Dumbledore’s Army
That night, Harry realized that they had no way to contact each other apart from talking and there’s hardly any people who talk to their peers in other houses. It would be too suspicious and they did not want to be on Umbridge’s radar. Then he realized that they didn’t have a place to hold the meetings at all.
Why didn’t I think of this? he thought. This is why I’m not in Ravenclaw.
Conveniently, Dobby apparated into the Gryffindor common room. He was wearing a bunch of woolen hats and scarves that looked exactly like the ones Hermione made each night. So that’s where they were going. Dobby greeted Harry.
“Hello Harry Potter,” he said excitedly. “Dobby was just coming to clean the room. The other house elves refuse to come here. They are not happy with the clothes lying around.”
Harry made a mental note not to tell Hermione that the only reason her hats were going away each night was because of Dobby. He then realized that since house elves go all around the castle, they must know some place that someone could use to do whatever without people knowing.
“Dobby, do you know a place which I could use to teach the other students defense against the dark arts without the professors knowing?”
“Y-yes. The room of requirement. It’ll appear to whoever needs it or to whoever asks the room to appear.” Dobby told Harry how to get to the room. Harry thanked him as the house elf left.
The next day Harry told Hermione and Ron about what Dobby said. The three of them decided to use the room. They’d tell some people who joined and tell them to tell their friends. They’d meet up at the room of requirement at 8 o’clock. It was the perfect plan.
That night Harry went to the third floor and found the place the room was supposed to be. He did what Dobby said, sure enough there was a door to a giant room filled with things they could use to do spells. There were even bean bags and cushions to sit on. It was perfect!
Later on, the others came in. Once everyone was there, they voted on calling the group “Dumbledore’s Army”. Majority ruled, Hermione wrote it on the paper they’d used to sign their names on.
Harry started to talk “Ok, so, I was thinking, we should start with some simple stuff-“
“I thought we were learning to fight you-know-who,” Zacharias interrupted. “Not learning simple things that will be useless in real life.”
“Zach,” said Percy, annoyed. “Shut up. It’s pretty rude to interrupt people, which you’d know if there was anyone who’d talk to you.” Zacharias scowled at him while a lot of people snickered.
Harry smiled and continued speaking. “As I was saying, we’ll start with simple stuff like a disarming spell-“
“How would a disarming spell help you to fight a dark wizard?” Zacharias asked.
Harry rolled his eyes. “I dueled Voldemort last year with that spell, and I won.” That shut Smith up. “Back to the point, as most of you know, the spell is ‘Expelliarmus’. It makes your opponent drop their wand, which is usually what their weapon will be.”
Leo smirked and whispered to Piper and Percy, “Usually.” The three of them started giggling noiselessly. No one noticed though.
Harry demonstrated the spell on Ron to show everyone the exact wand movement (it’s basically drawing a 90° angle with the wand) and then he told everyone to split up into pairs and try the spell on their friend.
Percy was about to go with Annabeth but seemed to come to a realization and paired up with Leo. That was a great idea because Leo kept accidentally setting Percy’s sleeve on fire. Percy simply got some water out of a bottle in his pocket and put out the fire. Nobody realized he was healing the small burns as well. Definitely not important or suspicious or anything.
The other demigods too had trouble with the spell but it wasn’t with it not working. No, it was working a bit too well. Instead of the wand flying out of their hand, the spell would throw the entire person across the room, setting them on fire, sending a shot of water at them, etc. But the demigods didn’t seem fazed by this, they just shrugged and got up/tried again.
Over the course of the weeks that led up to the winter break, Harry taught the DA a bunch of other spells, such as: Stupefy, Reducto and Protego. Each class the demigods would cast the spells much stronger than needed. That was a big problem for the half-bloods. Not only were they unable to do the required spells, the teachers also suspected they may not be normal wizards at all.