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OCTOBER 31ST. First Hogsmeade trip of the year and Ebony enters the Great Hall that morning to meet up with her friends only to be met by Fred who stands alone as if he was waiting for something.
"Good morning, darling." He says with a smile on his face. "Since this is our first Hogsmeade trip, I want to spend it together." Ebony looks around the hall suspiciously, knowing her boyfriend very well. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for some extravagant and dramatic thing that you did to ask me out."
"I did not, in fact, I was told off by Professor McGonagall when she saw me try." Fred replies with a smirk. "Do not worry."
"Alright, yes I will go out with you--" Just then a loud BOOM comes from the back of the hall and big letters appear on the wall with the text: 'Fred and Ebony's perfect Hogsmeade date!'
"You are unbelievable."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Believe me, sweetheart, it was." Fred states and kisses her cheek.
***
FRED STEPS OUT OF THE CARRIAGE FIRST, and turns around to help Ebony step out as well as if she was some princess that needed a hand to get out. They decide to leave the station and walk down towards the village.
"Where did you want to go to first?"
"Didn't you ask me out?" Ebony asks back with a smirk. "Aren't you supposed to know where you'll take me?"
"I want you to go wherever you want to go. We can talk about me later." It was very sweet of him. Ebony knew he'd love to visit Zonko's or Honeydukes but she also knew how busy they were now.
"Gladrag's Wizardwear is always a fun visit." Ebony suggests.
"Right, I somehow always forget where that shop is." Fred replies.
"I'll show you." She takes his hand in hers and drags him towards the shop which she had found somewhere in their third year. She didn't exactly remember how she stumbled across it but she was grateful she did.
They enter the shop and are immediately overwhelmed with the smell of firewood and chocolate. It feels like a cozy winter night the moment they stepped inside the cute shop.
"Oh! They have a new collection of winter socks that keep your feet warm!" Ebony says and looks at the bunch. Fred smiles at her and shakes his head. He couldn't understand how she loved socks so much but it made him happy. "Do you want some too?"
"I'm good--" But she had already taken five pairs and walked to the cashier. He chuckles to himself and waits for her before they leave the shop.
"I got myself three pair in green, yellow and brown and I got you two. One in yellow and the other in red."
"You didn't have to."
Ebony knew she didn't have to but she did know his family struggled a lot with money. She had heard Molly and the twins talk over summer where she said that she gave more galleons to Ron and Ginny for their Hogsmeade trips so it wouldn't be obvious to them that they were struggling. She didn't want to panic them or make them feel bad.
Besides, Ebony loved buying her boyfriend some nice presents. . . especially since her family was known to be very wealthy. It was pure luck because in the end of the day, you cannot choose in which family you're born or in which family you grow up. She knows that too.
"By the way, did you remember the message Hermione send everyone at breakfast after you asked me on a date?" Ebony asks and looks at her boyfriend. We are expected to meet her about now."
"Oh yeah, I remember that."
So, the two of them walk down towards the Hog's Head and watched as many different students walk inside. Both Fred and Ebony follow the group and enter the building. It is absolutely packed but it didn't matter, not to them at least.
"Hi," Fred says, reaching the bar first and counting his companions quickly, "could we have... twenty-five Butterbeers, please?"
The bar man looks rather annoyed with his request and throws the rag down before he went and made some of the drinks.
"Cheers," Fred says, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these... "
Everyone soon sat down on the chairs that had been scattered around. Fred and Ebony hold each other's hand to make it seem as if they still are on some sort of date even though they are currently waiting for someone to speak.
"Er," Hermione says, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well - er - hi."
"Well... erm... well, you know why you're here. Erm... well, Harry here had the idea - I mean, I had the idea - that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts - and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us -- because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts -"
"Hear, hear," Anthony Goldstein says, and Hermione looked heartened.
"- Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands."She pauses, looks sideways at Harry, and goes 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 your Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?" Michael Corner says, who is watching her closely.
"Of course I do," Hermione says at once. "But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defense because... because... " she takes a great breath and finishes, "because Lord Voldemort is back."
The reaction is immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieks and slops Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gives a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shudders, and Neville gives an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, look fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.
"Well... that's the plan, anyway" Hermione says. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to -"
"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" the blond Hufflepuff player says in a rather aggressive voice.
"Well, Dumbledore believes it -" Hermione begins.
"You mean, Dumbledore believes him," the blond boy says, nodding at Harry.
"Who are you?" Ron asks, rather rudely.
"Zacharias Smith," the boy replied, "and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back."
"Look," Hermione says, intervening swiftly, "that's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about -"
"It's okay, Hermione," Harry says. "What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?" he repeats, 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."
Zacharias says dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know -"
Ebony looks down, Fred squeezes her hand. She did not come to hear about her dead brother and especially not because of some idiot like that.
"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you," Harry says. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."
"I'm just saying Cedric Diggory--"
"If you mutter his name one more time, I'll murder you right here right now." Ebony replies loud enough for the whole bar to hear.
"You let a Slytherin into a meeting?" Zacharias asks, pointing at her. "She is the one we're supposed to be looking out for or did you forget her father was--"
"Sirius Black, indeed." Ebony replies with a smirk. "An ex-prisoner of Azkaban, a mass murderer, first and only to ever escape, incredibly dangerous. Yes, I am." She states with a fake smile. "Once again, I could murder you. Like father, like daughter am I right?"
"So," Hermione breathes out, her voice very high-pitched again. "So... like I was saying... if you want to learn some defense, 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," interrupts the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?"There is a murmur of interest around the group at this.
"Yeah," Harry says slightly defensively.
"A corporeal Patronus?"
"Er - you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" he asks. The girl smiles.
"She's my auntie," she says. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So - is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"
"Yes," Harry says.
"Blimey, Harry!" Lee states, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"
"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," Fred says, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."
"She's not wrong," mumbles Harry, and a couple of people laughed. The veiled witch sitting alone shifted very slightly in her seat.
"And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demands Terry Boot. "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 replies.
Justin Finch-Fletchley whistles; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said "Wow!" softly.
"And in our first year," Neville says to the group at large, "he saved that Sorcerous Stone -"
"Sorcerer's," hisses Hermione.
"Yes, that - from You-Know-Who," finishes Neville.
"And that's not to mention," Cho says. "all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and things... "
"Look," Harry says, and everyone falls silent at once, "I... I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but... I had a lot of help with all that stuff... "
"Not with the dragon, you didn't," Michael Corner says at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying... "
"Yeah, well -" Harry continues.
"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer," Susan Bones says.
"No," says Harry, "no, okay, 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 asks.
"Here's an idea," Ron says loudly, before Harry could speak, "why don't you shut your mouth?"
"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," Zacharias continues.
"That's not what he said," snarls Fred.
"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" enquires George, 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 says. Ebony slaps him playfully but does her best to hide her chuckle behind her hand which makes Fred smile at her.
"Yes, well," Hermione continues hastily, "moving on... the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"
There is a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folds his arms and said nothing, though perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in George's hand.
"Right," Hermione says, 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," Angelina says, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."
"No," adds Cho, "nor with ours."
"Nor ours," says Zacharias Smith.
"Nor mine!" Ebony says smirking. "What? I wanted to add on that, I'm also Captain." She states and crosses her arms over her chest.
"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," says Hermione, slightly impatiently, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against Voldemort's Death Eaters -"
"Well said!" barks Ernie Macmillan. "Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our OWLs coming up!"He looks 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 defensive spells -"
"We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts," replies Hermione, "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 looks stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up,
"Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."
"What?" Harry asks.
"Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths," says Luna so lemnly.
"No, he hasn't," snaps Hermione.
"Hem, hem," says Ginny, 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 defense lessons?"
"Yes," Hermione says at once, "yes, we were, you're right, Ginny."
"Well, once a week sounds cool," Lee says.
"As long as -" begins Angelina.
"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," Hermione replies 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?" suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.
"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," said Harry.
"Maybe an unused classroom?" said Dean. "
Yeah," said Ron, "McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard."
"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," said Hermione. "We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and a place for the first meeting."
"I - I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think," she takes 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 reaches out for the parchment and cheerfully wrote his signature, but Harry notices at once that several people looked less than happy at the prospect of putting their names on the list.
"Er... " says Zacharias 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," Harry reminded him.
"I - yes," said Ernie, "yes, I do believe that, it ' s just -"
"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" said Hermione testily.
"No. No, of course not," said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious. "I - yes, of course I'll sign."
"Well, time's ticking on," Fred says briskly, getting to his feet. "Ebs and I have a date to continue. See you later!"
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Written: 06/06/2023
Word Count: 2682