Mon ange gardien

by virgules

We all know what Harry went through during his years at Hogwarts. But what happened where he wasn't looking? A love affair between his best friend and his nemesis...? Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy, from first to seventh year, gradually fall in love during the real books. Chapter every Sunday evening!

74. 74 : onirism

Hello everyone :)

So I've got a few notes to pass on to you before we start the chapter:

- I've decided to change the pace of my chapter posts. I think I've been feeling it for a few weeks now, but I'm finding it really hard to keep up my weekly rhythm. I've started a new job that's preventing me from writing as much as I'd like and I'm almost out of chapters. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to write, translate and edit in just a few days, on top of all the work I have on the side. So I'm going to switch to one chapter every other Sunday until the end of the summer, on 1 September, when I hope to be back to one chapter a week.

Don't worry, of course I'll continue to write, it's just to offer you better content: I don't have time to re-read what I write and I think that shows in the text. I really don't want to rush Mon Ange Gardien, I want to have the time and not be under pressure to write a chapter by Sunday. I'm really sorry, I know a lot of you wait for the notifications every week (love you). I promise writing is my number 1 priority, but I need to take some time to write better.

Thank you so much to everyone who will understand, I hope you don't get bored of my chapters if they come less often...

- In the meantime, if you don't know what to read until Sunday in a fortnight' time, here's a list of the best fics I've read:

- Secrets and Masks by Emerald_Slytherin: /works/32136715/chapters/79619566
- All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89: /works/10057010/chapters/22409387
- All the Young Dudes (Sirius perspective) by Rollercoasterwords: /works/34577035/chapters/86070550
- Until the Ink Runs Dry by AccioMjolnir : /works/30946961/chapters/76428473?style=disable
- Alice, look at me by Rollercoasterwords : /works/41141181
- Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love by isthisselfcare: /works/34500952/chapters/85870804

(I read Secrets & Masks while on holiday and was completely obsessed, it really is the best Dramione I've read in my life. Don't read anything about it and go for it if you don't know it, I promise it's worth it! On the other hand, don't be too surprised by S&M's Theo, which is radically different from mine, haha!)

That's it, thank you all for following me again and loving MAG as much as I do, I hope you won't be too disappointed by my change of pace and I wish you all an excellent read :) Love you!

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Hermione

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Ron and Harry had decided to accompany Hermione to the Library again. They sat down at the same table as the day before, the large one near the entrance, and each worked on their homework. Outside, gusts of wind rattled the windows, accompanied by raindrops gently tapping against the glass. This was Hermione's favourite atmosphere when she worked in the Library.

No matter how many times she checked every five minutes, Draco didn't show up. She was sure he would be working with Theodore Nott at their usual study table, just like the day before. But Theodore was alone all evening.

Hermione preferred to concentrate on her Potions textbook rather than dwell on that. She was with Harry and Ron. She shouldn't be thinking about Draco at a time like this, she should be enjoying the company of her best friends.

The guilt came back to her throat and she took a sip of cinnamon tea to try and make it go away, but it didn't. She looked at Harry on her right, reading the ingredients of the potion they would be tested on on Friday. His eyes were red with exhaustion. He was having a very difficult start to the year and she spent all her time thinking about Draco...

Hermione then turned to Ron, who was writing down the ingredients on a piece of paper and reading them in an imperceptible whisper between his lips, hoping to remember them.

Without really knowing why, Hermione's mind wandered to Lupin. She thought of his fascinating lessons and regretted that she had not taken more advantage of the subject in the past. She hated the feeling of learning nothing in a class. Umbridge was definitely the worst teacher they had had since they had been at Hogwarts.

Hermione thought about her own suggestion to appoint Harry as a teacher and hesitated to bring up the subject again. Harry had been so unstable since the summer, lurching from one mood to another with frightening speed, that she didn't know how to broach the subject again without upsetting him.

So she opted for directness.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?" the dark-haired boy said, his head still down on his book.

"I was wondering if you'd given any more thought about Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Course I have." he replied grumpily. "Can't forget it, can we, with that hag teaching us..."

"I meant the idea Ron and I had." Hermione clarified.

Ron turned his head towards her and gave her a look that was both desperate and threatening. She frowned at his lack of cooperation and said:

"Oh, all right, the idea I had then. About you teaching us."

Harry continued to read his textbook, but Hermione could see that his eyes were clouded with thought and he wasn't really reading. He was obviously in the middle of an inner dilemma.

She waited for him to break the silence first, which he did with a surrendering sigh:

"Yes, well, I... I've given it some thought." he admitted without looking at her.

"And?" Hermione asked eagerly.

"I don't know..." he replied.

He looked at Ron and he must have realised that Harry wasn't going to throw another tantrum in the middle of the Library because he nodded confidently:

"I thought it was a good idea from the start."

Ron's agreement seemed to comfort Harry in his decision. He fidgeted a little in his chair, obviously uncomfortable.

"You heard what I said about a lot of it being luck, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes Harry." Hermione replied gently. "But still, there's no point in pretending that you're not good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, because you are. You were the only person last year who could throw off the Imperius Curse completely, you can make a Patronus, you can do all sorts of things that full grown wizards can't, Viktor always said..."

"Yeah?" exclaimed Ron, turning his head so hard his neck snapped. "What did Vicky say?"

"Ho-ho..." Hermione said in a bored voice.

She tried not to think about how Draco would react if he found out that she was corresponding with Viktor. He'd probably be furious. The thought triggered a wave of butterflies in the pit of her stomach that she tried to ignore.

"He said Harry could do things he himself didn't know how to do, and yet he was in his final year at Durmstrang." Hermione finished.

"You didn't keep in touch with him, did you?" asked Ron suspiciously.

"And if I did, what would that be like?" asked Hermione, turning her head towards him disdainfully, despite the flush on her cheeks. "I'm allowed to have a pen pal if..."

"He didn't just want to be your pen pal!" cried Ron accusingly, earning an authoritative tutting from Mrs. Pince behind her desk.

Hermione shook her head in exasperation and turned back to Harry:

"So, what do you think? Will you teach us?"

"Just you and Ron, yeah?" asked Harry.

"Oh, er... Well..." said Hermione, suddenly hesitant. "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-Voldemort, oh, don't be pathetic, Ron. It doesn't seem fair if we don't offer the chance to other people."

Harry thought for a moment and then replied:

"Yes, but apart from you, I don't think anyone would want to take my classes. I'm a nutter, don't forget."

"I think you'd be surprised how many people want to hear what you have to say." Hermione assured. Then she leaned forward a little so that no one else could hear her proposal, "Look. 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 this outside of school?" asked Ron.

Hermione straightened in her chair and pretended to read the diagram of the Chinese Biting Cabbage, which was crucial to the composition of Friday's potion.

"Because I don't think Umbridge would be happy if she found out what we were up to." she explained simply.

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So Hermione spent the end of September trying to get as many students as possible into Harry's Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. While Ron dealt with the students in the Quidditch teams, Hermione asked Colin Crivey, Justin Flinch-Flitchey and the other prefects. They all agreed, and Hermione invited each of them to talk about it discreetly to see who would be interested.

When she suggested it to Ginny during an early breakfast, she nodded straight away:

"That's a great idea, I'm in. I'll suggest it to Michael too. Maybe he'll want to bring some of his Ravenclaw friends along."

"Um..." Hermione began hesitantly. "Ginny, your brothers will be there..."

"I hope so!" the redhead said with a laugh.

"Are you sure you want them to see Michael?" asked Hermione worriedly.

Ginny made an evasive gesture with her hand.

"Yes, I don't mind. In fact, I want them to know that I'm going out with him."

"Really?" asked Hermione in surprise.

"Yes, I've decided it's time." Ginny said firmly. "I'm tired of them always seeing me as the little girl who had a crush on Harry. That's why they don't understand that I can play Quidditch or that I can have a boyfriend. And at first I was terrified that they'd find out, that their perception of me would change... But I decided that I didn't care anymore. Percy running away from home, Ron's friends with the famous Harry Potter and Fred and George must have done far worse than anyone else in this Castle. I'm allowed to have a boyfriend. Especially with the war coming, we might as well make the most of the time we have left, right?"

Hermione could only nod, stunned by this wise speech. Ginny dipped her spoon into her bowl of cereal and continued eating, indifferent to the amazement of the Gryffindor in front of her.

"Besides, I think I can survive a few remarks from my brothers. I'm used to it by now." she added with a smile.

Hermione couldn't help but applaud her courage. In fact, she felt that Ginny had grown up enormously since the beginning of the year. She was completely different from the Ginny of the previous term. Perhaps it was the fact that she was no longer in love with Harry, or simply the maturity that came with the war that had officially begun that summer. Either way, she seemed much wiser, and Hermione appreciated the evolution in her best friend.

The day before the trip to Hogsmeade, in the middle of Potions class on a Friday afternoon, Ron took advantage of Harry's concentration on his preparations to whisper in Hermione's ear:

"Did you manage to tell everyone?"

Hermione pursed her lips without meaning to. She had, in fact, told everyone she could think of about joining Harry's classes. She'd asked the prefects, Parvati and even proposed to Luna Lovegood on Ginny's advice. Ron had dealt with Dean, Fred and George, who had proposed to the girls in their year, and Lee Jordan. She knew that, technically, she'd told everyone.

But there was one last person on her mind. Someone she hadn't dared to ask.

Hearing Ron's question, Hermione subtly turned her head in his direction.

Theodore Nott was cutting his Billywig sting with extreme concentration. Blaise Zabini was next to him, watching the mixture in the cauldron with an indifferent expression on his face. Hermione watched Theodore cut his ingredient, his eyes riveted on the sting, and thought back to the dislike he had expressed towards Umbridge a few weeks earlier. She knew he was against the Ministry's policy, and that he would be happy to take some extra classes in Defence Against the Dark Arts to bring himself up to speed. He was certainly good at it, and eager to learn more. She didn't really know him, but she had the impression that they both thought a bit alike. That they were similar in many ways. And she was sure he would be interested in her suggestion.

But Hermione's eyes slid over Theodore's collar, stopping on the green of his tie, and she looked away.

"Yes." Hermione replied in one breath. "Yes, I've warned everyone."

Ron nodded and went back to work.

For the rest of the class, she wondered how Ron would react if she had suggested the name Theodore Nott. She wondered how the other students would look at him if he turned up at the Hog's Head the next day. How they would judge him just because he belonged to an 'opposing' House. How revolted they would be, and how disgusted they might be that Hermione had suggested him. A Slytherin.

Hermione had always hated the differences between the Houses. She'd always found them sectarian and she'd learned not to rely on someone's family to judge them. She knew Draco well enough now to know that he was mean because of his parents, his upbringing. That it was a defence mechanism he'd built up to protect himself. She understood that Theodore was not the contemptuous boy she had always imagined him to be. She knew, thanks to Draco and her first meeting with him, that he was a kind, sensitive and loyal boy. She knew that he would be a great addition to Harry's classes, but that he'd never be able to join them, because he was a Slytherin.

And she thought that was unfair.

That evening, Hermione waited until the Common Room was empty before sneaking downstairs.

She had prepared a plan during the week, taking advantage of the fact that Draco had Alchemy class on Thursday evenings to get information from the Library. She had even asked Flitwick for advice, using revision as an excuse to hide her true intentions.

Hermione took a parchment from one of the shelves in the Common Room and sat down on one of the study tables. Then she took out her wand and pointed it at the paper. She took a deep breath, focused all the magic she could feel pulsing against the skin of her wrist, and said clearly:

"Perdet linguam cicatrix in faciem tuam."

As soon as she said the spell, Hermione felt a considerable amount of magic vibrate against her fingers. A dark beam shot from her wand and landed on the surface of the parchment, which turned slightly black. Hermione then put down her wand and picked up a quill with which she wrote the word 'sneak'. For a second, the word remained there, then the parchment absorbed the ink, and nothing remained of the word she had just written on the paper. It now looked like an ordinary piece of parchment.

But Hermione knew that if someone wrote their name on it and then revealed the nature of Harry's meetings, their face would immediately be covered in pustules that would form the word 'sneak'.

It was the first time Hermione had ever used a curse. She suddenly felt exhausted, as if the magic she had used had drained the energy from her. Her hand itched a little. Massaging it absentmindedly, Hermione suddenly regretted what she had done. It was a harmless spell, but it was still dark magic. If anyone told on them, they would probably be scarred for life.

She wondered how the boys would react if they found out she had cursed the parchment. They would probably be horrified. And yet, she had a history of casting illegal spells: she had locked Rita Skeeter in a jar for a week and blackmailed her. She had made a Polyjuice Potion in the middle of a Hogwarts toilet. She'd secretly used a Time Turner and lied to everyone...

Then she wondered what Draco would think. His reaction would probably be the opposite of Harry's and Ron's: he'd claim that she was a Slytherin, and he'd probably be proud of her. The thought made her smile for no reason.

Suddenly she heard footsteps on the stairs and quickly put the parchment away before remembering that it was blank. Fred and George entered the Common Room and both frowned when they saw her sitting there.

"Mione?" called George. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

"Nothing special." she replied with a shrug. "Studying."

She pointed to her quill and parchment, but the twins must have known her well by now, because neither of them were fooled.

"What are you really doing?" asked Fred as he approached her, a suspicious look on his face.

"Nothing!"

"Liar. You have that... look." he replied, pointing at her. "What are you up to?"

"What look?" Hermione asked in surprise.

"That mischievous look." George replied, approaching the table in turn.

"I don't have a mischievous look, and I'm not doing anything in particular." she replied with as much conviction as she could muster.

"You're lying!" repeated Fred. "You have your lying voice! What are you doing?"

Fred had come close enough to look at Hermione's parchment, his eyebrows furrowed. She noticed that he had a box tucked behind his back, making a suspicious rattle with every step he took.

"And you, what are you doing?" asked Hermione, pointing at them both.

The twins suddenly stepped back with two faces full of false innocence.

"Nothing." they replied in unison, far too quickly for it to be true.

"Well, shall we just say that none of us are doing anything, and keep it a secret?" Hermione offered.

Fred and George looked at each other and then nodded in agreement:

"Very well."

"Very well." Hermione repeated as she picked up her parchment and quill. "Good night, boys."

And she returned to her dormitory, her heart beating wildly.

The next morning, Harry, Ron and Hermione had a quick breakfast under the clear skies of the Great Hall, then queued in front of Filch, who was checking that they all had their permissions. Hermione showed hers, with both her parents' signatures, and Filch ticked her name off with a grunt of approval.

When it was Harry's turn, however, the caretaker did something very strange: he leaned over and sniffed him, as if trying to detect a particular odour on his jumper. Then he nodded and let him go.

"Er... why was Filch sniffing you like that?" asked Ron as they took the road that led to the wizarding village.

"Oh, I suppose he was trying to detect a Dungbomb scent." Harry replied with a chuckle. "I forgot to tell you... The other day, when I went to give Hedwig my letter for Sirius, Filch came running into the Owlery and ordered me to show him my mail, on the pretext that someone had told him I had ordered Dungbombs. Luckily, I'd already sent off my letter, so I told him it was too late and... Cho, who happened to be there..." (Harry suddenly scratched his nose and Hermione suspected he was blushing) "defended me by saying that she'd seen me send it and that I hadn't ordered anything. Ever since, Filch has been sniffing me every time I pass by to make sure I haven't got the Dungbombs".

Ron burst out laughing when he heard the story, but Hermione didn't find it funny at all.

"He said he was told you were ordering Dungbombs?" she asked. "But who told him?"

"I don't know." Harry replied with a shrug. "Malfoy, I suppose, as a joke."

The name made Hermione frown further, now deep in her own thoughts.

"Malfoy?" she repeated sceptically. "Yes... Maybe..."

She knew Draco could do that, after all, he'd disguised himself as a Dementor two years before, just to scare Harry. But he'd promised to stop bothering Harry. Had he done it because he thought it wasn't really an insult, but rather a harmless prank?

Or... And at that thought, the hairs on Hermione's arms stood up under her cloak. Or maybe it was someone else who had found this excuse to go through Harry's mail. And Hermione suspected one person in particular who would be perfectly capable of doing that.

Umbridge.

Perhaps she wanted to know about Harry's correspondence and had ordered Filch to intercept his mail under the pretext of the Dungbombs. If Harry hadn't sent his letter in time, could Umbridge have realised that he was sending messages to his godfather, who was being hunted all over the country?

"Where are we going?" asked Harry suddenly, and Hermione realised they had arrived at the edge of the village. She hadn't even seen the road. "Three Broomsticks?"

"Oh no, it's always crowded and way too noisy." she replied, concentrating on the present. "I've told the others to meet us at The Hog's Head, it's another pub, you know, the one off the High Street. I think the place is a bit... I don't know... a bit dodgy... But Hogwarts students don't usually go there, so I don't think there's any danger of us being overheard."

They made their way up the main street of Hogsmeade, passing all the iconic shop windows of the village. They were not surprised to find Fred, George and Lee in Zonko's with three large bags of tricks and treats. They then passed the tea shop, where Hermione planned to go after the meeting, the post office, where owls flew out of the windows at regular intervals, and then the dress shop, where Ginny and Hermione had bought their dresses for the Ball. Pansy Parkinson was inside with Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, looking at the new collection.

They turned into a side street where the squeaky Hog's Head sign hung miserably over the pub door. If Hermione hadn't remembered the address, she wouldn't have stopped there: the pub looked shabby and seemed to cater for a seedy clientele.

She turned to Harry and Ron, who were staring at the window with worried expressions.

"Well, shall we come in?" she said.

Harry opened the door and went in first.

The first thing Hermione noticed was a whiff of warm air that smelled like goat dung. She wrinkled her nose and entered the pub, the main room of which was tiny compared to the Three Broomsticks. The floor was covered in stone-encrusted dirt, and the dingy little room was lit only by flickering candles on each of the small tables. There weren't many people: a man at the bar, dressed entirely in filthy bandages, except for his mouth, so he could pour his disgusting drink. Two figures in thick hoods were talking in low tones at a table, and a witch wrapped in a black veil from head to toe sat by the fireplace.

"I don't know if this is really for us, Hermione." Harry said as the three of them took an uncertain step towards the counter. "You don't think Umbridge is hiding under there, do you?" he asked, pointing with his chin at the veiled witch.

Hermione glanced at the figure, but Ron kept his head firmly down on the muddy floor.

"Umbridge is smaller than that woman." she said. "Besides, even if Umbridge did come here, she couldn't say anything because I've checked the school rules several times and we're not out of bounds. I asked Professor Flitwick if students could come to The Hog's Head, and he said yes, but strongly advised me to bring my own glasses. I've also read and reread everything I could find on the subject, and it's perfectly acceptable to study or do homework in a group. But I still don't think it's a good idea to expose what we're going to do."

"No, especially as it's not exactly a homework group you're planning, is it?" Harry said.

The barman suddenly emerged from a back room and stood in front of the bar. He had a long dark grey beard, almost as long as his hair of the same colour. If he didn't look so grim, he could have looked almost like Dumbledore.

"What?" growled the bartender.

"Three Butterbeers, please." Hermione said.

The man pulled three dust-covered bottles from under the bar and placed them noisily on the counter.

"Six Sickles."

"I'll get them." Harry said, handing over some silver coins.

They took their Butterbeers and moved to the furthest table in the pub.

"You know what?" Ron said enthusiastically, looking around the room. "We could order anything in here. I bet this guy would sell us anything, he wouldn't mind. I've always wanted to try Firewhisky..."

"Ron, you're a prefect." Hermione reminded him.

"Oh yes, that's right." Ron said, losing his smile.

Hermione suddenly remembered her drunken evening and absentmindedly bit her nails, thinking about her lack of impartiality. She had never drunk Firewhisky, but she knew another prefect who had probably tried it.

"So who's joining us?" asked Harry as he opened his beer.

"Oh, just a couple of people." Hermione replied, consulting her watch so as not to meet her best friend's curious gaze. "I told them to come around this time and I'm sure they know where it is... Look, it's probably them."

The door to the pub had opened and a ray of sunlight illuminated the darkened room for a moment, but was soon blocked by the sheer number of people hurrying across the landing to get in.

Neville was the first to enter, followed by Dean, then Lavender (who Hermione was very surprised to see there), the Patil twins, Cho and her best friend Marietta, much to Harry's delight, who couldn't help but smile behind his beer. Then Luna Lovegood walked in, with such a dreamy look on her face that it was impossible to tell if she had come for the meeting or just wandered in. Next to enter were the three girls from the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie McMillan, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot, who looked extremely nervous. Ginny and Michael Corner entered after them, accompanied by two of Michael's friends from Ravenclaw, Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein. Just before the door closed, Zacharias Smith slipped through, and Hermione hid her disappointment because she didn't like the boy very much. Fred, George and Lee finished the march.

"A couple of people?" said Harry in a panicked voice. "A couple of people?!"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular." Hermione said happily. "Ron, do you want to get some more chairs?"

Everyone ordered a Butterbeer each, causing a hell of a buzz in the tiny pub. Ron was adding chairs to the table when Harry caught the sleeve of Hermione's jumper between his fingers:

"What have you been telling people?" he said in a low voice. "What do they expect?"

"I told you, they just want to hear what you have to tell them." Seeing his sudden look of anger, she added: "You don't have to do anything yet, I'll talk to them first."

"Hi Harry!" Neville called cheerfully as he sat down opposite him.

Harry gave a pale, worried smile in return. Hermione could see that he was looking frantically at Cho, who had taken her seat next to Ron. When everyone had settled down and was staring intently at Harry, Hermione cleared her throat:

"Er... Well, er, hello."

For a brief second, she imagined Draco's face if he could hear her voice at this moment.

"So, er... well, you know why you're here. Erm... well, Harry had the idea (Harry glared at her)... I mean, I had the idea... That it might be good for people who want to study Defence Against the Dark Arts, and I mean really study, not just settle for the rubbish Umbridge makes us do, because you can't call it Defence Against the Dark Arts..."

"Hear hear!" shouted Anthony Goldstein with a smile, which reassured Hermione considerably.

"So I thought maybe we should take matters into our own hands." she said in a more confident voice.

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?" asked Michael Corner.

Hermione turned to him. It was the first time she had ever spoken to Ginny's boyfriend.

"Of course. But more than that, I want to get some proper defensive training because... because..."

Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes to finish her sentence:

"Because Lord Voldemort is back."

The twitch she felt in her arms as she said this was nothing compared to the overreactions of the others: Marietta gasped and spilled beer all over her dress, Terry Boot convulsed violently and Neville let out a frightened whimper.

"Well... that's our plan anyway." Hermione continued. "If you decide to join us, we'll have to see how we..."

"Where is the proof that You-Know-Who is back?" asked Zacharias Smith aggressively.

"Well, Dumbledore believes..." began Hermione.

"You mean Dumbledore believes him." he replied, nodding at Harry.

"And who are you?" asked Ron abruptly.

For once, Hermione didn't scowl at his rudeness.

"Zacharias Smith." the boy replied. "And I think we have a right to know exactly what makes him say that You-Know-Who is back.

"Look, that's really not what this meeting is about..." said Hermione.

"Leave it, Hermione." Harry interjected.

He straightened and stared into Zacharias' eyes as he replied with uncharacteristic coldness:

"What makes me say You-Know-Who is back? Because I've seen him. But Dumbledore has already told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you won't believe me, and I have no intention of wasting the afternoon trying to convince anyone."

The whole table held its breath. Even the bartender seemed to be listening to Harry's tirade as he pretended to clean his glass.

"All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory was killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought his body back to Hogwarts." Zacharias replied with disdain. "He didn't give us any details, he didn't explain how Diggory was killed and I think we'd all like to know..."

"If you've come to hear exactly what happens when Voldemort murders someone, I can't help you." Harry interrupted. A new surge of anger made him tremble. He looked at Zacharias with a spark of hatred in his green eyes. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So whoever came for this can leave right now."

He stood next to Hermione's ear so she could hear his jerky whisper:

"Let's go, this wasn't a good idea, they're all looking at me like I'm a freak..."

Hermione was about to argue when a floating voice interrupted them:

"Is it true you can cast a corporeal Patronus?"

Hermione didn't need to look for the source of the voice, she recognised Luna Lovegood's distinctive timbre. Everyone had turned to her in bewilderment, but her piercing blue eyes were fixed on Harry.

He stood with his fists clenched at his sides, clearly reluctant to brag in front of all these people.

"Yes, it's true." Hermione answered for him. "I've seen it."

"Blimey, Harry, I had no idea you could do that!" chimed in Dean, whose face was marked by a certain admiration.

"Mum asked Ron not to spread the news." Fred said, smiling at Harry. "She says you're getting enough attention as it is."

"She's got a point." Harry muttered.

Several people broke into laughter, which managed to lighten the tense atmosphere that had built up since Zacharias Smith had spoken.

"And you actually killed a Basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore's office?" asked Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits told me when I went there last year..."

"Um, yes... That's right..." replied Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley let out a whistle, and Lavender let out a low "wow!"

"And at the end of our first year..." said Neville, addressing everyone. "He saved that Sorcerous Stone…"

"Sorcerer's." corrected Hermione in a breath.

"Yes, that, from You-Know-Who." finished Neville.

"And let's not forget all the work he did last year during the Tournament." Cho added with a faint smile. "Getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and things…"

There was an admiring murmur.

"Listen..." said Harry, and everyone listened. "I… I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but… I had a lot of help with all that stuff…"

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once. "That was a seriously cool bit of flying…"

"Well, yeah..." admitted Harry reluctantly.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors last summer." remarked Susan Bones.

Hermione and Ron exchanged amused glances at the thought of Harry being praised for his prowess.

"No..." admitted Harry. "No. Well, all right, I know I've managed some things without any help, but what I want you to understand is..."

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?'a asked Zacharias Smith.

"Here, I've got an idea for you." said Ron loudly. "Why don't you shut your mouth?"

The boy turned scarlet.

"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 Fred.

"Do you want us to take care of cleaning your ears?" asked George, pulling a long, murderous-looking metal instrument out of one of Zonko's bags.

"Or any other part of your body, we're not picky, we'll stick it anywhere you like..." added Fred.

"Yes, well..." Hermione said hastily. "Moving on… The point is, do we all agree to take classes that Harry would give us?"

Everyone agreed, except Zacharias who crossed his arms without saying anything, too busy no doubt watching the instrument Fred held in his hand.

"Good." said Hermione, relieved that something had finally been decided. "So, the next question is how often are we going to do it? In my opinion, we need at least one session a week, otherwise it's not worth it..."

"Wait a minute," cut in Angelina. We have to make sure it doesn't clash with our Quidditch training."

"Nor with ours." said Cho.

"Nor with ours!" added Zacharias Smith.

"I'm sure we can find an evening that suits everyone." said Hermione irritably. Quidditch was seriously getting on her nerves. "You know, it's quite important though, it's all about learning how to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters..."

"Well said!" said Justin, who had always been very kind to Hermione. "Personally, I think it's very important, maybe more important than anything else we have to do this year, even with the OWLs ahead of us!"

"Once a week sounds good." Lee Jordan agreed.

"Very well." Hermione said. "The other thing we need to work out is where it's going to happen..."

Everyone lowered their heads to think of a suggestion.

"The Library?" suggested Katie Bell.

Hermione felt her heart pounding against her chest as she heard this. She imagined practising spells a few steps away from the secluded table where Draco would be waiting for her...

"I don't think Madam Pince will be too keen on us practising spells in her Library." Harry said, to Hermione's delight as she was able to breathe easier.

"Well then we'll try and find something else." Hermione said. "We'll send everyone a message when we've set a date and place for the first meeting."

She pulled a parchment out of her pocket. To everyone else it was a perfectly normal scroll, only Hermione could feel the paper burning under her fingertips from the curse she'd cast on it the day before.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one. Fred and George looked at the parchment with puzzled expressions on their identical faces.

"I think we should all write our names down, just so we know who was present at the first meeting." Hermione announced. "And I think we should all agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you agree not to tell Umbridge or anyone else what we're up to."

To her surprise, Fred was the first to raise his hand. He signed without the slightest hesitation, then handed it to George who did the same, giving Hermione a mischievous smile.

"Er..." Zacharias said slowly, not taking the parchment George handed him. "Actually, I just need Ernie to tell me when the next meeting is."

George handed it to Ernie, but Ernie didn't take it either.

"I..." he said hesitantly. "I mean, well, we're prefects... "And if that list was found... well, I mean... you said yourself, if Umbridge found out..."

"Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?" asked Hermione grumpily.

"No, of course not." Ernie replied, sounding a little less worried. "I... Yes, of course I'll sign."

The list went through everyone and when Hermione got it back, she was surprised to find that everyone had signed. She put the parchment back in her bag and met Ginny's gaze, who winked at her reassuringly.

Slowly, everyone went about their business. Hermione finished her Butterbeer and was the last to leave with Harry and Ron. As soon as they had passed the landing, she took several deep breaths of the fresh air outside, which was much better than the smell of the Hog's Head.

"I think that went well." she said cheerfully.

"That Zacharias bloke's a wart." Ron grumbled as he watched the blonde's silhouette disappear down the main road in front of them.

"I don't like him much either." Hermione said. "But the more people the better, really. I mean, Michael Corner and his friends wouldn't have come if he hadn't been out with Ginny..."

She had planned to tell Ron before he found out from someone else, at Ginny's request. She knew he'd take it badly, but she hadn't expected such a disproportionate reaction: he swallowed his mouthful of beer and spat it all out on his robes.

"He WHAT?" he stammered, wiping his mouth, his ears red. "She's going out with... my sister's going out with... what do you mean, Michael Corner?"

"That's why he was there with his friends in the first place... Of course they're interested in learning how to defend themselves, but if Ginny hadn't told Michael what was going on..."

"And when did... she...?"

"They met at the Yule Ball and started dating at the end of last year." Hermione replied calmly.

She stopped in front of Scribenpenne's feather shop. Draco had told her about it at the end of last year and Hermione looked at the blue peacock feathers for a few seconds. They were the most beautiful quills she had ever seen in her life. But the price put her off and she turned her eyes to the pheasant feathers instead, which were much cheaper.

"Mmmm... I could use a new quill." she said.

She entered the shop with Ron and Harry.

"Which one was Michael Corner?" asked Ron angrily.

"The brown-haired one." Hermione replied.

"I don't like him at all." he said immediately.

"That's surprising."

"I thought she liked Harry!" continued Ron.

Hermione sighed as she picked up the pheasant quills that were displayed in copper pots. She found the cheapest one and inspected its brown plumage, a far cry from the splendour of Draco's blue feather.

"Ginny used to have a thing for Harry, but she gave him up a few months ago. Not that she doesn't like you, of course." she added kindly to Harry.

Harry seemed unaffected by the news, his mind elsewhere. Ron was quivering furiously, which annoyed Hermione to no end.

"Is that why she's talking to me now?" Harry asked Hermione. "She never says anything in front of me."

"Yes, exactly." she replied. She picked up a black quill and examined it. "Well, I think I'll take this one..."

She walked to the counter and paid for her quill. Ron, still as angry as ever, was pressed against her, breathing heavily against her neck. When she turned, he was so close to her that she stepped on his foot.

"Ron!" she cried. "This is exactly why Ginny didn't tell you she was going out with Michael, she knew you'd take it badly. So for God's sake, stop rambling about it."

"What's that supposed to mean? Who takes things badly? I'm not rambling at all..." said Ron as he walked out of the shop.

As he muttered in a low voice, Hermione turned to Harry and asked half aloud:

"Speaking of Michael and Ginny... What about you and Cho?"

Harry's eyes widened and he quickly turned his head towards her.

"What do you mean?"

"Well." Hermione said, smiling slightly. "She just couldn't take her eyes off you, could she?"

Harry's cheeks coloured slightly and he turned his attention back to the main street of Hogsmeade, an expression of pure happiness on his face that Hermione hadn't seen for months.

.

.

---

Draco

---

.

.

"It's weird though."

Pansy and Draco looked up at the same time at Theo, who had just spoken. As he often did, he was saying a sentence out loud, not realising that it wouldn't make any sense if he didn't share the rest of his mental queries.

"What's weird?" asked Pansy.

Theo pointed to the empty seat next to him on the Slytherin bench.

"Blaise isn't getting up early anymore."

Draco looked at his best friend's empty seat and shrugged. He'd noticed the change in Blaise's attitude as well. Usually Blaise was the first to sit down at the table in the Great Hall and Draco was the last to arrive. This time, Blaise wasn't there yet, and that had been the case many times since the beginning of the year.

"There's still plenty of time before classes start." Pansy said, just as disinterested as Draco. "He must be tired, that's all."

Draco resumed his breakfast, which consisted of a green apple and a cup of coffee. Theo returned to his reading, the timeless wrinkle of concern between his eyes.

After fifteen minutes of silent breakfast, Blaise finally arrived. Draco saw him in the doorway of the Great Hall and, seeing his expression, muttered an elegant:

"What the hell?"

Pansy and Theo looked at Blaise too and frowned. Blaise was the most inexpressive boy they knew, so they were obviously very surprised to see him smiling with all his teeth. He made his way to his usual spot and came up beside them, beaming with happiness.

"I have a dream!" cried Blaise before anyone could ask him what was going on.

Pansy and Draco had the same look of disbelief on their faces. Theo, on the other hand, burst out laughing:

"Ah, if only you had a Muggle culture, you'd understand the irony of that sentence." he chuckled.

"What?"

"Never mind." Theo replied with a knowing smile on his lips.

"What are you talking about, Blaise?" asked Pansy.

"I had a dream! For the first time in years! I never remember my dreams!"

"Is that what makes you so happy?" asked Draco as Blaise poured himself a black coffee. "Just a dream?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since Trelawney explained the importance of dreams in Divination class." Blaise said very seriously. "I couldn't even write in my diary, I thought it was a bit sad... But last night, I had a dream! I had a dream, Pans, and you can analyse it!"

Hearing this, Pansy's black pupils came to life and she rushed to her bag to pull out her bloody Divination textbook. Theo automatically lost his smile and snarled:

"Don't tell me you believe Trelawney's bullshit too?"

Blaise shrugged happily.

"Not Trelawney's, but Pansy's, yes."

Draco rolled his eyes. Pansy, for her part, gave a small, touched smile before putting on the serious face she always wore when someone mentioned her favourite subject.

"All right then, tell me about this dream." she said in a slightly mystical voice as she opened her book.

"Well, I was near a lake." Blaise began. "I don't know which one, maybe the Black Lake, but the surface was green, with floating water lilies. Suddenly I saw something in the reflection, so I knelt on the edge and bent down to see what was in the depths. At first I didn't see anything, and I was about to go back up when the surface moved, with waves that made the water lilies move. And that's when a face appeared."

Theo scowled in horror, but Blaise was so carried away by his story that he didn't notice and continued in a dreamy voice:

"It was the most beautiful face I've ever seen. It was a girl, with pale skin and a heart-shaped mouth. She had long hair that floated around her like a halo. She didn't speak to me and neither did I, we just stared at each other for several minutes before she disappeared back into the depths of the lake."

"Were you scared?" asked Pansy, rummaging through her textbook for Blaise's description.

"No, not at all." he replied, his eyes lost in the emptiness, a smile on his lips. "I was calm. She was calming me. It was like she had... an aura."

"And what did you take last night to have such a dream?" asked Theo sarcastically.

"Shut up, Nott." Blaise replied without losing his pensive air, which was very unlike him.

"Was she a mermaid?" asked Pansy.

"I think so, yes." said Blaise, trying to remember his dream as he squinted his eyes. "I didn't see the rest of her body, just her face. But she was so beautiful..."

"Mermaids are beautiful, that's how they attract men to trap them." Draco replied.

"So a mermaid, in a lake, looks at you and disappears... I've got it!" exclaimed Pansy, sliding her finger across the page.

"What?" exclaimed Theo. "There's no way this lousy manual could come up with something so precise."

"Yes, it can, you just have to cross-reference several key words to find the analysis that matches the dream." Pansy explained.

Draco saw her reading the description of the dream and her face subtly closed.

"Well?" Blaise said hopefully. "What does it say?"

"Um..." she said, clearly reluctant to read.

"Come on, read it!" urged Blaise.

"All right, then..." Pansy said hesitantly. "It says: The Dreamer will receive violent and painful news."

Blaise's smile faded.

"What? But it was a lovely dream!" he said plaintively.

Pansy pouted, as if to say it wasn't her fault. Blaise, a little vexed, shrank back on the bench and took a sip of coffee.

"The good thing is that this book is so crap that it doesn't give an exact date. Maybe you'll get this news on your deathbed eighty years from now?" said Theo, dodging the honey pot Pansy had thrown in his direction at the word "crap".

"Yeah, maybe..." Blaise said evasively.

"Why don't you ask Professor Trelawney later?" offered Pansy, stuffing her Divination textbook back into her bag. "Maybe she can add some details to the symbolism of the dream."

Blaise nodded, but Draco knew him well enough to know he would never do such a thing.

"And maybe she can give you some of those weird plants she puts in her tea." Theo added jokingly. "That way you can keep dreaming about fairies and mermaids..."

He stopped when Blaise smacked him on the back of the head.

Just then, Montague, the boy who had replaced Flint as Slytherin Quidditch captain, approached them. He was a stocky lad with thick eyebrows that gave him a perpetual look of irritation. Before even greeting them, he spoke to Draco in a gruff voice:

"Did you see the note in the Common Room?"

Theo and Pansy, who never paid attention to conversations about Quidditch, stopped listening: Pansy ate her honeyed toast and Theo sank back into his book.

Draco shook his head and Montague sighed tiredly:

"Umbridge has banned all school gatherings of more than three people. All clubs and teams."

Theo lifted his head sharply and gave Montague a scandalised look.

"Why?" asked Blaise in astonishment.

The boy shrugged his square shoulders.

"I have no idea. Anyway, the Slytherin team has to be approved..."

"Approved? By Umbridge?" asked Draco.

"Yes. She has to approve everything, otherwise she'll never let us play. And I wanted to know... You know, with your father and all... Could you ask him to speed up the process?"

Draco swallowed hard and felt Theo's curious gaze on him.

"I can ask him, yeah." Draco finally said, seeing the worried look on poor Montague's face.

"Thanks. Tonight's training is cancelled, but you'll let me know about Wednesday?"

"All right." Draco said, and Montague left to warn the others.

Draco exchanged a confused look with Blaise.

"Why would Umbridge do that?" he asked.

"Probably to prove that she has almost total control of the school now." Theo said glumly.

"That sucks!" cried Draco. "I was looking forward to training tonight!"

They'd only had one Quidditch practice since the start of term, but it had been raining like hell and Draco hadn't managed to enjoy it as much as he usually did.

Theo raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, so now that your precious Quidditch is threatened, you finally realise the threat Umbridge poses to the school?"

Draco chose not to answer and instead brooded quietly.

"You see, it's like a game of chess." Theo explained seriously, although no one was really listening to what he was saying. "At first, she just moves a few harmless pawns forward, so as not to arouse suspicion. Then she starts attacking, smashing pieces aggressively, and we have nothing left to counter her with, and let the board be taken from us helplessly. She's really vicious, and I think..."

"Come on, we're going to be late." Pansy said, getting up from the bench.

Draco and Blaise followed her, but Theo looked offended.

"Well, please, don't even bother answering me!"

"Sorry." said Pansy, who didn't look sorry at all. "I don't understand a word you're saying, I've never played chess."

Theo's eyes widened.

"What? What do you mean?"

By the time he'd picked up his book and newspaper, Pansy had turned on her heels and reached the doors of the Great Hall. Theo trotted over to Pansy and walked beside her.

"What did you mean?" he repeated.

"I mean I've never played chess before." she explained indifferently.

"What? But how is that possible?"

They walked down the Transfiguration corridor to the History of Magic class, a class that would allow Draco to catch a few extra minutes of sleep. Pansy looked at Theo for a second, as if to see if he was making fun of her.

"Is it that important?" she asked.

"No, but... I mean, chess..." Theo said in a jerky tone. "I learnt it at the same time as I learnt to speak... Didn't you have any lessons before Hogwarts?"

"No." she replied.

Draco was sure she was in a bad mood because she hadn't had time to smoke her morning cigarette.

"But you must have played with us." Theo continued, still quite surprised. "We play chess all the time, with Blaise and Draco!"

"I've seen you play hundreds of times." Pansy corrected. "But I've never played it myself. And every time you do, I do something else. I'm not that into it, to be honest."

"But..."

They had arrived outside the classroom, where the rest of the Slytherins were waiting outside the door.

"Think about it, Theo." Pansy said curtly. She leaned back against the wall and looked at Theo, whose eyes were hidden by his chestnut curls. "Have you ever seen me play? Have we ever played against each other?"

Theo thought for a few seconds, then shook his head.

"I can't believe it..." he breathed.

"It's not that shocking." Pansy said, seeing the distraught look on his face. "Do I look like I like chess?"

Blaise chuckled under his breath, but Theo was still as aghast as ever.

"No, not really, but... Everyone should know how to play chess. It's a cool game."

"You'd like it, I think." Blaise cut in. "It's a game of strategy, you'd be good at it."

"I'm good at all games." Pansy replied with a snort.

Draco could have laughed at her smug voice, but he had to admit that she was right: their childhood had revolved around Pansy winning every game, and him sulking.

"So why didn't you ever learn?"

"Because I didn't have anyone to play with." Pansy said.

Draco shouted instinctively:

"Hey, I was there!"

"Yes, but you spent all your time flying around on your miniature broomstick or inventing spy games. You never had the patience to sit down and explain the rules to me." Pansy replied.

The bell rang and everyone entered the classroom. The Gryffindors took the left side of the room and the Slytherins the right. Pansy sat next to Draco and Blaise and Theo sat on the desk behind them. No one, except Theo and Granger, took out their things to take notes. Blaise immediately put his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

Just before Binns made his traditional entrance, which meant walking across the blackboard, Theo tapped Pansy on the shoulder in front of him and offered in a low voice:

"Would you like me to teach you? How to play chess?"

Pansy thought for a second, clearly not interested. Then an idea came to her and she turned to Theo:

"All right, but I've got a deal for you."

Theo leaned forward to listen, eager to hear her proposal.

"You teach me to play chess, and in return, I'll teach you to meditate." Pansy announced.

Theo's almond-shaped blue eyes crinkled a little and he silently considered the deal. Binns entered at that moment and greeted the students in such a dull tone that Draco almost fell asleep at the sound of those few words.

Class began and Draco rested his cheek against the palm of his hand, ready to fall asleep, watching Granger take notes through half-closed eyes.

Just before he fell asleep, lulled by Binns' monologue on the Giants' War, he heard Theo whisper behind his back:

"Deal."

.

.

---

Hermione

---

.

.

As much as she didn't want to admit it, Hermione really liked Mondays, because it was a day when the Gryffindors shared all their classes with the Slytherins. In previous years, she had always hated that mixing. She'd never put up with Pansy Parkinson's shrill voice or Malfoy's mocking of Harry.

This year, however, she loved Mondays. She had all the time in the world to watch Draco from an angle, trying to guess what he was writing on his paper, or eavesdropping on his whispered conversations with his friends. Sometimes he even caught her eye and that sent a surge of adrenaline through her body.

That morning, they had History of Magic class. Ron and Harry had long since stopped paying the slightest attention to Professor Binns and instead spent their time drawing on their parchments or dozing off. A behaviour she reproached them all day, threatening them every week not to let them see her notes for their OWLs revisions.

Draco did the same, but when it was him, Hermione wasn't as vindictive. She watched him discreetly, enjoying the way his hair was always dishevelled from waking up, or his ringed fingers folding his parchments into origami. Theodore was usually behind him, taking notes at breakneck speed.

On this Monday morning, Hermione was jotting down the date of the Giant Rebellion when Dean Thomas, sitting in front of her, turned to whisper:

"Hermione, look."

He was pointing to one of the windows where Hedwig was standing on the ledge. Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise at the owl's presence there. Usually, when she brought Harry his mail, it was in the Great Hall at breakfast.

She elbowed Harry in the ribs and he raised his head in annoyance, clearly irritated at being interrupted in his nap:

"What?" he asked sharply.

She pointed at Hedwig and Harry's eyes softened at the sight of his owl. He looked at Professor Binns, his head bent over his notes, and slid out of his chair to reach the window. As he opened it, Hedwig hopped onto his arm with a mournful little hoot. Fortunately, the rest of the class was far too sleepy to notice. Harry returned to his seat and watched Hedwig perch on his lap.

"She's hurt!" he muttered, examining her.

Hermione immediately turned her head towards the owl and put down her quill. Ron had lifted his head and looked at Hedwig in confusion.

"She's got a crooked wing..." Harry said with a touch of concern.

Hermione stroked Hedwig's head and the owl closed her eyes. When Harry tried to touch her wing, she flinched slightly and opened her big yellow eyes again to give him a reproachful look.

Harry stood up awkwardly and tucked the owl behind his back, taking care not to hurt her.

"Professor Binns?" he called. "I'm not feeling very well..."

The ghost lifted a puzzled face from his notes.

"Not feeling well?" he repeated absently.

"No, not well at all." Harry declared firmly. "I have to go to the hospital wing."

The change in voice woke Draco, who growled angrily. Hermione could hear him snarling "Potter" to Parkinson.

"Yes, yes... Yes, to the hospital wing... Go on, Perkins..." Binns said, clearly not expecting that.

Hermione followed Harry with her eyes until he closed the door and Binns resumed his lesson in a sullen tone. Hermione glanced at Theodore who had also stopped writing and was looking thoughtfully at the door.

Hermione turned to Ron and whispered:

"What year did he say it was, the Giant Rebellion?"

But a loud snore answered her and Hermione rolled her eyes.

Harry didn't come back for the whole class. When the bell rang, Ron waited for Hermione to put her things away and they made their way to the dungeons for Potions.

"It's still weird what happened to Hedwig." Hermione said, lost in thought.

"Yeah, she's never been hurt before. Maybe the wind blew her a bit too hard and she hit a wall or something..." Ron said before yawning loudly.

"Maybe... Or... Maybe someone intercepted it?" offered Hermione, biting her lip.

Ron turned his head towards her, surprise written on his tired features.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe someone guessed who Harry was... corresponding with..." Hermione said in a low voice so that Lavender, who was walking in front of them, wouldn't hear what they were saying. "And that someone recognised Hedwig and intercepted her to read his letter."

They turned into the corridor and ran into Harry, who had the parchment scroll in his hand, but not his owl. He approached them and Hermione asked as soon as he was within earshot:

"How's Hedwig?"

"Where have you taken her?" Ron added.

"I gave it to Grubbly-Plank, and I met McGonagall." Harry explained anxiously. "She told me something very strange, she said that the correspondence routes in and out of Hogwarts are closely guarded, as if to say that I should be careful about the contents of my mail…"

Hermione exchanged a meaningful glance with Ron.

"What?" asked Harry, looking alternately at Ron and Hermione.

"I was just saying to Ron... What if someone had tried to intercept Hedwig? She'd never been hurt until now…"

"Who's the letter from?" asked Ron, taking the roll of parchment from his hands.

"Sniffle." replied Harry, the nickname he had given Sirius so that no one would understand who he was talking about but them.

Hermione read the note over Ron's shoulder:

Today, same time, same place.

"Same time, same place... Does that mean the fireplace in the Common Room?" asked Ron, obviously still a little drowsy after his nap.

"It has to." she replied. "I hope no one saw that…"

"The scroll was still sealed." Harry replied confidently. "Besides, if we don't know where we spoke to him, no one can understand what it's about, can they?"

"I don't know." said Hermione worriedly, slinging her bag back over her shoulder as the bell rang again. "It wouldn't be very difficult to seal the parchment a second time by applying a spell... And if the chimney network is being watched... but I don't see how we could write to him not to use the chimney, without the letter being intercepted too!"

In the evening, Harry was clearing away his extra homework he'd collected in Potions, and Ron was dozing (again) in his armchair, when the fire began to crackle strangely. When Hermione turned her head towards the den of the fireplace, she was not surprised to recognise Sirius' face amidst the embers.

"Sirius!" exclaimed Ron.

"Hi." he said with a smile.

"Hi!" replied Harry, Ron and Hermione in chorus.

Crookshanks, who had fallen asleep on Hermione's lap, purred when he heard his voice and jumped down to try and rub his head against Sirius'.

"How are you?" asked Harry's godfather.

"Not so good." Harry replied, as Hermione pulled Crookshanks back to stop him from burning his whiskers. "The Ministry has passed a new decree that forbids us from having our own Quidditch team…"

"Or form a Defence Against the Dark Arts group?" Sirius finished.

There was a brief silence in which Hermione felt her stomach turn.

"How do you know?" asked Harry.

"You should be more careful where you meet." Sirius replied with a mischievous grin. "The Hog's Head! Really!"

"At least it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" retorted Hermione defensively. "It's always full of people there..."

"Which means it would have been harder to hear what you were saying. You've still got a lot to learn, Hermione." Sirius replied cheekily.

"Who heard us?" asked Harry.

"Mundungus, of course." They made astonished faces and Sirius burst out laughing. "The veiled witch, that was him."

"Mundungus?" repeated Harry, stunned. "What was he doing in The Hog's Head?"

"What do you think?" said Sirius, as if he'd just asked an obvious question. "He was watching you, of course."

"Am I still being followed?" asked Harry angrily.

"Yes, and you'd better be if the first thing you think of doing is forming an illegal defence group."

Although his sentence was clearly full of reproach, his godfather had adopted a tone of pride as he said it.

"So you don't think we should do it?" asked Ron.

"Me? Of course not!" replied Sirius, startled. "I think it's an excellent idea!"

"Really?" said Harry, clearly relieved.

"Of course!" assured Sirius. "You think your father and I would have sat down and taken orders from an old harpy like Umbridge?"

"But last year you kept telling me to be careful, to take no chances..."

"Last year, we had every reason to believe that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry!" Sirius snapped impatiently. "This year, we know there's someone outside Hogwarts who wants to kill us all, so learning how to defend ourselves effectively sounds like a very good idea to me!"

"What if we get expelled?" asked Hermione worriedly, the thought of it scaring her enough to guarantee insomnia.

"Hermione, this was your idea!" exclaimed Harry.

"I know, I was just wondering what Sirius thought..." she replied.

Sirius took a deep breath, sending a small puff of smoke into Crookshanks' face and he mewled in offence.

"Better to be expelled and able to defend yourself than to sit quietly in a school with no idea what's going on outside." Sirius replied wisely.

"Hear, hear!" said Ron and Harry enthusiastically.

"So how are you going to organise this group? Where are you going to meet?" asked Sirius eagerly.

"That's the problem." Harry said. "We have no idea where to go."

"How about the Shrieking Shack?" suggested Sirius.

"That's an idea!" said Ron, very excited.

Hermione, on the other hand, gave a sceptical "hmm". The other three turned to her, Sirius' head turning in the flames.

"In your time, Sirius, there were only four of you gathered in the Shrieking Shack." she explained. "You all had the ability to transform into animals, and I imagine that if you had squeezed together a bit, you could have fit under a single cloak of invisibility if need be. But there are twenty-eight of us, and not one of us is an Animagus, so it's not a cloak we'd need, it's a tent of invisibility."

"Ah yes, you're right." Sirius replied, a little dejectedly. "But I'm sure you'll find something. There was a rather spacious secret passage behind the large mirror on the fourth floor, you might have enough room to work some spells in there..."

"Fred and George told me it no longer exists." Harry said, shaking his head. "There was a landslide or something."

"Ah..." Sirius muttered with a frown. "Well, I'll think about it and come back..."

He stopped suddenly, his face suddenly tense, worried. His head cocked to one side, his gaze seemingly fixed on the brick wall of the fireplace.

"Sirius?" Harry called worriedly.

In an instant, his head disappeared and the flames engulfed the void he had left. They continued to stare at the fire, expecting him to return at any moment, but the fire continued to crackle and Sirius did not return.

"Why is he..."

Hermione let out a small cry of horror and jumped to her feet at the same time as Crookshanks, who was running down the dormitory stairs.

A small, chubby hand with fingernails painted fuchsia pink had appeared in the middle of the flames. It was gripping the burning log like a pair of pincers, as if hoping to grab Sirius's hair.

And Hermione had no trouble recognising the hand.

.

.

.

.

Umbridge's appearance in the fire was still fresh in their minds the next day. They spent the morning going over what had happened the day before. Hermione was now convinced that Umbridge had read Harry's letter, as she had suspected when Harry had told her about Filch's search for ordered Dungbombs.

The only moment when Harry and Ron's spirits lifted was when Angelina told them that the Gryffindor team had been re-formed and that they could start training that very evening. This news seemed to put Umbridge's intrusion out of their minds, for the rest of the afternoon and dinner they talked of nothing but Quidditch.

For Hermione, the moment her spirits lifted was when she entered the Library and found Draco sitting at the round, secluded table. And the moment she forgot all about Umbridge's hand in the fire was when he smiled at her. He managed to clear her head, an exquisite sensation that Hermione began to adore more and more.

"Good evening Granger." Draco greeted as she put her homework on the table. "It's been a long time."

"Yes, I was studying with Harry and Ron..."

He nodded and didn't insist. She liked that about Draco. The fact that he didn't ask her to justify her absences. He understood that she was spending time with her two best friends, even if he hated them.

"Would you like some tea?" she offered, taking out her green mug.

Draco nodded automatically, looking pleased at the offer. Since she didn't yet know how to Conjure objects she wasn't familiar with, she placed the mug in the middle of the table, between the two of them, filled it with hot water and dipped a cinnamon tea bag into it.

"Let's both drink from it." Hermione said.

Draco agreed and they got to work. Hermione had finished her homework a week early, so she was studying Astronomy. Draco, on the other hand, was writing Transfiguration formulas.

They locked themselves in the bubble of concentration that Hermione loved so much. From time to time, Draco would put down his quill to take a sip of tea, and Hermione noticed that every time he did, he closed his eyes with pleasure. She had no idea he liked it so much: if she had, she would have offered to share it with him a long time ago.

They had both been studying for half an hour when Draco's voice broke the silence:

"Are you all right?"

Hermione looked up in surprise to find him watching her, a shadow of scruples in his clear eyes.

"Yes, fine. Why?"

"You don't seem fine these days." Draco said in an almost accusatory tone.

"No, I'm fine." Hermione said confidently. "Just tired and a lot of homework."

The boy's features hardened slightly, his bluish eyes turning from concern to cold grey pupils full of frustration.

"You're using the same crap lies you've been feeding Potter and Weasley all day." he said, his tone suddenly harsh. "But it's not working on me. Something's wrong, I can tell. Tell me, Granger."

Hermione was still amazed at how well Draco could read her. She ran a hand through her tangled hair, trying as best she could to comb it behind her ears, then replied in a vacant voice:

"It's just that... that Umbridge... I hate her, that's all. And it's exhausting to hate someone... Don't you think?"

Draco considered his words, then shrugged:

"It's not so exhausting when you've been doing it all your life, I suppose."

Hermione wondered who he might be talking about. His father, surely. She preferred not to ask him, so as not to upset him.

"What did she do to you to make you hate her so much?" he asked.

As he did every time he asked her a question, he pretended to sound detached, but Hermione knew that deep down he was very interested in her answers.

"She gets in my way." Hermione replied simply.

She picked up her Astronomy textbook again to end the conversation, but then Draco said something unexpected:

"I hate her too."

Hermione put her book down to look at him in the eye.

"She didn't do anything to you." she pointed out, remembering bitterly the preferential treatment Umbridge gave to Slytherins.

"No, not really." Draco replied, his eyebrows knitted together in thought. "But Theo hates her, so that must mean she doesn't deserve to be liked, and my father suggested I side with her, so that must mean she's vile."

Hermione nodded.

"I saw you talking to her yesterday." she said, her voice a little sharper than she would have liked. "What did she want from you?"

"Montague simply asked me to use my status to ask her to reconstitute the Slytherin team." he replied with disconcerting frankness. "All I had to do was tell her my name and she agreed immediately. Further proof that I shouldn't like her, don't you think?"

"She's so predictable." Hermione growled.

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm really glad I did it, I'm looking forward to training tomorrow. I can't wait to get on a broom, it feels like it's been six months."

He looked longingly out of the window, even though the sky had long since gone dark. Hermione had rolled her eyes when Harry had said the same thing to her that morning, but she did no such thing for Draco.

"By the way..." he said suddenly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You never told me how the bet went?"

Hermione's skin crawled at the thought of her experience on the broomstick in Grimmauld Square.

"Horribly. Awful." she replied immediately, and Draco burst out laughing at her scandalised reaction to the memory. "It was dreadful. I still have nightmares about it."

"That bad? How high did you go?"

Hermione grimaced.

"Seven feet." she muttered, causing Draco to burst out laughing again. "But it felt like twenty!"

"Merlin, I would have paid to see that." he said, taking Hermione's mug for a sip of tea.

"Fred took a picture, if you like." Hermione grumbled. "I heard he sold a few copies, and Ginny has it framed on her bedside table."

"You have to take one for me, I'll give you fifty Galleons for it!" he swore on the spot.

Hermione rolled her eyes at such a large amount of money, but couldn't help smiling. He laughed for a minute and then they went back to work.

As Madam Pince closed the windows, signifying the imminent closure of the Library, Draco leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

"I'm exhausted."

He put his things away and slung his bag over his shoulder. Hermione finished the lukewarm tea in one gulp and began to roll up her parchment. Draco stood and waved to her:

"See you Granger, sleep well."

"You too, see you on Saturday." she hummed.

Draco stopped and turned slowly, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Saturday?" he asked.

Hermione immediately felt the usual blush creep up her neck.

"Erm... Yeah, I think so..." she stammered.

"Why Saturday?"

"Well... Tomorrow you've got Quidditch practice, Thursday you've got your private Alchimy lesson and Friday you've got a prefect round..."

Draco's face broke into a wide grin as he heard her explanation:

"Are you stalking me, Granger?"

"What? No, no, not at all..." she stammered, her cheeks now burning.

Draco did not lose his smile, in fact, it widened:

"Oh, don't deny it, Granger. I love it when you do." he confessed before turning on his heels for good.

.

.

.

.

The next day, Hermione was greeted in the Common Room by an overexcited Harry.

"Hermione! I've got it! A place! For the meetings!"

"A place?" asked Hermione, and Harry nodded vigorously.

"It was Dobby who found it, actually! He came to see me last night, after you'd gone to bed, to bring me Hedwig, and I asked him if he knew anywhere in the Castle where we could practice, and he told me about this room..."

"Slow down Harry, you're talking too fast!" complained Hermione as they dashed through the Fat Lady's painting to go to lunch.

"Sorry, sorry!" apologized the dark-haired man in his usual jerky tone. "So Dobby told me about this room, it would be on the seventh floor and it would materialise according to the needs of the people using it. For example, Dobby used it to hide Winky who had drunk too many Butterbeers, and he found potions to cure hangovers, and a bed perfectly her size!"

"So, you think that if we're looking for a room to practice defence, it would appear to be a training room?" asked Hermione, puzzled.

"Yes!" exclaimed Harry happily. "We need to warn everyone. Tonight, at eight o'clock, we'll be training for the first time in the Room of Requirement."

When they entered the Great Hall, the glow of the candles on the ceiling was quivering from the storm above.

It had been raining all day, under a sky full of grey clouds that dropped raindrops the size of hailstones. Harry, Hermione and Ron put the word out to all those registered for the meetings, and miraculously, everyone was available.

At 7.30 p.m., they went to the seventh floor of the Castle, where Dobby had indicated. Harry took out his Marauder's Map and looked around for a few seconds to find Umbridge. When Hermione saw the name "Draco Malfoy" in the Library, her heart sank. His training session had had to be cancelled because of the rain...

"Filch is on the second floor, Mrs Norris on the fourth, and Umbridge is in her study. The coast is clear."

They then followed Dobby's instructions, which were to walk three times past the wall facing the tapestry, thinking hard about what they wanted. On the third pass, a door had magically appeared in the stone wall.

When they entered, all three gave the same cry of surprise. The room was perfect, exactly as they had imagined it. Bookcases lined the walls, with cushions on the floor for falling back on after a Stunning Spell. There was a large area of parquet flooring for them to practise on, with a huge fireplace at the end that warmed the room nicely.

Hermione consulted the books in the bookcases with great enthusiasm. As more and more registrants entered the Room, amazed by such a place, Harry explained the use of the Room of Requirement three more times. By 8pm, everyone had arrived. Everyone sat down on a cushion, except Harry, who stood facing them.

"Right." said Harry, a little nervously. "So this is the place we've found for our training sessions and er... apparently it suits you."

"That's fantastic!" said Cho.

Approving murmurs rose from all sides.

"It's weird," said Fred, frowning. "We once took refuge here from Filch, remember, George? But, at the time, it was just a broom cupboard."

"I've been thinking about what we should do at the beginning and... er... what is it, Hermione?" asked Harry as he saw her raise her hand.

"I think we should start by electing a leader." she said.

"Harry's the leader." Cho said immediately, looking at Hermione like she was insane.

"Yes, but I think there should be a real vote." Hermione continued, getting the distinct impression that Cho didn't like her very much. "It will formalise the position and give him the authority. So, anyone who thinks Harry should be the leader of this group, raise your hand."

Everyone did so without hesitation.

"Well, er... All right, thank you..." said Harry, embarrassed. "And... what, Hermione?"

"I think we should name ourselves too." she said in a booming voice, her hand still in the air. "It would be a way of creating unity and team spirit, don't you think?"

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" Angelina offered optimistically.

"Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?" suggested Fred.

"I was thinking more of a name that wouldn't give away what we do straight away." Hermione continued. "That way, we could talk about it safely outside the meetings."

"The Defence Association?" ventured Cho. "Shortened to D.A., no-one would know what it was about."

"Yeah, the D.A. sounds good." Ginny agreed. "But it would be better if it stood for Dumbledore's Army, since that's the Ministry's worst fear, right?"

There were bursts of laughter.

"All in favour of the D.A.?" asked Hermione, and everyone agreed.

She took out the parchment with their names on it and put it up on the wall of the Hall, then spelt out:

DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY

"Shall we get down to business now?" suggested Harry. "I think the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, the Disarming spell. I know it's quite elementary but I've realised it's very useful..."

"Oh, no, please!" said Zacharias Smith, looking up at the ceiling with his arms crossed. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"

"I've used it against him." Harry said in a composed voice. "It saved my life in June."

Smith opened his mouth in a goofy way.

"Very well." Harry continued. "We'll form teams of two and get to work."

Everyone stood up and Ron and Hermione naturally approached each other. Ron gave her a shy little smile.

They stood face to face, wand in hand, and took turns practising. Hermione's disarming was a little more violent than Ron's: his wand flew up, while Hermione's slipped out of her hands. Ron repeated the spell several times with a motivation that Hermione had rarely seen in traditional classes.

They continued practising until 9.10pm, and Harry finished the first session so as not to exceed the curfew. They agreed to meet again in the same place the following Wednesday and then returned to their Common Rooms, each with the feeling that they had done something good, rooted in their sore limbs.

.

.

.

.

On Saturday morning, as Hermione was having her usual breakfast with Ginny, Ernie McMillan came up to her and asked if it would be possible to swap his evening round with her end-of-the-month round, which she was supposed to share with Hannah Abbott, because he had caught a cold from the rain. Hermione agreed, albeit reluctantly. She hadn't seen Draco since Wednesday.

Hermione met Anthony Goldestein after dinner.

"Wasn't Ernie supposed to come?" he asked as she walked towards him, her Gryffindor prefect badge proudly pinned to her chest.

"He's not feeling well, he asked me to take his place." she explained. "You don't mind, do you?" she added, worried.

"No, no, on the contrary!" shouted Anthony as he took the stairs to begin the patrol.

Hermione smiled at him and they exchanged small talk to make conversation.

Anthony was a boy with blond hair with bronze streaks, big dark blue eyes and a square jaw. He was only a few inches taller than Hermione and he smiled all the time, always giving him a friendly expression. He was very outgoing and easy to talk to: Hermione didn't have to find a subject to talk about to keep the round from being awkward, they talked about everything and Anthony always had something to say to fill the silence.

Hermione thought that, after Draco and Ron, Anthony was probably her favourite boy to do rounds with.

They discussed O.W.L.s and the progress of each other's studies, then drifted off to the latest Herbology essay. Hermione told him about her herbarium, and Anthony told her a story about how poor Lisa Turpin had blown up her Bouncing Bulb in class the week before, and his impersonation was so funny that Hermione laughed all the way to the second floor, until she was red-faced and out of breath.

Then they checked the third floor, then the fourth, and found no one. When they got to the fifth, Anthony mentioned his family and Hermione asked him where he was from. She learned that he had grown up in Yorkshire, in the north of England, and that his father was a Muggle. So they talked about their Muggle families and upbringings, and Hermione found his heritage so interesting that she didn't realise they were already on the seventh floor.

As they passed the wall where the Room of Requirement was hidden, Anthony pointed to it and exclaimed:

"That first session was great, wasn't it? Harry's a really good teacher, I've never managed to disarm someone so quickly before!"

Hermione smiled and they talked about Dumbledore's Army as they patrolled the Astronomy Tower, then went down all the floors again to inspect the ground floor. It was after curfew now: all the corridors were silent and most of the torches had been extinguished, creating an atmosphere of calm in the Castle. Hermione could hear the fine raindrops falling on the ceiling and windows.

When only the dungeons remained, and about ten minutes before the end of the round, Hermione suggested they go down the stairs to the underground levels and then back up to their Common Rooms. As they descended the stairs, however, they heard a noise in the Hall and turned back, trying to spot the intruder in the darkness.

They heard nothing at first, then the faint sound of muffled footsteps. Hermione even thought she saw Mrs Norris coming out of the shadows, so she was very surprised to make out a tall figure in the dark. It was a boy, walking silently. When he came close enough for them to see, Hermione recognised his blond hair from a distance and stifled a hiccup of surprise.

Draco was walking towards the dungeon stairs, obviously lost in thought.

So much so that he didn't notice Anthony and Hermione's presence until the last second and stopped abruptly. Hermione realised that he must have come from the bench, and that he had probably gone through the door that Filch always forgot to close. She felt a pang of sadness that he had been waiting for her there. His grey eyes remained fixed on Hermione for a second, and she could almost see joy on his face, before his gaze turned to Anthony and his expression froze.

Anthony took a few steps closer and, in a reflex Hermione didn't quite understand, took out his wand and pointed it at Draco, who was unarmed.

"What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?" he asked, his voice far from the friendly tone he had used all evening.

"Well, as you can see, I'm walking." was Draco's cold reply.

Anthony tightened his grip on his wand even more.

"You shouldn't be here, it's long past curfew."

"That's why I was going to take the stairs, but you're blocking my way, Goldstein." Draco growled. "Could you lower your wand and get out of my way?"

"We could give you detention, you know!" shouted Anthony, without even lowering his wand.

Draco didn't seem the least bit intimidated by the threat; on the contrary, he looked at Hermione with amusement, as if the idea of her giving him detention was hilarious. Anthony caught the look, but must have taken it as an insult, because he mechanically stepped in front of Hermione to protect her.

Hermione could see that Draco didn't like the gesture. He lost the amused sparkle in his eyes, which instead became grey slits pointed at Anthony. Hermione thought for a second that he was going to pull out his wand too and duel the prefect, but he held back and clenched his fists tightly instead. He glanced at Hermione and then at Anthony, who was still standing in front of her, anger radiating from his pores so much that Hermione could almost feel the heat of his blood a few feet away from him.

"I'm a prefect too, remember? " Draco spat hatefully.

"So what if you are? That doesn't give you the right to roam the corridors at will." Anthony retorted.

"Oh, give me a break, Goldstein." Draco hissed. He took a few steps forward and stopped when the tip of Anthony's wand touched his jumper. "All prefects stay in the corridors after curfew, it's one of the few perks of being a prefect, and you know it. You're only using that because it was me you bumped into. If it was sweet Abbott, you wouldn't have said anything to her, would you?"

Anthony opened and closed his mouth a few times, at a loss for words, and looked sideways at Hermione.

"Put your wand down, Anthony." Hermione advised in a soft voice. "You can see he's unarmed."

He obeyed, but still kept it at his side. Draco looked at Hermione and his face twisted into an expression of clear hostility.

"Right, can I go?" he asked the Ravenclaw mockingly.

Anthony seemed to hesitate, then nodded once and Draco resumed his walk with shuffling steps towards the stairs. Just before he disappeared, he took one last look at Hermione, his face filled with anger, though she couldn't understand why. She had just saved him, after all...

Anthony put down his wand and sighed in annoyance as he turned back to her:

"Are you all right?"

Hermione frowned.

"Er, yeah, fine... He didn't do anything."

"He very well could have. It's a good thing prefects work in pairs, can you imagine what he could have done to you if you were on your own?"

Hermione felt indignation rise in her stomach. She was dying to defend Draco, but she couldn't, so she nodded reluctantly.

They walked down the stairs in silence. Hermione looked for the door to the Slytherin Common Room at the end of the corridor, but it was gone, Draco must have returned by now. She let Anthony search the rooms and when they were sure that no one was hiding, they went back up the stairs to the Gryffindor tower.

"Good night Hermione!" Anthony said with a smile, just before she said the password to the Fat Lady.

"Good night Anthony."

Hermione entered the empty Common Room and went straight up to the dormitory. Crookshanks wasn't there, probably wandering around the Castle, and both Lavender's and Parvati's beds were locked. She had a quick wash and changed into her pyjamas in the bathroom, and when she came out she heard a hooting towards the window.

It was hard to see Ebony in the dark night, but Hermione had seen him so much this summer that she recognised him immediately. She opened the window a little, wide enough to take the letter attached to his paw, but not wide enough for the girls to hear the wind rush into the room.

Hermione unhooked the parchment and Ebony stood on the ledge, waiting for her answer. She unfolded it and the italic script made her smile: it reminded her of their summer correspondence, when she had looked forward to every letter.

This letter was short, with just a few hastily scribbled words:

What the hell were you doing with him? You weren't supposed to be on rounds tonight.

Hermione could hear his voice saying the words, so precisely that she wondered if he had enchanted the parchment to read the words aloud.

She picked up a quill from her desk and replied, just below his sentence:

Are you stalking me, Malfoy?

She handed the note to Ebony, who flew off into the dark night, returning a few minutes later.

Yes.

Hermione chuckled at the frankness and replied:

Ernie was ill and asked me to take his place.

She hung the note on the owl's leg and the answer came even faster:

And you had to do it with Goldstein?

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Are you jealous?

When the parchment returned, his handwriting was even messier, as if he'd written too quickly.

No, I'm not. I was just being protective.

Hermione thought that was a lie.

You don't have to protect me from Anthony. He's nice.

When Ebony came to the window, he looked clearly annoyed by the back and forth: he held out his paw, his beak raised in an indignant posture.

I don't like him.

Hermione rolled her eyes again at this childish response.

I just did a round with him, nothing to be jealous of.

The reply took a while this time, Hermione wondered if he was going to answer at all, but Ebony returned to the ledge with a rustle of wings.

I'm not jealous. I just don't like him, that's all.

Hermione turned the paper over to answer on the back:

You don't like any boy I hang out with.

The owl went away and came back a minute later:

That's true.

She leaned over one last time to reply:

Good night, Draco.

Hermione closed the window, but Ebony returned, his feathers more ruffled than ever and his eyes piercing with reproach.

Good night, Granger.

And if you dream of a blond boy tonight, I'd prefer it to be me.

She had to cover her mouth as she giggled, at the risk of waking her flatmates.

Hermione stroked Ebony's head, closed the window and tucked the parchment away in her bedside drawer, among Danny's letters.

Then Hermione climbed into bed and closed the curtains, praying that she would dream of ash blonde hair, and not Anthony's bronze one.