‘I've got permission!’ she said. ‘To re-form the Quidditch team!’

‘I've got permission!’ she said. ‘To re-form the Quidditch team!’

‘Excellent!’ said Ron and Harry together.

‘Yeah,’ said Angelina, beaming. ‘I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to Dumbledore. Anyway, Umbridge had to give in. Ha! So I want you down at the pitch at seven o'clock tonight, all right, because we've got to make up time. You realise we're only three weeks away from our first match?’

She squeezed away from them, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from Peeves, which hit a nearby first-year instead, and vanished from sight.

Ron's smile slipped slightly as he looked out of the window, which was now opaque with hammering rain.

‘Hope this clears up. What's up with you, Hermione?’

She, too, was gazing at the window, but not as though she really saw it. Her eyes were unfocused and there was a frown on her face.

‘Just thinking ...’ she said, still frowning at the rain-washed window.

‘About Siri— Snuffles?’ said Harry.

‘No ... not exactly ...’ said Hermione slowly. ‘More ... wondering ... I suppose we're doing the right thing ... I think ... aren't we?’

Harry and Ron looked at each other.

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

Hermione looked at him as though she had only just realised he was there.

‘I was just wondering,’ she said, her voice stronger now, ‘whether we're doing the right thing, starting this Defence Against the Dark Arts group.’

‘What?’ said Harry and Ron together.

‘Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!’ said Ron indignantly.

‘I know,’ said Hermione, twisting her fingers together. ‘But after talking to Snuffles ...’

‘But he's all for it,’ said Harry.

‘Yes,’ said Hermione, staring at the window again. ‘Yes, that's what made me think maybe it wasn't a good idea after all ...’

Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all three of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.

‘Let's get this straight,’ said Harry angrily, as they put their bags back on the floor, ‘Sirius agrees with us, so you don't think we should do it any more?’

Hermione looked tense and rather miserable. Now staring at her own hands, she said, ‘Do you honestly trust his judgement?’

‘Yes, I do!’ said Harry at once. ‘He's always given us great advice!’

An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear. Hermione watched Katie leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully.

‘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 ... living through us?’

‘What d'you mean, “living through us"?’ Harry retorted.

‘I mean ... well, I think he'd love to be forming secret Defence 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 looked utterly perplexed.

‘Sirius is right,’ he said, ‘you do sound just like my mother.’

Hermione bit her lip and did not answer. The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down on Katie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.

The weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o'clock that evening, when Harry and Ron went down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, they were soaked through within minutes, their feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass. The sky was a deep, thundery grey and it was a relief to gain the warmth and light of the changing rooms, even if they knew the respite was only temporary. They found Fred and George debating whether to use one of their own Skiving Snackboxes to get out of flying.

‘... but I bet she'd know what we'd done,’ Fred said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘If only I hadn't offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday.’

‘We could try the Fever Fudge,’ George muttered, ‘no one's seen that yet—’

‘Does it work?’ enquired Ron hopefully, as the hammering of rain on the roof intensified and wind howled around the building.

‘Well, yeah,’ said Fred, ‘your temperature'll go right up.’

‘But you get these massive pus-filled boils, too,’ said George, ‘and we haven't worked out how to get rid of them yet.’

‘I can't see any boils,’ said Ron, staring at the twins.

‘No, well, you wouldn't,’ said Fred darkly, ‘they're not in a place we generally display to the public.’

‘But they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the—’

‘All right, everyone, listen up,’ said Angelina loudly, emerging from the Captain's office. ‘I know it's not ideal weather, but there's a chance we'll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this so it's a good idea to work out how we're going to cope with them. Harry, didn't you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?’

‘Hermione did it,’ said Harry. He pulled out his wand, tapped his glasses and said, ‘Impervius!’

‘I think we all ought to try that,’ said Angelina. ‘If we could just keep the rain off our faces it would really help visibility—all together, come on—Impervius!OK. Let's go.’

They all stowed their wands back in the inside pockets of their robes, shouldered their brooms and followed Angelina out of the changing rooms.

They squelched through the deepening mud to the middle of the pitch; visibility was still very poor even with the Impervius Charm; light was fading fast and curtains of rain were sweeping the grounds.

‘All right, on my whistle,’ shouted Angelina.