they trudged down the stone steps to the dungeons for potions, all four of them lost in thought, but as they reached the bottom of the stairs they were recalled to themselves by the voice of draco malfoy, who was standing just outside snape's classroom door, waving around an official-looking piece of parchment and talking much louder than was necessary so that they could hear every word.

"yeah, umbridge gave the slytherin quidditch team permission to continue playing straightaway, i went to ask her first thing this morning. well, it was pretty much automatic, i mean, she knows my father really well, he's always popping in and out of the ministry. . . . it'll be interesting to see whether gryffindor are allowed to keep playing, wont it?"

"don't," elara whispered to harry and ron, who were both watching draco, faces set and fists clenched.

"it's what he wants. . . ." said hermione.

"i mean," said draco, raising his voice a little more, his gray eyes glittering malevolently in harry and ron's direction, "if it's a question of influence with the ministry, i don't think they've got much chance. . . . from what my father says, they've been looking for an excuse to sack arthur weasley for years. . . . and as for potter . . . my father says it's a matter of time before the ministry has him carted off to st. mungo's. . . . apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic. . . ."

draco made a grotesque face, his mouth sagging open and his eyes rolling. crabbe and goyle gave their usual grunts of laughter, pansy parkinson shrieked with glee.

elara snapped, but before she could react, something collided hard with her shoulder, knocking her sideways. a split second later she realized that neville had just charged past her, heading straight for draco.

"neville, no!"

elara and and harry leapt forward and seized the back of neville's robes; neville struggled frantically, his fists flailing, trying desperately to get at draco who looked, for a moment, extremely shocked.

"help me!" harry flung at ron, managing to get an arm around neville's neck and dragging him backward, away from the slytherins. crabbe and goyle were now flexing their arms, closing in front of draco, ready for the fight. ron hurried forward and seized neville's arms; together, he, elara, and harry succeeded in dragging neville back into the gryffindor line. neville's face was scarlet; the pressure harry was exerting on his throat rendered him quite incomprehensible, but odd words spluttered from his mouth.

"not. . . funny . . . don't . . . mungo's . . . show . . . him . . ."

the dungeon door opened. snape appeared there. his black eyes swept up the gryffindor line to the point where harry, ron, and elara were wrestling with neville.

"fighting, potter, weasley, lestrange, longbottom?" snape said in his cold, sneering voice. "ten points from gryffindor. release longbottom, potter, or it will be detention. inside, all of you."

harry let go of neville, who stood panting and glaring at them.

"i had to stop you," harry gasped, picking up his bag. "crabbe and goyle would've torn you apart."

neville said nothing, he merely snatched up his own bag and stalked off into the dungeon.

"what in the name of merlin," said ron slowly, as they followed neville, "was that about?"

elara did not answer. she knew exactly why the subject of people who were in st. mungo's because of magical damage to their brains was highly distressing to neville, but she had sworn to herself and to dumbledore that she would not tell anyone neville's secret.

elara, harry, ron, and hermione took their usual seats at the back of the class and pulled out parchment, quills, and their copies of one thousand magical herbs and fungi. the class around them was whispering about what neville had just done, but when snape closed the dungeon door with an echoing bang everybody fell silent immediately.

"you will notice," said snape in his low, sneering voice, "that we have a guest with us today."

he gestured toward the dim corner of the dungeon, and elara saw professor umbridge sitting there, clipboard on her knee. elara glanced sideways at harry, ron and hermione, her eyebrows raised. today's class was most certainly going to be interesting.

"We are continuing with our Strengthening Solutions today, you will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson, if correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend — instructions" — he waved his wand again — "on the board. Carry on."

professor umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner. harry seemed very interested in hearing her question snape, so interested, that he was becoming careless with his potion again.

"salamander blood, harry!" elara groaned, grabbing his wrist to prevent him adding the wrong ingredient for the third time. "not pomegranate juice!"

"right," said harry vaguely, putting down the bottle and continuing to watch the corner. umbridge had just gotten to her feet. she strode between two lines of desks toward snape, who was bending over dean thomas's cauldron.

"well, the class seems fairly advanced for their level," she said briskly to snape's back. "though i would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the strengthening solution. i think the ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus."

snape straightened up slowly and turned to look at her.

"shit's about to go down," muttered elara to harry. he sniggered.

"now . . . how long have you been teaching at hogwarts?" she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard.

"fourteen years," snape replied. his expression was unfathomable. elara kept stealing quick glances up from her cauldron.

"you applied first for the defense against the dark arts post, i believe?" professor umbridge asked snape.

"yes," said snape quietly.

"but you were unsuccessful?"

snape's lip curled. "obviously."

professor umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.

"and you have applied regularly for the defense against the dark arts post since you first joined the school, i believe?"

"yes," said snape quietly, barely moving his lips. he looked very angry.

"do you have any idea why dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?" asked umbridge.

"i suggest you ask him," said snape jerkily.

"oh i shall," said professor umbridge with a sweet smile.

"i suppose this is relevant?" snape asked, his black eyes narrowed.

"oh yes," said professor umbridge. "yes, the ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers' — er — backgrounds. . . ."

she turned away, walked over to pansy parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons. snape looked over in elara and harry's direction. harry hastily dropped his gaze to his potion, which was now congealing foully and giving off a strong smell of burned rubber.

"no marks again, then, potter," said snape maliciously, emptying harry's cauldron with a wave of his wand. "you will write me an essay on the correct composition of this potion, indicating how and why you went wrong, to be handed in next lesson, do you understand?"

"yes," said harry furiously.

elara felt badly for harry. but, if harry wanted to pursue a career as an auror, he'd have to start focusing more in classes.

"maybe i'll skive off divination," he said glumly as they stood again in the courtyard after lunch, the wind whipping at the hems of robes and brims of hats. "i'll pretend to be ill and do snape's essay instead, then i won't have to stay up half the night. . . ."

"i could help," elara offered, "i'm already a seer, so divination isn't really my top priority."

"you two can't skive off divination," said hermione severely.

"hark who's talking, you walked out of divination, you hate trelawney!" said ron indignantly.

"i don't hate her," said hermione loftily. "i just think she's an absolutely appalling teacher and a real old fraud. . . . but harry's already missed history of magic and i don't think he ought to miss anything else today! besides, what would he do if lara had another one of her fainting spells?"

"catch her, i suppose," said harry.

half an hour later elara took her seat in the hot, over-perfumed atmosphere of the divination classroom. harry seemed to be angry again. discreetly, elara slipped her hand in his and squeezed it. professor trelawney was handing out copies of the dream oracle yet again.

it seemed, however, that harry was not the only person in divination who was in a temper. professor trelawney slammed a copy of the oracle down on the table between elara, harry, and ron and swept away, her lips pursed; she threw the next copy of the oracle at seamus, aspen, and dean, narrowly avoiding seamus's head, and thrust the final one into neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouf.

"well, carry on!" said professor trelawney loudly, her voice high pitched and somewhat hysterical. "you know what to do! or am i such a substandard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?"

the class stared perplexedly at her and then at each other. elara, however, thought she knew what was the matter. as professor trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teacher's chair, her magnified eyes full of angry tears, elara leaned her head closer to harry's and ron's and muttered, "i think she's got the results of her inspection back."

"professor?" said parvati patil in a hushed voice (she and lavender had always rather admired professor trelawney). "professor, is there anything — er — wrong?"

"wrong!" cried professor trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. "certainly not! i have been insulted, certainly. . . . insinuations have been made against me. . . . unfounded accusations levelled . . . but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not. . . ."

she took a great shuddering breath and looked away from parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses.

"i say nothing," she choked, "of sixteen years' devoted service. . . . it has passed, apparently, unnoticed. . . . but i shall not be insulted, no, i shall not!"

"but professor, who's insulting you?" asked parvati timidly.

"the establishment!" said professor trelawney in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. "yes, those with eyes too clouded by the mundane to see as i see, to know as i know . . . of course, we seers have always been feared, always persecuted. . . . it is — alas — our fate. . . ."

she gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, and then pulled a small, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, into which she blew her nose very hard with a sound like peeves blowing a raspberry. ron sniggered. lavender shot him a disgusted look.

"professor," said parvati, "do you mean . . . is it something professor umbridge . . . ?"

"do not speak to me about that woman!" cried professor trelawney, leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing. "kindly continue with your work!"

and she spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.

". . . may well choose to leave . . . the indignity of it . . . on probation . . . we shall see . . . how she dares . . ."

"you and umbridge have got something in common," elara told hermione quietly when they met again in defense against the dark arts. "she obviously reckons trelawney's an old fraud too. . . . looks like she's put her on probation."

umbridge entered the room as he spoke, wearing her black velvet bow and an expression of great smugness.

"good afternoon, class."

"good afternoon, professor umbridge," they chanted drearily.

"wands away, please . . ."

but there was no answering flurry of movement this time; nobody had bothered to take out their wands.

"please turn to page thirty-four of defensive magical theory and read the third chapter, entitled 'the case for non-offensive responses to magical attack.' there will be —"

"— no need to talk," elara, harry, ron, and hermione said together under their breaths.

"no quidditch practice," said angelina in hollow tones when elara, harry, ron, and hermione entered the common room that night after dinner.

"but I kept my temper!" said harry, horrified. "i didn't say anything to her, angelina, i swear, i —"

"i know, i know," said angelina miserably. "she just said she needed a bit of time to consider."

"consider what?" said ron angrily. "she's given the slytherins permission, why not us?"

"well," said hermione, "look on the bright side — at least now you'll have time to do snape's essay!"

"that's a bright side, is it?" snapped harry, while ron stared incredulously at hermione. "no quidditch practice and extra potions?"

"harry," said elara strictly.

harry sighed and slumped down into a chair, dragged his potions essay reluctantly from his bag, and set to work. ron and hermione gestured to elara maniacally.

"what?" elara whispered to them.

"sit down and talk to him!" whispered back ron.

"why — "

"we've been over this," said hermione. "he listens to you and you only."

elara took a seat next to harry after rolling her eyes and began to help him with the essay. it was very hard to concentrate; there was also an incredible amount of noise in the room: fred, george, and aurora appeared finally to have perfected one type of skiving snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd.

first, fred would take a bite out of the orange end of a chew, at which he would vomit spectacularly into a bucket they had placed in front of them. then he would force down the purple end of the chew, at which the vomiting would immediately cease. aurora and lee jordan, who were assisting the demonstration, were lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same vanishing spell snape kept using on harry's potions.

what with the regular sounds of retching, cheering, and fred, george, and aurora taking advance orders from the crowd, elara was finding it exceptionally difficult to focus on helping harry write down the correct method for strengthening solutions. hermione was not helping matters; the cheers and sound of vomit hitting the bottom of fred and george's bucket were punctuated by loud and disapproving sniffs that elara found, if anything, more distracting.

"just go and stop them, then!" harry said irritably, after crossing out the wrong weight of powdered griffin claw for the fourth time.

"i can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong," said hermione through gritted teeth. "they're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves, and i can't find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy them, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way, and it doesn't look as though they are. . . ."

she, elara, harry, and ron watched george projectile-vomit into the bucket, gulp down the rest of the chew, and straighten up, beaming with his arms wide to protracted applause.

"you know, i get how rori got almost all her o.w.l.s, but i don't get why fred and george only got three o.w.l.s each," said harry, watching as fred, george, aurora, and lee collected gold from the eager crowd. "they really know their stuff. . . ."

"in the nicest way possible, i'm surprised they weren't sorted into slytherin," said elara interestedly. "just for the ambition. i mean, they'll be rich in a week tops."

"oh, but, they only know flashy stuff that's no real use to anyone," said hermione disparagingly.

"no real use?" said ron in a strained voice. "hermione, they've got about twenty-six galleons already. . . ."

it was a long while before the crowd around the weasleys dispersed, and then fred, lee, george, and aurora sat up counting their takings even longer, so that it was well past midnight when elara, harry, ron, and hermione finally had the common room to themselves again. at long last, fred closed the doorway to the boys' dormitories behind him, rattling his box of galleons ostentatiously so that hermione scowled. elara had finally managed to help harry finish his essay. as harry put his books away, ron, who was dozing lightly in an armchair, gave a muffled grunt, awoke, looked blearily into the fire and said, "sirius!"

elara whipped around; sirius's untidy dark head was sitting in the fire again.

"hi," he said, grinning.

"hi," chorused elara, harry, ron, and hermione, all three kneeling down upon the hearthrug. crookshanks purred loudly and approached the fire, trying, despite the heat, to put his face close to sirius's.

"how're things?" said sirius.

"not that good," said harry, as hermione pulled crookshanks back to stop him singeing his whiskers. "the ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have quidditch teams —"

"— or secret defense against the dark arts groups?" said sirius.

there was a short pause.

"how did you know about that?" harry demanded.

"you want to choose your meeting places more carefully," said sirius, grinning still more broadly. "the hog's head, i ask you . . ."

"well, it was better than the three broomsticks!" said hermione defensively. "that's always packed with people —"

"— which means you'd have been harder to overhear," said sirius. "you've got a lot to learn, hermione."

"who overheard us?" elara demanded.