September 25, 1977

"It's not so much that I don't think she has a point."

Remus shut his Transfiguration book, resigning himself to the fact that he was likely not going to be getting any more work done for the rest of the day. Oh, well. It's not like he was going to be at Transfiguration tomorrow, what with the moon tonight. Remus subconsciously began scratching one of the fresher scars on his arms, hidden underneath the sleeves of his Oxford shirt. He'd been feeling restless and slightly feverish all day, but he was determined to eke out whatever productivity he could in the hours before the transformation.

It was N.E.W.T. year, after all.

But even Remus had to gracefully accept defeat in the face of the moody, pensive redhead who was currently draped in the least Head Girl-like manner across her armchair, her legs dangling off one arm and her head resting against the other. She was tapping her wand absently against the fabric of the back, changing colors of individual threads to create tiny rainbow patchworks on the otherwise drab upholstery.

Remus placed his chin on his palm and gazed at her thoughtfully. It was clear that she wanted to Talk, and if he was being honest he'd much rather Listen than Read, what with the pre-lunar migraine he could sense coming. "But?"

"But," Lily sighed, "I suppose, really, when it comes down to it, what bugs me is that she's just … being pushy."

"Pushy how?"

"It's like she thinks there's only one right way to respond to this … Voldemort situation, and she takes it personally when we don't see eye to eye," Lily explained. "Take Mary, for example. I mean, it's Mary. She won't lift a finger if it means she'll break her nail. She's not interested in sticking around, and really, as a muggleborn, that's her prerogative, isn't it?"

"Sounds reasonable."

"Exactly," Lily cried, invigorated by the affirmation from Remus. "It frustrates me, and I just don't know how to tell her."

"How about just like you said it now?"

Lily paused to smile warmly at him. "Remus, you inspire an eloquence in me that I would pay a fortune to have at my disposal in every other situation that calls for it."

Remus's dimple winked in a self-satisfaction not unlike a cat whose belly had been rubbed. Lily continued. "I suppose I should just talk to her. She can be so stubborn though. Like a rock."

Remus carefully thumbed the pages of his book, as if stalling to mull over what she'd said. "Perhaps her reasons for pushing aren't as trivial as you think," he said carefully.

"She keeps talking about starting a club," Lily said, having abandoned fidgeting with the fabric of the upholstery and instead picking at the loose threads of her skirt.

"Is that such a bad thing?"

Lily sighed. "No."

She lay her head down on the arm of the chair for a bit in silence. Remus just gazed at her head, waiting. Presently she lifted it, looking up at him with tired eyes. "It's just … dangerous. And I don't want to make it more dangerous than it already is."

Remus cocked his head to the side. "Dangerous for muggleborns?"

"And half-bloods."

Remus snorted. "That sounds like James and Sirius."

"What?"

"The not caring about danger bit," Remus corrected.

It was Lily's turn to snort. "It's easy for Potter and Black to not care about danger when it isn't their lives on the line. But Marlene knows what it's like."

"True," Remus agreed, but he looked at her thoughtfully. "But maybe you can let the other muggleborns decide what's too dangerous for them. Besides, you can't tell me this doesn't tempt you even a little."

Lily pushed hair out of her face primly, but there was a secret smile lurking in the background of her curated indignance. "Not in the least, I'm an upstanding student, mind you, and Head Girl."

Remus was grinning at her. "Right, right. This is a conversation between prefects."

Lily looked at him. "So? You think I should just go along with Marlene's idea?"

"Since when has Lily Evans 'gone along' with anything?"

"I'm going to assume that's a compliment."

Remus shrugged, smiling. "You're right about one thing— This is about you too, and how to stop … the Death Eaters? Voldemort? Slytherins? Whoever needs to be stopped. We all have a stake in this."

"I know. And I bet she'd be in a lot less trouble if I'm there to help her. No sense of self-preservation, that one …" Lily said, chewing her lip and trailing off, gazing past Remus as if she just realized something important. She suddenly recalled the image of the front page of the Prophet with a picture of Rebecca Stokley from the summer. "No. That's not what it should be though. It can still be a club, but it doesn't have to be that."

Her gaze snapped back to him, her face suddenly illuminated with inspiration. "It could be a club for educating people. Spreading the word. Gathering information about what's going on outside so we can stay informed, and what's happening inside the castle, too. Like a place to learn about important stuff and sort through the bullshit that the Daily Prophet has been publishing. Like a … a …"

"Class?" Remus said, laughing.

"Well I suppose if you insist on taking the fun out of it," Lily snorted.

"I think it's brilliant."

"Yeah?"

"I do," Remus said, scratching again at his forearm without realizing it. He stopped when he caught Lily stealing a glance at his arm. "You should do it."

"I will," Lily said determinedly, jumping to her feet. "Should start planning. Need to talk to Marlene. Much to do. Oof. Ta, Remus. Thank you."

She said this all in a rush, grabbing her book bag and swinging it over her shoulder hastily. Remus watched her haphazardly retie her bun that has been mussed by her lounging around on the armchair. She walked over to where he was sitting and gave him a quick hug with one arm, but before he'd blinked, she'd already run out of the library in excitement.

September 27, 1977

Mosley Morris was a quiet, unassuming second year who has very suddenly experienced a surge in fame in a short amount of time.

Mosley was the youngest of four siblings, which normally should've made her the most adored and thereby the most gregarious. Not that she wasn't adored—she had two very loving parents who saw to her needs to the best of their ability. She just wasn't gregarious, probably because her two brothers and oldest sister took up as much space in the family's collective conscience as possible. Her sister was rebellious and difficult, and her twin brothers were chalk full of pranks and troublemaking. That left her, Mosley, the youngest by many years, to make up for her siblings by keeping to herself for the most part and ensuring she caused her parents no strife.

When Mosley got her Hogwarts letter, her parents were not surprised. She was a half-blood: her father was muggleborn, and her mother came from a half-blood family herself—many of her cousins from her mother's side were muggles. All her siblings had gone to Hogwarts—in fact, her twin brothers were both in Hufflepuff in their seventh year. Her sister had been in Hufflepuff too, as had her father, and the Morris household had anticipated that she would follow in their footsteps.

To everyone's surprise, Mosley was sorted into Gryffindor, same as her mum (it made Mosley feel warm inside to know she went on her mum), and from there her career at Hogwarts had been fraught with the kind of notoriety and attention that Mosley was not used to, and indeed, had avoided, all her life. She had a long natural hair and enormous glasses that sat atop her button nose, she hardly ever spoke to anyone, and she often could be seen in the library with the world's ugliest toad sitting on her shoulder. But she was also top of her class first year, and her classmates had blinked about in consternation when Professor McGonagall had announced it because a majority of them had quite simply forgotten Mosley was in their year at all. Mosley had not made it any easier for them, hidden in the corner seat of the very last row of class, big eyes magnified behind thick spectacle lenses.

As if that wasn't enough, her friend Alia, after persistent and aggressive nagging, had somehow managed to convince her to try out for the Quidditch team at the beginning of their second year. She wasn't a bad flyer—she'd spent many summers playing with her cousins when they visited family in the islands—and she had her mother's natural talent on the broom, another way in which she had taken after her mother.

She in no way thought she'd actually make the team.

Yet when Thursday morning rolled around and she slipped to the front of the crowd by the common room bulletin board, there it was, to her utter shock, scrawled in pointy, slanted handwriting across the parchment. Seeker – Mosley Morris. Needless to say, none of her classmates forgot who she was after that.

It was one thing to be on the team, but it was another entirely to be a part of the team. She was the youngest member by a number of years, the next oldest being Salma Bazzi and Reese Ortega who were both fifth-years and a whole three years her senior. They weren't that intimidating: Salma was friendly and easygoing while Reese, although her multiple tattoos and heavy, dark makeup gave her a more menacing aesthetic, only picked on people who were either older or tougher than she was. Clive Seymour came next as the sensible, if not a little stiff, sixth-year Keeper, and he reminded Mosley of a kindly older brother.

It was the seventh-years that made Mosley the most nervous when they first began practice. Marlene McKinnon was quick-witted and sharp-tongued, Sirius Black was, well, handsome and Sirius Black, and James Potter was just so talented a flyer that Mosley felt a sinking feeling that she'd never be able to live up to his expectations. They were Older with a capital O, in that looming, intimidating way all the senior students appeared to be to the first- and second-years. Mosley was scared that among people like them, she would not fit in at all.

But her fears had been swiftly assuaged. Marlene had taken a special interest in Mosley, even teaching her how best to manage her hair so that it didn't get mussed during practice, especially when it was windy or rainy. Sirius turned out not to be so scary up close: He had a loud, bark-life laugh and a mischievous glint in his eye that made it difficult to take him too seriously. Mosley had even gotten comfortable around James, who was by far the friendliest seventh-year she'd met, and although he was unrelenting as a captain, he would always grin sheepishly when Marlene or Sirius or Salma began to rib him as soon as he got too high-strung.

She'd strangely enough found a family amid this random assortment of people she called her team, and practice days became some of her most favorite days at Hogwarts. That wasn't to say she didn't join the rest of mates in their intense resentment of their captain, who insisted on working them until they fell off their brooms in fatigue. But there was a certain satisfaction in returning to warm supper at the Great Hall after a long evening on the pitch, sitting with the team and trying not to accidentally inhale soup from laughing too hard at Sirius and Salma making faces at each other as James prattled on about Quidditch moves. Those were some of her favorite memories at Hogwarts, memories that reminded her that she did belong.

Today was one of those evenings. They'd finished up early enough that they had time to nip over to the Gryffindor tower to change out of their muddied, wet clothes before heading down to supper. James was, as usual, talking their ears off about Quidditch plays as nobody paid attention. Sirius and Reese were comparing their muscles, flexing their arms expertly side-by-side to see whose biceps were bigger. Salma was yawning—she was always sleepy—as Clive told her about the new Keeper's gloves he'd bought, and Marlene was aggressively quizzing Mosley on Charms in preparation for her quiz the next day.

"And what's the wrist movement?"

Mosley frowned. "Er … a half rotation clockwise."

"And a pull-back."

"Right, yeah."

"Don't forget the pull-back, otherwise it's just a simple stunning spell," Marlene warned.

"She knows that from experience," Sirius told Mosley with a grin, pulling down his sleeve. "Stunned Evie Nicholson in second-year. Hit her right in the face, too. I don't think she ever forgave you for that."

Marlene narrowed her eyes at Sirius. "I have so many stories of the Misfortunes of Sirius Black in Charms Class I could fill the entire Restricted Section."

"I am not ashamed of my battle scars."

"I accidentally locked myself in the toilet once because I slept through the Alohamora lesson," Clive added, as if to be helpful. He turned to look meaningfully at Salma and Reese.

Salma yawned instead while Reese shrugged and said, "I'm ace at Charms, sorry."

"Are any of you listening?" James asked over his shoulder, peeved.

"'Course we are, Potter," Salma said cheerfully.

"Liars," James grumbled. "S'alright I suppose. Pop quiz next practice on the three plays we've been working on and twenty laps around the pitch if you get it wrong."

Everyone burst out in protest at the same time.

"Twenty rounds?"

"You've got to be joking."

"What were the three plays?" Salma whispered furiously to Reese, who shrugged and surveyed her nails, the only person unperturbed.

"I imagine you all are intimately familiar with them given that we're up against Hufflepuff in six weeks," James said in a sing-song voice.

"Six weeks is ages, mate," Sirius insisted.

"Yeah, I could brew two separate batches of Polyjuice in that time."

"Maybe if you brew it strong enough you can actually impersonate a good Quidditch player."

"Harsh, Potter," Marlene said, wounded.

"Flobberworms," Clive shouted the password as they came to a halt in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. The portrait swung open slowly, creaking as it went.

"Listen," James said with as much sternness as he could muster, ducking as he stepped into the common room and held the door open to the rest of his teammates who filed in after him throwing him the stink-eye, "I have enough on my plate without worrying about you lot being knocked down by a stray bludger from Tabitha Li."

"Ha, Li couldn't aim a bludger if the target was a ten-foot troll strapped to a chair."

"Well, if she's paying even a third more attention to her captain than you are, she'll be able to in six weeks—"

"Potter!"

James slumped mid-sentence like the weight of the world had suddenly been placed on his shoulders. He saw her walking in his direction from across the common room, her hair escaping her messy bun as always, brows furrowed.

James raised an eyebrow as Lily came up to him and thrust a scroll of parchment under his nose.

"What's this?" He asked, taking the parchment and unrolling it. He held it up to the light with both hands, his teammates shuffling closer and peering at it over his shoulder.

"Schedule," Lily replied.

"Wow," Reese said, surprised at her own amazement, since very little surprised or amazed her. But the intricate grids and meticulously drawn timetables were enough to impress anybody. "Is this … color-coded?"

"Of course," Lily said, as if it was the most obvious thing.

"Er." James said helpfully, cocking his head as if to try a different angle to help him make heads or tails of the chart.

"Duties for Career Week," Lily prompted him, her eyes rolling ever so slightly.

"Right," James said cheerfully, pretending to look at it carefully. He knew there was no point—if Lily had drafted it, it was sure to be flawless. Nevertheless, he squinted at it as if considering it down to the smallest detail. "Why is my name on it three times."

"Because you're Head Boy and we have extra shifts."

James looked up at her in dawning horror, his arms lowering slowly. "What's this now?"

Lily looked at him patiently. "There are more shifts than people, and we ought to pick up the extras ourselves."

"Ought we?" James asked with uncharacteristic meekness.

"Looks like we won't have time for the twenty laps," Salma whispered smugly to Reese under her breath.

"It's what we signed up for."

"I certainly did not sign up for this."

"There are pros and cons of being Head."

"I'm still waiting for the pros," James muttered under his breath as he held out the chart in front of his face once more, squinting.

"Oh bully, Potter, it must be tough to hold a position of power over the entire student body," Salma yawned.

"Mate, you're penciled in for a meeting on Friday night," Sirius said, leaning in close over James's shoulder. "We're planning Pete's birthday that night, remember?"

James groaned. "Bugger."

"Is something wrong?" Lily cocked her head and smiled wanly.

"Nope," James said with his own flat smile. "You've outdone yourself."

"Truly," Clive piped up, stepping forward. He strode purposefully toward Lily and extended his arm, smiling. "You were in the Arithmancy Club last year, weren't you? I don't think we've properly met. Clive Seymour."

Lily looked up at him with surprise, as did the rest of the team, all staring at him openly. Her eyes flickering between his face and his outstretched hand. She shook his hand tentatively. "Er, yes, I was … how did you know?"

"You're legendary, of course," Clive responded, smiling. "Everyone in Arithmancy Club knows the brilliant Lily Evans."

Lily turned slightly pink but looked pleased. "Are you in it, then?"

"Yes, and I was sad to see you'd left," Clive added, leaning closer, "I was looking forward to you being there. I don't know how we're going to win the arithmanthalon this year without you."

"Oh," Lily said with an awkward laugh. "Well, I mean, there are plenty of great members still, and Yolanda Jones will be an excellent president. If you ever want to chat about strategies, though …"

"Would love to," Clive said briskly. "How does Friday evening work for you?"

"Sorry, we have a meeting Friday," James interjected abruptly, an edge in his voice as he looked between Clive and Lily with a raised eyebrow. The rest of the team exchanged meaningful looks, Sirius and Marlene smirking at each other.

"Yeah, the weekend's better anyhow, you can sit for longer," Marlene piped up, "And Lily's free this weekend—aren't you?"

"I suppose I am," Lily said slowly, glancing at Marlene with slight exasperation. Marlene just winked.

"Splendid," James said flatly, rolling up the schedule and throwing a glare Marlene's way. "Well, we better be off. Quidditch strategizing and all, you know how it goes."

His team grumbled in response, stomping their feet tiredly as they shuffled toward a table in the common room. James walked by Clive and Lily, looking slightly disgruntled. Clive ignored it, leaning forward.

"I look forward to chatting with you more, Lily," he said, smiling winningly.

"Sure," Lily said breezily, but her cheeks were a little pink.

"Any day now, Seymour," James called exasperatedly at Clive, rolling his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. Lily didn't seem to notice as she walked away, smiling to herself. Clive watched her go before walking to the table to join the rest of his team.

"Seymour's getting his game on," Sirius noted, amused.

"Good for him," Salma said glumly, "At least one of us found the time to."

Mosley didn't understand what exactly had just transpired and didn't know what to make of Clive looking uncommonly happy, James looking uncommonly sullen, and Salma looking plainly forlorn, but she was too shy to ask the real question that was on her mind:

How did one join the Arithmancy Club?

September 27, 1977

"Do you think if I forged my O.W.L.S. transcript they'd notice?"

Peter looked almost hopeful when Sirius said brightly, "Say, now that's an idea!"

"You don't need to forge anything, Peter," Remus said patiently, grabbing another paper from the pile in front of him. The three boys were sitting at the round table in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, stacks of employment brochures and recruitment pamphlets covering almost every inch of the wooden surface. He handed the paper to Peter. "Your grades are fine."

"I could use a better grade in Herbology," Peter said, sighing as he tossed aside the informational brochure on medical brewing industries.

"So, you could, you know, actually pay attention in class, then," Remus pointed out, fully acknowledging the hypocrisy in him lecturing anybody on the idea that hard work somehow paid off when he himself couldn't even be near a cauldron without it blowing up, much less brew a potion. This was despite spending many nights of despair in the library with his nose buried in his potions book. He gingerly pushed aside a number of pamphlets that Sirius had surreptitiously been sliding in front of him for the past half hour.

Sirius waved his hand dismissively and slid another one across the table to Remus. "Nah, it can't be that easy." Remus rolled his eyes and nudged it away.

"Let's face it, there's no hope for me and plants," Peter said to Remus glumly. He suddenly looked worried. "D'you reckon they can throw you in Azkaban for that?"

"… Being pants at Herbology?"

"Forging a document."

Sirius snorted, "I don't think people get sent to Azkaban for lying about their fifth-year grades." He scratched behind his ear with his quill, squinting at the page in front of him. "Do I want to learn how to be a professional home redecorator?"

"You could start by redecorating your bed. Do you know you've had that chocolate stain on your pillow since third year?" Remus said lightly.

"Harr harr. You've spent too much time staring at my bed. Don't let on, people will talk."

"Oh, wow, look at this one, Moony, you'd like it," Peter said, flipping over the brochure to read the back. On the front was the seal of the Ministry of Magic on top of a picture of two wizards in white lab robes, waving. The print on the top read, "Want to be an apprentice researcher?" which disappeared to give way to the message, "Join us at the top Ministry-funded research institute to start your career NOW!"

"I'm okay Wormtail, but thanks," Remus said. Sirius shot him a look.

"Oh, hand it over Pete—" Sirius snatched it out of Peter's hands, "—here, at least look at it Moony? See, it says you need to be good at Charms, you're excellent at Charms, it's got your name written all over it."

"I'm okay," Remus repeated.

"Don't be bashful, you're Flitwick's favorite."

"I meant I'm okay as in I don't need—"

"—It doesn't require a background check," Peter interrupted. A background check would easily reveal Remus's lycanthropy.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Subtle, Pete."

But nothing seemed to rock Remus's boat. "It's alright, I'm not interested in any of this. Besides, I would also need to be good at Potions, and the last time I successfully brewed something was tea for my mother over summer."

"Oh, true," Peter agreed. "Besides, I just realized they'll do a medical examination on you, since it's the Ministry, so they'll find out about your lycanthropy anyway. You'd just go to Azkaban."

"Wormtail I swear to god—"

"—He's right," Remus cut Sirius off, who was shooting daggers at an unabashedly tactless Peter. "It's fine. I'm not going to the career fair anyway."

There was an immediate outburst at the table.

"Have you lost your marbles? Of course you're coming—"

"—I need you, Moony!" Peter wailed, eyes wide, "Sirius is really bad at moral support—no offense, Padfoot—"

"—He's right, I'm absolutely dreadful," Sirius insisted. "Besides, who's going to stop me from publicly humiliating Snivellus in front of all his prospective employers?"

"Prongs?" Remus offered like it was the most obvious answer.

"Well, so, I don't know how to break it to ya Moony, but he actually suggested we use his leftover dungbombs from last year—"

"James is in on this?" Remus asked in horror. "He's Head Boy!"

Sirius leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye. "You see, Lupin? We need you there—for strictly professional reasons. We wouldn't want Prongs to defile the sanctity of Head Boyship, would we? It's purely selfish, I promise you, nobody is trying to be a good friend to you or anything suspicious like that."

Remus looked conflicted, thick brows furrowed as he glanced from one hopeful face to another. Finally, he relented, sighing heavily. "Fine. Fine. I'll come."

"There's a good lad."

"But I'm not applying to anything," Remus said flatly.

"Sure," Sirius nodded sagely, sounding utterly unconvinced. "Whatever you say, Remus."

"I can help with the dungbombs, though."

Peter and Sirius simultaneously looked at him with surprise.

Remus shrugged. "I'm not Head Boy."

"What should we call it?"

Marlene spoke from the foot of Lily's bed, where she sat cross-legged with her back against the bedside table. In front of her was a pile of chocolate frogs that she slowly worked her way through, her aggressive chewing undercutting the solemnity with which she spoke.

"Dunno," Lily grunted, her face very close to the parchments and books that took up most of her bed. She threw down her pencil, stretching her arms above her head to get rid of the soreness in her neck. Kat surveyed the scatter of pages between them, laying much more comfortably on her side across from Lily. "Didn't think about it."

"What about," Marlene said after she'd gulped down her seventh frog. "The Society for Bitch-slapping Slytherin Scum."

Kat cackled as Marlene grinned at her. "Ooh I got one—The Partnership for the Pranking of Pompous Prats."

"The Institution for the Eradication of Evil Idiots."

"The Anti-Slytherin League Because Fuck Those Guys."

"Mmm maybe not, Slytherins can join our club, technically," Lily pointed out, staring thoughtfully into the ether.

"Yeah, but if they do, we're going to bully them into leaving."

Lily snorted. "Some of them are alright," Lily muttered under her breath, but her friends had already moved on to brainstorming more names for the group. She shook her head, smiling, as Marlene let out a shriek of mirth. She'd had this disagreement with Kat and Marlene many times before, but she had less conviction in her stance with each passing day. Sev's betrayal had definitely accelerated a lot of that.

"We haven't even really figured out what we want to do with it," Kat said, adopting a more serious tone as Marlene's laughter died down. "Lily, what exactly did you mean when you said you thought it should be … educational?"

Lily leaned her back against the headboard. She sat in thoughtful silence for a few seconds before she spoke. "Remember when Rebecca Stokely was killed this summer, and the Prophet kept saying it was a random murder? I think that's what really got me thinking … I dunno."

She suddenly was upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and jumping to her feet. Kat snatched a couple pencils that rolled off the side of the bed and Marlene hastily moved aside her chocolate frogs from Lily's path as she paced. "I was talking to Joyce Jefferson, you know, Ravenclaw prefect. She said she and a couple other folks were starting a secret dueling club. Which I think is useful, no doubt. But I think people need to also be equipped with knowledge. We need to be more equipped with knowledge. It's no help knowing how to duel when you don't even know who you're supposed to be dueling, or why."

"Knowledge about what, exactly?" Marlene asked, half her attention focused on capturing the chocolate frog that had jumped out of her clutches and was now attempting to escape under the bed.

Lily paused, her brows furrowed in thought. "About … everything. I mean look, the three of us know that Stokely was not just killed on accident. We know muggles are not actually dangerous, that Voldemort's propaganda against muggles goes way back, and that his plans are probably much more evil than just some sort of silly political prejudice against non-magic folks and non-purebloods. But how many people here actually know anything about muggles—aside from what they learn in Muggles Studies? Hell, how many people even take Muggle Studies in this school? How many people have the time to keep up with the news when there are O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.s and homework and Quidditch to worry about, not to mention, when newspapers like the Prophet are deliberately covering up the extent of the war?"

Lily continued to pace. "We spent all summer, all of last year, the year before that, keeping track of all this stuff. We should tell people what we know and find out what they know. We have a responsibility to do that."

"But do people care?" Kat sounded doubtful. "I mean, for a lot of people, none of this matters much. Will people care?"

"I think part of our responsibility is getting them to care in the first place."

"We could create a more local element to it," Marlene suggested, breaking of a leg of her now-captured chocolate frog. "We could keep people informed about what's happening inside Hogwarts, too. I mean, everyone hears rumors about the people being attacked in the corridors and all. But maybe if all the information is available in one place, people are likely to keep their eyes peeled. Like, we know Rosier and Evans and their little gang is up to no good, but how many others outside our year know that? And what about all those younger kids the older students are trying to recruit?"

"Brilliant," Lily said, her eyes flashing triumphantly. "Yes, that's … that's perfect. We can be a sort of filtration system for information, both inside and outside Hogwarts. A place to figure out what's really going on, to get to the truth and help each other be better equipped for what's out there. Instead of having to rely on the load of toss we get from the Prophet every day."

"And," Marlene added, a grin spreading across her face, "if somebody happens to come across information about who the Death Eaters have sent to spy on Dumbledore … well. All the better for us."

"I'm in," Kat said firmly. "But, er … we still don't have a name."

"I still think 'The Anti-Slytherin League Because Fuck Those Guys' works," Marlene shrugged, licking the last of the chocolate off her fingers.