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Iris had heavily rejected the idea. Hermione insisted, saying that Iris and Harry had the most experience with fighting the dark arts. Iris couldn't help but think of how she froze in the heat of battle, remembering how utterly unprepared she was, and the feeling of the cruciatus curse across her body as punishment for her hesitation.

The fact was, however, that she had given the matter a great deal of thought since it had been brought up. Sometimes it seemed an insane idea, just as it had on the night Hermione had proposed it, but at others, she had found herself thinking about the spells that had served her and Harry best in their various encounters with Dark creatures and Death Eaters— found herself, in fact, subconsciously planning lessons...

Harry's detentions with Umbridge were finally over, but Iris doubted whether the words now etched on the back of his hand would ever fade entirely. Quidditch tryouts had happened that week as well, and with Oliver Wood long gone, Angelina Johnson had taken over as captain of the Gryffindor team. Only days before tryouts had Iris, Harry, and Hermione learned of Ron's plans to try out for the empty Keeper spot when Harry caught the redhead on his way back to the Common Room after he had been practising.

He made the team and Harry kept his spot, due to start usual weekly team practices on Monday. Until then, however, the boys trudged alongside Iris and Hermione through the early snowfall on a freezing October Saturday.

The Potter twins had been reluctantly convinced by Hermione and Ron to give the Defense Against the Dark Arts study group a try.

Iris had been looking forward to the weekend trip into Hogsmeade, but there was one thing worrying her. Sirius had maintained a stony silence since he had appeared in the fire the previous week; Iris knew they had made him angry by saying that they did not want him to come— but she still worried from time to time that Sirius might throw caution to the winds and turn up anyway. What were they going to do if the great black dog came bounding up the street toward them in Hogsmeade, perhaps under the nose of Draco Malfoy?

Dumbledore had asked Iris discreetly to attend the Order meeting the night before the Hogsmeade trip, due to the importance of getting information on the status of Harry's connection with Voldemort which only she could provide. Sirius had made a point of not attending this meeting and when Iris angrily went to his bedroom upstairs to confront her godfather he locked the door and hid in silence.

"Well, you can't blame him for wanting to get out and about," said Ron, when Iris discussed her fears with him, Harry, and Hermione. "I mean, he's been on the run for over two years, hasn't he, and I know that can't have been a laugh, but at least he was free, wasn't he? And now he's just shut up all the time with that lunatic elf."

Hermione scowled at Ron but otherwise ignored the slight on Kreacher.

"The trouble is," she said to Iris, "until V-Voldemort— oh for heaven's sake, Ron— comes out into the open, Sirius is going to have to stay hidden, isn't he? I mean, the stupid Ministry isn't going to realise Sirius is innocent until they accept that Dumbledore's been telling the truth about him all along. And once the fools start catching real Death Eaters again it'll be obvious Sirius isn't one... I mean, he hasn't got the Mark, for one thing."

"I don't reckon he'd be stupid enough to turn up," said Ron bracingly.

Harry nodded in agreement, "Dumbledore'd go mad if he did, right? And Sirius listens to Dumbledore even if he doesn't like what he hears."

When Iris continued to look worried, Hermione said to the twins, "Listen, Ron and I have been sounding out people who we thought might want to learn some proper Defense Against the Dark Arts, and there are a couple who seem interested. We've told them to meet us in Hogsmeade."

"Right," said Iris vaguely, her mind still on Sirius.

"Don't worry, Iris," Harry said quietly. "You've got enough on your plate without Sirius too."

He was quite right, of course; Iris was barely keeping up with her homework and they had all started to notice. It saddened her to realise how little she really cared about school anymore when it used to bring joy to her life.

"Where are we going anyway?" Harry asked Hermione. "The Three Broomsticks?"

"Oh— no," said Hermione, breathing heavily as they walked down the snow-covered path, "no, it's always packed and really noisy. I've told the others to meet us in the Hog's Head, that other pub, you know the one, it's not on the main road. I think it's a bit... you know... dodgy... but students don't normally go in there, so I don't think we'll be overheard."

They walked down the main street past Zonko's Joke Shop, where they were unsurprised to see Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, past the post office, from which owls issued at regular intervals, and turned up a side street at the top of which stood a small inn. A battered wooden sign hung from a rusty bracket over the door, with a picture upon it of a wild boar's severed head leaking blood onto the white cloth around it. The sign creaked in the wind as they approached. All four of them hesitated outside the door.

"Well, come on," said Hermione slightly nervously. Harry led the way inside.

It was not at all like the Three Broomsticks, whose large bar gave an impression of gleaming warmth and cleanliness. The Hog's Head bar comprised of one small, dingy, and very dirty room that smelled strongly of something that might have been goats. The bay windows were so encrusted with grime that very little daylight could permeate the room, which was lit instead with the stubs of candles sitting on rough wooden tables. The floor seemed at first glance to be earthy, though as Iris stepped onto it she realized that there was stone beneath what seemed to be the accumulated filth of centuries.

There was a man at the bar whose whole head was wrapped in dirty grey bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth. Two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a table in one of the windows; Iris might have thought them dementors if they had not been talking in strong Yorkshire accents; in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with a thick, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly.

"I don't know about this, Hermione," Harry muttered, as they crossed to the bar. He was looking particularly at the heavily veiled witch. "Has it occurred to you Umbridge might be under that?"

Hermione cast an appraising eye at the veiled figure.

Iris, upon further inspection of the person, rolled her eyes. It took just a second to figure out that it was Mundugus Fletcher under the veil, also known as possibly one of the weakest minds she had ever found. Iris felt uncomfortable knowing that he would for sure be eavesdropping on them.

"Umbridge is shorter than that woman," Hermione said quietly. "And anyway, even if Umbridge does come in here there's nothing she can do to stop us, Harry, because I've double and triple-checked the school rules. We're not out-of-bounds; I specifically asked Professor Flitwick whether students were allowed to come in the Hog's Head, and he said yes, but he advised me strongly to bring our own glasses." Iris cringed, " And I've looked up everything I can think of about study groups and homework groups and they're definitely allowed. I just don't think it's a good idea if we parade what we're doing."

"No," said Harry dryly, "especially as it's not exactly a homework group you're planning, is it?"

The barman sidled out of a back room. He was a grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of long grey hair and beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Iris.

"So who did you say is supposed to be meeting us?" Harry asked,

"Just a couple of people," Hermione repeated, checking her watch and then looking anxiously toward the door. "I told them to be here about now and I'm sure they all know where it is— oh look, this might be them now—"

The door of the pub had opened. A thick band of dusty sunlight split the room in two for a moment and then vanished, blocked by the incoming rush of a crowd of people.

First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati (the two girls had guiltily been trying to make-up with Iris since their fight the first night back at Hogwarts) and Padma Patil with Cho and one of her usually giggling girlfriends, then (on her own and looking so dreamy that she might have walked in by accident) Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch- Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, and a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait down her back whose name Iris did not know; three Ravenclaw boys she was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, and Terry Boot; Ginny, followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom Iris recognized vaguely as being a member of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, and bringing up the rear, Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.

Iris' eyes had bugged out.

"A couple of people?" said Harry hoarsely to Hermione. "A couple of people?"

"Yes, well, the idea seemed quite popular," said Hermione happily. "Ron, do you want to pull up some more chairs?"

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.

"Hi," said Fred, reaching the bar first and counting his companions quickly. "Could we have... twenty-nine butterbeers, please?"

The barman glared at him for a moment, then, throwing down his rag irritably as though he had been interrupted in something very important, he started passing up dusty butterbeers from under the bar.

"Cheers," said Fred, handing them out. "Cough up, everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of these..."

Iris leaned over the bartop and lowly said to the old man, "Can you make one of those the stronger stuff."

He looked at her for a moment, his icy blue eyes piercing into hers. 

"Potter."

"Dumbledore," Iris countered with a raised eyebrow.

He looked only mildly surprised, "How'd you know."

"Nothing escapes me."

Dumbledore's brother tilted his head, wiping the counter with a dirty rag as he spoke: "Cocky."

"Confident," she corrected.

He huffed, sliding a bottle of firewhisky in Iris' direction, before saying, "Don't expect another."

Iris popped off the rusty top and took a long drink, her throat burning when it went down as the name foreshadowed. Though the sensation was unpleasant, it tasted miles better than what she had drunk at Grimmauld Place. She turned back towards the group of students and nervously sat down at a table beside her brother.

In twos and threes, the new arrivals settled around Iris, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, some looking rather excited, others curious. When everybody had pulled up a chair, the chatter died out. Every eye was upon either Iris or Harry.

"Er," said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. "Well— er— hi."

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

Hermione continued, "So, you all know why we're here. We need a teacher— a proper teacher, who's had real experience defending themselves against the Dark Arts— and, well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands."

She paused, looked sideways at Iris and Harry, and went on, "And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but the real spells— but I want more than that, I want to be properly trained in Defense because... because..." She took a great breath and finished, "Because Lord Voldemort's 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 the Potters.

"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 them," said the blond boy, nodding at the twins.

"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 them say You-Know-Who's back."

It had dawned upon Iris why there were so many people there. She felt that Hermione should have seen this coming. Some of these people— maybe even most of them— had turned up in the hope of hearing her and Harry's story firsthand.

"What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?" Harry asked, 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 don'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.

Zacharias said dismissively, "All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you two 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—"

Everyone turned to look at Iris at that moment, some faint gasps sounding from the students as they waited for her reaction. She could see out of the corner of her eye Harry, his temper risibly rising. Iris was sick of her and Harry being treated like circus freaks to gawk at while everyone secretly longed to hear every sickening detail of how her boyfriend was murdered before her own eyes. She tilted a good amount of what was left of her firewhisky bottle back down her throat before standing.

"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone we can't help you," Iris said. She kept a steely glare on Zacharias Smith. "I won't be talking about Cedric, especially not to you, so if that's what you're here for, you can go ahead and leave now."

She then leaned down and whispered angrily to Hermione, "I'm getting out of here, they're just here because they think we're some sort of freaks."

"Iris, wait—" Hermione tried desperately.

Iris was fed up. She grabbed her bag and began stalking out of the bar. Her hand was on the doorknob when a soft voice spoke out, hushing everyone, "Is it true you can both produce a Patronus Charm?"

Iris hesitated, turning her head to see it was Luna who had spoken.

Hermione seized the opening, "Yes! I've seen them."

"Blimey! I never knew that!" Dean said, looking deeply impressed.

"And they killed a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office!" Neville chimed in helpfully. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year..."

"It's true," said Ginny.

Iris had turned away from the door and back towards the group hesitantly, watching as everyone's faces morphed into awestruck expressions.

Ron clapped Harry on the shoulder, "And third year they fought off about a hundred Dementors at once—"

"And that's not to mention," said Cho, "all the tasks they both had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year— getting past dragons and merpeople and acromantulas and things..."

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the tables.

Hermione added on, "And last year they did fight off You-Know-Who in the flesh—"

"Look," Iris said and everyone fell silent at once, eyes snapping over toward where she stood, "I... it all sounds great when you say it like that. But the truth is... a lot of it was luck. Fate plays a twisted game... and we had a lot of help with almost all that stuff."

"Not with the dragon, you didn't," said Michael Corner at once.

"Yeah, well—" said Harry, chiming in.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those dementors this summer," said Susan Bones.

"No," said Harry, "no, okay, we know we did bits of it without help," he looked at Iris for support, "—but the point Iris is trying to make is—"

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" said Zacharias Smith.

"Here's an idea," said Ron loudly, before Harry could speak, "why don't you shut your mouth?"

Perhaps the word "weasel" had affected Ron particularly strongly; in any case, he was now looking at Zacharias as though he would like nothing better than to thump him. Zacharias flushed.

Iris slowly walked back over to Harry's side, speaking to everyone, "Facing this stuff in real life... it isn't like school at all. In school, if you make a mistake you can just... try again tomorrow. But out there..." she stared at the table, a haunted look in her hazel eyes, "when you're a second away from being murdered... or— or—" Iris stuttered, clenching her eyes shut as she tried to hold back a series of tremors induced by the mere thought of remembering the cruciatus curse, "or tortured..." she swallowed thickly, "It's a different world... indescribable pressure to not screw up..."

Harry told them from quietly beside her, "You just... you don't know what it's like."

The group was silent. Hermione looked at Iris and Harry cautiously, "You're right Harry. We don't. That's why we need your help. Because if we're to have any chance of beating V-Voldemort..."

Many of the students jumped at the name or stifled yelps. Iris looked at Hermione closely, then turned to the group. A sweet young boy named Nigel looked up at her with fear in his eyes. In a small voice, he asked, "He really is back?"

Iris nodded, looking across at the group of kids before her. The group looked solemnly back... and suddenly it struck her that their arrangement was quite reminiscent of the Order. 

Nigel hesitated... then silently stepped forward and nodded— "I'm in."

Iris' eyes fell on the boy, gazing at him as a new sense of hope flared in her chest. As more chimed in that they wanted to join, the responsibility of what she was taking on finally sank in. She knew if they ever got caught, the consequences would be severe, but the choice to do nothing would cause an even worse fate that she refused to accept. They were all scared, but they were ready, and most of all— they weren't going down without a fight.

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just got back from vacation like two days ago but i really wanted to get a new chapter out for you guys so i hope you enjoyed! i also accidentally burnt my hand earlier today taking a pizza out of the oven rip so that really did not make writing easy lmao

hope you're all having a great summer so far!! ❤️