Chapter 194: Communication Methods

"Want to check how are they doing?" Chris asked Harry.

"Let's go," Harry said and they set off into the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Zacharias Smith; every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound. Chris doubted Anthony was using a nonverbal spell, however; Fred and George were several feet from Smith and taking it in turns to point their wands at his back.

"We got your back, Chris." George grinned as he caught her eye.

Chris and Harry laughed and moved on. They tried to correct those who were doing the spell wrong. Ginny, Luna and Colin were also great so they were helping their partners to do it properly. Chris noticed Ginny had intentionally paired up with Neville, rather than her boyfriend Michael. Luna was working with Justin Finch-Fletchley and Colin was working with his brother Dennis, who was enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them. Ernie Macmillan was flourishing his wand unnecessarily, giving his partner time to get in under his guard; the two Ravenclaw girls in Chris's year were not that good but determined to cast the spell, Chris helped them as Harry went to the Patil sister.

"Don't move your wand that much," Chris said to them. 

One of the girls seriously nodded and cried, "Expelliarmus," and the other girl's wand jumped out of her wand.

"I did it," the girl beamed looking at Chris. "Thanks."

"No problem," Chris replied.

"Hey listen, I'm Jane and this is Nora." She introduced them. "We have heard about you a lot from Luna. Thanks for teaching us, you know, not everybody cares if a bunch of teenagers are learning to defend themselves or not."

"Er. . . as I said no problem." Chris smiled politely then walked up to the next pair.

Melvin just disarmed Irena as Chris came to them.

"Wow Melvin," Chris grinned. "You are doing great."

"Thanks," Melvin looked red as always.

Somethings never change, Chris thought seeing Melvin's red face.

Irena opened her mouth to say something but at that moment a whistle sounded.

Chris looked around and saw Cedric blew the whistle. Everyone stopped and lowered their wands.

"That wasn't bad," said Harry.

"But there is lots of room for improvement," Cedric said curtly. Clearly, he wasn't trying to sugar coat the truth like Harry.

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Suddenly, a realisation hit Chris. She didn't feel what Cedric was going through, till now. Entering a championship to glorify your school and house and then suddenly witness a dark wizard coming back to his full-body form and barely manage to return from there, alive, were not that much of a good experience. Chris also realized why Cedric didn't slip into the teacher role properly, the reason was he wanted to learn. He still felt he was unprepared for the outside world and right now, he stepped up because he noticed how far the others were from him, so he wanted to prepare others for the things he faced. All of this was written on Cedric's face as he started to correct others. Chris smiled and continued her work.

When Chris was helping Alex who was working with Terry Boot, Hermione signed her to check the watch.

Chris looked at her watch and saw it was half-past nine.

"Harry! Cedric!" Chris called, luckily they both were near. "Check the time."

They both obeyed and looked shocked. Harry nodded and Cedric blew the whistle, everybody stopped shouting, "Expelliarmus!" and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor.

"Well, that was pretty good," said Harry, "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here." 

"Yeah, same time, same place next week?" Cedric suggested.

"Sooner!" said Dean Thomas eagerly and many people nodded in agreement.

"The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!" Angelina and Cedric said together.

They grinned at each other.

"Ok, so next Thursday night," Chris declared. "and we can decide on additional meetings then. . . . Come on, we'd better get going . . ."

Harry pulled out the Marauder's Map and checked it carefully for signs of teachers on the seventh floor. They let them all leave in threes and fours, watching their tiny dots anxiously to see that they returned safely to their dormitories: the Hufflepuffs to the basement corridor that also led to the kitchens, the Ravenclaws to a tower on the west side of the castle, and the Gryffindors along the corridor to the seventh floor and the Fat Lady's portrait.

"See you later," Cedric said as he left with two other Hufflepuff boys leaving Chris, Ginny, Colin, Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Chris insisted Luna to leave with Jane and Nora for safety.

"That was actually fun," Ron said.

"That was really, really good, Chris, Harry," said Hermione.

"Yeah, it was," Colin said.

Chris smiled then noticed Harry was distracted and was smiling to himself. But she didn't bother him as they made their way back to the Gryffindor tower.

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Next week Cedric decided to teach Impedimenta jinx. By the looks of it, it was very clear that all the D.A. members were practising as much as possible. 

But they had to postpone their third meeting as Hufflepuffs had their Quidditch practice. Other than that, one day Chris noticed Umbridge talking to Flich very happily, which was surely anything but good for the students. After eavesdropping enough Chris realized, Umbridge has a vague idea of what was going on in school. 

"I think Harry's sudden change in behaviour must have intrigued her," Hermione suggested one afternoon as she joined Chris, Ginny, Luna and Colin in the Room of Requirement. She had come to share an idea to communicate with other D.A. members.

"I think it's a good idea that we keep our meeting times unpredictable if she is seriously trying to catch one of us," Ginny said.

"Yeah and the fake Galleon idea is really great, Hermione," Chris said. 

And so they set work to make thirty-eight fake Galleons. The plan was whenever Chris, Harry or Cedric will change the date of the next meeting any one of them will change the numbers on their coin, and because there would a Protean Charm on the coins, they'll all change to mimic. Normally, on real Galleons, that's just a serial number referring to the goblin who cast the coin. On those fake coins, though, the numbers will change to reflect the time and date of the next meeting and the coins will grow hot with the changing of the date and time.

These gave Chris an idea.

"You know I think we should do something like that among us," she suggested after Hermione left.

"Like what?" Luna asked.

"Like something which can help us communicate among us. Only four of us. And I mean actual communicate, not just that number thing."

"Like a Patronus?" Ginny said. "I was looking into it. You know, Patronus can help us to send messages."

"Yeah but the problem with Patronus is everyone else with you can see them. I want something only we four can understand." Chris said.

All four of them racked their brains for several minutes.

"How about a talisman?" Luna said finally. "We could wear it and we could fuse it with a bit of us so that it recognizes only us. That way only we can give and take messages from it."

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To be continued...