Snape and Lily's daughter

Dumbledore's Army

Today would be the first meeting of the group to take Defense Against the Dark Arts classes with Harry. The place chosen could not have been better, the Room of Requirement.

Grace and her friends entered the room. It was very spacious, the walls were covered with bookshelves, and instead of chairs, the floor was filled with silk cushions. There was a shelf with objects such as Sneakoscope, Secrecy Sensors, and a large cracked Foe-Glass.

"These will be good when we're practicing Stunning," Grace said, talking about the cushions.

"And just look at these books!" Hermione said excitedly. "Harry, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!"

Soon they heard a knock at the door. Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Parvati and Dean had arrived.

"What is this place?" Dean asked, staring around.

But just as Harry began to explain, more people arrived. By the time the clock struck eight o'clock, all the cushions were taken.

"Well," Harry said nervously. "This is the place we've found for practices, and you've — er — obviously found it okay —"

"It's fantastic!" Cho said, several people murmured in agreement.

"It's bizarre," Fred said, frowning. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then..."

"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and — er —" Harry said, but then he noticed someone had raised their hand. "What, Hermione?"

"I think we ought to elect a leader," Hermione spoke.

"Harry's leader," Cho said.

"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," Hermione said. "It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So — everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?"

Everyone raised their hands, even Zacharias Smith.

"I also think we ought to have a name," Hermione said brightly. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" Grace suggested.

"Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?" Fred said.

"I was thinking," Hermione said, frowning at Fred. "more of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings."

"The Defense Association?" Astoria said. "The D.A. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"

"Yeah, the D.A.'s good," Ginny said. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"

"All in favor of the D.A.?" Hermione asked. "That's a majority — motion passed!"

She pinned the piece of paper with all of their names on it on the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY across the top in large letters.

"Right," Harry spoke. "shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful —"

"Oh please," Zacharias Smith said, rolling his eyes. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"

Grace rolled her eyes. She was running out of patience with him.

"I've used it against him," Harry said quietly. "It saved my life last June."

Grace snorted as she saw that Zacharias' mouth was open. The rest remained silent.

"But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave," Harry said.

He didn't move.

"Okay," Harry said. "I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."

Everyone got up and began to divide up. Grace was with Blaise, Astoria with Daphne, Melia with Susan, and Ella with Megan.

"Right — on the count of three, then — one, two, three —"

The room was suddenly full of shouts of 'Expelliarmus!'. Wands flew in all directions, missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air.

On her first try Grace managed to disarm Blaise. When Harry went to the middle of the room, he noticed something wrong with Zacharias. Every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony Goldstein, the wand flew out of his hand. When he went to look, Grace and Blaise were taking turns pulling the wand out of Blaise's hand with the Wingardium Leviosa spell.

"Sorry, Harry," Grace said. "Couldn't resist..."

Harry was watching the other pairs. Grace saw that he stopped at Cho and started talking to her.

"Hey, Harry," Hermione called, after some time. "have you checked the time?"

He blew his whistle and everybody stopped what they were doing.

"Well, that was pretty good," Harry said. "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"

Everyone agreed.

Then Harry let everyone leave the room in groups of three or four, so as not to attract attention.

Grace left with Blaise, Melia and Susan. Then she took the opportunity and started talking to Melia and Susan.

"How are you two doing?" Grace asked curiously.

"Great. We went out together every weekend to go to Hogsmeade." Melia said.

"I'm really happy for you!" Grace said.

As it was late, everyone went back to their dormitories. Before going up to hers, Grace kissed Blaise goodbye, Draco, who was with Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy in the Common Room, watched the two of them with contempt.

Grace and her friends were soon all in the dormitory. Grace noticed that Melia had a bigger smile on her face.

"What's up, Melia?" Grace asked.

"You won't believe it! Susan and I had our first kiss today!" Melia said excitedly.