Disclaimer: I DO NOT own the Harry Potter Series. That right belongs solely to the amazing J.K. Rowling. I DO, however, own the plot, Oura (not her last name, again the literary goddess J.K. Rowling) and my favorite cat Sterling.

xXx Hey guys, sorry about the delay in updating. I really have been procrastinating with this story, but I hope you guys like this chapter. A lot of it I got from the book, cause i wanna keep this story as accurate as possible. So yeah, keep commenting and reading and I'll do my best to stay on time. xXx

Chapter 6

Oura had just finished lunch a few days after the Hogsmeade trip, and was heading to Care of Magical Creatures when she heard a commotion. As she rounded the corner, she saw a frightened first year from Hufflepuff pinned against the wall by Draco Malfoy, who was flanked by his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. Oura hesitated. She couldn't just walk away from this, but she would be late if she stayed. Hagrid, who had come back a few weeks ago, had taken a liking to Oura, though, and probably wouldn't mind her being late, but Luna wasn't with Oura to back her up. She had a free period now and had gone to the library to catch up with homework. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before she drew her wand and quietly Stupefied Crabbe and Goyle. She then crept up silently behind Malfoy, placing the tip of her wand in the soft spot where his skull met the top of his spine.

"Let him go, Malfoy, if you don't want to be hexed six ways to hell and back" She growled.

Draco released the boy, and slowly turned to face her. "Well, aren't we the little Gryffindor, putting on the heroics for a first year." He sneered at her.

Oura cocked an eyebrow, her entire face calm as ice. She saw a glint out of the corner of her eye. It looked gold. "I was done with him, anyways" Draco spat. The boy in question turned to run to class.

"Wait," Oura called to him, not taking her eyes off of Malfoy. The first year looked up at her terrified. Was she going to point her wand at him, too? Oura spoke to Malfoy, ignoring the boy.

"Give him back his galleons."

"I'm offended you'd think I'd steal from a helpless first year." He said innocently. He put on his best girl-charming smile. Oura was not impressed, to say the very least. In fact, she was insulted that he would think she would just let him go because his hideous being was masked with a perfect face. One with quicksilver eyes that pierced her and two rows of pearly white teeth that smiled down at her. He was the perfect height, just about a half a head taller than her, so she still had to look up, gently, without straining to tilt her neck up too much. Wait, no. He was a terrible person. One that hated muggle borns and stole from first years.

"His galleons, Malfoy." She caught a glimpse of movement behind her. The two hoodlums had managed to unfreeze themselves. "And unless your minions want to be placed under a full body bind, I would suggest they stop trying to think of the right spell to freeze me" Crabbe and Goyle stopped dead. Malfoy grudgingly pulled three gold coins out of his pocket and slapped them in her outstretched hand. She gave them to the boy, who looked up at her in amazement. No one had ever stood up to Malfoy before, and she was in for a world of torture for doing so.

"Is this all of it?" She asked kindly. The little Hufflepuff nodded and took off towards his class. Oura waited till the boy was out of sight, then turned her back to the platinum-haired bully and started to walk away.

"Locomotor Mortis" Malfoy yelled, trying to bind her legs, attempting to get revenge. The curse hit a silver shield and bounced back at Malfoy instead. Oura turned slowly to face Draco. "I find the Protagoras charm quite effective, don't you Malfoy?" She smirked at him and hurried down to Hagrid's.

As Oura had predicted, the half giant wasn't really angry with her, and only took 5 points from Ravenclaw to follow protocol. Oura grouped up with Terry Boot to examine a Bowtruckle and smiled, remembering the look on Malfoy's face when the spell hit her shield and bounded back at him. She would probably have to face Professor Snape about attacking his favorite pupil, but it was definitely worth it.

Even better than Malfoy's reaction was the fact that Terry told her that the Defense Against the Dark Arts group had set a date, time and place for the first meeting. It would be held in the Room of Requirement, tonight, at seven. Apparently, The Room of Requirement was a hidden room on the seventh floor that accommodated anything a person need. It would be a great place for the secret meetings and it would also be wonderful if Oura needed to get away from people for a bit. Today was turning out to be a great day.

After dinner, Oura and Luna changed into their more comfortable Muggle clothes. Oura donned an Oasis shirt that faded into blue and pulled on a pair of simple black leggings. She wore a silver feather necklace and a purple-gemmed bracelet. As an afterthought, she pulled a silver dragon paper weight out of her drawer and tapped it with her wand. The small dragon uncurled and flew up to her ear, curling around it and froze again, as though it was sleeping. Occasionally, silver smoke drifted from its nostrils. Luna wore a dark blue shirt with crochet flowers around the neckline, maroon pants and a long light blue necklace that fell behind her shirt. And, of course, the ethereal blonde couldn't go anywhere without her radish earrings.

They headed off at five minutes to seven and reached the room as soon as the bells rung the hour. They entered and found that many people were already there. The walls were lined with wooden bookshelves, and instead of chairs there were large silk cushions on the floor. Shelves at the far end carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors and a large cracked Foe-Glass.

By the time it was eight, everyone was seated on a cushion and Harry locked the door and turned back around, looking slightly nervous.

"Well, this is the place we've found for practices, and you've - er - obviously found it okay-"
"It's fantastic!" said Cho, and though Oura hated her, she had to agree. It was perfect.

"It's bizarre," said Fred, frowning around at it. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was just a broom cupboard then."

"Hey, Harry, what's this stuff?" asked Dean from the rear of the room, indicating the Sneakoscopes and the Foe-Glass.

"Dark detectors," said Harry, stepping between the cushions to reach them. "Basically they all show when Dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled ..."

He gazed for a moment into the cracked Foe-Glass; shadowy figures were moving around inside it, though none was recognisable. He turned his back on it.

"Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and-er-" He noticed a raised hand. "What, Hermione?"

"I think we ought to elect a leader," said Hermione.

"Harry's leader," said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad.

"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," said Hermione, unperturbed. "It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So-everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?"

Everybody put up their hand, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very half-heartedly.

"Er-right, thanks," said Harry, whose face turned bright red "And-what,Hermione?"

"I also think we ought to have a name," she said brightly, her hand still in the air. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"

"Can we be the Anti-Umbridge League?" said Angelina hopefully.

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

"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

"Right," said Harry, when she had sat down again, "shall we get practising then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful-"

"Oh, please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?"

"I've used it against him," said Harry quietly. "It saved my life in June."

Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of us were very quiet.

"But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave," Harry said.

Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.

"OK," said Harry, "I reckon we should all divide into pairs and practice."

Oura grouped up with Luna and we began to practice. The room around them was suddenly full of shouts of Expelliarmus. Wands flew in all directions; missed spells hit books on shelves and sent them flying into the air. Oura was quickly able disarm Luna and she tossed the blonde girl back her wand. Oura looked around. Harry had been right to suggest they practice the basics first; there was a lot of shoddy spellwork going on; many people were not succeeding in Disarming their opponents at all, but merely causing them to jump backwards a few paces or wince as their feeble spell whooshed over them.

The group kept practicing until a bit after 9, when Harry blew his whistle and everyone helped put the cushions away and waited for Harry to tell them it was safe to go outside using the map he used to show her the school on the train. Luna and Oura were the last to leave, other than the Golden Trio. Oura smiled at Harry as she left, following Luna, who was ambling towards their dormitories in the west wing. She and Oura fell so deep into conversation about different things and whether or not Luna should keep bringing up creatures that most people didn't believe exist, that Oura didn't notice Draco hiding behind a suit of armour that they passed. The Slytherin stared at her when she walked by, wondering what Oura was doing out of bed. He sighed and dashed down to the dungeons, not wanting to be caught out at this time of night.