Behind the stained wooden counter, the old barman, Aberforth, froze completely upon seeing so many underaged wizards suddenly pack his quiet tavern. He had been idly wiping a mug with a filthy, grey rag that looked like it hadn't been washed since the last century, but he threw the cloth down onto a table the exact second Fred Weasley loudly ordered thirty-five bottles of Butterbeer.
Had these young fools mistaken his underground establishment for a common Gryffindor party?
Letting out a low grunt, Aberforth shuffled behind the taps, pulled down a heavy bottle of fire-charred rum, and took a massive, unbothered swig directly from the neck as though it were his morning breakfast.
Hermione almost snorted out loud watching the dramatic scene, trying her best to maintain a strict, professional face. She watched as Lucifer stood up from their table and carelessly set down a whopping pile of forty gold Galleons flat onto the dirty counter from his pouch, sound rattling it.
"Keep the change, old man," Lucifer said lazily. He turned on his heel and walked straight back to his seat after paying for the massive order without a single blink.
Aberforth stood disheveled to the point of caricature, his blue eyes narrowing behind his tangled beard as his stare turned strange. This towering, crimson-eyed youth had surely recognized his true lineage, yet the boy kept perfectly quiet about it.
"What on earth have you been telling people?!" Harry hissed at Hermione the exact second Lucifer sat back down beside them.
"I've told you already, Harry, they just want to hear what you have to say," She explained in a tight whisper, her eyes scanning the room as the students dragged chairs over. "Don't worry about saying anything first. I'll get the crowd to listen and establish decorum, then I'll hand the floor over to you and Lucifer."
"Hi, Harry," Neville said warmly, his face beaming with genuine pride as he claimed a seat directly opposite them.
Luna sat down at the circular wooden table nearest to their position. "Hello, Lucifer. It is an absolute pleasure to see you as always."
"Hey, Luna. You doing alright this week?" Lucifer asked her, his voice softening.
"I am, thank you," her dreamy smile remained ever-present as she adjusted her radish earrings.
"Luna..." Hermione started slowly, her voice laced with a deep, nervous tension. But the Ravenclaw girl smoothly interrupted her before she could falter.
"Don't worry, Hermione. You don't have to apologize to me," Luna smiled serenely.
"But I truly do..." She insisted, her eyes reflecting a genuine remorse. "I am so incredibly sorry for the horrible things I said, Luna... I was having a thoroughly bad, stressful day and I took my own frustrations out on your family's work. That was wrong of me to do."
Luna looked visibly touched by the confession, her large eyes softening. "Hermione... thank you. Your apology is sincere and heartfelt."
"Still want to be friends?" Hermione asked, a tentative smile breaking through her anxiety.
"Of course," She smiled dreamily, and then bushy haired girl returned the warm look, a massive weight lifting from her chest.
She then turned her attention back to the crowded room as a whole, standing up to command the meeting. But when she opened her mouth to speak, the lingering nervousness caught in her throat, and Lucifer instantly realized she had temporarily lost her voice under the pressure.
He stood up fluidly beside her, his towering height drawing every eye in the room to a dead halt.
"Hello everyone," Lucifer's deep voice boomed cleanly through the dingy tavern. "I assume you all know exactly why you're here today?"
The crowd of students nodded in unison, the room falling completely silent. Lucifer glanced down at Hermione, who was looking up at him with a profound, grateful affection, "I'll let her take over the logistics from here."
He lowered himself back onto his chair, and every single eye in the room focused squarely on Hermione, though a few curious glances continuously darted back to Lucifer and Harry.
"So, you all know why we've gathered here today," Hermione spoke, her confidence rapidly returning as she anchored herself with a quick glance at Lucifer. Her voice took on a newfound momentum, echoing off the rafters. "To study proper, practical 'Defense Against the Dark Arts.' You will have all noticed by now that any class conducted under Umbridge's decrees is absolutely atrocious. We aren't learning a single proper thing in the way of real defensive magic, so I thought.... it was a brilliant idea to take our education into our own hands."
"Hear, hear!" Rolf Scamander called out from the middle row, and Hermione smiled warmly at the support.
Behind the bar, Aberforth glared fiercely at the Scamander brat for causing a loud ruckus in his establishment, looking as though he were about to lose his temper. But the exact second his eyes spotted Lucifer watching him, the old man calmed right down again. He merely let out a low grunt that sounded like 'he paid for that noise,' before continuing to prepare the heavy crate of drinks.
"We have to teach ourselves proper Defense, not just garbage Ministry theory from a text page, but real spellwork—" Hermione was abruptly cut off.
"You want to pass your 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' O.W.L. too, though, I bet?" Michael Corner asked her, leaning forward over his chair.
"Of course I do," Hermione said firmly. "But this project goes miles beyond just passing a standardized examination next June. I want to be properly, practically trained in Defense... and do you know why? Because Lord Voldemort is back, dammit, and he is absolutely not going to take it easy on any of us out in the real world!"
The sudden, blunt mention of the dark name produced the expected reaction among the crowd: multiple sharp shrieks of terror from the younger years, shudders of fear, and cringes of deep discomfort down every row.
"That is the core plan anyway," Hermione continued, pressing past the panic. "If you want to join us in learning real magic, then we---"
She was rudely cut off by the Hufflepuff boy, Zacharias Smith, who spoke up in an aggressive, mocking tone. "Where exactly is the irrefutable proof that You-Know-Who is actually back, Granger?"
Lucifer turned a slow, terrifying glare straight onto him, his dark pupils narrowing as his mind calculated whether he could cover the entire inside of this dingy pub with Smith's blood before the barman could intervene. Aberforth stared at the table while loading the bottles onto the counter; judging by the volatile energy radiating from the boy, they were planning a wizarding war.
At this rate, the barman wouldn't be surprised if his brother got sacked from Hogwarts by Monday and came down to mess with his tavern.
"Well," Hermione started, her voice tightening. "Dumbledore believes it—"
"You mean, Dumbledore blindly believes 'him!" Smith barked, pointing a dismissive finger straight at Harry's chest.
"Look, you pathetic piece of shit," Lucifer said, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm, low vibration that made the surrounding candles flicker. "I strongly advise you to speak calmly and politely to Hermione."
"And why should I be taking advice from you, Morningstar?" Smith fired back, trying to maintain his bravado despite the sweat breaking out on his neck. "You seem to blow up and threaten someone every other day in the corridors."
"You're right, I do," Lucifer said, a slow, predatory smirk spreading across his lips as his eyes briefly flashed a dark crimson. "But unless you want that violence directed squarely at your own face today... do as I fucking say. Voldemort is back. If you have a personal problem with that reality, there is the door, off you go, and go fuck yourself."
Smith said absolutely nothing further on that specific matter, his face turning pale as he sank heavily back into his wooden seat out of pure fear. "I still think we have the right to hear what makes him say that You-Know-Who has returned," he muttered, nodding his head toward Harry.
"I really don't think we need to—" Hermione started defensively, but Harry stood up fluidly and placed a comforting hand flat against her shoulder.
She sat back down, and Harry looked directly across the dark room at Zacharias Smith.
"What makes me say Voldemort is back?" Harry stated clearly, his voice carrying the weight of the past decade, "I saw him with my own eyes. I fought him in that graveyard, and Dumbledore announced to the entire school at the end of last year that he has returned. If you don't choose to believe the Headmaster, then you don't believe me.... I am absolutely not going to waste an entire Saturday afternoon trying to convince anyone in this room that Voldemort has returned. Believe it or don't."
Zacharias spoke dismissively, waving a hand. "All Dumbledore told us last June was that Cedric Diggory was killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought his body back to the lawn. He didn't give us the details. He didn't tell us exactly 'how' Diggory got murdered. I think everyone here would like to know—"
"If you've come here today to hear what it looks like when Voldemort murders a student, then I can't help you," Harry said, his voice dropping into an icy register.
"Who brought this guy along?" Lucifer growled darkly, his eyes fixed on Smith. "I suggest you kindly shut the fuck up, Smith. If you don't, I can easily demonstrate right now exactly how I think the Dark Lord murders people. And trust me... I know the precise magic required to keep your body completely awake and alive so you can watch the entire brutality unfold."
Zacharias visibly shrank into his chair, a cold shiver running straight down his spine as the terrifying threat hung in the dark room.
"Look, I am not here to talk about Cedric," Harry said to the quiet, stunned bar. "And if that is the only reason anyone showed up today, then clear out of the room right now, because I am not doing it, and I am not going to entertain the possibility of it. So leave if that is all you came to hear about."
No one got up from their chairs to leave, not even a trembling Zacharias Smith, though he continued to gaze intently at Harry.
"So..." Hermione began again, clearing her throat to break the heavy silence. "So, like I was saying... if you want to learn real Defense, then we need to work out exactly how we are going to do it. We need to select a specific day we can meet up that doesn't conflict with all of our other extracurricular activities and Quidditch schedules."
Before she could lay out the calendar, Susan Bones eagerly spoke up from the front row. "Harry... is it true? Is it true that you can cast a real Patronus?"
"Yeah... it's true..." Harry said, looking a bit defensive.
"A full, corporeal Patronus?" Susan asked again, her eyes wide.
"Wait, I never thanked your Aunt Amelia for her fairness during my Ministry hearing back then," Harry immediately corrected his defensive stance, his voice shifting into a grateful tone. "I am really grateful to her, otherwise my wand would have been snapped by Fudge."
"Is it also true that your Patronus is a Stag?" Susan asked eagerly, ignoring the politics.
"Yes," Harry actually smiled broadly when he answered.
"Blimey, Harry," Lee Jordan said, looking deeply impressed from the back table. "I never knew you could pull off magic like that!"
'Lucifer can cast one too... a magnificent, dragon... or did you conveniently choose to forget that display, Harry?' Hermione thought to herself, her eyes darting to her boyfriend. 'And why is my idiot sitting there saying nothing to show off?'
"Mum told Ron not to spread the rumor around," Fred said, grinning widely at Harry. "She said you got quite enough public attention as it was."
"She's definitely not wrong about that..." Harry mumbled, and a few people laughed softly, the tension in the room finally lifting.
From the dark corner of the pub, Lucifer caught a sudden, subtle movement from the heavily veiled witch as she shifted very slightly in her seat. He squinted through the candlelit gloom, his sharp eyes picking up a familiar magical aura beneath the black lace. 'Mundungus Fletcher?' he thought, his jaw clenching. 'Next time we talk to Sirius through the fire, I am going to demand an answer for why his thief was sent here to spy on us.'
"And did you actually kill a Basilisk with that silver sword hanging in Dumbledore's office?" Terry Boot demanded from the Ravenclaw table, his tone more of an interrogation than a question. "That's exactly what one of the old portraits on the wall told me when I was sent up there last year..."
"No, no," Harry said quickly, waving his hands. "That was actually entirely Lucifer's doing."
Lucifer turned his face up upon hearing his name echoed across the room. Dozens of wide, awed eyes focused squarely on his tall frame; he caught sight of both Parvati and Padma Patil as they softly whispered "wow" to each other under their breath.
"But back in our First Year," Neville Longbottom said proudly to the group at large, his chin lifting, "he saved the Philosophical Stone—"
"Philosopher's Stone, Neville," Hermione corrected automatically.
"Yes, that! He saved it straight from You-Know-Who!" Neville finished triumphantly.
xxxxxx
"Yeah, but I would have never gotten through the fire trap in our first year if it weren't for Hermione," Harry said honestly, leaning forward to address the crowded tables. "And that giant enchanted chessboard? We only got past that because Lucifer used wandless magic to literally turn the stone pieces into a pile of ashes. He also killed that adult Manticore, which would have shredded Hermione and me apart before we even reached the mirror."
"But you were still the one who had to face off against him to save the Philosopher's Stone!" Justin Finch-Fletchley said loudly, slamming a hand on his table.
"And that's not to mention," Cho Chang said, drawing every eye in the room to her corner as her voice softened, "All the terrifying tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year. Getting past nesting dragons, merpeople, Acromantulas, and things..."
"Lucifer also saved some of us from that Hungarian Horntail, though, before that giant falling rock could crush us into the dirt," Ginny Weasley interjected, her eyes flashing.
"And he dove straight into the Black Lake to rescue Fleur's little sister, coming back to the shore with severe injuries from the Merpeople," Hannah Abbott added, her voice thick with open admiration.
A low, deeply impressed murmur of absolute agreement rippled around the dirty tables for both Harry and Lucifer.
"And besides, Lucifer is easily the strongest wizard on Earth," Luna Lovegood said solemnly, her dreamy voice carrying an unexpected weight. "He knows far more complex spells than most adult witches and wizards, and he is entirely unbeatable in a formal duel." A faint, delicate tinge of pink colored her cheeks as she spoke.
"So, are we in full agreement that we want to practically learn from both Harry and Lucifer?" Hermione asked the crowd as a whole. She tried her best to ignore the sudden churning in her stomach, keeping her possessive glare toward the enamored RavenClaws to a minimum.
"Why not just have Lucifer teach us the whole course?" Padma Patil asked, eyeing him suggestively from across the aisle.
"Because I have never personally faced Voldemort in open combat," Lucifer said smoothly, the brutal word causing a sudden, collective shudder to ripple through most of the students again. "Harry has."
No one could find a logical argument to use against that statement. They probably could have tried, but looking at the rigid set of Lucifer's jaw, nobody wanted to invoke his wrath, so they stayed perfectly quiet. Marietta Edgcombe let out a small, terrified shriek at the name.
Terry Boot's hand gave a nervous twitch against his cup, and many others reacted strongly before looking eagerly between Harry and Lucifer.
xxxxxxx
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