Memory's Prisoner

Chapter 1: Party Crasher

If it had not been for the DA lessons, Harry thought he would have been extremely unhappy. He sometimes felt he was living for the hours he spent in the Room of Requirement, working hard but thoroughly enjoying himself at the same time, swelling with pride as he looked around at his fellow DA members and saw ho far they had come. Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the member of the DA received 'Outstanding' in their Defense Against the Dark Arts OWLs.

They had finally started working on Patronuses, which everyone had been very eager to practice, though, as Harry kept reminding them, producing a Patronus in the middle of a brightly lit room when they were not under threat was very different from producing it when confronted by a Dementor.

"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the room. "They're so pretty!"

"They're not supposed to be pretty; they're supposed to protect you," Harry said patiently. "What we really need is a boggart or something; that's how I learned. I has to conjure a Patronus while the boggart was pretending to be a Dementor -"

"But that would be really scary!" who was shooting puffs of silver vapour out of the end of her wand. "And I still - can't - do it!" she added angrily.

Neville was having trouble, too. His face was screwed up in concentration, but only feeble wisps of silver issued from his wand tip.

"You've got to think of something happy," Harry reminded them. "If I can do that, I'm certain you can."

"Harry, I think I'm doing it!" yelled Seamus, who had been brought along to his first ever DA meeting by Dean. "Look - ah - it's gone... but it was definitely something hairy, Harry!"

The door to the Room of Requirement opened and closed. Harry looked round to see who had entered, nut there didn't seem to be anybody there. It was a few moments before he realized that the people close to the door had fallen silent. Next thing he knew, something was tugging at his robe somewhere near his knee. He looked down and saw, to his great astonishment, Dobby peering up at him from beneath his usual eight woolen hats.

"Hi, Dobby!" he said. "What are you - what's wrong?"

The elf's eyes were wide with terror, and he was shaking. The members of the DA closest to Harry had fallen silent; everybody in the room was watching Dobby. The few Patronuses people had managed to conjure faded away into silver mist, leaving the room looking much darker than before.

"Harry Potter, sir," squeaked the elf, trembling from head to foot, "Dobby has come to warn you... but the house elves have been warned not to tell..."

He ran head first at the wall. Harry, who had some experience with Dobby's habits of self punishment, made to seize him, but Dobby merely bounced off the stone, cushioned by his eight hats. Hermione and a few of the other girls let out squeaks of fear and sympathy.

"What happened, Dobby?" Harry asked, grabbing the tiny elf's arm and holding him away from anything he might try to hurt himself with.

The door banged open to reveal a smug looking Umbridge.

"I happened," she said smiling at them all.

The color drained from Harry's face as Dobby began banging his head on Harry's knees. Harry dropped the elf as Umbridge walked further into the room with the Inquisitorial Squad right behind her.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" Umbridge said slowly, loving the dread that rapidly filled the room with every second of her presence. "I believe we have a secret club."

She sneered before snapping and facing her followers. "Get Potter, and keep the others in here until I decide what their punishment shall be."

Harry and several other members took frightened steps back at her order. Pansy Parkinson's eyes lit up and she stepped forward, her wand pointed directly at Harry's chest.

"Thýmisi Provolí!"

The room went black.

// A.N. //

I wrote the entirety of of this fic in 2 days because I desperately wanted to read this story and it didn't exist. It is complete so the entirety of it will be published.