The time everyone has to study in the Room of Requirement is one hour, as they must return to their respective common rooms before the nine o'clock Hogwarts curfew.
Fortunately, the Leg-Locker Curse is not a very complex spell, in fact, it's quite simple. In just half an hour, everyone mastered it.
Well... except for Neville.
However, to not waste everyone's time, Hermione decided to teach him privately.
"Hope she doesn't get driven mad." Ron whispered.
Hearing his words, Harry couldn't help but chuckle.
Neville is indeed a bit slow at learning spells, sometimes even Professor McGonagall is left speechless by his touching progress.
But Harry knew that Neville was trying his best, it's just that his memory was terribly poor. Sometimes he would forget all the spells they had learned in the morning after just a lunch break... perhaps even sooner.
Of course, these are not matters they need to consider now.
When everyone put down their wands, Hermione cleared her throat and said:
"We have some time before the curfew begins, so I think we should choose a leader."
She had wanted to suggest this earlier, but Anthony interrupted her before she could speak.
And later, everyone's enthusiasm was stirred by the Galleons, eager to start practicing the spells, so she didn't bring it up again.
But it's not too late now.
A buzzing sound filled the room.
Hearing Hermione's suggestion, someone immediately thought of the biggest sponsor of this event, who contributed fifty Galleons as a reward — Kael.
"I propose Kael to be... wait, where's Kael?"
At this point, they suddenly realized Kael wasn't in the room.
They subconsciously looked around, but the room was only so big, they searched everywhere and still couldn't find Kael's trace.
"He's already gone back..." Luna said from the crowd: "I dare say he must have found a hidden Perobat in the dark and chased after it."
"What's a Perobat?" Neville couldn't help but ask, looking very confused, and he wasn't alone.
"It's a winged fairy," Luna said, her bulging eyes wide open, "capable of guiding people."
"That kind of thing doesn't exist at all." Hermione frowned, "At least I'm sure there's no record of them in any book."
"If you had read The Quibbler, you wouldn't be so sure." Luna retorted angrily.
This time Hermione didn't reply; it was getting closer to nine, and she didn't want to waste time on such meaningless arguments.
"Where did we leave off?"
"Choosing a leader."
"Ah, right." Hermione said, "I believe the leader should be someone who can come every time, Kael isn't suitable."
"Then I choose Cedric..." a Hufflepuff student said: "He's the Head Boy."
"That's no big deal." Ron said, "I think Harry could do it too."
"Since there's a disagreement." Hermione glanced at them, "Then let's vote..."
For a moment, the atmosphere in the room became even livelier than when they were practicing spells earlier.
Besides choosing a leader, they also had to decide on a name and set the time for the next meeting...
Everything was settled and it was already ten past nine.
It was more than ten minutes past the original ending time, but there was no choice; with so many people, it was hard for one proposal to satisfy everyone.
When Cedric carefully returned to the common room, he saw Kael sitting at a table in the far corner, writing something.
"Why did you suddenly come back?" Cedric walked over.
"I suddenly remembered that I haven't done my Potion Class homework and I didn't want to pull an all-nighter, so I came back first." Kael said, pushing the Potion and Cauldron book on the table forward.
"How did things go over there? Everything okay?"
"You have the nerve to ask that." Cedric was immediately annoyed, "Why did you suddenly offer fifty Galleons as a reward..."
"Is there a problem?" Kael put down the Quill he was holding, "I thought only this would give them enough motivation to learn.
"What about Voldemort, Death Eaters... without seeing them with your own eyes, it's all abstract. Only the gleaming Gold Coins are the best motivation.
"You must have noticed too, right? They suddenly became very enthusiastic."
"I definitely noticed." Cedric said, "But that's fifty Galleons, not fifty Sickles, even for a reward you didn't need to offer that much."
For most students, their annual pocket money is less than ten Galleons; fifty Galleons is undoubtedly a huge sum.
And this is just a self-study class for Defence Against the Dark Arts, there's no need to offer such a large sum of money as a reward; five Galleons would suffice.
Moreover, if Kael had used the fifty Galleons reward for himself, Cedric wouldn't have had such a big reaction because he knew that there was no student at Hogwarts who could beat Kael, so this fifty Galleons would naturally never be given away.
But Kael had him as the one to be challenged, which left Cedric a bit worried.
Indeed, this could quickly elevate his prestige, and in fact, it did. He was elected as the leader of D.A. with very high votes.
Oh, D.A. is the name they just came up with, "Defence Association," which is also an abbreviation for "Dumbledore's Army."
This name was thought up by Cho, according to her, Umbridge isn't afraid of Headmaster Dumbledore's secret army, right? So they decided to form such a group, and this idea received unanimous agreement from everyone.
But now the problem is, he really can't guarantee that he won't lose. If someone really could defeat him… Kael's fifty Galleons would be gone.
At least, when leaving the Room of Requirement, Cedric noticed that some people were looking at him as if he was a walking treasure chest… the kind that spills Gold Coins.
"Don't worry, I trust you." Kael said sincerely.
"But I don't trust myself." Cedric muttered, "Angelina is not much worse than me, and those two sixth-year Ravenclaw students, I also don't have a guaranteed win against them."
"You're underestimating yourself." Kael waved it off and said, "They're no match for you, I guarantee it."
"And what about Fred and George..." Cedric continued, "I am confident I can defeat either of them, but based on past experiences, they're not the type to follow duel rules obediently, are they?"
"Hmm..."
Kael was silent for a moment.
"Alright, it's okay even if you lose." he continued, "It's just fifty Galleons... if it comes to it, I'll just find someone to reimburse it later."
"Reimburse it?" Cedric was taken aback, "Who? Don't tell me it's Headmaster Dumbledore."
"Ah, no, Dumbledore isn't that generous." Kael said, "It's another kind professor."
"Okay." Cedric looked at Kael suspiciously but didn't ask anymore, only muttering a few more words softly.
Anyway, he expected to be quite busy when he attended the D.A. gatherings in the future.
Not to mention others, he just hoped that Fred and George wouldn't use too underhanded tactics against him.
...