It was a mistake walking to Charms alone the next morning. Of course, as usual, I had decided to be late to class as I had much preferred to make out with Fred in our dorm than turn up on time.  

And so, I had been lazily wandering the empty corridors alone, taking the long way to class, when Floppy had snatched me into an unused classroom. The Three Douchebags were with him, all sneering at me, lined up behind the door, and as Floppy dragged me through it, struggling to keep a hold on my violently thrashing body, they moved in front of it and Ash turned the lock. 

"What the fuck do you freaks want now?" I snarled as Floppy threw me into a chair. His grey eyes glittered as he crouched down in front of me, his evil little smirk twisting his face. 

"I thought the Dark Lord made that quite clear." Floppy tilted his head. "Hm. Maybe you're not as smart as we'd thought. Open wide." 

"What?" My eyes widened as Floppy's hand approached my face quickly. I ducked, letting his hand fly over the top of my head, something yellow falling out of his palm and into my hair. 

"Fuck." Floppy cursed, reaching for my hair as I sat back up. I struggled away from him, falling out of the chair, and kicked at him as he moved towards me. I scrambled up, backing away, my heart pounding. 

"Let me go. Right. Now." I panted, moving sideways towards the Three Douchbags in front of the classroom door. Ash, Spieler, and Rudd smirked, flexing their arms at me, and I gritted my teeth. 

Floppy moved slowly towards me, cautiously as if he was dealing with an unexploded land mine. My heart beat faster. 

Movement out of the corner of my eye made me whip towards the door. I could see through the window Terry and Anthony Goldstein striding down the corridor, chatting. My heart lifted. 

"HOPPER! ANTHONY! IN HERE!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, reaching my arms up. "TERRY! PLEASE!" 

Floppy and Ash started towards me, probably to shut me up, but it was too late. Terry and Anthony turned, faces puzzled, then they spotted me. Terry's expression turned murderous as Anthony's twisted in even more confusion. Terry strode towards the door, Anthony hot on his heels, and pulled out his wand, flicking it with a flourish, and wrenched the door open. 

"Get the fuck away from my best friend." Terry spoke in a low, dangerous voice. His wand was pointed directly at Floppy. Anthony looked from me to the boys to Terry, then produced his own wand, pointing it at the Three Douchebags. 

Floppy, Ash, Spieler, and Rudd moved back, their hands up in the air. Floppy was still smirking his infuriating smirk, his eyes gleaming, but I hurried over to Terry and Anthony, clutching at Terry's robes. Terry pushed me behind him with his right hand. 

"Vespertilio Nasi!" My best friend hissed, and Floppy stumbled backwards into Spieler, his hands covering his face. His face was covered in tiny fluttering green bats, and I grinned as Terry tugged me out of the room. 

"You okay?" He breathed, enveloping me in his arms. I melted into him, squeezing him tight to me. 

"Yeah, I guess." I said. 

Anthony was watching, his mouth slightly open. 

"We were sent to find you by Flitwick after he waited fifteen min- why's there a Fainting Fancy in your hair?" Terry picked out the yellow thing from my wild curls, raising an eyebrow. 

"Shit." I whispered. "Floppy was trying to force that into my mouth." 

Terry looked as if he was going to explode. Anthony opened his mouth. 

"That Malfoy bastard was going to try to rape you again, wasn't he?" Terry hissed viciously.  

"Hang on; what?" Anthony finally spoke. "Malfoy tried to drug Daisy to rape her? And he's done this before?" 

"All on orders from Voldemort." Terry said through clenched teeth. "Apparently. I personally just think he's a piece of shit. But this is what we're fighting against, Tony. People like this monster. This is why we need to learn how to defeat them." 

Anthony looked at me solemnly, his light blue eyes concerned. 

~~~

We were allowed to remain inside over break due to the downpour outside. We found seats in a noisy and overcrowded classroom on the first floor in which Peeves was floating dreamily up near the chandelier, occasionally blowing an ink pellet at the top of somebody's head. We had barely sat down when Angelina came struggling towards us through the groups of gossiping students. 

"I've got permission!" She said. "To re-form the Quidditch team!" 

"Excellent!" Harry and I said together. 

"Yeah." Angelina said, beaming. "I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to Dumbledore. Anyway, Umbridge had to give in. Ha! So I want you down at the pitch at seven o'clock tonight, all right, because we've got to make up time. You realise we're only three weeks away from our first match?" 

She squeezed away from us, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from Peeves, which hit a nearby first-year instead, and vanished from sight. 

Terry took the opportunity to tell the others about what had happened with Floppy, and the others were immediately infuriated. 

"I'll fucking kill him." Harry punched the wall. 

"Calm down, Harry." I said. 

"Am I missing something? Who's this Floppy asshole?" Kylie asked. 

"A waste of oxygen." Shannon said. I leaned over to high-five her. 

"My wanker cousin." Draco said. 

They all took it in turns to tell Kylie about him and what he's been doing to me the past couple of years. I stayed silent, reading the millions of texts Fred and George had been frantically sending to me, asking if I was alright and what kind of torture method I preferred for them to do to Floppy when they hunted him down and got him alone. 

"Isn't he, Daisy?" 

I looked up. Everyone was looking at me. I shook my head. "I don't want to talk about it." 

Ron seemed to get it. He looked out of the window, which was now opaque with hammering rain. 

"Hope this clears up. What's up with you, Hermione?" 

She, too, was gazing at the window, but not as though she really saw it. Her eyes were unfocused and there was a frown on her face. 

"Just thinking..." She said, still frowning at the rain-washed window. 

"Not about Floppy?" I grumbled. I thought I'd been quite clear that we should move on from that topic of conversation. 

"No..." 

"About me?" I smirked. 

"No... not exactly..." Hermione said slowly. I pouted, and Terry patted me sympathetically. "More... wondering... I suppose we're doing the right thing...  I think... aren't we?" 

I looked at Terry. 

"Of course, Hermione. Neither of us are in a relationship with anyone. Is this the internalised homophobia talking?" 

Hermione looked at me as though she had only just realised I was there. 

"I was just wondering," She said, her voice stronger now, "whether we're doing the right thing, starting this Defence Against the Dark Arts group." 

"What?" Terry and I said together. 

"Hermione, it was your idea in the first place!" Ron said indignantly. 

"I know." Hermione said, twisting her fingers together. "But after talking to Snuffles..."

"Your godfather, right?" Kylie asked. 

"Yeah." I clarified, my mouth full of bubblegum. 

"But he's all for it, isn't he?" Draco said. "That's what Ter-bear said." 

I mimed puking as Terry beamed, batting his eyes at the bleach-blond boy. 

"Yes." Hermione said, staring at the window again. "Yes, that's what made me think maybe it wasn't a good idea after all..." 

Peeves floated over us on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all of us lifted our bags to cover our heads until he had passed. 

"Let's get this straight," Harry said angrily, as we put our bags back on the floor, "Sirius agrees with us, so you don't think we should do it any more?" 

"Yeah, Mynee, what the fuck?" I said. 

Hermione looked tense and rather miserable. Now staring at her own hands, she said, "Do you honestly trust his judgement?" 

"Obviously, we're basically the same person." I said. 

"Yes, I do!" Harry said. "He's always given us great advice!" 

An ink pellet whizzed past us, striking Kylie squarely in the ear. I watched Kylie leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully. 

"You don't think he has become... sort of... reckless... since he's been cooped up in Grimmauld Place? You don't think he's... kind of... living through us?" 

"What d'you mean, 'living through us?'" Harry retorted. 

"I mean... well, I think he'd love to be forming secret Defence societies right under the nose of someone from the Ministry... I think he's really frustrated at how little he can do where he is... so I think he's keen to kind of... egg us on." 

Ron looked utterly perplexed. 

"Sirius is right." He said. "You do sound just like my mother." 

Hermione bit her lip and did not answer. The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down on Kylie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head. 

The weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o'clock that evening, when Fred, George, and I went down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, we were soaked through within minutes, our feet slipping and sliding on the sodden grass. The sky was a deep, thundery grey and it was a relief to gain the warmth and light of the changing rooms, even if we knew the respite was only temporary. We were debating whether to use one of the Skiving Snackboxes to get out of flying. 

"But I bet she'd know what we'd done." Fred said out of the corner of his mouth. "If only I hadn't offered to sell her some Puking Pastilles yesterday." 

"We could try the Fever Fudge." George muttered. 

"Yeah, no one's seen that yet -" I started. 

"Does it work?" Ron enquired hopefully, as the hammering of rain on the roof intensified and wind howled around the building. 

"Well, yeah." Fred said. "Your temperature'll go right up." 

"But you get these massive pus-filled boils, too." George said. 

"And we haven't worked out how to get rid of them yet." I said. 

"I can't see any boils." Ron said, staring at us. 

I giggled. 

"No, well, you wouldn't." Fred said darkly. "They're not in a place we generally display to the public." 

"But Softpaw got off quite lucky. They make sitting on a broom a right pain in the -" 

"All right, everyone, listen up." Angelina said loudly, emerging from the Captain's office. "I know it's not ideal weather, but there's a chance we'll be playing Slytherin in conditions like this so it's a good idea to work out how we're going to cope with them. Harry, didn't you do something to your glasses to stop the rain fogging them up when we played Hufflepuff in that storm?" 

"Hermione did it." Harry said. He pulled out his wand, tapped his glasses and said, "Impervius!" 

"I think we all ought to try that." Angelina said. "If we could just keep the rain off our faces it would really help visibility - all together, come on - Impervius! OK. Let's go." 

We all stowed our wands back in the inside pockets of our robes, shouldered our brooms, and followed Angelina out of the changing rooms. 

We squelched through the deepening mud to the middle of the pitch; visibility was still very poor even with the Impervius Charm; light was fading fast and curtains of rain were sweeping the grounds. 

"All right, on my whistle!" Angelina shouted. 

I kicked off from the ground, spraying mud in all directions, and shot upwards, the wind pulling me slightly off course. I had no idea how I was going to see the Snitch in this weather; I was having enough difficulty seeing the one Bludger with which we were practising; a minute into the practice it almost unseated me and I had to use the Sloth Grip Roll to avoid it. Unfortunately, Angelina did not see this. In fact, she did not appear to be able to see anything; none of us had a clue what the others were doing.

The wind was picking up; even at a distance I could hear the swishing, pounding sounds of the rain pummelling the surface of the lake. 

Angelina kept us at it for nearly an hour before conceding defeat. She led her sodden and disgruntled team back into the changing rooms, insisting that the practice had not been a waste of time, though without any real conviction in her voice. Fred and George were looking particularly annoyed; both were bandy-legged and winced with every movement. 

"I think a few of mine have ruptured." Fred said in a hollow voice. 

"Mine haven't." George said through clenched teeth. "They're throbbing like mad... feel bigger if anything." 

Angelina and Katie huddled up into their cloaks and hurried out of the changing rooms, making a beeline towards the school. I attempted to towel-dry my insane hair, ruffling it vigorously. 

"OUCH!" Harry and I said simultaneously. 

I pressed the towel to my face, my eyes screwed tight with pain. The scar on my forehead had seared, more painfully than it had in weeks. 

"What's up?" Several voices said. 

I emerged from behind my towel; everyone's face was turned towards me and my twin. 

"What happened?" Ron said. 

"Was it your scars?" Fred asked, bending down in concern. 

Harry and I exchanged a glance and nodded. 

"But..." Looking scared, Ron strode across to the window and stared out into the rain. Fred and George joined him, their eyes wide. "He - he can't be near us now, can he?" 

"He better not be." Fred said lowly, his eyebrows furrowing and his fists clenching. "Don't worry, Softpaw; I've got you." 

"No," Harry muttered, sinking on to a bench and rubbing his forehead, "He's probably miles away..." 

"It hurt because... he's... angry." I said, collapsing beside him. 

I had not meant to say that at all, and heard the words as though a stranger had spoken them - yet knew at once that they were true. I did not know how I knew it, but I did; Riddle, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, was in a towering temper. 

"Did you see him?" Fred said, looking horrified. 

"Did you get a vision or something?" George said, his expression identical. 

I sat quite still, staring at my feet, allowing my mind and my memory to relax in the aftermath of the pain. 

A confused tangle of shapes, a howling rush of voices...

"He wants something done, and it's not happening fast enough." I said. 

Again, I felt surprised to hear the words coming out of my mouth, and yet was quite certain they were true. 

"But... how do you know?" Ron said. 

I shook my head and covered my eyes with my hands, pressing down upon them with my palms. Little stars erupted in them. Harry leaned his head on my shoulder. I felt the twins sit down on the bench on the other side of me and knew they were staring at me. 

"Is this what it was about last time?" Fred said in a hushed voice. "When your scar hurt in Umbridge's office? You-Know-Poo was angry?" 

I shook my head. 

"What is it, then?" 

I had been looking into Umbridge's face... my scar had hurt... and I had had that odd feeling in my stomach... a strange, leaping feeling... a happy feeling... but of course, I had not recognised it for what it was, as I had been feeling so miserable myself...

"Last time, it was because he was pleased." I said. "Really pleased. He thought... something good was going to happen." 

I looked round at the Weasley boys, who were all gaping at me. 

"You could take over from Trelawney, mate." Ron said in an awed voice. 

"I'm not making prophecies, though." I said. 

"No, you know what you're doing?" Ron said, sounding both scared and impressed. "Daisy, you're reading You-Know-Who's mind!" 

"Nah." I said, shaking my head. "It's more like... his mood, I guess. I'm just getting flashes of what mood the dickhead's in. Dumbledore said something like this was happening last year. He said that when Riddle was near me, or when he was feeling hatred, I could tell. Well, now I'm feeling it when he's pleased, too..." 

There was a pause. The wind and rain lashed at the building. 

"Well, time's ticking." Harry slapped his knees, getting up. "I want to change into my pyjamas. You alright, Daze?" I nodded. "Okay, let's go, Ron." 

Him and Ron huddled up, bracing themselves, then stepped out into the rain. I turned to Fred, placing a hand on his knee. He glanced down at me, a small smirk toying at the edges of his mouth. 

"Why don't I distract you from those boils, huh?" I murmured. 

"I'll just leave then, shall I?" George said, amused, and swept out of the changing rooms. 

"Yes please." Fred said eagerly. I grinned, swinging my leg over him, and planted my ass right in his lap. Fred gazed at me, his eyes darkening, and I leaned in. Our lips connected, and I moved mine with his passionately, letting his tongue slip into my mouth. I rocked gently in his lap, feeling him harden underneath me, and I smiled into his mouth as his hands wandered all over my body. 

I slowly reached down into his Quidditch bottoms, under his pants, and grabbed him. Fred groaned loudly into my mouth. I moved my hand up and down, slowly at first, then sped up as Fred's mouth moved from mine to my neck, biting at my skin. His moans and sighs turned me on, and I quickly withdrew my hand from his bottoms to spit in my palm, then dug my hand into his bottoms once more, grasping him, rubbing him, faster and faster, until Fred caught the skin of my shoulder in his teeth, groaning my name so loud he was almost yelling, and I felt warm fluid leaking all over my hand. 

"I hope that wasn't your boil rupturing." I said. 

Fred snorted into my neck. "Shut up, Daisy." 

~~~ 

The common room was slowly emptying around us as we lounged in our regular armchairs. I tried to do some homework as the twins sneaked off into the sixth year boys' dorms to pull a prank with Lee, and I stayed up with Harry as the others went to bed. Harry dozed off, and I couldn't help but want to as well as the warmth of the fireplace rolled over me... 

The book slipped from my slack grip and landed with a dull thud on the hearthrug. My head lolled sideways... 

I was walking once more along a windowless corridor, my footsteps echoing in the silence. As the door at the end of the passage loomed larger, my heart beat fast with excitement... if I could only open it... enter beyond... 

I stretched out my hand... my fingertips were inches from it...

If I couldn't have the girl right now, what was behind this door could near enough make up for it... 

"Daisy!" 

I blinked blearily. Kylie was standing in front of me, munching on a pumpkin pastie. 

"You okay? You were muttering and tossing in your sleep." 

"Yeah." I said quietly, glancing at my brother. He was still asleep. "What you doing up?" 

Kylie held up her pastie. "I sneaked down to the kitchens for a snack. Here, I spoke to Dobby that house-elf while I was down there. I think I may have found us a venue."

"Oh?" I sat forward in interest. 

"It's a room that a person can only enter when they have real need of it. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not, but when it appears, apparently it is always equipped for the seeker's needs. Dobby said he's used it," Kylie said, a grin unfurling on her face, "when his friend Winky was very drunk; he'd hidden her in this Room of Requirement and found antidotes to Butterbeer there, and an elf-sized bed to lay her on while she slept it off, and apparently Dobby knew that ratty caretaker had found extra cleaning materials there. Sounds good, doesn't it?" 

"Yes!" I stood up. "It sounds perfect, actually! Do you know exactly where it is?" 

"Yeah. I can show you, if you want?" 

"Right now?" 

Kylie inclined her head, smirking. 

~~~ 

We approached a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy's foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet. Kylie set me down on the ground, and I transformed back from my Animagus form as she slipped off the Invisibility Cloak. 

"We have to walk past it three times and think what we want." Kylie told me. 

"Okay, do it." 

Kylie's crystal blue eyes twinkled at me, and she paced in front of the wall. Sure enough, a little door emerged from the wall, and she took my hand, tugging me through it. 

"Come on." She said smoothly. A four-poster bed with the softest looking blankets and plumpest pillows I'd ever seen was standing in the middle of the room, and Kylie pushed me down softly onto it. I fluttered my eyelashes up at her, and she swore, climbing on top of me. Her lips landed on mine, and I responded lazily, letting her tongue work its way into my mouth as her hands trailed down my body. 

Kylie's hands felt across my breasts, pulling my woolly jumper up and over my head, exposing my orange-bra-clad chest to her. She swore again as her eyes took in the sight, her hands moving to grab my breasts. Her lips worked their way down my neck, chest, stomach, until she was at the waistband of my cozy bottoms, tugging those down too. I shivered as I lay there, only in my bra and panties, and soon the latter were gone too. 

Kylie lowered her head, and I felt her take a big lick up me. I arched my back, throwing my head back as she licked more, gasping and moaning and whining, and her fingers caressed my thighs as I whimpered. My hands moved from clenching the bedsheets to clenching in her hair, and soon enough, with the combination of Kylie's hot tongue on me, her short nails digging into my thighs, and her soft chuckles into me when I gasped especially loud, I was exploding on her mouth, my back arching hard, Kylie's name escaping my mouth in a breathy moan, and her short hair twisted hard in my fingers. 

~~~ 

Our robes billowed and swirled around us as we splashed across the flooded vegetable patch to double Herbology where we could hardly hear what Professor Sprout was saying over the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof. The afternoon's Care of Magical Creatures lesson was to be relocated from the storm-swept grounds to a free classroom on the ground floor and, to our intense relief, Angelina had sought out her team at lunch to tell us that Quidditch practice was cancelled. 

"Good." I said quietly, when she told me. "Because we've found somewhere to have our first Defence meeting. Tonight, eight o'clock, seventh floor opposite that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by those trolls. Can you tell Katie and Alicia?" 

Fred, George, Terry, Draco, and I had spent most of the day seeking out those people who had signed their names to the list in the Hog's Head and telling them where to meet that evening, as socialising was more our forte than my brother and his friends'. By the end of dinner I was confident that the news had been passed to every one of the forty-one people who had turned up in the Hog's Head. 

At half past seven Fred, George, and I left the Gryffindor common room, me clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in my hand. Fifth-years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, so it was alright. 

"Hold it." I warned, unfolding the Marauder's Map at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with my wand and muttering, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." 

The map of Hogwarts appeared on the blank surface of the parchment.

"Filthy Filch is on the second floor." I said, holding the map close to my eyes. "And his cat wife is on the fourth." 

"And the toad herself?" George said. 

"In her office." I said, pointing. "OK, let's go." 

We hurried along the corridor to the place Kylie had taken me. 

"OK." I said quietly, while in the painting a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch us. "Kylie and I walked past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we needed." 

"You and Kylie found this room?" Fred said, his voice slightly off. 

I shrugged. 

"What did you two need?" George said innocently. I narrowed my eyes at him as Fred scoffed, rolling his eyes. 

We walked, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-sized vase on its other side. Fred had screwed up his eyes in concentration; George was whispering something under his breath; my fists were clenched as I stared ahead of me. 

We need somewhere to learn to fight... Just give us a place to practise... somewhere they can't find us...

"Softpaw!" Fred said sharply, as we wheeled around after our third walk past. 

A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. I reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door, and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below. 

The walls were lined with wooden bookcases and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors, and a large, cracked Foe-Glass that I was sure had hung, the previous year, in Jerk's office. 

The door opened and Terry bounded in, Draco, Kylie, Harry, Ron, and Hermione behind him. They all gazed around in awe with the exception of Kylie, who folded her arms in amusement as she watched them. 

"Nice." Harry and Ron chorused. 

"These will be good when we're practising Stunning." Terry said enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot. 

"And just look at these books!" Hermione said excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. I watched her, her attractive, pretty face lighting up. "A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counter-Actions...  The Dark Arts Outsmarted... Self-Defensive Spellwork... wow..." She looked around at me, her face glowing, and I saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what we were doing was right. "Daze, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!" 

And without further ado she slid Jinxes for the Jinxed from its shelf, sank on to the nearest cushion, and began to read. 

I watched her with a smug smile creeping onto my face. Fred and Kylie both looked at me with narrowed eyes. 

There was a gentle knock on the door. I looked round. Ginny, Louis, Neville, Lavender, Parvati, Seamus, and Dean had arrived. 

"Whoa." Dean said, staring around, impressed. "What is this place?" 

I began to explain, but before I had finished more people had arrived and I had to start all over again. Pansy and Shannon entered together, holding hands, and despite my romantic past with Pansy, my heart leapt in happiness for them. By the time eight o'clock arrived, every cushion was occupied. I moved across to the door and turned the key protruding from the lock; it clicked in a satisfyingly loud way and everybody fell silent, looking at me. Hermione carefully marked her page of Jinxes for the Jinxed and set the book aside. 

"Well." I said confidently. "This is the place we've found for practice sessions, and you've obviously found it OK." 

"It's fantastic!" Draco said, and several people murmured their agreement. 

"It's bizarre." Fred said, frowning around at it. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, guys? But it was just a broom cupboard then. I've been trying to remember why that corridor seemed so familiar." 

I thought back and nodded thoughtfully, along with Terry and George. 

"Hey, Daisy, what's this stuff?" Lewis asked from the rear of the room, indicating the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass. 

"Dark detectors." I said, stepping between the cushions to reach them. "Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, the fuckers can be fooled..." 

I gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside it, though none was recognisable. I turned my back on it. 

"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and -" I noticed a raised hand. "What, Hermione?" 

"I think we ought to elect a leader." Hermione said. 

"Daisy and Harry're leaders." Suzanne said, looking at Hermione as though she were mad. 

"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly." Hermione said, unperturbed. "It makes it formal and it gives them authority. So - everyone who thinks Daisy and Harry ought to be our leaders?" 

Everybody put up their hand, even Zach, though he did it very half-heartedly. 

"Er - right, thanks." Harry said, whose face was bright red. "And - what, Hermione?" 

"I also think we ought to have a name." She said brightly, her hand still in the air. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?" 

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" Bonnie said hopefully. 

"Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?" Fred suggested. 

"I was thinking," said Hermione, 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 Defence Association?" Cho said. 

"Yeah, it can be the DA for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about." Pansy said. 

"Yeah, the DA'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?" 

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this. 

"All in favour of the DA?" Hermione said bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. "That's a majority - motion passed!" 

She pinned the piece of parchment with all of our signatures on it on to the wall and wrote across the top in large letters:

DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY

"Right." I said, when she had sat down again. "Shall we get practising then? Harry and I were thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but we've found it really useful." 

"I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practise." Harry said. 

It felt very odd to be issuing instructions, but not nearly as odd as seeing them followed. Everybody got to their feet at once and divided up.

"Right - on the count of three, then, you sexy people - 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. Glancing around, I thought Harry and I had been right to suggest we practise the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in Disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their feeble spell whooshed over them. 

"Let's walk around the room and see how these dumbasses are doing." I told Harry, and he nodded, grinning. 

I moved off into the middle of the room. Something very odd was happening to Zach. Every time he opened his mouth to disarm Anthony, his own wand would fly out of his hand, yet Anthony did not seem to be making a sound. I did not have to look far to solve the mystery: Fred and George were several feet from Zach and taking it in turns to point their wands at his back. 

"Sorry Softpaw." George said hastily, when I caught his eye. "Couldn't resist." 

I grinned. "Shh. I didn't see shit. Continue." 

I walked around the other pairs, trying to correct those who were doing the spell wrong. Draco was teamed with Terry; the Slytherin was doing very well, whereas Terry was either very bad or unwilling to jinx him. I believed it was the latter, as I had seen Terry do it before and he was a natural. 

"Don't be a wuss, Hopper." I told him as I walked past. "Get the dragon!" 

Draco flipped me off. 

Ernie was flourishing his wand unnecessarily, giving Cedric time to get in under his guard; the Creevey brothers were enthusiastic but erratic and mainly responsible for all the books leaping off the shelves around them; Luna Lovegood was similarly patchy, occasionally sending Justin Finch-Fletchley's wand spinning out of his hand, at other times merely causing his hair to stand on end. Bonnie and Connie were doing a relatively good job; Lewis and Kurt were causing mini explosions from their wands. 

"OK, stop!" I shouted. "Stop. STOP!" 

Everyone lowered their wands. 

"That wasn't BAD -" I said. 

"- But there's definite room for improvement." Harry said. 

Zacharias Smith glared at us.

"Let's try again." I said. 

We moved off around the room again, stopping here and there to make suggestions. Slowly, the general performance improved. 

"Oh no." Ginny said rather wildly as I approached. "Expelliarmious! I mean, Expellimellius! I - oh, sorry, Marietta!" 

Cho's curly-haired friend's sleeve had caught fire; Marietta extinguished it with her own wand and glared at me as though it was my fault. 

"You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!" Ginny told me ruefully. 

Why did I make her nervous? 

"That was quite good." I lied, but when she raised her eyebrows I said, "Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there." 

She laughed. Marietta looked at us rather sourly and turned away. 

"Don't mind her." Cho sidled up beside us and muttered. "She doesn't really want to be here but I made her come with me. Her parents have forbidden her to do anything that might upset Umbridge. You see - her mum works for the Ministry." 

Terry's wand went whizzing past my ear and hit Leanne hard on the nose. 

"Well, my dad is very supportive of any anti-Ministry action!" Luna Lovegood said proudly from just behind me; evidently she had been eavesdropping on our conversation while Justin attempted to disentangle himself from the robes that had flown up over his head. "He's always saying he'd believe anything of Fudge; I mean, the number of goblins Fudge has had assassinated! And of course he uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons, which he secretly feeds to anybody who disagrees with him. And then there's his Umgubular Slashkilter -" 

"Don't ask." I muttered to Ginny and Cho as Cho opened her mouth, Ginny looking puzzled. They giggled. 

"Hey, Daisy, Harry." Hermione called from the other end of the room. "Have you two checked the time?" 

I looked down at my phone and was shocked to see it was already ten past nine, which meant we needed to get back to our common rooms immediately or risk being caught and punished by Filch for being out of bounds. Harry blew a whistle; everybody stopped shouting "Expelliarmus" and the last couple of wands clattered to the floor. 

"Well, that was pretty good." I said. 

"But we've overrun, we'd better leave it here." Harry said. 

"Same time, same place next week?" I said. 

"Sooner!" Dean said eagerly and many people nodded in agreement. 

Angelina, however, said quickly, "The Quidditch season's about to start, we need team practices too!" 

"Let's say next Wednesday night, then." I said. "We can decide on additional meetings then. Come on, we'd better get going." 

I pulled out the Marauder's Map again and checked it carefully for signs of teachers on the seventh floor. I let them all leave in threes and fours, watching their tiny dots anxiously to see that they returned safely to their dormitories: the Slytherins to their dungeon; the Hufflepuffs to the basement corridor that also led to the kitchens; the Ravenclaws to their tower on the west side of the castle, and the Gryffindors along the corridor to the Fat Lady's portrait. 

"That was really, really good, twins." Hermione said, when finally it was just her, me, Fred and George, Kylie, Harry, and Ron who were left. 

"Yeah, it was!" Fred said. "Didn't expect anything less." 

He looked down at me with a small smile. I gazed back into his eyes, smiling softly too. 

"Did you see me disarm Hermione, Daze, Harry?" Ron said enthusiastically, as we slipped out of the door and watched it melt back into stone behind us.

"Only once." Hermione said, stung. "I got you loads more than you got me -" 

"I did not only get you once, I got you at least three times -" 

"Well, if you're counting the one where you tripped over your own feet and knocked the wand out of my hand -" 

They argued all the way back to the common room, but the rest of us were not listening to them. Harry and Kylie were conversing about the Dark Detectors, the twins whispering about something about jobs and hands, glancing at me, and Fred slapping at George, and I was lost in thought. I had one eye on the Marauder's Map, but I was also thinking of Ginny saying I made her nervous.