Harry Potter and the Sixth Year

Ron didn’t mention the matter again, although both Harry and Hermione knew that he was not all happy about the idea of Slytherins joining their group. Harry wasn’t entirely happy either, but he thought he’d try them out to see what they were like. After all, there was nothing secretive about what they were doing now. Hermione, of course, thought it was an excellent idea.

His visit to Flourish and Blotts over the New Year had turned out to be very useful: he dug out the books he’d bought and poured through them, looking for something that would do for the first meeting. Then he got Ron, Hermione, Neville and Ginny together. They were going to be his assistants, and so he spent a hour or so the evening before taking them through what they were to do. He was surprised how quickly Neville and Ginny caught on to the spells he was teaching them: they had come on a long way over the past year.

So on the Thursday evening the room began to fill up with people arriving for the meeting. Harry saw the two Slytherins come in: at least, he assumed that’s who they were, since he didn’t recognise either of them. One was tall with black hair, the other shorter, with a slightly sullen and closed face. When everyone seemed to be there – although he noticed Cho Chang wasn’t among the crowd, and he wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or not - he clapped his hands to get people’s attention.

“Hi, everyone,” he began. “Welcome back – or just welcome, if this is the first time for you. I know last year we called ourselves Dumbledore’s Army …” there was a faint cheer “… but this year I think the Defence Group might be a better name. And this time we can send round notes about meetings. But if you still have one of Hermione’s coins, it’ll still work as before.

“What I want to do tonight is something that Kings … Professor Shacklebolt has touched on in classes. I’ll demonstrate what I mean.” He pointed to the shorter of the two Slytherins. “Do you mind?”

The boy pushed his way through the crowd to stand in front of Harry. “You are ..?”

“Ashley Judd.”

“OK, Ashley – you know how to stupefy?” The boy nodded. “What I want you to do, on the count of three, is to try to stupefy me. Ready?” The boy nodded and raised his wand. “On the count of three, then: one … two … three!”

“Stupefy!” cried the Slytherin, and a flash erupted from his wand.

“Suscipio!” cried Harry, and swept the bolt with his wand to his other hand, which closed on the bolt of light. A tingle ran down his arm.

Judd looked astonished, and a murmur swept through the group of students.

Harry lowered his wand. “You can catch the spell if you’re quick enough,” he said. “Helps if you have good reflexes. Now, Hermione has a sheet for all of you about the Suscipio charm.” He nodded to Hermione, who began distributing them. There was silence for a minute or two while everyone absorbed what she had written.

“Now then,” said Harry, when he thought everyone had had time to read the sheet through, “I’ll demonstrate a couple more times. Ready, Ashley?”

The boy nodded and raised his wand. “Stupefy!”

Again Harry caught the bolt of light. “And again,” said Harry.

After a couple more demonstrations, Harry looked at the boy opposite.

“Do you want a go now?” The boy looked uncertain, which wasn’t very surprising. “I’ll make it easy for you.”

They both raised their wands.

“Stupefy!” cried Harry, but this time the bolt of light ambled gently across the room. Judd swept his wand up: “Suscipio!” and caught the spell.

There was another murmur from around the room.

“What was that?” asked Susan Bones.

Harry smiled. “Another of my party tricks. You can slow a spell right down if you try. It’s hard work, but it’s useful for this. Are you okay?” he asked Judd.

The boy nodded once more. “My arm tingled, but that’s all.”

“Yeah, it will. Depends on the spell you’re catching.”

“Right.”

Harry turned to the others. “I’d like you to break up into four groups. Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville will be throwing the spells at you.”

There was a general shuffling as they re-arranged themselves. The three people with Neville looked rather apprehensive. Harry noticed that the other Slytherin had ended up in Ron’s group: he hoped Ron wasn’t going to be too hard on him.

Then “Stupefy!” came from Ginny. Soon the room was full of curses and counter-curses. Not everyone got the hang of it first time: here and there bodies tumbled over as they tried in vain to catch the spell.

The others seemed to be coping so well that Harry turned back to Ashley Judd. “Some more?”

The other boy nodded, a gleam in his eye. He caught the spell time after time, as Harry gradually speeded up its flight. Finally they both lowered their wands, and Harry looked round. The odd person was still going down, but otherwise everyone seemed to have got the hang of things.

“Will you show me how to slow down those spells?” asked Judd.

Harry nodded. “Sure. Look, like this ..” and he began explaining to the other boy. Harry was surprised at how soon he got the hang of it. As Judd sent the spell almost crawling its way along to Harry, he could see a grin on the other’s face which transformed his otherwise rather sullen appearance. Not the typical Slytherin, thought Harry. Or was he just judging them all on the basis of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle?

Harry stood back and clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. It was nearly nine o’clock.

“Thank you everyone, and thanks to Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville.” There was a smattering of applause. “I hope you’ve learned something tonight. Same time next week?”

Justin stepped forward, the Head Boy in the making. “I’d like to think Harry and his team for their efforts tonight. Well done!” Another smattering of applause, and people began making their way to the door.

“Thanks, Harry,” said Judd, before joining up with the other Slytherin.

Soon there was only Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville left. Hermione’s eyes were shining with excitement.

“That was really good!” she said.

“Yeah, it was.” Neville had never been in the limelight so much before in his life. And teaching others how to catch spells!

“You know,” said Ron, “some of those Slytherins aren’t too bad.”

Harry caught Hermione’s eye behind Ron’s back. She gave a slight smile, but said nothing, as they filed out of the door.

Kingsley called Harry over at the end of their lesson the next day.

“I hear it went well last night,” the Auror said.

“Oh?”

“I had the other class this morning. They were full of it. I was demonstrating some jinxes to them, and all they did was cry ‘Suscipio!’”

Harry smiled. “I hope it didn’t spoil your lesson.”

“Not really. But that’s quite advanced stuff.”

“Well, I went to Flourish and Blotts with Remus in the holidays, and we got quite a few books.”

“Books? I had you down as the more intuitive type.”

“Well, even books can help too.”

“Been listening to Hermione?”

“Partly. But it’s your lessons that’ve made me realise that there’s more to a spell than meets the eye. I mean, we’ve done the basics, but there’s a lot more you can do with a spell if you do some research.”

Kingsley smiled. “Ever thought of becoming a teacher, Harry?”

“Well, maybe, but there are other things I would like to do instead.”

“Such as?”

“I dunno.” Harry hesitated. “I mean, I’d really like to find out what you actually can do with some of these spells. Not just the basics, but the extras.”

“There’s room in the Ministry for that too. That’s really quite high level stuff. You saw a little of that in those rooms you were in.”

Harry remembered all the odd things he’d seen: brains in a tank, time turners and the like.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “But …”

“But what?”

“There’s the small problem of Voldemort first.”

“It’s odd, you know,” said Kingsley, leaning back in his chair, “we’ve heard almost nothing since that business with the Dementors in the Forest last year. Well, and the sinking of that ship. But neither was really high level stuff.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“People have all sorts of ideas. For what it’s worth, I think he’s been trying to gather strength and supporters, and failing. With any luck, we’ll be able to wear him down faster than he wears us down.”

“Yeah. Let’s hope so.”

That Saturday evening, Harry was relaxing in front of the fire. He had spent the morning on his essays, they had had a energetic Quidditch practice that afternoon, and now he was enjoying putting his feet up. Hermione was in an armchair opposite, Crookshanks on her lap. Ron was idly leafing through one of his Quidditch books (actually one of Harry’s, but as Harry had suspected, they had somehow gravitated to Ron).

The common room was quite busy, but out of the corner of his eye he could see a little knot of first years huddling together and whispering. Idly, he wondered what that was all about. Then three of them detached themselves from the group and, hesitantly, made their way over to the fireplace.

“Um, Harry?” asked Edward.

“Yes?”

“We were watching your Quidditch practice this afternoon,” said David.

“Oh?”

Hermione looked up, a slight smile of amusement on her face.

“You were really good,” enthused Margaret. “You’ve a Firebolt, haven’t you?”

“That’s right.” They were up to something, that much he could tell.

“We have our flying lessons with Ravenclaw,” said Edward.

“And they challenged us to a Quidditch match,” added David.

“Our first years against theirs,” said Margaret.

“And we were wondering …”

“… if you’d like to be our coach,” David finished with a rush.

Harry was completely thrown by this request. He started to stammer something when Ron broke in: “Yeah, of course we will.”

“Really?”

“Can you take us for a session tomorrow?”

“After lunch?”

Harry looked across at Ron, whose face was alight with enthusiasm.

“Of course we will,” he said.

“That’d be great!”

“Thanks ever so much!”

The three youngsters shot away back to their friends.

Harry groaned. “What have you got us into now, Ron?”

“Why - don’t you think it’s a good idea? We could get Ginny to help too.”

“As if I hadn’t enough to do as it is.”

“You know,” said Ron thoughtfully, “with that Defence Group stuff, I’ve discovered something.”

“What’s that?” asked Hermione.

“If you’re got to have to teach something, you really have to understand it first. Not just be able to do it, but to understand how it works.”

Hermione smiled and scratched Crookshank’s ears.

So after lunch on Sunday Harry found himself with Ron, Ginny, and the nine first years standing on the Quidditch pitch. At least it was a reasonable afternoon for late January: cold maybe, but clear.

Harry looked around at the cluster of youngsters. “So you’ve arranged a Quidditch match against the Ravenclaw first years?” They all nodded. “Who’s flown before they came to Hogwarts?” Five hands went up. “Who’s played Quidditch before?” Two hands went up. “Right. So you’ve all seen some matches and watched some practices, and I hope you all have a good idea about the rules of the game. What I want to do first is to watch you fly, and try and work out who will play where. You’re going to follow Ron in a single line. Ginny will be watching you, following up at the end. I’ll be circling round. If Ron takes you through a manoeuvre you don’t like, just break out of the line. I don’t want anyone hurt. Is that understood?”

They all nodded. Harry had briefed Ron and Ginny over lunch so they knew what to do. Harry only hoped that he’d get through the afternoon without having to take anyone to Madam Pomfrey.

“Right. On your brooms, and line up behind Ron. I’ll blow a whistle to start you and to stop you.”

Ron kicked off and hovered a few feet above the ground. One by one the first years rose up and formed a rather straggly line behind Ron. Ginny took up the rear a little way behind. Harry swooped up and did his best to straighten the line, nudging people here and there.

He blew his whistle, and Ron moved off, slowly to begin with. The line stretched out as one by one the youngsters began moving.

“Close up the gaps,” shouted Harry, as he followed them round. Ron began a gentle circuit of the pitch. He could see here and there people misjudging the turn, over correcting, and the line snaking back and forward. Making team out of this lot would be quite a challenge.

Now Ron started climbing and diving: still everyone was with him. The line resembled some gigantic caterpillar as it snaked up and down. Then back to straight and level, then tighter and tighter circles. Eventually one of the girls broke away, and Harry blew his whistle.

“On the ground,” he yelled. He watched as one by one they stepped off their brooms. Watching someone landing was often a good way of judging their flying skills. He also noticed that he was collecting something of an audience: people with nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon had stopped to watch what was going on.

“Okay. Three groups of three. One with me, one with Ron, one with Ginny. He reached down for three footballs he’d managed to borrow from Dean. Why Dean had wanted three, he’d no idea, but they’d be useful this afternoon. “Now you’re going to fly in line abreast across the pitch, passing the ball from one to another. Keep close, and don’t throw too hard.”

He looked at the little group in front of him. “You’re Margaret, and you’re …?”

“Susie.”

“Adam.”

“OK, Margaret, here’s the ball.” He tossed it to her; she caught it with confidence. “Up we go. Start passing on the whistle.”

On the first pass of the pitch, he had to swoop down a half dozen times as someone missed the pass. He took them back and forth two or three times before pointing them to the ground and giving blasts on his whistle to gather up the others. They gathered round him again, red faced from the exercise.

“Okay, so you should have some idea now of what it’s like passing the Quaffle back and forward. The chasers are going to have to practice that time and again. Now, Seekers. We’ve got a golf ball for each group, and Ron or Ginny or me are going to throw it up and you’re going to have to catch it. If it gets too near the ground, leave it. We don’t want you ploughing into the ground just yet.”

He ignored the gathered spectators and took his group a little way away.

“Ready?” he asked. They all nodded.

Margaret seemed quite confident, swooping up on her broom and plucking the little white ball from the air without too much trouble. Susie could catch the ball when she got near it, but wasn’t that confident on a broom yet. A couple of times she got perilously close the ground before Harry yelled out her to pull out. Adam was quite a good flyer but completely uncoordinated. Just to check, Harry had him standing on the ground five or six feet away and tried tossing the ball at him: Adam fumbled almost every catch.

“Okay,” Harry said eventually. “Don’t worry about it for the moment.” He looked at his watch. They’d been out there for nearly two hours now, and it would be dark soon. The watching crowd had begun to disperse as the afternoon got colder.

He gathered everyone round, looking at the anxious young faces. He smiled to re-assure them all.

“Ginny – what do you think?”

She shrugged. “We can pick a team from this lot, but if you’re serious about a game with Ravenclaw, they’re going to have to do a lot of practicing.”

“Yep. Ron, what do you think?”

“Ginny’s right. You’re going to have to do a lot of flying too. The thing about a Quidditch game is that you’ve got to fly, watch the balls, and the opposition too. That means your flying’s got to be something that’s automatic, something you don’t have to think about.”

Harry could see them looking a bit downcast by this. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Ravenclaw are going to be just as bad. Now, the three of us will get together and work out something of a team. We need seven of you, which means leaving two of you out. But you might get called as reserve. And I want all nine of you for practices. Right then. Wednesday four o’clock?” They all nodded. “OK. Off you go.”

He watched them walking back to the castle, then turned to the other two.

“What do you think?”

Ron ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, it’s a challenge.”

“Ginny?”

“We can make something of them,” she said confidently.

“OK. Who’s going to be captain?”

“That boy David?”

“Looked good to me. Ron?” He nodded. “OK. Positions. I think I’ve got a Seeker in Margaret. First, though, who are we going to drop?”

“Susie and Mark are useless on brooms,” said Ginny.

“OK. Six others. I would suggest Adam as Keeper. He can’t catch for toffee but he might be able to knock the ball away.”

“The Beaters need to be quite hefty,” said Ron.

“Well, James is hulking enough. And Edward?” The other two nodded. “And the last three as Chasers. Ginny, could you put the team up on the notice board in the common room?”

“Okay.”

“Right then.”

The three of them began making their way back to Gryffindor tower.

But as he was quietly eating his supper that evening, Harry got something of a shock. Cho Chang came storming over from the Ravenclaw table, a face like thunder.

“You’ve been out coaching your first years at Quidditch!” she accused him.

“Yes. So?”

“That’s not fair!”

Harry blinked. “Well, go and train your own, then.”

“I don’t have time for that.”

“Make time.”

Cho said something very unladylike and stomped back to the Ravenclaw table with a face like thunder. Harry stared at her departing back.

“I don’t know what you saw in her,” said Ron, shaking his head.

Harry sighed. “Let’s not go there.” Whatever his feelings were for Cho now, the last thing he wanted to do was talk about them with Ron.

But training up the first years was eating into what little free time Harry had left. He felt guilty postponing a practice in the middle of the week, and then asking Ginny and Ron to take the one after. He also was hearing rumours that a furious Cho Chang was taking the Ravenclaw team out almost every night, rather to their disgust. So the pressure was back on him to coach the Gryffindors.

The match had been scheduled for a Sunday afternoon, and Madam Hooch had been prevailed on to referee the game. Fortunately the weather was good: with two such inexperienced Seekers they’d have been out there all night if it had been raining. And the novelty of the occasion was quite a crowd puller. Not only were the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws out in strength, most of the rest of the school seemed to be there too.

Harry looked at the two teams circling the pitch. If some of the Gryffindors seemed shaky on their brooms, Ravenclaw weren’t much better. At least, looking at the Beaters, he didn’t think that too many people were going to be hurt by the Bludgers today. If they were able to dodge them, that is.

He could see Cho in the stand opposite, waving an enormous Ravenclaw banner. Ah, well. As he’d said to Ron, better not to go there.

Madam Hooch came on to the pitch and released the Quaffle. The players began to zoom around, competing for possession. Gryffindor were the first to the ball, and headed down the pitch in a closeknit formation. Harry had reckoned that if they stuck together, they’d have less chance of being forced away. On the other hand, the tactic did call for a reasonable degree of skill on a broom.

In the seats next to him, Ron and Ginny were bouncing up and down, yelling their support. Rather to his surprise, Gryffindor scored – but then, looking at the Ravenclaw Keeper, he wasn’t altogether surprised. Margaret was doing as she had been told, carefully circling the pitch, ignoring the play below, and looking out for the Snitch.

After half an hour, Gryffindor were leading by 100 to 40, which was respectable enough. Adam, the Keeper, was still completely unable to catch the Quaffle, but was capable enough to block it or punch it out of the way. Hagrid had come over to support too, and his shouts boomed out over the rest of Gryffindor put together. He’d been right about the Beaters: none of them were really strong enough yet to do any damage. Edward had nearly been unseated, however, when he’d failed to notice a Bludger coming up from behind.

Then he saw both Seekers dive at once. The Snitch had been sighted. Play almost stopped as the two brooms hurtled downwards. The Ravenclaw Chaser was so distracted that a passing Bludger knocked the Quaffle from his hands, to be caught deftly by David, who promptly scored again. Now the two Seekers were skimming the ground. Harry couldn’t yet see the Snitch, but it couldn’t be far in front of the Seekers. Then there was a moan of disappointment as the two brooms pulled upwards and separated. They’d obviously lost it. Wayne Smith’s voice dropped back from his excited shouting. “And it seems as though the Snitch has disappeared again. Gryffindor now 70 points in the lead. Forty minutes gone. Can Ravenclaw pull it back?”

“They’re not doing badly,” said Ron. “70 points is a good lead.”

Hermione was shivering. Despite the bright light, it was a cold day. “Just find that Snitch and let’s get this over with!”

“Hermione!” protested Ron.

But then Margaret dived again to the ground. The Ravenclaw Seeker was at least a hundred yards away.

“Has the Snitch been sighted again?” yelled Wayne Smith, frenetic again. David took the opportunity of the diversion to dash down the pitch with the Quaffle again, but this time the Ravenclaw Keeper was ready for him. Then Margaret pulled up again, her hand held high. In it was the small, golden Snitch. The Gryffindor stands erupted. And opposite, Harry could see Cho’s face, twisted in anguish.

“We did it,” yelled Ron. “Well done, Gryffindor!”

Harry didn’t want to gloat, but there was a good feeling to winning. And – he remembered the game against Hufflepuff – it was much better than losing.

Katie came bounding up to them. “Well, you three obviously did a good job there. Congratulations.”

“We only coached them,” said Ginny. “They were the ones playing.”

“I know. We’ve laid on a party for them in the common room. Come on!”

Ginny used the party as an opportunity to bring out some of ‘treats’ from her Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes’ box. Colin Creevey fell for the Dragon’s Breath sweets, whilst Adam grew some rather alarmingly sized ears, and after that, everyone was a little more cautious about what they ate.

The party was beginning to wind down when David took Harry to one side.

“We’ve another favour to ask you.”

“Oh?”

David looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, after the match, Malfoy came up to me, and said that the Slytherin first years would like to have a game against us.”

“No doubt he called it a ‘friendly’ match?”

David smiled. “Something like that.”

“Yeah – well, I know Malfoy’s idea of ‘friendly’. Did he say when?”

The other boy shrugged. “In a few weeks?”

“Have they got a team together? Have they been practicing?” asked Harry.

“Not yet.”

“Then you’d better arrange the match as soon as you can.”

A slow smile spread over David’s face. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“You’ve already got a team. They haven’t.”

“I see what you mean.”

“Go and talk to Ron and Ginny, then go back to Malfoy.”

“Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

And as the youngster disappeared, Harry was reminded of himself – some years ago.

Breakfast on Monday mornings was usually a fairly quiet affair. Hermione would be leafing through a book for a first lesson. Ron would be half awake. Harry – well, he was never at his best at breakfast either. But suddenly Neville asked: “Who’s that on the top table?”

They all looked up and across to where the teachers were sitting. A dark haired middle aged man was talking quietly to Dumbledore. None of them had ever seen him before.

“Odd,” said Hermione.

“Percy’s not there this morning,” said Ron, a slightly sour note in his voice.

“That’s true. But it might be he’s just late.”

“Late? Percy?”

Hermione threw him an exasperated look, then shut her book. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Come on – Charms first lesson.”

Harry had forgotten about the stranger until lunch time, when he overheard some of the fifth years talking about their morning’s lessons.

“Well, he wasn’t bad.”

“More interesting than Weasley, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah, but he set even more homework.”

Harry leaned over. “What’s that?”

Colin Creevey was delighted to tell him all about it. “We’ve got a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Professor Veneficus!”

“Oh? Where’s Percy?”

“He wouldn’t tell us. Just that Professor Weasley had to be away for a few weeks, and he was filling in. He’s an Auror from the Ministry!”

Harry looked over to Ron, who was listening in, and raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t ask me,” said Ron loudly.

Harry shrugged and carried on with his sponge pudding.

Harry knew that it would be coming sooner or later; that what had happened a few months ago was only a postponement. The trial date for Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters was only days away now.

Then one morning, Kingsley asked him to stay behind after one of their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons.

“You’re ready for the trial?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Yeah. Well, they’re changing things a bit. The ones that escaped from Azkaban in the first place they’re not bothering to put on trial. Just locking away again. The real shock to Fudge was finding out Malfoy was one of them. He thought Malfoy was a big mate of his, and so when he turns up as a Death eater, Fudge is not happy. So it’s going to be a big show trail. Just Malfoy. And you, Harry, are going to be the star witness.”

Harry could feel a tightening sensation in his stomach. “Right.”

“It’s not going to be easy. I mean, it would be hard enough anyway, but Malfoy’s going to fight. If they have you on the witness stand, they’re not going to let you off lightly. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying. They’re going to do all they can to make out I’m a liar or deluded or something.”

“That’s about right. Though there’s so much other evidence to back up your story now that I can’t see them succeeding. Not if you keep your head.”

“What you mean is that I shouldn’t argue or shout or anything.”

“That’s right. Stick to the truth. Say it slowly and calmly. They’re going to do all they can to get you worked up. They may throw anything at you. But you’ve got to keep your cool.”

Harry gave a slight, twisted smile. “I better practice the deep breathing exercises.” Kingsley had been doing various exercises with them to get them to concentrate harder.

“Three deep breaths before answering any question.”

“Won’t they think I’m a loony if I keep doing that?”

“Not as much as if you start shouting at them.”

“I suppose.”

“You know, Fudge got the fright of his life when he saw You Know Who at the Ministry that night. And he’s lucky that he’s still the Minister. He wants Malfoy put away for a long, long time.”

“And I can do that,” said Harry.

“Yeah.”

“Which will put me in Fudge’s good books.” Was there no end to the politics?

Kingsley shrugged. “Can’t do any harm.”

“I get the picture.” But that didn’t lessen the ache in his stomach.

“Come on,” said Kingsley, getting to his feet, “you’ll be late for Professor McGonagall.”