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In retrospect, letting someone into her mind had been a terrible idea. Sure, she had been declared sane, but there had been repercussions.

For the past few months Bree hadn't thought about what had happened in the graveyard because the incident at the monastery had lasted much longer and had brought her much closer to death which made it the thing to fear instead of the fight with Voldemort. It made the madman seem less important, especially with all the information about bigger threats that Bree had floating around in her head; Sontarans, Daleks, and whole menagerie of other alien species that threatened the safety of the human race just about every other week. Then Umbridge showed up and since Voldemort and been inactive and Bree had focused on the immediate threat.

Umbridge was her current opponent, but she was still just a piece on the board! Bree had forgotten who was controlling the opposing side. Michaels trek into her the depths of her mind had stirred up her subconscious which had decided that Bree needed to be reminded that Voldemort would be a lot harder to take down than the puppet government. Unfortunately she wouldn't be able to think about this until she woke of from the nightmare she was experiencing.

You see, when not-Bree had led Michaels into The Forest of Nightmares which stirred up the residents of said forest and caused her nightmares to combine into a singular horror. Voldemort's face on ganger Jen's twisted form, the crumbling monastery combined with the graveyard, the vat of flesh goo combined with the caldron that had been used for Voldemort's resurrection, and the memory of pain inflicted by the Cruciatus curse paired with the terror of running for her life.

Bree woke up suddenly. She could feel Hogwarts wrapped around her trying to provide comfort. Bree took in a shaky breathe.

"Voldemort is going to kill me!" she thought hysterically. She spent an hour trying to even out her breathing while berating herself for being so stupid. Sure, it would be easy to take down Umbridge, but those tactics wouldn't work on Voldemort. She couldn't intimidate him, she didn't have a spy in his forces, and she was not strong enough to fight him head on. She needed to learn how to defend herself and she needed a place to practice.


"She had another nightmare last night." Hermione was saying as Bree dozed at the breakfast table.

"Did she have any before last night?" Fred asked.

"She hadn't had any since we got to school." Hermione answered.

"That Michaels guy must have done something to set her off." George said. Bree face-planted into her eggs.

Line line line

Bree didn't remember much of what happened that day, she was so tired.

The next day she went to the library to look for defense books and found the shelf empty.

"Perfect." Bree muttered sarcastically.

"What happened to the defense books?" she asked Madam Pince.

"Professor Umbridge decided that they weren't compatible with a "Ministry approved curriculum" and confiscated them." Pince answered.

"That's stupid." Bree said.

"Quite." Madam Pince agreed.


The next morning Bree was grumpy and tired. Her nightmares were not as bad as they were the first night but it was still interfering with her sleep.

An unfamiliar owl arrived, not at breakfast but at Bree's dorm. It was a package from Uncle Vince and Aunt Lisa. The package was charmed weightless and was bigger on the inside. They had used their contacts to gather some rarer texts. There were books on wards, curses, hexes, shield magic, potions, advanced transfiguration, golems, and hunting (the Winchester variety that is). There were even books devoted to elemental magic of old and some texts on bush magic. Bree was excited, but she needed a place to study where Umbridge wouldn't find the books.

The following Monday, when everyone else was in Umbridge's class, Bree was trying to find an empty classroom to use when she felt something tugging at her, and then it was pushing at her and generally guiding her to an unknown destination.

Finally Bree found herself in front of an empty wall. Then there was a door, and behind the door was a room. No, not just a room, the perfect room for what Bree had in mind. There was an area for studying, an area for practicing what she studied, and an area for brewing potions.

"You are the best building, ever, in the history of buildings." Bree told the castle. Hogwarts preened at the praise.


After a few days of studying by herself, Bree decided that she needed a teacher. There were some things that Bree couldn't practice on her own because it wasn't safe and if she didn't understand it she had to figure it out herself.

Fortunately, since Bree had her own school she could hire her own teachers; it was just a matter of money. Bree wrote a letter to Alice, asking how the 'Cash for Gold' thing was going. Then she wrote a letter to Uncle Vince and Aunt Lisa, asking them to recommend someone to teach her.


Hermione made no mention of Harry giving Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons for two whole weeks after her original suggestion. Bree guessed that this was because she wanted to give him some time to think about it.

Apparently Hermione had brought up the topic again and had gotten Harry to agree because there was to be a meeting at the Hogs Head bar that weekend.

The walk to Hogsmade was strange. It was the same walk as before, but Bree could feel the Hogwaarts clinging to her and slowly being pulled away as Bree got further from the castle. When she arrived in Hogsmade, she could still feel Hogawarts, but it felt like a bad cell-phone connection. It was unsettleing.

The Hog's Head bar comprised one small, dingy and very dirty room that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be compressed earth, though it turned out that there was stone beneath what seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.

There was a man at the bar whose whole head was wrapped in dirty grey bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth; two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a table in one of the windows, talking in strong Yorkshire accents, and in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with a thick, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, Lavender, Parvati and Padma Patil, Cedric, Cho and one of her friends were already there when Bree arrived. Then (on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by accident) Luna Lovegood walked in followed by Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait down her back, Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom Breerecognized vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and, bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.

"A couple of people?" said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. "A couple of people?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," said Hermione happily, "Ron, do you want to pull up some more chairs?"

The barman had frozen in the act of wiping out a glass with a rag so filthy it looked as though it had never been washed. Possibly, he had never seen his pub so full.

"Hi," said Fred, reaching the bar first and counting his companions quickly, "could we have… twenty-five Butterbeers, please?"

The barman glared at him for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had been interrupted in something very important, he started passing up dusty Butterbeers from under the bar.

"Cheers," said Fred, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these…"

"Hi, Harry," said Neville, beaming and taking a seat opposite him.

Harry tried to smile back, but did not speak. Cho had just smiled at him and sat down on Ron's right. Her friend, who had curly reddish-blonde hair, did not smile, but gave Harry a thoroughly mistrustful look which plainly told him that, given her way, she would not be here at all.

In twos and threes the new arrivals settled around Harry, Ron and Hermione, some looking rather excited, others curious, Luna Lovegood gazing dreamily into space. When everybody had pulled up a chair, the chatter died out. Every eye was upon Harry.

"Er," said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well - er - hi."

The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry.

"Well… erm… well, you know why you're here. Erm… well, Harry here had the idea - I mean" (Harry had thrown her a sharp look) "I had the idea - that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts - and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us -" (Hermione's voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident) "- because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts -" ("Hear, hear," said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened) "- Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands."

She paused, looked sideways at Harry, and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells -"

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?" said Michael Corner, who was watching her closely.

"Of course I do," said Hermione at once. "But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defense because… because…" she took a great breath and finished, "because Lord Voldemort is back."

The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

"My god, you all are pathetic. You don't see anyone freaking out when someone mentions Hitler." Bree stated.

Zacharias said dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that totured got killed by You-Know-Who. He didn't give us details, I think we'd all like to know -"

"Pain." Bree interrupted. "It burns, like you're on fire while you're being stabbed over and over in every part of your body by a thousand twisting knives."

No one said anything for a long moment.

"So," said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. "So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to -"

"Is it true," interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?"

There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

"Yeah," said Harry slightly defensively.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

The phrase stirred something in Harry's memory.

"Er - you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" he asked.

The girl smiled.

"She's my auntie," she said. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about the investigation about the dementors that attacked you.. So - is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes," said Harry.

"Blimey, Harry!" said Lee, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," said Fred, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was."

"She's not wrong," mumbled Harry, and a couple of people laughed.

The veiled witch sitting alone shifted very slightly in her seat.

"And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year…"

"Er - yeah, I did, yeah," said Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said "Wow!" softly. Harry was feeling slightly hot around the collar now.

"And in our first year," said Neville to the group at large, "he saved that Philosophy Stone -"

"Philosopher's," hissed Hermione.

"Yes, that - from You-Know-Who," finished Neville.

Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Galleons.

"And that's not to mention," said Cedric "all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and-"

"We did those things too." Bree reminded him. "But it is rather impressive since he was the youngest and doesn't have my creativity."

"Creativity, she's calls it." Ron muttered.

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table.

"Look," Harry said, and everyone fell silent at once, " I… I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but… I had a lot of help with all that stuff…"

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying…"

"Yeah, well -" said Harry, feeling it would be churlish to disagree.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer," said Susan Bones.

"No," said Harry, "no, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is -"

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" said Zacharias Smith.

"Here's an idea," said Ron loudly, before Harry could speak, "why don't you shut your mouth?"

Perhaps the word 'weasel' had affected Ron particularly strongly. In any case, he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias flushed.

"Well, we've all turned up to learn from him and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he said.

"That's not what he said," snarled Fred.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" enquired George, pulling a long and lethal looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said Fred.

"Yes, well," said Hermione hastily, "moving on… the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

There was a murmur of general agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing, though perhaps this was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in Fred's hand.

"Right," said Hermione, looking relieved that something had at last been settled. "Well, then, the next question is how often we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week -"

"Hang on," said Angelina, "we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."

"No," said Cho, "nor with ours."

"Nor ours," added Zacharias Smith.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," aid Hermione, slightly impatiently, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters -"

"Well said!" barked Ernie Macmillan.

"Personally I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our OWLs coming up!"

He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry "Surely not!" When nobody spoke, he went on, "I, personally am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know- Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells -"

"We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione, "is that she's got some… some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry."

Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."

"What?" said Harry, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.

"Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths," said Luna solemnly.

"No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione.

"Yes, he has," said Luna.

"What are Heliopaths?" asked Neville, looking blank.

"They're spirits of fire," said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever, "great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of -"

"They don't exist, Neville," said Hermione tartly.

"Oh, yes, they do!" said Luna angrily.

"I'm sorry, but where's the proof of that?" snapped Hermione.

"There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you -"

"Hem, hem," said Ginny, in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. "Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and have defense lessons?"

"Yes," said Hermione at once, "yes, we were, you're right, Ginny."

"Well, once a week sounds cool," said Lee Jordan.

"As long as -" began Angelina.

"Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch," said Hermione in a tense voice. "Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet…"

This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent.

"Library?" suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.

"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library," said Harry.

"Maybe an unused classroom?" said Dean.

"Yeah," said Ron, "McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practicing for the Triwizard."

But Harry was pretty certain that McGonagall would not be so accommodating this time. For all that Hermione had said about study and homework groups being allowed, he had the distinct feeling that this one might be considered a lot more rebellious.

"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," said Hermione. "We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and a place for the first meeting."

She rummaged in her bag and produced parchment and a quill, then hesitated, rather as though she was steeling herself to say something.

"I - I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think," she took a deep breath, "that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge or anybody else what we're up to."

Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully wrote his signature, but Harry noticed at once that several people looked less than happy at the prospect of putting their names on the list.

"Er…" said Zacharias slowly, not taking the parchment that George was trying to pass to him, "well… I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is."

But Ernie was looking rather hesitant about signing, too. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him.

"I - well, we are prefects," Ernie burst out. "And if this list was found… well, I mean to say… you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out -"

"You just said this group was the most important thing you'd do this year," Harry reminded him.

"I - yes," said Ernie, "yes, I do believe that, it's just -"

"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" said Hermione testily.

"No. No, of course not," said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious. "I - yes, of course I'll sign."

Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though Harry saw Cho's friend give her a rather reproachful look before adding her own name.

When the last person - Zacharias - had signed, Hermione took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.

"Well, time's ticking on," said Fred briskly, getting to his feet. "George, Lee and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we'll be seeing you all later."

In twos and threes the rest of the group took their leave, too.

Cho made rather a business of fastening the catch on her bag before leaving, her long dark curtain of hair swinging forwards to hide her face, but her friend stood beside her, arms folded, clicking her tongue, so that Cho had little choice but to leave with her. As her friend ushered her through the door, Cho looked back and waved at Harry.

When the last person - Zacharias - had signed, Hermione took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now. It was as though they had just signed some kind of contract.

"Well, time's ticking on," said Fred briskly, getting to his feet. "George, Lee and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase; we'll be seeing you all later."

Bree left after them and headed back to the castle. Hogwarts was overjoyed when she set foot in the Great Hall.

She went to the common room, curled up on one of the couches and took a nap.