A Memorable Tale

63 | Army

The Ravenclaw common room was bustling with absolutely nothing. The sound of pages turning, quiet muttering and quills scratching parchment filled the room and no one dared to question it.

Normally, this was the time for Neville and I to hang out at the lake, but he said that there was some emergency Gryffindor meeting he had to take part in.

And that was a good thing.

He should be hanging out with people that did more than read and smile at him while he rummaged through the water in search of plants. I could tell that my presence was lacking something that I was sure someone else could give.

That was when Michael, along with Terry and Anthony, came bursting through the door while the knocker glared, looking quite annoyed. The rest of the students in the common room looked up from their homework, mimicking the knocker's expression.

Their faces flushed and they spread across the common room, taking me, Sue, Padma, Mandy, Lisa, and Morag aside. "Can we have a quick meeting in your dorm?" Anthony asked in a hushed voice.

"Like hell!" Sue replied in a similar tone, an agreeing nod from Mandy and Padma accompanying her retort.

"This is seriously important, and we can't talk about it here. Someone might hear." Anthony looked at me as if there would be some sort of prefect-telepathy, but I shook my head with a sigh. "Boys aren't even allowed in the girls' dorms. You'll be kicked out by the castle."

"Fine then! Where can we go for some privacy?"

"What about your dorm?" Morag asked.

"Oh, so you guys are allowed in our dorm?" Michael scoffed. "I call discrimination."

"Blame the men before you. Are we going to stay whispering here or will we just go to the dorm?" Sue whispered angrily.

"Fine! But... just outside."

We were led to the boys' dorm and stood outside the door. Padma stood with her arms crossed. "Well?"

"Ginny told me about this thing—" Michael began, and I quickly raised my hand to stop him. "Wait. Ginny? Why was Ginny talking to you?"

"You haven't heard?" Terry grinned. "He and Ginny are a thing now."

I looked around, seeing that I was the only one that was shocked. "Why am I the only one who doesn't know of this?"

"He told us during that lunch that you were studying," Lisa said. "Anyways... carry on, Michael."

"Well, there's this thing that's happening during Hogsmeade weekend. Something about Harry teaching us spells for Defence Against the Dark Arts."

The five girls looked at each other unsure. "Harry teaching us spells...?" Mandy asked. "Isn't that... He's just a student, what—"

"Think about it," Anthony interrupted. "We learn nothing in Defence Against the Dark Arts now, and you know it. That Umbridge doesn't want us learning anything. Harry's fought a basilisk, he got the Philosopher's Stone back, he did all those things during the Triwizard Tournament — we can't rely on this school to keep teach us how to keep ourselves safe anymore, guys. He's our next best bet."

I stared at him for a long while and looked around. "We should discuss this inside."

Anthony nodded. "I agree."

•••

As the Hogsmeade weekend came upon us, a large group of people began approaching the Hog's Head, a bar that was remarkably smaller than The Three Broomsticks.