The Gift From Death Year 3

Chapter 4: The Request

9th, August, 1998...

As everyone was sitting eating lunch Lily decided to ask Harry what he had promised to explain earlier that day.

"Harry? What is the DA?"

"Well..." Harry paused, "Basically it's... Hermione can you explain? I honestly dont know where to start."

"The DA stand's for Dumbledore's Army." Hermione started. "In our 5th year we had a horrible defence teacher who wouldn't let us do magic in class. So Ron and I convinced Harry to teach a bunch of student's."

"I agreed, albeit reluctantly, and became the leader of the DA and taught them everything I knew about defence, the practical stuff at least. As the year went on Hermione would find more curses and hexes that the three of us would learn and then I would teach it to the rest of the DA." Harry put in.

"Most of the stuff was really useful, like Patronuses and shield spell's and things we could use in a duel." Ron added. "The point of it was so that everyone could defend themselves properly and would be partly prepared for the war that could have started at anytime."

"But it ended up being so much more." Neville smiled. "It was being part of the DA that helped improve my magic."

"All you needed was confidence Nev." Ginny smiled. "A little confidence was all it took for you to get better and a little determination to get things right."

"After the final battle where Harry killed Voldemort, or losses were heavy but the DA was almost completely intact." Minerva smiled. "Out of those who had stayed to fight..."

"Which was everyone who was of age except for one who was of age but left and three people under-age." Hermione cut in. "So about 27 people."

"No it was about 39." Luna corrected, "We were recruiting while you were away, even if they weren't official or original members and not all of them were of age either. Like Astoria, she helped even if she wasn't an official member on the list."

Astoria nodded. "There was me and 3 other Slytherins. We never officially joined, just in case we were caught."

"Yes, about that amount of the DA stayed to fight. The DA only lost two people." Minerva frowned, "One was Fred," the mentioned twin nodded once, "the other was Colin Creevey, he wasn't of age, he had snuck back to fight and was killed."

"Poor Colin." Fred said sadly, "He was alright, if a little excitable."

"How many did the Order lose that night?" Remus asked hesitantly.

"20 people." Minerva sighed. "Including you and Dora obviously. All together there was 52 deaths on the light side."

"And 50 on the dark side." Draco added, wincing, before anyone could ask. "So 153 deaths all together that night."

"That only makes 152 though." Lily pointed out.

"The extra number will be explained when we get there." Harry said glaring at Draco who looked apologetic.

"That's still a lot of deaths." Andy sighed. "And that was only that night, Kingsley is still trying to count how many people died during the war as a whole, so far he's up to 125 I think."