Disclaimer: Standard, J.K. Rowling owns the universe and the characters that appear in her books. I own my additions to it…yadda yadda yadda. For the full disclaimer (that applies to the whole story not just the first chapter, see chapter one).

Chapter 8: Worse then Better

Breakfast was an oddly calming experience considering that he and Neville were about to go off to their potions NEWT. Neville was obviously incredibly agitated at the thought of having to deal with Snape more when he really didn't want to. While Harry seconded his thoughts it still didn't do anything to improve his own agitated feeling that this was not going to go so well. Snape would not be happy that his two least favorite Gryffindor students had slithered their way into his class. There would be retribution of that he knew greatly. And it wouldn't just be against him, it would be against Gryffindor house, he was also quite sure of that.

Oddly enough however there were more Gryffindors in the class then he expected. He didn't know who else was good at potions but with the outstanding Owl requirements and Snape's harsh biased grading he was certain it would be a small class. But however small the class was there were still going to be four Gryffindors: himself, Hermione, Neville and to his surprise Wesley.

He knew this because Wesley had asked him about the potions class at Dinner after the unfortunate incident the previous evening. He and Ron had gone on their standard anti-Snape rant for most of dinner. Harry wasn't sure if it had been helpful as afterwards Wesley had looked scared more than anything. But Harry was looking forward to having an actual class with his new dorm mate and friend as he really didn't know that much at all about the guy.

"Hope you survive class. Don't take anything he or Malfoy offers to you. I don't think he is past poisoning you to get you out of his class." Ron said rather morbidly as they left breakfast for class and he headed off towards the common room for his free period.

Wesley looked even more scared after that. "What did he mean by that?" He asked shakily.

"Oh, that was just Ron ranting. Snape wouldn't poison you… too much anyway." Harry responded in an equally morbid tone.

"Yeah… at least he hasn't yet." Neville was still shaking and so his attempt the lightening the feel of the group had had the exact opposite effect on Wesley who looked more terrified than ever.

"Oh shut it you two." Hermione said in her standard annoyed studious tone. "Snape is a horrible person and an equally biased one so you better watch out for him because he'll point out a problem with a potion and will not hesitate to give you detention or take away house points. He'll threaten to do any number of things to you but he has never to my knowledge actually hurt a student in class."

Wesley relaxed quite a bit at Hermione's words. "So he's an asshole whose bark is worse than his bite?"

"Essentially."

That clamed him considerably and they spent the rest of the walk to the potions room in silence. As usual for the Gryffindors they were the last ones there as all of them even Hermione wanted to avoid Snape for as long as humanly possible.

As Harry had expected the class was quite small. It wasn't quite as small as the Psionics class but it wasn't exceptionally huge either considering that it was out of his entire year rather than just his house. There were only three Slytherins something that surprised Harry. Apparently in Grading he was just as harsh on his own class in actuality as the only Slytherins he saw in the room with them were Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini and of course, Draco Malfoy. Also in the room with him were Hannah Abbot and Justin, who also surprised Harry with his presence. Unsurprisingly the majority of the class was Ravenclaws including Padma Patil, Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Lisa Turpin as well as one other Harry didn't recognize that much. Everyone was milling around looking at the room as Snape had not showed up yet. Now the room was arranged completely differently. Instead of the tables like there were in their OWLs classes there were seven large cauldrons with small ingredients boards sticking out of them set up evenly spaced around the room except for one which was separated from the rest. Considering that there were fourteen students in the class, Harry grudgingly assumed that they would be in partners and that one Cauldron to the side was for Neville. After all Snape seemed to have a particularly nasty trend as far as he was concerned even more so than with Harry. At least there was a reason for his mistreatment, Neville just seemed to get on his bad side very quickly and stayed there. No one knew what to do as there were no Chairs by the cauldrons to sit in. This also didn't bode well. Mixing potions with Snape for almost two hours without a place to sit was not something Harry looked forward too.

No one in the group said anything while they waited for Snape. Harry thought this spoke wonders for Malfoy who merely sneered in their direction but didn't actually say anything. Harry was certain that this was because Vincent and Gregory were not present. That and the majority of the people in the class were not only non Slytherin but also Harry friendly.

It was at least ten minutes before Snape showed up at the door of his classroom, his trademark sneer on his face. He turned immediately to the Gryffindors as expected and said. "And why Mr. Potter, have you not stood by a cauldron as is obviously implied by their layout?" He said in his usual tone. All the other students quickly rushed to the cauldrons to avoid a similar fate. Harry slowly walked towards him careful not to avoid Snape's look in any way. The last thing he needed was to give Snape another reason to take points away from Gryffindor or even worse remove him from the class before he had even started it. As he neared his professor he clandestinely handed the man the vial containing the Polyjuice potion he had brewed over the summer. Snape simply nodded before saying, "and why are you not at your cauldron yet Mr. Potter? That's ten points from Gryffindor and if I ever see you dawdling again you will be removed from this course!"

Harry was not surprised by this in the least nor did it bother him in any way. After a whole month with Malfoy, Snape didn't seem too horrible anymore. Little did he know how wrong that initial assessment was.

Harry took a place at the same cauldron as Wesley, Neville having already snagged the one Hermione was at while they were talking, mistake number one. "I told you to go to your cauldron not the cauldron of the American! That's ten more points from Gryffindor! And since none of you are at your correct cauldrons that's ten more points for each of you!" Harry stared at him. He had just removed fifty points from Gryffindor in the first five minutes of him being in the classroom because they weren't at their correct placement when he had not even told them what their correct placements were. It only got worse from there.

"Finch-Fletchley! Ten points form Hufflepuff for not being in the correct place. You are with Draco Malfoy… Well! Hurry and go to your cauldron then!" Harry watched as Justin scurried over to where Draco was standing. Harry also noticed that none of the Slytherins had chosen the same cauldron and that Pansy and Malfoy were grinning evilly. Blaise looked quite bored. It was obvious that they knew ahead of time what was going to happen otherwise they would have never all chosen different placements. Pansy and Malfoy had been working together before this forever.

Snape went through the rest of the names quickly and as expected no one but the Slytherins were in the right place, losing Hufflepuff another ten points and Ravenclaw an astounding fifty before even the first ingredients had been set on the cauldron boards. By the time he reached Harry in addition to pairing Justin with Malfoy, he had paired Hermione with Pansy, Terry with Hannah, Padma with Michael, Anthony with the random Ravenclaw he didn't know, and Wesley with Blaise. Snape had the same vindictive smirk he'd had on his face when he had delivered Malfoy, Vincent and Gregory to him this summer as he approached Harry and Neville obviously preparing to rub it in immensely that he was partnering them together and assigning them the wayward cauldron.

"Now for the famous boy who lived who seems to be able to weasel his way out of any predicament. Seeing as both you and Mr. Longbottom have somehow managed to get into this class when neither has even close to the qualifications, I have assigned you together so that we will have no problems with breaking up other pairs. That is assuming that you do not destroy yourselves with a wayward potion first." Harry new exactly what this meant, both he and Neville were being expected to fail the course. The only problem was that with Neville as his partner and Hermione on the other side of the room (again it seemed like this was done purposely) that might just do that. Neville seemed to notice this as well and was shaking with fear as much as ever.

After everyone was in the right place and all non Slytherin decent moods had been erased Snape walked to the head of the classroom and instead of writing the ingredients on the board as he had done previously, he started listing them off incredibly quickly. Harry rushed to get out a scroll and quill but by the time he and Neville had managed to organize themselves on the little ingredients board which was barely big enough for one person to write on let alone two he had already missed half of the potion. Apparently he and Neville didn't have to worry about being the targets of Snape's current rant as his eyes had already zeroed in on Wesley who was frantically writing on a scroll with his pen.

"And what is this?" Snape said as he snatched the pen out of a now horrified Wesley's hands. "You will use no such unworthy item in this class. Where is your quill?"

Wesley's face burned almost crimson shade of pink. "Um, sir I never learned to write with a quill…"

"What are they teaching you in those American schools then? Certainly nothing useful if you aren't even learning something as basic as quillmanship! I will not have someone using a muggle pen in my classroom!"

"But sir Dumble…" Harry could tell this was just going form bad to worse. Apparently he and Neville were not going to be the only ones in this class on his bad list especially now that Wesley had questioned his authority.

"I do not see anyone else in this classroom besides myself. Whatever may have been said before is irrelevant and I will be taking thirty points from Gryffindor for your bad attitude and an additional thirty points for being unprepared for class. I will let you sit in the class today and make the potion but you better have a quill and ink next time or you will be sent out of this room until you do! Is that understood?" Wesley only nodded sheepishly as he put his now useless half written scroll back into his backpack. "Oh and remove this from my sight!" Snape finished, tossing Wesley's pen onto the ingredients board before he walked towards the front of the room never losing his vindictive smirk. Wesley shoved the pen behind his ear mindlessly but made sure to cover as much of it as he could with his rather short hair so now it could barely be seen. Harry hoped that would be enough. He was used to this sort of treatment from Snape. Wesley obviously was not.

"Now that that is done with I trust that you have all written down the instructions to the potion?" He asked suggestively. He had to know that someone had missed it after all he had stated it without telling anyone to get out anything and without any hint of a warning whatsoever especially considering that he had always had complex potions written on the board before. Justin raised his hand causing Snape to immediately head toward his cauldron almost triumphantly.

"I missed the first half of it."

"Ah Mr. Finch-Fletchley and why were you not prepared for class? Obviously you had the sense to bring your quill and papyrus so it is obviously not for a lack of trying." He sneered in Wesley's direction as he said this. Harry was relieved he and Neville had still somehow managed to avoid detection. Justin intelligently didn't answer.

"Ah well then, I suppose I will have to repeat myself again. Potter!" Harry looked up at him so he wasn't going to spend the entire class ignoring him then. "Get up here and write the instructions of the potion on the board. Try and keep up as your fellow students are relying on you." Harry did not like the sound of that so he rushed up as quickly as possible.

He was glad he had as Snape then stated the instructions of the potions again but he did it so fast that Harry barely had enough time to write them all. His wrist was certainly tired after all that writing. He hoped he hadn't missed anything now that Snape had actually made him do something. It would set the mood for the entire year he was sure of that. Snape looked at what he had written then sneered obviously not finding anything wrong with it as he had hoped. "That will be all Mr. Potter." He said in a rather annoyed fashion.

"This potion is a simple anti vampire draught that will make anyone who drinks its blood taste bitter to the undead. It will also burn vampires and the children of vampires if they are splashed by or immersed in it. Be careful as you make the potions as even though it is not difficult to make there are a few easy to make mistakes that make this particular potion rather dangerous. Nothing deadly but you would like have to spend the remainder of the week in the hospital wing. Now all of you get started and I want not a single word uttered to anyone who is not at your cauldron." With that he started walking the room looking at everyone's potions in his usual fashion.

The potion itself was not actually a difficult potion Snape had not been lying when he said that. However it was incredibly time consuming and required meticulous chopping and organization of its ingredients something Harry was finding incredibly difficult with the small area and Neville's constant errors. Harry could see now why Snape picked on him so much, in potions Neville was simply put, a disaster. He almost chopped off Harry's fingers while trying to chop up wolfs bane and then nearly chopped off his own while slicing the coagulated sheep blood because he was shaking so much. After that Harry had declined to let him chop anything else up content that either of them would be very capable of finishing the potion let alone anything else if they didn't have fingers despite Neville's wish to help. Snape had come by their table a couple of times however apparently they had not done anything yet to warrant a reprimand however with how the potion was shaping up Harry was sure this wasn't going to be true for long.

After they were done chopping up their ingredients and sorting them into the relevant piles in order to make sure to add the right stuff when, there was even more trouble as Neville seemed to be paying much more attention to what Snape was doing than what he was and had nearly added the completely wrong ingredient three or four times before Harry decided to finish the potion on his own and let Neville simply watch Snape in fear of what he would do next. Harry was not sure how he was going to get through the year with Neville as a partner. He could see why Snape loathed him so, with his obvious fear of his potions professor he was simply put a wrecking ball as far as potions were concerned. Harry would have to rectify the situation if he ever wanted to pass the class. He would talk to Neville about it later.

The potion looked the right color according to the description that he himself had written up on the board so he started the long tedious process of stirring it. While he was doing that he watched the other groups as it required virtually no effort, it didn't really matter how fast or how vigorously one stirred the potion as long as it was stirred for the entire forty five minute time that it was over the fire. As Harry had expected Hermione was stirring the potions rather meticulously while Pansy simply admired her nails. He had glanced over that way a couple of times during the class and it seemed that Hermione was doing all the work and Pansy was just sitting there reaping the benefits of having her for a partner. Wesley and Blaise seemed to be working together rather flawlessly considering and they were at the moment taking turns stirring the potions and chatting merrily about who knows what. Malfoy and Justin, as expected were not working so well. It looked like Malfoy was trying to get Justin to do all the work while he supervised. Justin on the other hand was refusing to do everything and so they had spent nearly the entire period arguing. They had somehow managed to get all the ingredients together and now Malfoy was stirring the potion with a very irritated expression on his face. Justin had an equally irritated one and he looked like he was meticulously making sure that they had not missed anything by checking his scroll and then looking at the potion and the ingredients board. The remaining pairs were working completely fine as he expected and he didn't really notice them as much as the obvious Slytherin pairings. Although at the moment he would have preferred Malfoy or Blaise to Neville. Neville was a good friend but until he got over his irrational fear of Snape he would never be good at doing anything with potions other than melting cauldrons.

After everyone had been stirring their potions for about forty five minutes Snape started wandering the classroom looking at the presumably finished potions. He dipped his finger in a few of them and tasted yet a few more. He sneered at Blaise and Wesley's potion apparently it had nothing wrong with it and then praised Blaise completely ignoring his partner. Malfoy and Justin had managed to get the potion completely the wrong color an ugly shade of neon green rather than the crimson blood red it was supposed to be and of course Snape has admonished Justin ignoring Malfoy. Hufflepuff lost another twenty points by the end of that. He had gone to all the other groups finding minute things to complain about their potions (they after all didn't have any Slytherin's in their groups so he didn't have to worry about misplaced admonishment or praise).

Last he came to Harry and Neville's piton which Harry thought was perfect. Even with Neville's constant mistakes Harry had managed to pull them together enough to get the potion done exactly as it was written on the board. The question now was what Snape would inevitably find wrong with it. He looked at it and then stuck one finger in it as he had done with most of the other potions. He swirled it around dramatically and then tasted the blood like substance. "Potter, Potter, Potter! If you are going to make this potion correctly you must use a drop of your own blood or some blood form a living human in order to make it truly effective. This potion is useless against any vampire of note!"

Harry was appalled. He knew for a fact that Snape had not mentioned this at all when he had given them the recipe nor had he insinuated anything of the sort. "However this is easily rectified simply add the ingredient now." Harry looked at him oddly before taking his knife and pricking the end of his finger with it. He then let a drop of his blood fall into the potion at which point it basically instantly solidified into a quite gooey substance.

"Ah, well." Snape then turned to the rest of the class. "I am appalled with most of your work! I purposely left out that ingredient because you were supposed to have read up on that particular potion over the summer. I see the only people to do so are Mr. Zabini and Ms. Parkinson." Harry felt like an idiot. He remembered too late that he had in fact studied up on the potion but he had been so busy trying to stop Neville from ruining it that he completely forgot all but what he had written on the board. "If you are at all serious about succeeding in this class then you all must do much better than you showed today. After adding your final ingredients, except for you Finch-Fletchley you are going to have to stay after class and remake the potions correctly. Mr. Potter, Mr. Zabini, Mr. Tinderspoon since you obviously have a perfect grasp on the potion here you will stay behind and help him. Since none of you read anything I want all of you to write me six feet of parchment on the subject of Vampires and their kin. Now off with all of you."

Hermione and Neville waved at him as they left Neville with a very ominous expression on his face. After everyone but Snape had left the room he turned to the four students and smiled.

"I am quite pleased with your work today all four of you." Wait…did he just say that? "Now I must go. You will make sure the potions lab is clean before you leave. And make sure that you bottle up every last drop of that potion." He then left the four of them to their own devices.

"Um…did that just happen?" Justin said, his annoyed look becoming one of complete confusion.

"I guess that was odd now wasn't it." Harry responded as he started getting out the ingredients for the potion in question.

"Well it did look like your potion and our potions were the best Harry. Although why Justin is here I have no idea." Blaise looked at him oddly.

"Hey that was all Malfoy's fault! I know this potion like the back of my hand. I need to in order to become a healer. It is the only thing that can reverse vampirism." Justin was adamant.

"This still doesn't answer the question why would Snape want us to bottle all of the potion up?" Wesley asked. "Are we expecting the school to be attacked by vampires or something?"

Harry didn't know how to respond. He wouldn't at all be surprised if that was exactly why they made this potion. This thought did nothing to relax him after all it was an important question. Why would anyone need this much of a potion designed to battle such a rare thing?

"Well I suppose that me and someone should start working on that last batch of potion while the others start bottling." Justin said as he headed towards the ingredients shelf to gather the required stuff. Blaise volunteered to help with the potion leaving Harry and Wesley to their own devices and a box full of empty vials.

"Well I suppose we should get started after all we are going to want to be able to get clean for lunch after this." Wesley said as he started ladling the very thick potion into a vial. "This is going to take forever…" Wesley was right this was going to take forever. But Harry started filling up the vials anyway while Justin and Blaise worked painstakingly on making sure they would only have to remake the potion again once.

Harry was curious about Blaise still and seeing as how Wesley had just worked and talked with him for almost two hours and had showed a rather unbiased opinion as far as Slytherins go he was the perfect candidate to ask about him.

"Well he seems completely nice to me, not at all like how you describe Slytherins. We both already knew the potion. I was taught it in ninth grade alchemistry…I suppose the potions equivalent although we worked with muggle chemistry a bit in that class as well. I have no idea where Blaise knew it from but since we both already knew it, it was incredibly easy. We spent the entire rest of the time just chatting about each other and school and stuff. Nothing too personal though."

Harry still got mixed messages from Wesley. It was weird how he talked still like he had a lot to say and he loved to talk and be friendly with people and yet he talked very fast and with an air of expectation that they might drop him at the drop of a hat.

"Harry? Ok well I guess I'll stop bothering you and go vial up another cauldron."

Harry smiled at him and said, "No I enjoy talking with you, sorry I was just noticing that you talk quickly and you seem a bit nervous to." More like VERY nervous. Harry thought to himself.

"Sorry, I wasn't exactly the most popular kid at my old school… Actually saying I wasn't popular would be an understatement as with the exception of my brother and my best friend pretty much everyone there was cautious of me at best. I guess I'm just waiting for the second shoe to drop. It always does." Wesley looked like he was a victim of much more than simple school social issues as that was very much the same as Harry's school experience before Hogwarts. But it sounded from Wesley's tone as if it were just a facet of a bigger problem. It implied that for him things had always been that way. Harry understood that all too well. His first year Hogwarts letter wasn't addressed to 'Harry Potter Number 4 Privet Drive The little cupboard under the stairs' for nothing.

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to that so he just put his hand on Wesley's shoulder, smiled and then continued working. They worked in silence for a while and by the time Snape returned they had bottled up four of the six remaining cauldrons. Justin and Blaise who seemed to work much better together than he and Malfoy ever could had finished the potion and were now talking in a rather friendly manner. Of course considering that Blaise simply seemed nicer than Malfoy did help with that assessment. He thought almost anyone would be better to work with than Malfoy. At least Pansy would just sit there and let you do the potion on your own but would also leave you alone.

Snape wasn't alone either as into the room with him came none other than the new psionics instructor Leon Saren. Professor Saren and Snape walked over to one of the still full cauldrons where Saren put his finger into it and then waited for few seconds before putting the tip on his finger in his mouth and then nodding. Snape then nodded to him and he left quite quickly. "That will be all. I will finish bottling up the potion."

The four students rushed quickly back to their common rooms so that they could get clean and get clean robes on before going to lunch. Harry and Wesley left Blaise and Justin at a flight of stairs and rushed up them. Hoping to god that the staircases decided to remain stable as they were cutting the beginning of lunch close enough already. Harry then ran down a corridor and then darted through a hidden door behind a tapestry that he remembered from using the Marauders Map. Wesley just raised an eyebrow at that but followed anyway. They didn't talk the whole way they were in such a hurry. Since he knew the castle better Wesley followed him and in almost no time at all they were back at the portrait of the fat lady out of which there was coming a conveniently placed student. Dennis Creevy pushed himself into the side wall as the bigger older boy ran past him. Harry was glad, the boy was too shocked to ask him anything and the last thing he needed at that moment was being assaulted by Colin or Dennis Creevy.

They rushed to the sixth year Gryffindor dorm where they found Fred and George, who to Harry's Knowledge had been no where near the potions lab his entire class. Rather than worry about why they were there and why they hadn't been in class with him this one time He yanked off his robes and ran into the bathroom to take a shower. Wesley just gaped at him before saying, "I'll just wait..." and blushing slightly.

"And why would you do that?" Harry asked confusedly. "We're dorm mates no use hiding anything here." Then he went into the showers to get clean being followed by a very self conscious looking Wesley. Harry was not surprised when Wesley took the Shower furthest away form him on the opposite corner of the shower room. It was obvious that he would have rather had his own stall but that was it. It was odd though because he seemed rather uncomfortable in there cleaning himself and it wasn't like an emotional uncomfortability of showering with another boy, it was more like he was physically uncomfortable with it. Of course Harry was spending much more time cleaning himself then worrying about his odd new dorm mate and in no time he was out of the shower and into the dorms shoving on his robes again to get ready for breakfast. Wesley came out of the shower looking a lot happier in another minute or so. He looked sparkling clean a lot cleaner than he was before and Harry would have assumed he had just use Scourgify, but he hadn't had his wand so how could he?

"You ready?" The enigma of a boy asked. "I am getting rather hungry."

"Ok let's go then." Harry still liked him though even if he wasn't the most open person. After all Harry understood what it was like to harbor secrets. He had been doing that since way before he knew any of the people here.

"Hello, how are you this morning?" Harry jumped as he heard the familiar voice of Wesley's snake.

"Sorry I didn't respond two days ago. It isn't exactly the best thing being a parcel mouth around here." Harry responded to the small creature.

"I understand, after all he is my master. I do hope he opens up to you and your friends however, I listen to you and you seem very nice."

Harry was surprised at that, "You can understand human speech?"

"No, but I am a snake. I can feel at least some of your emotions and you don't seem scared of him I the slightest. Something he rarely got at home."

Harry pondered at this a second before answering. "Why were people afraid of him? Is there something about him I should be scared of?"

The snake let out what Harry could only describe as the parcel tongue equivalent of a laugh before saying. "Yes, I suppose that you and your friends have something to worry about. But then again wouldn't this conversation right here be deemed something to worry about here? I bet he would be considered similar maybe better maybe worse but in any case you have to ask yourself: What makes the man, his body or the smile behind his face?"

Harry stopped to ponder this before he noticed the look on Wesley's face. He had forgotten he was there for a second which was odd considering he was talking to his snake that he couldn't even see. "So what's the old bugger got to say?" Wesley said before producing the small snake and letting it wrap itself around his finger.

"He seems to really like you." Harry said in a calm tone.

"Well I know THAT. He has never once tried to leave. You know he came up to me not the other way around? Yeah I know he likes me… But anything else? Maybe something spooky or interesting? I have always wanted to know what he thinks about."

Harry didn't know how to respond. After all they were just talking about him. "Well actually we were talking about you…"

Wesley's smile faltered for a second before he said. "So…" in a slightly more wary tone.

"Oh he just said a few things about you nothing to worry about though. So are you in defense against the dark arts class too?"

Wesley looked at Harry warily one more before saying. "Yeah I am, and I can't wait! I have always loved the jinx and counter curse classes at my school but we never really learned anything about real battling. A true defense against the dark arts class would be awesome!"

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to this. He did after all remember all of his previous teachers only two of which actually taught defense against the dark arts. Quirrell had been too scared of his shadow to do anything but nervously talk, of course that was likely do to the fact that he had to hide that he had a dark lord attached to the back of his head. Lockheart had been as useless as they come not knowing anything about actual dark arts and Umbridge had barely taught them what she was trying to teach them from the books, which wasn't really anything anyway. He had no idea who the new teacher was going to be, he figured it would be someone form the order, however who that would be was anyone's guess. Especially considering that he probably didn't even know half of them.

"Well we'll both be finding out then, I have had a couple good defense teachers here but most of them have been horrible." Harry finally decided on the truth.

"Oh." was Wesley's only response.

They continued chatting idly about any which thing that came to mind as they hurried down to lunch. When they got there they went and sat down between Ron and Hermione in what apparently was now their regular seating arrangement.

"Hey Harry, I know we all have defense against the dark arts next and I thought of something in case the teacher is well… Centaur bait like in some way or another." Centaur bait… Harry liked Neville's nickname for the unmentionable abomination of a teacher that was Umbridge. Neville then produced a gold galleon and flung it onto the table in front of his dorm mates. Harry understood immediately. It was the same gold Galleon that Hermione had given out to all the DA members the previous year. Seamus and Dean stopped chatting at this point to listen in excitedly. Lucky for them, even though they were caught and their location and members detained they had never caught on to the Galleon communications device and so, especially now with Umbridge gone and Fudge not on Harry's back like a hawk. They could start up the DA again. And in these pressing times, Harry was sure they were going to need it. That and even though Harry wasn't to keen on the idea when it had first been brought up and hadn't exactly liked it the entire time because of all the contact with so many different students. He had had an entire summer to think about it and now he realized that that was the best thing that had happened that entire year. Maybe even the best thing he had accomplished in all of his time at Hogwarts.

"Actually," Harry started, "I plan on doing that anyway." He motioned all of his dorm mates and Hermione together before whispering quickly. "Linger after lunch we'll discuss it then."

Wesley gave them a raised eyebrow as if to say "me too?" Harry made no attempt to tell him yes or no. He honestly did not care if he stuck around or not. He was going to invite him to the DA after he had it done. But right now he would rather wait to include the boy unless he was curious enough to ask on his own. After all he didn't want to risk getting caught before he even started by talking too much about it.

It was then that a big pair of hands draped themselves around Harry and Ron and another pair around Wesley and Hermione. Fred and George Weasley had shown up at the table.

Harry was actually surprised at this he had assumed that they had been there the entire time. Harry had found himself noticing them less and less as they spent more time together. He hadn't even noticed that they hadn't been with him all morning.

"Hello Harry what's up?" George said with his curious and 'innocent' smile.

Fred on the other hand noticed the Galleon on the table and raised his eyebrow his mouth curving into his more mischievous smirk. "The Army marches again then?" He said in a whisper into Harry's ear. Harry smiled slightly and nodded. Then the Weasley twins sat between Harry and Ron and Hermione and Wesley for lunch.

"Sorry about that Harry, but Snape absolutely refused to let us sit in on his class even to protect the boy who lived saying that he could provide all the protection you needed."

"Of course that wouldn't protect you from him but we decided it would be more prudent to ignore that line of thought entirely." Fred chimed in merrily after George's explanation. "So we took the opportunity to check out how Lee was doing with our store. That took longer than expected because of a few mishaps along the way."

"Nothing we couldn't handle of course." George smiled as he cut off his brother in their usual fashion. "We would appreciate it if you didn't tell mum about this she'd have us removed from the job in a heartbeat."

Harry agreed and they spent the rest of lunch chatting idly about this and that biding their time until lunch ended so they could chat on the way to defense against the dark arts. Which they all agreed would be at the very least an interesting if not horrible experience. If they had learned anything it was that their defense classes were rarely boring. Nope boring classes was professor Binns' job. Even divination with professor Trelawny was hardly boring if you actually listened to the crazy things she said. That woman would leave you laughing for months. That is if you lived that long as according to her everyone was going to die at least two times a week.

Eventually the end of lunch came and right as it was about to end the group of sixth year Gryffindors filled up their plates again right as the food was disappearing. They began to munch on this while waiting for everyone to leave. Wesley had apparently decided to wait and see what was going on as he had gotten a last glass of pumpkin juice as everyone else was filling up their plate and was now sipping it quietly watching the small group.

Once everyone else in the room had left besides Saren and Snape who were still at the teachers table talking but ignoring the small group of students. They stood up and began slowly walking towards their defense class while quietly talking about the DA.

"Ok so I figured you all would want to do the DA again. And I didn't have any time to finish everything I wanted to teach last year." Harry said to the group.

"What's this DA?" Wesley asked.

"Well, you know how I mentioned earlier that we have had crappy defense against the dark arts instructors?"

"Yeah…"

"Well we decided to start our own club for teaching students who really wanted to learn how to REALLY defend themselves against the dark arts. I was teaching it for obvious reasons."

"Cool! I'm definitely in." He said excitedly, apparently everyone had been expecting that as no one was surprised at all.

Hermione, the ever prepared one produced a Galleon from her pocket and gave it to him. He gaped at it questioningly. "It's not real." She said, "The serial number on it changes to show the next date and then it gets warm to alert that it has changed."

The boys looked at Hermione, "Well I figured we would do it again now that Umbridge is gone as even if we do actually get a competent defense teacher we are still incredibly behind in those classes. So I think we should do it again regardless of who the new teacher is. And of course given this like of thought it was only natural that I make more of these little things as I wouldn't expect everyone to not lose theirs and even if no one did there is always the prospect of new members especially among first years."

Harry wanted to be surprised at this he really did but he knew Hermione too well for that and other than a slight bit of shock at actually seeing the new Galleon, he found that he would have found it odder had she not considered this during the summer. After all this had originally been her idea in the first place.

"Well then let us get to class shall we? Might as well get this done faster rather than slower that way if it's horrible…which it will likely be then we have it done and if not then that's all the better." Ron's voice sounded quite Hermione like when he said that and Harry wondered again as he had in the past exactly how much Hermione had rubbed off on them.

Everyone nodded and so the group of eight quickly headed towards the sixth year NEWTs Auditorium where the larger NEWTs were held. Harry had never hard of this place before nor had he seen it anywhere. His only memory of this was a large room on the marauder's map which sometimes had a large number of older students in it. But he hadn't paid much attention to it because he had always been doing more pressing things at the time and he was just glad that that many people were in one room because it left the corridors more open for him.

Harry would have spent more time finding out that the auditorium was a rather boring room but he, Ron, and Hermione were to busy staring at the woman in front of the room. For standing on front of the room on top of a stage at the back of it was none other then the young metamorphmagi Nymphadora Tonks. Fred and George seemed to have similar but less shocked reactions to the woman. Being friends of her they walked up to the front of the classroom where there were still empty seats and sat down. Harry was wary of the desk and with the chair by it and the lamp on it as well as the suit of armor with what looked like a recently shined and likely sharpened sword on it. She was obviously a good Auror but she was also clumsier when walking than Neville was with a wand.

As soon as they sat down she winked in their direction acknowledging their presence. As soon as Harry got over the shock of seeing her there, this had been the last person he had expected for defense against the dark arts, he began looking around the room. The room itself other than being big and having a stage was pretty nondescript. There was a large shield on the back wall with the emblems of the four houses on it and there were windows all along the very top of the room which allowed just a bit of sunlight into the room. There were torches right below the windows providing the main light. Also on the stage was the desk with a lamp and a chair a suit of armor, two tables set up adjacent to each other each with two benches and rather large statues of an Eagle, a Lion, a Badger and a Snake on each corner of the stage facing the center. As spectacular as this could be considered the room was relatively tame compared to many of the other rooms that Harry had seen at Hogwarts.

He then looked at the other students in the room and noticed that almost the entire sixth year class was there. As he looked around he also noticed that every sixth year member of the DA was also here. Justin, Hannah and Ernie even waved at him when they caught his eye. Harry also saw to his dismay that Malfoy, Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson were also in the class. However he also noticed Blaise sitting by himself in the corner of the room with almost no one near him. Vincent and Gregory were at Malfoy's side as expected. Harry wondered how so many people had made the requirements for the NEWT level class. He had expected all of the DA to do it as they had actually gotten practical experience on the subject but after Umbridge not to mention the majority of the previous instructors he didn't really see how most of the students had passed the OWL at all let alone gotten a high enough score to get into this NEWT.

"I wonder what she is going to teach?" Fred's voice startled Harry who had no answer to his question. Fred and George were back at his side each one taking a place on opposite sides of the other sixth year Gryffindors. Fred sat next to Harry and George was next to Dean on the opposite side of the row.

After a little while people stopped trickling in. At that point Tonks walked forward in what could have been an incredibly graceful move had it not been her doing it. Instead she had managed in one step to not only trip over a chair but also knock over the desk with the lamp on it and start a fire right there on the floor of the stage. After that she swore and vanished the fire with her wand.

Everyone but Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred and George were staring at her like she was the moon. Ron Fred and George were trying not to laugh, Harry having expected this or something like it was just sitting there waiting for class to continue and Hermione was eying the laughing Weasley's with disdain.

Tonks of course seemed wholly unaffected by her previous mishap and simply grimaced rubbing her shin where she had hit the poor now broken chair before smiling at the shocked students.

"Sorry about that I can be a tad Clumsy." Harry almost joined in the Weasley's snickering at that gross understatement. Tonks was the most klutzy person he had ever met. "I am your new defense against the dark arts instructor, Professor Tonks." She then walked towards the front of the stage, intelligently avoiding getting near anything else she could knock over. Harry was afraid that she would trip and fall right off the stage but thankfully her step did not falter as she started up the class.

"For those of you who might wonder about my qualifications to teach the class, I was an Auror until I decided to take up this position." She then smiled again before saying. "But of course you don't want to hear about that. You are all NEWT level students who want to start waving wands!" She waved her wand in the students' direction playfully. It was amusing watching the students cower away from her wand as if she were going to accidentally curse them. Harry knew form experience that regardless of whether she could walk through a hallway without knocking something over, that she was great with a wand and the likelihood of her making a mistake with it was low.

Her expression got more serious, "Now everyone get out your wands stand up and then banish your desks to the edge of the room." Harry stood up and hoped he could get the banishing charm he had learned fourth year right. He did manage to not make too big a noise when his desk crashed into the other desks that had previously been banished. Quite a few of the desks broke as people couldn't control the charm yet and most of the others made a large crashing sound. Hermione and Padma were the only students whose desks stopped cleanly next to the wall without a sound. Of course they were crushed by the other desks that were banished after them, so in the end it didn't matter. The majority of the desks had either been crushed by their banisher or crushed by another desk and thus were now useless piles of wood. "Hmm…" she said after the fiasco. "We're going to have to work on that one…

"Now all of you line up in two even lines so that you are all facing each other off." Everyone did that and predictably it ended up being the Ravenclaws and Slytherins against Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs as the classes tended to sit together and that was how they had arranged themselves at the beginning of the class.

"Good, now we are going to practice a useful little spell that you were shown in your second year but may not have actually learned how to effectively do. The disarming spell, Expelliarmus." There were a few groans from students who seemed to think that this was a pointless spell to practice. Harry was beaming as he knew that he was gong to ace this one. He also noticed that most of the DA members were smiling as well. They knew as much as he did how useful a spell it can be. After all they had been practicing it for a long time and had used it on many sparing occasions during the club. They also were the few students who knew that it had been effective against Voldemort. Showing them just how much of a lifesaver it can be.

"You all know how the spell works, so on the count of three, I want you to disarm your opponent." Harry looked at Millicent, who was opposite him and looked ready to pounce. For some reason the Slytherin's looked pleased like they thought this would be easy. Harry intended to prove them wrong. How right he was, for even though both Pansy and Malfoy cast the spell on two, Justin who was opposite Pansy ducked away from the poorly aimed curse, and Neville who was opposite Malfoy deflected the spell with Protego forcing Malfoy to duck. At then end Harry noticed immediately that none of the former DA members had had their wands taken and all of the non DA members who had faced off against one were missing their wands. Even Seamus who had been only a member for one session had easily disarmed his opponent. It looked to Harry as if he had been practicing all summer. The DA members who had faced off each other had each managed to avoid the others spell. Tonks immediately noticed the total split in ability as far as that spell was concerned.

"Well… That was interesting. I think I am going to have to redo this a little bit. Return the wands please." Harry threw Millicent back her wand. All the Slytherins looked pissed except for Blaise who simply looked at Ernie opposite him with a raised eyebrow.

"Ok now, I see some of you have had a lot of practice with this spell. Will those of you who know this spell well come over here?" Harry, along with all the DA members in the class walked over to her as did Malfoy. Harry found it hard to believe that Malfoy was that familiar with the spell considering that he had been disarmed by Neville. Who had possibly the worst aim of any of the DA members but he didn't say anything. Tonks on the other hand noticed this immediately.

"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Longbottom will you please face off again." Harry knew exactly what she was doing. She hated the Malfoy's just as much as Sirius did. Harry found he wasn't as shaken by the thought of Sirius as he had been in the past. That cry he had had with Wesley and Neville had apparently helped him get over it significantly. Looking back towards what was going on he could think of no better test for Malfoy than Neville. He was sure that Neville would win and that would make Malfoy even madder.

It was so perfect it was hilarious. It was the exact thing that had happened before. Apparently Malfoy hadn't gotten that cheating wasn't going to work here as not only had Neville fought off real death eaters before but they had spared with basically no rules in the DA to see what real duels were actually like. So when Malfoy went on two again, Neville simply cast Protego again Malfoy ducked the spell and Neville then just disarmed him while he was dodging his own spell and there wasn't much he could do about it, at least without the Protego charm, which he apparently didn't know or rolling on the ground, which Harry was certain Malfoy wouldn't even think of let alone actually do.

"Tsk tsk tsk, Draco you are going to have to do better than that if you want to win any duels." Tonks smiled in Neville's direction, apparently she was quite impressed. "Go stand over there with the other students." Malfoy hurried over to where the others were standing grumbling the whole time.

The rest of the period was very fun for the DA members, they were in their element. They spent their time practicing deflecting curses and disarming mid curse or mid dodge while the others practiced the most basic use of the spell. Harry and the DA had long ago realized that the spell is fairly automatic. The trick is how and when to use it as well as how to counter it. As simple a spell as it is to do it can be one of the most deadly spells in your repertoire when dueling another wizard especially one who is useless without a wand. Harry noticed that while Neville seemed clumsy and out of touch with his old wand which he often made simple and not so simple mistakes with. Whatever wand he was using now was working a whole lot better for him. He was flinging spells with it like it was natural for him to do so and not like he did from his previous wand which always seemed awkward to Harry even when he successfully cast with it. The wand itself looked very different than the other wands in the room, and he wondered if he was the only one who noticed that. For one thing it was made of a silvery metallic substance rather than wood. Harry had never seen a metal wand before and wondered how he had got it especially considering that it was likely he went to Ollivander's, and as far as he could tell all of those wands were made of wood.

After a while the DA members got tired of working with the spell they had been working with since the clubs beginning and stopped to watch the other students fumble through it.

Malfoy seemed to be fine at using the spell to disarm opponents assuming they didn't deflect it with the deflection charm of course. On the other hand he seemed rather not adept at avoiding being disarmed relying solely on removing the opposition before the opposition removed him. While this was a completely viable strategy it wasn't a particularly great one when practicing for defending oneself against things that won't play fair. After all it implies that you are aware that any enemies are there. Harry knew from experience that Death eaters were very slippery creatures capable of sneaking up on even the most wary of foes.

Wesley seemed to be quite the opposite of Malfoy, being able to avoid getting disarmed quite adequately but being horrible at actually connecting with the spell itself. However he did use protego and quite a few impressive evasive maneuvers which led Harry to believe that he had been in a few Duels before coming to Hogwarts, another interesting note about the mysterious boy.

Other than those two there wasn't anything particularly note worthy about the students. They all seemed rather at the point everyone in the DA was when they started learning it. They were disarmed a few times and disarmed each other a few times and sometimes disarmed the wrong person.

After they got to the point where they could work on their own, or at least when Tonks thought they were at that point she came over to the group of obviously more experienced students. "You would be last year's army of Dumbledore aren't you?"

"Well we aren't the only members, and it was Dumbledore's Army not the army of Dumbledore, but yeah that is correct." Hermione announced to the teacher, Harry would have been worried had it been anyone other than Tonks. But he knew she wouldn't care about this at all.

"Ah well then I guess I will be expecting you guys to help the others along. After all we can't have anyone falling to far behind." With that she went back to the other students leaving the DA members to themselves.

"Well when should we hold our first meeting?" Justin asked the group. "I mean we are going to continue with it now that Umbridge is gone right?" He looked at Harry and Hermione expectantly.

"Of course we are." Ron responded, "You all still have your Galleons right?"

Everyone nodded yes with Neville adding. "I was so happy with last year that I didn't even have to be reminded of it by anybody! I remembered it all on my own." Everyone was impressed with this. Neville had never to Harry's knowledge remembered anything like this on his own for more than a few weeks let alone the whole summer, especially if it wasn't being used.

"Well then you all know how this works. I will make times."

Hermione Jumped in at this point. "And don't worry they will all be after school to not mess with your class schedules." Only Hermione, Padma and a few others were happy about this. Ron actually groaned.

"Well then can't have a party without us!" Fred and George walked up to the group, obviously quite aware of what was being talked about.

"No we can't. Hmm…" Hermione looked at the other students. "Should we invite any more students? I mean it was supposed to be a club for anyone who wanted to learn."

"Well I don't trust any of the Slytherins or that new Wesley kid." Ernie eyed the other group of students suspiciously as he said this.

"Well I already invited Wesley and from what I can see he will be a great addition if he can cast any of the spells correctly." Harry said. "As for the Slytherins I might invite Blaise after all he has been nicer to us lately… And actually Vincent and Gregory might be good additions as well…" Ron eyed him obviously aware of whom he was talking about. "But we should decide that later after all of us have met. I figured I should invite along Wesley, after all he is a new dorm mate of mine and could theoretically get us caught if he found out about it and wasn't there."

"So you still intend this to be a secret?" Susan's voice rang out.

"Yes, mostly so that we don't have too many students there. But also because I don't want any Death Eater's finding out too much about what were doing or are capable of. After everything that has happened I want to be careful."

Everyone nodded, and as the class ended everyone walked off to wherever they were supposed to go. Harry was not sure how he was going to organize this and of course Hermione was in class so he couldn't talk with her either.

Harry ignored the other students as he planned out what he would ask her some the time as they walked back towards the common room. He heard everyone talking about Tonks but she really didn't surprise him as much as he would have thought once he got over the initial shock of her being there.

Harry loosely noticed Snape watching them with Saren standing nearby, both having grave expressions on their faces. He slowed a bit and let others pass before realizing that he was not looking at him but in fact looking at Wesley. Saren in his own way also seemed to be "looking" at him. They both walked off shortly after and Harry hurried back towards the others wanting to report to Ron what he had seen when he got the chance to see him alone.

Afterthoughts

Review Responses

Aubrey: Tanks dear friend for that review. I hope to get more in the future.

theKnowItAll: Yeah, to trust or not to trust that is the question…well Harry has made his decision but is it the right one? Evil Grin As for Wesley's name I honestly did not notice at all that they were similar but you were not the first person to point it out to me. Unfortunately if it is confusing his name is Wesley too much in my mind to change it, so that's that I suppose. They have nothing in common, just an amusing coincidence. Yeah I love Charlie which is why I brought him back. As for professor Saren, yeah he is an odd one isn't he? All the better to keep you reading I suppose.

Thanks for you're reviews…all two of them. If anyone else is reading this could you review it just to make sure that I know you are reading it so that I have a reason to keep writing it. Because I want to but that would be pointless if no one reads it.