when Hermione stopped in her tracks on their way to lunch, pulling Margaret back by her robe hood. How she managed to do that with arms full of books was a wonder...

Margaret let out a little squeak of surprise, opening her mouth to ask what in god's good world was wrong with her; when Hermione suddenly started speaking to a bypassing person.

"Cho! Hey, I'm Hermione. We met the other day," she says. The Asian girl halts in her tracks, as does her friend.

"Oh, hi, Hermione," Cho greets, rather confused. "This is Marietta, by the way. Marietta Edgecomb."

Margaret narrowed her eyes at Marietta Edgecomb as she waved, looking rather bored. Her eyes, however, were alert and almost glared at Hermione.

"Hi," Hermione says before casting a look around the fairly empty corridor and lowering her voice. "Listen, um... We were wondering if you'd be interested in learning Defense Against the Dark Arts... The proper way."

Cho frowned, exchanging a glance with Marietta.

"And go against that Umbridge woman and indirectly challenge the Ministry?" Marietta questions disbelievingly, her voice deep.

"I wonder how learning magic in a magical school could be considered challenging the Ministry," Margaret replies flatly.

"Besides, you have your NEWTs next year, don't you?" Hermione adds. "You'd need to learn the practical bit too. So would we, for our O.W.Ls this year."

Cho speaks up timidly before Marietta can reply. "Will... Harry be there?"

"If all goes well, he'd be the one to teach us," Hermione says, sounding more confident about it than she felt.

"We'll think about it," Cho tells them, exchanging a small smile with Margaret.

"Great," Hermione says cheerfully. "We'll be meeting us in Hog's Head during the first Hogsmeade weekend in October. It's right off the beaten track, past Zonko's."

Cho nodded, and Marietta looked like she was about to protest but Margaret interrupted before she could.

"If you can," she says, "tell only your trusted friends about this. Wouldn't want the wind blowing in the wrong direction."

Cho nodded once more. "Have a good day, you two."

Hermione and Margaret bid their farewell to the two Ravenclaws and resumed their trip to the Great Hall.

"Refrain from nearly strangling me the next time you want to talk to a bystander, please," Margaret complains, rubbing her neck.

Hermione gives her a sheepish smile. "Sorry..."

"It's all right," Margaret says. "So, we're inviting people we know to Pig's Face?"

"Hog's Head. And yes, I've asked Ginny and Neville so far. They both agreed. I think Ginny's asked Padma and Parvati," Hermione trails off.

Margaret nods slowly, giving Hermione a side glance as they enter the Great Hall. "Does... Harry know you're inviting Cho?"

Hermione's lips twitch into a smile. "He will know soon enough."

Margaret snickered as the two sat down in front of Ron and Ginny. The former was munching on sausage and the latter was holding her empty fork in one hand and a quidditch magazine in another, her mouth slightly agape.

It was fifteen minutes later when half of their lunch was over and Ron was on his third serving of chicken soup when the youngest Weasley snapped out of her trance.

"Huh? Oh, hi Margaret. Hey Hermione. When did you two get here?"

"When you were ogling at that quidditch player," Ron says with his mouth full, sounding utterly unintelligible: "Vow ew vor oglig ak thak kiwikitch claya."

Hermione made a disgusted face at him and Ginny protested, saying she was reading about Holyhead Harpies. But Magaret got distracted from the conversation when she spotted Harry nearing them hesitantly.

Harry had been behaving rather odd after Hermione had suggested he teach Defence. There were times when he'd just be angry. They'd be doing their homework or sitting in the common room late at night and Harry would just snap at them for the littlest moments like the tapping of their feet or for laughing too loud. Other times, Margaret had noticed him rubbing his scar, his face scrunched up in pain.

Margaret knew about his constant nightmares but didn't want to ask him about it. There was a part of her that didn't want him to find out how much she knew about him. It would only unsettle Harry and he was going through enough.

After two weeks of insisting he was fine and almost avoiding Ron, Hermione and Margaret, he finally approached them.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Harry says unsurely, gaining their attention. Hermione's face lit up and Ron nodded vigorously whilst Margaret shot him a playful smirk, shifting on the bench to make space.

Harry relaxed and had almost sat down; however, a familiar high-pitched voice echoed from the entrance hall, shifting their attention. The four of them exchanged looks before they left their food, grabbed their bags, and headed out of the Great Hall quickly. Many other students followed, including Ginny and Neville.

"Professor, what are you insinuating?" Umbridge asks.

"I'm merely requesting," Professor McGonagall says, ascending the stairs behind Umbridge, "that when it comes to my students, you conform to the prescribed disciplinary practices."

"So silly of me," Professor Umbridge says sweetly, "but it sounds as if you are questioning my authority in my own classroom, Minerva."

Professor Umbridge arose a step higher, as to match with McGonagall, who towered a whole head above her.

"Not at all, Dolores," Professor McGonagall says, also stepping up and promptly looking down at Professor Umbridge. "Merely questioning your medieval methods."

Margaret looked around, noticing several students now crowded around the entrance hall. She glanced behind her, and almost did a double-take, finding a smirking Draco Malfoy and his two gorilla bodyguards standing with him. Behind the three were Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, the former was busy tinkling with something he had produced from his pocket and the latter looked utterly bored.

Draco noticed her looking, and his smirk dropped as she narrowed her eyes at him before she turned her head back to the front. She heard him scuffle backwards, trying to put as much distance between himself and her.

Umbridge continues, "To question my practices is to question the Ministry. And by extension, the Minister himself... I'm a tolerant woman, but the one thing I will not stand for - is disloyalty."

Professor Umbridge paused, as a look of disbelief crossed Professor McGonagall's face.

"Disloyalty," Professor McGonagall repeats, stepping down a single step. The action, however, spoke volumes and caused a feeling of trepidation to spread through Margaret.

Umbridge tilts her chin upwards, stepping up another step and turning to face the students gathered. "Things at Hogwarts are far worse than I feared. But I assure you, Minerva, that by the end of this year, I will have preserved what ought to be preserved, perfected what needs to be perfected, and pruned wherever we find manners that ought to be prohibited."

She had emphasised the words from her first speech at Hogwarts. Then, without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and strutted up the rest of the stairs with her stubby legs.

by the time the last class of the day had come to an end. A faraway thunder echoed over the highlands as Margaret sat with Neville in the library, both of them doing their homework before the end of the week.

The thunder crackling outside and the raindrops pelting against the window made the ambience quite tranquil.

The sounds of books stacking themselves high up on the shelves, the whispers of their quills scratching against the rough surface of the parchment and the occasional rustling of pages seemed closer than the thunder - it was like a reassurance that they were safe inside the walls of the castle. The air was permeated by the sandalwood smell of melting candles on the side that added a warm glamour to the atmosphere, a stark contrast to the cold scene outside.

Margaret was distracted, however, as she stared past the window beside the long library table they were sat at; her chin resting on her hand, the feather of the quill soft against her skin. Her view was that of the neighbouring towers of the castle and the ashen sky above. She imagined several raindrops racing to the wooden edge of the window as the thunder snapped and crackled above.

"Margaret?" Neville calls gently a few minutes later, causing her to blink out of her reverie.

"Yes?"

"Have you finished all the work due tomorrow?" he asks, closing his textbook.

Margaret returned the quill to its inkwell and ruffled through the parchments spread out in front of her. She checked the endings to make sure she had concluded all her essays and labelled all the diagrams, before nodding slowly.

"I think I'm done," she says. "What about you?"

"I'm done too," Neville says as he frowns down at his diagram of Chinese Chomping Cabbage.

"It looks fine, Neville," Margaret tells him, looking down at the detailed diagram. She separated the parchments to find her own diagram that looked less like a chomping cabbage and more like a ball with teeth. "Actually, no. Your diagram looks great."

"Yours does too," he says kindly, making her roll her eyes playfully. "Want to head for an early dinner?"

Hermione returned just then, having given back the books she had borrowed; following her were Ron and Harry. The former approached Margaret with quick steps.

"Margaret, you are the most amazing person I've ever met," Ron tells her as seriously as he could muster. Margaret's eyes widened and she looked behind him at Harry, who looked thoroughly amused.

"I swear on my sugar quills, I have not spiked his pumpkin juice with love potion."

Harry started snickering as quietly as he could, as Ron frowned.

"No, you," he says. "I'm just saying-"

"He wants to copy your homework," Hermione states and she perches back on her seat beside Margaret. She turns to Neville who was sat in front of them. "Or yours. Don't give it to him."

"Hermione!" Ron exclaims, evidently horror-struck, and Hermione smirked slightly.

Before any of them could say anything, a sharp shushing sound came from the corner of the shelf behind them. Madam Pince stood there with a steely expression, looking at them from behind her chain glasses.

The five Gryffindors looked away quickly, pretending to be busy in their work. Ron turned to Harry as an excuse, but Harry was comically facing an empty shelf, staring at it like it was a piece of art. They stayed like that until Pince's footsteps faded away.

"You can use my notes."

"Margaret!" Hermione turns on her, enraged.

"Yes!" Ron exclaims happily, before slapping a hand on his mouth and looking over his shoulder cautiously.

Margaret shrugs. "Well, it's only the notes. You'd have to write the essays yourself. I assume you've at least started them?"

Ron opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. Then opened it again, "Some of it..."

Margaret shoots him a doubtful look whilst shifting through her notes. She turns her gaze to Harry. "Have you?"

"I have started them," he tells her, frowning.

"Fine, then," Hermione says exasperatedly. "I help you. Or we'll be here all night."

"Hermione you're the most wonderful person I've ever met," Ron tells her gratefully, sitting down beside her. "If I'm ever rude to you again-"

"I'll know you're back to normal," she finishes.

"Uh, guys," Neville says as Harry sits down beside him. "I'll leave you all-"

"You can stay, Neville," Hermione tells him earnestly.

"N- no. It's fine, I think I'm going to get some food now," he replies. "It's fine, really... I'll uh, I'll see you at Hogsmeade then."

"Yeah, see you there," Margaret says, giving him a small smile which he returns.

They bid him goodbye as he packed his stuff and left. Margaret passed her notes to Ron and Harry and then got up to stretch her legs. The had been sitting for hours now. She went up to the shelf on the side and took out a random book to check it out.

"I was wondering," Hermione says suddenly a few moments later, "whether you've thought about Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry."

" 'Course I have," replies Harry, not looking up from Margaret's notes. "Can't forget it, can I, with that hag teaching us-"

"I meant the idea Ron and I had" – Ron casts her an alarmed, threatening kind of look and she frowns at him – "oh, all right, the idea I had, then - about you teaching us."

Margaret sneezed quietly, her free hand covering her mouth and nose, and then returned the book to its shelf. It had been too dusty. She stalked back to her friends, having overheard their conversation. However, Hermione quickly turned on her when Harry kept quiet.

"And have you thought about it, Margaret?"

The said girl let out a scoff of disbelief as she slumps back down on her chair. "You can't be serious."

"I am," says Hermione.

"I can't; I told you. I can barely do magic for O.W.Ls, I can't possibly teach-"

"But-"

"No, Mione, you don't get it," she interrupts, not unkindly. "It's... it's not the same."

Hermione's brows scrunched up in confusion and Margaret knew she was overanalyzing her words. So she promptly turned to Harry to get the unwanted attention off of her.

"Well?" Margaret asks him.

"Well," he says slowly, "yeah- er, I guess I've thought about it..."

"And?" Hermione urges.

"I dunno," Harry says, looking at Ron.

"I thought it was a good idea from the start," Ron tells him, seemingly keener to join the conversation now that Harry did not look ready to angrily mouth them off.

Harry shifts uncomfortably in his chair. "You did listen to what I said about a load of it being luck, didn't you?"

"Yes, Harry," Hermione says gently, "but it's all the same. There's no point pretending that you're not good at Defense Against the Dark Arts because you are. You can do all sorts of stuff that even full-grown wizards can't, Viktor always said-"

Ron looked around at her so fast he appeared to crick his neck; rubbing it, he says, "Yeah? What did Vicky say?"

Margaret smirked to herself which Harry noticed. He gave her a confused look and she shook her head subtly.

"Ho ho," Hermione says in a bored tone. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang."

Ron was still looking at Hermione suspiciously. "You're not still in contact with him, are you?"

"So what if I am?" Hermione questions coldly, though her face was slightly pink. "I can have a pen pal if I-"

"He didn't only want to be your pen pal," Ron points out.

"Oh, you two," Margaret mutters, scratching her brow.

She understood that neither of them was wrong; Ron was clearly jealous and Hermione did not want to make her feelings obvious (whether to Ron or herself, Margaret did not know.) But neither was right either. They complicated things for themselves and ended up hurting each other. So, they were right, in the sense that they were wrong.

"What?" Hermione asks.

"Nothing, go on," Margaret says, keeping her thoughts to herself.

Hermione shakes her head exasperatedly and, ignoring Ron, who continues watching her hawkishly, turns to Harry. "Well, what do you think? Will you teach us?"

"Just you three, yeah?"

"Well," Hermione mumbles, exchanging a nervous look with Margaret. "Well... now, not to fly off the handle again, Harry... But I really think you ought to teach anyone who wants to learn. I mean, we're talking about defending ourselves against V-Voldemort... it doesn't seem fair if we don't offer the chance to other people."

Harry considered this for a moment. "Yeah, but I doubt anyone except you would want to be taught by me. I'm a nutter, remember?"

"I think you might be surprised to find out how many people are interested in hearing what you've got to say," Margaret tells him genuinely, remembering how she had asked the Weasley twins after lunch today and they had agreed instantly.

"Look," Hermione says, leaning forward towards him and dropping her voice, "you know the first weekend in October is a Hogsmeade weekend? How about we tell anyone who's interested to meet us in the village and we can talk it over?"

"Why do we have to do it outside school?" Ron asks.

"Because I don't think Umbridge would be very happy if she found out what we were up to."

"Obviously not," Margaret says, smirking at the thought. "Besides, we'll get the satisfaction of doing something she'd absolutely hate, right under her overly large nose..."

Harry gave her a half-smile and Ron and Hermione both looked like they agreed as well, seemingly pleased.

Margaret felt a sort of giddiness she hadn't felt in years. The thought of breaking the rules, causing some trouble for good and rebelling against an unfair system excited her. She felt the mischief increasing the lurking flow of adrenaline. She could hardly wait to start the D.A. lessons and the endless sneaking about that would come with it for the next few months.

Something suddenly nagged the back of her mind but Margaret couldn't put a finger on it.

Before she could think much about it, the loud clang of the Grand Clock resounded across the grounds of Hogwarts, and Margaret straightened up, snapping out of her thoughts, and looked down at her wristwatch.

"Oh no... Ohh, no. I'm so late," she says, hurriedly grabbing her school bag and getting to her feet. She turned to the Trio who were staring at her in confusion. "I had to meet with Dumbledore at six" - she was walking backwards now, down the aisle - "it's six and I'm still here. Keep the notes, I'll see you in the common room later! Bye!"

Without waiting for a reply, Margaret turned on her heel and tried not to run out of the library as Madam Pince's beady eyes followed her every step from behind her winged glasses.

As soon as she had made it outside though, Margaret sprinted down the relatively empty first-floor corridor, past the Transfiguration classroom and McGonagall's office (which was also thankfully empty), up the Grand Staircase. It alone took her at least twenty minutes, and by the time she had made it to the seventh-floor, Margaret was winded.

Huffing and puffing, she wondered if there was any way she could get permission to jog early in the morning before breakfast so that running wouldn't make her so breathless and her thighs wouldn't feel like they were burning from the inside. Although with Umbridge's reign, she wasn't sure she'd even manage to utter the word 'exercise' without being thoroughly interrogated.