Harry Potter and the Protectors of Hogwarts

vii. of quidditch teams and DA schemes

Harry couldn't believe that the first week went by so fast. His week had been admittedly boring. In classes they had mostly done the reviewing, which meant going over things again and again.

Defence was completely knew, with the way it has been split between Theory, Practical and Physical. Harry wondered at Malfoy's sudden quietness. Was it because his father was in prison that he didn't say anything? It certainly seemed that way. Now that Lucius Malfoy was locked up, Malfoy seemed to have lost his edge. With no father to back him up whenever he needed to threaten anyone, had he decided to keep his mouth shut? Malfoy wasn't the type to let all opportunities slide. Especially when it came to ridiculing Harry and his friends. He never made any nasty comments, especially in Lupin's class.

Nor did he complain about all the things Killian made them do. Harry would have thought that rolling around the ground like a common muggle would have been him. Especially since Dean, a known muggleborn, was the one who did most of the demonstrations in class.

But Malfoy didn't complain. He went along with everything Killian said, without complaining, and performed reasonably well.

Harry didn't know what to make of Malfoy's new behaviour, glad though he was. He was uneasy about it of course, and always kept a wary eye on him whenever the Slytherin was near.

Harry was snapped out of his musings when he saw Katie take off- he was currently in the middle of Quidditch tryouts. They had already chosen their Chasers. Along with Katie, Neville and Ginny were chosen as Chasers. With a little extra practice they could become a very good team. Perhaps not as good as Angelina and Alicia were as a team, but they worked well together, and they didn't really have any problems with each other.

To his surprise Seamus has also turned up to tryout for Beater. Although he was nervous to start off with, they saw he had a strong arm, but his aim could do with some work. In the end they decided that Ian Baxter, a fourth year was perfect as the second Beater, a very strong flyer, and a very strong hitter.

After tryouts Harry and Katie referred with each other, and decided who got what position. They announced the players immediately and dismissed the hopefuls, who left with disappointed sighs.

Before he walked back to the other players, he took Katie to one side and talked about an idea that had occurred to him whilst watching the tryouts. Katie didn't look too enthusiastic, but at least didn't dismiss the idea out of hand, and finally agreed to give it a try. However, they didn't say anything about it until they had their first practice.

The year was going quite smoothly so far. No fights between Slytherin and Gryffindor, yet, although Snape was getting as worse as ever, taking off points for reasons unknown according those still attending his classes. They were learning more in Defence than ever, no thanks to Umbridge, they had to do more homework for the whole of last year, but at least they were learning something.

This thought brought forth the DA to mind. Hermione had been bugging him about setting up meetings since September, but Harry kept putting it off trying to get a routine sorted first. Finally decided to set one up for the weekend.

So, Sunday afternoon found Harry, flanked by Ron, Neville, Luna, Hermione and Ginny in the Room of Requirement, waiting for the rest of the DA to turn up.

"Everyone here?" They all looked around and nodded. He took a deep breath and wondered what he about to do would work. They were going to get a right shock. "All right, first off, thank you everyone for coming. I appreciate you lot for coming, and for giving up your time, but coming here was completely unnecessary," he stopped to look around at the confused faces. "Just hand in your coins to Hermione, the DA has been disbanded," he finished. He looked around expectantly at the bewildered faces.