Astra, Starbeam, Heather, Samuel, Hermione, Ron, and Harry were in the library. Hermione brought up the idea of Harry teaching defence against the dark arts again.
"I doubt anyone except you four would want to be taught by me," Harry said. "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," said Hermione. "Look," she leaned towards him - Ron, who was still watching her with a frown on his face, leaned forwards to listen too - "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?"
"Because, I don't think Umbridge would be very happy if she found out what we were up to," said Hermione.
"Plus Astra and I can't go to Hogsmead," Heather said.
"You two has access to invisibility cloaks and secret passageways," Ron said.
"Invisibility cloak?" said Heather.
"It's a cloak you cover yourself with, that makes you invisible," said Ron.
"May I invite my brother?" Astra asked.
There was a moment of silence.
"Well, he basically did save the day at the end of last year," Hermione said.
Draco told Pansy that he was sick, and would not be going out. He said he was leaving to go to bed, but really he just went and met Astra, Starbeam, and Heather, and then they went to meet Fred and George at the secret passageway.
Fred and George looked at them in shock. "What is he doing here?" one of them (He couldn't tell the difference.) asked.
"I'm making sure that my little sister and her friend get out and back safely. You two certainly aren't responsible enough to escort the second years by yourselves."
One of the twins looked at Astra. "Why did you tell him about this?"
"Because he's my brother, and he's just as upset about Voldemort being back, and the horrible teaching as anyone else is."
One of the twins looked at Colin and his little brother, who had arrived during the conversation. "Did everyone bring their big brother?" he asked.
"I didn't," Heather said. "My big brothers don't go to this school."
Draco sat in the shadows, by the wall. He was glad that nobody seemed to take any notice of him. It probably helped that Astra and Heather had positioned themselves so that they mostly blocked them.
Draco was very annoyed when people went on about all the great stuff that Harry had done, but he didn't say anything because he didn't want to draw attention to himself.
"I had a lot of help with all that stuff," Harry said.
"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said a Ravenclaw boy. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying…"
"Yeah, well -" said Harry.
"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer," said a Hufflepuff girl.
"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.
"Here's an idea, why don't you shut your mouth?" Ron loudly said, 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 one of the Weasley twins.
"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" enquired the other pulling a long and lethal looking metal instrument from inside one of his Zonko's bags.
"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," said his twin.
"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.
"Right," said Hermione, looking relieved. "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.
"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone," said Hermione, slightly impatiently, "but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against Voldemort's Death Eaters -"
"Well said!" barked Ernie. "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. "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 a blond Ravenclaw girl, who piped up,
"Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."
"What?" said Harry, looking thrown.
"Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths," said the blond Ravenclaw girl.
"No, he hasn't," snapped Hermione.
"Yes, he has," said Luna.
"What are Heliopaths?" asked Neville.
"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.
"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…"
The whole group fell silent.
"Library?" suggested Katie.
"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."
"Then we'd have a bunch of desk and stuff in the way," said Astra. "How about the kitchens. The house-elves can move stuff out of the way with a snap of their fingers, and they love being helpful."
Zacharias looked at Astra's table, in shock. "What is your brother doing here?"
"He has as much a right to be here as anyone else," Astra said.
"Right," 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. "I don't know if I want to join if Draco Malfoy's joining."
Draco had never picked on him before. They had never really even interacted. Draco hadn't even know his or Ernie's names until the prefects carriage.
Astra picked up Starbeam off her lap, and stood up. "I'm not joining unless my brother can," she said, sternly.
Heather stood up beside Astra. Hermione, Ron, and Harry went and stood beside them. Colin and his brother soon joined. The Weasley twins, Lee, Ginny, the Ravenclaw boy, Neville, and Dean went and stood in front. Cho and her friend, Angelina and Katie, Lavender, the Patil twins, and the weird blond Ravenclaw girl soon joined them.
Justin and the Hufflepuff girl looked back and forth between Ernie and Zacharias, and the crowd of everyone else.
"I think that we should just sign it," Ernie said. Zacharias nodded.
Nobody raised objections after that. When the last person 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.