I May Not Steal Swords – by Milla Snape
Disclaimer: I don't own it… I just sneak into J.'s world using my invisibility cloak, spy on her characters a little, then humbly come back to Muggle world, where I belong. I don't intend to make a single galleon out of it, so please don't sue me, nor send me to Azkaban (unless Snape got a job as a guard there (smirk)).
Summary: On their 7th year, Ginny, Luna, and Neville attempt to steal the Sword of Gryffindor from the Headmaster's office – currently Snape's – to help Harry on his hunt for horcruxes. Snape catches them in the act. ~DH mentions this fact, but leaves out the details. Here's how it happened.~
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Chapter 1
"Shampoo!" exclaimed Luna.
Neville covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hold back a chuckle.
"Luna!" hissed Ginny in disapproval, wrapping her dark green sleeping robes tighter around herself. "This is no time to joke!"
"I wasn't joking," said Luna, in her typical tone of serene confidence. She tilted her Creative Hat just so, readjusting it on her head. That thing was hideous, in Ginny's opinion: not only of an obnoxious bright orange color, but big and fluffy and decorated with red Mindenfluxies feathers. Ginny had never heard of such animal, neither did she believe that wearing a hat would make anyone temporarily more creative… but try convincing Luna of that!
"I'm running out of ideas," the blonde continued in the same calm tone. "But I have faith that we will get the password right, no matter what."
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Sure, faith will solve the problem. Even if we guess a lot of rubbish."
"Detention!" tried Neville seriously, trying to keep his voice down, only loud enough for the gargoyle to hear. How loud does one have to speak for a statue to hear, anyway?
Seeing Neville in muggle gray pajamas – no doubt an idea he copied from Harry, as Neville wasn't familiar with muggle ways – only made Ginny miss Harry even more. Oh, but this wasn't the time to get distracted thinking about him…
"Longbottom, you irredeemable idiot!" continued Neville. "'Mr. Potter must die!' 'Bobotuber pus!' 'Class is over, get out of my sight, you waste of space, poor excuse for students!"
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is beautiful!" said Luna.
"That's it! Shut up, both of you!" Ginny shifted around nervously, pressing her fingers against her red hair-covered skull. "Throwing random phrases out there won't help us. Try and think of something more likely. Get into Snape's head. What password would he realistically come up with?"
"I'd rather get into the head of You-Know-Who himself," Neville mumbled. "He probably has more pleasant thoughts."
Luna glanced at her cornish blue pixie-shaped watch, whose arms marked the time. "It's been seven minutes, guys. Someone might walk by any second."
"House-elf vomit!" cursed Ginny under her breath, then looked contrite. "Excuse my language." She glanced at her watch too. It was one-seventeen A.M.. Seven minutes was way too long. Filch would catch them, or one of the Carrows, she just knew it. They would be in a world of trouble, unless they managed to open that door soon!
"I'll walk around and make sure the area is clear, while you two keep guessing," Neville volunteered, starting to walk away.
Luna removed her own hat and gently deposited it on the floor. "No, you stay, Nev, since I have nothing else to say to this unhelpful gargoyle. I'll be back in a tick." Luna ran down the dark corridor before someone could argue, her light yellow robes floating around her.
Think, Ginny, think. Harry needed their help, needed the Sword of Gryffindor in order to defeat You Know Who. Something to do with horcruxes, whatever that was. Ron hadn't been any more specific on his owl post, he said he couldn't say more. Ginny didn't even know where they were, along with Hermione; they had gone away months ago, and she only knew they were alive because of this one short note from her brother. Ginny only hoped they were all right. Her heart insisted that Harry, especially, had to be all right.
The plan had sounded simple enough: sneak into the headmaster's office, steal the sword, send Pigwidgeon after Harry with a note, and wait for further instructions. She guessed that they would meet then, somewhere secret, and she would give Harry the sword. She would hug him fiercely, too, and hopefully get a kiss or two... Okay, this line of thought was not relevant right now.
If Dumbledore were still the headmaster, passing the gargoyle would have been easy: all they would have to do is recite the name of every candy known to wizard and muggle, until they got the password right. But Snape? She should have known it wouldn't be so simple with the Great Greasy Bat of the Dungeons. His word or phrase of choice could be anything. They had already recited the names of all the potions they could think of, potion ingredients, laboratory supplies and equipments, words that evoked evil and darkness, and some of Snape's insults (including "mold-for-brains cretin" and "utter uselessness incarnated"). Now they were starting to guess randomly. Of course, the password could be anything under the sun, even something very un-snapey, just so he would be unpredictable. It could be "white fluffy bunnies" or "nothing outlasts the Energizer," for all that she knew.
"Okay Nev, how about people that Snape might admire? Salazar Slytherin... Joseph Stalin... Adolph Hitler..."
"Satan," said Neville. "My grandmother when she's angry. Jack The Ripper."
"You Know Who. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Dark Lord." Ginny bit her lip. Should she say it? What if Snape has made the "V" name as the password, knowing that most people wouldn't dare say it out loud? "Vo... VOLDEMORT!" she blurted out, but not without the coldest chill creep down her spine, as if the word would summon the monster in front of them.
"What?" Neville yelped and jumped in fright, looking around himself. "Sweet Merlin, Ginny, I think I pissed in my pants a little! I thought he was right behind me!"
"Shhh, please lower your voice!" Ginny giggled softly, in spite of herself. She would have found that absolutely hilarious at any other time, but right now, a sense of urgency in her was telling her to focus and hurry up. "Help me out: who, in wizarding ot muggle history, is someone that Snape might look up to?"
"Attila the Hun. Nero. Caligula. Vlad the Impaler. This one liked dark, damp dungeons for sure... oooh-" Neville exclaimed, excited, "Marquis de Sade!"
"Pol Pot. Ante Pavelic. Elizabeth Bathory. Robert Mugabe."
"Never heard of these muggles!" the boy said. "Ted Bundy. Darth Vader-"
"He's a movie character, Neville." Ginny took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She glanced at her watch: eleven minutes already. Why was Luna taking so long, anyway?
Neville froze for no apparent reason, eyes wide, as if a scary idea had just ocurred to him.
"What's wrong, Nev?"
"Where do you think Snape is, right now?" The boy glanced around, as if Snape might appear at any instant.
"Sleeping, hopefully. Even he needs to rest sometime!"
Neville lowered his voice. "What if he's not sleeping? What if he's awake, and walking around the castle? The greasy git has caught Harry wandering about at night plenty of times. Either he has a special Harry Radar, suffers of insomnia, or… never sleeps!"
Ginny didn't deign to answer the last comment. She wasn't worried. Not anymore that she was already, that is. She couldn't afford to panic, so she called for reason: "Well then, even if he's walking around somewhere, he would surely be where students might go - like the Astronomy Tower, or near any of the dormitories. He wouldn't think to come here, with probably no students to catch." Of course, Ginny wasn't convinced of that herself.
"What if he's upstairs?" Neville blurted, his fear visible. "What if we pass the gargoyle, go up the staircase and find him there, calmly sitting on his desk marking papers?"
"He's not a teacher anymore. To mark papers," Ginny explained, knowing that her comment was irrelevant. There were plenty of things one could do at an office other than mark papers. She had considered that scenario already - coming face to face with Snape - but what good would fear do? She sighed. "Nev, I don't-"
The boy interrupted, getting gradually hysterical: "What excuse would we give him for entering his office, unannounced, in the middle of the night? 'Forgive us for the intrusion, Headmaster Snape," he said, mimicking his own voice, but in a girlier, higher pitch, "'but we have a question about Chapter 16 of the potions book, if you will, 'cause Professor Slughorn doesn't explain things as well as you do'? Even if we come up with a good excuse… which we won't…"
That wouldn't be good. At all. On the other hand, Ginny preferred to believe that Snape wouldn't be there at all. It would be much better if he were in a Death Eater's meeting instead, murdering or pillaging or gang-raping muggles, or doing whatever it is that Death Eaters do on a night out. That is, much better for her, Nev and Luna, not for the poor muggles! Ginny felt bad for even thinking that. Or perhaps Snape was deep in the dungeons, in one of its legendary obscure, hidden rooms, crucio-ing students that arrived late for class or didn't turn in their essays. Okay, Ginny, move to another line of thought, she prompted herself.
The two teenagers stared at each other for a few seconds, each one with his own defeatist thoughts.
"I think we should go back to bed," Neville suggested, his shoulders sagging, his courage vanishing fast. "Why does Harry need the Sword of Gryffindor, anyway? Can't he make do with another one?"
Ginny sighed. "He can't. Ron wrote that only that sword could destroy that horcrux thingy. You know that, Nev. Harry needs us."
Neville squared his shoulders and faced the gargoyle again. "'Neville, you've got a zero on the exam.' 'Your potion needs to turn olive green.' 'I am your new Headmaster.'" He paused. "Maybe just the sentences alone won't work; maybe we have to imitate his voice?"
Ginny shrugged. "I don't think that's how that works, but I can't be sure."
"'I am your new Headmaster'," Neville repeated, in a poor impersonation of Snape's deep, smooth, sarcastic voice. He tried again, deepening his voice, and adding a pause between each word. "I. Am. Your. New. Headmassssster."
Ginny laughed – she couldn't help it. "The tone is not supposed to matter, and these sentences are too long, Neville. I'm sure it's something simpler. Maybe- AAAAAH!" she startled as someone appeared out of nowhere, in between a yelp and a scream, jumping backwards in fright.
It was Luna, placing a finger to her own lips in a request for silence."Shhhhh! Filch's cat was hunting for purple holidundles and she saw me. I think she didn't like the color of my robes," she informed them, holding a hem of her vestment to show them, unnecessarily.
Neville and Ginny exchanged looks, then looked back at Luna. "Did Filch see you?" the boy asked.
"I know you're there!" an unpleasant voice came from a distance. Ginny would have recognized that voice anywhere: the bitter, rotten-hearted janitor. "You won't get away this time!" The voice was approaching them.
"He did," the blonde finally answered the question. "The pokey-monkey bugs inside my head sense that he's coming towards us."
"Merlin's balls!" panicked Neville.
"House-elf vomit!" added Ginny. "Shit!"
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A/N: I started this story over a year ago, and abandoned it after one chapter. Now I'm starting over, completely rewriting it to fuel my own muse. (Merlin knows, my muse needs some serious fueling.) I will finish it this time! The next chapter should be here shortly.
Milla Snape