Dark AIAOY 5

Chapter 8

Rebecca and Harry stepped into the Room of Requirement with their closest friends well before the actual first meeting was set to start.  Listening to their wishes and needs, the castle gave them a large room with mirrors and battle dummies, chairs along the edge and plenty of light.  

"It's brilliant."  Harry nodded.  "It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back."

Ron wrinkled his brow, thinking over the lengths a 'room of requirement' could go to.  "So, let's say you needed the toilet..."

"Charming, Ronald."  Hermione rolled her eyes.  "But yes, the Room would provide."

Students trickled in group by group and Rebecca and Harry gathered the attentions of the room.  "Now that we're all here--early--"  Rebecca nodded towards Cedric, who arrived last.  "We wanted to start us off nice and easy."

"The disarming spell."  Harry took over, eventually asking them to line up into two lines.  "We're going to go through, one by one, and see what we can do."

Neville frowned deeply.  He had been pushed to the front of Harry's line.

Rebecca raised her wand to the dummy she brought forward, explaining step by step how the spell was cast.  Before letting them begin, Rebecca addressed them all equally.  "The entire point of this endeavor, of this group, is to help one another.  Unkindness will not be tolerated in the slightest."

The students nodded.  They all agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly.  Harry took a deep breath and looked to Neville, starting with his first.  Rebecca jogged to where her line was, smiling to Colin who had snagged first.  "Ready, Colin?"  Colin raised his arm and made his first attempt without results.

Rebecca walked a slow circle around him and nodded.  "Here, you've got to relax a little."  She grabbed his wrist and raised his arm, waving and wiggling his arm back and forth until the boy couldn't help but laugh.  "Alright, give it another go.  One fluid motion."

Colin faced the dummy with a renewed sense of inspiration.  "Expelliarmus!"  The dummy's wand went flying.  

Rebecca grinned and clapped her hand to his shoulder proudly before nudging him to the back of the line.  Dennis stepped up, his brother's success making him feel all the more capable of doing the same.

When each and every member had gone through the disarming spell twice, over an hour and a half had passed.  Rebecca and Harry caught each other's eyes across the room and nodded, waving everyone back to the middle of the room.  "We saw some excellent work today."  Harry began, looking over everyone.

"Really, everyone made progress!"  Rebecca smiled to those who had shown particular growth.  "You should all feel quite proud of yourselves."

"Practise when you can and help the others if you're able.  But, for today, we're through."  Harry raised his coin up in the air.  "Your coins will tell you when we can meet next."

Rebecca began to outline the procedure for leaving.  "We're going to leave in small groups every few minutes, younger students taking priority."  The students slowly began to spread around the room, chatting as they waited.  Rebecca thanked whomever she passed for coming and stopped to answer any questions.

Fred watched, leaning against the wall idly.  He spun his wand between his fingers and saw how Rebecca listened to Neville's try at explaining where he thought he was making his mistake.  "No, I meant it."  Fred heard Rebecca say, though she had lowered her voice for Neville's privacy.  "I did see progress.  Here, we can give it another go while we wait."  The dummy nearest them crept forward slightly.  "Remember to flourish your wand less like-yes, just like that!"