Chapter Thirteen: The Silent Manipulator
Umbridge sat behind her desk in her office, grading papers. A knock sounded on her door and she lay down her quill with a tiny huff.
"You may enter," she said, struggling to keep her sweet, sugary voice.
A group of Ravenclaw first years shuffled through the door. Knowing where this was headed, Umbridge sighed in resignation and asked, "Yes? What is it?"
Ever since she had passed that decree to stop Dumbledore from forming an army, she had gotten hardly any work done. Countless numbers of students had come to her asking to do things as trivial as study groups in the library.
"Well," the bold one said, stepping forward. "The four of us were wanting to know if we would be allowed to—"
"Yes, yes, you're allowed!" Umbridge snapped.
The Ravenclaws all muttered their thank-you's and scurried out the door. The door swung shut and Umbridge took a deep, calming breath before dipping her quill in red ink and putting it to the nearest paper. No sooner had she marked a question wrong had someone knocked on her door once again.
Meanwhile, Harish sat in the library researching for a paper he had to write on 12th century goblin wars. He heard some muttering and looked over to see a group of students with their heads bent closely together—two girls and a boy from what he could tell. The young man's eyes narrowed as he wondered what they were talking about.
Curious, he grabbed his book and wandered over to a bookshelf that was situated right behind their table. He slowly placed the book on the shelf and pretended to be looking for another.
"…I still can't believe that decree Umbridge passed," one student was saying. Judging by the voice, it was the boy. "It disbanded all of the Quidditch teams."
"Well," another muttered, "at least she let Angelina pull our team back together."
Ah, so they were Gryffindors. Then Harish stopped. That meant that the Gryffindors were now allowed to play Quidditch again. Umbridge had still not told Harish whether the Slytherin team was allowed to continue or not.
"Yeah," another voice said, causing Harish's ears to perk up again. "It's a good thing too, after what Neville said in class—I wasn't sure she was going to let us."
"Wait, what did Neville say?" the first one asked.
"Oh, I forgot," the third exclaimed. "You were in the Hospital Wing with a bad head cold that day, weren't you?"
There was no reply, so Harish assumed that the person nodded.
"You know how Neville is refusing to speak to Ron now?" the other girl asked. Once again there was a pause. "Well, he stood up the other day refusing to read out of the book. He said it was all a waste of time and that she shouldn't try to force her opinions on us."
"Neville really did that? I'm guessing she didn't take too kindly to it?"
"No," the first muttered. "She started going on about how the Ministry was trying to protect us," there was a snort of disbelief, "and how Dumbledore was headed for trouble."
"And—get this—Neville actually started going on about how Voldemort was really back and it was the Ministry that was headed for trouble!"
"He believes those lies Dumbledore came up with?" the boy asked suddenly.
"Obviously," the second girl said.
Having heard enough, Harish grabbed his book off the shelf and began to head back to his table. When he turned to face the aisle in between the bookshelves, he saw Neville, pulling a book off the shelf.
"Are you listening in as well?" Harish asked.
"Me?" Neville asked in an unusually high voice. "No, of course not."
"Are you sure?" Harish pressed. "Because I'm pretty sure that book doesn't belong in this section."
Instead of looking at the book, Neville glanced around to see the name of the section they were in. Then he grinned sheepishly.
"So you caught me," Neville said. "Why were you listening to them?"
"Do you know them?"
"They're in my year," Neville replied. "Seamus, Parvati, and Lavender. A whole bunch of gossipers."
Harish nodded. They both made way as a first year walked past. When Harish saw that the boy was a Slytherin, Harish put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"Yes?" the boy asked.
"You know the group sitting on the other side of this bookshelf?" Harish questioned, receiving a nod. "I don't think they asked permission to form a group."
He pulled out a galleon and pressed it into the eleven-year-old's hand.
"I think someone should know," he added before walking out of the library, chuckling.
He checked his watch and saw that it was seven thirty. He turned a corner and then took a quick passageway that led him right in from of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. Then, he paced three times before pulling on a brass handle and entering the Room of Requirement.
To his delight, he saw that the other Slytherins, minus Ginny, were already there. He walked over to join them.
"Harish!" Hermione cried. "Here, I have something to show you!"
She pulled out a basket and set it where they could all see. Fred leaned over her shoulder and stuck a hand into the basket.
"Galleons?" he asked, letting the large gold coins fall out of his hand and back into the basket.
"No," she replied. "Not Galleons. They're not even gold. If you'll look closely, the numbers around the edge aren't serial numbers, but are the date and time of our meeting."
"They tell people when to come meet?" Harish asked.
Hermione nodded. "I figured that it would be best that we switch up the day we meet on so that it'll look less conspicuous. I cast a protean charm on all of them, so when you change the date on your coin, all the others will heat up and change as well." She handed him one.
"That is quite clever," Fred said.
"Yes," Hermione said un-bashfully. "Well, I figured that if Umbridge has us turn out our pockets—there's not anything suspicious about a Galleon."
"Where did you get the idea?" Harish asked.
"I actually got the idea from your father," Hermione said. "Because he can call all of the Death Eaters to him just by having one of them press their Dark Marks. I just thought it would seem less suspicious if we used coins instead of tattooing everyone."
There was a gentle knock on the door and Ginny entered.
A minute later Neville and Dean entered and Angelina and Alicia came a minute after that. Soon everyone was there, but none came in more than two at a time.
"I just saw everyone coming here," Ginny said. "Caught them right before the Defense corridor and told them to come in pairs to look less suspicious."
"Well done," Harish praised. "Now, I've been thinking about the sort of things we ought to do first and—" he noticed a raised hand. "What, Hermione?"
"I think we need to elect a leader," she said.
"Harish's the leader," Dean said, looking at Hermione as if she was mad.
"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," Hermione replied, unperturbed. "It makes it formal and gives him authority. So—everyone who thinks Harish ought to be leader?"
Everyone raised their hands.
"Right, thanks," Harish said with annoyance. "And—what Hermione?"
"I think we should tell everyone about the name we came up with."
"Yes—well—oh, all right," he grumbled. The young man walked over to the cork board and showed them the piece of paper. "We're the DA," he said.
The Hufflepuffs all saw Dumbledore's Army while the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws saw Defense Association, and the Slytherins all read Dark Army. No one questioned it or read it aloud. They all simply said, "Sounds good."
"Right," Harish said once he had determined Hermione had nothing more to say. "Shall we get practicing, then? I was thinking, the first thing we should work on is the Disarming Charm. I know it is not much, but everyone needs to start somewhere, right?" A few people nodded. "So I want you all to divide into pairs and practice."
It felt good to be issuing instructions, but even better to see them followed. Everyone stood at once and divided up. Predictably, Neville was left partner-less.
"You can practice with me," Harish said. "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. Harish 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 Harish retrieved it with a Summoning Charm. Glancing around he knew he had been right to suggest that they practice the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork from many people; several were not successful in disarming their opponents at all, but merely caused them to jump backward a few paces or wince as the feeble spell whooshed over them.
"Expelliarmus!" Neville exclaimed, and Harish, caught unawares, felt his wand fly out of his hand.
"I DID IT!" Neville said gleefully. "I've never done it before—I DID IT!"
Harish gritted his teeth and told himself that he needed to put up with the idiot if he wanted to keep him from Dumbledore. Swallowing his comments about how a real opponent wouldn't be staring in the opposite direction with their wand held loosely at their side, Harish told Neville, "Good job. Can you take it in turns to practice with Ginny and Luna so I can check on everyone else?"
Harish moved off to the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Ernie Macmillan; every time he opened his mouth to disarm Justin, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Justin was not making a sound. Knowing that none of the fifth years should be able to cast silently, Harish went investigating to discover that Fred and George had been taking turns pointing their wands at his back.
"Sorry, Harish," George said hastily when Harish caught his eye. "Couldn't resist…"
Harish walked around the room and observed everyone.
"Now, stop!" Harish shouted over the noise. "Stop! STOP!"
I need a whistle, he thought, and immediately he spotted one lying on top of the nearest row of books. He grabbed it and blew hard. Everyone lowered their wands.
"That wasn't too bad," Harish panted, "but there's definite room for improvement. Let's try again…"
He moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions. Slowly, the general performance improved.
"Have you checked the time recently?" Hermione asked as he walked by her where she was waiting on Daphne to retrieve her wand.
Harish glanced down at his watch. It was already half past nine. Not wanting himself or anyone else caught out of bounds, he blew his whistle hard; everyone stopped shouting and the last could of wands clattered to the floor.
"Well, that was pretty good," Harish said, "but we've overrun. We should leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"
"Sooner!" Dean exclaimed eagerly and many people nodded in agreement.
"Well," Harish said. "Since it doesn't look like the Slytherin team will be back together for some time, we could meet here this Wednesday. But keep an eye on your coins. The plans may still change."
He pulled out the Marauder's Map and checked to make sure the coast was clear. Then, he let everyone go in threes and fours, watching their tiny dots return safely to their dormitories.
"C'mon," Harish said to the twins once they were the last ones in there.
The three of them then went together to the Slytherin common room.