The first few meetings of SCAM were held in the arithmancy room. This was only possible, however, because the club currently only had five members: Hermione, Tracey, Lucy, Harry and Ron. This was because, despite their best efforts, they'd yet to find a room both large and private enough to facilitate not only the scheme but the number of people they all hoped would flock to them once the time came to announce it to the school. Well... announce was a bit louder than what was actually planned. Tracey was just intending to mutter about it to one of her customers and have Hogwart's infamous rumour machine take care of the rest.

"What about a room down in the dungeons? The acoustics are great and it's nicely secluded." Tracey argued.

"Oh yes, very nice..." Hermione began. "Until it's time for the four of us to leave and suddenly we're all smudges on the dungeon walls."

"Oh right." Tracey bemoaned.

"What about the lawn behind the school? Near the black lake." Ron offered.

"Too cold!" Lucy cried in horror.

"Plus the lake would pick up what we're doing and broadcast it to the world." Tracey insisted.

"Forbidden forest?" Harry reasoned.

"No. Because it's forbidden. The second anyone sees us going in there we'd be in huge trouble no matter what we're doing." Hermione said with a roll of her eyes

"Well, I meant just in the paddock!" Harry insisted though it didn't sound terribly convincing.

"Ah," Professor Vector suddenly called from her office door. "Still no luck with mission 1 I see."

"No, sorry professor," Tracey said with a sigh.

"It's quite alright dear. I understand how tall an order this must be." Vector assured the black teen who had become if not the leader than a sort of quasi secretary, keeping track of all of their preplanned lessons and schedules. Harry often marvelled at how organized the girl really was. She had explained it was in no small part thanks to both her grandfather and father working in the records department at the ministry. Their experience filing things away (or in some cases 'misplacing' records) had been well taught to her at a very young age. "But the holidays may approach faster than you think. So I suggest you all try your absolute hardest this weekend." 

"Yes, professor." The students responded. 

"Mr. Potter, I'm been meaning to ask, do your mother and father know of your... activities?" Professor Vector asked slowly. Harry froze.

"Er... well... no, not really," Harry admitted quietly. He hadn't been speaking with his father much actually. Their last occlumency lesson had gone rather terribly wrong. Severus had snapped and accused Harry of being lazy and selfish, Harry in turn blew his top and had called his father a bad teacher. Then he left in a huff. 

He couldn't rightly say if it was guilt or still simmering anger that made him continue his avoidance.

"I wonder if perhaps we should keep it that way." Professor Vector responded. "The fewer people who know about this scheme the better." 

Something about that made Harry's stomach flip-flop with uncertainty.

He'd never kept something like this (so serious and potentially dangerous) from his parents.

But then he remembered Hermione and Tracey's earlier summation of his parents' precarious positions and nodded solemnly. 

What they didn't know could very well save them.

Lucy was the one who solved their problems, just a few days later. And it was all thanks to her surprisingly good relationship with all of the portraits. She'd been talking with a one Lady Thistlewethers of Upper Kentingburgh. She was hanging in the charms corridor and was often surrounded by a massive menagerie of cats, which made her look perpetually ill. According to Lucy, the portrait had been commissioned by the subject's nephew shortly before she died, and when the nephew (whom the subject had never really liked) found out he wasn't in her will, he had the artist add in the cat to spite her. Despite this, the woman was really quite kind, though the constant sneezing did make her somewhat hard to understand at times. Lucy had casually brought up her quest in passing. The woman had immediately perked up.

"Well my dear - sneeze gasps groan - you really ought to try -wheeze choke sneeze sniff - the come and go room! - sputter cough sneeze siiiigh"

Turns out the suggestion was stellar. Even better when Hermione took over and set up the room to be exactly how they needed it. Much to the astonishment of the other four. 

Then it was just a matter of Tracey saying the right things to the right people. Until that Thursday.

"Um..." Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones muttered as they walked up to the five of them, plus Professor Vector, standing outside the room. "We heard they're was an... acting club... meeting here?"

"Indeed," Septima responded before she turned to the doors. "We'll leave the doors open for a few minutes until everyone arrives."

"Wait just a moment," Hermione muttered, eyes still closed as she concentrated before she nodded. The teacher then opened the doors with a flourish and paused.

"Very nicely done Miss. Granger." She responded, with just a note of awe.

"Whoa!!!" Hannah and Susan both cried in awe, joined from behind by the Patil Twins and Lavender Brown. Further down the hall, Neville was walking up, accompanied by a small cluster of ravenclaws. 

"What is this place?" Hannah asked stepping onto the sandy ground and looking at the round wooden structure surrounding them.

"It's an exact replica of the Original Theatre in Statford-Upon-Avon," Hermione responded with a self-satisfied smile. "Birthplace of William Shakespeare. And where his plays were first performed."

"Cool," Neville muttered in awe before he frowned. "Who's Shakespeare?" Every muggle-raised student in the vicinity cringed. Harry huffed and jumped up onto the stage.

"Okay! Meeting 1 lesson plan! Theatre 101! The names of the important playwrights throughout history, both muggle and magical!" Harry shouted in frustration.

"Who made you in charge?" Came an irritated voice from the door. It was Zacharias Smith. Behind him, Seamus and Dean were just arriving, and the Irish teen looked equally skeptical."

"He's not." Tracey piped up, climbing onto the stage beside him. "We're all going to work together on this. Lessons will be run and organized by all of us in turn. This is a coalition."

"Well said Miss. Davies." Professor Septima agreed, stepping up beside the pair. "That being said, I for one find Mr. Potter's suggestion quite apt. To cement this fact, I ask a question: as a show of hands, who here has heard of Beedle the Bard?" Every pure-blood hand shot up, and a few half-bloods rose tentative hands. Then they all gapped at their muggle-born classmates.

"You've never heard of Babbitt rabbity?!" Hannah asked Justin in horror.

"Who or what?" Justin responded, completely flabbergasted. 

"Very well then," Septima said before she waved her wand, sending the doors closed and locking them. "Mr. Potter, please take your bow. Miss. Granger, if you could please join me and Miss. Davies up here."

The lecture wasn't long. Maybe an hour. They discussed both Shakespeare as well as Marlow, and also ancient Greek theatre and the way it continued to influence modern plays. Everyone looks pretty excited by the end of the lecture and casually intrigued.

"Any questions?" Hermione piped up. Seamus shot up his hand from where he'd been sitting sullenly in the back against a pillar. Hermione called on him.

"I thought we were gonna be learning defence here. That's what Davies led me to believe... unless she was lying." He said with narrowed eyes at the Slytherin. The girl just lifted her chin with a smirk.

"We are going to be learning defence." She assured them all before she began to pace the stage. "You see, most plays, both muggle and magical, have some kind of altercation... a duel if you will." The class all perked up. "And those altercations, duels, are very important to the various plots. We couldn't very well just cut them out. We're conserving these plays after all. But we can't just go out onto a stage waving our wands, but not casting any spells! It would look silly! Not to mention unprofessional! But then we can't have you all casting spells all willy-nilly with no practice! Think how dangerous that would be!" As Tracey finished her speech she was graced with a room full of smirking students all with a very relatable glint in their eyes. 

"But while all Miss. Davies has said is true," Professor Vector intersected, with a small smile. "I don't want you to discount your acting lessons or preformances. They also impart important lessons. The art of delivery, the importance of wording, the effect that context has on what we say... essentially: how to lie and get away with it." She finished. A tentative hand rose. "Yes, Miss. Bones?"

"You should lecture like this more often, professor. It's very engaging." Susan said candidly. The arithmancy professor blinked before she scowled slightly.

"A point from Hufflepuff." She snapped. The girl blushed and clamped her mouth shut. "With that... note, I declared the first meeting of Students for the Conservation of Acting and Monologue adjourned. We shall meet here again this Saturday. Go enjoy the rest of your week." The students milled out slowly, chattering with each other excitedly about their next 'acting lesson'. Harry smiled.

"Mate," Ron complained quietly. "You're doing it again!"

"Doing what?"

"You got one of your Snape faces on... it's really creepy." Ron whined.

"Oh shut up Ronald," Tracey said with a roll of her eyes. Ron blinked.

"You... you called me Ronald." He declared in awe. Tracey smirked.

"We're partners in crime now. Might as well be on first names basis." The teen reminded him cheekily. Lucy laughed.

"This year just got so much more interesting!" She exclaimed excitedly. Ron grinned.

"I told you! With Harry around it's bound to be! We ought to tie him up in a sack and pitch him into the lake." Harry growled and started to play wrestling the much taller ginger with a scowl while the girls laughed at their expense.