Author's note: This story takes place during Deathly Hallows. Its about Dumbledore's Army after Hogwarts had been taken over by the Carrow; trying to rebel, trying to survive, trying to spread hope, and holding onto the one thing the Carrows can't take from them. It was slightly inspired by Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness by ThanFiction. Reviws would be greatly appreciated. They are my crack.
In this dream that I had…
"You can't kill heroes," that's what we said to them
"You can't kill us"
With our instruments broken before us
And the boys in the line, they begin to count to five
And the trigger pulls
The bullets pepper the brick wall behind our heads
And the smoke, it fills the air
The captain yells to cease fire
And the squad begins to wait and stare
As the dust clears the air, and we're still standing
With smiles on both our faces
We spit their faulty ammo to the ground
And remind them once again that you can't kill heroes
- You Can't Kill Heroes by the Spill Canvas
"Muggles are filthy, nasty human beings, if you can even call them human." Alecto struck the blackboard with her wand. Instantaneously the words she had written evaporated into the blackness, making more room for new ones that she would soon write.
Look who's talking! thought Ernie Macmillan angrily as he gripped the edge of his desk. Muggle Studies had become no more than Muggle Bashing and going over the best techniques on how to torture Muggles. You're a filthy, nasty human being, you slimy git. If anyone could mistake you for a human, that is. Because if I ran into you in a dark-alley, I'd have trouble telling you apart from a flobberworm. A sickeningly bony flobberworm.
Alecto's skin was taut over her cheekbones as her lips curled into a horrible grin, and she was positively glowing. This class of Seventh Years knew that when Alecto's skin was warm and glowing like that, when she had a spring to her step like that, when her lips made that animal-like snarl, she was delighted about something. And they also knew that Alecto Carrow was never delighted over things that normal people would be delighted by.
Ernie exchanged nervous looks with Neville Longbottom, Terry Boot, and Seamus Finnigan, all who were sitting in the front row with him. Those who had the unfortune to get stuck sitting in the front row were often chosen for crude demonstrations or test-subjects for painful spells used to harm muggles. Ernie thought it was downright ridiculous that anyone would invent spells for torturing muggles specifically. Muggles and Magic-folk alike were human beings, with flesh, bone and nerves. Spells used for torturing witches and wizards would suffice for muggles as well. Thinking up spells that would only hurt muggles, as if they had a different anatomy completely, was just ludicrous,
But ludicrous was Alecto Carrow's style.
"There's a new hex I'm going to be teaching you today. Its meant to be used on muggles, but I'm sure it'll work on children with magic blood, if I want it to. Its a personal favorite of mine, actually. Any volunteers?" She grinned cruelly at the class.
No one raised their hands.
"Tut, tut. How will any of you pass this class without participating, you stupid children? I guess I'll just," she glared pointedly at the front row. "choose some people from the front."
Ernie looked over at Hannah Abbott, who was in the second row, to see what her reaction to this would be. The second row wasn't as dangerous as the first, but it still couldn't be considered safe. Hannah's eye was already swollen after taking a punch from Pansy Parkinson during lunch. The Carrows, who usually made their hatred of muggle-fighting very clear, made an elaborate show of whistling and not paying attention as this happened. Apparently muggle-fighting was okay as long as the Slytherins were doing it.
Poor Hannah had already gotten a lot of pain today. According to Padma Patil, Pansy's punch cracked one of Hannah's teeth, and she wasn't even allowed to go to the hospital wing. What would happen if Alecto called on Hannah to be a guinea pig of her little hex? Would Hannah be able to stand the pain?
Or how about Michael Corner, who was Cruciated during Dark Arts just for sneezing while Amycus was talking and was now sporting three long cuts that made it look like someone raked his face open? Or how about Neville who refused to put the Cruciatus curse on a first-year so instead was forced to have Crabbe and Goyle put it on him? The left side of his face was green and purple with not-yet healed bruises from bashing his head off the side off the floor when he collapsed.
Any one of them could be called on. Even Ernie himself. His heart was hammering, his stomach uneasy. He had been pretty hungry and eager to go to dinner a few minutes ago. Now he couldn't stand to think of food. He felt like he was going to be violently ill.
Alecto's eyes scanned the room for a victim. Hannah shrank down in her seat. Seamus hung his head. Neville gripped the underside of his chair. Susan Bones had little color left in her usually-rosy cheeks. Michael Corner looked as sick as Ernie felt.
"Miss Brown."
There were collective sighs of relief mingled with gasps of shock throughout the room. Lavender Brown, sitting at the back of the room, whimpered in terror and dug her long nails into the side of the desk. Alecto hardly ever called on students at the back. Everyone thought the back of the room was safe, that only students at the front were called on. Alecto had probably realized this and had decided to change things up a bit just to rub it in everyone's faces just how safe they truly weren't.
You couldn't be sure of anything these days, not even where the best place there is to sit in class if you don't want to be used as a demonstration of some painful curse, and Alecto wanted them all to know. Calling on a student from the back row was her way of saying, "you've got no place to hide."
Lavender closed her eyes in silent prayer. She had no choice. She was expected to stand up and walk to the front of the room. She couldn't just sit there or it would make Alecto angry, and Alecto's curses were particularly nastier when she was angry.
What made all of this worse was that nobody knew what this mysterious hex was. Everyone fears the unknown, of course, its human nature. But if you know for a fact that the unknown is something terrible, it triples the fear to a point where its almost maddening. And nothing good could possibly come out of this hex that Alecto was about to perform on Lavender. She was the gerbil, Alecto was the mad scientist, and everyone else had to sit back and watch.
Lavender rose to her feet with wobbling legs. She was visibly shaking as she passed down the aisle between the desks toward Alecto, who was impatiently tapping her booted foot against the floor.
Everyone wanted to do something but they also knew there was nothing they could do, even if they weren't afraid of whatever punishments they'd get for it. There was nothing they could do to help Lavender. Trying to interfere would only end up getting them hexed as well. It wasn't as if they knew the countercurse to what Alecto had up her sleeve, because how could you know a countercurse when you don't even know the curse?
"Good girl." Alecto smirked as Lavender stood before her. The words were cold and patronizing. "Now hold still."
"Pulmonarius Agonia!"
With a slash of Alecto's wand, Lavender was on her knees. No one knew exactly what was happening at first. Lavender looked fine for the first few seconds. She looked a little shaken, a little bit anxious, but other than that nothing seemed to be very wrong.
Until her hands came to her throat and she made sickening wheezing sounds.
She gasped for air in a rattling breath, but it didn't appear to do her any good. She gasped again. And again. And again and again and again until tears poured from her glistening blue eyes and breathless sobs shook her shoulders. She couldn't breathe.
Her lips formed words but no sound came out. Ernie tried as hard as he could to read her lips and see what she was trying to say...
Help me, help me, help me.
Ernie and Neville rose from their seats at the same time, both having just figured out what Lavender's soundless mouth was trying to tell them.
Lavender's attempt to speak made nothing but little squeaks and gurgles at the back of her throat. Blood mixed with saliva dripped from her lips onto the stone floor. She clutched her throat desperately, still mouthing the words, Help me please help me.
Then her shoulders spasmed. Her back arched forward. Her mouth stretched open in a silent scream, her eyes flashing with raw pain that was pushing her past the limits of what was bearable. Her arms dropped to her side. Her entire body went rigidly stiff before falling sideways onto the floor.
Then she was still.
There was a terrible shiver of silence throughout the room, before there were shouts of anger and screams of horror. Neville shot a hex at Alecto which she quickly deflected.
"Mr. Longbottom, are you trying to hex me? Perhaps you'd like the same as Miss Brown?" Alecto rounded on Neville. "Pulmonarius ---"
"EXPELLIARMUS!" Terry jumped from his chair and slashed his wand at Alecto.
The wand was torn from her hands. It spun through the air, narrowly missing Seamus' head, before hitting the floor.
There was silence again. A heavy, pregnant silence. Ernie's pulse was roaring in his ears, the quiet of the room pressing in on him. There was nothing but the sound of Terry's heavy breathing and a few girls' terrified whimpers. Neville's eyes were bulging out of his head - his face mingled with relief and fear. He was clearly glad that Alecto didn't get the chance to perform the hex on him, but his mind was most definitely reeling at how Terry would most likely be punished for disarming her.
No one dared move.
Alecto looked murderous but she stood completely still. Her eyes looked from her wand on the floor, to Terry's wand still outstretched in his hand as if he wasn't sure how to drop it, to the faces of each and every one of them. Then she picked up her wand, turning it over thoughtfully in her hands. Ernie's heart felt like it was going to break through his chest, it was pumping so hard.
Finally, Alecto spoke, a grin playing at her dry lips.
"Mr. Boot," she paused to glare at Terry, "will point his wand at Mr. Longbottom, and say 'pulmonarius agonia' in a clear, strong voice, as punishment for disarming me when I'm trying to teach another student a lesson."
"No!" Terry shouted. "I won't do - do - that" he gestured wildly at Lavender's limp body. "to a friend!"
"Don't you want your poor friend to learn his lesson? It is my duty to teach you rotten children, a task that is starting to feel impossible. I was trying to do my job, to discipline Mr. Longbottom so he won't make such foolish mistakes in the future, but it seems to me like you don't want your friend to learn. He has to learn not to act deluded and disrespectful. And now, as your punishment for trying to stop me from teaching your friend a lesson, you will be the one to do it to him."
"You're the deluded one, you hag!" Terry yelled. "I won't do it!"
Whatever patience Alecto had left finally snapped.
"You will do it, you will do it until I allow you to stop, or until your friend dies - whichever comes first!" She shrieked.
They knew this was a bluff. It was common knowledge in the D.A. -- if not the entire school -- that the Carrows would not kill because You-Know-Who himself told them that it was a waste of Magic-blood, and that they were allowed to torture but not to kill. Terry was about to call her out on this bluff, until she dropped the bombshell:
"You'll do it, or else I will not allow Miss Brown to be taken to the hospital wing, and she can lay there curled up on the floor in extreme pain as her lungs suffocate themselves, which will eventually lead to severe brain-damage."
Terry's wand shook in his hand. All eyes were on Lavender's unmoving form, Neville's terrified face, and the war of emotions that was evident on Terry's. His eyes were brimming with angry tears as he looked back and forth from Neville to Lavender.
"Just do it," Neville whispered, his eyes pleading. "Just do it and get Lavender out of here, Terry. I promise, I don't mind. It'll be over soon enough. You need to get Lavender out of here."
Terry looked uncertain. His eyes darted back to Lavender before they found Neville's again. When Terry finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, his eyes apologetic:
"Pulmonarius agonia."
It was almost dinner time, this was the last class of the day. That meant Alecto had taught many other classes before them, ones with younger students. Had she used this same hex on the younger students earlier, or was it something she was only showing them?
Was this the first time that day she was using the hex, or did she choose a guinea pig from the sixth-years too? Hell, she was evil enough to try it on the first years. Ernie almost wanted to raise his hand and ask, to confirm his suspicions, but he really didn't want to know. He was feeling like he was going to lose his lunch enough already.
But if she had chosen a sixth-year to try it on, who had it been? Optimistic, naive Colin? Feisty but fun Ginny?
Neville's face was tinged with purple as he gasped for air to no prevail, but he was taking it better than Lavender, probably because he had expected it, unlike Lavender who had no idea what was going to happen to her. Neville didn't beg for someone to help him, either, although he looked like he wanted to. His eyes were bulging. His throat was making disgusting gurgling sounds that Ernie suspected was blood and saliva. He kept imagining younger students in Neville's place, gasping and writhing in pain on the floor, and those thoughts made the situation so many times worse.
The world felt like it had been knocked off its axis as the cold realization of what was actually happening hit him: students were being tortured. Right there in front of him. This was Hogwarts and students were being tortured. Hadn't there been a time when the idea of a student being tortured during class would seem ridiculous, even laughable? Now it was cold reality.
Pain and suffering were not unheard of at Hogwarts these days, it was becoming a usual thing now. They had become so used to it that they were almost starting to accept it as normal.
As Neville's back spasmed and tears silently made their way down Terry's face, the thought occurred to Ernie: This is not normal. This cannot be normal.
The room whirled in front of him. Colors bled together. He felt like he was seeing everything from the end of a long tunnel. Neville's strangled gasps sounded distant now. His head swam, shapes distorted, it all slipped away.
Ernie's head hit the desk and several students screamed. His last conscious thought was: This is no longer Hogwarts. This is Hell.