they 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. they had barely sat down when angelina came struggling toward them through the groups of gossiping students.

"i've got permission!" she said. "to re-form the quidditch team!"

"excellent!" said ron and harry together.

"yeah," said angelina, 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 realize we're only three weeks away from our first match?"

she squeezed away from them, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from peeves, which hit a nearby first year instead, and vanished from sight. ron's smile slipped slightly as 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.

"about siri . . . snuffles?" said harry.

"no . . . not exactly . . ." said hermione slowly. "more . . . wondering . . . i suppose we're doing the right thing . . . i think . . . aren't we?

elara, harry, and ron looked at each other.

"well, that clears that up," said ron. "it would've been really annoying if you hadn't explained yourself properly."

hermione looked at him as though she had only just realized he was there.

"i was just wondering," she said, her voice stronger now, "whether we're doing the right thing, starting this defense against the dark arts group."

"what!" said elara, harry, and ron together.

"hermione, it was your idea in the first place!" said elara indignantly.

"i know," said hermione, twisting her fingers together. "but after talking to snuffles . . ."

"but he's all for it!" said harry.

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

peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all four of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.

"let's get this straight," said harry angrily, as they put their bags back on the floor, "sirius agrees with us, so you don't think we should do it anymore?"

hermione looked tense and rather miserable. now staring at her own hands she said, "do you honestly trust his judgment?"

"yes, i do!" said harry at once. "he's always given us great advice!"

an ink pellet whizzed past them, striking katie bell squarely in the ear. hermione watched katie 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 defense 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 upon katie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.

"anyways," said ron. "why's your hair all purple and blue, lara?"

"why else?" said elara, grinning madly. "to piss off umbitch, of course."

"oh... i thought maybe you were just going through a rebellious phase or something."

"ron," sighed elara. "we're running an illegal defense group, we're going against the ministry, i'm part of a secret society, we all are in a rebellious phase."

the weather did not improve as the day wore on, so that at seven o'clock that evening, when harry and ron went down to the quidditch pitch for practice. hermione and elara stayed up at in the gryffindor common room to wait for them to help with their homework.

it was around eight thirty when elara fell into another vision. in this one, voldemort was angry because he wanted something done, and it wasn't happening fast enough. the vision shifted to the windowless corridor with a door at the end.

when she woke, hermione informed her that she was going to go to bed. elara nodded. she left crookshanks curled in a nearby chair and an assortment of knobbly, knitted elf hats lying on a table by the fire. harry and ron stumbled in, soaking and disgruntled. turns out, harry had felt what elara saw. ron kept throwing them anxious glances, but harry pulled out his potions book and to put the finishing touches on his essay as elara tried to help fix his grammar. harry was only pretending to concentrate and, by the time that ron said he was going to bed too, had written hardly anything.

midnight came and went and elara gave up on trying to help. they talked, well, more like elara talked and harry listened. he seemed far off and lost in thought. she didn't mind, however, as it was late and harry had had a rough day.

the book slipped from harry's hand and his head fell over. elara panicked. she had no idea what to do as she was usually the one who needed catching. she dove to prevent harry from falling out of his seat and onto the floor. he was muttering wildly. the candles extinguished and the room was plunged into darkness. harry had begun reaching out to something.

"elara lestrange, miss?" said a familiar voice.

"dobby!" cried elara, shrouded in relief.

"what's going on — harry potter, sir!" said hobby, taking notice of harry's unconscious form leaning against elara's frame.

harry awoke with a start.

"whozair?" said harry, sitting upright in his chair.

"it's dobby and me," said elara earnestly.

"dobby has your owl, sir!" said a squeaky voice.

"dobby?" said harry thickly.

dobby standing beside the table on which hermione had left her half a dozen knitted hats. his large, pointed ears were now sticking out from beneath what looked like all the hats that hermione had ever knitted; he was wearing one on top of the other, so that his head seemed elongated by two or three feet, and on the very topmost bobble sat hedwig, hooting serenely and obviously cured.

"dobby volunteered to return harry potter's owl!" said the elf squeakily, with a look of positive adoration on his face. "professor grubbly-plank says she is all well now, sir!"

he sank into a deep bow so that his pencil-like nose brushed the threadbare surface of the hearthrug and hedwig gave an indignant hoot and fluttered onto the arm of Harry's chair.

"thanks, dobby!" said harry, stroking hedwig's head and blinking hard.

elara noticed that the elf was also wearing several scarves and innumerable socks, so that his feet looked far too big for his body.

"dobby . . . have you been taking all the clothes hermione's been leaving out?" said elara amusedly.

"oh no, miss," said dobby happily, "dobby has been taking some for winky too, miss."

"yeah, how is winky?" asked harry.

dobby's ears drooped slightly.

"winky is still drinking lots, sir," he said sadly, his enormous round green eyes, large as tennis balls, downcast. "she still does not care for clothes, harry potter. nor do the other house-elves. none of them will clean gryffindor tower anymore, not with the hats and socks hidden everywhere, they finds them insulting, sir. dobby does it all himself, sir, but fobby does not mind, sir, for he always hopes to meet harry potter and elara lestrange and tonight, sir, he has got his wish!" dobby sank into a deep bow again. "but harry potter does not seem happy," dobby went on, straightening up again and looking timidly at harry. "dobby heard him muttering in his sleep. was harry potter having bad dreams?"

"not really bad," said harry, yawning and rubbing his eyes. "you should see lara's."

"dobby had heard of her dreams dobby wishes he could help elara lestrange. elara lestrange was always so kind to dobby, unlike his previous masters."

"actually," said elara, "i do have something you could help me with, dobby."

"anything!" said dobby straightening up.

"d'you think you could keep a secret for me?"

dobby nodded vigorously.

"well, harry and i've started a secret defense against the dark arts group. we were thinking of meeting in the room of requirement. what about it?"

"the room of requirement is an excellent place, miss! a good choice!"

their robes billowed and swirled around them as they splashed across the flooded vegetable patch to double herbology, where they could hardly hear what professor sprout was saying over the hammering of raindrops hard as hailstones on the greenhouse roof. together they 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.

at half-past seven elara, harry, ron, and hermione left the gryffindor common room, harry clutching a certain piece of aged parchment in his hand. fifth years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, but all four of them kept looking around nervously as they made their way up to the seventh floor.

"hold it," said harry warningly, unfolding the piece of parchment at the top of the last staircase, tapping it with his wand, and muttering, "i solemnly swear that i am up to no good."

a map of hogwarts appeared upon the blank surface of the parchment. tiny black moving dots, labeled with names, showed where various people were.

"filch is on the second floor," said harry, holding the map close to his eyes and scanning it closely, "and mrs. norris is on the fourth."

"and umbitch?" said elara.

"in her office," said harry, pointing. "okay, let's go."

they hurried along the corridor to the place elara had found the room of requirement, a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting barnabas the barmy's foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet.

"okay," said elara quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch. "we've got to walk past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need."

they did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-size vase on its other side. ron had screwed up his eyes in concentration, hermione was whispering something under her breath, harry's fists were clenched as he stared ahead of him, elara walked around calmly.

we need somewhere to learn to fight. . . . she thought. just give us a place to practice . . . somewhere they can't find us . . .

"alright," said elara, clapping her hands together, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.

a highly polished door had appeared in the wall. ron was staring at it, looking slightly wary. elara 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 elara was sure had hung, the previous year, in the fake moody's office.

"these will be good when we're practicing stunning," said ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.

"and just look at these books!" said hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. "a compendium of common curses and their counter-actions . . . the dark arts outsmarted . . . self-defensive spellwork . . . wow . . ." hermione looked around at elara, her face glowing, and elara saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced hermione that what they were doing was right. "lara, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!"

and without further ado she slid jinxes for the jinxed from its shelf, sank onto the nearest cushion, and began to read.

there was a gentle knock on the door. elara looked around; ginny, neville, lavender, parvati, aspen, and dean had arrived.

"whoa," said dean, staring around, impressed. "what is this place?"

elara began to explain, but before she had finished more people had arrived, and she had to start all over again. by the time eight o'clock arrived, every cushion was occupied. harry 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 him. hermione carefully marked her page of jinxes for the jinxed and set the book aside.

"well," said harry, slightly nervously. "this is the place we've found for practices, thanks to lara, and you've — er — obviously found it okay —"

"it's fantastic!" said cho, and several people murmured their agreement.

"it's bizarre," said fred, frowning around at it. "we once hid from filch in here, remember, george, rori? but it was just a broom cupboard then. . . ."

"hey, harry, what's this stuff?" asked dean from the rear of the room, indicating the sneakoscopes and the foe-glass.

"dark detectors," said harry, 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, they can be fooled. . . ."

he gazed for a moment into the cracked foe-glass then turned his back on it.

"well, i've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and — er —" harry noticed hermione raised a hand. "what, hermione?"

"i think we ought to elect a leader," said hermione.

"harry's leader," said cho at once, looking at hermione as though she were mad.

"harry and lara," said fred, george, and aurora, throwing dirty looks at cho.

"i've got as much to learn from harry as you all do," said elara severely.

"you can cast a corporeal patronus," argued aurora. "you're a very powerful witch, lara."

"yes, well — "

"what about second leader? co-leader? vice president? assistant to the prime minister? assistant regional manager?" suggested fred.

"i think vice president," said george. "so then harry could be president. you know, like how the americans do it."

"so — everyone who thinks harry ought to be our president?" said hermione.

everybody put up their hands, even zacharias smith, though he did it very halfheartedly.

"alright, and everyone who thinks elara ought to be our vice president?"

everyone put up their hands, although cho put hers up reluctantly.

"alright, get up there, lara!" whooped ron, clapping loudly.

elara rolled her eyes but stood up. she threw a rude gesture at ron, who gratefully threw it back.

"er — right, thanks," said harry, his face burning. "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?" said angelina hopefully.

"or the ministry of magic are morons group?" suggested fred.

"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 defense association?" said cho. "the d.a. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"

"yeah, the d.a.'s good," said ginny. "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.

"ginny, this is why you're my favorite weasley," said elara, smiling gleefully at ginny.

"hey!" shouted ron, fred, and george.

"all in favor of the d.a.?" said hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. "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," said harry, when she had sat down again, "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," said zacharias smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "i don't think expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against you-know-who, do you?"

"here's an idea," said clover knight loudly. "why don't you just shut up?"

"thanks," said harry. "er — "

"clover knight."

"thanks, clover. and i've used it against him," said harry quietly. "it saved my life last june."

smith opened his mouth stupidly. the rest of the room was very quiet.