That afternoon and the following day, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny spent lots of time in the library. They took many books about the Dark Arts and books containing some very good defensive spells. When they weren't in the library, they spent their time practising and sorting out everything else. Hermione managed to get permission from Mcgonagall to use the Great Hall, which would be a lot better than the Room of Requirement.

On Friday morning, Harry completed everything, and at eleven o'clock he stood in the entrance hall, waiting for everyone else to arrive. Hermione, Ginny and Ron were waiting in the hall.

First to arrive, was Neville Longbottom. He was a round faced forgetful boy, but had also fought the Death Eaters twice, and, despite what others had said about him, was actually quite good. Harry sent him into the hall and waited; next came Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lavender Brown, and Padma and Parvati Patil, all looking extremely happy. Harry greeted them, then, like Neville, asked them to wait in the Hall. Eventually, the rest of the members arrived, the last two people to arrive were Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan, both walked up the road to Hogwarts hand-in-hand. It appeared that after many refusals, Angelina had eventually said yes to Lee Jordan. They apologized for being late, then Harry followed them into the hall. Everyone was talking; hardly anyone had seen their friends since the end of last year and apparentley had a lot of catching up to do. Harry ignored this for the moment, and joined Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna, who were stood in front of the large crowd. Neville was talking excitedly with Ron, Ginny and Hermione, while Luna was busy staring off into space.

After half an hour, when Harry had spoken to almost everyone and managed to tell the story of capturing Bellatrix Lestrange over ten times, he decided to start the meeting. Everyone sat down on the chairs provided and were silent. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at the front, while Ginny, Luna and Neville stood at the back of the group.

"Well, er, Welcome back!" He said, growing nervous under the many eyes that were focused on him. "I know we set up Dumbledore's army to go against Umbridge and learn the things she refused to teach, however, now it is all about defense. It was a mistake not starting the DA again last year, as we all know from the events at the end of then, but that is why we are here." He paused for a moment. "The ministry have said that Hogwarts cannot be reopened because it is a risk to all its students, but we think it's even more of a risk to have all these untrained young wizards and witches out there when Voldemort -" a few people flinched "- and all his Death Eaters are out there, attacking. So, here we are." He paused again as everyone watched him hopefully. "This time, it won't just be me teaching you. Instead, it will be the six people who have actually faced the Death Eaters. All of us have faced the Death Eaters at least twice and I thought it would be best for those people to teach you to defend yourselves. That is, in case you don't know, me, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna. Before we start, I think we should sort out when our meetings are going to be, Hogwarts is the best place to have them, but what about the day and time?"

"What about the Friday evening?" Lee Jordan shouted, many people agreed with him.

"That's good for me," Cho Chang said.

"And me!" Ernie Macmillan shouted.

"What if we had it Friday night and Saturday morning?" Hermione said. "We all need a lot of training, and we might be able to persuade Mcgonagall to let you stay in the castle Friday night, there is enough room. And, that way, if you can't make it for Friday evening, you could just turn up on Saturday, or if you can't come on saturday, just come Friday night." There was a lot of excited talk between everyone, all seemed happy about Hermione's idea.

"Is that agreed?" Harry asked, everyone shouted yes. "So i'll see you every Friday from 6 o'clock onwards." He paused for a moment. "Now, lets get on with the training!" Everyone stood and crossed the hall, away from the chairs and stood looking at Harry.

"Ok then, the first spell we will be learning is the Oppugno spell," Harry said. "I know that this is a quite simple spell, but it can also be very helpful in battle and give you valuable time while your attacker is being attacked. There are some cushions over there -" he pointed to the corner of the room "- spread out and work in pairs." Everyone listened to him, there was some mumbling about how easy this task was, however, Harry was planning to save the better tasks until the end.

Within five minutes, the group had all spread out and were working peacefully together, Harry did not join in for the moment, there was an odd amount of people and last year, it had been Neville working on his own. Harry suddenly had a quick thought, he ran over to Hermione (who was busy sending cushions so hard at Ron that they knocked him off his feet).

"Hermione, i'll be back in a minute," he whispered. "Keep on practising for a bit, and if i'm not back in ten minutes, start the next spell." Hermione nodded, and Harry turned and left the room. He immediately ran to the corridor off of the entrance hall that led to the dungeons. He ran down the dark, dingy corridors and eventually reached the door to the Slytherin Common Room. He muttered the password and entered, Moody was sat alone talking to Malfoy.

"Potter, what are you doing here?" Moody growled, a hint of surprise in his voice. He wasn't facing Harry, but Harry knew that his magic eye would be looking through the back of his head.

"I just wanted to ask Malfoy something," Harry said.

"Well, I think we're done Draco," Moody said, standing up. He nodded to Harry as he left the room.

"What do you want, Potter?" Malfoy asked, sneering. "I told you to leave, I don't want to talk to you, or any of your friends."

"I don't want to talk about anything that happened that night, or what you were doing between then or now, or even the way you behaed before then," Harry said. "I just wanted to ask if you wanted to come to the DA meeting we're having upstairs."

"Why would I want to do that?" Malfoy asked.

"I'm asking you because you we all need to defend ourselves," Harry said. "And you're not really going to learn by sitting down here today."

"Who's there?" Malfoy asked, sounding slightly intruiged. Harry told him everyone who had came to the meeting.

"Well, are you coming or am i just wasting my time?" Harry asked. Malfoy sat in silence for a few moments before answering.

"Why not?" He said. "Any chance to curse those idiots." Harry, however, guessed that was not Malfoys actual reason for going, but chose not to say anything. Malfoy grabbed his wand from the coffee table in front of him and followed Harry out of the common room. They walked in silence up to the entrance hall, then Malfoy suddenly stopped and grabbed Harrys arm.

"How do i know that they're not all going to curse me when i walk in?" Malfoy said. "They saw me at the end of last year, with, well, you know who, and how do i know they aren't going to attack me?" He sounded slightly worried.

"Because, Malfoy," Harry said. "Why would we do that when Mcgonagall and Moody are trying to keep you safe? We are all the same, especially me, you and Ron. You know why." Malfoy nodded. Harry pushed open the doors to the Great Hall and saw that the group were now practising the next spell. Everyone turned around as they saw Harry enter, and all were shocked to see Malfoy behind him. Malfoy walked slowly behind Harry, avoiding the eyes of the rest of them. This made a change from his usual walk, normally he would strut around school as if he were better than all of them.

He's changed Thought Harry.

"What's he doing here?" Neville asked, very loudly.

"Yeah, Potter, what do you think your doing bringing that Slytherin here," Justin Finch-Fletchley shouted.

"Not just any Slytherin, Malfoy, he's as bad as a Death Eater!" Terry Boot exclaimed.

"He is a death eater!" Ernie Macmillan yelled. "He let the others into school last year, and he ran with Snape after Dumbledore died!" There was a lot of angry talk between the various members of the group, all of their wands (except Hermione's, Ginnys and Rons) were all pointed at Malfoy.

Malfoy turned to leave, but Harry grabbed the sleeve of his robe. "Wait," Harry muttered.

"Malfoy is here because i asked him to join us," Harry said. "Malfoy is in as much danger as all of us, in fact, he's in more danger. He isn't with Voldemort, he's with us now."

"How do we know he isn't spying on us?" Dean Thomas shouted. "How do we know that he isn't giving information to you-know-who?"

"We know, because he has been locked up in here for almost a week now," Harry said. "He has no contact with the outside world, none of us do!"

"You managed to get in touch with us using your house-elve, how do we know he isn't doing the same?" Lee Jordan shouted.

"Alright, just shut it," Harry yelled, now getting annoyed with all these questions. "I asked Malfoy here, it is my group. We are all here to defend ourselves, and Malfoy wants to come, if any of you have a problem with that, leave, now." A few people shuffled uncomfortably, but no one left. "Thankyou, now, onto the next spell," He walked forwards, further into the hall, Malfoy followed, his eyes darting between all the members of the group who were staring at him. "The next spell is from a book i received last year," he paused for a moment and looked to Hermione, who wasn't pleased. "The book used to belong to a certain Half-Blood Prince, who is now, in fact, a Death Eater. This spell is very useful for delaying your enemies. Seamus, Dean, you might remember this one, the spell is Levicorpus. Ron, would you like to demonstrate?" Ron stepped forward and pointed his wand at Harry.

"Levicorpus!" He shouted, Harry felt himself being swept off his feet, a few moments later, he was hanging upside down in the air, many people laughing at him. His glasses slipped of his nose and landed on the floor. "The counter-spell," Harry said. "Is Liberacorpus," he quickly fell to ground. He picked up his glasses and repared them, then looked around him. "Well, get practising!" Everyone quickly paired up, Harry joined Malfoy, feeling slightly sorry for him. He paused for a moment, he actually felt sorry for Malfoy, his enemy, together with Snape and Voldemort, Malfoy had made Harry feel extremely bad over his six years at Hogwarts. He soon moved again and joined Malfoy on the far end of the room.

"Thanks, Potter." Malfoy muttered, loud enough for Harry to hear him, but not too loud so that others heard him.

"Not a problem," Harry said.

"This doesn't mean we're friends, Potter," said Malfoy, smirking slightly. The two of them quickly began practising the spell as Parvati and Padma Patil began practicing near them.

Half an hour later, they rested. Many people had managed injure themselves, some people had decided to send random people flying up into the air, and it appeared that when two or more people cast this spell on one person, the effects were quite different. Seamus Finnigan and Hannah Abbott had both suffered the effect of this, and were sent flying into the air and began to spin in mid-air, and, though the sight of this was quite funny to those watching, it wasn't to those who the spell had been sent at. It was Hermione who had cast the counter spell, Hannah and Seamus had then been asked to sit at the side until their dizziness disappeared. There were also injuries from people who had been sent crashing down and had landed awkwardly. Dennis Creevey had done this and managed to break his arm, he was then sent, with his brother, to find Mcgonagall, Moody or any other Order of the Phoenix member to fix this.

During the short break, many house elves came up from the kitchen with cakes, drinks and lots of other food. The whole of the group sat talking together in one large group, Malfoy, however, sat a little further away from the group, behind Harry. They talked mostly of the news that had been in the Daily Prophet over the last few weeks, but also about other things. Eventually, they began talking about the invitation they had recieved from Harry the day before.

"Gran didn't mind about me coming," Neville said. "She says it's a great idea."

"Our mums not so convinced," said Parvati. "Remember, she took us out of school last year after Dumbledore died?"

"She's convinced that nowhere's safe, and, who can blame her? Look at what happened here last year," said Padma. "We told her that if nowhere is really safe, surely it would be better to train here than sit at home doing nothing all day."

"It took a lot of time to persuade her to let us come," said Parvati. "But if she had still said no, we would have came anyway."

"My dad told me i should come," said Hannah Abbott. "After what happened here last year, and everything else that's going on, it's good to have this to come to."

"Yeah, it is," Susan Bones said. "It's something fun to do, but it's also practical. And it distracts us from everything that's happening out there."

"Well, i think we should get back to work now," said Hermione, looking at her watch. "It's already one o'clock and the meeting finishes at four."

"Lets get started then!" Harry exclaimed. "Now, we won't be learning any more new spells for today, however, we will be having short duels with each other. The school started a duelling club in my second year, unfortuanately that didn't work, but we are going to start it again, in a way. There will be three duels at a time, those you aren't duelling have three choices; the first is to watch and maybe learn some new things, the second is to practise spells you already know, somewhere away from the duelling stages, and the third is to learn new spells from the books we have managed to, er, borrow from the library. We will make it into a competition, everytime you win a duel, you will recieve one point, then, after you have all duelled three times, we will start the finals. The overall winner will recieve a prize, then we will start everything again. It sounds a little childish, i know, but it will give you some experience at fighting, you will know how fast you have to think when you are duelling, however, this will be more fun than a proper duel."

"Now it is time for some rules," said Hermione. "The first is quite obvious, no unforgivables, at all. Also, when someone is duelling, do not try to distract them or attack them from the side, or points will be deducted. Also, you are only trying to disarm, or possibly knock out your opponent, so do not do more than what is needed. You cannot start duelling until one of us leaders, that is to say me, Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny or Luna, say you can and fire the signal. If we say stop, stop immediately. Thankyou,"

"Lets go!" Harry shouted. Hermione waved her wand and muttered a spell that none could hear and three duelling stages appeared in the room. "Right, we'll have one duel first, so we can all watch. I think we will have," he paused as he looked across the crowd. "Dean against Neville." Everyone moved around quickly. Dean and Neville climbed onto the duelling stage, Ginny followed and stood in the centre. She pointed her wand into the air, many green sparks flew up into the air. She then jumped down from the stage as Dean and Neville bowed at each other. Both stood straight, their wands pointed at each other.

"Expelliarmus!" Dean shouted, Neville, however, was too quick.

"Protego!" Neville shouted, "Rictusempra!" Dean bent over suddenly and let out a scream of laughter, Neville had cast the Tickling Charm. Dean soon managed to remove the spell and stood to face Neville.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Dean shouted, but once again, Neville blocked it.

"Incarcerous!" Neville shouted, the spell hit Dean and soon he was binded by many ropes, he hopped around for a while, then fell to the floor."

"The winner is Neville!" Ginny shouted. Neville seemed very shocked. He stared at Dean on the floor for a moment, then smiled, only just realising what Ginny had said.

"Well done!" Harry shouted. Ginny climbed up onto the stage and removed the ropes from Dean. Dean stood and climbed down from the stage, not looking very happy. "Next, we will have, Lavender and Parvati, Alicia and Malfoy, and Cho and Terry." The three pairs stood onto each of the stages. Ron stood by Cho and Terrys stage, Ginny stood by Lavender and Parvati's and Luna stood by Alicia and Malfoys. Hermione crossed the room to talk to those who had decided to learn from the books, and Harry sat by Neville, away from everyone else.

"Wow, i won!" Neville exclaimed.

"Of course you did," Harry said. "You fought the Death Eaters two years in a row, and that was only Dean Thomas, Neville." Neville smiled and muttered something Harry couldn't hear, before turning and crossing the room to watch the others fighting.

By the end of the meeting, everyone had duelled at least once and, luckily, there had been no injuries. The afternoon passed so quickly, that they didn't realised they had passed four o'clock a long time ago. They all agreed to see each other the following Friday night for a meeting, and if there were any problems, a house elf would be sent to tell them. Malfoy returned to the Slythering Common Room, while Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny stood in the Entrance Hall, as they watched the crowd of people walk slowly down the path towards the Hogwarts gates, where Hagrid would be waiting to let them out. The four friends watched until their friends disappeared into the distance, then closed the large doors and began walking up to the Gryffindor Common Room.

"So, what are we going to do until the next meeting?" Ron asked.

"I was thinking, we could go on a little trip," Harry said. "I think we should start the search soon. If we could at least find where they are, then come back, and we could find out how to destroy them. Then go back later. What do you think?"

"I think you should tell me what you're up to," Ginny said.

"Shut up, Ginny," Ron said, pushing Ginny into a suit of armour in the corridor. "I think it's a brilliant idea,"

"Me too," said Hermione. "Where are we going first?"

"The Riddle House."


A-N - That's right, i guessed they should go looking soon, so the next chapter should be up by the weekend, depending on what goes off in the "real world"and how easy i find it to write it.

I've been asked to make the chapters longer, so i tried. Tell me what you think.

Thanks for all the reviews so far.

Keep on reading (And reviewing if possible)