Hermione rolled her eyes, but Harry’s spirits soared: The thought of Christmas at the Burrow was truly wonderful, only slightly marred by Harry’s guilty feeling that he would not be able to spend the holiday with Sirius. He wondered whether he could possibly persuade Mrs. Weasley to invite his godfather for the festivities too, but apart from the fact that he doubted whether Dumbledore would permit Sirius to leave Grimmauld Place, he could not help but feel that Mrs. Weasley might not want him; they were so often at loggerheads. Sirius had not contacted Harry at all since his last appearance in the fire, and although Harry knew that with Umbridge on the constant watch it would be unwise to attempt to contact him, he did not like to think of Sirius alone in his mother’s old house, perhaps pulling a lonely cracker with Kreacher.
Harry arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays and was very glad he had, because when the lamps burst into light he saw that Dobby had taken it upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas. He could tell the elf had done it, because nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry’s face and bearing the legend HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!
Harry had only just managed to get the last of them down before the door creaked open and Luna Lovegood entered, looking dreamy as always.
“Hello,” she said vaguely, looking around at what remained of the decorations. “These are nice, did you put them up?”
“No,” said Harry, “it was Dobby the house-elf.”
“Mistletoe,” said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over Harry’s head. He jumped out from under it. “Good thinking,” said Luna very seriously. “It’s often infested with nargles.”
Harry was saved the necessity of asking what nargles were by the arrival of Angelina, Katie, and Alicia. All three of them were breathless and looked very cold.
“Well,” said Angelina dully, pulling off her cloak and throwing it into a corner, “we’ve replaced you.”
“Replaced me?” said Harry blankly.
“You and Fred and George,” she said impatiently. “We’ve got another Seeker!”
“Who?” said Harry quickly.
“Ginny Weasley,” said Katie.
Harry gaped at her.
“Yeah, I know,” said Angelina, pulling out her wand and flexing her arm. “But she’s pretty good, actually. Nothing on you, of course,” she said, throwing him a very dirty look, “but as we can’t have you . . .”
Harry bit back the retort he was longing to utter: Did she imagine for a second that he did not regret his expulsion from the team a hundred times more than she did?
“And what about the Beaters?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
“Andrew Kirke,” said Alicia without enthusiasm, “and Jack Sloper. Neither of them are brilliant, but compared with the rest of the idiots who turned up . . .”
The arrival of Ron, Hermione, and Neville brought this depressing discussion to an end and within five minutes, the room was full enough to prevent him seeing Angelina’s burning, reproachful looks.
“Okay,” he said, calling them all to order. “I thought this evening we should just go over the things we’ve done so far, because it’s the last meeting before the holidays and there’s no point starting anything new right before a three-week break —”
“We’re not doing anything new?” said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have come . . .”
“We’re all really sorry Harry didn’t tell you, then,” said Fred loudly.
Several people sniggered. Harry saw Cho laughing and felt the familiar swooping sensation in his stomach, as though he had missed a step going downstairs.
“We can practice in pairs,” said Harry. “We’ll start with the Impediment Jinx, just for ten minutes, then we can get out the cushions and try Stunning again.”
They all divided up obediently; Harry partnered Neville as usual. The room was soon full of intermittent cries of “Impedimenta!” People froze for a minute or so, during which their partners would stare aimlessly around the room watching other pairs at work, then would unfreeze and take their turn at the jinx.
Neville had improved beyond all recognition. After a while, when Harry had unfrozen three times in a row, he had Neville join Ron and Hermione again so that he could walk around the room and watch the others. When he passed Cho she beamed at him; he resisted the temptation to walk past her several more times.
After ten minutes on the Impediment Jinx, they laid out cushions all over the floor and started practicing Stunning again. Space was really too confined to allow them all to work this spell at once; half the group observed the others for a while, then swapped over. Harry felt himself positively swelling with pride as he watched them all. True, Neville did Stun Padma Patil rather than Dean, at whom he had been aiming, but it was a much closer miss than usual, and everybody else had made enormous progress.
At the end of an hour, Harry called a halt.
“You’re getting really good,” he said, beaming around at them. “When we get back from the holidays we can start doing some of the big stuff — maybe even Patronuses.”
There was a murmur of excitement. The room began to clear in the usual twos and threes; most people wished Harry a Happy Christmas as they went. Feeling cheerful, he collected up the cushions with Ron and Hermione and stacked them neatly away. Ron and Hermione left before he did; he hung back a little, because Cho was still there and he was hoping to receive a Merry Christmas from her.
“No, you go on,” he heard her say to her friend Marietta, and his heart gave a jolt that seemed to take it into the region of his Adam’s apple.
He pretended to be straightening the cushion pile. He was quite sure they were alone now and waited for her to speak. Instead, he heard a hearty sniff.
He turned and saw Cho standing in the middle of the room, tears pouring down her face.
“Wha — ?”
He didn’t know what to do. She was simply standing there, crying silently.
“What’s up?” he said feebly.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m — sorry,” she said thickly. “I suppose . . . it’s just . . . learning all this stuff. . . . It just makes me . . . wonder whether . . . if he’d known it all . . . he’d still be alive . . .”