Chapter 10. The Proliferation of Clubs

Things changed after Luna left Chaos Club. Neville apologized to Luna and Ginny, of course, but it was a long time before Ginny calmed down enough to come back, and Fred also stopped showing up as regularly. George still attended meetings, but didn't seem to have as much fun as before. Abbott and a few others also stopped coming.

Things changed outside of Chaos Club, too. It wasn't long afterward that Granger started her own group. I guess that Luna's remarks had gotten her thinking about whether there might be more to understanding the world than the Muggle Science, Hogwarts classes, and the books of the Hogwarts Library, because her club was supposed to focus on Wizarding traditions around the world, as well as Muggle history, anthropology, philosophy, and art. She came over to where Ginny, Luna, and I were eating one day and said that she, Greengrass, Bones, and Draco would be holding a gathering that weekend, and invited Luna to join. She said that Ginny and I could come too.

Ginny and Luna ended up going. I didn't, though I'm not exactly sure why. I guess I've never really felt comfortable around Granger or Greengrass. Maybe it's because of that first day on the Hogwarts Express. I don't know. Granger seems nice enough, but Greengrass always seems cold to me. And Bones always seems too serious, which I guess doesn't help. I guess I'm also a little shy about Granger's celebrity status. I never felt that way about Harry, though. I guess maybe because he always actively reaches out, wants to get other people excited about science and so on.

I think I mostly understood what Granger was thinking, though. When Granger asked that question about why Luna kept saying Draco should know better, I completely understood why. We needed more information, and I'd meant to ask Luna herself the question when I saw her next. The conversation that followed was interesting too, even if it uncovered more tensions within Chaos Club.

Draco said he guessed that she was referring to various traditions kept and stories told in the old families. Most of the stories, he said, dealt with the dire consequences for Wizard children who took magic for granted. These traditions sometimes hinted that magic was a conscious entity that must be appeased, and generally talked about some variant on the concept of respect.

Fred said that he was aware of no such traditions, and Greengrass muttered, "That would be Dumbledore's influence. Crazy old man."

Fred got angry at that, asking what Greengrass was implying about his family, but George again responded more calmly, "Fred, you know perfectly well that our father was as taken in by Dumbledore's charm as anyone," but then he went on, "Actually, in this case I wonder whether Dumbledore might not have been onto something if he was discouraging Wizarding households from propagating old fairytales. All of this sounds like superstition to me."

Draco agreed that a lot of the traditions probably were superstition, adding that his own father was beginning to phase out some of the rituals. Bones and Anthony Goldstein nodded to this, while Greengrass shook her head. Granger said she was sceptical as well, but added, "I don't think we should ignore what Luna says, though. Scepticism means questioning cultural assumptions, but we shouldn't automatically assume that old traditions are wrong, either."

"Be careful, Hermione," said Draco, "Remember that the tales about blood purity are another old tradition..."

Granger had a response ready, "You're making an inappropriate generalization, Draco. Just because some old traditions are incorrect does not imply that they all are, and in this case I don't see that there's any tangible harm being done by assuming that traditions might have been formed for a reason."

"Let's think about this systematically," said Harry, "We can approach it the same way we looked at the blood purity question. It's a good exercise in hypothesis development. What are some ideas of what might really be going on? Let's all take a moment to think about it, then break into groups and generate lists. Later we can compile a list for the room and figure out which ideas are testable."

This idea was familiar territory for us all by now, but as I turned to Anthony to see if he wanted to do some hypothesis brainstorming with me, Granger said darkly, to the room in general, "The thing is, I'm not certain we should be using science to investigate this at all. There's so much we don't know..."

No one had a reply to that, though, and of course it didn't stop us from brainstorming a list of ideas. There are lots of possibilities when you stop to think about it: maybe the traditions were completely made up, maybe they were partially true, or used to be true but had been distorted over the years, maybe the associated folklore itself contained testable hypotheses, and so on. There were all kinds of questions that came up too, such as did magic work differently for families that followed the traditions, and what could we learn from the changes occurring in the Malfoy household?

Granger didn't seem as talkative as usual, though. Maybe that was when she started thinking about starting a group of her own.

Granger wasn't the only one who started a new club around that time. Everybody was talking about the partial breakup of Chaos Club, and when word got out that Granger now had another club of her own, Hogwarts students seemed to suddenly realize that Harry wasn't the only one who could start clubs. Soon there was a chess club (Wizard and Muggle), a debate club, a Magical Artifact Development club, a Muggle athletics club (no wands or broomsticks allowed), and various academic clubs for studying Hogwarts subjects. Tracy Davis, who I'd met once or twice through Chaos Club, posted a bunch of flyers around promoting "A Club for the Study of Darkest Arts and Necromancy: Learn from the Dark Princess of Hogwarts," but I never met anybody who admitted to attending any meetings. On the other hand, Hannah Abbott started a junior healers club, which I hear is pretty popular despite being scheduled in the same time block as Chaos Club.

I hadn't really planned on getting involved with any other clubs or organizations, but then one day after Flying lessons, when I came down I saw that an older student was waiting next to Madam Hooch. He was dark-skinned and had dreadlocks, was muscular and very handsome. I remembered thinking that he was just as beautiful as Draco, but dark instead of pale. I had no idea that he was waiting for me, but as we filed past Madam Hooch he stepped forward.

"You're Colin Creevey?"

I jumped, fumbled with my broomstick, but then nodded. Older students mostly ignore first years, at least outside of clubs.

He grinned, "Sorry to startled you. I'm Lee Jordan, Fred and George Weasley suggested I talk to you."

All I could say was, "Erm?" although I did relax a little bit. Despite their reputation as troublemakers, Fred and George were always friendly with me.

"So, here's the thing," he went on, "Cedric Diggory and I decided that Hogwarts needs a newspaper. We were thinking maybe The Hogwarts Weekly or something like that. The Sorting Hat said you should go into journalism?"

"Oh!" suddenly the conversation made more sense, "Er, yes."

"We don't have a photographer. Fred pointed out that you have a camera, so we were wondering. How would you like to take photographs for the school newspaper?"

Well, couldn't say no to that, now could I? No one (other than Mum, of course, and Dennis when my photographs started moving that one day) had ever acted as though my interest in photography was anything other than a waste of time.

So that's how I became the photographer for the Hogwarts Weekly. One of my Chaos Club photographs of Harry was on the front page of the first issue, for an article Cedric Diggory had written on the proliferation of clubs at Hogwarts. I was pretty proud of that.

Author's notes: Chapter 11 should be out on or before July 1, 2014.