"The key players in all of this are Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw," she said. "They aren’t complete enemies of Gryffindor the way we are, but they still won’t be happy to hear that their neighbour has built up such a large army. So we need to keep them in reserve as possible allies. Still, they’ll never join us as allies unless we look like we have a good chance of taking the Weasleys – and to do that, we need our own army. You know we’ve been banned from having an army for years. But using the blackmail I found, we can convince Dumbledore to allow us to have an army. Then if war does come, we’re in a far stronger position to bargain. And we can go from there."