LUCY:

Harry closed the door behind us and caught up to me in two long strides.

"Wait, what is this about your patronus, Lu? Of course you still can."

I tucked my hands in my pockets, staring at my shoes. "Every memory I've ever used to produce a patronus had him in it."

"Oh." He fell silent, but he walked a little closer to me. I could tell there was something on his mind, but seeing as it probably concerned me, I didn't really want to hear it, so I did the best I could to keep the attention off of me as much as possible.

"Did Ginny have a nightmare? Is that why she headed down with you?"

"Yeah, she did. How did you know?"

"She's not terribly hard to read when you know her well."

Neither are you, I almost added.

"Neither are you," he said.

Well, that was... something. What WAS that?

I almost laughed. I almost said something. But I didn't, just shrugged and smiled a bit.

He grinned and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "So, the Knight Bus? Really something, isn't it?"

"It is," I agreed. "A bit faster than a train would have been."

"A bit. Not that I'm complaining, of course, I'm glad you're back. I was worried something would happen and you'd be stuck in London."

"Being a delinquent would only be fun if I got to be one with you," I remarked, recalling our conversation the day of his hearing.

Harry laughed. "Yeah, exactly. Well, at this rate, the two of us might still end up in that situation for leading this group of ours, but at least we'd be together."

I couldn't help but grin. "As long as we teach these people something on the way out, it would be worth it."

We fell silent as we entered the castle, agreeing wordlessly that we should head to the common room as soon as possible, as if nothing had ever happened, as if I had never gone anywhere. It was possible, after all, that Umbridge just thought I'd been hiding up in my dormitory or something, after all, so there was no reason to go out of our way to try to make a big deal of anything.

We each headed up to our respective dormitories to fetch our school bags.

Hermione's head snapped up as soon as I opened the door. She gasped and sprinted over to hug me.

"You're back early! What happened? Are you alright? How was it? What did you learn?"

Her steady stream of questions alerted Lav and Parvati to my presence, so they hugged me in rapid succession too.

I started to explain as best I could while I made sure I had everything I needed in my bag. "It was a long two days, and no one knows why my magic is so inconsistent, but they ruled out a couple of the worst possibilities. With Umbridge seizing more control every day, they seemed to think it would be best if I came back early this morning so she couldn't try to stop me or something."

Hermione huffed. "That makes sense, unfortunately, how rapidly she's seizing control of everything she can is horrific. But... no answers? Just eliminations?"

"Yeah." I couldn't meet her eyes. "It's alright, though. I'm not dying or anything." I slung my bag over my shoulder. "I am hungry, though, so I'll meet you down there."

"I'm ready, I'll head down with you," Hermione said quickly. So, soon enough, we made our way down to the Great Hall.

I forced my way in between the twins. "You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?"

"Oh, shove off," Fred laughed. "Welcome back."

"How are you?" George asked.

"Same as always," I replied with a shrug. "Before you ask any other questions, I don't have any answers. It's still a mystery."

Ron frowned as he and Harry slid in across the way. "Well, that's too bad. Glad you're back, though."

"I would say me too, but..." I hazarded a glance at the table at the front of the room, and, surely enough, Umbridge's eyes were boring into mine. "The Pink Venomous Tentacula wasn't at St. Mungo's. Speaking of, does anyone know what I'm supposed to tell her about where I was?"

"Yes, actually," Hermione piped up, "Professor McGonagall told me to tell you to tell the truth, minus the Professor Lupin part. Just say a family friend was concerned about you, and that you stayed at home those couple of nights."

I nodded. "Alright, thanks." I shook my head. "Today should be fun."

My somewhat-sarcastic optimism was not rewarded. I couldn't do the silencing charm, still. I couldn't vanish my mouse, still. Professor McGonagall asked to see me after class, so I lingered behind as everyone else filed out and headed to lunch.

I didn't miss the concern in her eyes as I approached her desk. Before she could even ask a question, I shrugged and shook my head. "No idea what it is, just what it isn't. I-I vanished something just fine at St. Mungo's but today, I... I don't know why I couldn't."

Professor McGonagall nodded slowly. "That's alright. I know you're doing your best. I just wish we could find something that would help." Her eyes wandered to my hand, where I must not tell lies was still carved in thinning white lines. "If not for Mr. Potter's magic being unaffected, I would suspect that had something to do with it. Did anyone at St. Mungo's say anything about that?"

"I don't know if anyone noticed," I admitted. "I didn't mention it. I was just... trying to get through it."

Her gentle eyes asked questions she didn't ask aloud. I felt compelled to answer.

"It was hard being somewhere that Cedric always was. I'm glad to be back here."

"Your friends are certainly glad you're back too," she said. "Go on ahead to lunch now, I don't want to keep you. I just wanted to hear directly from you how it went, seeing as communication in and out might as well be compromised for the time being."

I nodded. "Alright. I'll see you later, Professor."

I headed down to the Great Hall to see that Angelina was already sitting between the twins. I slid in next to George and listened in to what she had to say.

"I've got permission to re-form the Quidditch team!" she announced excitedly.

"Excellent!" Harry and Ron said in unison as Fred whooped and George sighed in relief.

"Quidditch is included in the decree?" I asked disbelievingly. "It's Quidditch, for Merlin's sake, not a cult!"

"Tell me about it," Angelina muttered. "She let everyone re-form yesterday except for us. I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to Dumbledore — anyway, Umbridge had to give in. Ha! So I want you boys down at the pitch at seven o'clock tonight, alright, because we've got to make up time, you realize we're only three weeks away from our first match?"

Without waiting for a response, she jumped up and went to sit with Alicia and Katie and tell them the good news.

"Alright, get over here," George said, wrestling me over him so I was sitting between the twins. "What did McGonagall want?"

"She just wanted to hear directly from me about how it went, since everyone's worried about communication in and out."

"Everyone's worried about everything now," Fred huffed. "Everyone's forgotten how to let loose and have a bit of good mindless fun. You should have seen the common room last night, Cub, we had all the first-years rolling around on the ground laughing and the Galleons to show for it."

"Projectile vomiting, very fun," Harry commented sarcastically, grinning nonetheless.

"What's wrong, Hermione? Don't like the mischief talk?" George asked.

Hermione blinked, then shook her head. "No, it's not that, I- just thinking..."

"About Siri- Snuffles?" Harry asked.

"No... not exactly... more... wondering. I suppose we're doing the right thing... I think... aren't we?"

Ron snorted. "Well, that clears that up. It would've been really annoying if you hadn't explained yourself properly."

Hermione blinked again, seeming to come back to her senses. "I was just wondering whether we're doing the right thing, starting this Defense Against the Dark Arts group."

"Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!" Ron pointed out.

"I know, but after talking to Snuffles..."

"You did?" Fred asked.

"Yeah, last night," Harry said, "and he was all for it!"

Hermione nodded. "That's what made me think maybe it wasn't a good idea after all."

"Let's get this straight. Sirius agrees with us, so you don't think we should do it anymore?"

She looked down at her hands. "Do you honestly trust his judgment?"

"Yes, I do! He's always given us great advice!"

"You don't think he has become sort of... reckless... since he's been cooped up in Grimmauld Place? You don't think he's kind of... well... living through us?"

"What d'you mean, 'living through us?'" Harry asked, his jaw clenching angrily.

"I mean... well, I think he'd love to be forming secret defense societies right under the nose of someone from the Ministry. I think he's really frustrated at how little he can do where he is, so I think he's keen to kind of egg us on."

Ron sighed. "Sirius is right, you do sound just like my mother."

"Does she not want us doing this?" George asked.

"She doesn't want any of us doing it," I said, finally finding my voice. "I got the in-person version of what Snuffles passed along to you three last night. She would rather us not feel pressured to learn how to defend ourselves since we're all still too young in her opinion, but Cedric was too young, too. She means well in not wanting us to feel like we have to fight, I know she does, but this is our fight too. Cedric is the proof that this is our fight too."

Hermione bit her lip. I could tell she didn't want to disagree with me, but I knew she couldn't fully agree with me, either.

"You don't have to decide anytime soon, we don't even know where we're meeting yet, but..." I rubbed the back of my neck. "It's worth the fight to me. Worth the risk, too. But I understand if that's not the case for everybody, because, well, I have less to lose than a lot of people. I'd... rather protect as many people as I can than have to go through this pain all over again," I finished softly.

And with that, I ran out of words to say. I reached forward for my pumpkin juice and took a long sip. My hands were trembling, but not in the way they had been a month ago. Words unbidden rose to the surface of mind, words I myself had spoken years ago to Neville.

"I would love to be a healer, the way Cedric wants to be, but I could never. The sight of other people suffering is too much for me most of the time. I would feel better preventing it than helping once it's already happened. I... I wish I could be a healer like Cedric though, really. Trying to protect everyone at once can be hard."

"So if someone really needed it, you could help them, but you'd rather not have them need it at all?"

"Exactly."

"You know, I think we need both types of people. People like you protect everyone they can, but there's no way to protect everyone. People like Cedric help save the people you can't protect."

"I think you're right, Neville. Which type of person do you think you are?"

"I think I'm a protector too. Or well, I want to be. It seems much more Gryffindor-like, don't you think?"

"When it comes to blood and gore and suffering, Cedric is braver than I'll ever be. Hagrid says he never once hesitated to save me that day from the Forest, even though I was covered in blood and on death's door. I would like to say I'd do the same, but it would be much harder for me than for him. I think there's a great deal of bravery in healing too."

I swallowed hard. I would never be the healer that Cedric was. That meant I had to be the protector, it was my responsibility to be the protector if I couldn't be the healer.

But could I be both? A protector and a healer?

Cedric was both. I can — and should — be both, too.

I drained the rest of my pumpkin juice and asked Hermione what homework I had missed before I spiraled. The DADA group didn't come up again.