Daughter of Black

5.10

"You've done it, Neville." I grinned, patting him on the back. "You found the Room of Requirement." We all grinned as we looked over the large and empty room. When Neville had approached us during lunch with a wide grin, we knew he had figured out a solution to our problem.

"The what?" Ron furrowed his brows.

"It's also known as the Come and Go Room. The Room of Requirement only appears when a person has a real need for it. And it's always equipped for the seeker's needs." Hermione explained to the rest of them.

"So say you really needed the toilet..." Ron chuckled to himself.

"Charming, Ronald." Hermione held back a smile. "But, yes, that is the general idea."

"It's brilliant." Harry answered. I squeezed George's hand. He leaned down to my ear.

"I suppose that means it works if we need a bit of privacy..." I elbowed him, not able to stop the blush from rising to my ears.

"That wasn't as quiet as you think, mate." Fred whispered back to us, shaking his head. "Disgusting, you two."

"It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back." Harry smiled, not having heard us behind him. We left the Room of Requirements in a hurry, not wanting to get caught. We looped back through the halls, making our way back to the Gryffindor common room. Luckily our little walk had gone unnoticed. The common room was even more busy than usual. Most students felt like it was the only safe space to talk. The courtyards and the library were no longer filled with students studying or hanging out. Our only form of an escape was through Dumbledore's Army and we had to make sure it remained a secret.

♡☽

The first meeting occurred later on in the day. All of the students who had signed up gathered in the Room of Requirement. Excited chatter filled the space and I was thankful for the silencing charm that naturally concealed the room. By the time we made it back, the room had even produced an iron training dummy that happened to resemble a Death Eater. I could never cease my amazement at the wizarding world. Along one wall was an expansive book shelf, filled with various books on Defense Against the Dark Arts. "Alright, everyone." Harry clapped his hands together from where he stood. He had a bit of nerves behind his voice while he magicked the training dummy towards the center of the room, sticking a fake wand in its hand. "Let's start with a simple disarming spell. Line up here." I stood near the front of the line, eager to help anyone who needed it. Neville looked uneasy as Harry encouraged him to go ahead.

"Expelliarmus!" He shouted with skepticism. His wand ,instead, shot from his hand and hurled towards the rest of the class. I gave him a weak smile. It narrowly missed a young boy named Nigel. His eyes were wide when he stood again, looking back and forth from Neville to the wand that had nearly impaled him. "I'm hopeless." Neville sighed, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

"No, of course not Neville. You're just flourishing your wand too much. Try it like this." I flicked my wand towards the dummy as I shouted the spell, instantly knocking the wand from its hand. I looked back at Neville and saw his disappointed smile. I put my hand on his shoulder. "We'll work on it. You'll be a pro in no time." He nodded and moved to the back of the line, the next person going. By the end of the first session, Harry had proven himself to be an excellent teacher. Everyone seemed to be catching on rather quickly. But while we were working hard, it felt like Umbitch was coming down on us harder. She was assigning busy work, like reading and copying the textbook multiple times. Day after day, she assigned more work that could be done by first years, nothing that required any thinking at all. George and I had been doing some of the work before another one of our assignments from the evil woman.