As I sat down at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, Fred practically tackled me to get a glimpse of my hand.
"I don't understand," he gave me a puzzled look. "You're not left-handed."
"That's the point, I suppose." I shrugged, reaching for a piece of toast.
"Have you got her today?" George questioned.
"Only for detention. But I wouldn't be surprised if she was poking around in my other classes for 'inspection'." I rolled my eyes.
"I heard she gave Trelawney heaps of trouble when she inspected Divination," Lee smirked.
"I think Trelawney getting sacked would be the least of our worries," Fred chuckled.
I elbowed him in the rib.
"Ouch! I'm kidding, El, relax!"
***
Just as I predicted, Umbridge was sitting in the corner of the Transfiguration room when I walked in.
"Excellent," whispered Ron, as we sat down. "Let's see Umbridge get what she deserves."
Professor McGonagall marched into the room and promptly began instructing Lavender Brown to hand a mouse to each student.
"Hem, hem," said Professor Umbridge.
Professor McGonagall ignored her.
"Right then, everyone, listen closely— Dean Thomas, if you do that to the mouse again I shall put you in detention— most of you have now successfully vanished your snails and even those who were left with a small amount of shell have the gist of the spell. Today we shall be—"
"Hem, hem," said Umbridge once more.
"Yes?" said McGonagall, turning round.
"I was just wondering, Professor, whether you have received my note telling you the date and time of your inspec—"
"Obviously I recieved it, or I would have asked you what you are doing in my classroom," said Professor McGonagall, turning her back to Umbridge. "As I was saying, today we shall be practicing vanishment of mice. Now, the Vanishing Spell—"
"Hem, hem."
"I wonder," said McGonagall in a cold tone, "how you expect to gain an idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to interrupt me? You see, I do not generally permit people to talk when I am talking."
At this moment I knew there was no doubt that McGonagall was my favorite teacher.
***
The glee I felt in Transfiguration lasted all the way until detention with the troll herself.
She still demanded I write with my left hand, and I returned to the common room with Harry that night with blood dripping down my wrist.
Ron and Hermione were waiting for us when we entered.
"Here," Hermione said anxiously, pushing two small bowls of yellow liquid toward us, "soak your hands in that, it's a solution of strained and pickled murtlap tentacles, it should help."
Surprisingly, the gross tentacle thing gave my aching hand a wonderful feeling of relief.
"Is it any better?" Ron asked hesitantly.
"I'm fine, Ron." I replied.
"I reckon you should still complain about this," he said in a low voice.
"No," Harry and I said in unison.
"McGonagall would go nuts if she knew—"
"Drop it, Ron. Umbridge wouldn't hesitant to sack McGonagall for questioning her 'methods'." I snapped.
Ron opened his mouth to retort but closed it again after a moment in a defeated sort of way.
"She's an awful woman," said Hermione in a small voice. "I was just saying to Ron when you came in...we've got to do something about her."
"I suggested poison," said Ron grimly.
"No...I mean something about how what a dreadful teacher she is."
"Well what can we do about that?" said Ron, yawning. "She's here to stay, Fudge'll make sure of that."
"I was thinking..." she gave me a nervous look. "I was thinking that— maybe the time's come when we should just— just do it ourselves."
"Do what ourselves?" said Harry suspiciously.
"Learn Defense Against the Dark Arts ourselves," said Hermione.
"Come off it," groaned Ron. "You want us to do extra work?"
"But this is much more important than homework!" said Hermione.
"Hermione, I'm all for it, really," I piped up. "But I don't see how we can make that happen. We can't do much ourselves. We could look up jinxes in the library, I suppose..."
"No, I agree, we've gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books. We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us how to do spells and correct us if we're going wrong." she said.
"If you're talking about Lupin..." Harry began.
"No, no, not Lupin." said Hermione.
"Who, then?" said Harry, frowning at her.
Then it hit me.
"She's talking about you, Harry!" I said.
"About me what?" he said.
"You teach us Defense Against the Dark Arts!" Hermione said exasperatedly.
"That's an idea." Ron said.
"What's an idea?" said Harry.
"You," Ron replied. "Teaching us to do it."
Harry was smiling now.
"But I'm not a teacher, I can't—"
"Harry, you're the best in our year when it comes to Defense Against the Dark Arts," Hermione said.
"Me?" said Harry, grinning more broadly than ever. "No I'm not, you've beaten me in every test—"
"I'm not talking about test results, Harry. Look what you've done!"
"How d'you mean?"
"You know what, I'm not sure I want someone this stupid teaching me," Ron said to me and Hermione, smirking slightly. He turned to Harry. "Let's think...first year— you saved the Stone from You-Know-Who."
"But that was luck," said Harry, "that wasn't skill—"
"Second year," Ron interrupted, "you killed the basilisk and destroyed Riddle."
"Yeah, but if Fawkes hadn't turned up I—"
"Third year," said Ron, louder still, "you fought off about a hundred dementers at once—"
"You know that was a fluke, if the Time-Turner hadn't—"
"Last year," Ron said, almost shouting now, "you fought off You-Know-Who again—"
"Listen to me!" said Harry, almost angrily. "It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck— I didn't know what I was doing half the time, and I nearly always had help—"
Ron, Hermione and I were still smirking. Surely Harry realized that he was far more skilled than us, luck or not?
"Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. "I got through it all because— because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right— but I didn't have a clue what I was doing— STOP LAUGHING!"
The bowl of Hermione's tentacle liquid fell to the floor and smashed as Harry shot up. The smile faded from my face.
"You don't know what it's like! You've never had to face him, have you? The whole time you know there's nothing between you and dying except your own— your own brain or guts or whatever— like you can think straight when you know you're about a second from being murdered, or tortured, or watching your friends die— and you three sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid— you just don't get it."
"We weren't saying anything like that, mate," said Ron, looking aghast.
"Harry," Hermione said timidly, "don't you see? We need to know what it's r-really like...facing him...facing V-Voldemort."
Harry sank back into his chair, breathing hard.
"Think about it," said Hermione quietly. "Please?"
He nodded. Hermione stood up.
"I'm off to bed. Erm...'night."
Ron got to his feet too.
"Coming?" he said awkwardly to Harry.
"Yeah," said Harry. "In...in a minute. I'll just clean this up." He indicated the smashed bowl on the floor from when he knocked over Hermione's tentacle liquid.
"Ella?" Ron said. "Coming?"
"Yeah, in a minute."
Ron nodded and left.
"Reparo," Harry muttered, pointing his wand at the broken bowl.
"We didn't mean to upset you," I said in almost a whisper.
Harry said nothing.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all that. We didn't mean to make it seem like it was all fun and games..." I continued, seeing as Harry was not keen on speaking any time soon. "You've been through hell and back, Harry. I guess we just don't understand. But we want to, and I can speak for all three of us when I say that."
After a minute of silence, Harry spoke.
"You're fine, Ella. I know you didn't mean any harm."
"You can talk about it if you want."
"Talk about what?" Harry asked.
"All of it. That's what's making you so irritable, isn't it? You've kept all this inside for the last year. That's not good, Harry. Of course, you don't have to talk about it. But I can always lend an ear if you want to." I rambled on.
There was another stretch of silence.
"Thanks, Ella." he stood up. "I think I should get to bed."
I nodded. But before he could hurry up the stairs, I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought him into a tight hug. I figured he needed it.
"Goodnight, Harry."
"Goodnight, Ella."