A/N - Thanks for all the great reviews and support for The Dark Lady Rises. I just wanted to let people know that this trilogy will be long, far longer than I ever imagined it to be. I've just finished part two, it has forty one chapters and is the longest thing I've ever written. I'm just about to start on part three, and have no idea how long it will end up until I near the end of the story. I just hope people are interested in such a long tale as I'm really enjoting writing it.
I also just want to mention a few points that have came from reviews. I know people are looking forward to Draco discovering who Hermione is, but that doesn't happen until Hermione is ready for him to know, which isn't until the beginning of part 2. However, there is still some nice interaction between them in this part. Someone also wanted to know why Hermione is in Gryffindor, not Slytherin. That will be explained in a conversation between Hermione and Draco, once he discovers who she is.
Defence Against the Dark Arts quickly became one of Draco's favourite lessons, and not for lesson content which was actually very poor. Umbridge's decision not to teach practical magic may have infuriated some people, but Draco took it all in his stride. Lucius had long since taught him that as well as being adept at dark magic he should know how to defend himself from it, so Draco practised on his own and could do almost every spell they read about in class.
While the lessons content may have been lacking the entertainment wasn't. Nearly every lesson Potter made a fuss about not learning how to cast the spells, meaning nearly every lesson he ended up in trouble with Umbridge. Draco was actually quite surprised that Potter hadn't seemed to learn his lesson and just keep quiet during Umbridge's lessons, but if he was stupid enough to annoy the woman every class then Draco wasn't going to complain about the amusing results.
While Umbridge's motives for being at Hogwarts had been clear to Draco from the beginning, it seemed to take an eternity for her to start to exert her power. About a month after school started a statement was released from the Ministry announcing Umbridge's position as High Inquisitor at Hogwarts. The position basically gave her the power to check up on other Professors and make sure they were doing their job right.
While her appointment was met by outrage by most of the school the Slytherins just sat back and watched the fireworks. Within a week she'd introduced numerous educational decrees, banning all sorts of behaviour and activities. When she banned groups of students from meeting without her permission, which would include Quidditch teams, there was outrage. The Slytherin Quidditch team was granted permission to meet almost straight away but Umbridge took weeks to approve the Gryffindor team, meaning they lost a good couple of weeks practice time.
One morning in mid-November Draco was sitting eating breakfast with Crabbe, Goyle, Theo and Blaise when Pansy came flying into the hall carrying a flyer. Shoving Crabbe out of the way Pansy squeezed onto the bench besides Draco and handed him the flyer.
"What's this?" Draco asked, barely looking at whatever junk Pansy had handed him.
"It was in the common room." Pansy answered. "Umbridge's putting together an Inquisitorial Squad to help her make sure her rules are being followed. Apparently the positions will even trump prefects."
Suddenly interested Draco looked down at the flyer in his hands. Pansy was right Umbridge was looking for volunteers and those volunteers would be a rank above normal prefects. Draco smirked as he realised that meant he would be able to dock points from Weasley and Granger as well as Potter. Draco was thrilled with the possibility of more power, but he was less happy about Pansy continuing to hang around him. He was beginning to think she was getting ideas about some sort of big romance brewing between them and he knew he would have to set her straight. However since they hadn't actually had sex yet, he was putting off talking to her. He could put up with her hanging around him for a little while longer.
"We should do this." He said to his friends.
"Why?" Blaise groaned. "I don't like responsibility, I like to be free."
"You'll not exactly have to do much." Draco pointed out. "Just look out for Gryffindors and dock points from them. I'm sure they'll be breaking the rules just by existing."
"I'm up for it." Pansy said, wrapping her hand around Draco's arm.
"Blaise, Theo, are you in?" Draco looked questioningly at his friends. He knew Crabbe and Goyle would just do as he told them but Blaise and Theo actually had minds of their own and he couldn't just assume they were on board with his idea.
"Go on then, it could be fun." Theo nodded.
"I suppose I'm in." Blaise sighed. "But I'm telling you now, this better not interfere with my social life."
"I'm sure it won't." Draco rolled his eyes at his friend. "Come on, let's go and join up before first lessons begins."
Leading the way Draco marched out of The Great Hall and headed for Umbridge's office. Umbridge was thrilled by the volunteers and immediately handed them all places on her Inquisitorial Squad. When Umbridge mention knowing Lucius and said she would be sure to inform him of Draco's dedication to the cause, Draco inwardly smiled to himself. If Umbridge praised him to Lucius, his father might mention it to Voldemort and it would be another plus against his name.
Draco and his friends left Umbridge's office with small 'I' pins on their cloaks and the power to take points off those who broke the rules.
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"You'll never believe what that git Malfoy has done." Ron yelled as he stormed into the common room and flounced over to where Hermione and Harry were sitting beside the fire.
"Let's guess, he's taken points off you." Hermione said.
"Yes." Ron exclaimed. "How did you know?"
"He did the same to me yesterday." Hermione shrugged.
"What did you do?" Harry asked.
"Existed." Hermione replied. "He did mention breaking some sort of rule, but personally I think he just made one up on the spot when he spotted me."
"How can he take points off us, that's what I want to know." Ron complained. "I mean, we're prefects as well."
"Yes, but Inquisitorial Squad trumps prefects." Hermione answered. "Umbridge has given them all sorts of power."
"Great. That's just what we need running around school, a bunch of power crazed Slytherins." Harry mumbled.
"What else is new?" Ron snorted. "Slytherins are always power crazed, just look at the Death Eaters."
Hermione had to bite her lip to stop from retorting and saying that not all Death Eaters were former Slytherins. Over the summer as she'd gotten more involved with her father she'd been surprised by some of the people who had the mark. A few names she'd recognised from school and when she'd asked her father had told her that the students she went to school with were relatives of the Death Eaters in question. As such Hermione now knew that Slytherins weren't the only ones with connections to the Death Eaters, several Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were connected to the dark and she'd even found a few Gryffindors associated with her father. Hermione knew that if Harry and Ron knew exactly who was involved with her father they would be deeply shocked and probably distrusting towards almost everyone.
"Hermione, can you help?" Harry questioned, drawing Hermione's attention back to the two boys.
In the time Hermione had been thinking both Harry and Ron had pulled out their homework and were trying to complete their Defence Against the Dark Arts essay. While both boys had their books to help them they were both struggling to understand things without having the practical experience of performing the spells.
"This is impossible." Ron moaned as Hermione tried to explain the spell they were studying and how it worked. "How on earth are we meant to pass out exams with no practice? We're going to be in a right mess by the end of the year."
"Ron's right." Harry sighed, dropping his quill and leaning back on the sofa. "We need practical lessons, not the rubbish Umbridge is teaching us."
"There's not a lot we can do about it though." Hermione said. Personally she wasn't bothered by the lessons as she practiced in private and had a pretty strong grasp of most spells. "I mean you tried speaking to Dumbledore and that didn't work."
"Yeah, because he bloody ignored me." Harry muttered darkly. Just the previous week he'd tried to talk to Dumbledore about Umbridge but the Headmaster had carried on walking through the crowds of students as though he hadn't heard Harry, even though he was shouting at him.
"I just don't see what we can do." Hermione shrugged. "It's not as if we can get a private Professor to teach us."
"Yes, we can." Ron exclaimed, looking between Harry and Hermione. "You two can do it."
"What?" Harry gaped at his friend as though he was mad.
"What are you talking about, Ronald?" Hermione asked.
"You two can teach us." Ron said enthusiastically. "Harry's great at Defence Against the Dark Arts, plus he's had experience against You Know Who. And Hermione, you know everything, you can plan the lessons and teach people how to cast the spells correctly."
"That would never work." Harry said to Ron, before turning to Hermione. "Would it?" He asked, noticing she looked deep in thought.
"It might." Hermione replied. "It would have to be a secret, since Umbridge can't find out about it. But it could work, Harry can be the face of the lessons and I can do the background work."
"I think you're forgetting something. I'm the school pariah." Harry told his friends, not wanting them to get carried away with a plan that wouldn't work. "Who'd want to learn magic of a liar like me?"
"Not everyone thinks you're a liar, Harry." Ron replied. "Plenty of people believe you. I bet if we asked around we'd find plenty of people who wanted to learn magic from you."
"So it's settled then, we'll start looking into organising a study group." Hermione stated. "Once we've seen how many people are interested we can start by looking into places and times to meet."
"No-one will be interested." Harry snorted as Ron and Hermione started to make plans.
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As it turned out Harry was wrong and plenty of people were interested in learning defensive magic from him. At the meeting in The Hog's Head a large group showed up and almost all of them signed up to take part in the lessons once a suitable venue became available.
That venue was found a few days later by Neville Longbottom. The room on the seventh floor became known as the Room of Requirement as it gave the person or people entering the room whatever they desired it for. During the secret lessons the room provided plenty of space for people to practice spells, lots of books for study and a few aids for helping with the lessons.
Shortly after assembling Hermione handed out enchanted galleons that she would mark with the time and date of a meeting. The idea came from the locket she had from her father, and after writing to him he told her how to perform the spell. Along with the ways of communicating came a name for the group. After much deliberation they decided to call themselves Dumbledore's Army or the D.A for short.
Hermione though the name was very poetic as when Umbridge caught them, Dumbledore would be in trouble for creating a rebel group amongst the students. Hermione had no doubt that Umbridge and her Inquisitorial Squad would catch the D.A before the end of the year. Umbridge was already suspicious of Harry since his argumentative nature in class was fading and he just got on with his work without complaint. And if by any chance it looked as though Umbridge wasn't going to catch them Hermione wasn't opposed to leading her to Harry and the D.A.
While Hermione wasn't opposed to Umbridge finding out about the D.A she didn't want it to happen immediately so the weeks before Christmas break were spent being extra careful and vigilant. When the last meeting of the year was over Hermione headed back to Gryffindor Tower, pleased the term was nearly at an end. In the New Year she might start thinking about the best time for Umbridge to catch Harry, but she wanted to talk to her father first to find out what his plans for Harry were.
For the last few weeks Harry had claimed to be dreaming about this strange room with lots of doors and Hermione was guessing the dream had something to do with Voldemort. The last time Hermione had been home for a meeting she'd asked her father about Harry and he'd promised to tell her his whole plan over Christmas break. Hermione couldn't wait for the holidays as well as the plans for Harry her father had promised to fill her in on what was going on with the Azkaban breakout. Last time they'd spoken he'd claimed things were progressing nicely and they were aiming for the breakout to happen early in the New Year.