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"Yes, when you were telling us what it's like to face Voldemort. You said it wasn't just memorizing a bunch of spells, you said it was just you and your brains and your guts - well, wasn't that what Snape was saying. That it really comes down to being brave and quick-thinking." Harry was so disarmed that she had thought his words as well worth memorizing as The Standard Book of Spells that he did not argue.
"Harry! Hey, Harry!" Harry looked around; Jack Sloper, one of the Beaters on last year's Gryffindor Quidditch team, was hurrying toward him holding a roll of parchment.
"For you," panted Sloper. "Listen, 1 heard you're the new Captain. When're you holding trials." "I'm not sure yet," said Harry, thinking privately that Sloper would be very lucky to get back on the team. "I'll let you know." "Oh, right. I was hoping it'd be this weekend -" "But Harry was not listening; he had just recognized the thin, slanting writing on the parchment. Leaving Sloper in mid-sentence, he hurried away with Ron and Hermione, unrolling the parchment as he went.
Dear Harry, I would like to start our private lessons this Saturday. Kindly come along to my office at 8 P.M. I hope you are enjoying your first day back at school.
Yours sincerely, Albus Dumbledore P.S. I enjoy Acid Pops.
"He enjoys Acid Pops." said Ron, who had read the message over Harry's shoulder and was looking perplexed.
"It's the password to get past the gargoyle outside his study," said Harry in a low voice.
"Ha! Snape's not going to be pleased. . . . I won't be able to do his detention!" He, Ron, and Hermione spent the whole of break speculating on what Dumbledore would teach Harry. Ron thought it most likely to be spectacular jinxes and hexes of the type the Death Eaters would not know. Hermione said such things were illegal, and thought it much more likely that Dumbledore wanted to teach Harry advanced Defensive magic. After break, she went off to Arithmancy while Harry and Ron returned to the common room where they grudgingly started Snape's homework. This turned out to be so complex that they still had not finished when Hermione joined them for their after-lunch free period (though she considerably speeded up the process). They had only just finished when the bell rang for the afternoon's double Potions and they
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