A/N: Thanks to fireman12468, amalone5428, dsrtchck, Siriusly Goode, 01blackblind, twibe, HuntressofArtemis310 and Moon Lantern for reviewing/favouriting/following.
The next chapter will skip to Christmas as people have said the story is going a bit slowly. Also, not quite happy with this chapter so may be editing again soon :) Please leave me a review!
By the time eight o'clock came, every cushion in the room was occupied, and Harry, looking nervous, stood up, moving to the front.
"Well," he said. "This is the place we've found for practise sessions, and you've – er – obviously found it okay."
"It's fantastic!" a Ravenclaw girl with long dark hair piped up, and everyone murmured in agreement.
"It's bizarre," said one of the Weasley twins, Ariella couldn't be sure which. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then."
"Hey, Harry, what is this stuff?" asked a boy from near the rear of the room, pointing to some strangely shaped objects that Ariella, Lottie and Arcturus had never seen in their lives.
"Dark detectors," Harry said immediately, reaching over and picking the items up. "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…"
Ariella watched as he gazed a moment into a piece of glass before frowning and putting it down.
"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and – er –" He stopped and looked over at Hermione in the crowd, who had her hand in the air. "What, Hermione?"
"I think we ought to elect a leader," she said.
"Harry's leader," the dark haired Ravenclaw answered almost straight away, looking at Hermione as though she was mad.
"Yes, but I think we should vote on it properly," Hermione said, not backing down. "It makes it formal and gives him authority. So, everyone who thinks Harry should be our leader?"
Ariella put her hand up, as did everyone else in the room, although she nearly giggled when she saw Harry was going as red as a tomato.
"Er – right, thanks," he said. "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?" Angelina, a girl whose name Ariella only knew because she was in the Gryffindor quidditch team, said hopefully.
"Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons Group?" suggested the other Weasley twin.
"I was thinking," Hermione continued, glaring at the twins. "More of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings."
Ariella frowned. What name wouldn't give away what they were doing?
"The Defence Association?" the Ravenclaw girl suggested. "The DA for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?"
"Yeah, the DA's good," Ginny said. "Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army, because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?"
Even Arcturus cracked a smile at Ginny's comment as the rest of the room was filled with low chuckles and appreciative murmuring.
"All in favour of the DA?" Hermione said bossily, kneeling up to count. "That's a majority, motion passed!"
She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it to the wall and wrote across the top in large, curly letters: Dumbledore's Army.
"Right," said Harry, when she had sat down again. "Shall we get practising then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliamus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic, but I've found it really useful–"
"Oh, please," said a small, blonde boy, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliamus is going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"
"I've used it against him," Harry said quietly. "It saved my life in June."
Ariella stared at him. She had never heard him speak of what happened in June, not even in all the time she was with him at 12 Grimmauld Place. The rest of the room were just as shocked.
"But if you think it is beneath you, you can leave," Harry continued. Nobody moved, not even Smith. "Okay, I reckon we should divide up into pairs and practice."
Immediately, Ariella jumped at Lottie, leaving Arcturus to be paired with Huey Paquet and both pairs moved into a spare corner to practise.
"Expelliamus!" Ariella cried straight away, pointing her wand at Lottie and hoping to catch her by surprise. However, the auburn-haired girl merely winced as the spell hit her. "Sorry! It didn't hurt you, did it?"
"No, no, it was just an odd feeling, that's all," Lottie reassured her and attempted to do it herself. She missed completely and ended up blowing a pile of books of a shelf above Ariella's head. The girl quickly ducked out the way as the hard-backs clattered to the floor.
"Hey, hey!" It was Harry, rushing over to see what had happened. He went straight over to Lottie. "You need to make sure you are pointing your wand directly at your opponent, like this." He took hold of Lottie's hand and directed it at Ariella before letting go. "Now try."
"Expelliamus!"
Ariella's wand flew out of her hand and landed on the floor beside her, making Lottie's face light up in excitement.
"I did it!" she cried.
"Excellent!" Harry praised and turned to walk away.
"Harry can you help me? I can't get it to work!" Ariella asked before he could disappear amongst the crowd.
"Let me see you do it and then I can see what's wrong."
So Ariella did and once again it didn't work, only causing Lottie to stumble back a few paces.
"You don't mean it," Harry told her simply. "You have to mean to disarm your opponent if you want it to work. If you don't, then the spell won't be strong enough to cause the wand to fly out of her hand."
"Okay." Ariella narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to replace Lottie with a picture of what she thought a Death Eater might look like. "Expelliamus!" she yelled.
The red beam of light hit Lottie squarely in the chest and her wand flew out of her hand, flying across the room and landing in the opposite corner.
Everybody fell silent a moment and looked towards Lottie and Ariella, even Harry looked surprised.
"That was–" Harry started, but the loud voice of Hermione soon interrupted.
"Ella? Was that you?" She pushed her way through the crowd and to her sister. "Did you just do that?"
"Yes," Ariella squeaked, still in shock herself. "I mean, I think so."
"That… that was so strong! How did you do it?" she asked.
"I… I just pictured Lottie as a Death Eater and said the spell. I didn't do anything special… I think…"
"Right, everyone, back to it," Harry ordered, sensing Ariella's discomfort. "There's definite room for improvement… for everyone. I'll come round and help."
Slowly the silence dissolved into talking once more as everyone turned back to their partners, all determined to beat Ariella. Hermione was especially competitive, dragging Ron away to practise again. She wasn't about to be shown up by her sister.
Ariella made sure that she didn't send anymore wands flying over the other side of the room that session, focusing on helping Lottie to perfect hers instead. However, she was slightly relieved when Harry blew a whistle to signal the end of the lesson.
"Well, that was pretty good," he said. "But we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"
"Sooner," piped up one boy eagerly and Ariella nodded. She couldn't wait to learn more, and hopefully everyone would have forgotten about today by then.
However, Angelina interrupted. "The Quidditch season is about to start," she said. "We need team practises too!"
"Let's say next Wednesday night then. We can decide on additional meetings then. Come on, we'd better get going. Ariella and any other Gryffindor first years go first. We can't all leave together."
Ariella and Lottie got up and they were soon followed by Arcturus, Huey and a boy called Luke who had paired with his elder brother during the session. The five made their way out into the empty corridor, chatting away about how much fun it had been to meet everyone and learn so much. In fact, Ariella didn't stop chatting until she was in bed and until Lottie stopped replying. After that, it didn't take her very long to fall into a dream full of excitement and spells.