Eva arrived at the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade late in the afternoon wearing several layers of clothing due to the harsh cold weather, her Slytherin scarf to keep her neck warm, and a pair of gloves Draco had lent her since she couldn't find her own. She wasn't entirely sure why Hermione had insisted on her coming there at that exact time, but it was made very clear that not a single Slytherin, not even Draco, was to know.
She knew the little pub was usually almost abandoned, so it startled her when she walked in to see so many familiar faces inside. Since she was late, as always, she found a chair near the front beside a blonde girl who she recognised from Ravenclaw.
The girl turned her head, although something about her gaze seemed somewhat distracted. "You're Eva Infernum," she stated.
"I hadn't noticed," Eva replied sarcastically. "You are . . . ?"
"My name is Luna Lovegood," Luna responded. "You went to the Yule Ball with Draco Malfoy last year."
Eva wasn't entirely sure how to respond to her blunt statements. "Yes I did," she answered hesitantly. "Why do you ask?"
"He's not a popular choice, in case you haven't noticed," Luna explained as if Eva didn't know how many people disliked her boyfriend. "He used to throw food at me during mealtimes. I believe it was intended as a prank of sorts."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Eva said sincerely. "If I'd known, I'd have beaten his arse for you, honestly. His behaviour's a work in progress," she laughed.
"It's quite alright, I don't mind," Luna assured her. "You're not like the others in your house."
"How so?" Eva asked.
Luna paused in thought. "Well, you don't allow every decision you make to be overcome by selfishness and greed. Selflessness is a trait many desire but few have the mental strength to endure."
"I see why you're in Ravenclaw," Eva mused.
"'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure'," Luna sang lightly.
Hermione, who was sitting at the front with Harry and Ron, stood up which prompted everyone to go silent. "Um . . . hi. So, we all know why we're here-"
"I don't," Eva added with her hand up.
"Ssh," Hermione hissed, "I'm getting to that. We need a teacher—a proper teacher. One who's had real experience defending themselves against the dark arts."
"Why?" a boy asked.
Eva scoffed. "You really just asked why?"
"Why?" Ron repeated impatiently. "Because You-Know-Who's back, you tosspot."
"So he says." The boy nodded to Harry.
"So Dumbledore says," Hermione argued.
"So Dumbledore says because he says," he continued stubbornly. "The point is, where's the proof?"
Eva, completely fed up of this, stood up and stepped to the front. "For everyone who's currently acting like a mindless follower of the Ministry, here's a very basic politics lesson, questions at the end." She held up her hand at the boy just as he opened his mouth to speak. "Muggles have done this for years, manipulated the people with the media to do whatever they please. Then guess what the people do? They follow it like a bunch of opinion-less sheep."
"So what?" the boy asked.
"So why do you think the Ministry would hide Voldemort's return?" she asked. "Imagine the chaos that would follow his return, imagine the panic, riots, distrust in the Minister. It's a political tactic, and a smart one. Don't be stupid, and don't fall for it. Questions?"
"Why should we trust you?" he challenged. "You're a Slytherin."
Eva shrugged in confusion. "Doesn't that give you a better reason to trust me? I get news from the inside, and trust me when I say he's back. Believe me, don't believe me, but believing me will give you better time to prepare yourselves."
"Maybe if Potter could tell us more about how Diggory got killed," another boy suggested.
"Wanna know how he got killed?" Eva snapped annoyedly. "He was murdered by Voldemort. He used the killing curse on him. The cup was a Portkey. But you know what? It has no relevance, how he was murdered, because however you slice it, Voldemort's back."
Harry stood up behind her. "I'm not here to talk about Cedric, so if that's why you're here, you might as well clear out now. Come on, Hermione, let's go. They're just here because they think I'm some kind of freak."
"Is it true you can produce a Patronus Charm?" Luna asked, recapturing everyone's attention.
"Yes," Hermione answered. "I've seen it."
"Blimey, Harry," Dean said, "I didn't know you could do that."
"And he killed a Basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore's office," Neville told them.
"And destroyed Professor Quirrell to save the Philosopher's stone, and can speak in Parseltongue, and survived the Triwizard Tournament at only 14 years old," Eva added, proud of her sometimes dim but surprisingly powerful friend.
"Third year, he fought off about 100 Dementors at once," Ron recalled.
Hermione nodded. "And last year he really did fight off You-Know-Who in the flesh."
"Wait," Harry interjected. "Look, it all sounds great when you say it like that, but the truth is most of that was just luck. I didn't know what I was doing half of the time, I nearly always had help."
"He's just being modest," Hermione insisted.
"No, Hermione, I'm not," Harry argued. "Facing this stuff in real life is not like school. In school, if you make a mistake, you can just try again tomorrow, but out there, when you're a second away from being murdered, or watching a friend die right before your eyes . . . you don't know what that's like."
"You're right Harry," Hermione agreed, sitting down again with him, "we don't. That's why we need your help. Because if we're going to have any chance at beating . . ."
"Voldemort," Eva finished. "And this is a safe space everyone, say the big idiot's name as loudly as you want."
"He's really back?" Nigel asked.
Harry nodded his head in confirmation.
Only a few minutes later, the trio started up a sign-up sheet for a new secret Defence Against the Dark Arts class, Dumbledore's Army. Eva was the first to sign her name up at the top and, just for formalities, Hecate even added her own name, without a surname of course. Demons don't have surnames.
Eva arrived back later than the others since she'd stayed around Hogsmeade with Luna for a little while longer. Apparently she was just as weird as she sounded, and she kept insistently talking about the Nargles. Eva would've asked, but she thought it might've been a little weird to do so after her half an hour lecture on them.
Once back at school, she went straight up to Draco's dorm, where she spent most of her time, and took off her snow-dusted hat, scarf, gloves, and coat. Draco was already sat on his bed, writing in his dream diary for Divination.
"How was Hogsmeade?" he asked, as if trying to be polite but his distractedness meant he really didn't care.
"Same as always," she replied. Eva had always been a good liar anyway. "Have you been writing in that thing all day?"
"I had to come up with something," he responded exasperatedly. "I'm already a month behind on dream recordings, and with that new centaur thing teaching too, I don't want to fail."
"Like you'll fail," Eva said in disbelief. "You always do well in everything. If it weren't for Hermione the walking library, you'd be the smartest kid in this school. Have any of your dreams been real by the way?" she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him.
Draco flipped back a few pages, scanning the contents of each one. "November 2nd, I had a very strange dream about Umbridge."
"Um . . ." Eva grimaced, "do I want to know?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter," he snapped, suddenly feeling disgusted himself. "She unleashed an army of kittens with bows that purged the school of muggle-borns, half-bloods, and squibs."
"I'm a half-blood," she added.
"I didn't say it was a good dream," he muttered. "Firenze can have a field day with that one."
Just as Dumbledore's Army was about to commence, it was suddenly made clear that, when people said Umbridge was everywhere, she was everywhere.
"All student organisations are henceforth disbanded. Any student in noncompliance will be expelled."
That same message rattled through the newly-installed intercom every few minutes, to the point where Eva could barely sleep without hearing Umbridge's condescending voice repeating that one specific rule.
Although things could be going worse. Apparently a new hiding spot had been discovered for the group, and Eva was told to meet at one particular junction in the corner of the hall at 6 in the evening and to look as busy and casual as possible. So, she stood in that corner with her bag over her shoulder, reading over her Transfigurations notes.
"There you are." Someone yanked her arm along, and it was once Eva lowered her book that she realised it was Hermione. "Is there ever a day when you're not late?"
"What? I'm right on time, see?" She showed Hermione her watch. "6 o'clock exactly."
Hermione took one peek at it and rolled her eyes as they continued walking. "Eva, that watch has stopped working. You need to get that battery replaced."
"What? That's not . . ." It had stopped, the second hand ticking continuously but not moving any further around the face of the clock.
Eva then glanced up in front of her and gasped. Where there had just been an empty stone wall previously now stood a firm set of doors. Without even giving her time to take it all in, Hermione pushed open the door and dragged her in impatiently.
Hermione sighed. "Found her."
Eva took a double take at the amount of people in the room. The sign-up sheet with the names written down made it seem like much less people had joined when, in reality, there was definitely a full class of 30-40 people.
"Just in time," Harry said as Eva dumped her bag and outer robe in a corner. "Everyone's attempted the Disarming Spell already, so I guess it's your turn."
She whipped out her wand and strutted forward. "What was the success rate?"
"About 50/50," Harry estimated. "All you need to do is disarm that mannequin-"
"Expelliarmus!"
Even from across the room, the decoy wand in the mannequin's hand flew in Eva's direction, allowing her to swipe it out of the air with a smug smirk. She heard a whistle in the corner and saw Fred clapping while George held his thumbs up.
Harry was still completely bewildered. "How . . .?"
"Her wand is 11" cherry wood with dragon heartstring," Hermione explained.
"It is?" Eva asked.
She ignored her. "It's the most powerful wand combination, which only chooses wizards with excellent self-control and strength of mind. Mr. Ollivander rarely even makes wands of that type due to the rarity of it being chosen."
"Do you suppose you could help me?" Neville shuffled out from the crowd timidly.
Eva nodded and dragged him to the centre of the room by his jumper sleeve. "You wanna swish and flick, but especially quickly. It helps to stiffen your arm to make your movements more precise."
Neville took a deep breath. "Expelliarmus."
Surprisingly, Eva's advice worked, to an extent. The mannequin was disarmed, but the decoy wand ended up smacking straight into Neville's face.
She smiled sympathetically at him and patted his shoulder. "Nice try, Neville. Nice try."
The next session was just as eventful as the last had been. The class split off onto two sides of the room, and Eva was stood between Fred and George as she pretty much always was.
"Stunning is one of the most useful spells in your arsenal," Harry explained. "It's sort of a wizard's bread and butter, really. So, um, come on, Nigel, give me your best shot."
Nigel, one of few people in the school shorter than Eva, was stood on one side of the room while Harry braced himself on the other. There was piercing silence for a moment as everyone waited for the small boy to make his shot.
"Stupefy!"
Nigel waved his wand at Harry with so much unnecessary force that it repelled the pair of them a few feet further away from each other.
"Good," Harry struggled out as he gathered himself up again, "not bad at all, Nigel, well done. Anybody else want a go?"
Eva was the first to put her hand up. It was rare for her to find something she was good at, since her academic grades only scraped passes, so she was prepared to take any opportunity to test how much she could do (and show off to her classmates).
"Eva, good, okay." Harry nodded as Eva stepped into the middle. "Anyone else?" There was silence. "Anyone?" Still nothing. "Fine," he sighed, "I guess it's you vs. me, Eva."
"You guys are chickens," Eva exclaimed as she stood in the spot Nigel had stood in mere moments before.
"Stupe-"
"Stupefy!"
Before Harry had even finished his incantation, he was soaring backwards across the room until he slammed into the back wall with a loud bang and hit his head.
"Eva!" Hermione complained, running over to Harry's aid.
Eva approached slowly, not really wanting to have to apologise for that spell. "You good, glasses?"
Harry sat up while Hermione checked his head for any severe injuries. "Great, actually," he replied breathlessly. "You're pretty good at this."
As Eva made her way towards the Slytherin common room after spending an hour or so helping Harry to teach Stunning Spells to the other D.A. members, she turned a corner, only to slam straight into something warm and hard.
"Watch were you're going, demonic girl."
She glanced up slowly and found that Draco was standing above her with his usual smug grin, but this time there was some kind of additional smugness to it that wasn't usually present.
"What's with you, ferret boy?" she asked.
"I've just become an official member of Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad." He showed her his badge proudly, which had a little silver 'I' on it. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to. Umbridge was hoping you'd join, actually."
Eva paused for a moment. "Umbridge wants some filthy half-breed Slytherin girl to join her new best friends club? Maybe not for me."
"Eva," he sighed, tucking some of her hair that had slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear, "you're not just some filthy half-breed, okay? Otherwise, why would Umbridge have asked for you to join? Besides, there are so many benefits. In case you haven't noticed, I'm the leader."
"Of course you are," she laughed quietly.
"You'll be able to dock house points, even from other Prefects, you'll gain extra credit, you can read through other students' owl post-"
"Doesn't this give you, I don't know, Hitler Youth vibes?" Eva asked sarcastically.
Draco's expression was blank. "In English please?"
"During the muggle World War 2, crazy German fascist Adolf Hitler started up a youth group with his political party to indoctrinate his Nazi fascist views on the younger population," Eva explained after having watched too many war documentaries with her father. "Doesn't this feel the least bit similar to that? Umbridge Youth, if you get my drift?"
"You are weird, aren't you?" He hummed a laugh, pulling her into his arms. "This isn't fascism, this is simply keeping up with the rules and punishing rule-breakers. So," he pulled away and tilted her chin up towards him, "are you going to join?"
Eva was so entranced by his elegant silver irises that she almost said yes. "Draco, as fun as that sounds, maybe not. I have a lot on my plate, with . . ." she had to stop herself from mentioning the others, "you know, studying—yep, studying, got to get those grades up."
"Is that where you've been going every evening?" he asked.
"Yep, just studying with Hermione," she responded, somewhat truthfully. She was learning something, just not OWL content specifically. "I really don't want to fail these exams, and it's going to take every single brain cell I have to get pass grades."
"You could've just asked me to help you," he reminded her, slightly exasperated.
She shrugged. "You've got a lot going on with your life right now, like Umbridge Youth, so I didn't want to waste your time unnecessarily."
"Eva," he sighed, placing his arm over her shoulders and leading her back towards the common room, "I always have time for you."
The Dumbledore's Army sessions continued right up until Christmas and when Eva wasn't helping others to enhance their Stunning and Disarming Spells, she was being tutored by Draco, who had very boldly accepted the task of teaching the girl who couldn't be taught.
The other Slytherins had already gone to bed since it was the last day before Christmas break, but Eva and Draco were still up late in front of the fire. They were both lying on their stomachs on the floor, facing each other, and around them were various scattered revision notes and parchments containing diagrams Draco had drawn, few of which actually helped.
Draco flipped another page and threaded his fingers through his white hair. "'Name two potions for which moonstone is an ingredient'."
"Um . . ." Eva dragged the word out for a few seconds, "the Draught of Peace?"
"And one more?" he asked tiredly.
"It was either Amortentia or Everlasting Elixirs," Eva answered.
He sighed. "It's not a multiple-choice question, so choose one."
She paused for a moment. "Everlasting Elixirs?"
"No," he snapped exhaustedly, "that's Bezoar. Amortentia, or any other love potion for that matter, contains moonstone."
"I was close, come on," she argued, although she couldn't help but laugh at how stressed out Draco was getting by her nonexistent academic skills.
He slammed the book closed and slid it to the side. "Closer than previous attempts, I suppose," he grumbled.
Eva then knew exactly what would cheer the poor boy up. Above their heads, a little plant was beginning to grow and twisted around into what seemed like an entire bush.
She pointed above their heads. "Mistletoe," she observed.
"Eva, I don't think that's mistl-"
"Do you wanna kiss me or not?" she interrupted shortly.
"Gladly."
His lips collided with hers, and she could tell by the force of the kiss that he was using it as a release from all of the stress from the previous hour or so more than anything. She moved over so that she was lying on top of him, his arms wrapping tightly around her torso and pinning her down to him.
"Hey lovebirds." Eva felt someone kick her and then Draco, so she glanced up.
Blaise apparently hadn't gone to bed yet after all, kicking back on the sofa and picking up a copy of the Daily Prophet to read through. Draco, livid, reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand.
"Locomotor Mortis!"
Blaise gazed down at his legs, which were completely locked together, and then back up at Draco with an eyebrow raised. "Really, Mr. Ferret?"
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: As you can see, once this Dumbledore's Army thing goes down the drain, things are going to get pretty interesting for Draco and Eva. I suppose you'll just have to wait and see haha. Also, I'm actually pretty damn proud of this chapter title, has to be said.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!
