A/N: Hello lovelies, and welcome back to chapter thirteen. Starting next week, the chapters will be getting a little shorter, no longer ranging between 5,5-6k words but rather around 4-5k words. Exams are coming up and December (though still seemingly far away now) will be stressful enough. Thus, my writing time and creativity will probably diminish to quite some extent. Through shortening the chapters, I hope to be able to continue with weekly updates, rather than resort to biweekly updates. Should I have to change the update schedule after all, I will let you know in time, of course!
Disclaimer: JK Rowling created and owns the rights to Harry Potter. For the last scene, I used the dialogue from Chapter Sixteen: In the Hog's Head of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Anything you recognize stems from her hands. I do not profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
Monday, September 23rd, 1995
An exercise book filled with scrawled capital letters spelling words that were mostly short enough but some of them surprisingly long for children learning to write was returned to a six-year-old girl's hands. When she opened it to the page of their last exercise, she was visibly incensed – with the teacher or with herself, Severus could not determine – to see that on the page littered with words, there was one spelling mistake near the bottom of the page. One. One pointed out in bright red ink, as well, and as the young girl's face turned red with anger and embarrassment, the correction ink turned black, to match the originally used ink, and all of a sudden, what had been a correction became the original, as if there had never been a mistake in the first place.
"Issues with failure, Miss Granger?" Severus asked, not hiding the smirk that was spread across his face.
"I was six," the girl shot back, her face as darkly blushed as it had been in her memory, "I had been reading on my own for almost two years, writing for one and a half. To placate my frustration with how slow preschool classes progressed, the teacher thought it good exercise for me to try my spelling with longer words, in addition to the usual spelling exercises. My preferred literature at that time did not usually involve words as 'eavesdrop'," Severus was surprised at the generous amount of malice with which she spat out the word, "so how was I to know that there was supposed to be an A in it?"
Severus's heart skipped a beat at the discovery that she was magnificent in her fury. It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed before, but every time he saw her in passion, he could not help but imagine in what other ways he might move her to such emotion. His cock gave a hearty throb at the image that planted itself in his mind, not for the first time. Her shortened skirt, if only by an inch, and silk-clad legs certainly didn't help.
"Obvious failure issues, then," Severus surmised, "as if we'd come to expect anything else from you, Miss Granger."
Him using the plural pronoun incensed her even more. It was evil of him, indicating that other teachers were talking about her in anything less than the high praise he constantly got from his colleagues – well, not from 'Professor' Umbridge, of course, but not only Minerva was a fervent admirer of the girl's academic success – but he could not help himself. The girl looked too desirable in her anger for him to simply stop teasing her.
"My my, Miss Granger," he added as she still struggled to find words to compose an appropriate answer to his taunts, "it seems you blush as bright a crimson as your knickers. Is that why the Sorting Hat put you into Gryffindor?"
She did attempt, and very hard at that, not to raise to his bait, nor to raise her eyes to meet his, but that did not mean that Severus could not see them, even if they were firmly fixed on his chest. In her incensed state, there was a flicker behind the girl's eyes, and Severus could tell that the meagre walls of Occlumency she had worked so relentlessly to build were coming down with a crash. In an instant he was inside her mind.
Merlin, he swore as he returned to reality, and the dungeon took longer to take its usual form in front of his eyes as his mind still reeled from what he had seen. His cock throbbed more insistently than ever before in the girl's present. Well, not ever before, obviously, as there had been the incident atop the –
Desperate to keep his wits about himself, and knowing that he'd be unable to do so once he allowed his thoughts to wander to the events of that fateful Thursday night meeting where her white cheeks had turned such a lovely shade of red under his attention, he decided to confront the girl on what he had just discovered.
"Lying to me, Miss Granger?" he queried. "I must admit I am impressed that you managed that feat in the first place, not to mention got away with it for a few hours. It seems that some of my teaching has taken root, at least. Though I have to say, Miss Granger…" He paused for a second, enjoying the effect this short break had on the girl. "Slytherin colours?"
The girl, so brightly blushed before, now blanched rapidly.
"That's not –" she stuttered, "that wasn't what I was going for," she explained. "I thought of how winter was going to arrive in Scotland soon, and how delightful the pine trees would look covered in the first fall of snow."
Sweet Nimue, the girl was infuriating in her innocence. Innocent as the first fall of snow, one might even say, he mused.
The picture had Severus groan inwardly, though certainly not in delight about a fucking winter landscape. Suddenly it made sense that the trimmings around the forest green silk of her knickers had been white, not silver. He had not been certain about the colour as the girl had transfigured the white cotton in the dim candlelight in the early morning, presumably so as not to wake her roommates, and it had been hard to tell from her memory alone. Now he had her confirmation. Now he knew.
Before he could do anything about the knowledge that she wore forest green silk knickers with white trimmings underneath her shorter-than-regulation-length skirt – and what would he do, really? – the girl confronted him.
"Are you going to spend every time we meet on trying to get to the colour of my underwear?" she asked. Under his stare that she was certain to feel, even if her eyes were now trained on the wall behind him, she added a "sir" that was more of a formality than actual politeness.
Severus smirked. It seemed he had managed to truly get to the girl if she was forgetting her usually so impeccable manners already.
"Miss Granger," he sneered – he still had a façade to maintain, after all –, "if you believe that me knowing the colour of your current fancy, or your current goal in your transfigurational morning exercises, is worse than anything the Dark Lord's followers will do to you should they get their hands on you, you are sorely mistaken.
"If you will remember, I told you that I would be extracting every memory that caused you to blush – though I must say, you do so excessively and usually unnecessarily – until you were adequately able to keep me from doing so. Till then, you have no right to question my methods."
He paused.
"That is, unless, of course, you would rather end these private lessons here and now? A single word will suffice, and I will announce that you are a hopeless case, and that I would rather drench my eyes in Bubotuber pus than teach you Remedial Potions, and both you and I would be free of these weekly obligations."
The girl looked up at him in shock. Severus resisted the urge to simply dip into those wide doe eyes, and instead stared back with a coldness that had the girl physically shudder.
"No, sir," she whispered when she finally found her voice again, "please, do continue to teach me. I understand that these things are necessary, and I assure you, I am doing my best to learn quickly."
Severus's harsh gaze must have involuntarily softened, even if only by a fraction, as the girl's whole posture relaxed a fair share, and her eyes returned to their preferred spot on the wall.
"Your written assignment was adequate," Severus admitted, though his voice was the commanding tone he usually preferred for admonishing students who had done something incorrectly. "Even though there were two ingredients missing, as did the last seven brewing steps, your results exceeded my expectations."
The girl looked like a desert flower, set into moist, nourishing toil after months spent in a singeing heat, as in her pride, she bloomed to life under his eyes, and rightly so.
"Your bathing, however," Severus continued, and the girl fell back into herself, though far less than she had been prone to doing before, "is still lacking. That is to say, your grasp on instinctive magic is merely theoretical at the current time. Unfortunately, in my estimation, we lack the time to go into that topic in any relevant depth. Fortunately, though, Occlumency is one of the branches that is mostly used in instinct. For you to work on that means for you to tap into your inner magic, schooling your use of it. The more you advance in Occlumency, the easier it will be for you to perform instinctive, intentional magic later on.
"Besides practicing your breathing and performing your usual exercises in preparation for these lessons, I believe we might add a few minutes of theoretical discussion to these weekly lessons. I want you to prepare notes on what magic the Ministry picks up on in their persecution of underage magic outside schooling environments, and on how best to defend against different ways of performing magic."
"Yes, sir," the girl agreed eagerly, clearly delighted at the prospect of learning more about what was usually summarized under the term 'Old Ways': magicks that were either so ingrained in wizarding culture or so largely forgotten that nobody saw the need in teaching them at school – which was why few wizards and witches who were raised in non-magical environments ever learned about them. And even if, purely by accident, they stumbled upon any such notions, they were hard to explain to their peers; and even if those peers understood what one had discovered, they were rare to know how to explain the discovered phenomena, as there was little theory known to them who had grown up with such things.
That Severus himself had any notion of such magicks was purely due to the fact that a certain prefect had taken an early interest in his penchant for what was considered Dark Magic when he had first started school, and to Abraxas Malfoy's extensive library.
Casting a quick Tempus, Severus discovered that it was almost three. High time for the girl to leave. Filius would be done with his rounds soon, and it would not do for her to be discovered by anyone other than a friendly and well-meaning colleague.
"Go now, Miss Granger," Severus ended their detention. "You know what to do until next week. Our lessons starting Monday after that will be shorter, as I cannot keep you in 'Remedial Potions'," he did not mime the air quotes, but they were audible in his voice, "for longer than your usual lessons last, so two and a quarter hours will have to suffice. Two and a half, if we add a break in between and work through that. I will, however, endeavour to keep you busy with exercises for you to practice during regular Potions periods."
"What about my brewing, sir?" the girl asked.
A valid point, Severus had to concede, but one he quickly found the answer to.
"There is a rarely used bathroom, I've heard," he replied and had to fight the sudden urge to issue a conspiratorial wink. "Maybe you should seek that out."
The girl stared at him with an open mouth, forgetting for a moment to close both her lips and her mind.
"Also, these are your assigned ingredients, six inches on each due this Thursday. Just because I teach you differently doesn't mean you are exempt from homework, after all. Goodnight, Miss Granger," Severus dismissed her. That seemed to startle the girl out of her perplexed state.
"Goodnight, professor," she greeted, accepted her homework assignment, and with a whirl of her robes, she was gone.
Hurrying back to Gryffindor tower this night, Hermione took greater care when turning corners than the week before, this time looking out for miniature Charms teachers who might topple over if she walked by too quickly. She did, indeed, happen upon Professor Flitwick, and they wished each other a good night in passing.
When she entered the common room, Harry was waiting for her.
"Exhausted?" he asked as Hermione fell onto the couch next to his usual armchair.
"Mm-hmm," Hermione hummed in the affirmative, stretching out on the couch until she was half lying there.
"What did the git have you do this time?"
"Harry," Hermione admonished, remembering her promise to the Headmaster to defend the Potions Master, even against her best friends if need be, "Professor Snape is a respected teacher at a highly esteemed institution. He is one of less than a handful of Potions Masters in Europe and a luminary in his area of expertise. And if his academic prestige is not enough to deserve your respect, then at least keep in mind that he has the trust of the Headmaster and many other adults that you call your friends. If you cannot bring yourself to like him," Harry snorted at that, "that is completely alright. But please," she begged insistently, "for unity's sake if nothing else, do accept him as the honourable man that he is, and treat him with the politeness he is due."
Harry pursed his lips and kept silent, though Hermione understood quite clearly what he thought of her plea when he turned away from her to stare into the flames of the dying fire instead.
Hermione sighed. Even if Harry had not reacted positively to her plight, at least he had not gone completely over the brink in anger at her words. That, at least, had to count for something, she decided. In time, maybe he would actually listen to what she had to say about the man, not only hear 'Professor Snape', tune out, and wait for her to finish speaking.
"Professor Snape," she said, continuing their conversation for their friendship's sake, "had me brew multiple batches of the Boil Treating Potion that you all did during the lesson today. He said it was needed for the Infirmary."
"Preparing for a pandemic?" Harry joked, most of the tension from Hermione's earlier words dissipated from him.
"I have no clue," Hermione answered.
"Or maybe," Harry carried on, "he was waiting for some of his students to come knocking, and for you to incidentally screw up the potion at that exact time, so that he could give you some more detention for injuring a student?"
Hermione laughed.
"Oh Harry," she said, "I don't think that was it at all. And I don't think he would be that petty." Harry quirked an eyebrow at that, apparently conveniently forgetting that Hermione had earned her detention before the unfortunate accident with Neville.
"In any case," Hermione concluded, "it was good practice."
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, content in each other's company. Hermione had almost dozed off when Harry rose.
"How about we head to bed, hmm?" he suggested.
Hermione yawned.
"Alright," she agreed. "Good night."
But when Hermione lay in her four poster bed, the curtains drawn and warded, sleep did not come as easily to her as it almost had on the common room sofa. Instead, her mind returned to the homework Professor Snape had set her.
How to best defend against different ways of performing magic.
She wondered if Harry had ever thought outside of the box of what they were taught on the theory of magic here at Hogwarts. Then again, Harry was not exactly the type to think about magical theory at all, she guessed, as he had always been a quick actor, attacking and defending on instinct rather than strategy.
Even though Hermione herself had always been one for getting to the bottom of things, understanding how exactly they worked, and taking strength from that knowledge, she knew that for Harry, his approach to magic worked. She also knew that from the way Umbridge was teaching them Defence, they were hard-pressed to gain any useful knowledge theory-wise, much less learn how to effectively defend themselves.
Now, that just would not do. Harry had promised to think about it at least, when she'd first approached him with her idea of him teaching a defence group two weeks ago. Maybe it was time for her to give him a little nudge.
And with that thought in mind, Hermione was too tired to reach the Pure Black of Occlumency, instead falling into the pleasant blankness of a dreamless, restful sleep.
Tuesday, September 24th, 1995
While with Professor Snape she had been discussing transfiguring or even Conjuring house mice the night before, Tuesday's Transfiguration lesson found most of her classmates still attempting to Vanish them. On Hermione's desk, however, Professor McGonagall set down a kitten.
"Miss Granger," the professor called when the class ended, all the animals successfully, though more than a little regretfully on Hermione's part, Vanished. "I would like you to have lunch with me in my office, if you don't mind."
Hermione shot a glance at the door. Harry and Ron had already left and might be wondering where she was if she didn't turn up at lunch in the Great Hall.
"Oh, don't worry, my dear girl," the older witch correctly interpreted her expression, "Messieurs Potter and Weasley are quite likely to make it through a lunch break without you. Hopefully, they will notice that I am absent from the High Table as well, and will successfully surmise that you are with me. Now, shall we?" she offered, and waved a speechless Hermione through to her office.
"Now, Miss Granger," her House of Head began once Hermione had a cup of tea in hand, a ginger newt on her saucer, and a plate of cold ham and turkey sandwiches nearby, "it will be of no surprise to you if I tell you that you are far beyond your year's usual teaching level."
Hermione beamed at the compliment, but her professor was not finished.
"In fact," Professor McGonagall continued, "in some aspects you are more advanced than many NEWT level students. With your natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge, I assume you will be interested in learning beyond the limits of school curriculae."
Hermione nodded, eager for the elder witch to get to the point.
"As you have recently turned sixteen – and I wish you a belated happy birthday –," Hermione gave a nod and a grateful smile in thanks, "there are things you should be taught that are long out of practice in the wizarding world. I believe that with your moral and mental maturity, and with your advanced grasp of magic, not to mention your age difference to your yearmates," and the meaningful look her Head of House threw her at that confirmed to Hermione that they were not only talking about the fact that she was born at the beginning of the schoolyear, but rather of her advanced aging due to her full schedule during her third year of schooling, "you should be allowed to learn what has not been taught at a state-approved school in centuries.
"Look," Professor McGonagall suddenly interrupted the monologue that had Hermione at the very edge of her chair in her excitement to find out what was going on. She held out a framed picture of what appeared to be a much younger Minerva McGonagall and a handsome man standing beside her. Hermione's Head of House was clad all in a lovely summer dress, and rings glistened on the couple's fingers as they waved into the camera.
"My beloved Dougal," the older witch explained, "taken from me by the Statute of Secrecy and my own pride and ambition." She fell silent for a moment, lovingly tracing the contours of her late partner's face with her index. Eventually, she continued.
"But that was not was I wanted you to see. Look more closely at Dougal's left hand," she instructed. "What do you see there?"
Hermione leaned in close to thoroughly peruse the indicated part of the picture.
"Is that a Hogwarts sigil ring?" she asked.
Professor McGonagall nodded. "What else?" she pressed.
"It contains a ruby, I think," Hermione said, squinting her eyes a little to see better. "Was he a Gryffindor as well, professor?"
"Oh no," her teacher laughed, "Dougal was a muggle I met during the summer following my graduation." At Hermione's questioning look, she added, "The picture was taken with a Muggle camera. I had the photo developed later. Dougal thought the ring pretty, quartered with the four animals. He never knew what it stood for.
"But what I wanted you to see was the ruby. I had the ring especially commissioned as a late engagement present to my future husband, although –" Her face fell. "Well, I gifted it to him a few days after he asked for my hand in marriage. A day after that, I left him. He tried to hand me the ring back, but I wanted him to keep it. I don't know if he did, but I hope he wore it all his life, though in the end, it didn't make a difference. He died in the prime of his years. I was glad he never asked the engagement ring he had given me back. I couldn't have stood that.
"The stone," she changed the topic and surreptitiously wiped at a tear that had escaped the corner of her eye, "was a special one. Crafting such jewels has become a rarely practiced tradition, and I believe you might benefit from the knowledge how it is done."
"Crafting a jewel?" Hermione asked, moved by the story, but not quite certain she had understood this particular part correctly. "But professor, how is such a thing possible?"
"This book is all you need, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall carried on as if Hermione had never spoken. "It has been banned from the United Kingdom for containing practices that have been categorized as Dark, but I assure you, there is nothing to fear from what you can learn from this book – if you perform the magic correctly, that is."
Hermione blanched a little. 'Safe' Dark magic, but only if successful? To her, that didn't sound very safe at all.
"Concealing a book has become harder with the development of paranoia, and with the situation at Hogwarts being as it is," the older witch did not need to mention Umbridge by name for Hermione to understand what they were talking about, "it is best to simply disguise a book as something else, rather than trying to hide the whole book away. When caught with it, one is under no suspicion for having concealed something in the first place, and if properly disguised, the book will be of no use to the examiner. Do you know how to conceal a book?"
"Yes, professor," Hermione replied. At her stern teacher's raised eyebrow, she elaborated, "Professor Dumbledore showed me."
Hermione's Head of House seemed to be both calmed and worried by that confession.
"I assume it is too much to hope," she asked, though it was barely a question, "that Messieurs Potter and Weasley's company has not rubbed off on you too much, Miss Granger, and that you will tell me why Albus saw sense in teaching a student how to disguise her books?"
Hermione chewed on her bottom lip for a second, blushing profusely in having to keep something from her esteemed Head of House, but eventually answered, "That is correct, professor."
Professor McGonagall sighed.
"Alright then, Miss Granger," she said, and handed her the book with utmost care. It was wrapped in dark purple velvet. When Hermione cautiously flipped open the wrapping, she startled.
The thick leather-bound tone sported in big gold letters 'Blood Magic for the Uninitiated'.
"Blood Magic," she exclaimed, "but professor –"
"Shush, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall admonished. "I had hoped I would not need to lecture you on and swear you to absolute silence about this?" Hermione shook her head in the negative. "Very well," the older witch said, "then do perform the charm, please."
Hermione did not need to be told twice. Imitating the complex motion she had seen the Headmaster twirl his wand in, she was happy to see that she had procured the same result. 'Blood Magic for the Uninitiated' was now decipherable only for an expert on Ancient Nordic Runes.
"Impressive," the Transfiguration Mistress complimented her, "five points to Gryffindor for that neat little piece of magic, Miss Granger. And now, you should head to your next lesson. It would not do to keep Pomona waiting."
"No, Professor McGonagall," Hermione agreed, wrapping the now encoded book back in its velvet cover and safely stowing it away in her book bag.
"Thank you, professor," she said as she stood, on her way to leave the office in order to make it to Herbology on time.
"Hermione," her Head of House called her back. Startled at the use of her first name, Hermione turned around. "Good luck."
The soft smile playing about the face of her teacher confirmed to Hermione what fierce love her Head of House held for all of her cubs, never mind how rarely she showed it in such a way as she did now. Hermione returned the smile gladly, putting all her gratitude into it.
"Now grab a few sandwiches before you leave, Miss Granger," and back was the stern, but just professor Hermione had come to adore, "you barely ate anything."
"Six bloody inches on each ingredient," Ron moaned, still working on the fourth point on his list of a dozen ingredients commonly used in healing potioneering. The first three he had finished by scrawling bigger and bigger, until the paragraphs had spanned the correct length each.
Dinner had passed and Hermione had successfully motivated ("Bullied, more like it," Ron insisted) her two best friends to tackle their Potions homework in the library. It turned out that Professor Snape had jumbled the ingredients listed on each student's homework assignment, so that they would be unable to simply copy from one of their friends. Although, Hermione wearily noticed, Ron seemed almost motivated enough to go from classmate to classmate until he'd assembled all the theory on all the ingredients on his list, so desperate was he not to do any Potions research himself.
Intent on enforcing her agenda (and cutting off Ron's moaning in the process), Hermione decided to change the topic.
"I was wondering," she began, leaning towards Harry, "whether you'd thought any more about Defence Against the Dark Arts, Harry."
He didn't look up, intently scribbling away at the paragraph he was currently working on.
"'Course I have," he said grumpily. "Can't forget it, can we, with that hag teaching us –"
Realizing that he did not quite grasp what she was getting at, Hermione quickly specified, "I meant the idea Ron and I had" – that got Ron's attention, judging by the look he shot her, much less imploring than threatening her to drop that particular phrasing – "oh, all right, the idea I had, then – about you teaching us."
Suddenly, Harry seemed even more interested in his issue of Asiatic Anti-Venoms than before. Hermione suppressed a sigh, knowing he would only withdraw from their conversation if she prompted him any more than she already had. Instead, she waited with outward calmness, though inside she was screaming with impatience.
"Well," he eventually offered, drawing out the syllable as if it could keep him from answering indefinitely if he only had the breath to maintain the word, "yeah, I – I've thought about it a bit."
"And?"
Hermione was certain she had been unable to disguise her eagerness for his answer just then.
"I dunno," Harry said, looking to Ron as if that might buy him time.
Luckily for Hermione, Ron just then suddenly discovered his backbone.
"I thought it was a good idea from the start," he said, and Hermione had to fight to keep herself from rolling her eyes at Ron. Honestly, as if Harry was to out and about drop their friendship merely because Ron agreed with her instead of him for once.
Harry himself appeared very uncomfortable, shifting in his chair.
"You did listen to what I said about a load of it being luck, didn't you?"
"Yes, Harry," Hermione replied with as much gentility as she could muster. "But all the same, there's no point pretending that you're not good at Defence Against the Dark Arts, because you are. You were the only person last year who could throw off the Imperius Curse completely," – and wasn't that something she should mention in her private lessons, Hermione mused – "you can produce a Patronus, you can do all sorts of stuff that full-grown wizards can't, Viktor always said –"
Hermione realized she should not have mentioned her Bulgarian friend when Ron's head snapped around to face her so fast that she was surprised it did not audibly crack at the motion.
"Yeah?" he queried challengingly. "What did Vicky say?"
"Ho ho," Hermione countered, laying all her annoyance with his childish jealousy into the sound. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang."
The look of suspicion did not vanish from Ron's face as she'd hoped it would once she attempted to turn the conversation back to Harry's Defence skills.
"You're not still in contact with him, are you?"
Her anger rose and she could feel her face heat up. Ron's pettiness was really too much for her at times. For a moment she wondered what he might say if he knew how close she was with their Potions Master, if anyone could ever be anything worthy of being called 'close' to the man.
"So what if I am?" Hermione turned her attention away from the thought. As hot as her head felt, as cold was her voice. "I can have a pen pal if I –"
"He didn't only want to be your pen pal," said Ron accusingly.
Hermione felt the sudden urge to laugh in his face. Honestly, even at fifteen she'd not been naïve enough to believe that Viktor's wandering hands during the Yule Ball had been due to his interest in her academic successes. Of course he'd wanted to be more than her pen pal, but he had been the perfect gentleman when Hermione had told him that she was not ready for anything more than a nice dance. After that, their friendship had seemed to become stronger, if anything, with the sexual tension dissipating between them, and their penpalship had had the opportunity to blossom.
To have Ron, of all people, tell her now that Viktor had wanted to get to know her in the biblical sense (though it certainly would have been far too much to expect Ron to phrase it this way) when he himself had only noticed her change in appearance after Ginny had sat down in front of him and loudly talked about it to Hermione, was simply too much. Hermione decided that the fight was not worth her breath (she had come to value something as simple as breathing during her time learning under Professor Snape), and ignored him. Instead, she faced Harry once more.
"Well, what do you think?" she prompted. "Will you teach us?"
Harry was visibly relieved that Hermione would not start a fight with Ron, though in all honesty, Hermione thought, if the two of them had fought, it would have been entirely Ron's fault.
"Just you and Ron, yeah?" Harry asked.
"Well," it was Hermione's turn to hope for time that she knew she could not buy, "Well… now, don't fly off the handle again, Harry, please…. But I really think you ought to teach anyone who wants to learn. I mean, we're talking about defending ourselves against V-" she struggled over the name, "Voldemort – oh, don't be pathetic, Ron – it doesn't seem fair if we don't offer the chance to other people."
Harry did not seem convinced as he mulled over her words.
"Yeah," he eventually said, "but I doubt anyone except you two would want to be taught by me. I'm a nutter, remember?"
"Well, I think you might be surprised how many people would be interested in hearing what you've got to say," Hermione answered. "Look," she proposed and leaned further in, seeing that Ron now appeared to be listening to what she had to say as well, "you know the first weekend in October's a Hogsmeade weekend? How would it be if we tell anyone who's interested to meet us in the village and we can talk it over?"
"Why do we have to do it outside school?" Ron asked.
"Because," Hermione fought the desire to lose her temper at him, instead concentrating on her diagram of the Chinese Chomping Cabbage she was copying, "I don't think Umbridge would be very happy if she found out what we were up to."
Seeing that none of the boys were about to contradict her, Hermione shot a look at Harry's scribbled notes. A long held-in sigh escaped her lips as she saw his scrawled diagram of the Saigon Satin Salad. She drew the parchment towards her and with a few quick lines had salvaged as much as had been salvageable. Harry shot her a grateful look as he retrieved the scroll from her care, while Ron's parchment was slowly inching towards her.
Hermione suppressed another exasperated sigh and turned to help him.
Coming up: Chapter fourteen, wherein a wand gets lost during a late night bath.