BREATHE -draco malfoy

eleven.

"We've got to be able to defend ourselves. If Umbridge won't teach us, we'll find someone who will."

The plan had hatched in Hermione's head the second she had said this that night in the Gryffindor common room. Ana's stomach had turned. This was becoming all too real.

Umbridge had been taking over the school with growing ferocity for the past several weeks. There were new decrees every day giving her more and more power. She even tried to banish a faculty member from Hogwarts. Umbridge's power over the Hogwarts students was uncontrollable, even by Dumbledore, no matter how much he tried to stifle her. But at the news that things were getting bad again, the four Gryffindor friends decided to spring into action.

"Stupefy!" Ana called out, pointing her wand at the dummy in the Room of Requirement. At Ana's utterance of the powerful curse, the dummy flew backwards with force, hitting the wall across from where she stood. Ana felt powerful, free.

"Excellent, Ana!" Harry said as he passed by her, rushing around the room to help the dozen other witches and wizards, who were also practicing their offensive spells. Ana was keeping up well with the rest of Harry's pupils and she felt a rush of excitement every time she stepped into the Room of Requirement, the meeting place for Dumbledore's Army, a group formed to learn how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts. Harry was a brilliant teacher, far better than Umbridge.

"Focus, Neville, that's it!"

Dumbledore's Army was thriving. With every new lesson, they were learning more and more about how to defend themselves from You-Know-Who, skills that would soon prove to be very important. Ana enjoyed having this little part of her life, and she was learning a lot and becoming an excellent young wizard, but not everything about being in Dumbledore's Army was easy. Umbridge was cracking down hard, trying to figure out what they were up to. She had even set up an "Inquisitorial Squad" to investigate what Harry and the others were doing. They hadn't been caught yet, but in the months that followed, more and more problems were arising, the biggest one being within Ana's own romantic life.

"You seriously joined?" Ana had asked Draco one afternoon as they sat in a secluded part of the library, as she had seen the medal attached to the front of his Slytherin robes. Draco was playing with Ana's fingertips and brought the pad of her thumb up to his mouth, leaving a soft kiss on her skin.

"We know Potter's up to something," Draco said quietly. Draco suspected that Ana was involved, as he had been seeing her around Potter so often that year that he had started to become jealous. But Draco refused to ask her about it, as he truly didn't want to know. Ana sighed, leaning on her elbow.

"But Umbridge is vile." Ana complained quietly as Draco kissed her knuckle, right above the silver ring which, surprisingly, none of her friends had noticed had a small engraved serpent on it, cluing in to her relationship status. Umbridge simply having a bad personality wasn't the only reason that Ana hated the idea of Draco working with her. There were so many things that Draco didn't know. Things that Harry had told her, about Voldemort and his army and the war at hand, coming soon.

"Let's not talk about it," Draco murmured to her, looking around the library quickly before pressing his lips to hers in a feather soft kiss, just barely brushing the skin against hers. It left Ana's head spinning, as Draco always did.

As the term continued on, Draco and Ana had been finding ways to see each other as often as they could, although she had, regrettably, not been able to spend another night in his bed. They met often in the astronomy tower after dark, sat in vacant, secluded corners of the library, and had become very familiar with the abandoned girls lavatory.

Ana dropped the matter and didn't bring it up again. It was like an unspoken rule between them. Draco didn't ask her about DA and Ana never talked to him about his duties as a member of the Inquisitorial Squad. The hardest part about being in Dumbledore's Army was that she couldn't talk to Draco about it, as she so desperately wanted to. She wanted to tell him all the things that were happening so that maybe he would understand why the DA was so important. But Harry had sworn her to secrecy. He hadn't known then that Draco Malfoy was someone that Ana could potentially tell. The months continued on in a flash, Ana's fifth year passing by quickly. Christmas came and went, the second term started, and before Ana knew it, final exams were starting. The OWLs had everyone stressed, and Ana and Draco had to give up some of their meeting times for studying, but they still found little moments together, their relationship blossoming more and more the longer it continued on, despite their differences relating to Umbridge.