I sat down next to Hermione and Fay at the bustling Gryffindor table. Harry, Hermione and Ron were engaged in an intense conversation it seemed so I turned my attention to the copious amounts of food strewn across the table in front of me.
I was just about to reach for a rather large croissant when Angelina Johnson marched up to our group, her long braided hair swinging out behind her. She was a fierce seventh year who I remember always correcting Wood with his constant use of male pronouns when addressing the team. Hermione told me that she had entered herself into the tournament last year. She had just replaced Wood as captain of the quidditch team and I had no doubt that was the reason behind her sudden appearance.
"His Angelina." Harry greeted her.
"Hi," she replied briskly, "Good summer?" And without waiting for his reply continued, "Listen, I've been made Gryffindor Quidditch Captain."
"Nice one," said Harry, grinning at her. I tore apart my croissant while still listening to their conversation intently.
"Yeah, well, we need a new Keeper now Oliver's left. Tryouts are on Friday at five o'clock and I want the whole team there, all right? Then we can see how the new person'll fit in."
As Harry agreed with her, I nudged Fay's side and whispered, "If you want to be on the team, now might be your only chance for a while. Maybe you're secretly a star Keeper." I grinned at her.
Fay looked a little skeptical but didn't have a chance to argue as Angelina turned to me.
"I'm really sorry about Cedric, Renn. He was an amazing Quidditch player, but also one of the nicest guys I've ever had the privilege to meet." she said with such sincerity, my eyes started to water as sadness washed over me.
I smiled softly up at her, "Thanks, Angelina. It means a lot." she returned my smile and walked back along the table to join her friends.
Hermione nudged me gently, "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, the rest of the table had returned to their meals.
I thought about the people that surrounded me. How they supported me and seemed to actually care about me.
"Yes, I think so." and for the first time since Cedric died I truly believed what I was saying.
-----
A fine misty drizzle was tumbling from the skies, so that the people standing in huddles around the edges of the yard looked blurred at the edges. I accompanied Harry, Hermione and Ron to a secluded corner under a heavily dripping balcony.
"Hi Harry." I jumped a little in surprise at the soft voice behind me. I turned to see Cho Chang from Ravenclaw standing a few feet away, her collar turned up in an effort to block out the wind and rain. I looked around for her usual posse of friends that seemed to follow her everywhere.
"Hi." Harry replied, and I noticed his face become tinged with pink. "Did you ... er ... have a good summer?" he asked awkwardly.
"Oh, it was all right, you know ..." I recalled that her and Cedric had been friends for a while and I felt a pang of sympathy as I recognised the pain that I was also feeling.
"Is that a Tornados badge?" Ron demanded suddenly, pointing to the front of her robes, where a sky-blue badge emblazoned with a double gold 'T' was pinned. "You don't support them, do you?" he asked in an accusatory tone of voice.
"Yeah, I do." she said.
Ron then launched into a vicious debate in order to convince her that she was wrong and why the Chudley Cannons were clearly superior.
I noticed Harry gazing at Cho as she calmly rebuffed Ron's argument. Something stirred in my stomach as realised that he was looking at her in the same way Cedric used to look at me. Surely I wasn't jealous?
Of course I wasn't. My boyfriend died only a couple of months ago. It wasn't possible to have feelings for someone so soon. Nor was it right. I owed it to Cedric to respect his memory.
Finally Cho walked away with a gentle farewell to Harry. She definitely liked him. I didn't see her even acknowledge Hermione or I's presence once.
Not that I cared.
-----
I did my best to avoid speaking directly to Harry for the rest of the morning. Every time I looked at him my stomach did a flip, and I cursed myself for reacting in this ridiculous manner. I refused to lose Harry's friendship over something so petty.
It wasn't until Defence Against the Dark Arts that I was forced out of my thoughts. We entered the classroom to find a pink professor seated at the teacher's desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and a black velvet bow on top of her head. I smiled as I compared it to a large insect perched on top of her scalp.
The class was quieter than usual as we seated ourselves. Everyone seemed unsure of how to act around her, as if she was uncharted territory which we had yet to cross. I smiled at Parvati as I took the seat to her right.
"Well, good afternoon!" she said, when everyone had sat down.
A few people mumbled 'good afternoon' in response.
"Tut, tut," said Umbridge, in a condescending tone. "That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.' One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!"
I frowned in disbelief. How old does she think we are? Six?
To my surprise, most of the class chanted back to her 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.'
"There, now," she said with sickening sweetness. "That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please."
A few people, including myself, let out subtle groans and exchanged annoyed looks; the command 'wands away' was never followed by anything interesting.
As we obeyed the pink woman, she drew out a short, straight wand from below her desk. Sharply she wrapped on the blackboard with it; at once words appeared on the board:
'Defence Against the Dark Arts. A Return to Basic Principles.'
"Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?' stated Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands neatly clasped in front of her. "The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year."
"You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please."
She tapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by:
'Course Aims' followed by a useless list of targets for the year. I sighed in frustration and lowered my gaze onto the pages of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard, which Umbridge then instructed us to read. The dull sentences rapidly lead my mind off of 'basics for beginners' and onto more interesting subjects, such as how many stone slabs there were in the whole of Hogwarts.
We had been 'reading the textbook' for only a few minutes before Hermione raised her hand.
"I've got a query about your course aims," Hermione said.
I looked up to see Umbridge with a startled expression on her face, clearly not expecting any sort of rebellion. Especially from the most hardworking student in the year.
"Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully," Umbridge replied in a voice of determined sweetness.
"Well, I don't," said Hermione bluntly. "There's nothing written up there about using defensive spells." I was slightly shocked at Hermione's blatant disrespect to a teacher, but pleased that someone was speaking up.
"Using defensive spells?" the toad repeated with a little laugh. "Why, I can't imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger."
"We're not going to use magic?" Ron chimed in angrily.
"Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr...?"
"Weasley," said Ron, thrusting his hand into the air.
She ignored Ron and Harry and Hermione who had also raised their hands, and turned to address the entire class. I did desperately want to join them in their resistance, but I was already on this cow's bad side and didn't fancy further pissing her off.
"Wizards much older and more intelligent than you have devised a new programme of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way--"
"What us is that?" said Harry loudly, interrupting Umbridge. "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be in a--"
"Hand, Mr Potter!" Umbridge squealed.
Harry obliged and thrust his hand into the air again. And again, Umbridge promptly ignored him, but now several others had raised his hand. I now joined them. This was beyond any form of reason.
"And your name is?" Umbridge faced Dean.
"Dean Thomas."
"Well, Mr Thomas?"
"Well, it's like Harry said, isn't it?" said Dean. "If we're going to be attacked, it won't be risk free."
"I do not wish to criticise the way things have been run in this school," she said, an insincere smile stretching across her wide lips, "but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed--not to mention," she barked out a nasty little laugh, "extremely dangerous half-breeds."
This caused my blood to boil and I opened my mouth to speak, but Dean beat me to it. "If you mean Professor Lupin, he was the best we ever--"
"Hand, Mr Thomas! As I was saying--you have been introduced to spells that have been complex, inappropriate to your age group and potentially lethal. You have been frightened into believing that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day--"
She continued, ignoring the many hands pointed straight into the air. "It is my understanding that my predecessor not only performed illegal curses in front of you, he actually performed them on you." A shiver snaked down my spine as I was reminded of Barty's cruelty.
"Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn't he?" said Dean in a fury. "Mind you, we still learned loads."
"Your hand is not up, Mr. Thomas!" trilled Umbridge. "Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. And your name is?" she added, staring at Parvati, whose hand had just shot up. I smiled at her as she joined the crusade.
"Parvati Patil, and isn't there a practical bit in our Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the counter-curses and things?"
"As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions," said the pink professor dismissively.
"Without ever practising them beforehand?" said Parvati incredulously. "Are you seriously telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?"
"I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough--"
"And what good's theory going to be in the real world?" said Harry loudly, his fist in the air again.
Umbridge looked up, finally giving him her full attention.
"This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world," she said softly.
"So we're not supposed to be prepared for what's waiting for us out there?"
"There is nothing waiting out there, Mr. Potter."
"Oh, yeah?" said Harry. His temper was beginning to show.
"Who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourselves?" enquired Umbridge in an overly honeyed voice.
"Hmm, let's think ..." said Harry in a mock thoughtful voice. "Maybe ... Lord Voldemort?"
Ron gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off his stool. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face. As if she was expecting this and almost pleased that he said it. My fingers gripped the side of my textbook as few people's eyes darted to me.
"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter."
The classroom was silent and still. Everyone was staring at either Umbridge or Harry or me.
"Now, let me make a few things quite plain."
Umbridge slowly leaned towards us, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk.
"You have been told that a certain Dark wizard has returned from the dead," he wasn't dead to begin with I thought to myself bitterly. "and is at large once again. This is a lie."
My book bent slightly under my fierce grip as Harry sprung to his feet. "It is NOT a lie!" he shouted. "We saw him, we fought him!"
"Detention, Mr Potter!" said Professor Umbridge triumphantly. "Tomorrow evening. Five o'clock. My office." she took a measured breath and composed herself.
"I repeat, this is a lie. The Ministry of Magic guarantees that you are not in danger from any Dark wizard. If you are still worried, by all means come and see me outside class hours. If someone is alarming you with fibs about reborn Dark wizards, I would like to hear about it. I am here to help. I am your friend. And now, you will kindly continue your reading. Page five, 'Basics for Beginners'."
Umbridge sat down behind her desk heavily as if she was exhausted.
I, however, had had enough. I slowly rose to my feet, releasing the disfigured textbook from my fingers. I felt everyone stare at me as I stood tall.
Parvati tugged at the hem of my robe, trying to get me to sit down, but I ignored her.
"So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord, did he?" I asked in a shaking voice that surprised even myself.
There was a collective intake of breath from the class, for no one really knew what had happened in the graveyard. Only whispered rumours circulated. They all stared avidly at Umbridge and I, waiting for a response.
Her beady black eyes looking up at me in hatred, with a sliver of trepidation.
"Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident," she said coldly.
"It was murder," I whispered loudly. I could feel my hands shaking. "Voldemort killed him in cold blood... and you know it."