The other side of the story

It felt strange entering the Hogwarts Express without any of her brothers to accompany her. For some time, her parents had been urging her to avoid going to the school at all. After all, the takeover by Voldemort was known by both her parents. But Ginny was made of sterner stuff than her parents. She felt that she could not just live in safety while Harry, along with her brother and Hermione, worked hard to save the Wizarding World. Ginny knew that she could save some of her friends from being tortured by the Death Eaters. She also vowed to end Snape's stint as Headmaster fairly quickly, as a sort of revenge for murdering Dumbledore.

As she entered the train, she saw her old friend, Luna entering as well. Luna was wearing her famous raddish earrings and a bright red dress that made her look like a strawberry. Used to Luna's eccentric dressing, she didn't even bat an eyebrow. They walked in silence towards the compartment where they decided to have a seat.

Ginny and Luna made conversation about how they had spent their holidays, carefully avoiding the heavier subject of Voldemort. Finally, Ginny could hold herself back no longer and said, "We have to do something about Snape, don't we? He works for You-Know-Who, he murdered Dumbledore, we can't let him be the Headmaster."

Luna nodded, or maybe she was trying to scare away a Wrackspurt. Finally she responded, "Yes, I've been in contact with Neville about that too."

Before Luna could explain herself any further, Ginny interjected with a laugh, "SO you're in owl contact with Neville Longbottom? I've always thought you two would be perfect together."

In her soft voice, Luna said, "No, we're not dating. It's just that Neville has some great information on the Crumple-Horned Snorcack." It was evident that Ginny did not seem to want to believe this explanation.

Carrying on, Luna said, "Daddy said he's going to buy a horn of one soon. Maybe, I'll get to see it in the Christmas holidays. But I forgot, what were we talking about?"

Ginny sighed and said, "Your contact with Neville."

"Oh yes," responded Luna, "Neville said that we could use the Galleons to restart Dumbledore's Army. It would be nice and we could rally resistance."

"You're a genius," said Ginny.

"Well, it was Neville's idea," blushed Luna, "but I thank you all the same."

Just then the carriage door opened. In came Neville Longbottom, followed by Trevor who dived under the seats as soon as he got in.

"Oye, Trevor, get out from under there," cried Neville, "So what's up with you girls?"

Some things would never change. The misery they had all been enduring since that battle, the dread of returning had not brought any change in Ginny or her friends. It was a mark of their strength that they had not run away from the prospect.

"We were just discussing how to beat trouble Snape," exclaimed Luna cheerfully as if she were talking about the weather.

"What about the Alecto and Amycus though? With Snape being head, they'll be teaching us some class or the other and the only two vacancies are Muggle Studies and DADA."

Ginny replied, "We'll make sure that we cause enough disruption to bother the three of them. However, I think we should try being covert, instead of charging in and causing havoc. We should do what Fred and George used to do but more subtly and definitely more covertly."

They all agreed on this and the topic shifted.