𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫.

𝟓.𝟏𝟑 𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐩𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲

"I'll bet you wish you hadn't given up Divination now, don't you, Hermione and Y/n?" asked Parvati, smirking.

It was breakfast time a few days after the sacking of Professor Trelawney, and Parvati was curling her eyelashes around her wand and examining the effect in the back of her spoon. They were to have their first lesson with Firenze that morning.

"Not really," said Hermione indifferently, who was reading the Daily Prophet. "I've never really liked horses."

Y/n snorted and Hermione gave her a quick smile.

"He's not a horse, he's a centaur!" said Lavender, sounding shocked.

"A gorgeous centaur . . ." sighed Parvati. "Either way, he's still got four legs," said Hermione coolly.

"Anyway, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?" asked Y/n working hard to hide her smile.

"We are!" Lavender assured her. "We went up to her office to see her, we took her some daffodils — not the honking ones that Sprout's got, nice ones. . . ."

"How is she?" asked Harry.

"Not very good, poor thing," said Lavender sympathetically. "She was crying and saying she'd rather leave the castle forever than stay here if Umbridge is still here, and I don't blame her. Umbridge was horrible to her, wasn't she?"

"I've got a feeling Umbridge has only just started being horrible," said Y/n darkly.

"Impossible," said Ron, who was tucking into a large plate of eggs and bacon. "She can't get any worse than she's been already."

"You mark my words, she's going to want revenge on Dumbledore for appointing a new teacher without consulting her," said Hermione, closing the newspaper. "Especially another part-human. You saw the look on her face when she saw Firenze. . . ."

As a dull March blurred into a squally April, Harry's life seemed to have become one long series of worries and problems again.

The teachers and Hermione persisted in reminding them, the O.W.L.s were drawing ever nearer.

All the fifth years were suffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after she burst into tears during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school now.

If it had not been for the D.A. lessons, Harry thought he would have been extremely unhappy. He sometimes felt that he was living for the hours he spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying himself at the same time, swelling with pride as he looked around at his fellow D.A. members and saw how far they had come.

Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the D.A. received "Outstanding" in their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s.

One strange occurrence had also happened recently. When Y/n, Hermione, Harry and Ron where heading to one of the D.A. meeting outside of Gryffindor Tower stood an unlikely person.

"Y/n!" he called when Y/n passed him with her friends. She had avoided his glance and was now walking faster. Harry stood in shock. Draco Malfoy was chasing after Y/n. The slytherin caught up to his cousin with his long legs.