Haru, thanks to his relationship with Ty Lee and his friendships with Zuko and Teo, knew of the meeting the Potter kid had set up with regards to practical defence lessons.  When the time came, he arrived with his arm around Ty Lee’s shoulders, ignoring the glares shot at him by other students.

Ty Lee slid into his lap when he sat down, and the two of them were shortly joined by Ginny, Zuko, and Teo.

Even more students filtered in, causing the barman of the tavern to stare at them.  “Hi,” said one of the twins — Haru thought it was Fred, but he had trouble telling them apart still— “could we have… twenty-eight butterbeers, please?”

Haru smiled slightly.  There were twenty-nine people in the bar without drinks.  Raising his voice, the only Slytherin in the room called, “And one Firewhiskey.”

The bartender eyed him, but didn’t ask for ID.

Haru had to get up and collect his own drink, of course, but he earned some impressed looks from older students when he had a sip of his drink and didn’t even change expression.  When he returned, a dreamy-looking girl with dirty blonde hair had settled down next to Teo and was leaning her head on his shoulder, looking up at Zuko with clear blue eyes.

Zuko was a little uncomfortable with her gaze, and turned to her, frowning a little. “What?”

She smiled as a soft argument broke out between Potter and Granger.  “You’re very beautiful.”

“…I used to be,” he muttered.

“You still are,” she insisted, and then Granger stood up and began to speak, her voice made slightly higher by nerves.

“Er.  Well — er — hi.”

Luna sat up then, turning that penetrating blue gaze onto Hermione. 

“Well… erm… well, you know why you’re here.  Erm… well, Harry here had the idea —” (Potter threw her a sharp look) “— I mean, 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, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us—” (Haru noted with interest that her voice was suddenly stronger and more confident) “— because nobody could call that Defence Against the Dark Arts—” (“Hear, hear,” said another student, a Ravenclaw, and Granger looked heartened.) “—Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands.”

The group looked a lot more interested now.

Granger threw Potter a sideways glance then continued, “And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but by learning to use real spells—”

“You want to pass your Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL too, I bet?” asked an older student Haru didn’t recognise.

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

The uproar from her usage of that final word was amazingly loud, and Haru watched in astonishment as one girl shrieked and spilled her drink, several students twitched or shuddered, and one boy turned a yelp into a cough.

“For heaven’s sake, it’s a name,” Haru said scornfully.

“Easy for you to say,” one of the others muttered darkly.

“You never fought him,” Haru snapped back.  “I don’t see where you get off being afraid of someone you’ve never had to—”

“Haru, stop,” Teo said quietly, and the earthbender subsided.

“Well… that’s the plan, anyway,” Granger said, hastily, trying to get the meeting back on topic. “If you want to join us, we need to decide how we’re going to—”

“Where’s the proof You-Know-Who’s back?” the boy who’d snapped at Haru earlier, a blond Hufflepuff, asked aggressively.

“Well, Dumbledore believes it—” the girl began.

“You mean Dumbledore believes him,” the boy shot back, nodding at Potter.

“Who are you?” demanded Ron Weasley, rather rudely.

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

“And here we go,” muttered Haru.

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

“It’s okay, Hermione,” Potter said, suddenly.

Zuko arched his eyebrow, wondering what the younger boy was going to say next.

“What makes me say You-Know-Who’s back?” he repeated, looking Smith right in the eye. “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.”

Dismissively, Smith said, “All Dumbledore said 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 here to hear exactly what it’s like when Voldemort murders someone, I can’t help you,” Potter said, sounding angry.  “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 glance at Granger.

“Well spoke,” Haru said, loudly.

Zuko smiled faintly, clearly also approving of the way Potter had handled the situation.

“So,” Granger said, her voice rising again in pitch. “So… like I was saying… if you want to do 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,” one of the girls interrupted, staring at Potter, “that you can produce a Patronus?”

There was a murmur of interest around the group, including from Teo, who’d apparently read up on them.

“Yeah,” said Potter, a bit defensively.

“A corporeal Patronus?”

“Er— you don’t know Madam Bones, do you?” he asked.

The girl smiled.  “She’s my auntie.  I’m Susan Bones.  She told me about your hearing.” 

Hearing? Haru wondered.  What for?  And then he remembered that trial he’d heard about in Diagon Alley, about the underaged student using magic against Dementors-whatever-they-were.  That had been Potter?

“So— is it really true?  You make a stag Patronus?”

What the hell’s a stag Patronus? Zuko wondered.

“Yeah,” Potter replied.

“Blimey, Harry!” a boy sitting with the Weasley twins said, looking deeply impressed. “I never knew that!”

One of the twins grinned. “Mum told Ron not to spread it around. She said you got enough attention as it was.”

“She’s not wrong,” Potter mumbled, earning a few scattered laughs.

The other students chimed in with other things he had apparently accomplished, raising the boy’s estimate in Haru’s mind, until at last Potter said, “Look, I… I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to be modest or anything, but… I had a lot of help with that stuff…”

“Not with the dragon, you didn’t,” said another boy at once.  “That was some seriously cool flying…”

“Yeah, well—”

“And nobody helped you get rid of those Dementors this summer,” added Bones.

“No,” Potter said, sounding a little flustered, “no, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I’m trying to make is—”

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

“Here’s an idea,” Ron Weasley said, angrily, “why don’t you shut your mouth?” Clearly, the Hufflepuff boy had touched some sort of nerve — he looked like he was dearly contemplating beating the blond boy up.

“Well, we’ve all turned up to learn from him, and now he’s telling us he can’t do any of it,” Smith said.

“That’s not what he’s saying,” argued Teo.  “He’s just saying that he needed help for lots of it.”

“Flyboy’s right,” said one of the Weasley twins.  “Though you don’t seem to be hearing too well.”

“Would you like us to clean your ears out for you?” enquired the other, puling a long and lethal-looking instrument from inside one of his bags.

“Or any part of your body, really,” said the other.  “We’re not fussy where we stick this.”

 “Yes, well,” Granger said, hastily, to diffuse a potentially explosive situation, “moving on… the point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?”

There was a murmur of general agreement. Smith folded his arms and said nothing, watching the twins’ instrument warily.

“Right,” Granger said, relieved that they’d finally settled on something. “Well, then, the next question is how often we do it. I really don’t think there’s any point in meeting less than once a week—”

“Hang on,” a dark-haired Gryffindor seventh-year girl said, “we need to make sure this doesn’t clash with our Quidditch practice.”

“No,” a pretty girl on the Ravenclaw team chimed in, “nor with ours.”

“Nor ours,” Smith added.

“I’m sure we can find a night that suits everyone,” Granger said, impatient, “but, you know, this is rather important, we’re talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort’s Death Eaters—”

“Well said!” a Hufflepuff fifth year said, rather pompously. “Personally, I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we’ll do this year, even with our O.W.L.s coming up!”

…this one is a born politician, Zuko thought, wearily, and tuned him out.

“I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher upon us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells—”

Much to Zuko’s relief, Granger interrupted him. “We think the reason Umbridge doesn’t want us trained in Defence Against the Dark Arts is that she’s got some… some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he’d mobilize us against the Ministry.”

Most everybody looked stunned at this, with the notable exceptions of the four “transfer” students.  They could all too well imagine someone doing that.

And then the blonde girl who had called Zuko beautiful said, “Well, that makes sense.  After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army.”

“What?” Potter asked, thrown.

“Yes, he’s got an army of Heliopaths,” said the girl solemnly.

“An army of what?!” Haru asked.

“No, he hasn’t,” snapped Granger.

“Yes, he has,” the blonde replied.

“What are heliopaths?” a Gryffindor fifth-year-boy asked blankly.

“They’re spirits of fire,” she replied, her eyes widening. “Great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of  —”

“They don’t exist, Neville,” Granger said, tartly.

“Oh, yes, they do!” said the blonde angrily.

“I’m sorry, but where’s the proof of that?” snapped Granger.

“There are plenty of eye-witness accounts.  Just because you’re so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you—”

“Hem, hem,” said Ty Lee’s friend Ginny then, in such a good imitation of Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed.  “Weren’t we trying to decide how often we’re going to meet and have defence lessons?”

“Yes,” Granger said, immediately. “yes, we were, you’re right…”

“Well, once a week sounds cool,” the twins’ friend said.

“As long as  —” the seventh-year Gryffindor girl from before started.

“Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch,” Granger said, sounding tense. “Well, the other thing to decide is where we’re going to meet…”

The whole group fell silent then.

“Library?” suggested another Gryffindor after a few moments.

“I can’t see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library,” said Harry.

(“‘Chuffed?’” Teo asked Ginny.  “It means ‘pleased’,” she replied.)

“Maybe an unused classroom?” said yet another Gryffindor.

“Yeah,” said Ron Weasley.  “McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practising for the Triwizard.”

Haru snorted.  “Doubtful,” he replied.

“Right, well, we’ll try to find something,” said Granger. “We’ll send a message round to everybody when we’ve got a time and a place for the first meeting.” She then dug in her bag, and pulled out parchment and a quill, hesitated a moment, then continued. “I-I think everyone should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think,” she took a deep breath, “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.”

One of the Weasley twins cheerfully and immediately signed, but several people didn’t look especially pleased with this new pronouncement.

“Er…,” said Smith slowly, not taking the parchment the other twin was trying to pass him, “well… I’m sure Ernie will tell me when the meeting is.”

But ‘Ernie’ was looking rather hesitant about signing as well.  Granger raised her eyebrows at him.

“Oh, give me that,” said Haru, reaching out and snagging the parchment before jotting his own name down (the single character that translated to ‘spring’, as well as the four letters that spelled the word out) and passing it to Ty Lee.

Ty Lee, too, wrote her name quickly and easily, then passed the sheet to Zuko, who also signed, then passed it on to Teo.  As the younger boy passed it on to the blonde beside him, Ernie burst out, “I — well, we are prefects.  And if this list was found… well, I mean to say… you said yourself, if Umbridge finds out—”

“You just said this group was the most important thing you’d do this year,” Potter reminded him.

“I— yes,” said Ernie, “yes, I do believe that, it’s just—”

“Ernie, do you really think I’d leave that list lying around?” said Granger testily.

“No. No, of course not,” said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious. “I — yes, of course I’ll sign.”

Nobody raised objections after Ernie, though one of the other Ravenclaw girls — the pretty one’s friend — gave her friend a rather reproachful look before signing. Smith was the last to sign, and then Granger took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into her bag. There was an odd feeling in the group now, as though they had all signed some kind of contract.

“Well, time’s ticking on,” one of the twins said briskly, getting to his feet. “George, Lee, and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we’ll be seeing you all later.”

The group, in small segments, scattered off away from the pub and around the village.  Teo bade Haru, Zuko, Ty Lee, and Ginny farewell and pulled the blonde girl to her feet.  “Come on, Luna, you said you’d show me the Shrieking Shack—” and they were out the door.

Their victory was short-lived. Monday morning brought another Decree from Umbridge and the Ministry:

   “By order of The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts:

   “All Student Organizations, Societies, Teams, Groups, and Clubs are henceforth disbanded.

   “An Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club is hereby defined as a regular meeting of three or more students.

   “Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor (Professor Umbridge).

  “No Student Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club may exist without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.

  "Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an Organization, Society, Team, Group, or Club, that has not been approved by the High Inquisitor will be expelled.

  “The above is in accordance with Educational Decree Number Twenty-four.”

Haru read the sign with narrowed green eyes.  He did not like the timing on this at all.  The so-called ‘High Inquisitor’ had somehow discovered the group Potter was trying to put together.  Annoyed, he slipped away from the crowd and down a hall.

“You sold us out!” Smith came up to him, hissing so as not to be overheard, looking furious.

“Excuse me?” demanded Haru, turning to face the other boy.

“Someone told Umbridge what we were doing, it had to be you!”

“It wasn’t him.” Surprisingly, it was Granger who snapped this, coming up behind Smith.

Haru nodded to the younger girl and returned his gaze to Smith.  “Let me guess.  You think it was me because I’m in the snake house.”

“Well, obviously.”

“Back off, Smith,” Potter said, somewhat reluctant to be defending someone from Slytherin. “He didn’t tell.”

“I’m no traitor,” Haru hissed at Smith.  “And did you miss the fact that my ward is in Ravenclaw and I have a friend and a girlfriend in Gryffindor?  I couldn’t care less about your stupid House lines.  And for the record, I hate Umbridge just as much as any of you.”  He glanced over at Potter.  “You know why.”

The younger boy nodded.

Smith, glaring and grumbling and still clearly not believing them, but unwilling to take on Potter and his groupies in addition to Haru, backed down and stalked into the dining hall.

“Thanks,” Haru said then to the other students.  “We’re still on for this Defence thing, right?”

“Yes,” Potter said, immediately. “We’ll just have to be more careful about it.”

Haru grinned.  “Perfect.”  He continued on to breakfast.

*                       *                       *

Haru was late to his meeting with Zuko that night, this time staged on one of the lower roofs of the building, as it was getting harder and harder to find safe meeting places.

Zuko arched his eyebrow, but didn’t ask. “So, apparently, the mail’s being searched. Or at least Potter’s mail is, his owl was injured.”

“…isn’t that illegal here?” Haru asked.  “I thought I read something about that…”

The younger boy shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But it’s happening, whether it’s legal or not.”

“Everything circles back around to this Potter kid.  It’s almost like—”  Haru stopped, not wanting to make the comparison.

“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly.

Uncomfortable silence for a moment, then, “Smith accused me of telling Umbridge.”

“Looking for a scapegoat, and you’re the odd man out in the group,” he replied. “Convenient target.”

“Pretty much.  Granger and Potter told him it wasn’t me, though.  Before I gave him a good thumping for the insult, fortunately.”

Zuko nodded. “…wonder why they were so sure. Potter especially’s kind of emphatic about the bias.”

“I think it had something to do with that paper she had us sign,” Haru said slowly.  “She was rather nervous about it.”

“…Maybe she jinxed it.”

“I think so.  It’s a good way of finding a quisling.”

Zuko nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m not too worried about it.  Not like we’re gonna tell anyone.”

“Definitely not.”

Haru thought of something else.  “Hey, you know the kinda chubby kid in your house with the silly last name?  Fifth-year?”

“…Longbottom?”

“That’s him.  Really silly last name.  Apparently he almost jumped the master of my House before Potions.”

“…Really? Any idea why?”

“Nope.  Malfoy seemed to think it was hysterical, especially because Gryffindor lost points in the ensuing mess.”

“Heh.” Longbottom was generally quiet, and kind of wimpy — whatever Malfoy had said to piss him off must’ve been bad.

“I swear, Zuko, one day I’m going to beat that brat the way his parents should have,” Haru said viciously.  “I’ve never seen someone so spoiled, pompous, and arrogant in my life.”

“I have,” Zuko said, wryly. “One of the ‘joys’ of growing up where I did.”

“I guarantee that each and every one of the ones you met could make Malfoy cry like a little girl,” Haru said darkly.

“Not everyone at home fights,” Zuko pointed out. “We have a couple airheaded brats, too, you know.”

Haru sighed.  “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Forget it.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah. Where?”

“Astronomy Tower?”

He nodded. “See you there, then.”

Haru dropped lightly to the ground and slipped back into the building, leaving Zuko to wonder when he would give in to the rapidly cooling weather and wear shoes.

The erstwhile prince sat there as long as he felt was safe, then wandered for a few hours, unwilling to go to sleep just yet.