Oleandra Gives a Speech

"Hang on," said Oleandra sheepishly. "It usually takes a few tries."

Oleandra paced a few more times in front of the painting of Barnabas the Barmy Teaching Trolls to Ballet Dance, but the Gryffindor Trio were looking increasingly unimpressed.

"I dunno about this," said Ron doubtfully, "it's not on Harry's map, and the map's got all the secret passages."

It was now Wednesday; the day after Oleandra had shared a bath with Hermione and Ron in the prefect's bathroom. Before leaving, the two Gryffindors had expressed their willingness to begin training, but they had also added that they still hadn't found a secluded spot in which to practise Defence. Hogsmeade had already been ruled out, since visits to the village weren't common enough; regular classrooms were also a no-go, because they were simply too exposed.

After a moment of hesitation, Oleandra had proposed the Room of Requirements, which she had known about since her third year. It was the perfect room for their purposes, since it would conjure anything they could possibly need for training; except food, that is.

No magic in the world could make food appear out of thin air except Hufflepuff's Cup; anyone who knew even the slightest bit about Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration could have told you that.

And so, Oleandra had brought the Gryffindor Trio to the seventh floor of the castle after classes to show them the room— bringing all of the members at once would have drawn too much unnecessary attention, so the rest were scattered around; waiting nearby for the signal.

"Ah, there it is!" Oleandra exclaimed; a door had just appeared to her side, where none had been before.

She had been concentrating on a mental image of training grounds for a while, but the room was slow to detect her thoughts, due to her mental defences. The Founders' magic truly was something else; the Room, the Hat… they were all able to penetrate the web of runes that shielded her soul.

Not even an accomplished Legilimens such as Dumbledore could do that!

The four quickly entered before the door disappeared again, and they found themselves in a large room filled with training dummies. One side of the room was dedicated to bookshelves; each of them filled with various spell tomes and magical instruments. Hermione's eyes shone upon seeing them, and she immediately ran to take a closer look.

"Hey, the floor's all springy!" Ron said in astonishment, as he tapped the floor with his foot. "That'll come in handy when we're practising Stunning!"

"Is that…?" Harry began, his eyes flashing in recognition.

Oleandra nodded; she hadn't been certain at first if the Room of Requirements would be able to do it, but the hard stone from her previous visit had indeed been entirely replaced with a spring floor.

The reason why she favoured tumbling, somersaults, acrobatics and flips in the first place was because she had a background in gymnastics. Before coming to Hogwarts, she had attended a rather posh Muggle primary school which specialized in gymnastics, so she was well acquainted with spring floors and rubber gym mats.

"A dedicated training room!" Ron said in amazement. "But why was this place even hidden in the first place?"

Oleandra hadn't exactly explained the full extent of the room's powers; she had only told the Gryffindor Trio that she knew of a secret spot that was perfect for practising magic. As far as they knew, the Room of Requirement's only function was to train duellists!

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In the end, it took until eight o'clock for all of the members to finally arrive, though it would take less time in the future to assemble, now that they all knew where the room was located.

Oleandra looked at her pocket watch in annoyance; they had already wasted too much time; curfew began at nine. And as far as week days went, Wednesdays were rather special. Students would have their ordinary classes during the day, but from ten to midnight, they would have Astronomy class.

It wasn't every Wednesday, of course; the sky would oftentimes be overcast, and Professor Sinistra wouldn't teach seven cohorts of students at the same time. Fifth years had Astronomy today; this meant that they would only have an hour to practise today; two, if they were willing to brave the curfew, but were unwilling to skive off Astronomy.

They could do it if they wanted to; since fifth year prefects were in charge of patrolling at night this week, it would be seven prefects against one mere Malfoy; the odds of their club members being caught by him were quite low.

In any case, once everyone was done oohing and aahing at the incredible room they had somehow never noticed before, Hermione, who'd been the de facto leader until now, took the initiative to speak first.

"Before we begin, I really think we ought to elect a leader, so that everything goes smoothly," said Hermione, looking at Harry and Oleandra in turn. "Shall we do a show of hands, or…?"

"Hang on," Oleandra interrupted. "Before anyone votes on anything, shouldn't we introduce ourselves properly and state what we hope to achieve with this group of ours?"

Hermione and Harry hadn't been expecting Oleandra to take this so seriously, so they were momentarily stunned.

"Er…" said Harry hesitantly, "you go first, then."

He wasn't especially interested in a leadership position, but neither did he want to embarrass himself in front of Cho by fumbling over his words, if he was to give a speech.

"Thanks, Hero," said Oleandra gratefully, before stepping forward. "My name is Oleandra Greengrass, co-Triwizard champion, but you already knew that. So… let me begin by telling you what I can't teach you; runic magic, and Defence Against the Dark Arts spells beyond those we've already learned in class."

Soft murmurs filled the room, and Oleandra received plenty of strange stares. Was she actively trying to avoid getting elected, or what?

"What I can teach you," Oleandra continued, "is how to fight, and how to survive. You've already seen me in action, but believe me when I say that I've faced worse enemies than Dragons."

More whispers.

"Knowledge is power, but the Ministry doesn't want you to have that power; by training ourselves, we are all going against the powers that be. But that's completely fine; the Ministry isn't all powerful, nor should the law be our guiding compass. So I say, power is a responsibility. A responsibility towards those who have less of it; be they Muggles, the Muggleborn… or even House Elves."

Hermione squeaked in surprise upon hearing Oleandra's words.

"For now, you're only here to learn how to protect yourselves, or to learn how to pass your Defence O.W.L.s," said Oleandra quietly, "but one day, we'll be the ones in charge of things; we'll be the ones holding power. When that day comes, I hope we can all be better than those who have come before us. That is, if we're still alive, when all of this Dark Lord and Dark Lady business is over..."