Chapter 579: Chapter 578 Night Talk (Edited)
"Fish," Hermione looked around cautiously, then leaned close to Fish's ear, who was lying lazily on the table, and asked quietly, "Did Minerva report to you today?"
"What?"
?ω?
Fish was in a gawking state and didn't respond to what Hermione was saying.
"It's about the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, didn't she say she was going to talk to Dumbledore about it?"
"No... Maybe Albus isn't back yet, or he hasn't had time?"
Fish replied absently as he stretched and then dropped back into his seat.
He was in no hurry and too exhausted to talk to Dumbledore about Umbridge or the big tree of his dreams.
Unlike Fish, Hermione's other classes were getting more and more intense, which made Defense Against the Dark Arts seem pointless, and that made Hermione, who took her O.W.L. exams very seriously, feel a growing sense of urgency.
"How long is this going to take? Umbridge isn't even going to teach us Defense Against the Dark Arts, what are we going to do for our O.W.L. exams at this rate?" she muttered worriedly.
Fish, who wanted to lie quietly for a while, was annoyed by her muttering, so he flicked his ears, turned his head to the side and looked at Hermione with rolled eyes, silently expressing his displeasure.
(?ω?)
"Ah... sorry..." Hermione noticed Fish's look and blushed, "I was just in a hurry. "
Fish decisively threw his upper body into Hermione's arms, leaning back on her lap, asking curiously, "What's the hurry? Even if there's a test, won't it be on what you're teaching?".
Although Fish wasn't much of a listener, he had been at the school for at least four years and knew its basic workings.
"O.W.L. exams are different," Hermione shook her head, her right hand placed over Fish's cat ear, rubbing it gently, "The exams are administered by the Ministry of Magic's Wizardry Examining Authority, it's not the teachers at the school who decide the questions, even the examiners are Ministry staff."
"What's the difference? Isn't that old frog sent by the Ministry?". wondered Fish.
"... Huh?"
Hermione froze for a moment, suddenly realizing that if the Ministry really wanted to prove that there was something wrong with Hogwarts' teaching, they wouldn't have prepared questions for the O.W.L. exams that went beyond the content of Umbridge's lectures, or even simplified the content as much as possible.
If the Department of Magic was comparing the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, then the difficulty would be placed in the context of Umbridge's previous classes.
If that was the case, there was really no need to rush....
Hermione was a little relieved to have found out, but not entirely.
"Even if we don't have to worry about exams, we still need to learn spells, especially..." Hermione looked around cautiously again, then lowered her head and whispered, "Especially with You-Know-Who coming back, We could be attacked at any time and we should have as many means of self-protection as possible."
"Fish can protect you nya!"
?(ΦωΦ)?
Fish told her shaking his fist.
Hermione smiled happily at first, then shook her head and said, "I know you're good, and I'm sure you can protect me, but what about the rest of the class? You can't protect everyone twenty-four hours a day, can you?"
"Nya..." Fish was stunned, looked at Hermione and asked curiously, "So what are you trying to do, Hermione?"
"It's not what I want to do, it's that I want Dumbledore to get Umbridge to teach us something really practical in her Defense Against the Dark Arts class, so that if we're attacked in the future, we'll be better able to defend ourselves." explained Hermione earnestly.
Fish cocked his head to the side for a moment and concluded, "Hermione you mean, so that everyone will want to learn how to fight right nya?"
"Well...you could say yes." Hermione replied dumbfounded.
"That's easy enough," Fish said as he shook his head and rubbed against Hermione's thigh, "Fish can take you to the Forbidden Forest and find Fluffy, Shadow and Buckbeak to be your opponents nya, you'll learn how to fight if you fight them more nya. "
(`)
Having earlier taken Harry to the Forbidden Forest for special training, Fish quickly came up with a solution.
And Fish followed up with another solution...
"And have Severus or Filius restart the second year dueling club nya."
Fish, who was distraught for her mother, didn't mention Professor McGonagall, twitched his ears and continued, "Fish actually likes that club meow, too bad the others are too weak to fight Fish."
And Hermione froze once again at his words, then muttered under her breath, "Yes... you can still do that..."
Then, Miss Know-it-all began to sink into deep thoughts, as Fish adjusted the position of his head, then closed his eyes to comfortably enjoy the pillow on his girlfriend's lap.
(?ω?)
Neither Fish nor Hermione went out that night, Fish didn't want to move and Hermione had a lot of jumbled thoughts and needed time to sort them out.
After everyone had changed into their pajamas and crawled into their four-poster beds, Ron poked his head out from behind the curtain and said, "I desperately need George and Fred's candy to skip school."
His voice was full of weariness as he sighed, "I'm barely making any progress with my vanishing spell, and I'm sure Professor McGonagall will scold me for it tomorrow in Transfiguration class."
Then, a sigh of relief came from the other direction, from Neville, who had also made little progress with his vanishing spell, even worse than Ron's.
Harry, Seamus and Dean hadn't quite mastered the vanishing spell either, but they had made more progress and were more confident than Ron and Neville.
"You two are the ones who are too stupid." Fish followed Ron's lead and poked his head out from behind the curtain. "Fish and Hermione have taught them a dozen times, and they still can't remember how to wave their wands and when to wave them."
Fish wasn't entirely drowsy in the common room, afterwards he helped some students practice their vanishing spells on Hermione, Fish's eyes and ears were there and he was able to point out the mistakes the others were making in their spells.
Fish was undoubtedly responsible for Harry and the others making so much progress.
Only Ron and Neville's progress had been less remarkable, Neville's memory was known to be poor, but Ron's was a different story....
"You seem a bit distracted today nya," Fish pointed out Ron's problem bluntly, "Otherwise your progress wouldn't be so bad meow."
"Uh... Fish, you can see it...," Ron scratched his red hair, not denying it.
"What's wrong with you, Ron?" Harry poked his head out as well, looking at his best friend in surprise, wondering why he hadn't spoken to him.
Neville and the others also poked their heads through the curtain, looking at Ron, who had red ears.
"It's quidditch tryouts...," Ron said with a sigh, "I want to try out for goalkeeper, but I don't have my own flying broom."
He had been an alternate on the Gryffindor Quidditch team for four years, and normally a tryout wouldn't have been necessary, he would have been able to fill the void left by Wood's departure.
But since he didn't have his own flying broom, Ron had to remain a substitute.
"Isn't there a spare broom at school? Can't we borrow one?" asked Dean curiously, who didn't know much about how the quidditch team worked.
"Understudies are fine, but the starters have to have their own broom." Ron explained, "After all, the official matches are more intense, and the brooms take more wear and tear, and the school can't come up with brooms and maintain them for you."
"And the school's brooms are too old to use in competition." Harry added.
"Couldn't the school have paid for one like they did when Harry was recruited for the team?" asked Neville.
"The team doesn't have that kind of money..." Harry and Ron looked a little embarrassed as they explained, "In fact, Professor McGonagall put some money into buying Harry's Nimbus 2000 to get it."
Ron sighed again and said, "Mostly because last year there was Triwizard Tournament and no quidditch tournament, so the school didn't allocate money to the team. Besides... I'm not as good a flyer as Harry, and the team wouldn't pay me to be on the team."
"Why doesn't Fish give you one?" Fish cocked his head to the side and said, "Fish is going to give one to Minerva anyway, but Fish probably doesn't have enough money left to buy a good flying broom nya."
"It's too expensive! I don't want it!" Ron was startled and refused.
Harry, who also wanted to offer Ron one, shut his mouth silently.
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