Harry had no choice but to leave Hagrid mopping up the dung all over his floor, but he felt thoroughly dispirited as he trudged back up to the castle.
Meanwhile, as the teachers and Hermione persisted in reminding them, the O.W.L.s were drawing ever nearer. All the fifth years were suffering from stress to some degree, but Hannah Abbott became the first to receive a Calming Draught from Madam Pomfrey after she burst into tears during Herbology and sobbed that she was too stupid to take exams and wanted to leave school now.
If it had not been for the D.A. lessons, Harry thought he would have been extremely unhappy. He sometimes felt that he was living for the hours he spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying himself at the same time, swelling with pride as he looked around at his fellow D.A. members and saw how far they had come. Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the D.A. received “Outstanding” in their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s.
They had finally started work on Patronuses, which everybody had been very keen to practice, though as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit classroom when they were not under threat was very different to producing it when confronted by something like a dementor.
“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy,” said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement during their last lesson before Easter. “They’re so pretty!”
“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to protect you,” said Harry patiently. “What we really need is a boggart or something; that’s how I learned, I had to conjure a Patronus while the boggart was pretending to be a dementor —”
“But that would be really scary!” said Lavender, who was shooting puffs of silver vapor out of the end of her wand. “And I still — can’t — do it!” she added angrily.
Neville was having trouble too. His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver smoke issued from his wand-tip.
“You’ve got to think of something happy,” Harry reminded him.
“I’m trying,” said Neville miserably, who was trying so hard his round face was actually shining with sweat.
“Harry, I think I’m doing it!” yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever D.A. meeting by Dean. “Look — ah — it’s gone. . . . But it was definitely something hairy, Harry!”
Hermione’s Patronus, a shining silver otter, was gamboling around her.
“They are sort of nice, aren’t they?” she said, looking at it fondly.
The door of the Room of Requirement opened and then closed again; Harry looked around to see who had entered, but there did not seem to be anybody there. It was a few moments before he realized that the people close to the door had fallen silent. Next thing he knew, something was tugging at his robes somewhere near the knee. He looked down and saw, to his very great astonishment, Dobby the house-elf peering up at him from beneath his usual eight hats.
“Hi, Dobby!” he said. “What are you — what’s wrong?”
For the elf’s eyes were wide with terror and he was shaking. The members of the D.A. closest to Harry had fallen silent now: Everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.
“Harry Potter, sir . . .” squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, “Harry Potter, sir . . . Dobby has come to warn you . . . but the house-elves have been warned not to tell . . .”
He ran headfirst at the wall: Harry, who had some experience of Dobby’s habits of self-punishment, made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.
“What’s happened, Dobby?” Harry asked, grabbing the elf’s tiny arm and holding him away from anything with which he might seek to hurt himself.
“Harry Potter . . . she . . . she . . .”
Dobby hit himself hard on the nose with his free fist: Harry seized that too.
“Who’s ‘she,’ Dobby?”
But he thought he knew — surely only one “she” could induce such fear in Dobby? The elf looked up at him, slightly cross-eyed, and mouthed wordlessly.
“Umbridge?” asked Harry, horrified.
Dobby nodded, then tried to bang his head off Harry’s knees; Harry held him at bay.
“What about her? Dobby — she hasn’t found out about this — about us — about the D.A.?”
He read the answer in the elf’s stricken face. His hands held fast by Harry, the elf tried to kick himself and sank to his knees.
“Is she coming?” Harry asked quietly.
Dobby let out a howl. “Yes, Harry Potter, yes!”
Harry straightened up and looked around at the motionless, terrified people gazing at the thrashing elf.
“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Harry bellowed. “RUN!”
They all pelted toward the exit at once, forming a scrum at the door, then people burst through; Harry could hear them sprinting along the corridors and hoped they had the sense not to try and make it all the way to their dormitories. It was only ten to nine, if they just took refuge in the library or the Owlery, which were both nearer —
“Harry, come on!” shrieked Hermione from the center of the knot of people now fighting to get out.
He scooped up Dobby, who was still attempting to do himself serious injury, and ran with the elf in his arms to join the back of the queue.