Snips and Scars In Which Meetings Occur, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 75, everybody! After some delay, we're back and hopefully looking at some more regular updating for the rest of the year. Hopefully.

Initially I was going to go with the Hog's Head meeting but it occurred to me that Malfoy would go with the Three Broomsticks instead. Also for the record Crabbe and Goyle surprised me too.

Slytherinsal, thanks for the review! Hmmm...

Slowissmooth, thanks for the review! True—it's her own fault if she gets injured in that class, she wasn't paying attention.

Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Hagrid got the chance to be a respected teacher and has been keeping with that vibe ever since. :D

Missy96, thanks for the review! If there's one thing we all agree on, it's that Umbridge is the most hated. :D

Thanks for the review, guest! Thanks!

Thanks for the review, guest (different guest?)! Nope, once I start a story I'll go until it's finished—it's just that sometimes the updates get spotty.

Now to be fair, all this was bad enough without the advent of the High Inquisitorial Squad, or whatever Umbridge called her snitches. Saying that…Harry really didn't expect Malfoy to go and join that squad, he had been pretty certain he hated Umbridge. Maybe he was looking for brownie points.

Either way, he was spoiling for an explanation and decided upon spotting Malfoy that tea with Hagrid could wait a few minutes. Malfoy saw him coming, assumed a haughty attitude as Buckbeak supervised.

"Potter."

"Malfoy," Harry returned stiffly—he had been kind of hurt by Malfoy's return to form after everything. "You want to explain yourself?"

Malfoy glanced at the castle, then at Buckbeak, who nodded and walked forward, pushing Harry behind Hagrid's hut as Malfoy hid behind his flank. "Malfoy, what—"

"Okay we should be good," Malfoy said, suddenly switching back to the nicer version Harry had gotten used to. "I don't think the toad is hiding in Hagrid's hut—"

"Wait, what is this?" Harry asked.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Potter? The hat wanted to put you in Slytherin? Where's your cunning?"

Harry and Snips exchanged glances, the former finally giving an appreciative ah as it sank in. "You're playing both sides."

"I think it's clear from the one Creatures class that we can't take her head on," Malfoy said. "So now it's time for the underhanded approach. I was going to ask you if you had any ideas, but…."

"Well to be fair, you switching from nice to a prat and then back to nice threw me," Harry pointed out. "I need more of a heads-up."

"You don't get heads-up in this sort of game," Malfoy said, exasperated. "Mother told me about my godfather—he played both sides in the last wizarding war, and if either side had figured him out he would have been dead. Course, he's dead anyway, but it's doubtful Carson was actually that competent."

Harry blinked. "Wait, your godfather was Severus Snape?"

Malfoy nodded. "Mother's been telling me a lot of what happened and to who—I think she's trying to dissuade me from following in my father's footsteps."

Considering the last time Harry had seen Lucius Malfoy outside of that scene in the Ministry had been in a graveyard with Voldemort…."That seems like solid advice."

Malfoy nodded. "So my guess is you have no plan."

"Actually we've been talking about teaching ourselves some real defense," Harry said. "But the problem we keep running into is where to have it."

"It'd have to be somewhere she could never access, yes," Malfoy said. "Which rules out most of the castle."

"And we can't have them during Hogsmeade visits, she'd just shut those down." Think. "There's ways to sneak out of the castle, but again that's kind of risky."

Snips nipped at his nose to get attention, slimmed down and started wavering a bit, like a snake—

"Wait," Harry said, cottoning on. "The Chamber of Secrets."

Malfoy made a face. "Is that even feasible? Don't you have to be a parselmouth to get in?"

"You only have to know one word of parseltongue, and that's open," Harry pointed out. "The monster in the Chamber is gone, it was taken away in second year. It was cleaned up in third year…it could work."

Malfoy nodded, considering. "And since you have to be able to say the password…it could work," he agreed. "Pity you can't cast a Fidelius Charm in Hogwarts, that would have been a nice extra bit of security."

"I'm sure Hermione will figure something out," Harry said. "I don't suppose you'd stand an invite, would you?"

"Probably best if I don't—you need an inside man. We need a better way to exchange notes."

"Snips is properly peeved enough that he'll volunteer," Harry pointed out. Glanced at Buckbeak, an idea occurring to him. "Maybe the Secret Order of Familiars would be interested?"

Buckbeak snapped his beak appreciatively.

"That'll work," Malfoy said. "I'll let Ross and Fergus know, they'll start fielding Slytherins who'd be interested."

They ironed out a few more details, Harry agreeing to have tea at Hagrid's to avoid having them seen together. Hagrid seemed amused when he opened the door to find them there.

"Wot's all this then?" he asked.

"We're fighting the patriarchy," Malfoy said.

"Right on."

Their next Hogsmeade trip had them heading for the Three Broomsticks with Chroma Caps and different house uniforms on, Hermione with a big folder tucked under an arm. Claim a table and wait, stand and go to the bar when Malfoy came in with a box, similarly garbed, and went there.

"Can I help you kids?" Madame Rosmerta asked.

"We've organized a Hippogriff party," Malfoy told her. "I owled ahead about a room?"

"Right, right, up these stairs, I have some refreshments set up but I'll send some more up in a minute."

"So I wasn't aware we could do this," Harry said once they were in; he recognized the room as the one Fudge and the teachers had had their meeting in back in third year.

"We run the risk of being suspicious but it's harder for anyone to eavesdrop," Malfoy said, taking his hat off. "Slytherin? Really?"

"I picked it for the same reason you're wearing Gryffindor colors," Ron told him.

"Fair enough," Malfoy said, putting the box on the table. Hermione joined him with the folder, leaving Harry and Ron to pace around examining the room and the refreshments until people started filtering in, one or two at a time, very rarely three.

"Ooh, we've got a right party going on here," Fred said, looking around.

"We're just missing streamers and such," George said, indicating the décor.

"Too true, too true."

"So why are we here?"

"Right," Malfoy said, prompting everyone to look over. "This is the first official meeting of the Hippogriff Appreciation Club, Granger did up badges and papers for everyone, we'll be needing you to sign right here."

"We also discussed learning certain defense spells, seeing as how we'll be needing to protect these marvelous creatures," Hermione said.

"Hold it," Fred said. "I know a hustle when I hear one."

"Which of course means we're in," George said, grinning. "What's the rumpus?"

"The defense part might take up most of the meetings," Hermione said.

"Ah," Harry said, recalling his conversation with Malfoy—glanced at Snips when he hopped down to the table and made grabby-hands at one of the sheets before miming writing.

"What on earth?" Ernie asked.

"Mostly we've learned to roll with it," Ron said, as Hermione gave Snips a piece of paper before plonking down a container of ink. Everyone leaned forward, watched Snips write out Muffilato before straightening up, looking around—came back with a pretzel stick and mimed a wand movement. Harry cottoned on first, pulled out his wand, read out the spell and imitated the wand movement.

The noise that still managed to filter up from the lower floor dimmed, sounding like it was filtering through cotton.

"Very nice," Fred said.

"Could use that in the toad's class," George agreed.

"Right then," Malfoy said. "In addition to the Hippogriff Appreciation Club, we're also organizing a defense club, seeing as how we're not actually learning anything."

"Forget our OWLs and NEWTs for a moment," Hermione said, causing a few people to stare at her like she had lost her head. "You-Know-Who is back—we need to learn how to defend ourselves."

"Oh not this again," someone Harry didn't recognize muttered.

"Look," Ernie said, tone reasonable. "Not that we don't believe you—"

"Speak for yourself."

"But right now all we have as evidence that you're right is your word—people don't want to panic on that little bit."

"But you'll take Fudge's word that everything is hunky-dory?" Harry asked. "I saw what I saw—I don't gain anything by making this up. I think that rag proves it," he added, pointing at the copy of the Prophet left under the salt and pepper shakers.

The one kid made to open his mouth—stopped at Malfoy's glare.

"When I came home after fourth year, my parents were having a row about allegiances," he said evenly. "My father was still acting tender from having the Cruciatus cast on him by You-Know-Who. You have more than Potter's word."

There was a long awkward pause at that.

"Also the bit about how we all were attacked by Dementors on our way home feels important," Ron said. "If Harry didn't know the Patronus charm we'd all be dead, or worse."

"Which is part of my point," Hermione said. "Harry knew the Patronus charm, you didn't—even if it was some freak accident—which is horrifying to think of, by the way—we still need to know how to defend ourselves. Even if there's nothing to defend ourselves from, we don't lose anything by knowing how to defend ourselves. And if that toad won't do it, then we have to do it ourselves. Yes Luna?"

"Fitzherbert asks that we find a new descriptor for Professor Umbridge," she said airily. "Apparently the comparison has been hurting Trevor's feelings."

"Understandable," Neville said.

"Agreed. Motion carried," George said, tipping his butterbeer. "What about hag? Do we know any hags that this would offend?"

"Probably all of them, but since we don't know any personally," Fred said.

"Very true."

"Okay, most of you I get," Ron said, prompting Harry to look. "Now why are you two here?"

Malfoy looked up, seemed as startled as Harry to see Crabbe and Goyle there. "Why are you two here? I—well you weren't invited."

"We know you think we're stupid, but we know better than to think we're safe because of who our dads work for," Crabbe said, arms crossed.

"Also we really did think it was a Hippogriff party," Goyle muttered.

Malfoy seemed baffled by this, decided to settle his attention back on the mouthy kid. "There. You've got three Death Eater kids who are vouching for Potter. Any other questions?"

"Granted you don't even need that," Blaise said from the end of the couch he was perching on. "If we don't practice out of class, we fail our OWLs. Simple as that."

"Or our exams," Ginny added.

"Or our NEWTs," Fred added.

"Not that we're too chuffed about that, but some people might be," George said.

"Which leads to our next problem being where to practice," Ernie said, warming to the topic. "Obviously we can't practice where Umbridge can find us, and doing it in Hogsmeade isn't feasible."

"We were thinking about the Chamber of Secrets," Harry told him.

"Isn't going to work," Ron said, frowning at the Marauder's Map. "I've been thinking about it, and Aurors have been through it twice—the Ministry knows about it."

"Then we need a better idea."

"Ooh! Ooh! We actually have one," Mauve said, slithering off of Luna and onto the map. "Where's the seventh floor on this…thank you, right here," she said, pointing her tail. "There's this tapestry with some guy trying to train trolls, heard about it from the house elves—the come-and-go room, they call it."

"Reminder that the rest of us don't understand this," Ron said; perked up when Harry explained. "That tapestry that Dumbledore told us about that time! That's the big secret behind it!"

Mauve nodded, waved her tail for Fitzherbert to jot down how to get in. "You pace in front of it three times thinking about what you want and it'll turn into what you need. So if you need someplace to train…."

"It'll turn into a training room," Harry said. Exchanged glances with Hermione, who recognized the name of the room as well, looked back at Mauve so he was speaking parseltongue. "About that thing they found in that room last year."

"Obviously it's not there anymore," Mauve said, waggling her head a little. "And it won't turn into that room unless you're looking to hide something, according to the house elves."

"Secret rooms, clandestine meetings, rebelling against the local government," George said as the others discussed this all amongst themselves. "Freddie, I do believe our last year is going out with a bang."

"To be fair, Georgie, we knew that after we started testing our fireworks," Fred said.

"So we're all in agreement?" Hermione asked; when she got no objections: "Then sign here, and understand by signing you agree not to betray our secrets."

"Also we have badges for you to wear, time of the meetings will be on the inside of the badge, you'll know when it changes because it'll warm up," Malfoy said, pushing the box over.

"You're not going to make me wear those," Blaise said.

"Wear them on the inside of your robe if you're going to be that way."

After that it was just the matter of banging out the details—whether or not first or second years were allowed to attend was debated, on the basis of whether or not they could effectively keep a secret and with the added argument that they would have more time to recover from one bad year of schooling. Colin pointing out that Dennis wouldn't be able to attend meetings if they were banned, and as Harry and a few Death Eater kids pointed out, being young wouldn't exempt them from being killed.

"This really is serious," Laura said, clasping her hands—the person nearest the tea, Dean, poured her a cup to help calm her.

"Hopefully it won't be for very long," Harry told her. "Just because Volde—mmph!"

"Don't say it," Goyle said, being the one who covered his mouth. "Dad told me about it—you-know-who's looking into making it taboo."

"Bleah—what does that even mean?" Harry asked.

"I've heard of that," Hermione said, putting her wand away. "If you say a word that has a taboo cast on it, then whoever cast it is alerted."

"And the only ones who'd say his name would be people who work for Dumbledore," Draco said.

"You know what, Fred?" George said. "We can apparate now—I'm thinking we get us a big roomful of fireworks, activate the taboo, and then cast a few fire spells before making ourselves scarce."

"Let us know when Moldy-Voldy gets that going," Fred told them. "What?" he added at the confused looks he was getting. "Technically we're not saying his name."

"You're seriously proposing pranking the darkest wizard in almost a century," Blaise said slowly. When the twins confirmed: "If you survive, look me up; I want to know how it turned out."

"Well by all accounts we can't singe off his hair, he doesn't have any."

Harry had to take a few minutes to recover, and by the time he was done laughing the mood of the room had improved considerably.

After that it was just a matter of ironing out a few more details and then having everyone swap ties and robes, Fred and George handing out 'complimentary Chroma Caps,' before leaving singularly or in small groups.

When it was just a handful of them left, Harry left a few galleons on the table and followed the rest of them out.

"Why did you do that?" Malfoy asked him. "The room was already paid for."

"It's called tipping," Harry said. "It's an American thing."

"And you are doing it why?"

"Firstly it's a nice thing to do. Secondly, it drives my uncle Vernon crazy when people do it."

Malfoy considered this. "I accept the petty reasoning."

"Somehow I thought you would."