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Over the next few weeks, Elle waited for the twins to land themselves into trouble with Umbridge. She had kept her decision to drop the subject and she felt a lot better because of it. Now she only had four subjects to focus on which made school life a whole lot easier. Although the twins managed to land detentions with staff members such as Filch and McGonagall, they hadn't got one with Umbridge.
Elle had told all of her friends what had happened to serve as a warning to not get on Umbridge's bad side. They'd all been completely shocked and outraged over the medieval methods of her detentions however considering none of them had got into trouble with her yet, she was assured telling them had served its purpose.
Fred and George had been taking extreme lengths in order to sell their skiving snackboxes. One evening while sitting in the common room, they had decided to do a presentation on how the puking pastilles worked. This included them projectile vomiting (with great aim) into cauldrons they were each holding. Students gathered around laughing and buying their own. It was fair to say the business was definitely going well.
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It was a Friday night when Hermione Granger approached their group sitting around the fire. They all looked up at her in surprise as she sat down and smiled at them eagerly. No one ever joined their group, not because they wouldn't let them but more because everyone had their own groups to sit with.
"Hi" Lee said awkwardly to Hermione.
"Hi" she replied happily "you all take defence against the dark arts don't you?"
There was a general response of "yeah" from everyone except Elle who stated "no"
"Oh" Hermione frowned at Elle "I thought you did"
"I dropped it, couldn't deal with Umbridge being such a toad" Elle shrugged,
"Well that is a great attitude to have" Hermione beamed causing everyone to glance at each other in confusion.
Hermione was the girl you'd least expect to support the insulting of a teacher,
"If you can, meet at the hogs head in Hogsmede tomorrow at eleven" she smiled,
"Where's the hogs head?" Lauren looked up,
"In Hogsmede" Hermione reiterated.
"There's a place in Hogsmede called the hogs head?" Fred laughed "is it new?"
"No it's always been there" Hermione retorted "barely anyone goes"
"Then why are we going?" Alicia enquired,
"Because it's quiet and.. well you'll see just come" she snapped before getting up and striding away.
"Is anyone actually going to go?" Lauren muttered, she was currently paining her nails a shade of dark purple.
"Yeah" George chirped "I'm intrigued"
"Same" Elle smiled "maybe we're starting an 'I hate Umbridge club'" she suggested,
"I'd definitely join that" Angelina murmured sourly.
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It was cold the next day when they walked down into the village. Elle had borrowed one of George's jumpers again (which was warmer than her own as it was so much bigger) she walked with him hand in hand as they discussed the possibilities to why Hermione wanted them to meet in the hogs head.
The pub itself was small and dingy. There were goats running around in the first room which made Lauren turn in her heel and walk out the door. Katie stopped her immediately and she rolled her eyes.
"I don't like goats" she muttered as they walked through to the other room.
"I ordered everyone a butter beer" Hermione grinned as soon as they entered.
"Thanks" they all murmured handing over the money and taking a seat in the cold room. The butter beer soon helped warm them up as more and more students kept on coming. It seemed as though the bar man was getting slightly confused after all it didn't seem like he usually got that many visitors.
"Right" Hermione beamed "thank you all for coming"
"Now I presume you're wondering why you're here?" Everyone nodded. Elle was surprised by the amount of people who had shown up. Students from every house were there. However there were only two Slytherins (Kaylee and Dan) and everyone around them seemed to be giving them odd glances. Elle also saw younger years gathered round. It seemed Hermione had been asking everyone.
"Well I think we can all agree that it is ridiculous that Umbridge isn't teaching how to use spells" she began "especially over the recent developments"
"The recent developments?" A small Ravenclaw boy called out "you mean the rumours he's been spreading?" The boy pointed at Harry,
"Dumbledore said-"
"Dumbledore said because he said" the boy protested,
"Oh shut up Michael" Patrick yelled across the room "we all know you were relived when practical work got cancelled, you can't even tie your own shoe laces"
A laugh echoed around the room and the boy named Michael fell quiet,
"We need a better teacher" Hermione spoke up,
"Your suggesting him?" Another student called out, everyone turned to glare at her and she went quiet,
"Yes I am, Harry has great experience with defence against the dark arts I think he would be perfect"
"Maybe if you told us more about Cedric's death?" Another student spoke out but Harry quickly shut him down,
"I'm not going to talk about Cedric so if that's all you're here for, you might as well leave"
Silence fell again, no one left but it seemed that no one else was planning to speak up against Harry,
"Is it true you can produce a patronus charm?" A wispy voice rang out from the corner. Elle turned to see a smiling girl with pale blonde hair and unique earrings. Luna Lovegood.
"Yes he can" Hermione beamed proudly "I've seen it"
"Woah that's great Harry" Dean Thomas chimed "I didn't know you could do that"
"And he fought of a basilisk in his second year" Ginny Weasley called out,
"He saved the philosophers stone in his first year" Neville added,
"And he fought of thousands of dementors on his own" Ron beamed,
"And last year he really did fight of you kn- Voldemort" Hermione finished. There was a slight since from a few when Hermione said the name but overall everyone just seemed impressed.
"So what are you saying?" Lauren called "that Harry's going to teach us defence against the dark arts?"
"I... I'm not going to stand here and pretend that I'm some sort of hero" Harry began "most of those things happened with good luck and I had a lot of help"
"He's just being modest" Hermione interrupted,
"No Hermione I'm not" Harry protested "defending yourself in real life is different to in class... in school if you make a mistake, it's fine you can try again next lesson but in the real world... you can't make mistakes"
Everyone glanced around anxiously as he talked,
"I think that we all need to be prepared" he continued "Umbridge isn't allowing us the practice we need and yes I think we do need more preparation... I know what the prophets been saying about me but.. I did see Voldemort come back last year... he is back" Some students gasped, George gripped Elle's hand tighter as Harry continued,
"I would love to stand here and claim that I'm the best hope we have but I'd be lying" he sighed "but if you all agree that we need more preparation then... I'll do it" he looked to Hermione "I'll teach them"
Hermione's face lit up immediately,
"Brilliant Harry" she grinned "if anyone wants to sign up there's a sheet here, we'll have to find a place to practice obviously and we'll need some means of sharing dates and stuff but I'm sure I'll be able to sort that out" she spoke rapidly.
The crowd formed a line before the piece of paper and Elle noticed that everyone had written down their names. Elle did so too and smiled at Hermione as she reached the front,
"You're doing a great thing" she looked to both Harry and Hermione who smiled politely.
The twins and Elle stayed until everyone left along with the golden trio and Ginny.
Hermione was busy reading off names on the piece of paper,
"This is brilliant, everyone sighed up" she beamed, thrusting the piece of paper in Harry's face,
"Hermione I'm not sure I can teach all these people" Harry sighed but Hermione shook her head indignantly,
"Of course you can" she smiled "and if you can't, no one can"
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The seven of them began making their way up back to the school, Hermione was trying to think of places they could practice but it was proving difficult.
"The shrieking shack" Ginny suggested,
"It's not big enough" Hermione frowned,
"What about the forbidden forest" Ron piped up but Hermione shook her head yet again.
"We need to make sure that wherever it is, Umbridge can't find it especially not with her being high inquisitor now" Umbridge had promoted herself last week and had henceforth began nailing new school rules up on the wall. So far there were only two. One of which had stated that Umbridge would be the high inquisitor and the other was stating that if Dumbledore couldn't hire an appropriate member of staff, the ministry would.
Judging by the size of the wall, Elle guessed that Umbridge was definitely planning on hanging new school rules up. Elle hadn't had to deal with her since the detention but her friends would come storming back in from defence against the dark arts complaining about how awful she was.
"The other issue is arranging dates" Hermione sighed,
"Can't we just arrange the dates at the meetings?" Ron frowned, Elle had been thinking the exact same thing,
"Well yes but what if the meeting time gets changed or something happens... we need a secretive mode of communication"
"I've got an idea" Elle chirped up remembering something she'd read in a charms book earlier that week.
Elle explained the idea of charming regular galleons so that a time, date, place or random message would appear on the front,
"You could charm it to grow hot when the message appears or changes, that way everyone will get alerted" Elle smiled proudly.
"That's brilliant" Hermione nodded "no one will suspect a regular galleon to be suspicious".
"Are you sure you won't supposed to be in Ravenclaw?" Fred laughed. Elle smiled along but felt slightly unnerved by this statement. People said it a lot which had always made her think back to the time that the sorting hat had informed her than she was in the wrong house. She'd always tried to not let it bother her but she'd always been confused by it. After all she did possess all the qualities of a Ravenclaw.
"The final problem is making sure no one rats us out" Hermione continued "I think so far everyone seems trustworthy but we can't be so sure because if someone tells Umbridge then it's all over"
Hermione spoke so quickly that Elle wondered how Harry and Ron kept up with her all the time. She seemed to be talking to herself as she muttered ideas.
"We need a name too" Ron piped up,
"Yes that too" Hermione smiled
"What about Dumbledore's army?" Ginny grinned "that's what the ministry are scared of after all"
"Yes and we'll call it the DA for short" Hermione beamed excitedly.
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