Hermione's Pitch meeting

"Er… well, er… hi," said Hermione in a somewhat flustered manner. "You're all here for various reasons— most of you want to know how to defeat the Killing Curse, some of you want the knowledge necessary to pass your Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s, and the rest of you want to know how to defend yourselves properly— but you all already knew that, I suppose..."

She gave a little nervous laugh.

"Which is why you responded favourably to my idea— to really study Defence Against the Dark Arts, the real thing, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is stuffing down our throats— I mean, who'd call that Defence Against the Dark Arts—"

("hear, hear," said one of the Ravenclaw boys, so Hermione took heart and continued with a little more confidence)

"—So, I thought it would be good if we took matters into our own hands, and learned from those who already know how to defend themselves properly, by actually doing the real spells, not just learning the theory—"

Hermione's next words went unheard, because it's precisely at that moment that a girl burst through the doorway, her flaming red hair shimmering in the morning sunlight.

"Sorry," Ginny Weasley said, gasping for breath. "I'm not too late, am I? I had to take care of some business on the way here…"

"Not at all," said Hermione, pulling up a stool. "Here, you can sit next to me… Now, where was I? Oh, that's right." She cleared her throat, before continuing on. "But this is about more than just grades, because Lord Voldemort is back."

Predictably, nearly every single person in the room recoiled involuntarily upon hearing the name. Oleandra rolled her eyes; how exactly were they supposed gather up the courage to fight the man, if the merest mention of his name had them cowering under their tables?

Oleandra conveniently elected to forget that she too had once been deathly afraid of the name.

"Well… that's the plan, anyway," said Hermione. "If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to—"

"Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?" said Zacharias Smith rather aggressively. "And it had better be more convincing than because he or she said so."

"What, my word's not good enough for you, Smith?" Oleandra said rather rudely.

She only knew his name because Smith was a rival Quidditch player, and Captain Montague made his teammates memorize opposing teams' rosters; strengths and weaknesses, that sort of thing.

"Who even are you, anyway?" Ron added just as rudely.

"Zacharias Smith," said the boy haughtily, as if his name was supposed to mean something to him. "And I think we've got the right to know what exactly happened the night of the Third Task. Last year, the only thing Dumbledore told us was that You-Know-Who was back and that he'd killed her," (he pointed at Oleandra) "but here she is, good as new."

Hermione looked expectantly at Theo Nott, but if she thought that he was going to out his father like that in front of so many people, she was dead wrong. Even so, the Smith boy had a point, so Harry quickly took charge of the situation and explained everything that had occurred on the night of Voldemort's revival.

By the time he had finished his story, he had every single person in the room hanging on to his every word with rapturous attention.

"So how did you survive the Killing Curse, anyway?" Ginny finally asked Oleandra.

"The same way Harry did when he was a baby, more or less," Oleandra responded, before speaking up in a louder voice so that everyone could all hear, "but my way won't work for you, so unless you've got someone who loves you enough to jump in between you and the Avada Kedavra, I suggest learning how to dodge."

Now that they knew that runic magic had nothing to do with the way she had resisted the Killing Curse, her audience lost a great deal of interest in her.

"So," Hermione pressed on, her voice growing high-pitched. "So… like I was saying… if you want to learn some defence, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to…"

"Is it true that you can produce a Patronus? A Corporeal one?" Susan Bones asked abruptly, interrupting Hermione.

"Yeah," Oleandra and Harry said simultaneously, though Oleandra added, "wanna see?"

Susan had directed the question at Harry, so she was surprised to hear Oleandra respond positively.

"Er—" Harry said, thinking of his trial for underage magic, at the conclusion of which a certain Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement named Amelia Bones had voted to clear him of all charges. "You wouldn't happen to know Madam Bones, would you?"

Bones smiled melancholically.

"She's my auntie," she explained. "I'm Susan Bones; she told me about your hearing. So, a stag Patronus?" She then turned to Oleandra, asking, "Then, what form does yours take?"

"Lake," Oleandra simply responded.

Usually, Corporeal Patronuses took the shape of some sort of animal, magical or otherwise, but lake? Susan had no idea what to think of this, but since she saw Harry nodding appreciatively, she decided to just go with it and accept it as truth. She'd get to see it later anyway, if they ever taught her the Charm.

"Blimey," said Lee Jordan in surprise, "I never knew that!"

"And the Basilisk, did you really kill it with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" Terry Boot demanded to know. "And those robes Oleandra wore to the Three Tasks last year, are they really made of Basilisk leather?"

Ron stood up, looking rather full of himself.

"It was a group effort," he said with false modesty. "I saved us all by diving underwater to get the Sorting Hat, and without the Hat, Harry couldn't have pulled out Gryffindor's Sword out of it, and we wouldn't be standing in front of you. Oh, and the Greengrass twins helped too."

Everyone looked at Ron with newfound respect, though the Weasley twins looked bored. They had doubtlessly heard this story countless times already…