The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|69| Defense Lessons

Hermione and Ron had been speaking in hushed voices for almost two hours despite my being there. As we waited for Harry to come back from his detention, I had fallen asleep. I was awoken by a small shake from Harry before he sat down in his armchair that had a bowl of pickle murtlap solution. A small weight was on my lap and I looked to see Gydion sleeping with me.

"Here," Hermione said anxiously, pushing a small bowl of yellow liquid toward Harry, "soak your hand in that, it's a solution of strained and pickled murtlap tentacles, it should help."

Harry placed his bleeding, aching hand into the bowl and experienced a wonderful feeling of relief. Crookshanks curled around his legs, purring loudly, and then leapt into his lap and settled down.

"Thanks," he said gratefully, scratching behind Crookshanks's ears with his left hand.

"I still reckon you should complain about this," said Ron in a low voice.

"No," said Harry flatly.

"McGonagall would go nuts if she knew —"

"Yeah, she probably would," said Harry. "And how long d'you reckon it'd take Umbridge to pass another Decree saying anyone who complains about the High Inquisitor gets sacked immediately?"

Ron opened his mouth to retort but nothing came out and after a moment he closed it again in a defeated sort of way.

"She's an awful woman," I said in a small voice.

"Truly, she is," Hermione agreed. "You know, I was just saying to Ron when you came in, while Maisey was sleeping... we've got to do something about her."

"I suggested poison," said Ron grimly.

"Ron!" I laughed at him.

"No, I mean, something about what a dreadful teacher she is, and how we're not going to learn any defense from her at all," said Hermione.

"Well, what can we do about that?" I said, yawning. " 'S too late, isn't it? She got the job, she's here to stay, Fudge'll make sure of that."

"Well," said Hermione tentatively. "You know, I was thinking today..." She shot a slightly nervous look at Harry and me, then plunged on, "I was thinking that— maybe the time's come when we should just— just do it ourselves."

"Do what ourselves?" said Harry suspiciously, still floating his hand in the essence of murtlap tentacles.

"Well— learn Defense Against the Dark Arts ourselves," said Hermione.

"Come off it," groaned Ron. "You want us to do extra work? D'you realize Harry and I are behind on homework again and it's only the second week? Just because you and Maisey have it all set out doesn't mean we do."

"But this is much more important than homework!" said Hermione.

"I didn't think there was anything in the universe more important than homework to you," said Ron.

"Don't be silly, of course there is!" said Hermione, and I saw, with an ominous feeling, that her face was suddenly alight with the kind of fervor that S.P.E.W. usually inspired in her. "It's about preparing ourselves, like Maisey said in Umbridge's first lesson, for what's waiting out there. It's about making sure we really can defend ourselves. If we don't learn anything for a whole year—"

"We can't do much by ourselves," said Ron in a defeated voice. "I mean, all right, we can go and look jinxes up in the library and try and practice them, I suppose—"

"No, I agree, we've gone past the stage where we can just learn things out of books," said Hermione. "We need a teacher, a proper one, who can show us how to use the spells and correct us if we're going wrong."