A.J RYAN IN THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

Chapter 35 - The D.A's End

The last DA meeting before the Easter holidays was taking place this evening. Harry had told Fred they may work on Patronus', and Fred was now telling A.J about it in her office on the seventh floor. They had come here a lot since his birthday the other week, and Fred had stopped asking for the password to get in.

"What are you going to do tonight without me?" Fred smirked.

"I have a meeting with..." A.J started without thinking, she was distracted as she watched the new potion she was making.

"Dumbledore?" Fred inquired.

"Yeah." She smiled.

"And why wouldn't you want to tell me that?"

A.J had turned away from the potions table to join Fred on his armchair. She waited until she plonked down on his lap to answer; "Because, my gorgeous man, it will start you on a whole bunch of questions that I'm not going to answer." She kissed him quickly.

"Will not." He replied indignantly.

"Right, so you weren't thinking of asking what the meeting was about."

He shook his head with his lips in a firm line.

"Or maybe more sneakily; how long until I get back tonight?"

"No."

"Uh huh, so I could just check your thoughts and have that confirmed, could I?"

"That's an invasion of privacy, Alexis-June." He shot defensively.

A.J raised her eyebrows. Fred winked.

A.J was sitting across the desk from Professor Dumbledore when she heard the stairs outside his office moving, followed by a knock on the door. With a single look from him, A.J vanished from view. She edged away from the desk as Dumbledore called; "Enter."

Professor McGonagall led in Cornelius Fudge - the Minister for Magic, followed by Percy Weasley – his secretary, and Aurors, Kingsley Shacklebolt and John Dawlish.

"The Minister simply wished to see you urgently Albus." McGonagall said evenly. "Dolores will be joining us shortly."

"Yes, yes. Good evening Dumbledore." Fudge nodded without making eye contact. He stood by the fire with a pleased expression on his face.

The door opened and Umbridge strode in, pulling Harry along with her.

Malfoy had cornered Harry as he ran away from the Room of Requirement.

"Well, Potter... I expect you know why you are here?" Fudge asked rather happily.

Harry pleaded innocent to breaking any school rules or Ministry Decree's. The Decree Fudge was referring to was Educational Decree Number Twenty-four – the disbanding of all student groups of three or more people.

Umbridge presented a witness, Marietta Edgecombe, a Ravenclaw friend of Cho Chang. It turned out her mother worked in the Floo Network office in the Department of Magical Transportation and had been helping them monitor the Hogwarts fires.

Pansy Parkinson had supplied the list of D.A members she pulled from the Room of Requirement.

"See what they've named themselves? Dumbledore's Army." Fudge said quietly looking up at Dumbledore with the list in his hand.

Dumbledore was quite for a few moments as he looked over the list, then looked up smiling. He took blame for organising it all and offered to give a statement in front of the witnesses there.

There was silver light, a bang like a gunshot, the floor trembled, and Professor McGonagall tackled Harry and Marietta to the ground. More silver light, shrieks from the portraits, and a cry from Fawkes.