The Sunrise of My Heart

As the days passed, despite Hermione's statement that we should give Harry time to think about teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts without bugging him, I would badger him every chance I got. Hey, I wouldn't be me if I didn't annoy the crap out of people. On this particular instance, I had been walking around in the middle of the night, and had run into Harry on his way back from detention, so I'd cornered him to bug him mercilessly.

"Come on, Harry! Do it! You know you want to!"

"Riley, I don't think I'm really qualified to teach a group of people defensive spells," he said, sounding tired and annoyed because I wouldn't quit bugging him.

"Harry, you know you are. Just picture what you could teach everyone. Imagine having classes, having that one thing over Umbridge, and being able to see all of them doing really well at defensive spells, and knowing they can protect themselves better because of you. Doesn't that sound cool?"

"I suppose so, yeah, but I'm still not sure if I want to. Besides, if you think it would be so cool to teach everyone, why don't you do it? You seem to know as much as I do."

"I will if you won't, but you would be much better at it than me. Please, don't just think about it like 'Do I want to or not', think about the benefits of doing it, and the fun of doing, and everything else that comes with doing it. Really consider it. OK?"

"Alright," he agreed. "Now please, let me go to bed. I'm very tired."

"Ok! Good night, Harry! Sleep well."

"I would say the same thing to you, but something gives me the impression that you're not going to be doing much sleeping."

"Nah, I'll probably just wander for awhile and gaze at the moon. It's so beautiful."

"Why aren't you sleeping, anyways?"

"Every so often, I get dreams that I don't really like having. And I'm having them again." These dreams, I knew, didn't mean anything. There were times when my dreams could warn me about future dangerous events, but these were just memories in the form of night-visions. Same dreams, different meanings. Either way, I didn't really like having them. They just made me feel reflective and melancholic.

"What are in your dreams?" he asked, looking somewhat interested despite looking like he was about to fall asleep where he stood.

"It doesn't matter," I said, with a smile. "Go get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night," he mumbled, shuffling off to the Gryffindor rooms.

About a week later, Hermione caught me outside Potions, acting like she wanted to discuss the latest potion we'd concocted. But the look in her eye told me there was much more to it than that.
"I'll see you in a couple of minutes, Draco," I said, smiling at him. He sighed softly and walked away, shooting Hermione a dirty look as he did. "So what's up?" I asked her.

"He's going to do it," she said softly, looking excited.

"Okay, you lost me. Actually, you never had me in the first place. Explain."

"Harry. He's agreed to teach us. He's really willing to do it."

"Oh! Wicked cool! When did he agree?"

"Earlier today. I believe his words involved 'To keep Riley from attacking me in the middle of the night again', by the way," she said in a still quiet voice, smiling at me.

"Hey, I didn't attack him. I just cornered him and badgered him without relent. Major difference."

"Well, whatever you did, it worked! He's going to do it! Our first meeting will be this weekend, at the Hog's Head. Will you be there?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'll definitely try my hardest. If not, I'm still so joining the secret group."

"Great! Well, I'll see you later. Bye!"

"Bye!"

That weekend, though it made Draco angry because he knew I was ditching him to go hang out with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, I still went to the meeting. I could make it up to Draco later if he was still mad.

When I walked into the pub, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were the only ones there. I smiled at them and walked over, sitting down beside Harry.

"Hey, Harry. Feeling nervous because everyone's going to be watching you, listening to your every word, and judging you probably mercilessly?"

"Well I hadn't really thought about that until now, but yeah, now that you mention it, I am nervous. Thanks," Harry said, shooting me a dark look.
"Oops. My bad. Sorry."

"How many people are coming, Hermione?" he asked.

"Er... Just a few," she said evasively. From the look on her face, I had a feeling it was more than 'just a few'. "Look, here they are now," she said, motioning towards the door.

Neville, Dean, and Lavender walked in, followed by Padma and Parvati Patil, Cho and one of her annoying giggly friends, then Luna Lovegood. Then walked in Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, and Angelina Johnson, Collin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, and Susan Bones. Next came Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, and Terry Boot, with Ginny and her boyfriend right behind them, and lastly came Fred, George, and Lee Jordan. I raised my eyebrows at Hermione.

"Just a few? That's more than a few, you know," I told her.

Fred and George ordered butter beers for everyone, and for a few moments the only sound was of everyone fishing out money to pay for their drinks. Then, in twos and threes, everyone settled themselves around the table Ron, Harry, Hermione, and I were sitting at. Once everyone was settled, Hermione stood up.

"Er," she said, causing me to roll my eyes. "Well -- er -- hi. Well... erm... well, you know why you're here. Erm... well, Harry -- I mean I had the idea that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Dark Arts -- and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us, because nobody could call that Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Hear, hear," Anthony Goldstein said, making Hermione look heartened.

"So I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands. And by that, I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory but real spells... Because Lord Voldemort's back."

At this point, everyone began chattering, disagreeing, begging for proof, talking over each other in their rush to be heard. Even when Harry stood up to talk, people continued to interrupt and ask him questions about what had happened in the graveyard last year.

"Look," Harry finally said, "I... I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything but... I had a lot of help with all that stuff..."

Once again, people began disagreeing, adding their own input, reminding him of things he'd done without help. Ron and Zacharius Smith started to argue, which led to Fred and George getting involved in it, which caused me to sigh in exasperation.

"Alright listen to me! First of all, the point that Harry was trying to make was not that he wants to 'weasel' his way out of this, but that you can't look at what he's done and go, 'Oh, sure, it's easy. Just look at what Harry's accomplished.' Because he had a lot of help and luck for what he's done. But if you'd all be willing to actually listen to him and take lessons from him, then you'd at least be more prepared for the dangers out there."

This silenced everyone, causing them to look thoughtfully at Harry. Harry shot me a grateful look. I smiled at him, then sat back down.

"Hang on," one of the boys in the group said, looking stunned. "Aren't you a Slytherin, and dating Draco??"

"Yes, and...?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Well... I mean, you just defended Harry. Shouldn't you hate him?"

"Your incompetence is astounding," I told him, giving him a cold look.

With a freakishly good imitation of Umbridge's 'hem, hem', Ginny got everyone back on task, and we moved on to deciding when and where to have meetings. We established on once a week, but where was still a problem.

"Right, well, we'll try to find somewhere," said Hermione. "We'll send a message round to everybody when we've got a time and place for the first meeting."

She rummaged in her bag and produced parchment and a quill, then hesitated, rather as though steeling herself to say something.

"I-I think everybody should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think that we all ought to agree not to shout about what we're doing. So if you sign, you're agreeing not to tell Umbridge -- or anybody else -- what we're up to."

It took some convincing, but finally, everyone had signed the paper. Just as they had all arrived in groups of twos or threes, the people dispersed, chattering amongst themselves as they walked away.
"Well," I said to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, "I've got to go. I need to meet Draco and console him for leaving him alone. He doesn't like that I ditched him for you three. See you later!" With a smile and a wave, I left, sending my blue mouse out to find Draco.