Being Different Year 5

Two days later Anne woke up early as usual and went down to Common Room to get some crochet done before breakfast. She didn’t even notice the change to the notice board.

She had finished making a granny square before Irwin came down to join her.

“Hey Annie,” he beamed, “how’s my best girl this morning?”

“I thought I was your only girl,” she chuckled as Irwin kissed her.

“You’re my auburn locked goddess, you are all I will ever need,” he said before continuing to kiss her deeply.

“Er guys,” interrupted Anthony after a while.

“What?” asked Irwin annoyed at being stopped in the middle of his favourite part of the day.

“You might want to read this,” said Anthony indicating the notice board.

Irwin walked over to the notice board grumbling.

“We’re screwed,” muttered Irwin.

“What?” asked Anne confused who was still sat on the sofa where he had left her.

“Educational Decree number 25,” sighed Anthony, “banning all clubs and gatherings of more than three people without permission from the High Inquisitor.”

“So clearly Umbitch isn’t as stupid as she looks,” said Michael.

“To be fair, Hermione’s ‘secret meeting’ was far from secret,” admitted Anthony.

“I’m sure they’ll sort this out,” muttered Anne.

“You mean we’re still going through with this?” asked Persephone.

“Of course, we are,” said Irwin, “we can’t give up, not now not ever.”

“So now, I suppose it’s time for our secret defence group, to go underground,” said Terry.

“If we’d been underground in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this problem,” grumbled Mandy as they all went down to breakfast.

When Anne got down to breakfast, she found that the had a note delivered.

Emergency Family Meeting, 7:00 tonight.

“You guys wait here,” said Anne as she headed over to talk to Harry. It wouldn’t look strange Anne going over to talk to him as she was her brother.

“Hi Harry,” said Anne sitting down next to Harry.

“Hey little Sis,” beamed Harry, “how was your weekend?”

“Ok,” said Anne as she passed Harry the note.

Harry nodded.

“Tell them the same time tomorrow,” muttered Harry, “you know where.”

Anne headed back over to the Ravenclaw table where everyone was waiting as patiently as they could for her to return.

“7:00 tomorrow night,” said Anne sitting down, “seventh floor corridor opposite the painting of the dancing trolls.”

Irwin nodded before passing the message on to the other students from the meeting. Lisa went over to tell Justin at the Hufflepuff table who told all the others.

Anne somehow made it through her lessons that day, but the call with her family was hanging over her all day. She didn’t know what could be wrong, but it had to be pretty serious if they were calling an emergency family meeting.

Anne wasn’t hungry at lunch, at dinner Anne found herself pushing her chicken and potatoes around her plate with her fork.

“You ok Annie?” asked Irwin.

“Yeah, just a bit nervous,” she muttered.

“Has this got to do with the pink cardigan wearing hag?” asked Padma.

Anne shrugged.

“I’m gonna go do some homework,” she mumbled getting up to go and work in the library.

Irwin got up to try and follow Anne from the Great Hall.

“Leave her mate,” said Anthony putting a hand on Irwin’s shoulder.

Anne wrote a charms essay and did some research on antidotes and before she knew it, it was a quarter to seven.

She headed up to the seventh-floor corridor and found Harry waiting for her.

“Come on Sis, let’s get this over with.”

Anne walked past the wall three times thinking ‘I need a space to talk in private.’

The door appeared in the wall and Anne opened the door. They found themselves in Anne’s bedroom at Grimmauld Place.

Harry and Anne sat down on the bed and at exactly seven o’clock there was a knocking on the door.

“Come in,” called Anne.

“Hi kids,” grinned Sirius poking his head round the door before coming over to give Anne a hug and ruffle Harry’s hair.

“Hi sweetheart,” said Remus coming over to kiss Anne on the head.

“Tonks you’re huge!” exclaimed Harry as Tonks came in.

Tonks gave him a silent death glare; she was only four months pregnant and had only just started to show. If Harry and Sirius were being this annoying already, she doubted that all three of were going to survive to see this baby being born.

“So,” beamed Julian as he leaned against the wall, “hear you guys have been busy.”

“I’m sorry what?” asked Harry.

“I presume you lot are aware that your secret meeting two days ago wasn’t exactly secret?” said Remus.

“Err yeah we had a small idea,” muttered Harry sheepishly.

“Yes well next time you lot want to have a secret meeting organise it for somewhere more secret such as the forbidden forest or the shrieking shack,” suggested Tonks.

“Well the forbidden forest is forbidden,” pointed out Anne, “and there were forty of us, how would we all have fit in the shrieking shack?”

“Fair point,” admitted Tonks.

“How do you guys already know?” asked Harry.

“Mundungus was the witch under the cloak,” cackled Sirius

“Hang on wait a second,” said Harry, “are we not in trouble or something?”

“Of course not,” said Sirius cheerfully patting Harry on the back, “good on you!”

Sirius received a significant look from Remus and stopped talking.

“We’re very proud of you but organising a meeting where you attack the ministry and what it stands for as well as telling a large number of people about the return of Voldemort and then doing it in a public place?”

“Don’t blame us,” protested Harry, “it’s all Hermione’s fault!”

“Look, just be careful,” said Remus, “don’t get caught.”

“So you don’t have a problem with this?” asked Harry.

“Harry what did we tell you was your job at the beginning of this year?”

Harry seemed perplexed.

“To get our education,” said Anne.

“That’s right,” nodded Tonks, “this group is in a way part of your education.”

“You are teaching you and your friends how to defend themselves,” explained Remus, “

this could be very important in the coming months and years.”

“When Voldemort comes back, at the moment half your friends will be defenceless,” said Sirius, “but this way, you’ve all got a higher chance.”

“So now we’ve dealt with that,” said Julian, “how are the OWLs?”

“A nightmare,” groaned Harry.

“I’m a bit nervous but also excited,” said Anne, “I’m terrified about the actual exams, but I’m curious to see how I will do on the actual exams and start my NEWTs next year.”

“You’ll be fine kiddo,” said Sirius.

“Yeah you’ll probably come out singing and dancing with twelve outstanding OWLs,” chortled Julian.

“Wait,” said Anne, “didn’t you get twelve outstanding’s?”

“Yeah, but Percy got thirteen,” he pointed out.

“Maybe you’ll do so well Anne they’ll have to create a brand-new grade for you!” said Sirius.

“Don’t be silly,” Anne mumbled hiding behind her hair, “I’ll probably fail all of them.”

“You’ll do fine sweetheart,” said Remus giving her a hug.

“So young Prongslet, what are you planning on teaching your new students?” asked Sirius.

“I don’t know,” said Harry thinking for a moment, “maybe I’ll start off with a good old fashioned Expeliarmus, it saved my life last Summer.”

“Some people might complain that it’s a bit basic,” muttered Julian.

“Better to start off with something basic and move on from there,” said Remus.

“That’s true,” agreed Julian, “don’t shove them in at the deep end.”

“Yeah they might end up hexing themselves or something stupid,” said Sirius.

“Considering the teachers, we’ve had the last five years that would be hardly surprising,” said Anne.

The next night Anne arrived early with Harry, Hermione, Ron and Irwin.

“Are we sure this is going to work?” asked Ron as he looked at the door that had appeared out of nowhere.

“I’ve been in there plenty of times Ron,” said Anne, “its fine.”

Hermione stepped forward and opened the door.

“Woah!” they exclaimed.

The classroom was full of dummies for practising on, and shelf upon shelf of books on Defence Against the Dark Arts. One of the walls was covered in dark detectors such as sneakoscopes which were whirring away gently. There was also huge piles of cushions heaped in one of the corners of the room.

“Why didn’t you tell us about this room before Harry?” asked Hermione.

“Anne usually comes here when she wants some privacy,” explained Harry.

“The less people that knew about the room the more privacy she got,” added Irwin.

“Fair enough,” muttered Ron as he looked at the dark detectors.

Slowly more and more of the group began to arrive.

“Ok guys can we quieten down about it?” asked Hermione trying to talk over the chattering groups.

“Oi!” called Anthony, “shut up!”

There was a ringing silence.

“Thank you, Anthony,” muttered Hermione.

“The first thing we need to do,” said Hermione, “is elect a leader.”

“What a stupid question,” said Mandy under her breath.

“Harry’s leader,” pointed out Ginny.

“Thank Gin,” Harry beamed.

“I feel like we should make it official though,” said Hermione, “who wants Harry as leader?”

All of the hands in the room were raised even Zacharias Smith’s.

Hermione gestured to Harry and Harry stood up.

“Ok guys, the next thing we need is a name any ideas?” said Harry.

“Whatever we pick should have an abbreviation,” said Anne.

“Yeah that way we can talk about it outside of meetings,” agreed Persephone.

“How about D.U.D,” suggested Lisa, “for Die Umbridge Die?”

“M.O.M,” said Fred, “Ministry of Morons?”

“Ha ha, funny,” chuckled Irwin dryly.

“We need some proper names here guys,” said Anthony.

“Defence association, D.A,” said Cho.

“That’s great Cho,” said Harry.

Cho bat her eyelids at Harry, Ginny was glaring at her.

“D. A’s good,” said Ginny not wanting to be outdone by Cho, “but why not Dumbledore’s Army instead?”

“Perfect Gin,” Harry beamed at her.

“Great, so we’ve got a name and a leader,” said Zacharias sarcastically, “are we actually going to learn something now?”

“Ok so today we are going to be learning one of the most important spells you’ll ever learn, disarming.”

“Expeliarmus?” asked Zacharias outraged, “I already know that!”

“Well firstly, I used it against Voldemort, and it saved my life,” said Harry. Zacharias’ mouth shut like a trap.

“Secondly, I am going to use a basic spell like this to assess all your different abilities.”

“Makes sense to me,” shrugged Michael.

Harry split them into pairs, Anne was working with Irwin. Harry noticed that somehow the fifth year Ravenclaws were miles ahead of the majority of the other students, they managed to get each other’s wands on nearly every single try.

“Anne,” asked Harry as he went around the Ravenclaws, “how come you lot are so good disarming?”

“You remember back in second year when we had Lockhart?” she asked.

“Who could forget,” chuckled Harry.

“Well we got fed up with not learning anything,” said Anne.

“So we started to teach ourselves,” said Irwin.

“Only basic stuff like disarming and shield charms but it’s a start,” said Anne.

“Ok,” chuckled Harry, “I need to split you guys up, you’re all well ahead of most of the others.”

Harry spread the fifth year Ravenclaws out among the rest of the group so that they could help with the correcting of people’s aiming and wand work. Before the end of the lesson, then everyone in the room could cast a simple disarming charm, even the two Creevey brothers.