, 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," June said, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."
"No," Cho said, "nor with ours."
"Nor ours," Cedric added.
"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," Hermione said 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!" Ernie Macmillan barked. "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 or N.E.W.T.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 on 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 defencive spells —"
"We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defence Against the Dark Arts," Hermione said, "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 this news; everybody except Lina Lovegood, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has his own private army."
"What?" June said, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.
"Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths," Luna said solemnly.
"No, he hasn't," Hermione snapped.
"Yes, he has," Luna said.
"What are Heliopaths?" Neville asked, looking blank.
"They're spirits of fire," Luna said, her protuberant eyes widening, "great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of —"
"They don't exist, Neville," Hermione said tartly.
"Oh, yes, they do!" Luna said angrily.
"I'm sorry, but where's the proof of that?" Hermione snapped.
"There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you —"
"Hem, hem," Mabel said, 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 have defence lessons?"
"Yes," Hermione said at once, "yes, we were, you're right, Mabel."
"Well, once a week sounds cool," Lee said.
"As long as —" June began.
"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," Hermione said in a tense voice. "Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet . . ."
This was rather more difficult, the whole group fell silent.
"Library?" Katie suggested after a few moments.
"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," Harry said, and June couldn't help but to agree.
"Maybe an unused classroom?" Dead proposed.
"Yeah," Ron said. "McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry and June were practicing for the Triwizard."
"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," Hermione said. "We'll send a message around to everybody when we've got a time and a place for the first meeting."
She rummaged in her bag and produced parchment and a quill, then hesitated, rather as though she was steeling herself to say something.
"I — I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think," she took a deep breath, "that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge or anybody else what we're up to."
Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully wrote his signature, but June noticed at once that several people looked less than happy at the prospect of putting their names on the list.
"Er . . ." Zacharias said slowly, not taking the parchment that George was trying to pass to him, "well . . . I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is."
But Ernie was looking rather hesitant about signing, too. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.
"I — well, we are prefects," Ernie burst out. "And if this list was found . . . well, I mean to say . . . you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out —"
"You just said this group was the most important thing you'd do this year," Cedric reminded him.
"I — yes," Ernie said, "yes, I do believe that, it's just —"
"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" Hermione said testily.
"No. No, of course not," Ernie said, looking slightly less anxious. "I — yes, of course I'll sign."
Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though June saw Cho's friend give her a rather reproachful look before adding her own name.
When the parchment finally came to June, she quickly wrote her signature Juniper Black under the name Mabel Longbottom. She then handed the quill and parchment to a beaming Liam.
When the last person — Zacharias — had signed, Hermione took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.
"Well, time's ticking on," Fred said briskly, getting to his feet. "George, Lee and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we'll be seeing you all later."
Sensitive nature, Juniper thought. I don't even want to know what that is.
"Tell me we're not trying to stop them," Cedric told her, as everyone started to leave.
"We can't even if we wanted to," June sighed, as she watched her friends go. "There is no stopping them."
"Hi, June!" Liam said, grinning up at her. "This is my first firm in Hogsmeade here and I promised Dennis you could give us a tour?" His sentence came out as a question at the end and June laughed.
"Sure," she said, ruffling his hair. "You want to come?" she then asked Cedric, glancing at him.
"Sure," he said, smiling. "Why not?"
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Published 10.04.2021
I hope you enjoyed it & tell me what you think of it!
Why do I feel like June and Cedric are parenting Liam lol.
Anyway, I have some big new concerning this story coming up! The announcement will be made May 5th so stay tuned for that!! :)