Chapter Thirteen
The Defense Association
With Ginny's lips on his, Harry began to panic. What was he doing? Ginny was Ron's little sister. He shouldn't be kissing his best friend's sister. He leaned back. Ginny looked surprised, then hurt. They looked at each other for a moment. Say something, Harry told himself. He tried to speak, but words refused to come out of his mouth.
"I'll see you later then, Harry," Ginny said in an odd voice. She ran towards the castle, leaving Harry alone—and utterly confused and upset—on the Quidditch pitch.
He tucked his Firebolt under his arm and walked up to the castle slowly. He was so supremely stupid when it came to girls. Last year, he never knew how to deal with Cho, who was always crying about something. He tried to get advice from Hermione then, but he couldn't do that now. Hermione and Ginny were best friends.
He skipped dinner, opting to go right to his dormitory for a full night's sleep. He fleetingly thought of doing homework, but his bed looked too inviting. By the time the other Gryffindors had come up from dinner, Harry was fast asleep.
The next day at breakfast, Ron asked Harry about missing dinner. "I was tired," Harry replied. He wanted to ask how Ginny had seemed at dinner, but then Ron would know ...
He looked around the table. "Where are Hermione and Ginny?" he asked.
Ron shrugged. "Dunno. Ginny seemed a little upset last night. I think she and Hermione are having a girl talk or something." Harry felt awful. Guilt settled into his stomach. He was starving but couldn't bring himself to eat. "Are you all right, Harry?" Ron asked, sounding almost like his mother. "You look a little peaky."
"I'm fine," Harry mumbled. "I've just been so tired."
Ron nodded. "Too busy," he said. "But that's how it should be, shouldn't it? I mean, you don't want to sit around thinking about—well, you know, all day long. So," he added hastily. "Hermione's found out the twelve uses of dragon's blood. She really wanted to tell us last night, but she said she's wait until tonight—"
"I've got an Occlumency lesson tonight," Harry said, a bit too sharply. "Just like I'll have every night this term." They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence.
Harry was not looking forward to his Occlumency lesson with Dumbledore, but it was uneventful. Dumbledore said nothing more of Tabitha's injury. He told Harry they would move past Stunning spells and start blocking on Monday evening. Harry trudged up to his dormitory and slept off his first week.
The weekend passed quickly. Hermione didn't mention the dragons' blood to Harry—in fact, Hermione didn't seem to be saying much to Harry. Ginny had definitely told her about the kiss and Harry's reaction to it; he had hoped they wouldn't tell Ron, and they didn't, but they also didn't see much of him that weekend. The girls disappeared each day after breakfast, and Harry and Ron wouldn't see them again until dinner. Harry thought it was rather nice to be spending so much free time alone with Ron.
Unfortunately, Monday brought classes, including Defense Against the Dark Arts with a fully-recovered Tabitha. Lupin had left Friday evening, after classes ended. He stopped by the Gryffindor common room to say goodbye to Harry and assure him again that Tabitha harbored no ill feelings about the Stunning incident. Of course, he said nothing of the ill feelings that she already felt towards Harry.
Tabitha looked very well on Monday, better, in fact, than Harry had ever seen her. She greeted everyone warmly, flashing Ron a brilliant smile as he entered (which caused even him to blush a bit). She leaned down and whispered something to Hermione, who giggled and joined Ron in the back of the room. But as Harry walked past, her lips tightened into a stiff, cold smile. Her dark eyes narrowed slightly as she said, "Good morning, Mr. Potter." She greeted the Slytherins the same way. Harry wondered how she got on with the Slytherins when she was one of them.
They were moving past part-human creatures—"You just needed a simple review. They're really far below the level you should be at by now, and we can't afford to waste more time." Tabitha asked them to put their books away and take out their wands. "I know I said we'd be studying graphorns," she said. "But I've decided to hold off on those for several weeks. Before we begin studying defense against dark creatures, I'd like to teach some basic wand-to-wand combat. Dueling, you might call it. There are some spells that can come in very handy when fighting dark wizards." There was a slight murmur as former members of the DA recalled the spells Harry had taught them last year. Tabitha looked around disapprovingly, and the murmurs stopped. "Now," she continued. "Stunning spells can work amazingly well against an opponent. As you all probably know, my stay in the hospital wing the past few days was the result of a wayward Stunning spell." She cast a quick glance at Harry. "Whether you succeed in merely knocking the wind out of your opponent, or giving them one hell of a concussion, you have the advantage. You all should know how to do Stunning spells by now; let's see just how good you are at them."
She began pairing them off. Malfoy was paired with Pansy Parkinson. Harry could see them leaning towards each other, whispering—it looked as if Malfoy was unwrapping a piece of candy. A moment later, he turned to Tabitha, completely green, and trembled, "P-professor, I—I don't feel very well ..." And then he fainted.
Rather than look concerned, Pansy Parkinson said almost joyfully, "I suppose I should bring him to Madam Pomfrey, Professor!"
"That won't be necessary, Miss Parkinson," Tabitha replied, sounding very annoyed. She rummaged through her desk for a moment. She extracted a small piece of candy and unwrapped it. After breaking it in half, she forced one half into Malfoy's mouth. He awoke a moment later, grinning. When he saw that it was Tabitha and not Pansy who had revived him, his grin disappeared. "Sixty points," Tabitha said sharply. "For attempting to skive off a lesson. Next time you try that, Malfoy, I'll get twice as many points, and you'll receive a week's worth of detentions. Miss Parkinson, thirty points for helping him. And I'll take the rest of your Skiving Snackboxes." She flicked her wand, and a bag from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes flew out of Pansy's robes.
"Weasley's brothers' shop?" Harry heard Malfoy hiss to Pansy. "You told me they were prototypes from Zonko's!" Harry smiled to himself. As long as Tabitha wasn't being nasty to him, she was quite impressive. She probably had a whole stash of various Skiving Snackboxes—and other Weasley inventions—hidden in her desk.
Tabitha vanished all the desks from the room before they began practicing. Hermione had paired with Susan Bones so Harry and Ron could practice together.
They had to read for homework and write fifteen inches on a defensive spell of their choice. Harry could see that his homework would soon be piling up, but he just didn't feel much like working on it. He decided to leave it for another night; he could sense Hermione giving him a disapproving glare, but he wasn't sure if it was because of his homework or what he'd done to Ginny or both.
As he pretended to scribble down some notes, he glanced over his parchment to see what Hermione and Ron were working on. Ron was making a half-hearted attempt at Tabitha's essay, but Hermione appeared to be already done with hers. In fact, she wasn't working on any homework.
Ron looked down at what she was writing and groaned. "Not spew!" he sighed. He gave Harry a knowing look. "Look, Hermione, you've got to give this up ..."
"S.P.E.W. happens to be very important, Ron," she said briskly. "I'm drafting my official purpose to send to the Ministry of Magic. House elves are very powerful, you know. They would be a great ally against Voldemort, if only wizards could learn to treat them as equals ..." Harry and Ron let her ramble on uninterrupted but didn't bother to pay her any attention. Hermione had started S.P.E.W. two years ago in an effort to help house elves gain freedom and get payment for their work—something house elves were strongly against. They were content to work hard simply for the masters' satisfaction. Only the Malfoys' former house elf Dobby (who Harry had helped to free) seemed interested in getting paid. He worked in the kitchens at Hogwarts now.
Harry nudged Ron. "Has she said why she's mad at me?" he whispered.
Ron gave him a blank look. "She's mad at you?"
"She's been ignoring me all weekend!"
Ron shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe you're just imagining things, mate."
Yeah, Harry thought as Ginny entered the common room and glared at him. Sure, I'm just imagining it.
The next couple of weeks went by quickly. Signs soon appeared announcing the first Hogsmeade weekend. It was the to be held the weekend before Halloween. Harry was very much looking forward to it; his homework was piling up, and Quidditch practices and Occlumency lessons were only taking up more of his time.
Harry wanted to make up with Ginny, perhaps go on a proper date with her. He knew he should ask her to spend the day with him in Hogsmeade, but he was still worried about what Ron would think. Still, Harry couldn't take this anymore. Since he'd mentioned something, Ron was noticing how coldly Hermione and Ginny were acting towards Harry. Even Tabitha seemed to be getting nastier, and Snape was always unpleasant. Harry dreaded their classes.
One night several weeks before Halloween, Harry found himself unable to sleep. Ron was snoring softly in the bed next to him; Neville was tossing around in his sleep. A noise from outside that sounded very much like a dog barking reached Harry's ears, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by thoughts of Sirius. He lay in bed as these thoughts clouded his mind, feeling more and more empty every second.
He couldn't just lie here and let himself drown in his thoughts. Without so much as a second thought, Harry crept out of bed and rummaged in his trunk for his Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map. Harry had received the map from the Weasley twins in his third year; it appeared to be an ordinary piece of old parchment until one tapped it with a wand and said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Until this summer, the twins had never told Harry how exactly they learned to use the map; now he knew that it was Tabitha who showed them.
The Fat Lady yawned as an invisible Harry climbed out of the portrait hole. "That's not a good idea, whoever you are," she murmured sleepily. Harry glanced at the map. Only one little dot, labeled "Harry Potter" appeared on the map.
He considered stopping by the kitchens to see Dobby, then decided against it. He realized then that he had left his bed with a purpose—to talk to Phineas Nigellus.
He couldn't go into Dumbledore's office; no, he'd have to go back to that sixth-floor corridor and send the doe to get Phineas. He glanced at the map every once in a while to make sure no one appeared. Not even Filch or his cat, Mrs. Norris, crossed Harry's path.
The doe was asleep in a patch of brilliant orange and red flowers. Harry wasn't sure how to wake it. "Er, hello?" he said softly, poking the canvas and shrugging off his cloak. The doe stirred. It looked at him with large, dark eyes. "I need Phineas Nigellus. Could you, er, go get him at his portrait in Dumbledore's office?"
The doe appeared to be giving him a stern look, but it trotted off nonetheless. Harry waited for what seemed like forever. He continued to glance at the parchment, but no one was approaching him. Finally, he heard the doe and Phineas tramping through the other paintings.
Phineas glared at Harry. "You?" he said gruffly. "What do you want?"
"I—I just wanted to talk," Harry replied. It sounded much stupider than he had intended.
"Talk? Haven't you got friends?" Phineas continued to glare at him.
"They don't understand," Harry sighed. "You, er, well, you lost Sirius, too, and you seemed rather upset ..."
"Upset?" Phineas said, much too loudly. Harry glanced at his map anxiously. "He was the last of my family to carry the name of Black! What male heirs have we got now to pass on the name, eh? None!"
"Well, you're also upset that he's dead, aren't you? I mean, last year when Dumbledore told you, and then that day that you asked me how ..."
"He was my only company in that house," Phineas replied sadly. Harry was surprised by his change in tone. Phineas stroked the doe's head absently. "He may have been a good-for-nothing as far as the Blacks were concerned, but he was my only worthwhile companion. Oh, there are the other Headmasters in Dumbledore's office," he said flippantly. "But they're none too fond of me and I'd just as rather not bother with them. And then the portraits of my family at Grimmauld Place are just the most unpleasant people to have to live with. I was grateful when Sirius came back and threw them all out. He kept me company. We argued, but I very much admired him. No one in our family's ever been as noble as he was, even if I didn't always agree with the company he kept or the choices he made." Phineas shook his head and said, almost to himself, "Poor, poor choices. Never even considered other people ..."
"What other people?" Harry said. "D'you mean my parents? You mean he should have stayed on as their secret-keeper?"
"No, no giving up that responsibility was the smartest thing Sirius ever did," Phineas said impatiently. "He was looking out for them, you see."
"He was looking out for my mum and dad?"
Phineas looked mildly surprised. "No, not them. He was worried, of course, but he thought that that Peter Pettigrew was a trustworthy fellow ... oh, what Dumbledore's told me about him ... but no, Potter, didn't Sirius tell you?"
A hand suddenly dropped heavily on Harry's shoulder. He turned around and saw Tabitha standing there in an elegant nightdress and hastily-tied robe, her dark eyes blazing angrily. Oh, if the boys in Harry's Defense Against the Dark Arts could be in his position now ... but Harry was terrified. What kind of punishment would she dream up for him? "Out a little late, aren't we, Mr. Potter?" she said crisply. He tried to hide his map and his cloak, but she was too quick. "Accio, parchment! Accio, cloak!" They flew into her hand.
She held the cloak out for a moment, studying it. Harry thought he saw her expression soften for a moment. After examining the way the shimmery, silvery fabric flowed like water, she handed the cloak back to Harry. "You'll need that to get back to the common room unnoticed," she said tersely. "Now this—" She looked down at the map for the first time and saw that it wasn't just a piece of parchment, but the Marauder's Map, the very one she had taught Fred and George Weasley how to use. Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. She clutched the map firmly in her hand. "I will be confiscating this. Now, go on, get back to your dormitory." Harry stared at her, open-mouthed. No detention? No points being taken away? And she was giving him back his cloak? "Is there a problem, Mr. Potter?" she snapped. Harry shook his head. "Good. Now, go back to your dormitory and Headmaster Nigellus, back to your portrait."
"I was just chatting with the boy, Tabitha," Phineas said indignantly. "Do you know that Sirius never told him—" To Harry's surprise, as he slipped away, he heard Tabitha snap at Phineas, "Shut up about that! Go to your portrait in my office so we can talk."
Harry sprinted to Gryffindor tower. He wanted to get back to his dormitory as soon as possible, now that he didn't have his map. What could Tabitha possibly want with it? If anything, the cloak would have been a better thing to confiscate—as a teacher, she didn't need the map to sneak around. Unless—could she be spying on someone at Hogwarts? The idea intrigued Harry. Were there Death Eaters at Hogwarts that she could be spying on? She mistrusted Snape ... perhaps she was going beyond her Order duties to make sure he was really working for Dumbledore now, and not for Voldemort.
As Harry climbed into the common room, his thoughts turned to what Phineas Nigellus had told him. Sirius was protecting someone when he gave up his job as secret-keeper for the Potters, and it wasn't himself or the Potters. Harry knew who he had to ask—Lupin. He wasn't sure if Lupin would give him a straight answer, but it was worth trying.
He scrawled off a quick note on a half-piece of parchment, asking Lupin to meet him in the fire in Gryffindor common room at midnight in one week. Harry took a chance and ventured out to the owlery, where he found Hedwig and gave her the note. He nearly bumped into Filch on his way back to his dormitory; luckily, Peeves the poltergeist began throwing things around just ahead of Harry, so Filch rushed towards the noise. Harry managed to get back to the common room unscathed. The next morning at breakfast, Hedwig dropped a piece of parchment into Harry's pumpkin juice. All it said, in Lupin's handwriting, was "O.K."
There was Quidditch practice that night after Harry's Occlumency lesson. He arrived at Tabitha's room with the same feeling of dread he felt every night at this time. He was getting good at blocking Legilimency, but was unable to fully turn the spell around onto Tabitha or Dumbledore. But rather than vanish the desks when Harry entered, Tabitha said quietly, "Mr. Potter, would you come sit at my desk, please?"
Harry pulled a chair up to her desk. He sat facing her, her dark hair falling gracefully into her face and down her back. As she glanced up at him, he was struck again by the familiarity of those eyes ... he was sure it was hidden somewhere in his mind; somewhere, he knew he had the answer ...
Tabitha cleared her throat. "Your year turned out more Os in the Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. than the past three years combined. Dumbledore informed me that this was due in part to a certain illegal organization that you and your friends ran. I've asked Hermione Granger for more information, and, despite some recent tensions with you—" Harry's ears burned red. That's where Hermione and Ginny were disappearing to on weekends—Tabitha's office. They must have told her all about what Harry did to Ginny. Tabitha continued, "Despite these tensions, Hermione admitted that you were very skilled and quite a good teacher. So, Dumbledore and I have decided it would be in many of the students' best interests to continue with this organization. However, it's to stay a secret, do you understand? You're to give me a list of former members, and I will invite them to the new meetings. We cannot allow any Slytherins to come across us, in case they want to join."
Harry looked at her, surprised. "Join? Wouldn't they just try to get it shut down?"
"Honestly, Remus told me you were smart," Tabitha snapped. "Malfoy would try to join, to see what spells the enemy is learning. Do you really want Death Eaters learning the spells that you'll be using against them?"
"But Death Eaters would know all those kinds of spells," Harry said. "They finished Hogwarts ages ago ..."
"You really are thick," Tabitha replied. "Most of the Death Eaters know these spells, but the younger ones don't. Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle—their fathers are more interested in teaching them Dark magic right now. They won't be learning what we will be."
"Malfoy and his mates are Death Eaters?"
"Voldemort will take anyone who's willing into his service," Tabitha said grimly. "Even sixth-year Hogwarts' students. Now, the point of me telling you all this is simple. You will be teaching, with my help. Your classmates trust you. I will teach you advanced spells and you will pass them on to your fellow students."
More work with Tabitha. At least it would be something Harry enjoyed.
"We can't begin until after this term, though," Tabitha said. "You still need to work on Occlumency, and I am very busy preparing for upcoming … well, never mind that. As soon as this term is over, assuming you make some great progress, we'll cut down your Occlumency lessons and practice defense, instead. I'm not keen on spending much more time with you, but until then, you'll be spending another hour with me on Wednesday evenings. You have a lot to learn."
"Splendid," Harry said, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice.
"Let's get started."
Tabitha vanished all the desks in the room. She was brutal; she got into some of Harry's worst memories, but as hard as he tried to push her out, he couldn't do it. His Stunning spells barely affected her.
After what felt much longer than half an hour, Tabitha told him he was free to go, but he stopped on his way out the door. "Professor?" he said tentatively. He would never be brave enough to take this chance again. "I—well, you said you weren't took keen on spending time with me. I know you don't really like me all that much. You sort of treat me like Snape does, like you treat the Slytherins. Dumbledore says you have a reason for why you don't like me ..."
"I don't not like you, Potter," she interrupted. Then she added flatly, "I hate you."
She delivered these words so coolly that Harry wasn't even sure that that's what she'd said. But she was fixing him with that stare, her familiar eyes full of loathing.
"I have a reason," she added in a shaking voice. "But this is neither the time nor the place to tell you. Goodnight." Harry tried to reply, but she waved at the door, and it slammed shut in his face. He stood there for a moment, disbelieving. He pressed his face against the doorknob, peering into the keyhole. Tabitha was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands, shaking. An old piece of parchment—the Marauder's Map—was clutched in one of her hands. Harry just didn't understand her.
And with a stab of guilt, Harry remembered seeing Hermione like this not too long ago. He didn't care what Tabitha could possibly be sobbing about, but he did care about Hermione, and Ginny. He took a deep breath. He had to apologize.