Even though the D.A. had already disbanded last week, the S.A. decided to continue their meetings. Dumbledore had taken all the blame for Harry's antics and fled the school, and they figured they needed to practice now more than ever.
"Why is Jack not here?" Drew scowled, tapping her foot impatiently. The S.A. members wondered to each other what the holdup was. "Morfinus is missing too."
Cyndee was humming and drawing gargoyles on the chalkboard. "If they're not here in five minutes, just lead the meeting yourself."
Drew took out a piece of parchment and tried to comprehend Jinx's scratches. Jinx knew how to read like the post owls did, but her writing skills were subpar. " 'Patronus'. I don't know much about Patronuses besides that they're used against Dementors."
Time ticked by. The other older students weren't here to help — they were busy with schoolwork. Wilby read a book, and Blaise wandered around the room. Just when ten minutes was almost up, Jack opened the door and came in.
"Jeffrey!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms.
He blinked and slowly pointed at himself like, Are you talking to me?
"Yes, obviously. Catch up." When the prefect came to join her at the front, she scolded, "Where were you? And where's your friend?"
"Ten minutes is hardly much," he defended himself. His voice sounded hoarse.
"Are you sick?" she asked, trying to sound nicer. "You can nip down to Madam Pomfrey if you'd like."
He cleared his throat. "No, I just haven't used my voice in a while. Let's get on with the lesson."
"Ten minutes is a lot," Drew disparaged. "I let you be the leader."
His face was the picture of exasperation. "Fine, I'm irresponsible and useless. Can we move on?"
She blinked, momentarily thrown. "That was unnecessarily harsh, but fine."
Efficiently, Jack got everyone assembled and explained what a Patronus was and how to cast it. "The thing is," he added, "it's advanced magic and I've never succeeded at it. So don't feel bad if you can't make a fully corporeal Patronus."
Drew patted him on the shoulder. "Have some faith, Jacob."
Wilby was staring at her, and he spotted her questioning look and winked, "I'm thinking of my happiest memory."
She blushed. "Great. Great great great."
Drew first used her memory of the Yule Ball, recalling how they'd figured out how to dance together, then talking by the fountain outside.
It truly was difficult. No matter how hard she thought or how loudly she said the incantation, the best she could muster was a wisp of silvery gas.
After a while, Wilby had managed to make a Jack Russel Terrier, and she stared in awe as it dashed around his feet twice before dissipating.
"It helps to be specific," he advised her, "and think about the emotions associated with the memory." It seemed like very pointed advice, considering her habit of pretending her feelings didn't exist.
"Alright," she said grudgingly, and raised her wand again. This time she focused on the glow of the fairy lights on Wilby's face as he smiled at her, the gleam of the bronze coin in her hand, and the hope and happiness fluttering in her heart.
She thrust out her wand. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
And a small shape burst out of her wand and bristled its quills. The porcupine disappeared in a few seconds, but she'd done it. Wilby clapped, and she beamed with pride.
By the end of the lesson, a good number of the students could manage the advanced spell.
Aurora's swan floated around the room on invisible water. Blaise's Egyptian Mau and Cyndee's Scottish Fold leapt up imaginary steps. Blaise was especially shocked that he'd made one.
Morfinus had appeared, and he'd managed to make an adorable seal. Jack, on the other hand, wasn't making any attempt at all.
"Why aren't you trying one?" Drew asked. "You should. With the other spells, it seemed like you already know how to do them well, but you can't do a Patronus yet."
His face was strangely impassive. "I'll do it on my own time. For now, I'm just helping you lot."
Maybe Drew should've dropped it, but she wanted to pay him back for all the help he'd given them. "Come on, I can take over the class for a while."
"David —"
"It's Drew. Maybe it's your wand's problem. Does that happen?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Hardly ever, but you're welcome to try it yourself."
To her surprise, he held out his wand. Drew took it uneasily, and immediately it began shaking uncontrollably. It seared her palm and she was forced to pass it back, "Ow ow, what the hell?"
He smirked, "My wand's made of acacia. It doesn't let anyone but the owner use it."
Scowling, she shook out her sore hand. "Hilarious. So what do you think is wrong? It could just be lack of practice."
Jack made a pained face. "I've tried making a Patronus time and time again and it never worked. I'm just useless when it comes to that."
"What did you just say?" Morfinus asked, rushing over. "You're not useless, mate. Stop saying that."
"You're far from it," Drew agreed readily, seeing that Jack was genuinely sad.
"Shall we go get some cake?" the Gryffindor suggested. "We can go get cake. The tiramisus straight from the icebox are my favourite."
Jack snorted. "We're eight floors from the kitchens, Morfy."
"So?"
Morfinus turned to Drew. "I'm going to drag Jack down to the kitchens, okay? See you later, loser." He grabbed Jack's hand and hauled him towards the door with brazen determination.
"Wait," Jack said, pulling himself back. "Can you just get it for me? I want to stay here."
His friend looked hurt. "Oh, er, okay."
Morfinus left, and Jack exhaled, dejection evaporating. And he mumbled so quietly Drew barely heard him: "Finally."
Drew didn't know what to make of that.
* ° * ° *
They did a multitude of other meetings. It was probably a jerk move to not invite the original D.A., but hey, secrecy was an issue and they had already been discovered.
Drew and the other members practiced aiming, dodging, and various charms and jinxes. By June 10, the day before fifth years would take their Defence Against the Dark Arts exam, Drew felt ready to crush all competition.
Nevertheless, she joined her friends in attending the quick S.A.-exclusive review session in the Room of Requirement, which the members now used as a study hub for all subjects.
These last few days had been hell on earth as every fifth- and seventh-year student crammed dozens of textbooks of information into their heads because it had seemed that revising beforehand wasn't as practical.
Today had been the Herbology O.W.L., and Drew had spat out everything she knew about the anatomy of the semi-sentient Screechsnap and the different potions the Fanged Geranium could be used in before swiftly forgetting it all by the time she walked out of the examination room.
"See you in two years," she'd said to her textbooks.
And now they were reviewing for DADA. Drew tried to absorb the textbook Aurora had smuggled into Hogwarts, drilling the various jinxes and counterjinxes into her head.
Cyndee was saying that to defeat the hinkypunk all they had to do was Summon its lamp. It was such a simple solution from what the textbook gave them that it made Drew mad.
Then the door flew open and Jack came in. "Got the predictions!" Everyone swarmed him as he distributed copies. "Disclaimer: we don't know if they're accurate."
"You got them from Conor, didn't you?" Morfinus said, reading through the N.E.W.T.s predictions for Potions. "He's always been at least sixty percent right."
Jack shrugged. "Well, the Ministry's in chaos. He was busier and might have done a worse job this time. Him being weeks late is a pretty big indicator of that."
Drew eagerly read through the paper and shouted to her friends, "Review the counterspells from the last year!"
As her friends found the right pages in their textbooks, Jack warned, "DADA will be the least accurate. The Ministry changed the curriculum, but it seems like they still expect us to know a lot more than we're taught."
She lowered her paper. "You have the coolest friends, Jared."
"Conor's not my friend," Jack muttered, "I just pay him." He addressed the other students, "Remember that taking Memory Potions are ILLEGAL and get you EXPELLED. You WILL be caught and will NOT be able to take the test again so don't even try it."
Morfinus had crumpled up his paper in frustration, and then promptly unfolded it again with grumbles of "no, I need to pass." He eventually sighed, looking up at Jack plaintively. "We should Confound the examiners. It worked for our Transfiguration O.W.L."
Drew had been about to return to her seat but doubled back. "You did what? Teach me how. I'm offering you five Galleons. You could buy so much with that. Come on. Hurry up."
The unfazed Gryffindor pointed at Jack. "Ask him. He's the one that did the Confundo."
Jack blinked. "No, wait, I'm prefect. I need to set an example." He dodged away from Drew. "It's illegal. And completely unfair to the other students."
Drew groaned in annoyance. "Yes, I know." She raised her eyes. "You still did it though."
"No, well technically yes, but...you're not supposed to."
She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't use it anyway, but thanks for the predictions."
He looked at the papers she was holding. "Oh, you're welcome."
Drew returned to her friends, passing the predictions to Blaise and Cyndee, the fastest readers. "Strange how they seem to want us to cast spells despite discouraging it in class."
"Simple," Wilby said. "They couldn't change the exams, so they revamped how we're taught. This isn't happening at Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, because Fudge is afraid Dumbledore's starting a rebellion here."
Wow. All that reading of the Daily Prophet must be paying off. Drew said to him quietly, curiosity overpowering her dread, "Any closer to finding those Death Eaters?"
His face went from half-dead study mode to laser-focus. "Well, for Cyndee's cousin, the Ministry's done what can be done. It could be anyone not in Azkaban who was disguised, which explains why the description she recalled over the years matches no known Death Eater. There are the few most likely ones here..." He flashed a notebook page with a handful of names.
"As for mine," he continued, turning to a different page, "there's way less to go on since it happened before the war ended, when hardly any of them were in prison. I have a list of who it could be, based on age and information Mrs. Piramyd gave me. Although there's still all the ones that weren't caught or got covered up by the Ministry."
He showed her the page, and she skimmed through the despairingly long list. There was a star next to those who had broken out of Azkaban in January.
Amycus Carrow...Antonin Dolohov...Augustus Rookwood...
Farther down, her eyes stopped on Theodore Nott Snr. She passed the book back, "This isn't going to work. With no new information or a way to talk to them, a dozen is too many to narrow down. And like you said, we don't know all the possibilities."
"I figured," he said, "so that's a dead end. There are potions and artifacts that would help me, but they require me to actually go out and find him."
She leaned forward as he flipped to a different page, and read the notes of potions and ingredients. "That's...a lot of research," she said finally.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I won't do any of it yet, since I listen to the concerns from you and my mum."
"Exactly what I wanted to hear."
The Room of Requirement suddenly went silent, and they looked up in bewilderment. All movements had frozen mid-way, and every eye was on the door.
Jack had been about to go out, and in the doorway stood Draco Malfoy in all his pasty-skinned glory. His mouth fell open. "I knew it! I knew you all had some secret exclusive club!"
The prefect frantically pulled him inside before he could run and tattle. "Malfoy, it's just a study group. Not an organization."
Ferret looked offended. "Oh really? I suppose that's why 'Student Alliance' is written on that board back there! You must take me for a bloody twit!"
Jack gave the rest of them a help me out look before turning back. "We're not doing anything truly wrong and you know it."
Aurora suddenly leapt up. "What did you do to my cat?!"
Drew realized that she was right to be worried. Their copy of the Barnabas the Barmy painting was fine, indicating that Jinx somehow wasn't able to tear it up to warn them of an intruder.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I immobilized it. I spent enough time staking this place out to notice the animal there."
Ari rushed out the door, shoving past him. Jack lowered his voice to a warning, "If you tell anyone, you are making an enemy out of every person in this room."
Malfoy stared at him wordlessly. At first Drew thought the threat had actually worked, but then he glanced from him to Morfinus in horror. "It was you two!"
Jack recoiled. "What?"
The blond tried to make himself appear taller, and his anger nearly covered up his shaky voice. "Don't play dumb with me, Liang. You and your moronic friend were the ones who attacked me three years ago!"
And with a start, Drew was hit with all the facts of that night. Two dark-haired boys, who by now were Jack's age. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin who was never seen with anyone from his own House, neither of which she ever thought to suspect.
Jack had gone pale. "Draco —"
Malfoy slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me! I'm going to have you expelled, charged, and imprisoned! And not just you, but EVERYONE HERE!"
Jack backed off, but then Morfinus came and grabbed Malfoy's arm. "You deserved it for laughing while people were Petrified!"
The blond faltered, "I just — they didn't matter as much — it wasn't like I wanted anyone to be killed —"
"Yeah, right. Just leave, and we'll be gone before you're back. Remember when you tried to rat us out about helping Harry Potter's organization?"
Malfoy scowled, conflicted emotions flickering across his face. Finally he said shakily, "I won't tell anyone, but that doesn't mean I'll forget this. I never liked you, Labrinth, even when I didn't know it was you."
He let Ari huffily come in first, then stalked out and slammed the door.
The students had got up to go study somewhere else just in case, but Drew was entirely focused on a different matter.
But before she could demand what the hell Jack had been thinking that night, he and Morfinus had turned on each other.
Morfinus shoved him. "See, I told you this would happen. Three years of you not listening to me about this! You are a scheming —"
The prefect's eyes flashed. "Oh, shut up! You're the who tells me what I can or can't do —"
Morfinus was taken aback. "Says you! I'm sick of you thrusting all of your crazy behaviour and issues on me and acting like EVERYTHING is MY IDEA."
Jack's voice rose until it was practically hysterical, sounding as if he were going insane with fury. "Stop talking! I was just — Everything is your idea!"
"Why do you always say that?!" he cried. "My whole school life has been about making my best friend happy, and you go around throwing that in my face! You're late for these meetings and our meetups. All you want is sympathy. In fourth year you straight-up lied to me about Malfoy —"
A hand closed around Drew's arm, and she spun around in surprise. Cyndee was holding her, and she was staring at empty air.
"What is it?" Drew asked urgently, trying to read her expression.
By this time every bystander except Drew and her friends had awkwardly filtered out of the room and let the door close. Jack reached for the knob and twisted it savagely. "I hate being your friend."
Morfinus held the door shut. "You didn't have to be! It's not my fault that everyone in your own House resents you!"
"Oh yeah? Of course it is! You're a Gryffindor —"
"This again! Why don't you just listen to me? What's so wrong with me that you don't like me so much?"
Jack suddenly looked around at all their staring faces, and sighed loudly. "There's nothing wrong with you."
Cyndee had got up now, and she strode up to the two boys with a conviction unlike her. Among the confused silence, she grabbed her cousin's arm, and a wand slipped out of his sleeve and clattered to the floor.
"You killed Tristan."