Chapter 5: Dumbledore’s Army, Still Recruiting
‘SAME PLACE 8•00’ was the message that Ginny transmitted to the others via the fake Galleons Hermione had given them all two years ago. Hopefully they would all know what it meant; there wasn’t room for putting a lengthy message on the edge of a Galleon, and Ginny didn’t want to risk being any more explicit in case the Galleons fell into the wrong hands. The fact that the writing around the edge of the coin formed a coherent message rather than being just a string of numbers would be suspicious enough in itself.
At a quarter to eight, she, Neville and Luna made their way up to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the seventh floor and found the stretch of blank wall that they needed to walk past three times, concentrating hard on what they needed, in order to make the Room appear. Ginny found herself wondering what the Room looked like when it wasn’t in use; did it even exist? Since no one could get into it, there was no way of finding out.
“Let’s go,” she murmured to the others, and they began their first walk past the stretch of wall.
We need somewhere to learn Defence Against the Dark Arts, she thought, making her thoughts as loud and clear as possible, somewhere to learn to fight “ like we had before. She remembered what Neville had said earlier. Somewhere that Snape and the Carrows can’t find us.
Behind her, Neville’s fists were clenched and his brow furrowed as he concentrated.
We need a hiding-place where we can learn defence… a place that Snape and the Carrows can’t get into… He thought back to the form that the Room had taken two years ago. With space to practice spells, and equipment to help us learn… An idea suddenly came to him, though he wasn’t sure how it would be interpreted by the Room. And a way that we can see the rest of the castle, without being seen ourselves.
Luna trailed several feet behind the other two, her facial expression as blank and dreamy as ever. She lacked the sense of purpose, the focused determination that Neville and Ginny had, and looked for all the world as if she’d just decided to wander along the corridor and back on a whim.
Please could we have somewhere to practice Defence Against the Dark Arts? And please could you make it a nice place, light and happy and safe… Some books would be nice, too, and cushions… and a piece of parchment with a jinx on it just like the one that Hermione made us before. She really is clever… All at once her face became serious. But there mustn’t be any Wrackspurts or Heliopaths or other horrible things. Especially not Hooverdingers.
Ginny wheeled around after the third repetition, and jumped as she saw that a door had appeared in the wall. It was white, with an ornately carved silver handle, and what looked like silver glitter sprinkled across it. Ginny glanced back at Luna as she pushed it open, and felt a slight foreboding: what extras had she added to the room?
But the room was perfectly pleasant on the inside, and contained no strange objects or plants or bizarre animals (if Luna’s ‘exotic creatures’ could exist anywhere, it would be in the Room of Requirement). Though Neville and Ginny didn’t know it, the Room bore a strong resemblance to the Ravenclaw common room: airy and spacious, with a large window through which daylight was streaming: a bizarre anomaly considering it was nearly eight o’clock in the evening.
Neville appeared at Ginny’s shoulder. “Why is it different?” he asked, sounding slightly indignant.
“We must have asked for different things to H- er, different things to last time,” Ginny amended, as her throat threatened to close up at the mention of Harry’s name. She led the way into the room, skirting round the cushions that dotted the floor. “There’s fewer books than before; I bet those were Hermione’s doing,” she observed with a slight smile.
Neville made his way over to the window and peered out. “I can see the grounds… and the Quidditch pitch… but it’s daylight,” he said, puzzled.
“That must have been the light I asked for,” said Luna dreamily, wandering around the room. Neville’s eyes widened in comprehension.
“Can we be seen through that window?” asked Ginny sharply, but Neville was already shaking his head.
“I asked for a way to see and not be seen… this must have been what the Room came up with.”
I need to see what the Carrows are doing, he thought on an impulse, and started as the view through the window instantly changed. Now it was showing what looked like the fourth floor of the castle; Amycus Carrow prowled along its length, glaring at students, who scuttled past in fright. The view changed; now he was looking at the floor below, which Alecto Carrow was patrolling with her wand at the ready.
“Wow!” said Ginny, who was also watching. “That’ll be really useful. Nice one, Neville!”
There was a knock at the door, and Seamus, Lavender and the Patil twins entered. “Hey, it looks different!” Seamus remarked immediately. “I like it, though.”
“There’s still some things that are the same, like those “ what did Harry call them?” asked Lavender, pointing to the same table of Dark Detectors that had occupied the last DA meeting-place.
“Dark detectors,” Neville replied. “Those ones at the front are Sneakoscopes, but I don’t know what the mirror thing does…”
“Hey, look at this!” Parvati called from the other end of the room. She sounded alarmed. The others turned to see her pointing to a piece of parchment pinned to the wall; closer inspection revealed that it was headed with the words ‘DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY’ “ in Hermione’s writing. It was just like the jinxed list of members that they had all signed two years ago, but there were no names on it.
Ginny stared at it in shock. “How did that get in here?”
“I’d say it was the exact same parchment, but none of our names are on it,” said Padma.
“Oh, yes, I asked for that,” said Luna vaguely from the back of the group. “A jinxed piece of parchment like last time…”
“Weird that it looks exactly the same, though,” said Seamus as Lavender reached up and took the parchment from the wall. “So, are we all going to sign it?”
Ginny found a quill and Neville a bottle of ink, and the parchment was passed around. Lavender gave a nervous giggle as she signed her name. “I feel weird knowing that it’s got a jinx on it. But I won’t ever tell, so I’m sure I’ll be all right.” She didn’t sound as if she’d entirely convinced herself.
Just then, the door opened and Ernie Macmillan, Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Susan Bones, Colin, Dennis and Laura Creevey walked in.
“Sorry we’re late!” said Ernie in his usual pompous manner. “Ran into a spot of trouble with the Carrows, wanting to know where we were all off to together. Awfully unpleasant, aren’t they?”
“‘Unpleasant’ doesn’t even begin to describe it,” said Ginny. “But you need to be careful, coming up here in a big group. Do you think they suspected something?”
“Oh, I daresay they’re keeping an eye on us anyway,” Ernie replied. “From what I hear, we’ve all been earning reputations for ourselves in their lessons. So, are we getting started? Ah, and we must sign the member list again, of course…”
“Yeah, let’s get started,” agreed Neville, and the others (once they had all signed the parchment) seated themselves on cushions, leaving Ginny, Neville and Luna standing at the front.
“Well, er…” Neville was clearly unaccustomed to taking charge, and Ginny thought fleetingly and fondly of how uncomfortable Harry had been to begin with, though he had soon settled into his role of leader, and proven to be a natural teacher. “We should probably revise some of the things we did last year, to check we haven’t forgotten them. Any… ideas about which we should do first?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Luna. “I think we should do Stunning, that one’s very useful…”
“And after that, the Impediment Jinx,” added Ginny. There was a murmur of assent, and the group divided into pairs to practice Stunning, positioning the cushions on the floor to try and soften the fall. After everyone seemed to have got the hang of it (or else were too sore to continue), they moved onto practicing the Impediment Jinx.
Nine o’clock came around quickly, and Neville brought an end to the spell-practicing. “I wish we could go on longer,” he said grimly, “but we don’t need to give the Carrows more excuses to punish us.” Colin Creevey nodded emphatically, pale-faced at this reminder of his impending punishment. “And, er… before we go, I think there’s something that ought to be said.” Everyone immediately focused their attention on Neville.
“Last time we did the DA, it was about learning how to defend ourselves from… from You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters,” Neville began. “This time, You-Know-Who is in control of the Ministry and three of his Death Eaters are in our school. So… what I’m saying is that I think we ought to make an agreement to stand up to them, no matter what, because otherwise there’s no point us doing this.”
Several people were nodding in agreement, which encouraged Neville. “It’s not just about the stuff we do in these meetings,” he continued. “It’s not just about learning spells, it’s about being loyal to Dumbledore, even if… he’s not here in person,” he finished slightly awkwardly.
“Hear, hear!” said Ernie Macmillan.
“We’d better get going,” Ginny reminded them. “We’ll use the coins to let you know when the next meeting is.”
Before anyone left the room, Neville consulted the enchanted window to check the whereabouts of Snape, Filch and the Carrows, to avoid running into them on the way back.
“Wow, you really know how to use that Room, Neville,” said Seamus as the Gryffindors walked back to the Common Room together.
“Well, it is an amazing Room,” Neville replied modestly. “It gives you anything you ask for.”
“Even a lifetime’s supply of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans?” asked Laura Creevey excitedly.
“Well... maybe not that.”
Having DA meetings again gave Ginny renewed confidence over the next few days. She could look up at the greasy-haired figure of Snape with his cold, dead eyes, sitting at the High Table, and think, You haven’t won. Dumbledore’s Army is still fighting.
She needed that confidence “ or rather, that defiance “ for her second Dark Arts lesson: they had moved on from the Imperius curse to the Cruciatus curse, and there was no way of getting around it by making the mice do something harmless like falling asleep. Niamh hid her face and whimpered as Miller held his wand aloft and the mouse rocked and twitched, squealing non-stop.
“You!” Amycus Carrow pointed at Ginny. “Carrot-head! Do something or we’ll use you for practicing next!”
Ginny stood up. “Do it, then,” she said, with the same detached calm that she had felt as she defied Alecto Carrow in Muggle Studies. “I’d rather that than cause pain to an innocent animal for no reason.”
Amycus’ face contorted into a snarl, and his wand slashed diagonally through the air. The spell felt like a hot, blunt knife across Ginny’s chest; she staggered backwards and nearly tripped over her chair, but fell into it instead. There were cries of shock and outrage from the Gryffindors; Niamh quickly steadied Ginny’s chair before it could fall over.
Ginny gripped the edge of the desk and began to get to her feet, but before she could Amycus slashed his wand again, and she crumpled, doubling over and trying to protect her burning midriff. She was dimly aware of people shouting, hurling abuse at Amycus, and him shouting back “ then a quiet voice in her ear said, “Ginny, can you stand?”
Ginny turned her head, expecting Niamh “ but it was Kimberley. Ginny stared in shock at the tall girl with the aquiline nose crouching next to her, her straight brown hair swishing against her cheek. “Can you stand?” Kimberley repeated. “You need the hospital wing.”
Ginny shook her head. “I’m fine,” she insisted, beginning to unfold herself “ and then doubling up again as her muscles spasmed and protested. The shouting around them ceased abruptly as Amycus cast a Silencing charm on the class.
“Shut up!” he shouted, even though there was no need. “All you Gryffindors, ” he spat the word as if it were a swearword, “in this room will do detention tomorrow at twelve. Got that?”
“A mass detention?” Ginny heard Lukas mutter to Sloper as Kimberley helped her out of the room. “What’s he going to do, make us all write lines together?”
Ginny had a feeling it was something much more sinister than that, but it wasn’t until later that she found out what.
In the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey prescribed her a lotion made from Essence of Murtlap, something that Fred and George had found very useful in creating their Skiving Snackboxes the year before last. She also refused to let Ginny go to her next lesson, Transfiguration, instead forcing her to lie down on a bed and rest.
“Murtlap lotion might do the trick in taking the pain away,” she said briskly as she fluffed the pillows, “but you’ll feel ten times worse later if you don’t rest now. Lie down.”
Ginny did as she was told and stared up at the ceiling, listening to Madam Pomfrey bustle around and mutter under her breath about what she thought of teachers using corporal punishment. She spent the time thinking about what they might do at the next DA meeting; even so, it passed very slowly, and she was relieved when Madam Pomfrey allowed her to go, giving her a jar of lotion to take with her and strict instructions to apply it every three hours.
Ginny had a free period scheduled for after Transfiguration, so she made her way back to the Common Room wondering whether she should practice non-verbal charms or make a start on her Herbology essay “ but as soon as she climbed through the portrait hole, she forgot about homework.
“Colin!” Ginny hurried over to the figure sitting slumped in one of the armchairs. Colin was white in the face and shaking. “Colin, are you okay?”
“I, um, I,” Colin stammered without looking at her. “The Cruciatus curse,” he blurted suddenly.
“What?” Ginny wondered if Colin was reliving their Dark Arts lesson.
“The Cruciatus curse,” repeated Colin. “Detention. Some… some…” He trailed off.
Ginny gasped. Of course “ Colin and Jack had been doing their detention with Amycus Carrow earlier that morning! “Did he use the Cruciatus curse on you?” she asked urgently, and was surprised when Colin weakly shook his head.
“Not him “ some sixth formers,” he managed, and Ginny’s fists clenched, her mind flying immediately to Miller and his cronies. “It wasn’t their fault!” he added quickly, and Ginny frowned in confusion. “He made them do it…”
A sick feeling rose in Ginny’s throat as she understood the nature of the punishment “ the double punishment, inflicted both on those who had earned detentions and anyone who was unwilling to use an Unforgivable Curse. “Who was it, Colin?” she asked.
“Some Ravenclaws…” he replied, and the faces of Ravenclaws Ginny knew flashed across her mind’s eye. Terry Boot, Michael Corner, Susan Bones… Luna… could one of them have given in under pressure and tortured a friend? She was sure Luna was made of stronger stuff than that, but the others… could she blame them if they had done it? Would she be able to look them in the eye at the next DA meeting and talk about doing their bit for the resistance?
Her second Muggle Studies lesson was much like the first, except that they were set homework at the end of it: to write an essay about how Muggles had oppressed wizards over the last few centuries, and how the natural order was being re-established, with Muggles at the bottom and wizards at the top.
“It’s like a twisted History of Magic essay,” Ginny commented darkly to Neville in the Common Room that evening. “She just wants us to regurgitate all that stuff she says in our lessons, but written down on parchment, so she can-”
Before she could complete her sentence, Ginny was interrupted as someone half-fell through the portrait hole, staggered a few steps across the Common Room, and then threw up on the floor. There were cries of shock and revulsion, as people jumped backwards, shouting, “Yuck!” and “Go to the hospital wing!”
“No-” The boy wiped his mouth, and Ginny recognised him as being a second-year who had tried out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team last year even though he’d blatantly never flown in his life. “Help,” he managed to say, before he put his hands on his knees and was sick again.
Ginny cast about for her box of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes merchandise, thinking that the purple end of a Puking Pastille might cure the vomiting, but Neville was quicker on the uptake: jumping to his feet, he pointed his wand at the boy. “Finite incantatem!”
The vomiting stopped; the boy stayed where he was, dry-heaved once more, then slowly straightened up and staggered over to an armchair. “Thanks,” he gasped, collapsing into it.
“What happened, Elliot?” asked another second-year boy, as Neville murmured, “Evanesco,” and cleared up the mess.
Elliot waited a few minutes to catch his breath before answering. “I dunno… I just… I took a shortcut back to the Common Room… you know, through that passage behind the tapestry? As soon as I stepped into it, I felt… funny… then I started being sick… But it was quicker to come here than go to the hospital wing.”
“Do you think someone jinxed you as you stepped into it?” asked a third-year girl tremulously.
“No, it sounds more like there was a curse over the passageway,” said a fifth-year boy.
Neville and Ginny exchanged a glance, alarmed and at the same time, unsurprised; it sounded exactly like the sort of thing the Carrows would do. Though it wasn’t a great surprise that Hogwarts’ secret passageways had been rendered inaccessible to students, it certainly wasn’t a good thing. It cut down on a lot of their options for moving around the school without detection, and they wouldn’t even be able to take shortcuts to lessons for fear of what might happen if they did.
It was an ashen-faced group of Gryffindors who waited outside the dungeons at noon the next day to face their detention. As much as Ginny knew that the punishment was unjust to the point of being laughable, it didn’t do anything to change the reality of their situation.
She wasn’t sure whether it made it better or worse knowing what the detention would probably consist of. From the moment she woke up, Ginny had been desperately trying to think of any spells she knew which might be able to mitigate the pain of the Cruciatus Curse or help them to endure it. But she knew there was nothing; if there had been, would so many fully-grown and experienced witches and wizards have succumbed to its torture? Would Neville’s parents have been driven to insanity by the pain if there had been a way around the curse? She knew that Harry had been able to throw off the Imperius Curse when Voldemort had cast it on him in his fourth year, in the graveyard where Cedric Diggory had been murdered; but even he had said there was nothing you could do with the Cruciatus Curse except endure it the best you could.
Her stomach began to ache at the thought of Harry, and even though Ginny did her best to distract herself from that train of thought, it didn’t abate all morning and was still hurting as they queued outside the dungeon. Niamh, at her side, was pale and trembling.
“I’m not even supposed to be here!” she whispered. “I’m meant to be in Charms…”
“I know,” Ginny replied. “None of us are meant to be here.” Of course, pulling them all out of lessons to do a mass detention was nothing to Amycus Carrow, and Ginny was far too realistic to entertain the notion that the other teachers might somehow be able to prevent this.
She looked around at the other Gryffindors. It was a tiny bit comforting to have them all there, much better than doing detention on her own would have been. Though really, she deserved to be the only one doing detention, since it was her fault they had all been punished… she rubbed her stomach as the ache intensified through guilt. Her eyes travelled along the line until she found Colin Creevey and Jack Sloper. Colin was white as a sheet, far paler than even Niamh, but looked determined, his jaw set and his arms folded. Behind him, Jack was leaning against the wall, his whole body rigid with tension. He stared into space, his fists clenched at his sides. Ginny could only imagine what was going through both boys’ heads as they prepared themselves to relive the most painful experience of their lives so far. On the other side of Jack, Kimberley was standing poised, looking completely calm, but as Ginny met her eyes she saw the fear in them.
Ginny wondered how many times they would all have to go through this before the year was over. She didn’t suppose it would get any easier or less painful.
Just as Niamh burst out in agitation, “It’s five past twelve! What’s-” the dungeon door creaked slowly open. Niamh slapped her hands over her mouth, looking petrified.
Ginny looked around at the others. She could only assume they were supposed to enter the dungeon. She felt a surge of irritation at all these dramatics, which were clearly designed to frighten them even more. Unfortunately, by the expressions on most people’s faces, it seemed to be working.
Seeing that no-one else was willing to go first, Ginny led the way into the dungeon “ and stopped short as she saw who was inside.
“Neville...” she whispered. Her friend looked grimly back at her, sitting behind a desk. Ginny scanned the room; the rest of the seventh-year Gryffindors were there, and the Slytherins too. She saw Vincent Crabbe, who was wearing a sadistic expression of enjoyment as the terrified sixth-years filed in, and Gregory Goyle, who was smirking. The sight made Ginny want to hex one of them, and she forced herself to look away. Her eyes found Seamus’, and he nodded once at her, gripping his wand with white knuckles. There too were Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who stared back at her helplessly. She tried not to notice the empty tables where Ron, Harry and Hermione would have sat; tried to think how much better it would have been if they had been here.
They’re just not, and we’re going to have to do the best we can by ourselves.
Amycus Carrow looked over at the assembled sixth-years with scorn and derision. “YOU! CLOSE THE DOOR!” he shouted, and Jimmy Peakes scrambled to shut it behind him.
“Right.” Amycus Carrow leered around at the assembled students. “You’ll be practicin’ the Cruciatus Curse on these subjects, an’ anyone who thinks they can object-” here he glared hard at Neville, “will be shown the true meanin’ of punishment.”
And from his belt he drew a long, sharp knife.
Ginny’s stomach turned to ice, and she felt as if the floor had dropped away beneath her feet. Beside her, she heard Niamh whimper, “No!” and then a weight sagged against her side; Ginny turned in time to catch Niamh before she crumpled to the floor. Jack Sloper ran forward to help, and together they lowered Niamh to the ground. Her face was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and she was breathing shallowly.
“You! Weakling! GET TO THE FRONT!”
Even as she heard the shout and knew who Amycus was referring to, Ginny ignored it. “Niamh, can you hear me?” she asked softly. Around them, the Gryffindors closed ranks protectively, shielding the two girls from view.
Niamh’s eyes fluttered open again. “Ginny…” she whispered. “I’m sorry…”
“What for?” Ginny asked, shaking her head.
Niamh didn’t reply, instead trying to push herself upright, bracing herself on shaking arms.
“Lie back down!” Ginny hissed.
“I SAID NOW!” Amycus Carrow had sheathed the knife and drawn his wand instead, pointing it at the small group of Gryffindors. “Or I’ll Cruciate the lot of ya!!”
“You leave her alone!” ordered a strong voice. Neville had got to his feet and was staring Amycus Carrow down with a steely gaze that would have struck fear into a Basilisk. “This is a school! You can’t threaten people with knives and punish them Unforgivable Curses! And you can’t just victimise people when you feel like it!”
For a split second, Ginny’s heart skipped a beat as she looked at Neville standing defiantly in the middle of the classroom and saw another man instead, tall and skinny and messy-haired, his bright green eyes burning with conviction behind his glasses as he risked everything because he knew that what he was doing was right.
But Neville wasn’t Harry, and Ginny shook her head to clear it of the weird vision. Neville was his own man, and one whom she could barely link to the meek, round-faced boy she’d known in her early years, who had so awkwardly asked her to the Yule Ball, and danced with two left feet. Even when she compared him to the Neville she’d fought alongside in the Department of Mysteries, whom she’d practiced defensive spells with in the DA, and desperately defended Hogwarts with at the end of last year, he had come a long way. There was a very different air about him now; without meaning to, when people needed him, he had stepped into the role of leader. Just like Harry.
And just like Harry, Neville’s unwavering sense of justice had placed him right in the path of danger at the hands of those who cared nothing for valour and integrity. Amycus Carrow didn’t hesistate; he swung his wand to point it at Neville and shouted, “CRUCIO!”
Neville dropped to the floor with a yell of agony; trapped between the legs of two desks, he barely had room to writhe in pain, screaming and juddering all the while. At once, half the Gryffindors in the room drew their wands, including Ginny, though she could barely get a shot at Amycus through the knot of classmates still surrounding her and Niamh. She saw Seamus shooting a stunning spell at Amycus, which he dodged; Crabbe aimed a hex at Seamus, which met a shield charm cast by Lavender; his wand then went spinning out of his hand thanks to Parvati’s disarming spell; in the next moment, she threw herself to the floor in order to avoid a stunning spell from Goyle. She suddenly spotted Draco Malfoy, sitting at the edge of the room, looking limp and pale. No wonder she hadn’t noticed him before. He was staring vaguely into space and appeared not to notice the chaos going on around him. Ginny could barely get her head around the complete change in his demeanour. Being a Death Eater obviously didn’t agree with Malfoy after all.
Spells were still flying left and right. Parvati was firing counter-jinxes and protective spells from the cover of her desk, whilst Goyle lay rigid on the floor, the recipient of a full Body-Bind curse. Crabbe, incensed, had taken to firing hexes at everyone around him with increased ferocity and little discrimination. His chair abruptly disappeared from beneath him thanks to a well-aimed Reductor curse: Lavender’s speciality. However, in the next second she was hit squarely in the back by a Stunning spell from Pansy Parkinson and slumped unconscious over her desk. Amycus had given up on torturing on Neville in order to fire the Cruciatus Curse at all and sundry in an attempt to regain control of the classroom. Colin and Jack were doing their best to Disarm Amycus, but kept having to duck out of the way of his curses. As Colin dived aside, Ginny suddenly found herself with a clear view, when-
“CRUCIO!”
Amycus had seen Ginny drawing her wand and fired an Unforgivable Curse in her direction, but Ginny found herself violently shoved aside; she sat up and saw Niamh writhing on the ground, screaming in agony as she took the Cruciatus Curse that had been meant for Ginny. “NO!” Ginny shouted and took aim at Amycus, when all at once, he went rigid as a board and keeled slowly over backwards “ had she done magic without realising it? Or had someone else cast the jinx? She hadn’t heard anyone else cast the spell-
“What in the name of wizardry is going on here?!”
Professor McGonagall’s commanding voice rang around the dungeon and everyone, even the Slytherins, stopped what they were doing and turned guiltily in her direction. Someone’s wand, which they had recently been Disarmed of, clattered to the floor. The last of Niamh’s screams and shouted incantations, still echoed quietly in the air. Niamh herself lay flat on her back, breathing heavily. Lavender Brown, who had just been Enervated back into consciousness by Parvati, blinked and rubbed her eyes; Neville, still pale from his bout of torturing, slid back into his seat. No-one spoke.
McGonagall looked around at the Slytherins and Gryffindors with a furious expression, though Ginny suspected her fury was not directed at all of them.
“I leave an unusually poorly-attended Transfiguration class, from which the entirety of sixth-form Gryffindor house was mysteriously missing, to go in search of the absent students only to find them in the deepest level of the dungeons in a seventh year Dark Arts” “ she said the word as if it were a curse “ “lesson, in the middle of what appears to be a mass duel, whilst the so-called ‘professor’ tortures a student with an Unforgivable Curse!!”
It was a fairly accurate summary of the situation. Professor McGonagall glared down at Amycus, who stared back with loathing, but was unable to do anything else thanks to the full Body-Bind curse she had cast upon him. Ginny reached down and gripped Niamh’s hand, which was clammy with sweat. She tore her eyes away from McGonagall’s irate figure and shared a look with her friend, trying to convey her gratitude, guilt and anguish at what Niamh had been put through for her sake. Niamh gave her fingers a very weak squeeze.
McGonagall was still speaking to Amycus in a tone of the utmost dislike and disdain. “You may be enjoying your ill-gotten, wrongly-elevated position in charge of disciplinary actions in this school, Mr. Carrow, but I am still the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, and-”
“Oh but you ain’t, Minerva,” came a cackling voice from behind McGonagall. Ginny’s insides went ice-cold.
McGonagall closed her eyes briefly and then with a look of furious scorn, swung to face the hunched figure of Alecto Carrow, who stood smirking just outside the dungeon. She was holding a piece of paper.
“And just what do you mean by that?” demanded McGonagall.
“This is an official decree by headmaster Severus Snape,” replied Alecto, “removing you from your position as deputy headmistress, with immediate effect. You might’ve enjoyed being Dumbledore’s lapdog, but there’s a new system now, and there ain’t no teacher who ranks higher than us. And we’ve got permission to punish students by whatever means we want to. So stay out of our way, Minerva, or else you won’t be a professor no longer either.”
For a long moment the two women stared at each other, Alecto smug, McGonagall stony-faced, and the dungeon held its breath.
“You are despicable,” McGonagall declared finally. She turned away and addressed Ginny.
“Miss Weasley, please escort Miss Dublin to the hospital wing. Miss Whitecross,” “ this was Kimberley “ “accompany Miss Weasley and ensure that you collect sufficient chocolate for the rest of your class.” Her eyes passed over Goyle, who was covered in boils from a Furnunculus curse, and the Stunned Pansy Parkinson. “Mr. Goyle, revive Miss Parkinson and then proceed to the hospital wing.” Then she looked at Neville, taking in his white face and determined, angry expression. Her face softened slightly. “Mr Longbottom, my office, please.”
She swept out of the room. For a moment nobody moved, and then Neville slowly got up and followed her. Ginny helped Niamh to her feet, and with Niamh leaning heavily on her, one arm around her neck, they made their way out of the classroom, Kimberley by their side. Ginny was afraid the Carrows might try to stop them all leaving, but neither of them attempted to. She realised that there was no need; they had all year to do whatever they pleased to the students of Hogwarts. The thought made her feel slightly sick, but she put it out of her head for the time being. There was nothing she could do about it at that moment.
“Ginny… I’m really sorry,” Niamh said quietly as they made their way slowly along a corridor.
Ginny looked at Niamh in astonishment and saw the glint of a tear track on her cheek.
“Niamh, why on earth should you be-”
“It was my fault that the fighting broke out back there,” Niamh said in a small voice. “It was all over me. If I could just have taken the punishment then none of the others would have got hurt…”
“Niamh, that had nothing to do with it,” Ginny told her flatly. “It was about all of us standing up to the Carrows throwing their weight around, threatening and bullying people with horrible punishments. Besides, if you’d lain down and let yourself be Cursed, then Amycus would have moved on to everyone else after he’d finished with you, and the result would have been the same. Maybe worse. People got hurt because of the Carrows, not you.”
Niamh was silent for a few moments. Then she said shakily, “Well, I did kind of just lie down… in an indirect sort of way…”
Ginny laughed. She really appreciated Niamh’s attempt at humour even after going through such a horrible experience. Then she sobered up.
“If anyone should be apologising, it’s me,” she said. “You got hit by the Cruciatus Curse on my behalf… and I was the one who got everyone else landed in detention in the first place. I should have just kept my mouth shut yesterday.”
“No, Ginny, you shouldn’t have!” said Niamh, and shock lent her voice a little more strength. “It’s like you just said “ it’s about all of us standing up to the Carrows “ you did it first, and maybe that’s why everyone else followed suit just now. I mean… that’s why I did it. Pushed you out of the way, I mean.” She was staring at the floor, her face red. “I just wanted to try and be as brave as you were. Like a Gryffindor should be.”
Ginny was both surprised and heartwarmed by this revelation. She’d never thought of herself as a particularly good example to anyone. In a way, she herself had just been following examples “ set by her friends, and parents, the Order members, and anyone else she knew who stood up for what they knew was right even if it was dangerous. It was nice to know she’d passed it on to Niamh, as well.
That night, Ginny couldn’t sleep. Her mind kept buzzing with thoughts, plans, memories of the past few days and of the awful things the Carrows had said… McGonagall, no longer deputy headmistress… Snape, ruling over a Hogwarts where corporal punishment was freely used… anger, resentment and indignation burned through her veins and finally she sat up, frustrated. It was no good, lying here in bed and dwelling on everything. She needed a change of scene.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid her feet into her slippers. Wrapping a dressing-gown around herself, Ginny tiptoed through the dormitory and down the girls’ stairs into the common room. She had expected it to be completely dark and deserted by now, but to her surprise, it was dimly lit by the glow of a dying fire, and sitting in front of it, gazing into the flames, was Neville. He seemed not to hear her approach, and didn’t look round until she said, “Can’t sleep?”
He jumped and directed a rueful smile at her. “Mmmm. I guess not.” They both knew this was a lie, since Neville was still fully dressed in his school robes.
Ginny sat down in the chair next to him. “What did McGonagall want earlier?” she asked. She hadn’t yet had the chance to discuss the day’s events with Neville, having missed him at dinner.
Neville wearily rubbed a hand over his eyes. “She gave me a Ginger Newt… She was basically telling me to be careful, saying that I shouldn’t become too focused on following in my parents’ footsteps in case it puts me in danger… I knew she was trying to say ‘in case I end up like them’. And she said they wouldn’t want me to jeopardise my safety.” He paused for a few moments, and then asked softly, “But how am I supposed to know what they would want?”
Ginny had no idea what to say. For all the experiences she shared with Neville, she would never be able to empathise with the feeling of growing up as he and Harry had, without your parents. She couldn’t even imagine growing up without one parent. In the time that she’d known Harry, he hadn’t mentioned his parents all that often, but always spoke of them with a yearning that conveyed a lifetime spent wondering, “What if…?” And Neville had never spoken about his parents before this. She, Ron, Hermione and Harry had only stumbled upon the truth about their condition by pure accident. But she could identify the same tone of voice in him now.
Eventually she said, “You can’t know. But even if you did, it would still ultimately be down to you.”
It seemed like weak advice, but Neville nodded. For a while, they sat in silence, watching the embers of the fire dwindle into nothing. Neither of them moved to rekindle it.
It was he who broke the silence this time. “I’ve just been thinking,” he began. “About today, and the Carrows’ attitude towards us and towards McGonagall… They’re so damn sure that no-one can best them, so smug about this new ‘system’ that puts them above all the other teachers… it makes me want to take them down a peg.”
Ginny rested her chin on her hand and raised her eyebrows to say, “Go on.” She was interested, but she had no idea where he was going with this.
“I just want to do something that will make an impact, that will leave a message that says they can’t just push us around… that there are those of us who won’t just roll over, who are going to fight back. I want to let them know there’s a resistance. See if we can’t make them a little afraid of us for once.” He smiled grimly.
“A message, eh?” said Ginny. She was thinking about the extensive supply of mischief-making items Fred and George had left her, among which were quite a few cans of Never-Erase Paint.
“Technically they do erase,” Fred had said, “after a fashion. But it takes quite a bit of spellwork to manage it, so it’s about outside the capabilities of someone like… Filch, for example.”
“Neville, I have an idea…” Ginny began.
The next morning, almost the entire castle was woken at dawn by the sound of Filch’s cursing as he surveyed what had somehow, entirely without his detection, occurred during the night. Daubed across several different walls of the castle, including some of the outside walls, classrooms and especially the dungeons, were two-foot high messages written in Never-Erase Paint in fetching shades of purple and pink:
DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY IS FIGHTING BACK
DUMBLEDORE > YOU-KNOW-WHO
JOIN THE RESISTANCE!
DUMBLEDORE DEFIES DIRTY DEATH-EATERS
DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY, STILL RECRUITING