Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (48 page)

‘How many people know about it?’ said Harry, sitting up straighter in his chair.

‘Very few, sir. Mostly people stumbles across it when they needs it, sir, but often they never finds it again, for they do not know that it is always there waiting to be called into service, sir.’

‘It sounds brilliant,’ said Harry, his heart racing. ‘It sounds perfect, Dobby. When can you show me where it is?’

‘Any time, Harry Potter, sir,’ said Dobby, looking delighted at Harry’s enthusiasm. ‘We could go now, if you like!’

For a moment Harry was tempted to go with Dobby. He was halfway out of his seat, intending to hurry upstairs for his Invisibility Cloak when, not for the first time, a voice very much like Hermione’s whispered in his ear:
reckless.
It was, after all, very late, and he was exhausted.

‘Not tonight, Dobby,’ said Harry reluctantly, sinking back into his chair. ‘This is really important … I don’t want to blow it, it’ll need proper planning. Listen, can you just tell me exactly where this Room of Requirement is, and how to get in there?’

*

Their robes billowed and swirled around them as they splashed across the flooded vegetable patch to double Herbology, where they could hardly hear what Professor Sprout was saying over the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof. The afternoon’s Care of Magical Creatures lesson was to be relocated from the storm-swept grounds to a free classroom on the ground floor and, to their intense relief, Angelina had sought out her team at lunch to tell them that Quidditch practice was cancelled.

‘Good,’ said Harry quietly, when she told him, ‘because we’ve found somewhere to have our first Defence meeting. Tonight, eight o’clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls. Can you tell Katie and Alicia?’

She looked slightly taken aback but promised to tell the others. Harry returned hungrily to his sausages and mash. When he looked up to take a drink of pumpkin juice, he found Hermione watching him.

‘What?’ he said thickly.

‘Well … it’s just that Dobby’s plans aren’t always that safe. Don’t you remember when he lost you all the bones in your arm?’

‘This room isn’t just some mad idea of Dobby’s; Dumbledore knows about it, too, he mentioned it to me at the Yule Ball.’

Hermione’s expression cleared.

‘Dumbledore told you about it?’

‘Just in passing,’ said Harry, shrugging.

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then,’ said Hermione briskly and raised no more objections.

Together with Ron they had spent most of the day seeking out those people who had signed their names to the list in the Hog’s Head and telling them where to meet that evening. Somewhat to Harry’s disappointment, it was Ginny who managed to find Cho Chang and her friend first; however, by the end of dinner he was confident that the news had been passed to every one of the twenty-five people who had turned up in the Hog’s Head.

At half past seven Harry, Ron and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, Harry clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand. Fifth-years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o’clock, but all three of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way along the seventh floor.

‘Hold it,’ Harry warned, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with his wand and muttering, ‘
I solemnly swear that I am up to no good
.’

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

‘Filch is on the second floor,’ said Harry, holding the map close to his eyes, ‘and Mrs Norris is on the fourth.’

‘And Umbridge?’ said Hermione anxiously.

‘In her office,’ said Harry, pointing. ‘OK, let’s go.’

They 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.

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

They did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-sized 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.

We need somewhere to learn to fight …
he thought.
Just give us a place to practise … somewhere they can’t find us …

‘Harry!’ said Hermione sharply, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.

A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. Ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary. Harry 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 Harry was sure had hung, the previous year, in the fake Moody’s office.

‘These will be good when we’re practising 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 Harry, her face glowing, and he saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right. ‘Harry, this is wonderful, there’s everything we need here!’

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

There was a gentle knock on the door. Harry looked round. Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Parvati and Dean had arrived.

‘Whoa,’ said Dean, staring around, impressed. ‘What is this place?’

Harry began to explain, but before he had finished more people had arrived and he had to start all over again. By the time eight o’clock arrived, every cushion was occupied. Harry moved across to the door and turned the key protruding from the lock; it clicked in a satisfyingly loud way and everybody fell silent, looking at him. Hermione carefully marked her page of
Jinxes for the Jinxed
and set the book aside.

‘Well,’ said Harry, slightly nervously. ‘This is the place we’ve found for practice sessions, and you’ve – er – obviously found it OK.’

‘It’s fantastic!’ said Cho, and several people murmured their agreement.

‘It’s bizarre,’ said Fred, frowning around at it. ‘We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then.’

‘Hey, Harry, what’s this stuff?’ asked Dean from the rear of the room, indicating the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass.

‘Dark detectors,’ said Harry, stepping between the cushions to reach them. ‘Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don’t want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled …’

He gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside it, though none was recognisable. He turned his back on it.

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and – er –’ He noticed a raised hand. ‘What, Hermione?’

‘I think we ought to elect a leader,’ said Hermione.

‘Harry’s leader,’ said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad.

Harry’s stomach did yet another back-flip.

‘Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly,’ said Hermione, unperturbed. ‘It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So – everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?’

Everybody put up their hand, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very half-heartedly.

‘Er – right, thanks,’ said Harry, who could feel his face burning. ‘And –
what
, Hermione?’

‘I also think we ought to have a name,’ she said brightly, her hand still in the air. ‘It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don’t you think?’

‘Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?’ said Angelina hopefully.

‘Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?’ suggested Fred.

‘I was thinking,’ said Hermione, frowning at Fred, ‘more of a name that didn’t tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings.’

‘The Defence Association?’ said Cho. ‘The DA for short, so nobody knows what we’re talking about?’

‘Yeah, the DA’s good,’ said Ginny. ‘Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army, because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?’

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this.

‘All in favour of the DA?’ said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. ‘That’s a majority – motion passed!’

She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it on to the wall and wrote across the top in large letters:

DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY

‘Right,’ said Harry, when she had sat down again, ‘shall we get practising then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is
Expelliarmus
, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it’s pretty basic but I’ve found it really useful –’

‘Oh,
please
,’ said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. ‘I don’t think
Expelliarmus
is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?’

‘I’ve used it against him,’ said Harry quietly. ‘It saved my life in June.’

Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.

‘But if you think it’s beneath you, you can leave,’ Harry said.

Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.

‘OK,’ said Harry, his mouth slightly drier than usual with all these eyes upon him, ‘I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practise.’

It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed. Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up. Predictably, Neville was left partnerless.

‘You can practise with me,’ Harry told him. ‘Right – on the count of three, then – one, two, three –’

The room was suddenly full of shouts of
Expelliarmus
. Wands flew in all directions; missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Harry was too quick for Neville, whose wand went spinning out of his hand, hit the ceiling in a shower of sparks and landed with a clatter on top of a bookshelf, from which Harry retrieved it with a Summoning Charm. Glancing around, he thought he had been right to suggest they practise the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in Disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their feeble spell whooshed over them.

‘Expelliarmus!’
said Neville, and Harry, caught unawares, felt his wand fly out of his hand.

‘I DID IT!’ said Neville gleefully. ‘I’ve never done it before – I DID IT!’

‘Good one!’ said Harry encouragingly, deciding not to point out that in a real duel Neville’s opponent was unlikely to be staring in the opposite direction with his wand held loosely at his side. ‘Listen, Neville, can you take it in turns to practise with Ron and Hermione for a couple of minutes so I can walk around and see how the rest are doing?’

Harry moved off into the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Zacharias Smith. Every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound. Harry did not have to look far to solve the mystery: Fred and George were several feet from Smith and taking it in turns to point their wands at his back.

‘Sorry, Harry,’ said George hastily, when Harry caught his eye. ‘Couldn’t resist.’

Harry walked around the other pairs, trying to correct those who were doing the spell wrong. Ginny was teamed with Michael Corner; she was doing very well, whereas Michael was either very bad or unwilling to jinx her. Ernie Macmillan was flourishing his wand unnecessarily, giving his partner time to get in under his guard; the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them; Luna Lovegood was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchley’s wand spinning out of his hand, at other times merely causing his hair to stand on end.

‘OK, stop!’ Harry shouted.
‘Stop! STOP!’

I need a whistle
, he thought, and immediately spotted one lying on top of the nearest row of books. He caught it up and blew hard. Everyone lowered their wands.

‘That wasn’t bad,’ said Harry, ‘but there’s definite room for improvement.’ Zacharias Smith glared at him. ‘Let’s try again.’

He moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions. Slowly, the general performance improved. He avoided going near Cho and her friend for a while, but after walking twice around every other pair in the room felt he could not ignore them any longer.

‘Oh no,’ said Cho rather wildly as he approached. ‘
Expelliarmious!
I mean,
Expellimellius
! I – oh, sorry, Marietta!’

Her curly-haired friend’s sleeve had caught fire; Marietta extinguished it with her own wand and glared at Harry as though it was his fault.

‘You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!’ Cho told Harry ruefully.

‘That was quite good,’ Harry lied, but when she raised her eyebrows he said, ‘Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there.’

She laughed. Her friend Marietta looked at them rather sourly and turned away.

‘Don’t mind her,’ Cho muttered. ‘She doesn’t really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge. You see – her mum works for the Ministry.’