The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry.

“Well… erm… well, you know why you’re here. Erm… well, Harry here had the idea—I mean” (Harry had thrown her a sharp look) “I had the idea—that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defence Against the Dark Arts—and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us—” (Hermione’s voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident) “—because nobody could call that Defence Against the Dark Arts—” (“Hear, hear,” said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened) “—Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands.”

She paused, looked sideways at Harry, and went on, “And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells—”

“You want to pass your Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too, though, I bet?” said Michael Corner, who was watching her closely.

“Of course I do,” said Hermione at once. “But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defence because… because…” she took a great breath and finished, “because Lord Voldemort is back.”

The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho’s friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

“Well… that’s the plan, anyway,” said Hermione. “If you want to join us, we need to decide how we’re going to—”

“Where’s the proof You-Know-Who’s back?” said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice.

“Well, Dumbledore believes it—” Hermione began.

“You mean, Dumbledore believes him,” said the blond boy, nodding at Harry.

“Who are you?” said Ron, rather rudely.

“Zacharias Smith,” said the boy, “and I think we’ve got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who’s back.”

“Look,” said Hermione, intervening swiftly, “that’s really not what this meeting was supposed to be about—”

“It’s OK, Hermione,” said Harry.

It had just dawned on him why there were so many people there. He thought Hermione should have seen this coming. Some of these people—maybe even most of them—had turned up in the hopes of hearing Harry’s story firsthand.

“What makes me say You-Know-Who’s back?” he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the face. “I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn’t believe him, you won’t believe me, and I’m not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone.”

The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. Harry had the impression that even the barman was listening. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag, making it steadily dirtier.

Zacharias said dismissively, “All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory’s body back to Hogwarts. He didn’t give us details, he didn’t tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we’d all like to know—”

“If you’ve come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can’t help you,” Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith’s aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho. “I don’t want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that’s what you’re here for, you might as well clear out.”

He cast an angry look in Hermione’s direction. This was, he felt, all her fault; she had decided to display him like some sort of freak and of course they had all turned up to see just how wild his story was. But none of them left their seats, not even Zacharias Smith, though he continued to gaze intently at Harry.

“So,” said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. “So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defence, then we need to work out how we’re going to do it, how often we’re going to meet and where we’re going to—”

“Is it true,” interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, “that you can produce a Patronus?”

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The barman had frozen in the act of wiping out a glass with a rag so filthy it looked as though it had never been washed. Possibly, he had never seen his pub so full.	\|	There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

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