Harry had a lot going on as they sailed through May. For one thing, they were trying to decide on a name for the baby, now that they knew she was a girl. They had decided on Venus for a middle name, but Sirius and Barbara agreed that her first name should be more mainstream. Barbara was insistent on choosing a celestial name, which she thought was a wonderful tradition. But a good name was hard to find. Ron had admitted to Hermione that he didn't actually have twenty Galleons. She had been angry at first, but then decided he could pay her back gradually, because a bet is a bet.

It was also almost time for exams. Hermione was studying hard, which would have been fine, except she kept telling Harry and Ron to do it, too. It was hard to concentrate on studying when the weather was so nice outside, though, and you were going to have a baby sister in September.

Then, of course, there was Voldemort. Harry had convinced Sirius not to go to Dumbledore about all this, but he could still tell Sirius was worried. Since Sirius was a man of action, though, he decided to do something about it. Several weeks after the sonogram, he insisted on starting up Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons again. This time, they would be doing hand-to-hand combat.

The students still weren't happy with Harry, he knew, but they were fine with Sirius, and they were bored with Quirrell's classes, especially the older students. And a lot of these kids didn't know squat about hand-to-hand combat. Sirius knew it because he had taken a class on it with Harry's father.

Harry brought his dueling gloves to the first lesson, but not his helmet. He thought it looked kind of silly on him. Ron and Hermione joined him.

"Are those dueling gloves, Harry?" asked a voice from somewhere behind Harry. He turned to look, and it was Neville.

"Yeah, they are," said Harry. "Want to try them on?"

"Oh…I'd better not," he said nervously. "But maybe you could do a demonstration."

"I don't know…" Harry looked around nervously at the other Gryffindors.

"It's okay, Harry," said Hermione.

"Come on," added Ron, "we all want to see it."

"Well, all right." Harry frowned. "Sirius, do you want to help me demonstrate my dueling gloves?"

"Sure," said Sirius, rolling up his sleeves. "I'm going to send a non-fatal curse your way, all right? When I do, you stick out your fists, knuckles first, and try to block me. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Locomotor Mortis!" Sirius yelled. Harry saw the jet of light heading towards him, but he stuck out his knuckles like Sirius instructed. The spell nearly rebounded on Sirius, but he quickly jumped out of the way.

"Awesome!" yelled Dean Thomas.

"Try another!" said Ron.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Sirius shouted, sending another spell Harry's way—and Harry blocked it again. Harry wished his father had been wearing the dueling gloves the night he got killed, but then he remembered that Avada Kedavra was probably too powerful of a spell for the gloves to block, anyway.

"I'll begin by reminding you," said Sirius as soon as class started, "that by knowing hand-to-hand combat during a duel, you already have an advantage. Most wizards, no matter how powerful they are, couldn't win a fistfight to save their lives. Some people say violence is never the answer…But I say it depends on the question."

Sirius winked and grinned. Several people laughed.

"I'm not saying you should just throw your wand aside and attack someone you're dueling," Sirius continued. "This is mainly both self-defense and attack moves should you ever lose your wand. This way you won't be helpless once you're Disarmed; you'll have one extra trick up your sleeve.

"Your ultimate goal should be to get your wand back as soon as possible, and if possible, your opponent's as well," Sirius told them. "But it means you have to be quick, and use whatever you've got on hand as a weapon. Once you're Disarmed, it won't be long before an unfriendly spell comes your way. You need to cripple your opponent's powers before this happens."

"But how?" asked Neville nervously, raising his hand. Harry knew he was worrying about dueling.

"One way is to get your opponent on the ground as quickly as possible, then get him to release your wand," said Sirius. "This may seem hard if he's taller than you are, or bigger in general. The secret here is to do something I call the Takedown, and it's all about aiming for the legs. I suppose I can't really do it to any of you, so—"

"Isn't this about learning Defense?" interrupted a voice from the back of the room. It was Holly.

"Excuse me?" said Sirius politely.

"I mean, you can do the takedown on me," said Holly. "I want everyone to see it in action, just in case they ever need it for reals."

"Well…I don't know…" Sirius seemed reluctant, but Holly walked up to him confidently.

"Expelliarmus!" she said, and Sirius's wand flew out of his hand. She reached up and caught it. "All right, Professor Black…what are you going to do now?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other in shock.

"Holly, really, I don't feel comfortable doing this," said Sirius. "I could hurt you."

"Just do your Takedown on me and get your wand back," Holly said, rolling her eyes. "What, are you afraid you won't be able to do it?"

"Oh, all right," Sirius grouched. "Everyone, pay close attention. Holly, watch your head."

Sirius conjured up a mattress behind Holly. She raised her eyebrows. Then everyone gasped when they saw Sirius rush Holly and grab her around the ankles, pulling her feet out from underneath her. Holly went down and landed backwards onto the mattress.

"Don't let me get my wand back!" Sirius told her. She nodded and gripped it tightly, but Sirius grabbed her wrist, she shrieked, and her hand, as if acting by its own accord, dropped both Sirius's wand and her own. Sirius snatched them and held them up.

"This is about the time when, if we were really fighting, I would curse her," Sirius told everyone. "Now, who wants to try it?"

Holly got up, shocked.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I did the Takedown," Sirius told her.

"No, I mean, I was holding onto the wands really tightly," Holly said. "But then I just…let go. Is that some sort of wandless magic you did?"

"Ah, yes," Sirius said, grinning. "The pressure points. You see, everyone has certain areas of their body called pressure points, and if you press on the one in the wrist while someone's holding onto something, no matter how tight, that person will basically have no choice but to let go."

Sirius showed them where the wrist pressure point was, and made them all press it.

"There's also one in the neck, called the jugular," Sirius continued, pretend-chopping his neck. "Now, if you're close enough to your opponent, you can hit him there as well. Ideally, your hand-to-hand combat should be target-focused and use all your weight. Now, Holly…you do the Takedown on me."

Sirius used Expelliarmus to Disarm Holly, then she did what he had done to her. It was a little more difficult, but if Harry had to guess, he would say that they weighed about the same amount, or maybe Holly weighed more (she had curves in all the right places, and those breasts had to account for at least one pound of body fat alone). Holly had a bit of trouble doing the Release, so eventually she ended up pinching his hand instead, which was a surprise move, and he let go.

"Good job, Holly," said Sirius, sitting up. "If the pressure points don't work, pinching is a good backup plan. How did you learn that?"

"You think I've never fought with my cousins?" Holly said, rolling her eyes. "The Pinch is textbook, Professor Black."

"All kids from big families end up being good at fighting," said Ron. "Take it from me."

"Yeah, except you usually lose," said George jokingly.

"It's true," said Sirius. "I roughhoused with my brother and my cousins a lot when we were younger. Well, not Narcissa so much, she thought it was improper, but the others…"

"Aren't your cousins girls, though?" Harry reminded him.

"It didn't matter to any of us if they were girls," said Sirius, shrugging. "It was hurt or be hurt…especially with one of them in particular."

"I think he's right," said Holly. "You just saw a woman take down a man, after all!"

"On that note," said Sirius, "does anyone else want to try the Takedown?"

Most people did. Harry and Hermione practiced it on one another. Harry practiced the Takedown on Sirius, which didn't go so well (he guessed Holly weighed a lot more than he did), but after a few tries, he actually did it. Sirius said he was impressed.

After they had practiced more and the common room had cleared out, Sirius, Harry, Ron and Hermione sat in the armchairs near the fire.

"So, have you thought of a name for the baby yet?" Hermione asked.

"No," said Sirius. "We want a 'space name' for her, but we don't want it to be a crazy-sounding one. That's why we didn't make Venus her first name."

"So her middle name is a planet," said Harry. "Maybe her first name should be a moon, then."

"I don't know any moon names, though," Sirius told him. "At least, not off the top of my head. I took Astronomy a long time ago."

"It's okay, I do!" said Hermione brightly. "Venus doesn't have any moons. But there are a ton of other ones to choose from. Jupiter has 67, Saturn has 62, and Uranus has 27."

Not long after, they were looking through Hermione's Astronomy textbook for baby girl names. They looked through Jupiter's moons first, since it had the most and the book was in alphabetical order.

"We need one that sounds feminine, and not too weird," Sirius told them. "Something cute for a baby girl."

"How about Europa?" Ron suggested, pointing.

"Eh…maybe if she was, like, eighty years old," said Sirius.

Most of the feminine moon names were either old-ladyish, too out-there, or both. The names they couldn't pronounce (such as Aoede and Kallichore) weren't even considered. They briefly considered Chaldene, Eukelade and Ananke, but eventually those names got the boot. None of the Jovian moons ended up having suitable names, so they flipped to Saturn next (it had the second-biggest amount of moons).

"They're here in order of size, largest to smallest," Ron observed. "The biggest is Titan…nah, that's way too masculine."

They went through some more boy names—Enceladus, Mimas, and Iapetus—until they finally reached the first female-sounding name, Dione.

"Dione," said Hermione. "That's kind of pretty."

"Well, yeah, but it's just going to look like we were trying to do an alternative spelling of 'Diane'," said Sirius, "and alternative spellings always kind of annoyed me. Plus, I shagged a girl named Diane a couple times in school, so there's no way I'm naming my daughter that."

"Pandora?" said Harry.

"That's Luna Lovegood's mother who died," said Sirius. "I wouldn't."

"Rhea…another old lady one," said Ron. "Huh…what's next?"

"Phoebe," Harry told him, pointing.

Sirius cocked his head to one side and raised one eyebrow in thought.

"Hmm," he said, stroking his chin. "Phoebe."

"I like it," said Hermione. "It's mainstream, it's not hard to pronounce, and it's not old-ladyish."

"It's okay by me, too," Ron agreed.

"What do you think, Harry?" Sirius asked, smiling at Harry.

"I think it's great!" said Harry. "Do you have the sonogram picture, Sirius?"

"Of course," said Sirius, pulling it out of the pocket of his robes.

"Yep," said Harry, looking over the photo. "Looks like a Phoebe to me, all right."

"Very well," said Sirius, grinning from ear to ear. "I'll send an owl to Barbara first thing tomorrow morning. If she likes it…well, say hello to Phoebe Venus Black."