✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

T H R E E

"You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see."
— Madeline Miller (Circe)

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Rowan had a hard time believing some of the only things she'd be learning in D.A.D.A. was how to flee, how to avoid conflict, and theories for all of that and more. This wasn't the time to be learning how to run away, they needed to learn how to fight, to truly defend themselves. 

She wasn't going to look You-Know-Who in the eyes then run away screaming. She wanted to hex the bloke and all his filthy Death Eaters. She wanted to laugh in their faces when they finally crumbled, to watch what she feared finally dissolve. 

But Umbridge had other plans. 

Yet, so did Harry.

The Room of Requirement was perfect for them, and for what they would start doing behind its closed walls. Dumbledore's Army, or the DA for short, was formed and Rowan couldn't be happier to finally be doing what she was here for.

Learning defensive magic was what the students of Hogwarts needed to be doing, and Harry was finally teaching them. With the persuasion of Hermione, of course, they were finally in business.

A secret business, though.

"What do you think we ought to learn today?" Ron asked as the great foursome began their stroll to the Room of Requirement. "Shield charm? Stunning spell?"

"Think you're getting a little ahead of yourself, Ron," Harry laughed as they waited for the staircase to move back to them.

Hermione let out a small laugh, nodding as she said, "We got to start off slow, not all of us know those yet."

"We aren't all fast learners like you, Ron," Rowan laughed, nudging the other boy as their staircase finally arrived and they begun their climb to the seventh floor. "I think we should start out with a simple Disarming Charm, that way we can at least disarm our opponents before they kill us, right?"

The three of them agreed and that was that.

Rowan always wondered what her life at Hogwarts would've been like if the four of them never had gotten so close. That they didn't face the troll in the girl's bathroom their first year, that maybe if they hadn't all sat in the same train compartment together, this wouldn't be happening now. That they'd all be strangers amongst the Gryffindor house. 

"What's got you so lost in thought, Ro?" Hermione asked as the boys entered through to the Room of Requirement before them. 

She smiled at her friend, so thankful the pair had become so close. "Just thinking about how excited I am to disarm Ron and his big mouth."

"You and me both," Hermione laughed back and they entered.

The Room of Requirement was special, that was what Hermione had told them when we had all discovered it with the help of Neville. She had explained to them, as they huddled near the slowly disappearing exit, that it appears when a person has real need of it and it's always equipped with what the seeker needs.