During Herbology, Annabeth informed Freddie and Vera about what had happened the night before.
Vera cursed. "That reckless fire diving little shit."
"Strong words," Annabeth noted, smiling slightly.
"Like you wouldn't do the same thing, Vera," Freddie said, dodging a green tentacle that was trying to strangle them. "Can you calm down?" they told the plant. It didn't listen.
They were working with Devil's Snare that day, cutting off clippings and replanting them in different pots to be used in potions. The little green demons were waving around like kelp in an underwater current, and they latched onto anything that moved, like a mix between a venus flytrap and a boa constrictor.
For some reason, maybe as an extra challenge, they weren't allowed to use light to keep the plants in check, so Annabeth pulled her gloves on more securely and picked up her pruners. She had a feeling her dagger would work better (maybe it was the enchanted metal), but she was pretty sure that pulling it out in the middle of class would cause some issues.
"On three?" she said, looking at Vera, who nodded. "One... two..."
"On three or after three?" Vera asked.
"Whichever one," Freddie, who was trying to get the devil's snare to stop climbing up their braided hair to their throat, said.
"I said 'on' for a reason," Annabeth said.
"Got it." Vera nodded. "Three!"
"That's not—ok."
Rolling her eyes, Annabeth went in with her shears at the base of the tentacle, which was the most brittle spot on the murderous plant. Vera held the other tentacles at bay while Annabeth worked, using a long rod that Professor Sprout called the problem stick. The plant curled around the rod before it was even touching and made its best effort to snap it.
The sheers weren't doing their job, so Annabeth abandoned them and wrapped her fist around the tentacle and pushed. It broke off with a snap and went limp.
"Well," Vera said, thrusting the problem stick away before the tentacles could overtake it and grab her arm, "that was fun."
The devil's snare curled around the stick, drawing it closer to the base.
"We're never getting that back," Freddie said, untangling the vine from their hair.
***
The first meeting was a few days later. Annabeth, Vera, Freddie, and Daisy went up to the seventh floor together. They had gotten a little sidetracked (Daisy found a cat and she and Vera adopted it before realizing it was Hermione's), but they were on their way.
When they got there, nearly almost late but not quite [props to you if you get the ref], Annabeth was only a little surprised to see a completely different door than the one they usually used.
The door to the gym was carved like any door you'd find in the mortal world, with those rectangles and squares in the middle. This one was dark wood and completely smooth. A brass doorknob sat right in the middle like in those really fancy houses you only see on shows like house hunters.
Beyond the door, the gym was gone, like it had never even been there. Instead was a wide room that, while a little smaller, looked big enough to house everyone. Torches in sconces lit the room. Two parallel walls were lined with bookshelves stuffed full with thick tomes. The third wall was blank, but the fourth had shelves displaying what looked like every weird gadget from fake-Moody's office last year. On the floor, instead of chairs, there were dozens of pillows and beanbags.
Pretty much everyone was there already.
"Hey," Annabeth said as they entered.
Harry looked anxious. "Where were you?"
"We got distracted," Daisy said sheepishly. "Your cat is really cute, Hermione."
"Oh—thank you."
Ron looked at Daisy strangely for that, since he thought that Crookshanks was hideous, for some reason. As her friends sat down, Annabeth joined Harry at the front. They were in this together, no matter what anyone thought.
"Well," Harry said when everyone had settled again, "this is the place we've found for practices, and you've— er— obviously found it okay—"
"It's fantastic!" Cho interrupted.
"It's bizarre," Fred said. "We once hid from Filch in here, remember, George? But it was only a broom cupboard then..."
"Hey, Harry, what's this stuff?" Dean asked.
"Dark detectors," Harry said, gaining some confidence. "Basically they all show when dark wizards or enemies are around, but you don't want to rely on them too much, they can be fooled..." He watched the dark shapes lurking in the mirror for a second before turning away. "Well, I've been thinking about the sort of stuff we ought to do first and between me and Annabeth—er— what, Hermione?"
Hermione lowered her hand. "I think we ought to elect a leader."
"Harry's leader," Cho said immediately.
"And Annabeth," Simone said. "Don't be racist."
Cho looked like she was about to say something else, but decided against it.
"Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly," Hermione said. "It makes it formal and gives them authority. So— everyone who thinks Harry and Annabeth ought to be our leaders?"
Everyone raised their hands, though a few did so hesitantly.
"Er— right," Harry said, going a little red. "Thanks. And— what, Hermione?"
"I also think we ought to have a name," Hermione said happily. "It would promote a feeling of team spirit and unity, don't you think?"
"Can we be the anti-Umbridge league?" someone said hopefully.
"Or the Ministry are Morons group?" Fred asked.
"They're good, but they're way too obvious," Annabeth said. "We need something that we can safely talk about outside of here."
"The defense association?" Cho suggested. "The D.A. for short, so no one knows what we're talking about?"
"Yeah, the D.A.'s good," Ginny said, "only let's make it stand for Dumbledore's Army. Like Annabeth said at the Hog's Head, that's the Ministry's worst fear, and ultimately that's what led to this."
"All in favor of the D.A.?" Hermione got up onto her knees so she could count the hands. "That's a majority— motion passed!"
Hermione got up. She pinned the paper to the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY in big words at the top.
"Right," Harry said. "So, Annabeth and I agreed to split the meetings fifty/fifty. So... Annabeth'll start, and then I'll take over half way."
Annabeth stepped forward. "I want to start with basic self defense," she said. "Harry will be teaching you spells, but you need to know what to do if you lose your wand."
"When will we ever lose our wand?" one of the Ravenclaws snorted.
"That's a good question," Annabeth said. "Raise your hand if you've ever lost your wand." everyone's hands but the Ravenclaw's went up. "There's your answer. Even if it isn't likely, it's important to know what to do if you don't have your wand. So today we'll start simple. I'll teach you how to block a punch and get your opponent into a basic hold. Vera, want to demonstrate?"
"Hell yes." Vera sprang up from her seat and came to the front.
Vera wasn't a match for Annabeth or basically anyone from camp, but Annabeth had been teaching her hand to hand in addition to the dagger. Vera was enthusiastic about it, and it was also a great way to trick her into exercising.
Everyone was watching intently as Vera came up. Some of them looked a little nervous, but a lot of them looked excited.
"Ready?" Annabeth asked. Vera nodded. "Aim for my face."
She did. Vera threw the punch, and Annabeth caught her wrist before it could hit and twisted it, spinning Vera around into a hammerlock.
"Huh," Vera said. "That feels weird."
It was the most basic move Annabeth could think of, but everyone looked impressed and a few of them whistled. Annabeth turned so that everyone could see how Vera's arm was pinned behind her back.
"This is called a hammerlock," she said. "See how Vera's right hand is towards her left shoulder? That's applying pressure to her right shoulder. Any farther and I could pull it out of its socket. Then there's a variation—" Annabeth straightened Vera's arm— "which is the same concept, but there's a good chance I could break Vera's arm this way."
Annabeth released Vera.
"That was fun," Vera said, shaking out her arm. "Again?"
"Go sit down," Annabeth said, rolling her eyes. "Okay, everyone, pair up. Start with just the hammerlock and we'll add the punch and block after you have it down."
So they did that. Some people had trouble getting the motion right, but after a few tries they got it. Some people, like Hermione, were being too gentle and letting go way too early to do anything against an actual enemy, but Annabeth let it slide (for now). As long as they got the movement committed to muscle memory, it would work.
Vera and Daisy kept full on tackling each other to the ground. Annabeth didn't want to split them up, so she bribed them with a trip to the kitchens and they got serious.
After a little bit, Annabeth moved everyone on to catching punches, which by extension meant she had to teach them how to punch. It only took Hugo Quinn almost breaking his thumb to get everyone doing it right.
The problem was that no one was putting their weight behind it. Annabeth guessed that had to do with people not wanting to hurt each other. Annabeth had never experienced that in her training at camp, where everyone did things without regard to their safety or anyone else's, but she figured some training dummies would help.
Some time later, they got to combining the moves, and then it was Harry's turn.
"Right," he said. "I was thinking, the first thing we should do is expelliarmus, you know, the disarming charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful. I reckon we should all divide into pairs again and practice."
Annabeth paired with Freddie this time, but Freddie had really bad aim and kept hitting walls. Harry hadn't gotten the memo that if Vera and Daisy were paired together, nothing would get them to do what they were supposed to be doing but bribery. The two kept changing the colors on each other's clothes, purposely tripping each other, or casting random spells that either ended with nothing happening or one of them upside down.
After Vera cast something Annabeth didn't know the name of and Daisy ended up hanging from the top shelf of one of the bookshelves by her ankles, Harry gave up on trying to control them and looked at Annabeth pleadingly.
"Guys," Annabeth said. "Remember what I said about the kitchens?"
Daisy grabbed the shelf at her eye level and used it to flip over back onto her feet. "Okay, Vera," she said. "For the raisins."
"Raisins?" Vera wrinkled her nose. "Why have raisins when you could have brownies?" she gasped. "I have an amazing idea. Hey, Annabeth—"
"I don't want to know," Annabeth said, going back to helping Freddie aim reliably. "Keep practicing and maybe I'll show you how to get into the kitchens."
Vera gasped dramatically, and she and Daisy started taking it more seriously.
"Okay," Annabeth said, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, keep your eyes on what you want to hit. Don't look at my face but aim for my chest. Actually, if you want to do the most damage, you should aim for the face."
"Got it," Freddie said. "Expelliarmus!"
The jet of red light zoomed by a foot to the left of Annabeth's arm.
"Wow," Annabeth said.
"I think it's a lost cause." Freddie shrugged.
"No such thing," Annabeth said. "Try again."
They kept working on it. Freddie's aim got better over the next twenty minutes. They went slow, starting close together and then backing up a step every time Freddie's spell hit Annabeth and worked.
"Well," Harry said a little later, "that was pretty good, but we've overrun, we'd better leave it here. Same time, same place next week?"
"Sooner!" Dean yelled.
"The quidditch season's about to start," Angelina said quickly, "we need team practices, too!"
"Next Wednesday," Annabeth said. "We'll figure it out from there. Keeping an unpredictable schedule can keep us from being tracked."
"Allright," Harry said. "Come on, we'd better get going, then."
Annabeth waited until everyone else was gone before she and her friends left.
"Wait," Harry said anxiously as they made to leave, looking at his map. "Filch's one floor down, give it a bit for him to leave."
"Sounds like a challenge."
So they left and went one floor down, because why not? Every so often they had to stop so that Vera and Daisy could stop giggling and Freddie could stop freaking out, but they made steady progress. It lasted a nice amount of time, but too soon they had to leave the sixth floor and head down to the more boring lower floors.
The castle halls were dark as they walked through them, and Vera and Daisy ended up walking ahead of Annabeth and Freddie. They seemed to be having a moment, because just then Vera took Daisy's hand and twirled her around, then kissed her.
"Ew," Freddie said. "Get a room, guys."
Daisy rolled her eyes and looked at her girlfriend. "Do you still have your dress robes from the Yule ball last year?"
"That depends on where this is going," Vera said.
"We're coming back here." Daisy kissed Vera's cheek. "And I'm going to wear my dress, and you're going to wear your dress robes, and we're going to dance."
"Dance? Ew. Why?"
"Because we basically live in a castle and we haven't run through the halls in ballgowns and that is something we need to do."
By that time they had reached the basement, where the kitchens and the Hufflepuff dorms were. Annabeth scratched the pear on the painting of the fruit bowl, and it swung open to reveal the kitchens.
The house elves were all too happy to give them a lot of late night snacks. Once they had thoroughly stocked up on foods that were definitely not healthy and should not be eaten past seven, they dropped Daisy off by the entrance to her common room.
"Good night," Vera said, kissing her girlfriend.
"Good night." Daisy smiled and kissed Vera again on the cheek before knocking on a pile of barrels, which swung open to reveal a tunnel.
Once she had vanished down it, Annabeth, Vera, and Freddie went up a staircase and into the Entrance Hall, then down another two to take them to the dungeons. Seriously, who designed the sleeping quarters in this place?
Whatever the case, Annabeth was glad to get to bed.
Guys I need book recs (not really but I want them)