The next chapter's going to be a bit late. I still need to write it.

The Beginning

October 5th, 1995
Seventh Year
-

Jo and Leili walked into the Hog's Head pub behind Fred and George. The place was truly filthy, but other wise it was a nice little bar, smelled vaguely like goat, but that was ok, it gave the place character. They heard Harry's shock at how many people turned up, "A couple of people? A couple of people!?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," Hermione replied quietly.

Fred approached the barman and said, "Could we get…" He turned and got a quick head count, "26 butterbeers, and a gillywater please?" The barman blinked at the sudden influx of teenagers in his bar before throwing the probably never washed cleaning rag to the counter and handing out the requested butterbeers and the lone water.

"Alright cough it up, I don't have enough gold for all of these." One by one they stepped forward and left coins on the counter before turning expectantly towards Harry. When Hermione began to speak they turned to her but eyes still darted in Harry's direction.

"Well, um, you all know why we're here. Harry, er well, I had the idea that we need a real Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Someone who could teach us how to defend ourselves with spells, not textbook theory."

"You want to pass your Defense Against O.W.L too, I bet," one boy said.

Hermione puffed up, "Of course I do, but that's not all. I want to be properly trained, I want to know how to defend myself because, because Lord Voldemort is back." The reaction was immediate and fairly dramatic. Cho's friend spilled butterbeer down her front with a shriek, Neville disguised his yelp with a cough, a Ravenclaw boy twitched involuntarily and Padma Patil shuddered but all stared fixatedly at Harry. That was when the questions started.

"Where's the proof that you-know-who is back?" a blonde Hufflepuff quidditch player accused. Leili stood and smacked him on the head.

"Right here," she said and he immediately looked cowed. Everyone recognized her from the catastrophe at the Triwizard maze the year before and looked around for Jo who was leaning back with her elbows on the bar. "You want further proof than our word against everyone else's? Find me a Pensieve," No one volunteered to find one so she returned to her barstool beside Jo.

"Is it true that you can produce a patronus? A corporeal patronus?" Susan Bones, a redheaded Hufflepuff asked Harry partly out of curiosity and partly to change the subject.

"Yeah… You don't know Madam Bones, do you?" Harry asked. The phrase she'd used stirred something in his memory.

"She's my auntie! I'm Susan, she told me about your hearing. So it's really true? You make a stag Patronus?" Susan smiled eagerly.

"Yes."

"And you killed a basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore's office? One of the portraits told me so," Terry Boot said.

"Uh, yeah, I did, yeah."

"And in our first year he saved the Philological Stone-"

"Philosopher's," Hermione corrected.

"Right, that, from You-Know-Who!" Neville finished proudly.

"And not to mention all the things he had to face in the Tournament last year, Getting past Dragons and merpeople and acromatulas and all sorts of things!" Cho exclaimed. A murmur of impressed agreement rippled through the crowd.

"Look, not to sound modest but, I had a lot of help with that stuff-"

"Not with the dragon you didn't! That was some wicked flying!" a boy named Michael interrupted.

"Yeah, well-" Harry said before he was interrupted again.

"And no one helped you with those Dementors this past summer!" Susan pointed out.

"No; Ok, I did parts of it on my own but I-"

"You're not trying to weasel out of this are you?" Zacharias Smith asked.

Maybe it was the word 'weasel' that got under Ron's skin. In any case he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him, "Here's an idea, how about you shut your mouth?"

"Well, we've all come here to learn from him and now he's saying he can't do any of it!"

"That's not what he said," Fred snarled and a small, pleased smile slipped onto Leili's face.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" George inquired as he pulled a very long, very shiny, very lethal looking object from a Zonko's bag.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," Fred threatened and Leili smothered a laugh and Jo grinned madly. Fred heard Leili laughing and shot her a grin over his shoulder.

"Moving on," Hermione said hastily, hoping to prevent bloodshed, "The point is: are we agreed to take lessons from Harry?" A ripple of agreement moved through the group.

"We'll need to make sure our meetings don't clash with Quidditch practice times…" Angelina said.

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," Hermione said impatiently.

"Personally, I don't see why the ministry foisted such a useless teacher upon us at such a critical time! I mean, obviously they're in denial about You-Know-Who being back, but to give us a teacher that teaches textbook theory and prevents us from learning defensive spells-"

"We think it's because the Ministry thinks that Dumbledore could use us as his own private army. Umbridge thinks he could mobilize the student against the Ministry." That revelation stunned most everybody, except for Luna who had a theory about Fudge having his own private army of Heliopaths.

"Anyway, weren't we trying to decide how often we should meet for these lessons?" Ginny interrupted.

"Right, well, once a week sounds good," Lee Jordan said. Angelina reminded them about Quidditch.

"The other thing is to decide where to meet," Hermione said. The room fell quiet; Katie Bell suggested the library but Madame Pince would not be pleased about jinxes in her library. Dean suggested an empty classroom and Ron suggested going to Professor McGonagall. That idea was scratched.

"Well, we'll find someplace. In the mean time I think-" Hermione took a deep breath and steeled her resolve to say what she needed to. "I think we should write our names down so we know who was here. But if you put your name down, you're agreeing to not tell Umbridge, or anyone, about this." Fred cheerfully reached for the paper and signed, passing it to George who signed before trying to pass it to Zacharias who was looking at it warily.

"Well, I'm sure Ernie will tell me when the meetings are, right, Ernie?" but Ernie was looking at the parchment and quill like it might bite him.

"Ernie! Do you really think I'll just leave that list lying around?" Hermione snapped, Ernie hastily took the list and signed, passing it on; it went around the room Zacharias being the last to sign, just after Jo and Leili.

As the students filed out of the room Jo and Leili stayed, sipping their butterbeers until they were they only two left. "'Find me a Pensieve,' really?" The barman said, looking at Leili who had to repress a smile.

"Hell of a come-back," Jo acknowledged, especially considering comebacks were not something Leilani was typically good at.

Leili grinned and placed her hand over her eyes, "Gods… I don't even know how to use a pensieve!" she muttered

"What were you going to do if they found one?" The barman asked, Leili gave a half shrug and Jo shook her head grinning.

"Hell of a comeback," she repeated before taking a sip of her butterbeer.