Keefe
Keefe had to act soon. They were waiting until Christmas, when humans would assume any flying objects were a prank, toy or gimmick to sell things. Until then, he was waiting, watching and trying to broadcast his thoughts across the air into Sophie's mind.
Sophie
Sophie hated Umbridge. Her ill fated 'inspections' were just her sitting in a corner and making it impossible to teach or learn with her nosy, crazy questions. Sophie's skin was constantly itching, and she smelled trouble.
They needed a club, a secret club to teach them the things they weren't supposed to learn. The ministry thought Dumbledore was building an army?
Well then, they would have to build one, then. She hurried into the common room, where Ron and Hermione were talking to Harry in hushed tones.
Hermione said, "We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us new spells and correct us when we're wrong."
Sophie sat down next to her. "I agree. We need to act. Who do you have in mind, Hermione?"
"You and Harry. You can teach what you know, and Harry can teach us based on his encounters with Voldemort!"
Sophie was shocked. "I agree that Harry should teach, but I don't know why you would choose me!"
Hermione scowled at her. "Yes, yes you do. You act somewhat normal, but you have a lot of secrets.
There are criminals wherever you come from too, and I think you have a lot of experience defeating them."
Sophie sighed, and nodded slightly. "I'll teach. I have some ideas already, actually."
Harry shivered. "I don't think I'd be a very good teacher," he said, then he got up and left.
The next two weeks passed. Sophie picked the brightest, most Umbridge hating kids, the ones who trusted Harry, and invited them to The Three Broomsticks for a meeting.
Hermione had wanted to go to the Hog's Head, a rather small inn, but Sophie had convinced her that the bigger and noisier their meeting place was, the less likely they were to be overheard.
Sophie already had so many ideas for lessons. Teaching people how to throw off the Imperius Curse, for one. Sophie couldn't be controlled at all, she assumed from what she knew of her mind.
It was the night before the meeting, and Sophie was wandering around the castle when she found an old door. She opened it, and found a room with jungle tendrils everywhere. She was at peace there.
She stepped forward and stumbled over an old, battered feather hat. A diadem. It was pulsing with dark energy. She hated it. It crumbled to dust before her eyes, letting out a wail that quickly dissipated. Her eyes were drawn to the front of the room.
Somehow, her tiara-thing had left her pocket and reappeared in the center of the room. The opal had changed, somehow. It was switching colors and patterns mesmerizingly. Sophie walked forward slowly.
A song hummed, sinking under her skin. She reached the pedestal, stretched her hand out to pick the changed crown up, and settled it on her head.
The music changed suddenly, then faded away. If she concentrated, she could hear it. But her ears and nose were distracted by the leaves brushing against each other and the otherworldly smell of magic.
Wait. Her ears and nose weren't that good. She swished her tails, trying to think of what was wrong. Tails. She had turned into a fox.
She ran to the river, her eyes closed, and cut her paw on a piece of rubble before she was halfway there. She was so annoyed with the injury. She knew that foxes were no good with first aid, but at least she could clean it before turning back into a human and wrapping it... but she didn't want to lick her cut.
A slightly different song caught her ears. What if... Sophie twitched one of her tails, and a tendril of water rose from the river and healed her paw.
How? She would have to find out later. She left the room, and the door disappeared. She turned into a mouse, then an owl, landing in the empty commonroom and switching back to normal. She sat in one of the chairs, thinking.
She quickly realized that her crown was still on her head, and she studied it thoughtfully before putting it away in her pocket. What was that feather diadem full of malevolence? Why was it there?
She slowly fell into a dreamless sleep, which was broken a few hours later, when the sun peeked over the horizon, and the answer to the mystery of the diadem was clear.
Harry
Harry walked down the streets of Hogsmead. Hermione was conferring with Sophie in sign language next to them. They soon ended their conversation.
"We're going to the Three Broomsticks. More noise means less chance of being overheard, and even if we are, we can play dumb. Say they misheard what we had said. We were studying the ministry approved DADA book so we could get ahead in class."
Hermione continued, "We instructed the others to get there in twos and threes, going with people they usually hang out with so they don't draw suspicion. We'll sit at one of the larger tables and talk in our normal voices. That way, we can hide in plain sight."
Their little group entered the busy pub, and Harry instantly saw the wisdom of Sophie's words. Anybody could have a secret conversation without even whispering. There was a large table in an especially noisy part of the room, where a large group of students was waiting.
Neville, Dean and Lavender were laughing about something, Cho and one of her friends were giggling, and Luna Lovegood was chatting airily towards Katie, Alicia and Angelina. Parvati and Padma were talking to each other animatedly.
Ernie and Justin were there too, plus a smiling Hufflepuff girl whose name Harry didn't know and three Ravenclaw boys he was only halfway sure were called Anthony, Michael and Terry.
Ginny and the twins Fred and George were there, with Lee Jordan and a player on the Hufflepuff quidditch team arguing about broomstick regulations. They all went quiet when Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sophie took seats at the table.
"Why's she here?" Ernie said.
Hermione replied stiffly, "She's going to be one of the teachers."
Katie cut in suddenly, "I thought Harry was going to teach us."
For the first time that evening, Sophie spoke to the table at large. "Have you fended off a group of attackers with a spell cast on you to attack your mind, all the bones in your hand broken into unrecognizable shards and three unconscious friends to worry about?
Have you ever been kidnapped?
Tortured?
How many battles have you been in?
How many times have you rescued your friends?
How many times have you been broken and battered to the point where you were on the knife edge of death and then come back better than ever?
Almost fifteen times?
Because all that, and more has happened to me, and I'm still here.
If any of you have the same credentials, you could be a teacher too."
Everyone at the table looked even more stunned than Harry was. Sophie had told them more about her past, and from the sounds of it, she had been through even more than Harry. It was a wonder she had survived.
"So," Sophie said, as if her outburst hadn't happened.
"We called you here today because we need to teach ourselves true defense. Not only to pass our O.W.L.s, but because Voldemort's back.
I have experience with truly evil people, people like him. We need to learn from that experience.
But we also need to learn Voldemort's weaknesses, and who better to teach us of them than Harry?" That was met with a cheer from some of the Gryffindors.
But, the blonde boy, who identified himself as Zacharias Smith, said nastily, "How do you know he's back?"
Harry felt his blood boil. Sophie looked at him pointedly, and he calmed down a bit before saying cooly, "I saw him. I'm not going to talk about what happened, though."
When several people made noises of disapproval, Sophie said, "There are plenty of things that happen in wars like this.
Sometimes, the details are best left forgotten. Yes," she said in response to the incredulous looks she was getting. "I called it a war.
That's what it is. There's no sense tiptoeing around it."
The other kids there began asking Harry about his adventures, and he began to get flustered. He quickly began brushing their flattery off him, and Sophie rescued him.
"Harry's being modest, yes, but he's also right. I've resisted torture, but my friends had to rescue me.
No one person can win a war, it's a team effort.
And that's one of the reasons evil people lose."
Ginny asked, "Why would Fudge give us such a useless teacher?"
Hermione replied tartly, "Fudge thinks Dumbledore's building an army."
Sophie smiled wickedly. "So, we have to build an army. We can meet once a week, in the Room of Requirement."
At the odd looks from half the group, she said, "That hidden door in the seventh floor across from Barnabus the Barmy? I could make it so that Umbridge can't get in. We can meet at night."
Hermione smiled, then pulled out a piece of parchment. "We should all write our names down, so we know who was here.
But, signing this is also a promise to not tell anyone, especially Umbridge what we're doing."
Sophie looked thoughtful, and muttered, "I might have a jinx that will help with that..."
Everyone signed, then the group split into smaller clusters and walked off to enjoy the Hogsmead weekend.
Do you ever reread something expecting it to be complete trash then realize it's somewhat decent?