Three days later, Toadface disbanded all student organizations. It was pure chaos. Harry assured everyone that the defense group would still be meeting, but every other group, the legitimate ones, rather, had to go through official channels to be reapproved, meaning Umbridge had to consider them innocuous.
This included Quidditch teams, much to Emma's annoyance and to the horror of Fred, George, Katie, and Angelina, who were very concerned they might not be reapproved. After all, most of Umbridge's least favorite students were on the Gryffindor team.
Thankfully, the Gryffindor Quidditch team was approved to be reformed the very next day. Emma didn't think she had ever seen Angelina so relieved, and the girl began holding Quidditch practices that very night, which put a bit of a dent in Fred's plans, as he and Emma had been meaning to meet up around seven thirty for some snogging, but Emma reassured him that they would be able to do it later.
But the very next day, the first meeting of the defense group was called, in a place called "The Room of Requirement", which was on the seventh floor. Fred and George led her and Tien there, along with the other girls (including Alicia, who didn't want to go by herself) and Lee. At eight o'clock, every member was settled on a cushion, except Emma, who was settled on Fred's lap, as they were conveniently one cushion short, anyway. Harry locked the door and they all turned their attention to him.
"Well," he said nervously, "this is the place we've found for practices, and you've – er – obviously found it okay–"
"It's fantastic!" enthused Cho, and even Tien had to agree, though it clearly bothered her to agree with anything that came out of Cho's mouth.
"It's bizarre," said Fred, looking around at the room, frowning. "We hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then…"
That was odd. Emma decided to do some research to see what the possibilities of the room were. With any luck, it could be a place she and Fred could be alone together, when they wanted more privacy.
"Hey, Harry, what's this stuff?" asked Dean Thomas from the back, pointing at the various devices.
"Dark Detectors," Harry said in a very teacher-like voice that made her think of Professor Lupin. "Basically they show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled… Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and – er – what, Hermione?"
"I think we ought to elect a leader," said Hermione.
"Harry's leader," Tien pointed out. Rolling her eyes and muttering to Emma and the twins, "I thought she was supposed to be the bright one. Pathetic."
"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," Granger said, obviously not hearing the last bit. "It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So – everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?"
Every hand went in the air.
"Er – right, thanks," Harry said, crimson creeping into his cheeks. "And – what, Hermione?"
"I also think we ought to have a name," she said, definitely not seeing Tien making rude hand gestures at her behind her back, or she wouldn't have sounded so chipper. "It would romote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"
"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" said Angelina eagerly.
"Or the Ministry of Magic Are Morons Group?" Fred suggested.
Granger shot Fred a reproving look and said, "I was thinking 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?" Emma suggested. "The D. A. for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"
"Yeah, the D.A.'s good, Em," said Ginny. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"
Everyone laughed and muttered their approval and Fred kissed Emma's ear happily.
"All in favor of the D.A.?" Hermione declared bossily, getting on her knees to count. "That's a majority – motion passed!"
Emma thought the girl must have had dreams of being Prime Minister, or at least a Member of Parliament as a child. At any rate, Granger pinned their list of signatures on the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY over the top in large letters.
"Right," Harry said when she took her seat, "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," Smith sighed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"
"I've used it against him," Harry said softly. "It saved my life last June." There was an awkward silence and Smith's mouth flopped open dumbly, making him look a bit like a fish. "But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave." Nobody moved. "Okay, I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."
Everybody divided into pairs instantly, Emma with Tien, Fred with George, Lee with Alicia, and Katie with Angelina, and likewise throughout the room. Fred had already told Emma that if they were going to be pairing off, he didn't want to pair off with her because he couldn't bear to curse her. The only person left out was Neville Longbottom, unsurprisingly.
"You can practice with me," Harry said to Longbottom. "Right – on the count of three, then – one, two, three–"
Everyone said the incantation on Harry's cue, but it was chaos. Not everyone was even near decent at aim and spells shot literally everywhere. Tien had Emma's wand easily, but many of the other students weren't even doing a very good job at the basics of holding a wand for proper defensive magic, much less the particular spell they were working on.
Neither Fred nor George was being disarmed, although Emma was being disarmed regularly, and Emma figured out why almost at the same time Harry Potter did: they were taking turns disarming Zacharias Smith before he could disarm Anthony Goldstein.
"Sorry, Harry," George said quickly when Harry frowned at them. "Couldn't resist…"
Tien and Emma couldn't help but laugh, but Harry just shook his head and moved on to them. He watched Tien disarm Emma three times in a row, then corrected Emma's stance, told her to be a bit more firm with her movements, and asked her to try again. Tien disarmed her easily once more, but he nodded encouragingly and told her to speak with more confidence. Emma was shaking but she did as he said, and surprisingly, Tien's wand came soaring at her. She blinked.
"Oh my god," she cried. "I actually did it!"
Harry smiled.
"See, it's not so bad. We'll get you ready for real dueling soon enough."
Emma couldn't explain it, but the thought that Harry Potter thought she would be able to duel, to hold her own in the upcoming war made Emma feeling immensely proud of herself. She wouldn't have to rely on others, she would be able to defend herself, without Fred protecting her.
Harry did stop them all and have them all start over again, continuing to move around the room.
"Oh, Merlin's balls," Tien sighed, "look at lover-boy and little-miss-shiny-hair. You know she uses a spell to make her hair shinier, right? She's actually got split ends."
"Yes, you've told me," Emma sighed, looking over at Harry and Cho Chang. It was clear the poor boy was infatuated with the girl, but whatever. He didn't know her very right. As much as Emma was pained to admit it, if anyone knew and understood people, it was Tien, and she was totally right about Cho Chang and Harry not lasting long.
"Oh, even better!" Tien cried as Terry Boot's wand zoomed across their line of sight and hit Alicia hard on the nose. Emma winced, but she had to agree with Tien, after how Alicia had treated her, it was a rather humorous sight. Terry Boot rushed over and issued a thousand apologies.
"Hey, Harry," Granger called from the other side of the room, over by Fred and George, "have you checked the time?"
Emma looked down at her watched and blinked in surprise when she realized it was already ten past nine. They had to rush if they were going to make curfew. Harry blew his whistle and everyone stopped what they were doing.
"Well, that was pretty good," he said, "but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"
"Sooner!" Tien cried, and many people nodded in agreement. She was clearly surprised, and after all, people didn't usually agree with Tien.
"The Quidditch season's about to start," Angelina argued, "we need team practices too!"
"Let's say next Wednesday night, then," said Harry, "and we can decide on additional meetings then… Come on, we'd better get going…"
He pulled out the Map she recognized as the one the twins had used to get around the school undetected for five years. They must have passed it on to Harry after that. He allowed them to leave in threes and fours, so Fred, George, Tien, and Emma left and were closely followed by Lee and the other girls.
"Well," Fred announced as he and George dropped Emma and Tien off at the Ravenclaw Tower, "that was fun. We should do this again soon." He kissed Emma's cheek and said, "And you and I should test out that room later, darling."
Two days later, they did.
Fred sent Emma a note through Tien and George to meet him in the Room of Requirement just after dinner. She did, but not before checking her hair in a suit of armor on her way. She wasn't sure what the room would dream up for them, but she was excited to find out.
At the agreed time, she found herself on the seventh floor, followed the directions Fred had given her, and the door appeared. With a smile, she stepped inside to find Fred pacing the room anxiously.
And what a room it was. There was a large fireplace on one end, roaring with flame and warming the room. In the center of the room was a table where she could study, a couch where they could sit and talk, and on the far end of the room was a bed. Not just any bed, a large, fluffy bed with more blankets than she had ever seen before. Emma liked blankets.
"Wow," she muttered, and Fred stopped pacing abruptly, turning to her with a grin on his face.
"You like it?" he said. "I just imagined it and it all appeared, right here. This room is amazing!"
She smiled, nodded, and kissed him gently on the lips, sitting down on the couch, her back to the bed. There would be time for that later, but for now, she just wanted to be with him. Fred caught the hint and sat beside her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her cheek.
"How was your day, darling?" he whispered, gently trailing kisses along her face.
They talked about classes, pranks, joke products, and Tien's latest rant for about an hour, unconsciously moving ever closer to each other. When they finally found themselves with Emma on Fred's lap, their arms wound tightly around each other, looking in each other's eyes, Fred's sentence about Lee's trial with the Canary Creams drifted into nothing and he hungrily kissed her, as if she might disappear if he did not.
His tongue slid over her bottom lip and she opened her mouth instinctively. It entered her mouth, exploring all the paths and byways it knew practically by heart. Her fingers ran through his hair, gripping his ginger locks as she moaned. She could feel his hardness growing, his cock twitching with every sound she made, digging into her leg. It scared her a little, made her anxious, but the thought that she had that sort of power also excited her.
After ten heated minutes on the couch, Fred stood, carrying her over to the bed, where he laid her gently amongst the blankets and pillows, slipping out of his shoes and carefully sliding hers off before climbing into the bed beside her. His eyes trailed up and down her fully-clothed body as if trying to decide what to do first, like a starving man at a feast.
Then he attacked her neck with his lips, teeth, tongue, taking off his tie as he did so, but Emma barely noticed. She was basking in the feel of his hot mouth on her skin. These weren't new sensations, but somehow they felt more powerful, as if the knowledge of what they were about to do was enhancing every lick, every kiss, every touch. It was maddening.
Her fingers found their way to the buttons of his shirt and quickly undid them as he shrugged off his robes, hovering over her. As soon as she finished with the buttons he peeled off the shirt, tossing it to the ground, and began working on her robe, then her buttons. She sat up to allow him to take them off, toss them to the floor as well. His awed sigh at the sight of her in nothing but her bra was encouraging, and when he fumbled with the fastening of her bra, she didn't protest. It felt right.
Soon that was on the ground and they were both topless, but instead of moving forward they took a moment to explore the recently acquired territory. Emma ran her fingers along his toned chest. There were a few small scars, burn marks, she knew, from his experiments, but nothing ghastly. The light dusting of ginger hair on his body was enticing, but what was more interesting to her was the fascinated, hypnotized way he stared at her chest, reaching out a shaking hand to touch her. When their skin made contact, he seemed to regain his confidence and began to pleasure her breasts, massaging, sucking, licking, kissing… even a little bit of nibbling. When she began moaning in pleasure once more, he moved his fingers to her skirt, unfastening it and sliding it down her legs.
The feel of the fabric slipping off of her, his fingertips igniting a fire on every part of her skin they touched in the process, caused her to shiver with pleasurable anticipation. With a certainty she hadn't known she had, Emma unbuckled his belt and slipped it out of the loops, tossing it aside. His eyes were sparkling, his expression alert as he helped her undo his pants and toss them aside. The toned legs she knew were underneath his clothing were now in front of her, begging to be touched.
Before she could take advantage of them, however he began kissing down her body, reaching her panties and licking her through the fabric: Just one little lick. The sensation made her shudder noticeably and she could feel him smirking. Another lick. She moaned, her hips rising up and begging for more.
Fred was many things, but patient was not one of them. He hooked his fingers onto the sides of her panties and tugged them hastily off before returning almost instantly to taste her more completely.
Emma was inexperienced, unaware of what things were called and how things were done, but whatever he was doing, she didn't want him to stop, and her moans and sighs were telling him just that. Truth be told, Fred wasn't entirely sure what he was doing either, and he seemed to be experimenting, exploring, figuring things out as he went along. Every time he got a satisfied sound from her, she could see his face grow more and more proud. That is, until she was so lost to the sensations that she closed her eyes and threw back her head.
It didn't take long after that for a wave of pleasure to wash over her whole body, causing her to shudder and gasp, writhing under his tongue and fingers. She knew what that was, and now that she knew what it felt like she wanted it to happen again.
Fred certainly thought the same, for he peeled his boxers off as soon as she had calmed down a bit and began stroking his already hard member. There were already drops of fluid on the tip and Emma saw that he was taking the fluid and spreading it across the rest of the skin. She knew what came next. She knew it would hurt, and she knew Fred would feel bad about hurting her, so she resolved to not let him know at all.
It wasn't long before he was positioned at her entrance, biting his lip, eyes staring straight into hers as he moved forward into her, pressing his length into her.
At first, it was agony. It was all Emma could do not to cry out in pain, and she was sure he realized when she spontaneously and vigorously kissed him that she was distracting her mouth from its duty to express her discomfort, but he did not acknowledge it. Fred knew her well enough to know she would have been upset if he had. Instead, he began to make a rhythm, in and out, driving more and more of his length into her as the pain began to subside and her pleasure began to mount once more. Soon, Emma was moaning into his mouth, driving herself against him, working for more friction.
"So… c-close," he gasped. She nodded. She was close again as well.
"Emma!" he cried, and she could feel him release inside of her. He continued to ride it out until she climaxed again, moments later, even more violently than before, writhing underneath him.
"Oh, bloody hell," he sighed when they had caught their breath, curled up together on the bed. "You have no idea," he whispered, "how incredibly beautiful you looked then. I don't think I've ever seen anything so magical in my life."
She would have blushed if her body could have gotten any redder, but she simply nuzzled against his sweaty chest, thinking about the way he had just cried out her name.
"I couldn't agree more," she sighed, kissing him gently as she gave in to sleep.
