𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#8 Dumbledore's Army

"Yes, I've seen it", Hermione answered kinda proud and quickly looked over to Harry, who rose his eyebrows.

"He once killed a Basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore's office", Neville added excited to include something on the list of Harry's exploits and got back up from Ginny, who agreed with his story.

"Third year he fought off about one hundred dementors at once", Ron moved his arms around in the attempt to symbolize the number of black hooded creatures.

"And last year he really did fight off You-Know-Who in the flesh", Hermione finished up, but got interrupted by Harry, who stood up from his seat quickly.

"Wait. It all sounds great when you say it like that, but the truth is, most of it was just luck. I didn't know what I was doing half the time and I nearly almost needed help", the dark-haired boy tried to convince us and quickly kept the witch to his right from answer back as she intended to.

"Facing this in real life is not like school. In school, if you make a mistake, you can just try again the day after. But when you're seconds away from being murdered, or watching a friend die right in front of your eyes, you don't know what that's like."

My heart broke at the sight. His figure was crumbled a bit, his shoulders hang down his body and all the confident he really could've with everything he did, vanished with the deep exhales he did under his pacing breath.

"That's right, Harry, wedon't", Hermione added with a small, but thoughtful voice, as she stood uptoo and laid her hand on his shoulder. "That's why we need your help, ifwe're going to have any chance at beating Voldemort."

Hearing Hermione speaking out his name sounded strange. Wrong. Now that she stood in front row, I saw the little girl again, the little witch I bumped into in our first Herbology class. The girl who bubbled on end about every knowledge she had. Seeing her grown up in the attempt to fight a war, which seemed too big for young students like us, felt wrong.

"He's really back, isn't he?", I asked in a small voice with my eyes still on the boy.

The realization hit me with the permanent fear I saw in Harry's eyes just now. He had these startled eyes all the time, but this was the moment I truly realized them. And with that I realized the danger, which was ahead for all of us. Harry nodded and that was all everybody needed to accept and write down on the entry list for Dumbledore's army. So, everyone signed on the piece of paper right under Harry, Hermione and Ron and left with the good feeling of doing something about the mess drowning us.

The air was cold because the sun was already about to go down. I hated winter for its short days.

"So, is there still time for you to get a butterbeer with us?", El called out as soon as she reached me outside.

I silently cursed myself, because I truly thought I could steal myself away from everyone undetected to meet up with Draco. But as always was El there at the right moment to catch me up.

"Yeah, actually I was about to go there", I turned with a smile and looked mostly at Luna on my friends' arm. Her lovely smile was better to focus on than El's narrowing eyes. "Remember? Draco asked for help in Astronomy?"

"Right and because we can see the stars the best in a lighten up village, he needs this help right now", she snickered. "When it's still almost daytime."

"It's about the theoretics", I quickly managed to say while rolling my eyes.

I loved my ability to come up with a good excuse, or lie if I had to, but with El I had trouble finding one. It felt as if this girl was always there to expose them.