Dinner, which was normally a mostly cheerful and looked forward to event (by the single fact that food was served), was not so cheerful for four people on this night. These four people were: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Draco Malfoy.

Draco was enjoying the last part of his day off (owing to the fact that he was still “recovering” from his near death experience, which by now had been pushed to the farthest reaches of his mind) eating dinner while sitting on his bed in his room. The only bad thing— which had therefore thrown him into this category with three others whom he would never want to be listed with in any way shape or form unless it was a list of people who hated each other—was the seemingly unobtrusive addition to his bedroom. Well, to some people it was seemingly unobtrusive…yes, some people who were blind that is. Another bed had been “graciously” added to his own bedroom, not three feet from his own emerald and ebony bed. The house elves had added it, without his permission he might add, to his bedroom while he had been engaged in his Potions homework (which Harry had in fact not bothered to bring him; Snape had done so instead) in the other room of his “dormitory”, which he personally had dubbed his “study”. He’d nearly had a heart attack when he unknowingly had walked back into his room in order to grab another Potions reference book. Somehow, looking at this…thing made the whole situation much more real.

But Draco was recovering from this situation, he really was. In fact, he prided himself on how well he was adjusting in the space of time that it took to eat one meal. As he’d, in a way, promised Harry, the boy’s bed was not Slytherin colored. It was black and red. Not that garishly and, in Draco’s humble opinion, tacky red that adorned everything Gryffindor, but a subtle blood red. It was actually a nice addition that ented the color scheme of the room…which was chiefly black, a color that was fast bing Draco’s favorite color for reasons that he hadn’t quite yet sat down and thought about. Maybe he should…that would certainly get his mind off the whole Potter subject…

The other three in the category of having-a-not-so-cheerful-dinner were sitting in the Great Hall with other students of their house, wondering exactly what was really done in situations like this one. Harry was just trying to recover from the slight nausea that was setting in because he’d just realized that his trunk was no longer in the dormitory that had been his home-away-from-home (if you could call his real “home” by that name). He would be rooming, as in sharing living space, with Draco Malfoy. But that wasn’t the real nauseating part. For some strange reason, he didn’t mind as much as he thought he should.

Ron and Hermione were wondering what to say in the gap left by Harry’s contemplative silence. What did one say to a friend that was going through something like this? Of course, what, at the basic level, they might want to do would not be the right answer. And they both knew it. Ron spewing about how much he hated Draco Malfoy would not change the fact that Harry now had to pretty much live with the boy, and Hermione asking about a hundred times if Harry was okay wouldn’t do much more than Ron’s spewing. So they were also silent. One almost had to thank Ginny, who like most everyone else in the entire school (barring several teachers, one parent, and one other student) didn’t know about this predicament, when she asked in a low voice at Harry’s elbow:

“Harry, when is the next DA meeting?”

Harry blinked, and then latched on to this safe and relatively Draco-free subject. “What?”

“We haven’t had a meeting in about a week. We’re wondering when the next one will be.”

That much was true. They’d had only two or three meetings before the whole non- Draco-free subject came up, and that had been a while ago.

Ron also latched onto the idea. “Are you doing anything tonight Harry? We could have it tonight.”

“Ron—” Hermione was about to admonish Ron for even suggesting such a thing, as the two boys hadn’t even looked at the newest Potions assignment, not to mention their other subjects which were either half-done or not started at all. Then she caught the look in Ron’s eye, and more importantly, the underlying idea of this impromptu meeting, and her tone of voice changed drastically. “—that’s a great idea! How about it, Harry?”

Harry shrugged,pletely missing the underlying effect that if they had a meeting he could put off spending the evening with Draco Malfoy. “Sure,” came the reply.

“Good. Ginny and I will spread it around. How about in…” Hermione paused to consult the time, “…an hour? Will that be enough time?”

“Sounds good,” came the reply. And the second half of dinner was spent talking in low tones among the three of them about what exactly they would cover, a topic that put the Veriae bond between Draco and Harry so far back in Harry’s mind that hepletely ot about it.

The members of the DA (full name: Dumbledore’s Army) had not changed much. One or two had dropped out, and three or four had asked to be in. But the idea of the DA was not wide spread throughout Hogwarts. This was purely political, really. Even in times of crisis, rules had to be followed, and the formation of an “army” in school was not to be allowed. In truth, this was something which Harry agreed with. He could just hear the messages of the Howlers from different parents. I don’t want my child in the war, and all that. Having been through the muggle educational system for most of his schooling, Harry was well aware of how drafting was used in muggle wars, and though he was unaware if the wizards had actually ever used a draft system, he was sure the reaction of concerned wizarding parents would be the same as muggle parents. It was a somewhatmon muggle saying that “no parent should have to bury his/her children”, and Harry also agreed with this, adding that ideally no one should have to bury anyone who died an unnatural death. Harry was still coping with the fact that if a body had been available for Sirius, he would have had to bury his godfather. He’d “moved on” enough to be able to live life the way he normally would, but the loss would always be there. That much he was certain.

And speaking of certainties, he was certain that he was slightly late to this impromptu DA meeting. So with hurried steps, he moved towards the Room of Requirement.

Down a few floors, in the dungeon, Draco Malfoy suddenly shivered, wings ripping through the fabric of his shirt. In confusion, he threw a quizzical look over his shoulder. That was weird. Then he sighed. He’d liked that shirt too…

Hermione and Ron had already—with plenty of help from Ginny, Harry was sure— separated everyone in pairs. The idea for the past few meetings had been duels, with one new spell learned every meeting. Hermione would teach the spell, with Ron to demonstrate on, and would then demonstrate how to block said spell, again with Ron to demonstrate on. Then the group would practice in pairs for about half an hour, before turning to small duels. On the first meeting, they’d taken turns dueling one on one with the rest of the group watching so as to watch for flaws or exceptionally done spells. Then they’d slowly progressed to one on two person duels, and one on three, all the way up to this current meeting in which there were six people on a rather large dueling platform (a hexagonal shaped duplicate of the platform Lockheart had used in Harry’s second year) in a free-for-all in which the goal was to be the last one standing.

This, of course, had to be carefully controlled. No spells that would cause a trip to the infirmary was the major rule, although they’d broken that once or twice…fortunately Dumbledore had talked to Madam Pomfrey about it and explained the situation. She’d been much more iving after that…well, not iving, but less condescending at least.

Tonight, after Hermione finished her demonstration of a charm, which was originally used in earlier times to boil water and could be focused into a beam which could cause quite a number of nasty burning oddities to the skin (she’d taken a bit longer than usually to heal Ron, and Harry’d fought back a giggle when he’d realized that this was because she got to hold on to Ron’s hand while she did so); the group chosen for the six-person duel included Harry. Most of the time, Harry found an excuse not to participate as he didn’t want to place another spotlight on himself if he did something exceedingly well (he practiced quite a bit more than he let on in these duels and was therefore always afraid that he would slip), but tonight he had been roped into it. Taking his position, Harry felt rather strange, as if something was slightly wrong. Shrugging it off as anticipation or slight nervousness, he waited for the signal to begin.

All six bowed and waited for the sudden burst of light from Hermione’s wand which was the signal to begin. Harry saw it out of the corner of his eye and barely had time to blink before a lance of pain shot through his abdomen. He doubled over and a charm flew over his head to form a slight dent in the wall where it hit.

The onlookers cheered slightly at what seemed to be a brilliant display of reflexes on Harry’s part, but Hermione caught the slightly pained look on his face. Realization dawned on her and she hurriedly grabbed Ron to whisper in his ear. He paled slightly, watching the battle which was being waged on the platform.

Harry appeared to be dodging the attacks with even better reflexes than he played Quidditch with, yet he was not enjoying himself. Every time he was forced to duck in order to evade a curse or charm, the slight look of pain intensified on his face.

Hermione’s wand suddenly lit in a red color, a slightly different charm from Lumos which had actually been used to mark off apparating grounds until the eighteenth century when a muggle had thought it to be a

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