Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“You don’t get it!” Harry shouted at her, “I’m not having nightmares, I’m not just dreaming! What d’you think all the Occlumency was for, why d’you think Dumbledore wanted me prevented from seeing these things? Because they’re REAL, Hermione—Sirius is trapped, I’ve seen him. Voldemort’s got him, and no one else knows, and that means we’re the only ones who can save him, and if you don’t want to do it, fine, but I’m going, understand? And if I remember rightly, you didn’t have a problem with my saving-people thing when it was you I was saving from the Dementors, or—” he rounded on Ron “—when it was your sister I was saving from the Basilisk—”

“I never said I had a problem!” said Ron heatedly.

“But Harry, you’ve just said it,” said Hermione fiercely, “Dumbledore wanted you to learn to shut these things out of your mind, if you’d done Occlumency properly you’d never have seen this—”

“IF YOU THINK I’M JUST GOING TO ACT LIKE I HAVEN’T SEEN—”

“Sirius told you there was nothing more important than you learning to close your mind!”

“WELL, I EXPECT HE’D SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT IF HE KNEW WHAT I’D JUST—”

The classroom door opened. Harry, Ron and Hermione whipped around. Ginny walked in, looking curious, closely followed by Luna, who as usual looked as though she had drifted in accidentally.

“Hi,” said Ginny uncertainly. “We recognised Harry’s voice. What are you yelling about?”

“Never you mind,” said Harry roughly.

Ginny raised her eyebrows.

“There’s no need to take that tone with me,” she said coolly, “I was only wondering whether I could help.”

“Well, you can’t,” said Harry shortly.

“You’re being rather rude, you know,” said Luna serenely.

Harry swore and turned away. The very last thing he wanted now was a conversation with Luna Lovegood.

“Wait,” said Hermione suddenly. “Wait… Harry, they can help.”

Harry and Ron looked at her.

“Listen,” she said urgently, “Harry, we need to establish whether Sirius really has left Headquarters.”

“I’ve told you, I saw—”

“Harry, I’m begging you, please!” said Hermione desperately. “Please let’s just check that Sirius isn’t at home before we go charging off to London. If we find out he’s not there, then I swear I won’t try to stop you. I’ll come, I’ll d-do whatever it takes to try and save him.”

“Sirius is being tortured NOW!” shouted Harry. “We haven’t got time to waste.”

“But if this is a trick of Voldemort’s, Harry, we’ve got to check, we’ve got to.”

“How?” Harry demanded. “How’re we going to check?”

“We’ll have to use Umbridge’s fire and see if we can contact him,” said Hermione, who looked positively terrified at the thought. “We’ll draw Umbridge away again, but we’ll need lookouts, and that’s where we can use Ginny and Luna.”

Though clearly struggling to understand what was going on, Ginny said immediately, “Yeah, we’ll do it,” and Luna said, “When you say ‘Sirius,’ are you talking about Stubby Boardman?”

Nobody answered her.

“OK,” Harry said aggressively to Hermione, “OK, if you can think of a way of doing this quickly, I’m with you, otherwise I’m going to the Department of Mysteries right now.”

“The Department of Mysteries?” said Luna, looking mildly surprised. “But how are you going to get there?”

Again, Harry ignored her.

“Right,” said Hermione, twisting her hands together and pacing up and down between the desks. “Right… well… one of us has to go and find Umbridge and—and send her off in the wrong direction, keep her away from her office. They could tell her—I don’t know—that Peeves is up to something awful as usual—”

“I’ll do it,” said Ron at once. “I’ll tell her Peeves is smashing up the Transfiguration department or something, it’s miles away from her office. Come to think of it, I could probably persuade Peeves to do it if I met him on the way.”

It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Hermione made no objection to the smashing up of the Transfiguration department.

“OK,” she said, her brow furrowed as she continued to pace. “Now, we need to keep students right away from her office while we force entry, or some Slytherins bound to go and tip her off.”

“Luna and I can stand at either end of the corridor,” said Ginny promptly, “and warn people not to go down there because someone’s let off a load of Garrotting Gas.” Hermione looked surprised at the readiness with which Ginny had come up with this lie; Ginny shrugged and said, “Fred and George were planning to do it before they left.”

“OK,” said Hermione. “Well then, Harry, you and I will be under the Invisibility Cloak and we’ll sneak into the office and you can talk to Sirius—”

“He’s not there, Hermione!”

“I mean, you can—can check whether Sirius is at home or not while I keep watch, I don’t think you should be in there alone, Lee’s already proved the windows a weak spot, sending those Nifflers through it.”

Even through his anger and impatience, Harry recognised Hermione’s offer to accompany him into Umbridge’s office as a sign of solidarity and loyalty.

“I… OK, thanks,” he muttered.