Yeah! We hit 4000 Views. For what people want to see as the villain, I got two votes on Ares, and one on another god. Thanks for the support recently.

Chapter 15: Leo

It was the morning of the first Hogsmeade weekend and I was ecstatic. Over the past few days, Harry and Ron had opened up to us about their new Defence Against the Dark Arts group. We had tracked down a lot of people who wanted to join as well and we was extremely grateful. We were sent here to protect Harry, but so far, nothing really seemed to want to kill him, except Umbridge. Over the last few weeks though I kept having dreams about a door. Apparently, every other demigod was also having dreams about that door. Usually demigod dreams were prophetic, so we were about to confront that door sometime soon. Anyways, it was the weekend and I was ready to enjoy Hogsmeade! According to all the wizards, it was one of the best places they had ever been.

I just tossed on my orange Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt and some faded blue jeans. I also wore a black jacket. (I checked, the wizards can wear muggle clothing when going into Hogsmeade) I grabbed some money because I was probably going to be entranced by all the shops. I rushed downstairs into the common room, with my money-bag hanging loosely by my side and my permission slip waving in my hand. Hermione was sitting by the fire, in her armchair, deep in thought. I noticed she was also wearing a Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt with black jeans. She was wearing a navy-blue sweater. She didn't notice me walk in so I waved my hand in front of her face. She was obviously startled and flipped me over. I went weightless and I was thrown to the ground with unbelievable force. I immediately groaned and Annabeth jumped up.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Leo, are you hurt?" She asked, concerned.

"Yea, Yeah I'm fine Annabeth. Just next time I wave my hand in front of your face, don't flip me," I said, visibly wincing as I stood up. She apologized multiple times but I waved her off.

"So? Should be get going?" She asked, I nodded and we trotted out of the common room. I didn't pay attention to the riddle, but Annabeth answered it instantly. We ran down the winding staircases, running to the Great Hall to have breakfast, meet up with The Seven, and go into Hogsmeade. Once we ran into the Great Hall, we trudged over to the Hufflepuff Table, where all seven of us decided to sit. The Golden Trio wanted to sit at the Ravenclaw table, as they wanted to go over what to do in Hogsmeade. Annabeth rushed towards Percy and they kissed before sitting down and continuing their breakfast. I sat in between Jason and Frank, because why not? I grabbed a sandwich and started munching on it. I threw my arms around Jason and Frank and launched into a series of bad jokes. I won't say what they were as you would probably run away screaming. It was that bad.

Anyways, after a long and hearty breakfast, we ran to the courtyard, where the rest of school that was above third year was waiting to go into Hogsmeade. The seven of us ran to McGonagall, handed our permission slips that were signed by 'Chiron Brunner.' McGonagall flashed us a smile, showing that she approved, before ushering us away. We ran towards the Golden Trio, who all waved at us and smiled.

"Thanks for helping us!" Hermione exclaimed.

"It was the least we could do Hermione," Annabeth replied. They continued to compliment each other and it turned into a conversation about school work. Harry and Percy were in deep conversation about Defence Against the Dark Arts. Harry was nervous about talking in front of just the nine of us. He said, that talking in front of like thirteen or fifteen people wouldn't be that much different, especially since most of the school thought that he was insane. They continued to talk about theories about some lessons and ways to train people in practical defence. Ron and Jason were deep in thought about Quidditch. Piper stood around and also talked about Quidditch. She had been reading up on it, Jason had said it was amazing. That left Frank, Hazel and I to talk about whatever. We started to talk about what subjects we enjoyed. Then the conversation morphed to what we were going to do in Hogsmeade. I particularly wanted to go to Zonko's Joke Shop. Honeydukes also sounded like a place that I would love. We all decided that the Three Broomsticks sounded like a place we would all enjoy. As soon as we were given the go clear to go to Hogsmeade, we lined up and walked past Filch. He mainly just spared some students looks of disdain, but occasionally sniffed the air. When Harry walked past, he started sniffing at him. We all looked confused, but Harry narrated his encounter with Filch in the owlery, it was so hilarious. I couldn't breathe. Everyone else thought it was funny, but no one lost it like me.

The three of them decided to give us the tour around Hogsmeade, before rendezvousing at the Hog's Head in three hours. It turns out the Zonko's had about every different wizarding joke known to wizard kind. There were dungbombs, fireworks, frog spawn soup and several different joke items that would make anyone happy for ages. I bought quite a lot of joke stuff and I decided I would put it to good use one of these days. Honeydukes was next on our tour and it was amazing. Much like Zonko's, there was plenty of sweets. I spent ages looking at all the sweets. Percy nagged the shop owner if they had any blue sweets, while Annabeth scolded him. All of us shoved a lot of money towards them, almost cleaning them out of many things, such as Sugar Quills, Acid Pops, and many more intriguing sweets that made my tongue yearn for more. We managed to tear ourselves away from there. We then entered the Three Broomsticks, but didn't buy anything. We would buy whatever we wanted in the Hog's Head. We ran to the Hog's Head, awaiting the few students, who didn't think Harry was nuts to arrive.

In my opinion, the Hog's Head was nothing like the Three Broomsticks. It was a very small, dingy, very dirty bar that gave off a strange odour of something that I couldn't place my finger on. The windows were very grimy and dirty, allowing very little light to penetrate the room. Instead, there were candles that adorned the wooden rickety tables that were set around the room. The floor seemed to be of dirt and nothing more, but I reached down and detected that it was instead stone, simply carrying the filth of many decades piled on top of it. There was a man at the bar whose whole head was wrapped in dirty grey bandages, though he was still managing to gulp endless glasses of some smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth; two figures shrouded in hoods sat at a table in one of the windows; I probably thought that they were dementors if they had not been talking in strong Yorkshire accents, and in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace sat a witch with a thick, black veil that fell to her toes. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly. The people in the Hog's Head were very weird. Anyways, we sat at a few tables.

"Anyway Hermione, other than us lot, who's coming?" Harry asked.

"Just a couple of people." Harry managed to breathe a sigh of relief. I could relate, it definitely seemed that talking wasn't his strong suit. "In fact, I think that's them now." We all craned our necks to see the pub door swing open. The musty light managed to permeate the bar once again, but was quickly overshadowed by a multitude of people walking in.

First came Neville with Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma Patil with Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends, then (on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by accident) Luna Lovegood; then Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Angelina Johnson, Colin and Dennis Creevey Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait clown her back whose name I did not know; three Ravenclaw boys I was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by a tall skinny blond boy with an upturned nose whom I didn't recognize at all. Finally, the last few people walked in. It was Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko's merchandise.

My eyes bulged, we expected like six, seven people tops. But this? The same thing seemed to be going through the rest of the demigods minds as well. Harry however, looked utterly bewildered. He turned to Hermione,

"A couple of people? You call this a couple of people?" He asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, well, the idea seemed quite popular and a lot of people caught on," Hermione said happily. "Percy, Jason, Ron, could you please pull up a couple more chairs?" They nodded and pulled up a lot more chairs, for the new people. Fred and George approached the barman and said

"Could we please have—" he did a quick head count, "Thirty-Five Butterbeers please?" The barman scoffed, and then pulled out multiple dusty butterbeers from under the bar. "Cough up everyone, I haven't got enough gold for all of this!" Everyone started to pass around their gold. Eventually, everyone paid for their butterbeers and sat down, looking eagerly up at Harry. I shrugged at the rest of the demigods and we decided we might as well mimic them.

'Er,' said Hermione, her voice slightly higher than usual out of nerves. 'Well-er-hi.'

The group focused its attention on her instead, though eyes continued to dart back regularly to Harry. Except us of course. We just focused on Hermione, eager to hear what she had to say.

'Well ... erm ... well, you know why you're here. Erm ... well, Harry here had the idea-I mean' (Harry had thrown her a sharp look) 'I had the idea-that it might be good if people who wanted to study Defence Against the Dark Arts-and I mean, really study it, you know, not the rubbish that Umbridge is doing with us- '(Hermione's voice became suddenly much stronger and more confident) '- because nobody could call that Defence Against the Dark Arts-' ('Hear, hear,' said Anthony Goldstein, and Hermione looked heartened) '-Well, I thought it would be good if we, well, took matters into our own hands.'

She paused, looked sideways at Harry and went on, 'And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just in theory but doing the real spells-'

'You want to pass your Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL too, though, I bet?' said Michael Corner, who was watching her closely.

'Of course I do,' said Hermione at once. 'But more than that, I want to be properly trained in defence because ... because ...' she took a great breath and finished, 'because Lord Voldemort is back.'

The reaction was immediate and predictable. Cho's friend shrieked and slopped Butterbeer down herself; Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch; Padma Patil shuddered, and Neville gave an odd yelp that he managed to turn into a cough. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Harry.

'Well ... that's the plan, anyway,' said Hermione. 'If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to-'

'Where's the proof You-Know-Who's back?' said the blond Hufflepuff player in a rather aggressive voice.

'Well, Dumbledore believes it-' Hermione began.

'You mean, Dumbledore believes him,' said the blond boy, nodding at Harry.

'Who are you?' said Ron, rather rudely.

'Zacharias Smith,' said the boy, 'and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back.'

'Look,' said Hermione, intervening swiftly, 'that's really not what this meeting was supposed to be about-'

'It's OK, Hermione,' said Harry.

It had just dawned on him why there were so many people there. He thought Hermione should have seen this coming. Some of these people-maybe even most of them-had turned up in the hopes of hearing Harry's story firsthand.

'What makes me say You-Know-Who's back?' he repeated, looking Zacharias straight in the face. 'I saw him. But Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you didn't believe him, you won't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone.'

The whole group seemed to have held its breath while Harry spoke. Harry had the impression that even the barman was listening. He was wiping the same glass with the filthy rag, making it steadily dirtier.

Zacharias said dismissively, 'All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know-'

'If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you,' Harry said. His temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. He did not take his eyes from Zacharias Smith's aggressive face, and was determined not to look at Cho. 'I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out.' Percy jumped straight to Harry's defense.

"Well, if you don't believe Harry you have no purpose in being here. All of us believe Harry-," he said, indicating the rest of the seven, "—believe Harry, and we were in America. We have listened to his point of view and it is painfully obvious that Voldemort is back. If you don't want to believe him. So be it. But don't force your uneducated opinions on us!" Percy reasoned, glaring at him. Annabeth was looking at Percy in shock, as if he had never said something that made sense like that. Percy shot Harry a look that said You can do this. Harry nodded and continued to explain some stuff, but wasn't getting very far. Hermione piped up again,

'So,' said Hermione, her voice very high-pitched again. 'So ... like I was saying ... if you want to learn some defence, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to-'

'Is it true,' interrupted the girl with the long plait down her back, looking at Harry, 'that you can produce a Patronus?'

There was a murmur of interest around the group at this.

'Yeah,' said Harry slightly defensively.

'A corporeal Patronus?'

Harry nodded, then asked her a question, "You don't know Madam Bones do you?" I didn't know any Madam Bones, but the girl smiled.

'She's my auntie,' she said. 'I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So-is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?'

'Yes,' said Harry.

'Blimey, Harry!' said Lee, looking deeply impressed. 'I never knew that!'

'Mum told Ron not to spread it around,' said Fred, grinning at Harry. 'She said you got enough attention as it was.'

'She's not wrong,' mumbled Harry, and I laughed, along with other people. The demigods, even though we knew all this, looked impressed. I certainly tried to look smug, but Hazel saw me and slapped my wrist.

The wizards, continued their admiration session

'And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?' demanded Terry Boot. 'That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year ...'

'Er-yeah, I did, yeah,' said Harry.

Justin Finch-Fletchley whistled; the Creevey brothers exchanged awestruck looks and Lavender Brown said 'Wow!' softly. It seemed that Harry's resolve was strengthening and it seemed that the crowd was warming up to the idea.

'And in our first year,' said Neville to the group at large, 'he saved that Philological Stone- '

'Philosopher's,' hissed Hermione.

'Yes, that-from You-Know-Who,' finished Neville.

Hannah Abbotts eyes were as round as Galleons.

'And that's not to mention,' said Cho 'all the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year-getting past dragons and merpeople and Acromantula and things ...'

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table. Hermione intervened and decided that most people would want to take lessons from Harry and said,

'Well, then, the next question is how often we do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week-'

'Hang on,' said Angelina, 'we need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice.'

'No,' said Cho, 'nor with ours.'

'Nor ours,' added Zacharias Smith.

'I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone,' said Hermione, slightly impatiently, 'but you know, this is rather important, we're talking about learning to defend ourselves against V-Voldemort's Death Eaters-' She was interrupted, by Ernie Macmillan, who according to Piper and Hazel, was an extremely pompous person.

"Well said! Personally, I believe that this is the most important thing to come during this whole year, learning to defend ourselves is of the utmost priority. It is even more important that our OWLs! I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using defensive spells-'

'We think the reason Umbridge doesn't want us trained in Defence Against the Dark Arts,' said Hermione, 'is that she's got some ... some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army. She thinks he'd mobilise us against the Ministry.'

Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna Lovegood, who piped up, 'Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army.'

'What?' said Harry, who, like most of the crowd, was completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.

'Yes, he's got an army of Heliopaths,' said Luna solemnly.

'No, he hasn't,' snapped Hermione.

'Yes, he has,' said Luna.

'What are Heliopaths?' asked Neville, looking blank.

'They're spirits of fire,' said Luna, her protuberant eyes widening so that she looked madder than ever, 'great tall flaming creatures that gallop across the ground burning everything in front of-'

'They don't exist, Neville,' said Hermione tartly.

'Oh, yes, they do!' said Luna angrily.

'I'm sorry, but where's the proof of that?' snapped Hermione.

'There are plenty of eye-witness accounts. Just because you're so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you-'

'Hem, hem,' said Ginny, in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. 'Weren't we trying to decide how often we're going to meet and have defence lessons?'

'Yes,' said Hermione at once, 'yes, we were, you're right, Ginny.'

'Well, once a week sounds cool,' said Lee Jordan.

'As long as-' began Angelina.

'Yes, yes, we know about the Quidditch,' said Hermione in a tense voice. 'Well, the other thing to decide is where we're going to meet ...'

This was rather more difficult; the whole group fell silent.

'Library?' suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.

'I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library,' said Harry.

'Maybe an unused classroom?' said Dean.

'Yeah,' said Ron, 'McGonagall might let us have hers, she did when Harry was practising for the Tri wizard.' However, at this, Harry's face fell and most of us were pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to use an abandoned classroom.

"Well, we'll manage to find somewhere. Anyways…" she said, brandishing a piece of parchment, and a quill, "I think everyone should write their names down on this piece of parchment. By signing this piece of parchment you agree that you will not tell Umbridge, or anyone else, what we're up to." She passed it to me, who pulled out my quill and signed, without question. The rest of the demigods did it as well. Fred, George and Lee did it happily. However, most people were looking skeptical about putting something like that in writing. It was Ernie who burst out though,

"Well, we are prefects, and if anyone found that list lying around, well…" Annabeth interrupted him,

"You just said that this group was the most important thing this year," she said, tartly.

'I-yes,' said Ernie, 'yes, I do believe that, it's just-'

'Ernie, do you really think I'd leave that list lying around?' said Hermione testily.

'No. No, of course not,' said Ernie, looking slightly less anxious. 'I-yes, of course I'll sign.' Nobody after Ernie objected at all, however, most people still looked slightly panicky. Fred broke the silence,

"Well, anyways, I better get going. George, Lee and I have a few items to purchase before heading back up to school." With that, he walked out of the door, and many people followed suit. Soon, it was just us ten left in the Hog's Head. We too, soon left. We just walked around Hogsmeade for a while, drinking in it's natural beauty and wonder. We continued the tour and by the end, we had probably cased every inch of Hogsmeade. Harry, still had a dreamy expression on his face when we walked back to the school. I wondered what that was about.

The rest of the weekend passed in what felt like seconds. I walked down to the Ravenclaw common room and looked at the notice board. There was the usual new notices, Flich's new sets of rules, Quidditch time tables, yadda yadda. However, what caught my attention was a sign, printed in all black capitals.

BY ORDER OF THE HIGH INQUISITOR OF HOGWARTS

All student organisations, societies, teams, groups and clubs are

henceforth disbanded.

An organisation, society, team, group or club is hereby defined

as a regular meeting of three or more students.

Permission to re-form may be sought from the High Inquisitor

(Professor Umbridge).

No student organisation, society, team, group or club may exist

without the knowledge and approval of the High Inquisitor.

Any student found to have formed, or to belong to, an organisation,

society, team, group or club that has not been approved by

the High Inquisitor will be expelled.

The above is in accordance with Educational Decree

Number Twenty-four.

Signed: Dolores Jane Umbridge, High Inquisitor

This peaked my attention as it had been two days ago that we formed that DADA club yesterday. I rushed down to the Great Hall and ran to the Gryffindor Table, where everyone else was. I saw Ron and Harry exclaiming to Hermione this complication. Everyone else was looking at her for answers.

"Hermione! This isn't a coincidence. Someone must've told!" Ron exclaimed

"That's impossible!" She replied

"Yeah. Just because you think they are all so trustworthy…"

"No Ron! I put a jinx on that parchment and if anyone ran off to tell Umbridge, they will regret it. We will also know exactly who it was."

"Well, what'll happen to them?" Piper asked, intrigued.

"Let's say, they'll make Eloise Midgeon's acne look like a couple of cute freckles," Hermione said smugly. Pretty soon, most of the other Gryffindors were descending upon us, all saying the same thing,

"Did you see that sign?"

"D'you reckon they know?"

"What are we going to do?" They all looked at us for answers. Harry answered

"Of course, we're going to keep it going." They thumped him on the back and stalked off to finish their breakfast. The students from other houses came in our direction as well. However, Frank and Annabeth shooed them off. Hermione kept commentating though,

"No one looks very spotty, hmmm… no one seems to have told." She concluded after everyone backed off. The first lesson of the day was interesting though. Hedwig appeared to be injured and Harry ran off to try get her wing mended. He returned shortly, and said that someone intercepted the owl, probably to read his letter. The rest of the week flashed by. Next thing we knew, Harry said that he found a place for us to practice Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was apparently called the Room of Requirement and it would only appear if someone had a real need and urge to use it. It could be accessed on the seventh floor corridor. Today, we all ran up to the seventh floor corridor and Harry told us what we needed to do. All thirty five of us were waiting for this Room to present itself. Harry paced back and forth three times, until…

"Harry! Look!" Annabeth shouted. I turned and saw great, polished bronze door had appeared in the wall. Percy reached out and opened it. Harry and Percy ushered everyone inside. Once they closed the door and walked in themselves I looked around.

The room was very spacious, with torches flickering all around the room, the walls were lined with wooden bookcases and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors and a large, cracked Foe-Glass

'These will be good when we're practising Stunning,' said Ron enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot. Annabeth and Percy were talking about the architecture of the room and how lovely it was. Hermione however, was extremely interested in the books

'And just look at these books!' said Hermione excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes. 'A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counter-Actions ... The Dark Arts Outsmarted ... Self-Defensive Spellwork ... wow ...' She looked around at Harry, her face glowing, and he saw that the presence of hundreds of books had finally convinced Hermione that what they were doing was right. 'Harry, this is wonderful, there's everything we need here!'

Harry then turned the large majority of the students standing there.

"Well, you all found this place. Good. First, we need to elect a leader." Harry said.

"You're leader." Cho piped up. There was a general murmur of assent and Harry nodded.

"Now, we need to elect a name. It will develop some unity."

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" Jason asked.

"Or the Ministry of Magic are Morons group?" Fred suggested.

'I was thinking,' said Hermione, frowning at Fred, 'more of a name that didn't tell everyone what we were up to, so we can refer to it safely outside meetings.'

'The Defence Association?' said Cho. 'The DA for short, so nobody knows what we're talking about?'

'Yeah, the DA's good,' said Ginny. 'Only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army, because that's the Ministry's worst fear, isn't it?'

There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this.

'All in favour of the DA?' said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. 'That's a majority-motion passed!'

She pinned the piece of parchment with all of their signatures on it on to the wall and wrote across the top in large letters:

DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY

Harry then turned around and spread his hands.

"Well members of Dumbledore's Army. Time to get practicing!"

There. Done. Chapter 15 Completed! Thanks for the support. I hope to get more recommendations about who the Big Bad will be. Anyways, I am grateful for all the support and it's amazing. Next chapter will be Dumbledore's Army. Sorry if I skipped a lot of the book, but I kinda wanted to progress it a bit more. The prophetic dreams will continue. I have a plan when it comes to the like, final fight. It's kinda a long way off, but still. It's fun. Anyways, thanks for everything!

~RedGods