Dumbledore’s Army
It was all Hermione's idea. Following yet another trawl through the meaningless waffle of "Defensive Magical Theory" in Professor Umbridge's sad excuse for a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, she for one had taken all that she could. On top of that, Harry had just come back from another detention with Umbridge (given for daring to defend Hagrid in a Care of Magical Creatures lesson), his hand dripping with blood. As far as Hermione was concerned, it was time to take some action [OOTP15].
She suggested to Harry that the need for practical DADA work was now so pressing that they would have to do something about it themselves, and her plan was to form a secret society and have Harry himself do the teaching. Unsurprisingly he was at first incredulous and then, when it had sunk in, reluctant. He was never likely to admit it to Hermione, but in truth a part of him did really fancy the idea, and so in the end he agreed [OOTP15]. Hermione arranged for everyone who was interested to meet up in the Hog's Head during the next Hogsmeade trip, and everything was in place [OOTP16].
The scheme turned out to be rather more popular than Harry was expecting. A total of 29 people joined the DA in the end, the majority of whom came to the Hog's Head meeting. As it was her idea, Hermione handled most of the details [OOTP16]. She made everyone present sign a jinxed parchment [OOTP17] (not that they knew it was jinxed at the time) which bound them to keep the venture secret from Umbridge. As Marietta Edgecombe found out to her cost later on, the jinx in question caused the word "Sneak" to be spelled out in acne across the face of anyone who broke the agreement [OOTP27].
Once the group had been established, one of the main stumbling blocks was finding a room where they could hold their classes undetected. Dobby helped out on this point, showing Harry the Room of Requirement. This is located on the seventh floor of the castle, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and will only appear to those genuinely in need and who walk past it's hidden entrance three times. Due to the magical nature of this room, once opened it is found to contain everything the seeker requires - which in Harry's case meant it was just the right size for a class and came complete with a good supply of quality DADA literature [OOTP18].
With the location secured, the first meeting was held. It was here that the group christened themselves Dumbledore's Army (this was Ginny's idea, after Cho had originally suggested Defence Association) [OOTP18]. After this they met every week, communicating meeting details secretly using charmed Galleons - these had a Protean Charm cast on them which meant that a change in the appearance of one led to a change in the appearance of them all. Therefore, meeting times were simply placed on the surface of one of them to pass the message on without any fear of detection. Inevitably the idea was once again Hermione's [OOTP19].
With the aid of regular and effective DADA teaching, many of the students found that they progressed in the subject faster than ever before. Cho was moved to comment that she was mastering spells she had never managed before, including a very passable Patronus [OOTP27]. Even Neville of all people started getting reasonably adept at the subject [OOTP19].
The DA was finally busted by Umbridge when details were given to her by Marietta Edgecombe (who suffered the inevitable jinx-related consequences) [OOTP27]. Cho, perhaps foolishly, tried to defend her, suggesting that she was really just a "lovely person who had made a mistake". Harry was somewhat less than convinced, resulting in a rift between the two [OOTP28].
The DA stopped meeting regularly after the 1995-1996 school year. However, Hermione attempted in 1997 to use the contact Galleons to summon the group's members to guard Hogwarts in Professor Dumbledore's absence. Only Neville and Luna responded to the summons, as they were the only two to check their Galleons with any regularity [HBP30]. During the 1997-1998 school year, there was a resurgence in DA activity, in protest against the new Death Eater-led regime at the school, a regime that included teaching the Dark Arts (as opposed to Defence against them) and ordering students to cast the Cruciatus Curse on each other in detention. Neville, Luna, and Ginny led students in a campaign against the Death Eaters in charge, and began writing graffiti in the name of the DA [DH29]. When Harry returned to the school on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, Neville used the DA's contact Galleons to summon the rest of the group to the Room of Requirement to prepare for battle [DH29]. Word was passed not only to those members still at school, but also to those who had been part of the original incarnation but now left, and those banned from attending school because of their blood status, resulting in a mass reformation of the entire group [DH29]. Dumbledore's Army fought valiantly in the Battle of Hogwarts and made their own contribution to Voldemort's downfall. They did, however, suffer losses in the form of Fred Weasley and Colin Creevey, with the fate of many others unknown.
A full list of DA members is as follows:
Hannah Abbott
Lavender Brown
Katie Bell
Susan Bones
Terry Boot
Cho Chang
Michael Corner
Colin Creevey
Dennis Creevey
Marietta Edgecombe
Justin Finch-Fletchley
Seamus Finnigan
Anthony Goldstein
Hermione Granger
Angelina Johnson
Lee Jordan
Neville Longbottom
Luna Lovegood
Ernie MacMillan
Padma Patil
Parvati Patil
Harry Potter
Zacharius Smith
Alicia Spinnet
Dean Thomas
Fred Weasley
George Weasley
Ginny Weasley
Ron Weasley
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