A/N I know it's been months and months since I last updated! I'm so sorry and if I still have any readers, I hope that they can find it in their hearts to forgive me.
A few notes before this chapter, though I despise filler chapters, this one regrettably needed to be in here. It's a little boring, but necessary. Also, there are so many little facts flying around this chapter, I'm bound to have messed one up. I don't mind you pointing any inconsistencies out to me in a review or a pm, but I ask for everyone to please remain civil while doing so. Despite what my lack of updates may tell you, I don't have the time to search for every single fact to make sure I got it right. Luna may seem a tad OOC, but I find her really hard to write for. One more thing, I made up the bit about the Patil twins uncle, but other than that, everything should be pretty much straight out of the book.
I love you guys, and please enjoy chapter three!
The room of requirement had taken exactly the same form it had two years before when the D. A. had first used it. The bookcases that lines the walls and the throw cushions on the floor were oddly comforting to Neville. It seemed almost as though he could simply lean back and fade into the happier times of the first D. A. Sure things had been bad then, but nothing compared to how they were now.
Ginny was pacing the room nervously, and Neville couldn't blame her. All three of them, Luna, Ginny, and himself were waiting anxiously for others to show up. They knew that Seamus was definitely coming, but they didn't know for sure about anyone else. Well we only told about five people, Neville thought. After what had happened with the D. A. last time, they had thought it might be wise to only invite those they knew for sure that they could trust. Especially now that the stakes were so high, a betrayal was just about the worst thing that could possibly happen. The sound of the door opening brought Neville out of his grim thoughts.
"Oh, you guys are already here," Seamus said, as he saw the three students. He bent over, panting slightly.
"Seamus, what happened?" Ginny asked.
"Oh, I ran from a couple of members of the Inquisitorial squad."
That was another change. Snape had decided to bring it back from Umbridge's days. Once again, the only members were Slytherins.
"Did they-" Ginny started anxiously, but was cut off before she could finish by Seamus' laughter.
"Don't worry the bastards never got a look at me or where I was going."
The other three all let out collective sighs of relief. "What about the others? D'you know for sure if anyone else is coming?" Neville asked, but before Seamus got a chance to answer the door opened again.
"Hello?" A girl's voice asked hesitantly.
Everyone turned, and saw Lavender Brown and the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma. They looked slightly scared to be there, and Neville couldn't blame them. Who knows what would happen to them if they were caught? But, under the fear in their eyes, he also saw a fierce determination.
He remembered why they were here: all three of them had been loyal members of the original D. A., and thanks to some news that his Gran had told him over the summer, Neville also knew that the Patil's Uncle had been killed while defending a muggle family from Death Eaters. Both of the twins' parents worked at the ministry, and Neville had heard that they had staunchly defended both Harry and Dumbledore right up until You-Know-Who had taken over. He didn't know very much about Lavender, but she was Parvati's best friend, plus she had dated Ron the previous year. Yes these girls would die before they gave them up. "Hey. Thanks for coming." Neville said, stepping up to greet them warmly. "We really appreciate it."
Lavender smiled at him. "We wouldn't miss it for the world. D. A.'s the only reason any of us passed our Defense Against the Dark Arts. O.W.L.s." Her face fell a little as she continued. "I guess that doesn't matter anymore does it, what with it not being a subject…" She trailed, seeming unsure of what to say.
Parvati took up for her. "We're here to fight the Death Eaters." She stated.
Neville nodded. "We all are. Do any of you know if anyone else is coming?" He asked.
They shook their heads.
"Well I guess we should get started then, and see if anyone else shows up." He suggested.
Everyone nodded. An awkward silence filled the room, as no seemed to know what to say. This is where Harry would start running things, Neville thought, so he took a deep breath, cleared his throat and started to talk. "Well, I know that this seems rather obvious, but Harry's not here. I don't need to tell anyone that he's the one who usually runs these things."
Everyone looked down. The entire room suddenly seemed to realize how impossible accomplishing anything without Harry would be. He had a way of getting things done.
Despite this, Neville continued bravely. "So everyone here needs to understand that we really have no idea what we're doing at the moment. If anyone has any ideas of how we should start or do anything really, please speak up. I can't," Neville paused for a second. "We can't," he amended, gesturing towards Luna and Ginny. "Do this alone. We all have to work together in order to do anything! Now, does anyone have any ideas for how we should start?" Neville finished, hopefully.
Lavender put her hand up timidly. "Well, last time we started with choosing a leader, so maybe we should do that again?" she suggested.
Ginny spoke up. "Actually, I've been giving that a lot of thought, and I for one know that we will never replace Harry, so why should we even try? I think that maybe it would be better if we didn't have one official leader. Besides if the Death Eaters ever caught a leader," Ginny shivered a little. "Well I can say that I don't think that any of us would envy that person."
"But without a leader this could just all be chaos," Padma Patil pointed out.
Luna spoke for the first time: "Harry's our leader. It doesn't make a difference whether or not he's here. We fight for him, just like we always have."
Neville stared at her for a second. It was unusual for her to say anything so serious, so down to earth. His hands clenched into fists. He hated the Death Eaters. He wished with every fiber in his body that all Luna had to talk about was Nargels or Crumple-Horned Snorkacks . He just wished that… that… all of this was over. He wished that there weren't new disappearances and deaths in the newspaper everyday. He wished that muggleborns didn't have to run for their lives. He wished that good people didn't have to live in hell. He wished… he wished Harry were here.
Seeming to sense his worry, Luna moved a couple of steps closer to him.
Neville smiled a little. Despite everything that was going on, he was comforted to know that there were still people like Luna out there, who tried to help others. Neville turned back to conversation. Now Seamus was saying something.
"I think that Ginny and Luna are right, at there's no point in choosing a new leader." Seamus paused and looked around the room. When no one protested, he continued. "Now we need to decide what we're going to do about trying to get more people to help us."
Everyone nodded. He was right, but this was the hard part: how could they decide who to trust and who not to?
"Excuse me, We're not late are we?" A voice asked.
Everyone turned, and saw Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot from Hufflepuff.
Neville frowned. He knew that they had told Susan about the meeting; You-Know-Who had just murdered her aunt, and during his first rise to power, he slaughtered half her family, and she had been part of the original D. A., but none of them had invited Hannah. She had also been a part of the D. A., but honestly, none of them had known enough about her to trust her.
Susan paused for a second, seeing where everyone was looking. She blushed a little. "Sorry, I hope you don't mind that I brought her…"
No one wanted to say anything. Finally Hannah spoke up for herself. "I know that you only asked people to come that you could trust, and honestly I'm not insulted. I understand how careful you have to be, but please believe me that I'm only here because I want to fight the Death Eaters!"
Neville suddenly remembered that Voldemort had killed her mother the year before. Well, that was more than enough reason to trust her not to give them up to Snape or any of the Death Eaters. "It's not that," he covered quickly. "We all know what happened last year, it's just that I didn't know you were back. After… what happened you left, I didn't know you were coming back to Hogwarts." He explained feeling slightly guilty for the blatant lie.
Hannah looked relieved. "Oh, well then. It was kind of hard not to, since attending Hogwarts is mandatory now," she said, a smile forming on her face.
The smile confused Neville for a moment, but then he realized that she had been truly afraid that they wouldn't trust her enough to let her fight with them. With a jolt he realized that three quarters of the school had stories just like a Hannah's, Susan's, and the Patil twins'. Almost all of them would want to fight as well. A grin appeared across his face as for a moment, he thought that maybe recruiting members wouldn't be so impossible after all.
"I'm fairly sure that everyone whose coming is here now," Ginny said, smiling at the new arrivals. "So let's continue."
"We were just deciding how to go about getting people to help us," Luna informed Susan and Hannah. To Neville's relief the dreamy aspect had once again returned to her voice.
"We have to decide who we can trust," Neville explained.
"Well, we can trust everyone in the D. A. right?" Susan asked.
Neville sighed. "I wish it were that easy. Remember what happened last time?"
Susan nodded.
"Well we can't risk that happening again, so we'll have to be more careful about who we let rejoin the D. A."
"Ernie Macmillan," Hannah said immediately, but then blushed as everyone turned to her. "I've been good friends with him since first year."
From the tone of her voice, Neville wondered whether or not Hannah and Ernie were more than just 'good friends'.
Hannah continued with her speech, "He hates You Know Who just as much as any of us, and he wants to fight."
Neville hesitated for a second, could they go on Hannah's word? Luckily for him, Ginny also spoke up in favor of Ernie.
"Yeah. I think we can trust him. Remember two years ago when Voldemort," Half the room winced involuntarily as Ginny spoke his name. "First rose to power," She continued, ignoring the reaction. "Well he believed Harry immediately. He said so in public."
"Yeah," Lavender agreed also. "I, well I didn't actually believe Harry," she looked down at her shoes, ashamed. "But when Ernie announced that he believed Him, it got me thinking that Harry might be telling the truth."
Neville nodded. "This is working. How about if three of us can vouch for someone, we consider them trustworthy."
Everyone nodded, that seemed like a good policy. "What if they're a D. A. member, do they get credit for that?" Seamus asked.
Neville thought it over for a second then shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, three of us can vouch for almost everyone in the D. A., so I don't know how much it would matter. Also, I don't think that we should penalize people who want to fight just because they aren't members."
Once again the room was filled with nods; it made sense.
"One more thing," Padma said. "What about ages. I mean should we let the younger students join?"
It was another tricky question. Finally after much thought, Ginny answered. "I don't think so. At least not in the beginning. I mean, even we don't know how dangerous this could turn out being. I don't think that we can gamble their lives on it."
Seamus spoke up. "But then how old should you have to be to join? Seventeen, when you're an adult?"
"No!" Luna and Ginny said in unison. Both of them were only sixteen.
"They're right," Hannah said. "If we only let seventeen year olds join there won't be any of us."
Neville nodded at the truth in her words. The number of seventeen-year-olds in Gryffindor this year had dropped to the point you could practically count them on one hand. Too many people were on the run or in hiding.
"How young then?" Parvati asked.
"Fifteen." Luna answered immediately.
Everyone turned to look at her. "Why?" Neville asked.
Luna looked around, like she thought it was obvious. "At Hogwarts that's when you become an adult," she answered simply.
Neville was just bout to ask her to clarify when Padma started talking.
"I think I know what she means. Prefects start in fifth year, it's when we take out first significant round of test, the O.W.L.s. Also, Harry was that old when he first formed the D. A."
"Well I guess that's right…" Neville said, still unsure. "Does anyone object to letting people fight at fifteen?" No one said anything. "Well then I guess that brings us back to members. We have Ernie, anyone else?"
"Wait, we should write these down," Ginny said.
"Oh! I have some parchment and a quill," Padma said, and took them out and wrote Ernie's name at the top of the list. "Okay, who else?" she asked.
"Michel Corner," Ginny said.
"Alright, can two others vouch for him?" Neville asked.
"I can," Padma raised her hand, the quill dripping ink onto the piece of parchment.
"One more," Neville said.
"I trust him," Luna said.
"Okay. Padma, write him down."
This went on for about an hour until they had a list of about fifteen member. Almost all of them had been previous order members, but a few were new.
"Brilliant!" Neville smiled, looking down at the parchment. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Does anyone know that jinx Hermione used on the sign-up parchment last time?" he asked. "We could enchant our new one the same way, but maybe make it worse, to discourage anyone from ratting us out!"
Seamus started nodding his head in agreement, but the others didn't seem so sure.
"Just an idea…" Neville murmured.
"I think there's one more issue: communication. We have to keep all our meetings as secret as possible," Susan pointed out.
"Oh that one's easy." Seamus answered. He reached into his robes and pulled out a shining gold galleon. "We'll use these again. Those slimy gits in Umbridge's little fan club never did find out how we were talking to each other. I'm sure that the death eaters will be just as thick. Have you allstill got yours?"
There was an assortment of nods around the room.
"Wait," Ginny said, and everyone turned to look at her. "It's not quite true what Seamus said about the Inquisitorial squad never finding out about the coins." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Draco Malfoy found out about them. He used them to communicate with Madam Rosmerta last year. I don't think he told anyone else though, probably to keep communication a secret."
"Well it still works out then," Susan said, smiling. "Draco hasn't returned to Hogwarts." Her smile morphed into one of disgust. "He got some special pass. I heard that You-Know-Who welcomed him into his ranks. Probably for the part he played in Dumbledore's death last year." She ended bitterly.
"So assuming that Malfoy still hasn't told anyone, the coins should still work!" Parvati said excitedly.
"But won't it be easy for them to find out? I mean, Death Eater's may be morons, but even they've got to talk to each other," Seamus pointed out. "If one mentions to Malfoy that the D. A. started up again he's bound to spill the beans about how we communicate, right?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Neville said, frankly. "It's the best shot we've got."
"Well, I think we have everything settled then." Ginny stated, smiling. "Try to talk to anyone on this list that you can without raising suspicion. We don't want the Death Eaters on our tails before we even begin.
There were nods, and everyone headed for the door. There were sounds of laughter and chatting as multiple conversations broke out. Neville was once again struck with the thought that with a small stretch of the imagination, this could be the end of a normal D. A. meeting. A broad grin broke out across his face and he knew that the Death Eaters running the school would have hell to pay for everything that they had done.
A/N There you have it! Please please please review! I'm always dying to hear any feed back you may have to offer.
I'm too lazy to continue editing this even though it could use it, so sorry if there are any grammatical or spelling mistakes!
I love you guys, don't forget to review!
