The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|71| Dumbledore's Army

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and I spent the entire day searching for everyone who signed the parchment for my and Harry's defense lessons; by the end of dinner, I was confident that the news had been passed to every one of the twenty-six people who had turned up in Hog's Head.

At half-past seven Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I left the Gryffindor common room, I clutched a certain piece of aged parchment in my hand. Fifth years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, but all four of us kept looking around nervously as we made our way up to the seventh floor.

"Hold it," I said warningly, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with my wand, and muttering, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

A map of Hogwarts appeared upon the blank surface of the parchment. Tiny black moving dots, labeled with names, showed where various people were.

"Filch is on the second floor," I said, holding the map close to my eyes and scanning it closely, "and Mrs. Norris is on the fourth."

"And Umbridge?" said Hermione anxiously.

"In her office," Harry said, looking at the map over my shoulder. "Okay, let's go."

"Are you sure it's safe?" I asked for the hundredth time.

"Has Dobby been wrong before?" Harry asked.

"Yes," the three of us said.

Harry dismissed us as we hurried along the corridor to the place Dobby had described to Harry, a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy's foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet.

"Okay," said Harry quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch. "Dobby said to walk past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need."

We did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-size vase on its other side. Ron had screwed up his eyes in concentration, Hermione was whispering something under her breath, Harry's fists were clenched as he stared ahead of him, and I concentrated on what we needed.

We need somewhere to learn to fight... I thought. Just give us a place to practice... somewhere they can't find us ...

"Guys," said Hermione sharply, as we wheeled around after our third walk past.

A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. Ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary. I reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.

The walls were lined with wooden bookcases, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass that I was sure had hung, the previous year, in the fake Moody's office.

"These will be good when we're practicing Stunning," said Ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.

"And just look at these books!" said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. "A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions... The Dark Arts Outsmarted... Self-Defensive Spellwork... wow..."

She looked around at me, her face glowing, and I saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what we were doing was right.

"Harry, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!" I breathed.

And without further ado she slid Jinxes for the Jinxed from its shelf, sank onto the nearest cushion, and began to read.