Chapter Seventeen

Eren stood staring up at the sign as though personally offended by it. He read it under his breath in a harsh mutter; "all clubs are to be disbanded… no student organisations… high inquisitor… Umbitch."

"That's not her name," Mikasa said from his right. Eren huffed.

"It might as well be, have you seen this?"

"We're looking at it right now, Eren," Armin said from Eren's other side. Eren rolled his eyes, breathed sharply out through his nose, and stepped away from the wall to instead face his friends.

"This is bullshit," Eren stressed, gesturing with an accusatory finger to Umbridge's work behind him.

Nailed into the wall was the newest of Umbridge's additions to the school - a notice disbanding all student organisations and societies. Eren hadn't heard much about Umbridge becoming the High Inquisitor, whatever that meant, though he had overheard something about it many times in the past few days from students as he walked through the corridors. Honestly, Eren had been far too preoccupied with his mission at hand to have much of an ear to lend for the troubles of a wizarding secondary school.

Apparently Umbridge had been making her rounds amongst the teachers, sitting in during lessons and making her stupid comments with a clipboard like she was the most important person in the room. Eren was pretty sure she had some sort of complex. He also didn't really give a shit about what she did as long as she didn't interfere in his life, in the mission, in anything that concerned him really - which was probably why it had taken him so long to get up to date with these new happenings.

Eren probably would have gone even longer without knowing, too, if that notice, right there on the wall, wasn't doing exactly what he didn't want Umbridge to do; interrupt his life. This whole Dumbledore's Army business was supposed to be a secret anyways, Eren supposed, so outside of its members, no-one was supposed to know about its existence anyways but in banishing clubs altogether, Umbridge had just made it a hell of a lot more difficult for them to sneak such a large body of students around. Keeping this whole ordeal secret would have been a lot easier if they could've just passed the meetings off under the guise of a club. Eren guessed that those cards were very much off the table now. He cursed under his breath. Armin sighed at him, but Eren didn't take any notice.

"What are you lot doing just standing around?" Levi called as he strode towards them, his 3DMG clanking heavily. "I thought I told you to go find Harry."

"Captain, have you seen this?" Eren asked, ignoring Levi's snark. Levi squinted up at the sign nailed into the wall, regarding it contemptuously for a moment before looking, unimpressed, at Eren.

"It's been up there ages, shit-for-brains, don't you use your eyes?" He tutted, turning on his heel and motioning for the three of them to follow him.

"Wait, how long has this been going on?" Armin asked, jogging to catch up to Levi's side.

"A few days, week maybe, I don't know the exacts." Levi waved a dismissive hand. "All I know is that Umbridge is sinking her teeth in deep. She's making it a hell of a lot harder for us to sort things out. Wonder if she's on to us."

"There's no way," Eren denied. "How could she already know about the meeting?"

"Could've been a mole," Mikasa said pointedly. Eren and Armin turned to look at her, Eren stopped in his tracks for all of half a second as Levi turned and grabbed his wrist, yanking Eren forwards and keeping him moving. Eren didn't pay the exchange much attention, he didn't take his eyes from Mikasa as he continued walking and Levi released his arm, throwing it back towards him.

"D'you think so?" Eren said, eyes wide. He had no idea who it could be. For starters he didn't know any of the students well enough to even begin a suspect list.

"What if there's some kind of magic you can use to figure stuff like this out?" Armin countered. "What if she was eavesdropping? Like, maybe she attached something to one of the students and listened in?"

"For that she'd already need to have suspicions that something was happening though," Mikasa said. "Otherwise there'd be no point in listening in."

"She's a nosey old bitch, she probably wouldn't even need to be suspecting anything to motivate her to do that," Eren said haughtily.

"I swear to - Did you kids not have any basic military training?" Levi snapped, looking over his shoulder at them with an icy glare. "Do you not understand the concept of 'shut-the-hell-up-we're-in-public'?"

"Oh, shit." Eren's hand flew to the back of his neck as he glanced quickly around the hallway, filled with students.

"Oh yes, you look so much more natural like that," Levi said flatly. Eren wasn't listening though, he was too busy making sure no one was suspicious of them. Or at least no more suspicious of them than they usually were.

Although they'd been at Hogwarts for a while now, since the attack and the introduction of the rest of the corps, the students had been rightfully on edge. It didn't matter how many times Eren walked through these stupid corridors, he always got eyeballed by the students and staff, conversations ceased when they looked at him. It made it very difficult, therefore, to work out when students suspected something, and when they were just being nosey bastards.

"There's Harry!" Armin suddenly called out, already waving his arm in the air as a signal for his attention.

"The fuck's that on his shoulder?" Eren mumbled, squinting to make sense of the odd white shape perched there.

"I think it's an owl," Mikasa said slowly, also trying to figure out what she was seeing. Eren widened his eyes and huffed out a laugh.

"Of course it's an owl," he said, "it's a school for wizards, literally what did I expect."

"Harry, we have to talk with you," Levi said as they got within earshot, Levi standing close enough to Harry that he could speak in a low voice, but not close enough that it seemed weird to an observer. Harry seemed shocked for a moment at their appearance, confused before he remembered what it was they probably wanted to talk about.

"Now isn't a good time," Harry told them with a wince. He looked from the fluffy, feathery mass of owl on his shoulder to Levi, and then scanned over the rest of them too.

"Why is that?" Levi questioned sharply. Harry cringed again.

"Hedwig - My owl, she's hurt."

"Looks fine to me," Levi returned cooly, giving the owl a once over.

"She's not fine, there's something wrong with her wing. I need to take her somewhere to have it looked at," Harry bristled. There was a tense moment of silence where Levi seemed to be planning his next move, whether he should push or give leeway in this situation.

"Fine," he said at length. "We'll leave it for now. Come to our dorms once you're done so that we can sort this whole thing out in privacy."

"I have Potions after this." Harry shifted uncomfortably. His expression was pinched, he seemed on-edge. Eren wondered how hurt the owl must be.

"I-I think it would probably be best to wait till the end of the school day," Armin said, fumbling over the start of his sentence.

"Yeah, it would be too suspicious if I skipped lessons and someone saw me sneaking around the soldiers' dorms instead." Levi took a deep breath, it whistled quietly through his teeth as he blew it back out again.

"Right, okay. At the end of your school day, you come and you report to me and we'll figure out what we're doing," Levi ordered. He maintained solid eye-contact with Harry until he agreed before allowing him to pass.

"What now?" Mikasa asked, looking from Eren to Levi.

"I guess we should carry on training or researching?" Armin said, though it came out as more of a question. Levi ran his tongue over his lower lip, lost in thought for a moment.

"Yaeger, go with Harry to potions. Say you're researching or some shit if they ask you what you're doing there…" Levi trailed off and seemed to reconsider. "Actually, no. Arlert, you go with Harry to Potions. Trail him, I don't care if he knows, make sure he comes to see us. We need to sort out a regime for teaching these brats and we can't do that without finding out what they actually want."

"Me?" Armin squeaked, surprised. Eren watched as his cheeks tinged pink; he cleared his throat to get his voice back under control.

"Your name is Arlert, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir! But - I mean -"

"What? Are you incapable?" Levi turned to face Armin. There was no malice in his face, no challenge, though Levi always was particularly hard to read.

"No, sir!" Armin, wide-eyed and a little confused, accepted the order.

"I trust your judgement, Arlert. You'll be able to figure out if those brats are up to anything, if there's a mole I trust in your judgement." Levi nodded once, his stare unwavering. "Also, I'm sure you'll get more out of sitting through a lesson than Eren would. You also won't get confrontational if toad-face shows up."

"Hey!" Eren spluttered indignantly, then abruptly remembered who he was addressing and muttered out an apology, red-faced.

"Head out now, find the whereabouts of the class and wait for Potter."

"What about the rest of us?" Eren asked as Armin nodded and took his leave, jogging up to the end of the corridor and around the corner, out of sight.

"Why do you brats ask me so many fucking questions?"

"Armin!" Hermione said, surprised, as Armin rounded the corner and began making his way down the stairs to the dungeon for Potions. It had taken him ages to find the classroom. A lot of asking students and being sent down the wrong corridors for a laugh. A couple students had seemed pretty intimidated by Armin, traipsing around in all his gear - which was a first, he'd thought, people being scared by him.

"Hey, Hermione!" Armin greeted in return, smiling. Behind her were Harry and Ron and behind them was Malfoy. He was talking about Quidditch, loudly, obnoxiously, it was obvious that he wanted to be overheard.

"Yeah, Slytherin still has permission to continue playing Quidditch." Armin heard him saying. In front of him, Armin saw Hermione immediately bristle, her shoulders hunching almost to her ears, her body held taut and tense. Harry and Ron weren't much better either.

"Armin, did Levi send you?" Harry asked a little hotly. Armin could almost see the effort Harry was exerting to ignore Malfoy.

"Kinda," Armin admitted. He glanced away and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "He's taking things pretty seriously. Wanted to make sure you came to see him when you're free. Also, I'm interested in learning more about Potions and the other subjects anyways so - well it made sense to send me."

"Right." Harry nodded.

"Oh, so you're sitting in on the lesson then?" Hermione asked. Armin told her he was and she clasped her hands excitedly before her. "Do you know anything about Potions? I mean, I guess you wouldn't. Sorry. Stupid question, really…"

"Ah, no, it's fine!" Armin reassured her.

"Professor Umbridge knows my father really well," Malfoy piped up, waving a rolled piece of parchment and looking directly towards Harry despite the angling of his body towards his group of friends. Armin's skin prickled with annoyance. It had been clear to him since Eren told him about that Quidditch match that Draco Malfoy was a bully and Armin had had quite enough of dealing with people like that.

"I wish he'd shut his trap," Harry murmured lowly, staring at the ground.

"Yeah," Malfoy continued, "he's always in and out of the Ministry, they must trust him pretty well. I wonder whether Gryffindor will be allowed to continue playing." Malfoy placed a hand on his chin as though in contemplation, it was clear he was trying to rile Harry up. It was working too, and not just on Harry. Besides him, Ron was also turning red with irritation.

"Don't let him get to you," Hermione whispered, leaning forwards to speak to her friends. Armin was just shocked Malfoy had the guts to goad people like this when he, a solider, was very clearly here and very clearly listening.

"Yeah," Armin added, "it's what he wants."

"I bet Gryffindor have no chance though," Malfoy jeered. "Word has it the Ministry's been trying to sack Arthur Weasley for years, and let's not mention Potter! It's only a matter of time before he's packed right off for St Mungo's, my father says so, apparently that's where all the people with messed up brains go." At that, Malfoy made a ridiculous noise and lolled his eyes back in his head, pulling a very distasteful impression that Armin didn't really want to think about. Malfoy looked ridiculous, his gang of lackey's laughing at his antics also looked ridiculous, Armin was almost about to tell him so himself before another student barrelled past him, knocking past Harry in the process, too, and headed straight for Malfoy.

"You take that back right now!" The boy yelled, fighting through the other students who were standing looking incredibly shocked at the turn of events. Armin hadn't a clue how all of this had escalated so suddenly.

"Neville!" Harry grabbed at the cloak of the boy, Neville, but missed by a hair's breadth. Then, almost as if on autopilot, Armin found himself running forwards to make a grab at Neville himself. Armin had far too much experience with bullies, knew that Neville wouldn't stand a chance if Malfoy's lackys decided they wanted to get physical - it was almost as though Armin could see his own self reflected in Neville, and he admired his bravery in charging forwards like that, even though he couldn't understand why.

Getting a firm hold of Neville's shoulder, Armin yanked him backwards, ran a hand down his arm and twisted it behind his back to immobilise him. He wasn't entirely sure why he was getting involved with this. Armin's job here had nothing to do with these students and their antics. Even so, he found that now he had the power to do so, he couldn't ignore this. Couldn't let this Neville kid charge into a fight and get his backside handed to him. Unlike Armin, Neville didn't have an Eren and Mikasa to step in and take over.

"Neville, you don't want to do this," Armin said quietly into his ear, trying his best to sound more confident than he felt. Armin's skin heated at the attention, he could feel the stares of the students all trained on him and he realised, then, that they'd all stopped talking, stopped laughing. That was when Armin realised; he had power. These students didn't know anything about him, didn't know who he was and what he was and wasn't capable of. He could be whoever he wanted to be. He might not have the power to single-handedly cull titans like Eren and Mikasa, but he could handle a bunch of untrained children, magical or otherwise.

"St Mungo's… It's not… My parents…" Neville was speaking incoherently, to the point that Armin could barely make out what he was saying. He thought he got the general idea of it, though, and he was sure that he didn't like it.

"Calm down, Neville," Ron said, rushing to Neville's side in an attempt to placate him.

"Don't hurt him!" Harry chastised, tapping Armin's shoulder in a bid to have him let go. Armin didn't comply, didn't let go, not whilst he could still feel Neville fighting to break free.

"I won't hurt him," Armin reassured, "but I can't say the same for them." He gestured towards Malfoy's lackys with his head, where, after regaining their senses, they'd begun laughing and flexing their arms as though ready for a brawl.

"Take it back!" Neville cried, fighting against Armin's grip. Armin, almost purely on instinct, pushed Neville's leg from under him and lowered him to the ground as best he could without hurting him, releasing his arm and moving from his back to kneel before him.

"I know how you're feeling," Armin reassured. "Trust me though, you don't want to fight." Behind them, Malfoy was cackling with laughter. Armin looked up at Harry; "stand here and don't let him do anything stupid."

"Wait, what are you-" But Armin had already gotten back to his feet, a dark look spreading over his face. This childishness was ridiculous. If these kids didn't know who he was and what he could do, Armin was going to take full advantage of that, no one needed to know how frightened he got, no one needed to know how many times he double checked himself and everything he did. No, all they needed to see right now was someone with authority. It didn't matter how old he was, that he wasn't that far from their own ages, all these kids needed to see was Armin stride a few stern steps over to Malfoy and grapple his arm into a lock much firmer and much tighter than he had on Neville.

"Ow!" Malfoy cried out, his face dropping. "What are you doing!"

"Oi, let go of him!" One of his goonies yelled, looming over Armin but not making any real move to get him off. Armin's gear was threatening, he realised, his uniform and unknown factor meant that even these pig-headed idiots were hesitant to mess with him.

"Apologise," Armin ordered simply. When Malfoy said nothing but a string of distasteful expletives meant to sound more threatening than he was, Armin tugged tighter on Malfoy's arm, who struggled backwards and tried to step on Armin's booted foot. It hurt a little, sure, but Armin's boots were reinforced and he'd endured far worse than a stamp to the toe from this little daddy's boy.

"I'll tell my father about this!"

"You can tell your father all you like," Armin told him firmly. "I'm not governed by your ministry. I'm an independent body governed by my own superiors - as long as I don't physically wound you I can do pretty much what I like and, luckily for you, I know just about how hard to make this hold to not to cause visible damage." Armin didn't know what he was saying, running his mouth like this. He was sure the power-rush was getting to his head but he just couldn't help himself. Physically, Armin was and always had been one of the weaker cadets but these students were so lacking even he was far stronger than they were.

"Apologise," Armin repeated with a pointed tug. Malfoy yelped. The door slammed open.

"What is all this racket?" Snape drawled, giving them all a once over.

"With all due respect, sir," Armin began, "you really should discipline your students better." Where was this confidence coming from? Armin knew not, just hoped it'd last him through the day. Snape raised an eyebrow, took in the sight of Harry and Neville on the ground. Harry had his hands pressed firmly to Neville's shoulders, preventing him from moving.

"Five points from Gryffindor," Snape said. "For fighting in the hallways."

"This wasn't their fault," Armin protested. "Malfoy started it all."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't manhandle my students, Mr Arlert." Snape tipped his head, looking down his nose, and Armin found himself deflating a little. Armin pursed his lips and squeezed Malfoy's arm once in solid warning before letting him go, pushing him subtly forwards in the way he'd learned to do in combat training.

As he stumbled away, Malfoy seemed to recover himself. He stopped his whining and whimpering, his head snapping over his shoulder to glare icily at Armin, letting him know that he'd made an enemy. Although Armin knew how horrible humans could be, after facing titans this was nothing. Snape gave curt orders for the students to enter the classroom and they followed diligently, Hermione, Ron, and Harry catching up to Armin as he stepped aside to allow the students to pass before him.

"Don't get me wrong, mate, I don't like the way you manhandled Neville but the way you stopped Malfoy was pretty badass," Ron said, clapping Armin on the shoulder with a small smile.

"Thanks… Thanks for that," Neville mumbled, rolling his shoulder and looking down at the ground where he shuffled his feet.

"A-ah, that's okay!" Armin brushed off the attention. "I'm sorry for grabbing you like that, I just didn't want you to get hurt. I didn't hurt you did I?"

Neville shook his head, "no, no, not at all."

"That's good." Armin breathed an internal sigh of relief and allowed the students to go before him into the classroom, following behind them and shutting the door. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville all seemed to aim for their regular seats and sat down. Armin looked around for an empty seat and, as he did so, he found that he wasn't the only visitor in the classroom.

"Mr Arlert, please do not dither in my doorway," Snape said slowly from the front of the classroom. "Take a seat at the back, which seems to have become an auditorium, and do not disturb if you feel you must sit in on my lesson."

And so, Armin went, as directed, to the back of the classroom to take a seat at one of the empty desks at the very back, right beside the seat Umbridge was occupying.

"As you can see," Snape addressed the class, "it seems that today's lesson will be quite the exhibition."

Umbridge shifted in her chair, her hands tightening on the clipboard in her lap, looking ever so pleased with herself.

"Do carry on," she said.

I return! ... Again... No, honestly, I promise I've planned the story out to some extent this time and I've already started on the next chapter. My boyfriend metaphorically kicked my ass into gear and although he's never read this fic he's really been a big help in encouraging me to get back into writing it. So, a big thanks to him, and a massive thanks to all of you who've supported this fic so far (I totally don't go back and read through the comments all the time like a complete sap)

Until next time! :)

Ps: I think there's been some confusion here and there, but, like, just to clarify, I am not a guy