They walked together for a while, shoulder to shoulder. They didn't hold hands- that would have been too obvious. But if their hands brushed a little more often than necessary, were they really to blame?

Draco was still in shock. He hadn't expected it to go like that. When he kissed Harry, part of him thought that he would get pushed away. But Harry had pulled him back.

Harry felt light. Like things had clicked into place, had become right. He struggled to keep a giddy grin off his face, and lost the battle. Harry had a certain bounce to his step that he hadn't had in a long while.

As they approached the grounds, Harry suddenly stopped walking.

"Harry?" Draco frowned, turning to him. But Harry's gaze was locked on a space in the sky above Hogwarts.

"I can see the wards." Harry said softly, a smile on his face.

Draco sighed. "I wish I could see them."

"Maybe I can show you in a pensieve." Harry suggested.

"I'd rather not go into a pensieve so soon after the last time."

"Oh. That's fair." Harry said.

They started walking again, in comfortable silence. 

~~~

"What do we do now?" Harry asked.

"I thought you had all the answers." Draco said.

"I just know things. Not answers."

"Well, that is unfortunate." Draco said.

Harry sat down on his bed, and Draco sat on his own, so they faced each other. 

"Do you mean it?" Draco asked.

"Mean what?"

"All that you've said, to me. About... All these things."

"Draco, I wouldn't lie to you." Harry said. "I've been truthful from the start, haven't I?"

Draco nodded, and looked down at his hands in his lap. Then he looked up again, into Harry's eyes. "Can... Can I kiss you?"

"Yes." Harry said, immediately. He flushed bright pink.

Draco smirked.

Harry hung his head, and covered his face with a hand. "If that wasn't embarrassing..." 

Draco chuckled. Then he reached out, tilted Harry's chin up, and kissed him. Harry's hands rested on the back of Draco's neck, and drew the both of them back against the bed.

Kissing Harry wasn't like kissing anyone else. The kiss Pansy had surprised Draco with some time ago had been harsh, angry, impatient. But Harry was soft, gentle, patient... Harry was warm and welcoming.

Kissing Draco was entirely different than kissing anyone else. With Draco, everything felt right, the world felt as if it were correct. There was nothing wrong, nothing could be wrong. Draco's touch was true.

Draco's hair came loose as Harry's fingers wound through it, the pale locks brushing against Harry's face. Their breaths intermingled when they pulled away, needing air to breathe- though they were still so close that they could feel the other's smile.

~~~

That night Harry dreamed of the corridor, of the door in the Department of Mysteries. He woke early, uneasiness settled in his gut. How was he going to handle that? He still had a while to figure it out, but... How much did he dare try to avoid? How would he explain himself?

~~~

"So what were you doing at the Hog's Head?" Draco asked as they sat under the shade of a tree to do their schoolwork.

"Oh. That was the first meeting for the D.A. Though, they don't know that's what it's called. Yet. You know, I really hope they don't change the name on me." Harry said.

"The D.A?" Draco raised a brow.

"Yeah, um- Essentially I'm going to be teaching them how to defend themselves. Since we can't learn shit under Umbridge. And it has to be secret, because Umbridge will get us all expelled or something." Harry said.

"So, you're going to be training a small army?" Draco joked.

"Well, there's a reason we're the D.A." Harry shrugged.

"What do you mean?"

"D.A. It stands for Dumbledore's Army."

Draco snorted, and clamped a hand over his mouth. His shoulders shook with laughter. "Wow, you really did that."

"Ginny suggested it, actually." Harry said. "As a middle finger to the Ministry."

"Charming." 

"Mhm." Harry nodded. "I'd have you join, but I'm not so sure that would go over well. At all. Ever."

"You think I can't defend myself?" Draco asked.

"No, I think you can. I just... Don't want to take any chances that anyone I care about could lose." Harry said. "I want them to have the best possible chances of survival."

Draco was about to reply, when something caught his eye. "Oh."

"Hm?" Harry asked, then followed Draco's gaze. He recognized a familiar face standing next to Blaise. "Nimue? Nimue Archer is his Ravenclaw?"

"You know her?" Draco asked.

"Yeah. She's a Hufflepuff. Though it seems she got resorted." Harry said. "That would make sense as to why I couldn't think of a Ravenclaw that Blaise would be interested in."

"What's she like?" Draco asked.

"Oh. Uh, she was in Auror training with me, right after the war. Before I decided to be a teacher instead." Harry said. "I can see why Blaise likes her."

"Do you think she's good for him?"

"Well, at some point someone would've said that Ginny was good for me, but here we are." Harry said. Draco frowned at him, but Harry shrugged and continued. "Anyway, uh, for now I think I can say they'll get along fine."

"Who else do you miraculously know?" Draco asked.

"That is a really weird question. How do I answer it?" Harry asked. "Like, what?"

"I suppose that was a weird question."

"Yeah, it really was."

~~~

"Where are you two going?" Camille Ravencroft, a seventh year Hufflepuff to Gryffindor transfer asked, eyeing the twins.

Fred and George exchanged looks.

"We're waiting for Lee," George said.

"He's got our homework assignment."  Fred added.

"Ah. So you need to sneak out past curfew with bags of things in order to get a homework assignment from Lee, who is upstairs in your dorm?" Camille asked.

"Yep. Exactly." Fred said.

"Would you like to come with us?" George asked, realizing they weren't going to get away with it.

Camille stood, setting her book aside. "Someone has to make sure you knuckleheads don't get killed. How long is Lee going to take?"

As if on cue, Lee bounded down the last steps, and came to a halt upon seeing Camille with the twins. "Hey. What are you doing up?"

"Well, I was reading, but this seems more interesting at the moment." Camille said.

"She's coming with." George said.

Fred cast a quick tempus, and looked pointedly to the others. "We're late."

"Shit!" Lee hissed. "Let's go!"

So Camille followed after them, practicing some stealth charms that she'd been reading about recently. "Ha. Nifty." She whispered to herself.

"What's nifty?" Lee asked.

"Listen." She said, before stomping her foot. There was a moment where the three boys' eyes went wide, fearful of the echo it would cause. Then they realized it was silent. 

The twins immediately held out a foot towards her. "Me too, please." Lee asked.

Camille rolled her caramel colored eyes, before casting the charm on each of them. "It just makes our steps quiet, so we can talk to each other."

"Alright. First stop-"

"-Umbridge's office."

"Oh no."

~~~

After a brief stop at Umbridge's office, the four went for her classroom. Lee unlocked the door, and they slipped inside, the door closing behind them.

"Alright, what are you doing?" Camille asked.

"Well," Fred pulled a bobblehead Umbridge from his bag, and set it on the floor beside Umbridge's desk.

George's next spell made the bobblehead grow to be even bigger than the actual woman herself. And not any prettier. "We've decided to give her a taste of her own medicine."

"What do you mean?" Camille frowned.

George drew a handful of miniature bludgers from his bag. He tossed them into the air, where they began to float about the room. "They're charmed. Umbridge will have quite the surprise."

"I'm worried."

"They won't go for the students." George said, while Fred examined the bobblehead for any last minute changes.

"Yeah, took a fair bit of work to get that one right." Lee chimed.

Behind them, the door to the classroom opened. 

"Okay, we made it-" The voice stopped abruptly, as the owner noticed that there were other people in the room.

"Oh. Hey guys." The second intruder said.

"Who are you- oh. Gryffindors." Pansy Parkinson said, the last to enter the room.

"So, fancy seeing you here." Lee said.

"What are you doing here, Ravencroft?" The second intruder asked. He was a tall male, of Indian descent, maybe.

"I could ask you the same thing, Ze." Camille replied. 

"No, but seriously. What are you guys- oh my Merlin what is that?" The first Slytherin to enter asked, her finger pointing at the Umbridge bobblehead.

"We'll tell you if you tell us what you're doing here." Lee suggested. 

"We came to mess up her classroom." The first Slytherin said.

"Theodora." Parkinson said warningly.

"Chill, Pansy. We literally can't rat each other out." Theodora replied.

"Cami, you know them?" George asked.

"Yeah. That's Thoreau Ze, and his little sister Theodora. They were Ravenclaws last year." Camille said. "And don't call me Cami."

"Anyway, what are you Gryffindors doing?" Parkinson asked.

"Well, you see-

"-We came to give the ol' toad-"

"-A taste of her own medicine."

"Don't touch the bludgers." Lee advised. 

"How about we finish this up here and pretend we didn't see each other?" Camille suggested.

"Sounds good." Theodora said, and began to pull things out of a satchel. "C'mon Thoreau, help me, I can't reach the high spots."

"Well, pass me the chalk." Thoreau replied.

"You have to use the blue ones-"

"For the foundation, yeah, I know. Yellow for the top, I remember." He took a blue piece of chalk from his sister, and pulled a desk to the wall to write on the highest point of the wall. "Parkinson, do you need any-?"

"I've got her covered." Theodora replied cheerily.

Pansy rolled her eyes, and took a charcoal pencil from her bag, and began to mark objects all around the room.

Fred and George went back to setting up the bludgers and giant bobblehead Umbridge. Lee assisted in passing them the necessary odds and ends, and reminding them of which charms to use and in what order.

"Are you done?" Parkinson asked a while later, with a glare at the Gryffindors.

"Just another thirty seconds." Lee said.

"Don't want to rush this bit-" Fred said.

"-Or we'll really have a bad day." George finished.

The Slytherins waited by the door.

"...And done! Go go go!" Fred chimed, taking a dash for the door, George immediately behind, Camille and Lee a full second later.

The Slytherins frantically opened the door, and spilled out into the corridor. The Gryffindors barreled out right after.

"So," George said, completely calm once he was out of the classroom. "What's your thing going to do?"

"Yeah, I don't really see much going on." Fred said.

"Wait, but wasn't-" Parkinson frowned, glancing into the room.

"Oh, nothing was going to explode-"

"-We just wanted to see you panic."

Parkinson glared at the twins, while Thoreau hid a grin.

"C'mon Theodora. Let's finish this." Parkinson said, and they both carefully pointed their wands, and recited two entirely different incantations. Once they finished, they gave a moment to see if it had worked.

"Woah." The twins said in unison.

"You don't see something like that every day." Camille said.

"Nope. You certainly don't." Thoreau agreed.

Suddenly a cat's yowl sounded from an adjacent corridor.

"Mrs. Norris!" George hissed, and grabbed a hold of Camille's wrist, leading her in a sprint toward the nearest escape route. Fred urged Thoreau on in a similar fashion, leaving Lee to usher Theodora and Parkinson after them.

Camille turned and fired more of the silent footstep spells at the Slytherins. Thoreau caught on,  and cast a few notice-me-not types over the group.

"Why are we running from a cat?" Parkinson whisper yelled.

"Filch is never far behind!" Lee replied.

"Or ahead!" Fred cursed.

George led them into a little alcove, and they all pressed against the wall, too close to each other for comfort. Thoreau and Camille began hastily casting concealment charms around the alcove. Parkinson pulled a stone from her pocket, and focused on a transfiguration spell. The stone turned to a mouse, and she tossed it into the corridor.

Mrs. Norris turned around the corner and came into the corridor at the same time Filch did on the other side. They were trapped between the two of them. 

Mrs. Norris noticed the mouse, and yowled after it. 

"Mrs. Norris? What is it?" Filch asked, voice croaky. The old cat gave chase after the mouse, turning back out of the corridor, and away from the group. "Now where'd that mouse come from?"

Filch started to inspect the wall where it met the floor, searching for mouse- sized holes. He was getting closer to the alcove with every step.

"C'mon Seamus, c'mon..." George whispered under his breath. "Any second now..."

Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight agonizingly long seconds later, they heard a thunderous boom from a distant part of the castle. 

They heard an exclamation of surprise from Filch, before his footsteps took off in the direction of the sound.

"Seamus you glorious bastard." Fred grinned.

"Don't give him all the credit. Ginny and Morgana are helping him." Lee grinned back.

"You dragged Morgana into this?" Camille asked, appalled. 

"She wanted to." George shrugged.

Fred turned to the Slytherins. "So, crisis avoided. You turn us in, we turn you in. Right?"

Thoreau held out a hand for them to shake on it. "Deal."

"Alright, well, pleasure to meet you, but we best be off." Lee said, beginning to head towards Gryffindor tower.

"Good luck getting back to your dorm." George said to the Slytherins, following Lee, pushing Camille in the general direction. She batted his hands away.

"Goodnight!" Fred said with a wink, before disappearing around a corner.

A/N

What do you think of these new characters so far?
I added in some racial diversity because really, why not?

Double update this week, as I'm going to be leaving this weekend to visit my grandparents, where there is basically no wifi. So I'm giving you all the chapters I have written. I don't know how long I'll be away, so don't ask 'cause I haven't got an answer, lol.