Harry Potter stood over the Hogsmead map, watching a small cat as it roamed around freely, occasionally nosing around the alleys or chewing at a fish bone. He sighed, heavily. His next Transfiguration lesson was tomorrow and he hadn't yet revised for the test. Somehow life always seemed to find something else for him to do. He scratched his nose idly and then sighed again, heavily.

"Erm, Harry?"

The cat was now climbing nimbly over the rooftops, weaving its way through the chimneys and scattering the birds as it passed. He wondered what it would be like to be a cat, sliding its cautious way through life, swishing its bushy black tail as it pirouetted –

"Harry? Harry! Can you hear me?"

"Damn cats," he murmured, and then turned away to see the entire DA grouped around the table, looking at him strangely. "What?"

"We were just a bit worried when you stopped talking half-way through a sentence and started gazing off into space. Is something worrying you?" Said Hermione, speaking slightly more loudly than was perhaps necessary.

He took a deep breath. "Is something worrying me? Is something worrying me? Hmmmm. Let me see. Well, I haven't revised for my Transfiguration exam, I can't find my left sock, the Dark Lord is plotting to kill me, probably at this very moment, and someone, someone who probably won't be living much longer, is constantly stealing my bananas which I desperately need to keep up my potassium intake. But apart from that I'm fine. You know -"

"Yes," said Ron. "We do know. We share your pain. Don't feel the need to go into it again on our account."

Colin, blushing furiously, handed him a banana. "Look," he said, and then paused. He turned round and Loretta Horn nodded at him encouragingly. "Look. Erm… I may have… I might have… would you like to have one of mine?"

"Thanks," said the Harry, "you're a true friend."

Colin looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

"Anyway," Hermione muttered, "does anyone want to go on with the meeting? After all, we are supposed to be planning how to stop Death Eaters taking over Hogsmead." She turned to Luna. "Has Dumbledore told you any of his plans yet?"

Luna stood up and slid her hand idly over the board, "Not really. I don't suppose that he feels the need to. He says that we will not be needed and that they can take care of it quite nicely themselves."

Someone gasped into the silence, and a group of pale, shocked faces turned towards her. She watched with a detached interest as (in synchrony) they slowly began to turn purple. She bit into her muffin.

When the uproar had diminished slightly and everyone had sat down again, Harry stood up again. "Well. I suppose that's that then. If they don't need our help," he spoke bitterly, "just as they obviously haven't needed our help in the past, then I see no reason why -"

"We shouldn't try to do something ourselves," continued Luna, smiling, "as long as we make sure we avoid all possible nargles."

The DA gave a cautious cheer. Then Maretta said, "Well, what if there really isn't anything that we can do? They seem pretty confident that they've got it all covered. What are we going to do, wander round vaguely and hope that something bad happens? Seems a bit pessimistic to me."

Neville looked round at her. "Of course not. I think we can take it for granted that they'll be doing all the actual fighting of Death Eaters but at least we can tip the scales slightly more in their favour. The Order, not the Death Eaters, of course."

"And how do you suppose we can do that?" Said Harry, scratching his ear.

"Well, all we have to do is make sure that there's always some form of distraction, something to get the Death Eaters confused. We just need to keep attracting their attention away from the Order so that they can't concentrate on the fighting."

Harry scratched his ear. "Right." He turned towards the blackboard and wrote something in clear, block capitals.

STAGE 1: THE PLAN

The DA looked at each other and then gave another cautious cheer.