As Rory reached detention she wasn't happy to find Harry there as well.
"What the hell Harry" She snapped.
"Rory what are you doing here"
"Detention I got two weeks worth not one now I thought you was meant to avoid getting more"
"I'm sorry I slipped up" He says as he knocks the door. The detention went the same way as all the others with Harry being allowed to leave a couple of hours before Rory. The cut on the back of her hand was now refusing to heal.
The following day Harry had left detention at the same time as Rory. It was nearly midnight when they entered the Gryffindor common room, the bandage Rory had placed on Harry's hand had nearly soaked threw with the blood as she kept her own hand in her pocket. They expected the common room to be empty when they returned, but found Ron and Hermione had sat up waiting for Harry.
"Here," Hermione said anxiously, pushing a small bowl of yellow liquid toward Harry as Rory started heading to her dorm, "soak your hand in that, it's a solution of strained and pickled murtlap tentacles, it should help. Wait Rory you too" Harry placed his bleeding hand.
"I'm fine Hermione I'm just going to head to bed"
"Rory it'll help I promise" Harry said.
"It's fine Harry, It doesn't really hurt that bad"
"That's definitely a lie" Euphemia says looking at the screen.
Rory headed up to her dorm and into the bathroom to wash some of the blood from her hand. The words 'I am an abomination of nature and I need to respect the Ministry' now permanently scarred on the back of her hand.
"Oh my god. Rory that's so much worse than Harry's" Ron looks shocked.
"Why do you think I hid it"
Crookshanks curled around Harry's legs, purring loudly, and then leapt into his lap and settled down.
"Thanks" he said gratefully to Hermione, scratching behind Crookshanks's ears with his left hand.
"I still reckon you should complain about this" Ron said in a low voice.
"No" Harry said flatly.
"Oh look you're both stubborn idiots" George says looking between Rory and Harry.
"McGonagall would go nuts if she knew"
"Yeah, she probably would" Harry said. "And how long d'you reckon it'd take Umbridge to pass another Decree saying anyone who complains about the High Inquisitor gets sacked immediately?" Ron opened his mouth to retort but nothing came out and after a moment he closed it again in a defeated sort of way.
"She's an awful woman" Hermione said in a small voice. "Awful. You know, I was just saying to Ron when you came in we've got to do something about her."
"I suggested poison" Ron said grimly.
"I agree with Ron" Rory mutters making Charlie laugh slightly.
"No I mean, something about what a dreadful teacher she is, and how we're not going to learn any defence from her at all"
"Well, what can we do about that?" Ron said, yawning. " 'S too late, isn't it? She got the job, she's here to stay, Fudge'll make sure of that."
"Well" Hermione said tentatively. "You know, I was thinking today" She shot a slightly nervous look at Harry and then plunged on, "I was thinking that maybe the time's come when we should just just do it ourselves"
"Do what ourselves?" Harry said suspiciously, still floating his hand in the essence of murtlap tentacles.
"Well learn Defence Against the Dark Arts ourselves"
"Come off it" groaned Ron. "You want us to do extra work? D'you realize Harry and I are behind on homework again and it's only the second week?"
"But this is much more important than homework!" Hermione said. Harry and Ron goggled at her.
"I didn't think there was anything in the universe more important than homework" Ron said.
"I'm shocked at that as well" George says smirking at Ron.
"Don't be silly, of course there is! It's about preparing ourselves, like Harry said in Umbridge's first lesson, for what's waiting out there. It's about making sure we really can defend ourselves. If we don't learn anything for a whole year"
"We can't do much by ourselves" Ron said in a defeated voice. "I mean, all right, we can go and look jinxes up in the library and try and practice them, I suppose"
"No, I agree, we've gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books" Hermione said. "We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us how to use the spells and correct us if we're going wrong"
"If you're talking about Lupin" Harry began.
"No, no, I'm not talking about Lupin. He's too busy with the Order and anyway, the most we could see him is during Hogsmeade weekends and that's not nearly often enough"
"Who, then?" Harry said, frowning at her. Hermione heaved a very deep sigh.
"Isn't it obvious?" she said. "I'm talking about you, Harry."
"How is a 15 year old supposed to teach a class" Snape snarls.
"Hello young Grease Bat" George says smirking across the room before Rory hold her hand up to him which he returns giving her a high five.
There was a moment's silence. A light night breeze rattled the windowpanes behind Ron and the fire guttered.
"About me what?" Harry said.
"I'm talking about you teaching us Defence Against the Dark Arts" Harry stared at her. Then he turned to Ron, ready to exchange the exasperated looks they sometimes shared when Hermione elaborated on far-fetched schemes like S.P.E.W. To Harry's consternation, however, Ron did not look exasperated. He was frowning slightly, apparently thinking. Then he said,
"That's an idea"
"What's an idea?" Harry said.
"You. Teaching us to do it"
"But" Harry was grinning now, sure the pair of them were pulling his leg. "But I'm not a teacher, I can't"
"Harry, you're the best in the year at Defence Against the Dark Arts" Hermione said.
"Me? No I'm not, you've beaten me in every test"
"Actually, I haven't" Hermione said coolly. "You beat me in our third year the only year we both sat the test and had a teacher who actually knew the subject. But 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 Hermione, smirking slightly. He turned to Harry. "Let's think" he said, pulling a face like Goyle concentrating. "Uh 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"
"Last year" Ron said, almost shouting now, "you fought off You-Know-Who again"
"Listen to me!" Harry said, almost angrily, because Ron and Hermione were both smirking now. "Just listen to me, all right? 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, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help" Ron and Hermione were still smirking "Don't sit there grinning like you know better than I do, I was there, wasn't I?" he said heatedly. "I know what went on, all right? And I didn't get through any of that because I was brilliant at Defence Against the Dark Arts, I got through it all because because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right but I just blundered through it all, I didn't have a clue what I was doing STOP LAUGHING!" The bowl of murtlap essence fell to the floor and smashed. He became aware that he was on his feet, though he couldn't remember standing up. Crookshanks streaked away under a sofa; Ron and Hermione's smiles had vanished. "You don't know what it's like! You neither of you you've never had to face him, have you? You think it's just memorizing a bunch of spells and throwing them at him, like you're in class or something? 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 they've never taught us that in their classes, what it's like to deal with things like that and you two sit there acting like I'm a clever little boy to be standing here, alive, like Diggory was stupid, like he messed up you just don't get it, that could just as easily have been me or Rory, it would have been if Voldemort hadn't needed me"
"That was a very long list of reasons not to do it" Lily says looking at Harry.
"We weren't saying anything like that, mate" Ron said, looking aghast. "We weren't having a go at Diggory, we didn't you've got the wrong end of the" He looked helplessly at Hermione, whose face was stricken.
"Harry" she said timidly, "don't you see? This this is exactly why we need you. We need to know what it's r-really like facing him facing V-Voldemort. Well think about it" Hermione said quietly. "Please?" Hermione stood up. "Well, I'm off to bed" she said in a voice that was clearly as natural as she could make it. "Erm 'night." Ron had gotten to his feet too.
"Coming?" he said awkwardly to Harry.
"Yeah" Harry said. "In in a minute. I'll just clear this up." He indicated the smashed bowl on the floor. Ron nodded and left. "Reparo" Harry muttered, pointing his wand at the broken pieces of china. They flew back together, good as new, but there was no returning the murtlap essence to the bowl.
"Glad that's over" Marlene said smiling slightly.
As the final detention arrived Rory was glad to have it over finally. Harry had finished his last detention an hour before Rory.
"Hand" She held her hand out for Umbridge as she grabbed it in hers. "It looks to me as if the message has finally sunk in. Very good. You may go" Rory grabbed her bag and left the office wrapping her hand with a bandage, the blood soaked threw within seconds.
Rory looked down playing with Charlies hand in hers whilst looking at the scar on hers.