CHAPTER THIRTY - The DA

After a quick dinner, Attuoria went off to Snape's office. If her detention ended before seven thirty, then she would return to the common room to meet Harry, Ron and Hermione. If it ended any later than that, then she would have to find her own way to the Room of Requirements on the seventh floor, where their first meeting will be conducted.

Snape's office was dim and cold, which reminded her of Malfoy Manor. The walls were lined with shelves that were packed full of jars of murky liquids and oddly-shaped animal body parts. A rusted chandelier hung lowly above a round table, and Snape's desk stood not far behind it. The fireplace was empty, and looked as if it hadn't been lit for years. Snape himself stood at the side of his desk, observing a bottle in his hands.

"Sit." He said once the door clicked shut. Attuoria slid herself onto a chair next to the round table, gazing at the chandelier above her head. Only two or three candles were actually lit, and were quivering under the cold, musty air.

She glanced over at Snape, who had placed the bottle back onto a shelf and picked up another one. It didn't look like he was about to talk to her any time soon.

"You might as well give me back my ten house points," said Attuoria. This caught the Professor's attention. He turned his head slightly.

"Now why would I do that?"

"You know why."

Snape placed the container onto the shelf and finally turned around to face her. "No, I don't."

Attuoria sighed. "Alright, what's the deal with Voldemort?"

She watched as he grabbed onto the two sides of his cloak and wrapped it around himself, folding his arms across his chest. He slowly walked towards the round table and sat down across from her.

"Why did you not tell the Dark Lord of your Legilimency?" Snape asked. Attuoria suddenly realised how tired this man looked. His face was lined with evidence of worry, and the look in his eyes reminded her of the barman at Hogs Head - Sad and hopeless, like an endless pit of darkness.

"He never asked." Attuoria replied. "Why, did he find out?"

"No, I was only curious." said Snape, leaning back against the chair as he stared at the girl in front of him. "Do you know what Occlumency is?"

"Yes."

"Assuming you got the information from Professor Dumbledore, you should also know that I am capable of both Legilimency and Occlumency."

"Yes."

"One who has mastered Occlumency is capable of closing their mind from even the most powerful Legilimens. However, as you might've noticed, Occlumency doesn't stop you."

Attuoria nodded. He was being nicer than she thought he would. "I promise I haven't looked into your mind. Only today."

Snape ignored her sentence. "The Dark Lord is capable of both. He isn't particularly fond of those who exceed him in terms of capabilities, so I would advise you to keep your abilities to yourself. I'm sure you will manage?"

Attuoria nodded again, although she was rather confused as to why Snape was telling her to hide things from Voldemort. But before she could think too much about it, Snape had already moved on.

"If you remember our meeting early in the Summer, the Dark Lord mentioned that he wanted to retrieve a prophecy. It's being kept in a place called the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry of Magic."

The Department of Mysteries. Attuoria let out a small gasp, causing Snape to raise his eyebrows. "Have you heard of this place?"

Realising that she had found out about this place through reading Sirius's thoughts without his permission, Attuoria quickly shook her head.

"No, well, I mean, I've heard of it but I don't know what it is."

Snape narrowed his eyes at her. "Whatever you're hiding, just spit it out."

"I'm not hiding anything," said Attuoria, thinking about the Order of the Phoenix. After meeting with Sirius, her friends let her read their minds to attain knowledge on the Order. And to be honest, she regretted it.

The Order of the Phoenix was a secret society created by Dumbledore to fight against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. That's why Dumbledore had hinted to Sirius and the rest of the Order that she was associated with the Malfoys. They had to identify their possible threats, and she was one of them. But she didn't wish any harm on anyone - she was simply following orders. It was just a deal. But now an entire group of people were onto her with misguided interpretations of the kind of person she was.

She also knew that Snape was part of the Order, despite being a Death Eater.

"Can you just get to the point? What does Voldemort want me to do?" said Attuoria, diverting the conversation away from what Snape was trying to get out of her.

"The Dark Lord would like your help in retrieving the prophecy."

"Okay, so what do I do?"

"In January, we will be freeing some Death Eaters from Azkaban, in which you will need to communicate with the Dementors. Our plan is for you to stay with the Order," he threw her a sharp look, as if telling her not to interrupted him, "over Christmas, so you can continue getting more information on Potter. It is crucial that you get close with him, as our future plans depend on it."

"That's three months. There's nothing for me to do now?"

"No."

"Alright, then tell me, who's side are you really on?" Attuoria asked. But just like she expected, Snape gave no answer. He stood up and went back to observing the jars on his shelf.

"You may leave."

Attuoria got up with a small huff. "Can I at least get my house points back?"

"You cursed Ms Parkinson out of your own will."

"Only to make your job easier. It'll only take a second, just give me the house points -"

"LEAVE." Snape demanded, whipping his head around and glaring at her.

"Okay bye professor," Attuoria mumbled quickly and rushed out of his office. But just before the door shut behind her, she heard him mutter, "ten points to Gryffindor… stupid questions".

***

All twenty-six members of the secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group had gathered together in a spacious room on the seventh floor. There were silk pillows all over the ground on one side of the room, with wooden bookcases that contained various books on defensive magic. On the other side of the room stood a wooden shelf lined with all types of equipment, mostly relating to the detection of dark magic.

The first thing they did was settle on the team leader, which was obviously Harry. Hermione had suggested Attuoria (probably just because she felt bad), but she refused it immediately, agreeing with everyone else that Harry should be the leader.

Next, they decided to call the group "the DA", which was short for "Dumbledore's Army". Ginny had come up with the idea, saying that it was exactly what the Ministry feared, and was a pretty good way to get back at Umbridge.

"Right, now that we got all that over with, I was thinking I could teach you all to use Expelliarmus, you know, the disarming charm. It's basic but I've found it pretty useful in many situations. I reckon we should all divide ourselves up into pairs and get practising."

There was a lot of shuffling in the room as people sorted themselves out into pairs. Harry and Attuoria stood off to the side, glancing at the group. Neville was left without a partner, so Harry volunteered to go with him.

"On the count of three," Attuoria announced to the group in a loud voice. "Cast the charm on your partner. One, two, three!"

"Expelliarmus!" The entire room burst into shouts and frustrated incantations. Some people were doing quite well, while others were absolutely terrible. There were books, pillows and wands flying all around the room.

"Harry," Attuoria prodded him on the arm. "I think we should stop. It's not going great."

Harry glanced around the room. "Oh, right. Yeah, you should -" He paused, realising that his wand had disappeared from his hand.

"I did it! I did it!" Neville cried, holding Harry's wand.

"Good job!" Harry said, reaching over to grab it back. "Yeah, please get everyone to stop."

Attuoria tapped the tip of her wand to her throat and called, "EVERYONE, STOP!"

The room immediately quieted down.

Harry cleared his throat. "So, uh, some of you are doing great, but others… not so much. I think it would help if Attuoria and I did a demonstration?"

A few people around the room nodded and murmured in agreement.

"Alright." Harry beckoned for Attuoria to move and they stood across from each other. "Hermione, count off for us, please."

"One,"

Attuoria glanced at Harry, who was gripping his wand tightly in his hand. She glanced down at her hand, which held the wand loosely.

"Two,"

Was this supposed to be a competition? Would Harry be mad if she beat him?

"Three!"

Without hesitation, Attuoria flicked her wrist quickly with two spells, and Harry's wand flew into the air and landed in her hand before he could even say Expelliarmus.

"Attuoria!" He shouted, looking slightly flushed. "Verbal spells, please?"

"Oh, right, sorry." Attuoria said sheepishly, handing him back his wand. "Could've told me earlier."

"I assumed you knew." said Harry, looking slightly annoyed.

"Ugh, she's just trying to show off how she can do nonverbal spells," a girl's voice whispered in the back, which Attuoria heard easily. In fact, the room was so quiet, she was sure that everyone had heard it.

"Let's do it again," said Attuoria, brushing off what she heard without giving it much thought. "Hermione?"

"One, two, three."

"Expelliarmus!" Harry spoke faster than Attuoria did, and her wand was pulled out of her hand, sailing towards the crowd. Fred reached up and easily caught it in mid air.

"Did you guys see what I did there? The wand motion? You kind of swirl it a little bit, but not too much. The smaller the movement, the faster the spell." Whilst Harry explained to the group, Fred handed Attuoria her wand.

"You went easy on him there, didn't you?" said Fred quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"No, not really," Attuoria admitted. "I got so used to nonverbal spells that I find verbal spells way too slow."

"Ah," Fred let out a sarcastic sigh, "suffering from success."

"Get back into your pairs, let's keep practising!" As everyone scrambled back to their positions, Fred and George shuffled Attuoria over to where they were practising, next to Zacharias Smith and his partner Anthony Goldstein.

"Check this out," George whispered, the three of them standing off to the side of the two boys. He waited until it was Smith's turn to cast the charm and pointed his wand at him. "Expelliarmus," he whispered. Zacharias Smith's wand flew out of his hand and landed onto the cushions. He glanced around, confused, and picked up his wand.

"My turn," said Fred. Smith opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Fred whispered, "Expelliarmus." Smith's wand flew away again.

"Your turn," Fred and George said, looking at Attuoria expectantly.

"Really?"

"Yes." They said, beckoning towards Smith, who had picked up his wand.

"Alright then. Expelli -"

Harry's face came into view, blocking Attuoria's line of sight to Smith. He gave them a pointed look.

"Sorry." said Fred and George. "We couldn't help it."

"Attuoria, you're supposed to help people." Harry said, sounding exasperated. Attuoria realised she might be more of a hindrance than help to Harry right now.

"Oh, yeah, okay." She hurried off to the nearest pair, which was Dean and Lee. Lee was doing fine, despite the fact that he was very slow at casting the spell. Dean, on the other hand, couldn't get the wand movements right.

"Expellar - Whoop I swirled the wrong direction there," said Dean, so focused on staring at his hand that he didn't even notice Lee flying towards a wall. With a quick impedimenta, Attuoria narrowly managed to stop Lee from hitting his head on a torch. He stopped in mid-air, before slowly drifting to the ground and landing on his feet.

"Hey Dean?"

"Yes what - Oh hey," said Dean, looking up at Attuoria. "I don't get why you're teaching. You're a terrible teacher."

"What? Why would you say that -" Attuoria suddenly remembered her first-year charms class, when Dean asked her to help him but all she told him was to "say the spell and swish and flick". When he didn't understand, she left him with Seamus who blew up his feather.

"You remember now?"

Attuoria waved her arm off to the side. "The past is the past, you forgive and forget." She said quickly. Dean chuckled, glancing down at his wand.

"So you gonna help me?"

"I'll try. You should stop staring at your hand so much. The wand movement is actually not that important, you don't have to be too precise for the spell to work. Instead, focus on your target, and what you want to do to your target. If you envision Lee's wand flying out of his hand while you're doing the spell, it's ten times more likely to work."

Dean's eyes widened and his lips flattened in what seemed to show he was impressed. "Wow, a piece of decent advice from Attuoria! How rare." He turned back to face Lee, who was looking a little worried.

"Expelliarmus!" Dean said with confidence, flicking his wrist only slightly. Lee's wand flew out of his hand, and he sighed with relief. "Damn!" Dean exclaimed. "It actually worked!"

Satisfied with the progress Dean made, Attuoria moved on to the next pair.

At nine o'clock, the group dispersed back to their dorms. It was a successful first meeting, and everyone was eager for their second one.

***

October went by, and the DA group had successfully gone through the Disarming Charm, the Impediment Jinx, the Reductor curse and many more. Attuoria found that these meetings were a great time for her to observe each person, and their unique human traits. She felt rather aimless, knowing her next formal task would only begin in January.

One thing that everyone seemed to be excited about, though, was Quidditch. The first Quidditch match of the season was coming up: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. The amount of insults thrown between the two houses went up by double as November arrived.

Ron wasn't taking things well. The Slytherins constantly harassed him and Harry in the hallways, and while Harry was used to it, Ron wasn't. Draco was even worse now, and after what Attuoria had said about him in potions (she never had a chance to apologise properly), his behaviour towards her showed no sign of kindness.

On the morning of the big game, Ron's face looked like it had been wiped with chalk. He was groaning and his feet dragged against the ground the entire morning. The Slytherins had been relentless with their insults - All of them were wearing shiny silver, crown-shaped badges on their robes that said "Weasley is Our King".

After Harry and Ron left the Great Hall to warm up for the game, Professor McGonagall rushed up to Attuoria and asked to have a word.

"Now? The game is starting in an hour." Attuoria asked, puzzled. Professor McGonagall had been so eager for today's game that it was odd she wasn't rushing to the quidditch pitch already.

"Well, if it were up to me I'd be at the stands right now. But this is urgent, so hurry up!"

Attuoria stood up, told Hermione she'd meet her in the stands, and quickly followed McGonagall to her office. She shut the door and the Professor beckoned for her to sit down.

"We'll get this over with quick. Professor Dumbledore told me that you've been regularly going down to Hagrid's hut to check up on things since the start of the year."

"Yes, I have. I didn't know he knew."

"Nothing goes unnoticed at Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall said casually, but Attuoria thought it sounded rather like a warning. "Anyways, Hagrid is coming back today. He's due to arrive at nine o'clock tonight. Take this slip," she handed Attuoria a piece of parchment, "I will allow you to go visit him and help him get settled." McGonagall glanced at the door before adding in a hushed voice, "He's not in a very good state. It would be best if you could help him. I assume Professor Umbridge will be paying him a visit tonight as well, so make sure to keep this slip with you at all times."

Attuoria glanced down at the parchment in her hands. Professor Dumbledore and Mcgonagall's signature were both on it, and there was a short message indicating the reason she was out after bedtime.

"With all due respect, Professor, I don't think Professor Umbridge will take this piece of paper seriously. With her new Education Decree Number Twenty-Five..."

McGonagall sighed. "I know, Ms Knight. But Professor Dumbledore really wants you to be there when Hagrid returns. He feels that you would provide Hagrid with some much needed comfort."

It was silent for a few seconds as Attuoria pondered her options. "Professor, remember how during my first year at Hogwarts, you told me not to use protection charms as an excuse to wander the halls at night?"

Professor McGonagall gave her a hard stare under those rectangular spectacles. "Fine. I will permit you to use your protection charms as long as you promise not to do anything inappropriate."

A grin spread onto Attuoria's face. She couldn't believe Professor McGonagall was telling her this.

"And also, I don't want you telling Mr Potter or any of your friends about this. Mr Potter has the tendency to ask incessant questions, and I believe Hagrid would like to rest tonight." said Professor McGonagall, lifting her glasses off her face and folding them into a case. "Now go grab your coat. We have a quidditch match to attend to."