On their way to the great hall, Harry told Hermione his decision, and he was met with the first beaming smile he'd seen from her all day. He knew they wouldn't be able to plan anything for the defense group until tomorrow, but he didn't see the need to keep it to himself. It had only been a couple days since Hermione brought up the idea of a group, one he would be teaching no less. But as they dueled in the classroom, he thought about all the ways the both of them could improve their technique, or how many details he already wanted to change in their defense textbook. Sirius had told them it was up to them to study defense, and Hermione was right, they weren't the only ones who needed it.

"We'll go to the library tomorrow, we can check out some books and plan in another classroom," said Hermione quietly, they were closer to the great hall now, and the corridors were filled with students, talking to their friends as they made their way to supper.

Harry nodded, they were huddled together, and he ignored the blatant stares from fellow classmates as they recognised him. "I'll bring my books along too, should we tell Snuffles about it?"

Hermione hesitated for a moment and nodded. "I think we should figure out exactly what we want to do first though, then ask Snuffles and Remus for advice."

"Tonks too, if she's around," he murmured as they passed through a clump of students and made their way to the Gryffindor table where Ron was sitting by himself. He took the empty seat beside Ron, while Hermione took her usual spot next to Harry.

"Where have you two been?" Ron hissed quietly when they dropped their bags under the table. "You've been gone all afternoon!"

"One of the old classrooms," Harry muttered. "There's something I want to talk to you about later, not here," said Harry. He just sighed. Harry saw something in his eyes as he looked between him and Hermione, and Harry felt his stomach drop, thinking that Ron was remembering him taking her side earlier.

Dinner was quiet between them, or as quiet as you could get with hundreds of students talking about their day, filling the hall with noise and laughter. Harry was worried about Hermione's detention, and while she didn't show it, other than being unable to eat much, she seemed worried too. He noticed Umbridge wasn't at the staff table, and it left him on edge. She was too much of an unknown, using pretty words and false grace to hide an uglier side of herself, and he was worried that she would try to provoke Hermione like Snape has done with him.

When it was nearing five o'clock, Hermione pushed her plate away, while he and Ron did the same. In spite of their disagreement earlier, he still looked worried about Umbridge's detention, and the three of them grabbed their bags and walked to her office together.

"We'll see you later, Hermione," said Harry, when they were outside the door. She let out a sigh, and nodded.

"Hopefully she doesn't keep me for long," Harry took her hand and squeezed it gently, it was quickly becoming a common gesture between them these days, to give comfort and support. She squeezed back before letting go and entering the office. Before the door could shut, Harry could make out vibrant pink walls covered in rows of plates decorated in cats, and a frilly trim around everything. Umbridge barely caught sight of him before the door shut behind Hermione, and she sent him a sickly little smile. He set his jaw, while Ron tugged his sleeve to go back to their common room.

Neither of them said much as they walked through the corridors, and he hoped Hermione would be okay. Harry knew how frustrating it was to sit in detention with someone he hated, where time seemed to slow and he just wished it was over already. When he and Ron returned to the common room, it was already full of students unwinding from the first day of classes. The chairs by the fireplaces were all taken, so they went to a couple worn down sofas in a secluded corner that no one was occupying. Harry pulled his Defense textbook out, so he could continue outlining what he felt was wrong with the book, and how he'd teach the subject differently. It was about the only thing he could concentrate on at the moment.

When Ron noticed what he was reading, he looked at the textbook incredulously. "You're not studying out of that, are you mate?"

Harry cracked a small smile, but there wasn't any humour behind it. "No, I'm listing everything that's wrong about it, I think that's more useful," Ron huffed out a small laugh, and pulled out his copy of the Dream Oracle .

The two of them worked in silence for a while, Harry was going over each chapter, and highlighting methods he felt were ineffective, like the author disregarding the use of non-defense oriented spells. He couldn't decide if Slinkhard was trying to make the book as student-friendly as possible, or if he really believed his defense strategies would work against Death Eaters and other similar threats somehow. Ron meanwhile, was flipping through his own textbook, and muttering to himself while jotting things down on some parchment. As far as Harry could tell, Ron was trying to come up with plausible dreams, rather than bothering with any sort of daily recording. He thought it was a good idea, all things considered. Harry didn't feel like sharing his endless visions of the Department of Mysteries, or recounting to Trelawnrey his nightmares about Voldemort and Cedric. If anyone needed a reason to think he was losing his marbles, that would take the cake.

As he was jotting down some possible outlines for dueling he wanted to try out, Ron awkwardly cleared his throat. Harry looked up to see him set aside the Dream Oracle, and he set his own fountain pen down.

"D'you really think we don't need Hermione's notes this year?"

Harry inwardly sighed, and straightened in his seat. "Yes, maybe Hermione can lend us some if we're having trouble, but I'm not going to rely on them this year, and neither should you," Ron's ears started turning red, and he pressed on before he could get out a retort. He needed to make Ron understand, "look, you want to know why I'm studying more?" he asked, quickly looking around for eavesdroppers, before dropping his voice. "Because every night, I see Cedric die, and I couldn't do anything to save him. Because every time we're faced with something like this, every time I face something like this, we're always surviving by the skin of our teeth." Ron looked taken aback.

"And maybe I couldn't have saved Cedric," said Harry, his voice cracking near the end. "It's what Mrs. Figg, and Hermione, and Sirius try to tell me. But I don't want to skirt by anymore, I can't. And Hermione deserves better than having to look over every essay we write because we can't do it ourselves," Harry took a shuddering breath. "I don't want to keep fighting with you mate, but I said I would be preparing as much as I could, and you agreed then." Ron seemed to deflate in front of him, and his angry expression turned to something like guilt. Harry remembered their third year when Hagrid told them about Hermione solely helping with Buckbeak's case, how Ron took over from her because she was too stressed, while Oliver was grinding his nose into the Quidditch pitch. He wondered if he was remembering the same.

Ron seemed to be debating with himself before he vaguely gestured to Defensive Magical Theory. "And that's why you're reading that book?" he nodded.

"I'm writing down anything I would change about it. And actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about earlier," he looked around them again, and leaned across their shared table. "Hermione and I want to start a defense group, that I would teach," he said quietly. Ron looked surprised.

"Wait, really?" Harry nodded. Ron looked at him in consideration, and gave him a small grin. "That's not a bad idea, you're the expert with this kind of stuff." Harry grimaced, but nodded.

"I guess. But Hermione thinks we're past studying out of a book, and she wants me to teach a bunch of other students." Ron's eyes seemed to pop.

"Harry, mate, please don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you don't want me to teach too," Harry let out a small laugh and shook his head.

"Nah, that's fine. But you could demonstrate with us, and help us put meetings together," he quickly nodded in agreement, and Harry mentally breathed a sigh of relief. The two of them soon settled into a conversation of their most engaging classes with Lupin and Crouch Jr. to figure out how the meetings should be run. He definitely didn't want to act like Crouch, but his lessons were informative, and he supposed they had to be similar to Moody's if Dumbledore didn't see anything suspect with them. As they talked, Harry felt like the wall that had been coming up between them was starting to come down a little.

The two of them were talking about working up to the spells he had to learn for the third task when the portrait hole opened, and Hermione walked through. Harry had been looking over his shoulder every time it opened, while the sky steadily grew darker outside, and he felt himself relax when he finally saw her.

Hermione looked around the common room before her eyes locked with his, and she made a beeline for their table. Her arms were crossed, and she looked irate. Harry felt dread pool in his stomach, and moved over so she could sit.

"What did she have you do?" he asked as soon as she sank into the couch next to him. Hermione scrowled.

"That- that woman made me write lines, I will respect my betters," she said angrily. Harry had half a mind to confront Umbridge, Sirius' and McGonagall's warnings be damned, but Hermione grabbed his hand tightly, so he stayed put. "Then she burned the parchment in front of me, and thinly insinuated that she'll make sure that anyone I go to will be removed from Hogwarts."

"So that's it? We can't get her kicked out?" Ron asked, looking dismayed.

"No," said Harry firmly, "we'll just have to be smart about it. We can have Skeeter get on Umbridge's case for starters." He sighed, and turned to Hermione. "Do you have any more detentions?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm just tired," he started rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand like she had done a couple days ago, and felt her slowly relaxing.

"I told Ron about your idea," said Harry, dropping his voice again. She looked up at him, and turned to Ron, who smiled awkwardly.

"We were mostly talking about Remus's and Crouch's lessons, Harry wants to take after Remus, big surprise," Hermione smiled back, "do you think I could join you two tomorrow?" She considered him for a moment, and nodded.

"We could use all the help we can get. We'll need to plan where we'll have our meetings, how we'll tell people, lesson plans for the year," Hermione trailed off, muttering about everything they needed to do, and Harry squeezed her hand.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow, we don't have to do it all either."

"I know," said Hermione wearily. "I just- I need to do something useful."

"You're exhausted, Hermione," said Harry gently. "You can take a break, just for tonight," he didn't have to point out that her eyes were drooping, or how she was almost slumped against him, and she sighed quietly before relenting. The three of them talked about their other classes for a little while longer, and Harry was relieved that Ron seemed to have dropped his argument with Hermione earlier. By the time they trudged off to bed, it was past ten, and the common room was almost empty with only a handful of older Gryiffindors hanging around quietly. After he bid Ron goodnight, Harry worked on his Occlumency exercises and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Harry woke up early the next morning, so he could grab his mirror to talk to Sirius. Ron's curtains were still drawn shut, so he assumed he was still asleep, and left the dormitory before anyone else was awake. The sunlight shone through the common room in thin yellow streams when he went down, and there were only a few people at the couches and tables. He didn't see Hermione anywhere, so he climbed through the portrait hole with his cloak and map, and made his way to an abandoned classroom, so no one would stumble across him. Harry locked the heavy wooden door for good measure, and dropped the map and cloak on an old desk while he pulled out the mirror.

"Sirius Black," he said, hoping his godfather was awake. Thankfully, his reflection shimmered for a moment before being replaced with Sirius' face, who looked worried and alert.

"Hey Harry, is everything alright?" he sounded on edge, and Harry was quick to reassure him.

"I'm okay, well, not great, but Hermione had a detention with Umbridge last night," Sirius' eyebrows rose in surprise. "She made her write lines, well, about-" he tripped over himself, not knowing if he should tell him exactly what Hermione had to write, and felt that would be for her to share. "Well, they were really insulting," he lamely settled on, "But she was stuck there for hours, and Umbridge basically told Hermione that if she went to any of the professors about it, they would be sacked."

Sirius was looking at him intently, and his expression turned worried as he spoke. "We did fear that Umbridge was going to leverage her position to take more control over the school, and Fudge was going to let her. I suppose that confirms it."

"Well, can you get Skeeter to expose Umbridge too?" Sirius shot him a humourless grin.

"We can try, but Umbridge has been pretty untouchable in the past. She's not above dirty dealing, I only hope Skeeter's ah, unique abilities, will be enough to get around it. I'll ask Tonks to talk to her later."

Harry nodded gratefully. "Do you know if Fudge is any closer to being removed from office?"

"It's hard to say exactly," said Sirius musingly. "The last story yesterday caused another uproar at the Ministry. A lot of employees, including high ranking ones, have children at Hogwarts, and they were demanding answers. Somehow, it wasn't widely known that you nearly died during that Quidditch match, some of the Order are suggesting a coverup, because there's no way some students didn't write their parents about it. But Fudge is doing his best to smooth it over, talking about other higher ups who recommended it, how much of a threat I am to the magical community, how he was trying to protect the students. It was a mess.

"I will say, all the stories that have been coming out are making everyone distrust anything he has to say. Fudge has been distancing himself from Lucius lately, but that didn't help much when people knew how much gold he's been taking from him. Rita Skeeter is actually starting to look more credible in most people's eyes. But her reputation isn't the greatest, and the public still need to be angry enough to demand he be removed from office. Fudge still has some stalwart supporters who are trying to convince the DMLE that an investigation isn't necessary." He groaned in frustration. "I know, Harry. Personally, I'd say his days are numbered in the Ministry, and it's only a matter of time before the DMLE comes down on his administration. Now, enough about this, how was your first day of classes?"

"Horrible," said Harry, ticking each class off with his fingers. "History of magic, double potions with the Slytherins, Divination, and Defense." Sirius winced.

"I am so terribly sorry, I think James and I would've torn our hair out with a day like that," Harry laughed.

"It was a really long day," he agreed, but the mention of his father made him remember the other reason he wanted to call Sirius so early. "There was something I wanted to ask you though. How did you make the mirrors? I wanted to make a set for Hermione so she can call her parents." Sirius perked up.

"Well, the spells took us a couple months to find and master, then it was a matter of trial and error to get the mirrors to work properly. I'll have to ask Remus, because I can't remember all the details, but we can give you a list of the spells and steps we took later."

Harry grinned broadly for the first time that day, "thanks Sirius. Don't mention it around Hermione though, I want it to be for her birthday."

"My lips are sealed," he promised. "Don't you have breakfast soon? Your morning class is starting in about an hour, right?"

"Right, we'll talk later? I'll have Hermione and Ron with me."

"Sure, give Hermione my best. I'm sorry she had to suffer through a detention with that woman," Harry nodded before the mirror shimmered once more and his own reflection stared back again. He stuffed the mirror back into his bag, and slung it back over his shoulder.

The first thing he did when he walked through the great hall was look around for Hermione. He quickly spotted her bushy curls, and was halfway to the Gryffindor table when she turned her head, and spotted him. The worry on her face was quite visible, so he rushed over to take the seat by her side. Ron was sitting across from her, and his hair was messy on one side like he recently got out of bed, but he looked worried as well.

"Hey, Hermione-"

"Where were you? Did something happen?" she asked fretfully.

"No, I'm sorry, I was talking to Snuffles, everything is okay," he said in an undertone. He was starting to think he should've left a note. Ron had to lean over the table to hear, and her shoulders slumped in relief. "The good news is, Sirius said he'll send Tonks to let Skeeter know to go after Umbridge," Hermione gave him a look of gratitude, "and he thinks it's only a matter of time before the DMLE goes after Fudge. Sirius also sends his best."

She nodded. "Thank you," she said. Harry scooped some eggs onto his plate, as owls for the morning post flew through the windows to deliver their papers and parcels. An orange Kestrel dropped in front of Hermione, and she promptly dropped two sickles in its pouch to take the Daily Prophet from it. When she unfurled the paper between them, there was a large picture of a young Barty Crouch Jr. crying out to the Wizengamot, and Harry felt his stomach turn to ice. It was a picture of his trial after his father convicted him. Hermione drew in a sharp intake of breath when she read the photo's description and realised the same.

Minister Fudge Covers Up Death Eater Plot on Hogwarts

By Rita Skeeter

Fourteen years ago, shortly after the fall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Barty Crouch Jr. was sentenced to life in Azkaban for aiding in the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom, alongside Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange. His father, the late Barty Crouch Sr., is seen convicting and disowning his son. Yet, Crouch Sr. for reasons unknown, broke him out from Azkaban within the year. Presumably for the next twelve years, Crouch Sr. kept his son imprisoned in his own home until last summer, when he broke free from his father, and set off the Dark Mark at the World Cup. Less than a month later, he ambushed Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a renowned Auror, and impersonated him with polyjuice potion.

The exact reason why is unknown. What is known however, is that Barty Crouch Jr. took over the post for Defense Against the Dark Arts while disguised as Alastor Moody, and placed Harry Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire against his will.

Yes, you read that right. A known Death Eater, and fanatic for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named arranged Harry Potter to be entered into the Triwizard tournament, a competition meant for of-age students that tragically led to the death of his fellow Champion, Cedric Diggory.

The question is, why? What would the purpose be, to simply stage an assasination on the Boy Who Lived? Unlikely, as Harry Potter was seen conversing and even likely getting advice from the Death Eater in disguise throughout the year. Fellow students noted that Crouch Jr., thought to be Moody, even complimented him during lessons. And in fact, Mr. Potter did remarkably well for someone his age, quickly gaining a lead and being the first one to enter the maze for the third task.

No, what's more likely, is that Crouch Jr. had a more nefarious plan in mind for young Mr. Potter. One which Mr. Diggory was caught in the middle of, where Mr. Potter barely escaped, that happened when Mr. Potter and Mr. Diggory touched the Triwizard cup as a show of unity.

In the aftermath of the third task, Harry Potter brought back the body of Cedric Diggory, which showed signs of being struck with the killing curse, and he claimed the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But what happened to Crouch Jr.? Why didn't he stand trial for his crimes?

Albus Dumbledore claims to have questioned him with Veritaserum, and says he confirmed Mr. Potter's story. Unfortunately, as the only witnesses were two Hogwarts professors and Mr. Potter himself, it was unable to be used as evidence by the DMLE. But after Crouch Jr. was taken away, and the Minister was called in to help with a dangerous individual at the school, Minister Fudge decided he would bring along a Dementor during his questioning. What happened next was that Barty Crouch Jr. was kissed, and rendered utterly incapable of standing trial. Minister Fudge also came alone, neglecting to bring anyone to assist him. Not Rufus Scrimgeour, the Head of the Auror office, nor Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, or any other Auror equipped with veritaserum and able to perform their own questioning. After this incident, Crouch Jr. was quietly sent to a holding cell at the Ministry, where he remains today. While Minister Fudge claimed he brought the Dementor for his own safety, but did nothing to prevent the Death Eater from being kissed.

As some of you know, this is a clear breach of his powers, as only the head of the DMLE and Minister in agreement can issue a "kiss on sight" order, which in itself is a very rare thing to do. And furthermore, due to the high profile nature of this case, and given he was already incapacitated, the DMLE would've needed to take him in to stand trial in front of the Wizengamot. Why did Minister Fudge act in this way? Why did he cover up the fact a Death Eater taught our children for a year? And what really happened at the end of the Triwizard tournament?

Harry and Hermione stared at the paper for a few moments before she passed it to Ron. Hermione looked stunned, and he felt some disbelief of his own. Rita Skeeter didn't just call Fudge out for having Crouch kissed, she practically came out to say Voldemort was back. He risked a glance at the staff table, and zeroed in on Umbridge, who seemed to have turned a deep shade of purple that would make Uncle Vernon proud. Then he looked around for Neville, and spotted him reading the Prophet stonily-faced. Harry felt his gut twist, it had to be painful for him, seeing one of the people responsible for torturing his parents being brought to light in such a way. But he noticed a number of other students sneaking glances at him, and awkwardly returned to his breakfast.

"This is really good I think," said Hermione. "If Sirius thinks it's only a matter of time before the DMLE finally investigates Malfoy and Fudge, this could be it." Harry agreed. The series of articles Skeeter was writing were picking up the pace lately, and the situation was getting worse for Fudge. Across from them, Ron looked mildly impressed by the time he reached the end of the article, and passed it back to Hermione, who began reading through the rest of the paper.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't think Skeeter is all that bad," said Ron. Hermione snorted as she flipped to another page.

"I still have some reservations. But it is nice to read something from her that isn't trying to make a scandal out of nothing."

"Let's just hope this sticks," said Harry. "Sirius told me that Fudge still had supporters trying to convince the DMLE not to investigate. I just hope that this story is bad enough that they won't be able to help him." Hermione nodded, and commented on a few of the articles as she ate. Umbridge's bill that would prevent sentient magical creatures from testifying was recently voted on, and it narrowly avoided being passed, to Hermione's satisfaction. "Of course, the fact it came this close to passing at all is horrible," she said, "but it's a good thing there was enough opposition." There were even less articles smearing his name like there were during the summer.

When the bell rang through the great hall, signaling that the students should get to their classes, Hermione folded her paper, and the three of them grabbed their bags and left for Charms class. There were only a few other Gryffindors when they got to the classroom, and Hermione led them to a table in the middle of the room, which held three boxes, and was covered in miscellaneous objects. Once all the students had arrived, like Snape and Trelawney, Flitwick began his lesson by emphasising the importance of their OWLs, and told them they would spend many of their lessons reviewing old spells.

"Today's class will be starting with a relatively simple, but difficult to perfect charm used for packing objects," he said in his squeaky voice. "The incantation is Stipanus, and the wand movement looks like this," he said, moving his hand in a series of up and down motions that looked like a kiddie rollercoaster. He demonstrated again with the incantation, and an assortment of items on his desk flew into a small box neatly before settling in place.

"Everyone should have their own box and items, and I'd like you all to practice until you can get everything in neatly."

Harry soon learned that while the spell worked fairly quickly, it was difficult to get just right, and he sympathsised with Tonks when she had trouble packing his things over the summer. Beside him, Ron was having a bit more trouble with the spell, as his items tended to land in a pile. And while Hermione was getting the odd object landing right, it wasn't very neat.

He wanted to get the spell before the end of class however, and tried to use Sirius' advice on letting his magic guide the spell, which soon let the occasional object land neatly like Hermione's. Before long, the two of them were competing with each other to master the spell.

"Oh, too bad," Harry grinned when Hermione performed the spell again, and only several shirts folded and landed neatly. She scowled briefly.

"Like you're doing much better," she huffed. He emptied his box and used the spell again. Like Hermione, only a few things landed neatly, for him it was a pair of socks that folded themselves, and a couple rolls of parchment.

"Maybe not, but I think we're pretty close," the pair were going back and forth, side-eyeing the other, and trying to perfect the spell first. With less than ten minutes until the end of class, Hermione finally managed the spell properly, and he followed not four seconds later.

"I believe I win, Harry," said Hermione. He nodded.

"Until next time," Harry promised, and she grinned.

"Excellent work, Ms. Granger, Mr. Potter. Fifteen points to Gryffindor each," said Flitwick. They were the only ones to master the spell in the class. Ron was getting closer, most of his clothes were folding, but not everything was arranging themselves properly. "Everyone who has not managed to master the spell will need to write six inches on the spell, and its properties. We will review this spell again in a later class," most of the class groaned at that.

When the bell rang, the trio grabbed their bags, and headed back to the common room for break before lunch. It was still early, but they only had Charms for the day, except Hermione who had to leave for Ancient Runes, so she split off from them on the way, and told them she would meet up with them later.

The common room was mostly empty when they climbed through the portrait hole. Most of them were younger students who had finished their classes for the morning, while some of the older students were studying.

Harry and Ron took a couch near the fireplace that wasn't taken yet, and opened their bags to pull out some parchment. He decided to start his Moonstones essay for Snape so he could be done with it, while Ron took out a battered book for Keeper strategy. He had only finished the section on its properties when he felt a small poke on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Elaine looking at him nervously.

"Yes, Elaine?" he asked, setting his fountain pen down.

"I had a transfiguration question," she said. "We had our first class today, and I wanted to ask you something."

"Okay, what was it?"

"Do you know if it's possible to make a carriage and horses with a pumpkin and mice?" Harry blinked.

"What?" Elaine ducked her head, looking embarrassed.

"It's from Cinderella, when the Fairy Godmother helps her get to the ball by turning her mice friends and a pumpkin into horses and a carriage," he breathed out a small 'oh,' and nodded in understanding. The Dursley's never let Dudley watch anything that had magic in it, but he heard snippets here and there when he was in primary school.

"I don't know actually, do you want to look it up?" she nodded eagerly, and he went up to his dormitory to find his transfiguration textbook. When he came back down, she was sitting at a table with her parchment laid out.

He took a seat next to her, and opened the book so they could both read it. "So you said she turned a pumpkin into a carriage?" She nodded, and he flipped through the table of contents.

"I don't think there's any specific spell for that, but you could probably modify one, there are a lot of different kinds of spells that change one thing into another."

"How long will it take to learn?" she asked, looking at the description and mouthing the incantation.

"Probably a few years at least," said Harry apologetically. "But the kind of transfiguration you want to do sounds really difficult, so you'll need to study a lot." She nodded, but she looked a little disappointed. Still, she wrote down a list of the transformation spells in his textbook diligently. Her attitude was so Hermione-ish when they were first years, that he almost laughed, and felt an inexplicable wave of fondness wash over him.

"How much transfiguration do you know?" she asked him curiously.

He scratched the back of his neck, thinking. "A fair amount I guess. I can't do anything too big yet, but I also haven't really tried."

"Oh."

"I can help you practice more advanced spells though, and Hermione is really good with transfiguration too, even better than me," Elaine's eyes lit up, and she nodded excitedly. The two of them continued going through his transfiguration book for spells that might be useful to practice, and made note of cross-species switching when her spellwork was more advanced. While he was helping her, she talked about all her favourite movies, like the Sword in the Stone, and Mary Poppins, and how she wanted to recreate their magic when she found out she was a witch. He'd never seen any of those movies growing up, but some of the spells she talked about sounded interesting to figure out.

He soon found himself engrossed in the different ways someone could use transfiguration as they went through his textbook, and he remembered Sirius' advice back at Grimmauld Place, "think outside the box of what you already know, what you could learn." The Draconifors spell could be used to create dragons, and while their actual attacks would be more of a nuisance, they could be a helpful distraction. Or he could try to find a more advanced version that could be used in a duel. Different transforming spells could make clothing that felt weighed down, slowing someone down in a duel. And maybe modifying some spell could let him turn someone's hair into snakes like Medusa. As he was caught in his musings, and answering any question Elaine had, she was happily flipping through his textbook, and jotting down everything she could.

While he was writing his own notes for defense, Hermione came through the portrait hole, having finished her last class for the day. He waved her over, and she pulled a chair next to his.

"What are you two doing?"

"Harry is helping me learn how to do magic like the Fairy Godmother!"

Hermione looked confused for a moment, before something clicked. "Cinderella?" she nodded.

"How was Runes?" he asked.

"Long, but fascinating. We're going to be able to create our own Rune schemes this year, though it's only simpler ones."

"What will you be able to use that for?"

Hermione's face lit up, and she pulled out a roll of parchment that held her notes, "I'll be able to anchor or extend enchantments on an object mostly," she said, showing him an arrangement of symbols, "only for older spells though, modern enchantments gives many more options for that. But Runes is like your foundational work, learning the history and how it works without being too complex. Like classical and modern physics, both work, but one is easier to get into, you know?" Harry nodded, and smiled at her rambling. He figured that's how items like Sirius' mirror might have worked, to keep their magic active that long without wearing off.

Elaine looked awed, "can you use enchantments to make a bag that can hold anything?"

Hermione smiled, "that sounds like the undetectable extension charm, so yes, you can." Elaine gave her a bright smile, and scribbled it down on her parchment to look at later. Harry and Hermione continued to answer her questions on the limitations of magic, until they needed to go back to their homework. But they both promised to help her practice advanced spells some other time.

Several hours later, Hermione was leading Harry and Ron to an old classroom down a barely used corridor, and he had a stack of defense books in his bag for them to use, not knowing how many they'll need. The classroom she led them to was dusty, but the desks seemed to be in good shape, so they set their things down, and sat around the teacher's desk with the pile of defense books between them.

"Since you will be the one teaching, have you been thinking about how you wanted to set up meetings?" Hermione asked him.

Harry nodded, he had given the idea some thought over the last couple days since she brought it up for the first time. "We should start simple," he said, "I don't want to try to teach something really difficult, and given our first professors like Quirrel and Lockheart, I don't think many of the others will be up for that anyway," Hermione and Ron nodded in agreement.

"What did you have in mind?" Ron asked, idly flipping through George's sixth year book, Facing the Dark Arts.

"I was thinking the disarming charm actually," he said. "It was probably the first useful defensive spell I learned. And, well, it saved me against Voldemort." Hermione's and Ron's heads snapped up. He didn't really talk about what happened in the graveyard, and tended to be light on the details. But if he was going to help people defend themselves, he needed to share what he knew, at least with his friends.

"When the spell collided with his," he explained, "they just… connected. Dumbledore told me it was because our wands share the same core," his friends looked even more surprised at that, "but I still think it's a useful spell. Remember when it knocked out Snape?" Ron snorted.

"What other spells did you have in mind?" Hermione asked, writing it down on her parchment. She was glancing at him puzzlingly, and he guessed she was going to question him about his wand later.

"I want to work them up to the spells I used in the third task," he said, nodding to Ron. "They were all pretty helpful in the maze. After that, I think we'll need more planning. Sirius told us that we need to properly incapacitate someone in a duel, but I haven't used any of the spells he gave us yet, so we need to practice them on our own." Hermione nodded, pleased at his forethought.

The trio continued going back and forth about possible spells, and techniques he could teach, like nonverbal casting, dueling, both individually and against multiple opponents, and creative spellwork. When the topic of figuring out who would come to be taught defense by him, Hermione assured them she would take care of that part, but none of them knew where they would hold the actual meetings.

The easiest possibility was just using the old classrooms, but they also knew that Umbridge would shut them down if she caught the slightest wind of their activities, so they needed something more discreet. Harry elected to tell Sirius about their plan to ask him and Remus if they had any ideas, based on all the sneaking around they did, and both Hermione and Ron agreed.

By the time they decided to head back to their common room, Harry felt like a weight was lifting off his chest. He wasn't just learning and training anymore, he would be helping others do the same. It felt like he was doing something useful, and he took Hermione's hand in his as they walked down the corridor, murmuring a grateful "thank you." She simply squeezed his hand back. "Anytime, Harry," she said quietly.