When Harry, Rowan, Hermione, Ron and I entered the Gryffindor common room on Monday morning, we saw something odd.
A large sign had been affixed to the Gryffindor notice board, so large that it covered everything else on there — the lists of secondhand spellbooks for sale, the regular reminders of school rules from Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training schedule, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog cards for others, the Fred and George's new advertisement for testers, the dates of the Hogsmeade weekends, and the lost-and-found notices. The new sign was printed in large black letters and there was a highly official-looking seal at the bottom beside a neat and curly signature.
— by order of—
THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS
All Student Organisations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded.
An Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.
Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).
No Student Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.
Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organisation, Society, Team, Group, or Club that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.
The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.
Signed:
Dolores Umbridge
High Inquisitor
We read the notice over the heads of some anxious- looking second years.
"Does this mean they're going to shut down the Gobstones Club?" one of them asked his friend.
"I reckon you'll be okay with Gobstones," Ron said darkly, making the second year jump.
"I don't think we're going to be as lucky, though, do you?" he asked Harry, Rowan and me as the second years hurried away.
I was reading the notice through again. The happiness that had filled me since Saturday was gone. My insides were pulsing with rage.
"This isn't a coincidence," I said, my hands forming fists. "She knows."
"She can't," said Ron at once.
"There were people listening in that pub. And let's face it, we don't know how many of the people who turned up we can trust... Any of them could have run off and told Umbridge..."
And I had thought they believed Harry and me, thought they even admired us...
"Zacharias Smith!" said Rowan at once, punching a fist into his hand.
"I thought that Michael Corner had a really shifty look too —" Ron said. "Someone must have blabbed to her!" he added angrily.
"They can't have done," said Hermione in a low voice.
"You're so naive," said Ron, "you think just because you're all honourable and trustworthy —"
"No, they can't have done because I put a jinx on that piece of parchment we all signed," said Hermione grimly. "Believe me, if anyone's run off and told Umbridge, we'll know exactly who they are and they will really regret it."
"What'll happen to them?" said Ron eagerly.
"Well, put it this way," said Hermione, "it'll make Eloise Midgen's acne look like a couple of cute freckles. Come on, let's get down to breakfast and see what the others think... I wonder whether this has been put up in all the Houses?"
It was immediately apparent on entering the Great Hall that Umbridge's sign had not only appeared in Gryffindor Tower. There was a peculiar intensity about the chatter and an extra measure of movement in the Hall as people scurried up and down their tables conferring on what they had read. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Rowana and I had barely taken our seats when Neville, Dean, Fred, George, and Ginny descended upon us.
"Did you see it?"
"D'you reckon she knows?"
"What are we going to do?"
They were all looking at Harry and me. We glanced around to make sure there were no teachers near us.
"We're going to do it anyway, of course," Harry and I said quietly together.
"Knew you'd say that," said George, beaming, thumping Harry on the arm and giving me a kiss on the cheek.
"The prefects as well?" said Fred, looking quizzically at Ron and Hermione.
"Of course," said Hermione coolly.
"Here comes Ernie and Hannah Abbott," said Ron, looking over his shoulder. "And those Ravenclaw blokes and Smith... and no one looks very spotty." Hermione looked alarmed.
"Never mind spots, the idiots can't come over here now, it'll look really suspicious — sit down!" she mouthed to Ernie and Hannah, gesturing frantically to them to rejoin the Hufflepuff table. "Later! We'll — talk — to — you — later!"
"I'll tell Michael," said Ginny impatiently, swinging herself off her bench. "The fool, honestly..." She hurried off toward the Ravenclaw table.
But the full repercussions of the sign were not felt until they were leaving the Great Hall for History of Magic.
"Harry! Liana! Ron!"
It was Angelina and she was hurrying toward us looking perfectly desperate.
"It's okay," said Harry quietly, when she was near enough to hear him. "We're still going to —"
"You realise she's including Quidditch in this?" Angelina said over him. "We have to go and ask permission to re-form the Gryffindor team!"
"What?" said Harry and I.
"No way," said Ron, appalled.
"You read the sign, it mentions teams too! So listen, Harry, Liana... I am saying this for the last time... Please, please don't lose your tempers with Umbridge again or she might not let us play anymore!"
"Okay, okay," I said, for Angelina looked as though she was on the verge of tears. "Don't worry, we'll behave ourselves..."
"Bet Umbridge is in History of Magic," said Rowan grimly, as we set off for Binns's lesson. "She hasn't inspected Binns yet... Bet you anything she's there..."
But he was wrong; the only teacher present when we entered was Professor Binns, floating an inch or so above his chair as usual and preparing to continue his monotonous drone on giant wars. I did not even attempt to follow what he was saying today; I doodled idly on my parchment ignoring Hermione's frequent glares and nudges, until a particularly painful poke in the ribs made me look up angrily.
"What?"
She pointed at the window. Harry and I looked around. Hedwig was perched on the narrow window ledge, gazing through the thick glass at him, a letter tied to her leg. I could not understand it; we had just had breakfast, why on earth hadn't she delivered the letter then, as usual? Many of our classmates were pointing out Hedwig to each other too.
"Oh, I've always loved that owl, she's so beautiful," I heard Lavender sigh to Parvati.
I glanced around at Professor Binns who continued to read his notes, serenely unaware that the class's attention was even less focused upon him than usual. Harry and I slipped quietly off our chairs, crouched down, and hurried along the row to the window, where I slid the catch and opened it very slowly.
I had expected Hedwig to hold out her leg so that we could remove the letter and then fly off to the Owlery, but the moment the window was open wide enough she hopped inside, hooting dolefully. I closed the window with an anxious glance at Professor Binns, crouched low again, and we sped back to our seats, Harry with Hedwig on his shoulder. We regained our seats, Harry transferred Hedwig to his lap, and made to remove the letter tied to her leg.
It was only then that I realised that Hedwig's feathers were oddly ruffled; some were bent the wrong way, and she was holding one of her wings at an odd angle.
"She's hurt!" Harry whispered, bending his head low over her. Hermione, Rowan and Ron leaned in closer; Hermione even put down her quill.
"Look — there's something wrong with her wing —"
Hedwig was quivering; when Harry made to touch the wing she gave a little jump, all her feathers on end as though she was inflating herself, and gazed at him reproachfully.
"Professor Binns," said Harry loudly, and everyone in the class turned to look at him. "I'm not feeling well."
Professor Binns raised his eyes from his notes, looking amazed, as always, to find the room in front of him full of people.
"Not feeling well?" he repeated hazily.
"Not at all well," said Harry firmly, getting to his feet while concealing Hedwig behind his back. "So I think I'll need to go to the hospital wing."
"Yes," said Professor Binns, clearly very much wrong-footed. "Yes... yes, hospital wing... well, off you go, then, Perkins..."
Harry slipped out of the classroom, Hedwig still concealed behind his back.
"I hope she's okay," I whispered to Rowan, Ron and Hermione, who all wore worried looks on their faces.
"Is Hedwig okay?" asked Hermione anxiously, as we saw Harry approach us after the lesson. I noticed he didn't have Hedwig with him.
"Where did you take her?" I asked.
"To Grubbly-Plank," said Harry. "And I met McGonagall... Listen..."
He told us that Professor McGonagall had warned him that all communication in and out of Hogwarts was being watched and that he should be careful.
Rowan, Ron, Hermione and I exchanged significant looks.
"What?" said Harry, looking from Ron to Rowan to Hermione to me and back again.
"Well, I was just saying to Ron, Liana and Rowan... what if someone had tried to intercept Hedwig? I mean, she's never been hurt on a flight before, has she?" Hermione said.
"Who's the letter from anyway?" asked Rowan, taking the note from Harry.
"Snuffles," said Harry quietly.
" 'Same time, same place'? Does he mean the fire in the common room?"
"Obviously," said Hermione, also reading the note. She looked uneasy. "I just hope nobody else has read this..."
"But it was still sealed and everything," said Harry, trying to convince himself as much as her. "And nobody would understand what it meant if they didn't know where we'd spoken to him before, would they?"
"I don't know," said Hermione anxiously, hitching her bag back over her shoulder as the bell rang again. "It wouldn't be exactly difficult to reseal the scroll by magic... And if anyone's watching the Floo Network... but I don't really see how we can warn him not to come without that being intercepted too!"
We trudged down the stone steps to the dungeons for Potions, all five of us lost in thought, but as we reached the bottom of the stairs we were recalled to themselves by the voice of Draco Malfoy, who was standing just outside Professor Snape's classroom door, waving around an official-looking piece of parchment and talking much louder than was necessary so that we could hear every word.
"Yeah, Umbridge gave the Slytherin Quidditch team permission to continue playing straightaway, I went to ask her first thing this morning. Well, it was pretty much automatic, I mean, she knows my father really well, he's always popping in and out of the Ministry... It'll be interesting to see whether Gryffindor are allowed to keep playing, wont it?"
"Don't rise," Hermione whispered imploringly to Harry, Ron and me. We were watching Malfoy, faces set and fists clenched.
"It's what he wants..."
"I mean," said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his grey eyes glittering malevolently in Harry's, Ron's and my direction, "if it's a question of influence with the Ministry, I don't think they've got much chance... From what my father says, they've been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years... And as for the Potters... My father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has them carted off to St. Mungo's... apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic..."
Malfoy made a grotesque face, his mouth sagging open and his eyes rolling. Crabbe and Goyle gave their usual grunts of laughter, Pansy Parkinson shrieked with glee. Something collided hard with my shoulder, knocking me sideways. A split second later I realised that Neville had just charged past me, heading straight for Malfoy.
"Neville, no!" I said.
Harry leapt forward and seized the back of Neville's robes; Neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at Malfoy who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.
"Help me!" Harry flung at Ron and Rowan, managing to get his arm around Neville's neck and dragging him backward, away from the Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle were now flexing their arms, closing in front of Malfoy, ready for the fight. Ron and Rowan hurried forward and seized Neville's arms; together, he, Harry and Rowan succeeded in dragging Neville back into the Gryffindor line. Neville's face was scarlet; the pressure Harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words spluttered from his mouth.
"Not... funny... don't... Mungo's... show... him..."
The dungeon door opened. Professor Snape appeared there. His black eyes swept up the Gryffindor line to the point where Harry, Rowan and Ron were wrestling with Neville.
"Fighting, Potter, Van Beek, Weasley, Longbottom?" Professor Snape said in his cold, sneering voice. "Ten points from Gryffindor. Release Longbottom, Potter, or it will be detention. Inside, all of you."
Harry let go of Neville, who stood panting and glaring at him.
"I had to stop you," Harry gasped, picking up his bag. "Crabbe and Goyle would've torn you apart."
Neville said nothing, he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.
"What in the name of Merlin," said Ron slowly, as we followed Neville, "was that about?"
Harry and I did not answer. We knew exactly why the subject of people who were in St. Mungo's because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to Neville, but we had sworn to Dumbledore that we would not tell anyone Neville's secret. Even Neville did not know that Harry and I knew.
Harry, Ron, Rowan, Hermione and I took our usual seats at the back of the class and pulled out parchment, quills, and our copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. The class around them was whispering about what Neville had just done, but when Snape closed the dungeon door with an echoing bang everybody fell silent immediately.
"You will notice," said Snape in his low, sneering voice, "that we have a guest with us today."
He gestured toward the dim corner of the dungeon, and I saw Professor Umbridge sitting there, clipboard on her knee. I glanced sideways at Ron, Harry, Rowan and Hermione, my eyebrows raised.
"We are continuing with our Strengthening Solutions today, you will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson, if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend — instructions" — he waved his wand again — "on the board. Carry on."
Professor Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner. Harry was very interested in hearing her question Professor Snape, so interested, that he was becoming careless with his potion again.
"Salamander blood, Harry!" I moaned, grabbing his wrist to prevent him adding the wrong ingredient for the third time. "Not pomegranate juice!"
"Right," said Harry vaguely, putting down the bottle and continuing to watch the corner. Umbridge had just gotten to her feet. "Ha," he said softly, as she strode between two lines of desks toward Professor Snape, who was bending over Dean Thomas's cauldron.
"Well, the class seems fairly advanced for their level," she said briskly to Professor Snape's back. "Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus."
Professor Snape straightened up slowly and turned to look at her.
"Now... how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard.
"Fourteen years," Snape replied. His expression was unfathomable. My eyes on Professor Snape, I added a few drops to my potion; it hissed menacingly and turned from turquoise to orange.
"You applied first for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?" Professor Umbridge asked Professor Snape.
"Yes," said Snape quietly.
"But you were unsuccessful?"
Professor Snape's lip curled.
"Obviously."
Professor Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.
"And you have applied regularly for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post since you first joined the school, I believe?"
"Yes," said Professor Snape quietly, barely moving his lips. He looked very angry.
"Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?" asked Umbridge.
"I suggest you ask him," said Professor Snape jerkily.
"Oh I shall," said Professor Umbridge with a sweet smile.
"I suppose this is relevant?" Professor Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed.
"Oh yes," said Professor Umbridge. "Yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers' — er — backgrounds..."
She turned away, walked over to Pansy Parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons. Professor Snape looked around at me and our eyes met for a second. I hastily dropped my gaze to my potion.
"No marks again, then, Potter," said Professor Snape maliciously, walking over to Harry and emptying Harry's cauldron with a wave of his wand. "You will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?"
"Yes," said Harry furiously.
"Maybe I'll skive off Divination," Harry said glumly as we stood again in the courtyard after lunch, the wind whipping at the hems of robes and brims of hats. "I'll pretend to be ill and do Snape's essay instead, then I won't have to stay up half the night..."
"You can't skive off Divination," said Hermione severely.
"Hark who's talking, you walked out of Divination, you hate Trelawney!" said Ron indignantly.
"I don't hate her," said Hermione loftily. "I just think she's an absolutely appalling teacher and a real old fraud... But Harry's already missed History of Magic and I don't think he ought to miss anything else today!"
There was too much truth in this to ignore, so half an hour later Harry took his seat in the hot, over-perfumed atmosphere of the Divination classroom. Professor Trelawney was handing out copies of The Dream Oracle yet again.
It seemed, however, that Harry was not the only person in Divination who was in a temper. Professor Trelawney slammed a copy of the Oracle down on the table between Rowan and me and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean, narrowly avoiding Seamus's head, and thrust the final one into Neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouf.
"Well, carry on!" said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high pitched and somewhat hysterical. "You know what to do! Or am I such a substandard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?"
The class stared perplexedly at her and then at each other. I, however, thought I knew what was the matter. As Professor Trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teacher's chair, her magnified eyes full of angry tears, I leaned my head closer to Rowan's and muttered, "I think she's got the results of her inspection back."
"Professor?" said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired Professor Trelawney). "Professor, is there anything — er — wrong?"
"Wrong!" cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. "Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly... Insinuations have been made against me... Unfounded accusations levelled... but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not..."
She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses.
"I say nothing," she choked, "of sixteen years' devoted service... It has passed, apparently, unnoticed... But I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!"
"But Professor, who's insulting you?" asked Parvati timidly.
"The establishment!" said Professor Trelawney in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. "Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the Mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know... Of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted... It is — alas — our fate..."
She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, and then pulled a small, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, into which she blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry. Ron sniggered. Lavender shot him a disgusted look.
"Professor," said Parvati, "do you mean... is it something Professor Umbridge...?"
"Do not speak to me about that woman!" cried Professor Trelawney, leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing.
"Kindly continue with your work!"
And she spent the rest of the lesson striding among us, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.
"...may well choose to leave... the indignity of it... on probation... we shall see... how she dares..."
"You and Umbridge have got something in common," Rowan told Hermione quietly when we met again in Defense Against the Dark Arts. "She obviously reckons Trelawney's an old fraud too... Looks like she's put her on probation."
Umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.
"Good afternoon, class."
"Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge," we chanted drearily.
"Wands away, please..."
But there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their wands.
"Please turn to page thirty-four of Defensive Magical Theory and read the third chapter, entitled 'The Case for Non-Offensive Responses to Magical Attack.' There will be —"
"— no need to talk," Harry, Rowan, Ron, Hermione and I said together under our breaths.
"No Quidditch practice," said Angelina in hollow tones when Harry, Rowan, Ron, Hermione and I entered the common room that night after dinner.
"But we kept our temper!" said Harry, horrified. "We didn't say anything to her, Angelina, I swear, we —"
"I know, I know," said Angelina miserably. "She just said she needed a bit of time to consider."
"Consider what?" said Ron angrily. "She's given the Slytherins permission, why not us?"
But I could imagine how much Umbridge was enjoying holding the threat of no Gryffindor Quidditch team over our heads and could easily understand why she would not want to relinquish that weapon over us too soon.
"Well," said Hermione, "look on the bright side — at least now you'll have time to do Snape's essay!"
"That's a bright side, is it?" snapped Harry, while Ron and I stared incredulously at Hermione. "No Quidditch practice and extra Potions?"
I slumped down into a chair, dragged my Potions essay reluctantly from my bag, and set to work.
It was very hard to concentrate; even though I knew that Sirius was not due in the fire until much later he could not help glancing into the flames every few minutes just in case. There was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.
First, Fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them. Then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease. Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry's potions.
What with the regular sounds of retching, cheering, and Fred and George taking advance orders from the crowd, I was finding it exceptionally difficult to focus on the correct method for Strengthening Solutions. Hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and sound of vomit hitting the bottom of Fred and George's bucket were punctuated by loud and disapproving sniffs that I found, if anything, more distracting.
"Just go and stop them, then!" I said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered griffin claw for the fourth time.
"I can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong," said Hermione through gritted teeth. "They're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves, and I can't find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy them, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way, and it doesn't look as though they are..."
She, Harry, Rowan, Ron and I watched George projectile-vomit into the bucket, gulp down the rest of the chew, and straighten up, beaming with his arms wide to protracted applause. I shook my head, grinning a little.
"You know, I don't get why Fred and George only got three O.W.L.s each," said Harry, watching as Fred, George, and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd. "They really know their stuff..."
"Oh, they only know flashy stuff that's no real use to anyone," said Hermione disparagingly.
"No real use?" said Ron in a strained voice. "Hermione, they've got about twenty-six Galleons already..."
It was a long while before the crowd around the Weasleys dispersed, and then Fred, Lee, and George sat up counting their takings even longer, so that it was well past midnight when Harry, Rowan, Ron, Hermione and I finally had the common room to ourselves again. At long last, Fred closed the doorway to the boys' dormitories behind him, rattling his box of Galleons ostentatiously so that Hermione scowled. I was making very little progress with my Potions essay, so I decided to give it up for the night. As I put my books away, Rowan, who was dozing lightly in an armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, looked blearily into the fire and said, "Sirius!"
Harry and I whipped around; Sirius's untidy dark head was sitting in the fire again.
"Hi," he said, grinning.
"Hi," chorused Harry, Rowan, Ron, Hermione and I, all five of us kneeling down upon the hearthrug. Nymeria purred loudly and approached the fire, trying, despite the heat, to put her face close to Sirius's.
"How're things?" said Sirius.
"Not that good," said Harry, as I pulled Nymeria back to stop her singeing her whiskers. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams —"
"— or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" said Sirius. There was a short pause.
"How did you know about that?" I demanded.
"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," said Sirius, grinning still more broadly. "The Hog's Head, I ask you..."
"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" said Hermione defensively. "That's always packed with people —"
"— which means you'd have been harder to overhear," said Sirius. "You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."
"Who overheard us?" Rowan demanded.
"Mundungus, of course," said Sirius, and when we all looked puzzled he laughed. "He was the witch under the veil."
"That was Mundungus?" Harry said, stunned. "What was he doing in the Hog's Head?"
"What do you think he was doing?" said Sirius impatiently. "Keeping an eye on you two, of course."
"I'm still being followed?" asked Harry angrily.
"Yeah, you are," said Sirius, "and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is organise an illegal defense group."
But he looked neither angry nor worried; on the contrary, he was looking at Harry and me with distinct pride.
"Why was Dung hiding from us?" asked Ron, sounding disappointed. "We'd've liked to've seen him."
"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago," said Sirius, "and that barman's got a long memory. We lost Moody's spare Invisibility Cloak when Sturgis was arrested, so Dung's been dressing as a witch a lot lately... Anyway... First of all, Ron — I've sworn to pass on a message from your mother."
"Oh yeah?" said Ron, sounding apprehensive.
"She says on no account whatsoever are you to take part in an illegal secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group. She says you'll be expelled for sure and your future will be ruined. She says there will be plenty of time to learn how to defend yourself later and that you are too young to be worrying about that right now. She also" — Sirius's eyes turned to the other two — "advises Harry, Liana, Rowan and Hermione not to proceed with the group, though she accepts that she has no authority over them and simply begs them to remember that she has their best interests at heart. She would have written all this to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you'd all have been in real trouble, and she can't say it for herself because she's on duty tonight."
"On duty doing what?" said Rowan quickly.
"Never you mind, just stuff for the Order," said Sirius. "So it's fallen to me to be the messenger and make sure you tell her I passed it all on, because I don't think she trusts me to."
There was another pause in which Nymeria, mewing, attempted to paw Sirius's head, and Ron fiddled with a hole in the hearthrug.
"So you want me to say I'm not going to take part in the defense group?" he muttered finally.
"Me? Certainly not!" said Sirius, looking surprised. "I think it's an excellent idea!"
"You do?" I said, my heart lifting.
"Of course I do!" said Sirius. "D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?"
"But — last term all you did was tell us to be careful and not take risks —"
"Last year all the evidence was that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry and Liana!" said Sirius impatiently. "This year we know that there's someone outside Hogwarts who'd like to kill us all, so I think learning to defend yourselves properly is a very good idea!"
"And if we do get expelled?" Hermione asked, a quizzical look on her face.
"Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!" said Harry, staring at her.
"I know it was... I just wondered what Sirius thought," she said, shrugging.
"Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue," said Sirius.
"Hear, hear," said Harry, Ron, Rowan and I enthusiastically.
"So," said Sirius, "how are you organising this group? Where are you meeting?"
"Well, that's a bit of a problem now," said Harry. "Dunno where we're going to be able to go..."
"How about the Shrieking Shack?" suggested Sirius.
"Hey, that's an idea!" said Ron excitedly, but Hermione made a skeptical noise and all five of us looked at her, Sirius's head turning in the flames.
"Well, Sirius, it's just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school," said Hermione, "and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could all have squeezed under a single Invisibility Cloak if you'd wanted to. But there are twenty-eight of us and none of us is an Animagus, so we wouldn't need so much an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee —"
"Fair point," said Sirius, looking slightly crestfallen. "Well, I'm sure you'll come up with somewhere... There used to be a pretty roomy secret passageway behind that big mirror on the fourth floor, you might have enough space to practice jinxes in there —"
"Fred and George told me it's blocked," said Harry, shaking his head. "Caved in or something."
"Oh..." said Sirius, frowning. "Well, I'll have a think and get back to —"
He broke off. His face was suddenly tense, alarmed. He turned sideways, apparently looking into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.
"Sirius?" I said anxiously.
But he had vanished. I gaped at the flames for a moment, then turned to look at Ron, Rowan, Harry and Hermione.
"Why did he — ?"
Hermione gave a horrified gasp and leapt to her feet, still staring at the fire.
A hand had appeared amongst the flames, groping as though to catch hold of something; a stubby, short-fingered hand covered in ugly old-fashioned rings...
The five of us ran for it; at the door of the girls' dormitory I looked back. Umbridge's hand was still making snatching movements amongst the flames, as though she knew exactly where Sirius's hair had been moments before and was determined to seize it.