94 Diagon Alley

    Lin's beer bottle - there's a whole bunch of people in it. Neville, Dean, and Lavender, followed by Parvati and Padma Patil, and Cho and one of her chatty girlfriends, then alone, in a trance, as if inadvertently Ask Luna who comes in, then Katie, Arya and Angelina, Colin and the Dennis brothers, Ernie McMillan, Justin Finchley, Hannah Abbott, and Ginny, followed by a tall, thin, yellow-haired boy with an upturned nose.

    "It's lively enough." George said happily.

    The bar owner was wiping a glass with a rag that was as dirty as it had never been washed, and was stunned to see this scene. His bar had probably never been so crowded.

    "Hey," Fred said, walking to the bar first and quickly counting his mates, "Excuse me, can you get us... twenty-five butterbeers?" Staring at him for a moment, then throwing down the rag in exasperation, as if he had been interrupted while he was doing something very important, he started pulling out grey bottles of Butterbeer from under the bar.

    "Thanks," Fred said, passing the beer to everyone, "Everyone pays, I don't have the money to buy that much beer."

    Gwen immediately made a small tray for everyone to throw in a few copper nut or silver sik.

    To be honest, Hermione, Harry and Ron, who hosted the event, were also terrified.

    Harry looked nervous. Qiu gave him an encouraging smile and sat on Ron's right. Her friend, the girl with curly reddish blond hair, didn't smile, but looked at Harry with complete distrust, as if telling him exactly that, if she wanted to, She wouldn't come here at all. The people sat down around Harry, Ron, and Hermione in twos and threes, some looking excited, others curious, and Luna was dazed by herself. After everyone settled down in their chairs, their voices gradually calmed down. All eyes were on Harry.

    "Hmm," Hermione said, her voice a little higher than usual because of her nervousness, "Hmm- hello everyone." Sweep onto Harry. "That's it... you all know why you're here. Harry has an idea - I mean -" (Harry gives her a stern look) "I have an idea. If anyone wants to learn black magic Defense, I mean learning the real thing, not the **** that Umbridge taught us—" Hermione's voice suddenly became firmer and more assertive: "No one cares about that stuff. It's called Defense Against the Dark Arts—"

    "Well said, well said!" said a dark-haired Ravenclaw boy, and Hermione seemed encouraged: "I think we might as well solve the problem ourselves."

    She paused, glanced sideways at Harry, and continued, "I mean learning how to protect yourself effectively, not just in theory, but in practicing real spells—I think Formal training in defense, because...because..." She took a deep breath before she finished, "because Voldemort is back.

    The response was immediate and unsurprising. Cho's friend screeched and spilled butterbeer on himself; Teribut twitched involuntarily; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville let out a whimper, which in time turned into a cough . But they all looked at Harry eagerly, even eagerly.

    "What evidence is there that the You-Know-Who is back?" asked the yellow-haired Hufflepuff player aggressively.

    "Oh, Dumbledore believes-" Hermione didn't finish her sentence.

    "You mean, Dumbledore believes him." The yellow-haired boy nodded at Harry.

    George snorted suddenly, "If you have the observation and judgment of your fingernails, you should understand that Dumbledore and Harry are right, Zacharias Smith ."

    "I have no reason to believe him." The arrogant boy stood up and didn't seem to mind fighting George. Gwen grabbed his boyfriend and looked at the impolite guy with the eyes of a mad goblin.

    "Why do I say You-Know-Who is back?" Harry stood up at this time, looking directly into Zacharice's face and asked, "Because I saw him. Dumbledore At the end of the last school year, I have told the whole school what happened, if you don't believe him, then you won't believe me, and I don't want to waste an afternoon convincing people to believe me." Everyone seemed to hold their breath when Harry spoke. breathed.

    Zachary Rice said contemptuously: "Last term Dumbledore only told us that Cedric Diggory was attacked. He didn't tell us the specifics, I knew Cedric, I I think we all want to know—"

    "If you want to know the details, you can come and ask me." Qiu interrupted him with a cold voice, Gwen had never heard this gentle Oriental girl so strong, "We are classmates, You can ask me anytime, you don't have to mess around here." She looked at Harry and the others before saying firmly, "Cedric told me what happened that day. I trust him and I trust Harry. The man is back. ."

    "Then why didn't he tell the Daily Prophet?" Zacharis screeched.

    Harry's anger rose up, "If you're here for this, you can go now."

    After a short silence, no one left their seats, not even Zacharis, though he still stared at Harry uncompromisingly. This made Gwen look down on him even more. George made no secret of his disdain for the man, telling Fred and Ginny, "This idiot wanted to ask Gwen to dance last year..."

    "Is that true," Luna's soft and ethereal voice broke the silence, "Can you really conjure a patron saint?"

     After hearing this, everyone whispered with interest.

    "Yeah," Harry said gratefully, "a patron saint of stags."

    "You killed the basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" Terry Boot asked. "That's what a portrait on the wall told me last year."

    "Um—yes, it is," said Harry.

    Justin Finnery whistled, the Creevey brothers exchanged a shocked look, and Lavender Brown let out a soft cry: "Wow!"

    "When we were in first grade," Neville told the group, "he rescued the magic stone—"

    "It's the Philosopher's Stone." Hermione corrected him in a low voice.

    "Oh, yes--from You-Know-Who." Neville finished.

    Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Kim Galleon.

    "Not to mention," Ginny said, "those projects he did in the Triwizard Tournament last semester—cross dragons, merfolk, and so on."

    There was a murmur of admiration and approval around the table.

    "Actually," he said, and everyone was immediately quiet, "I...I don't want to act humble or anything, but I've had a lot of help with all those things..."

    "Are you playing tricks and don't want to show us the magic?" Zacharice Smith said.

    "I have an idea," Ron exclaimed before Harry could speak, "why can't you just keep your mouth shut?" He glared at Zacharis now. , seems to want to go up and beat him. Zacharis blushed.

    "We all came to learn from him, but he said he didn't know anything," he said.

    "He didn't say that," Fred said angrily.

    "Do you want us to wash your ears for you?" George asked, pulling out a long, terrifying-looking bag from a shopping bag in the Joko Joke Shop metal stuff.

    "Or whatever part of your body we put it in," Fred said. Gwen smiled gleefully.

    "Alright, alright," Hermione said quickly, "closer to the subject - the point is, did we agree to let Harry teach us?" Everyone murmured their approval. Zacharis folded his arms and said nothing, but maybe that was because he was staring nervously at the thing in George's hand with one eye.

    Then everyone started chattering and arguing about which day of the week to teach. Quidditch teams in several academies thought they could not delay training, and some students were still talking about exams.

     shouted Ernie McMillan, Hufflepuff's prefect for boys, "I personally think it's really, really important, probably more than anything else we're going to do this year. , and even the upcoming O.W.Ls exams!"

    He glanced dignifiedly, as if waiting for someone to say "That's not good!" No one said anything. He continued: "I personally wonder why the Ministry of Magic has stuffed us with such a useless teacher at such a critical time. Apparently, they refuse to believe that You-Know-Who is back, yet give us Sending such a teacher who did everything possible to prevent us from using the defensive spell—"

    "We think the reason Umbridge didn't let us practice Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione, "was because she had some ludicrous idea in her head that Dumbledore would use School students as a secret army. She thought Dumbledore would move us against the Ministry of Magic."

    The students were stunned when they heard the news.

    "Cough, cough." Ginny imitated Professor Umbridge vividly. Several people looked around in surprise, and then ha