Give them hell, turn their heads
Gonna live life 'til we're dead
Give me scars, give me pain,
Then they'll say to me, say to me, say to me,
There goes the fighter.
-Gym Class Heroes, The Fighter
It was a day like any other-a dull, cloudy Wednesday in the second week of October. The school year had only just begun, but Hannah wished it to be over already. Everyone did, really.
Hogwarts was no longer Hogwarts. Or at least, the Hogwarts she knew. The one she called home. Birds no longer chirped outside-the Carrows found them annoying and killed them all. The enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall was stormy on the first day, and remained that way ever since. Screams rang through the castle constantly-in fact, that was how she woke up that morning.
"Hannah, could I borrow a galleon? I lost a bet with Ernie."
Hannah sat up on her bed and rubbed her eyes to see Susan dumping out the piggybank she hid in the bottom of her trunk. "How did you know about that?"
Susan rolled her eyes. "Because I'm your best friend, duh."
Hannah smiled weakly and got off her bed. Grabbing her robes for the day, she stepped into the bathroom to get changed. Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts, Hannah thought, after glancing at her timetable that she taped to the mirror. Great. Two Carrows in one day.
She reminded herself not to speak out of turn and only speak when spoken to-she was called up to volunteer by Amycus to be the target of the Cruciatus Curse once. She felt as if she was going to die. At one point she wished she did.
School wasn't always like this. She remembered that before, she used to enjoy going to classes, learning new things. She would write a letter to her mother every day, telling her everything she did. Thinking back on it, her mum was probably very annoyed with the mass attack of letters she received.
Hannah's eyes watered. She tried her best to avoid thinking of her. Or her father. But she's gotten over his out-of-the-blue walk out on her family long ago.
Susan's voice interrupted her train of thoughts. "You still have this?"
Hannah opened the door. "Have what?"
Susan glanced at Hannah. "I thought you were getting changed."
"I was, until you interrupted me. What do you want?"
"This," Susan held up a Galleon. "Remember?"
"It's just a-oh, wait, that's the DA coin!"
"Yeah. I'm surprised you still have yours."
"Why wouldn't I?" Hannah asked with a defensive tone.
"No reason. You…you know, I might still have mine, too. Let me go check." Susan walked to her trunk that stood right in front of her bed, which was directly across from Hannah's bed. She opened it and dug through it, one minute later popping out with a coin between her thumb and index finger. "Found it!"
During this time, Hannah got changed into her robes and picked up her bag. "Come on, we don't want to be late for class."
"But breakfast-!"
"We have Defense next, and unless you want to get detention-" Susan shivered "-we can't be late."
"Fine, fine." Susan picked up her bag and walked out the door, her DA coin still in her hand. Hannah began to walk out, too, but hurried back inside to grab her DA coin sitting on her side table. She slipped it into her pocket, then hurried out the door towards her first class which she dreaded more and more each second.
"Rapier here, everyone, and welcome to another Potterwatch broadcast!"
"We got some great news-DA has restarted! We can't say the name, of course, but it's all thanks to Trevor!"
"Trevor?"
"It's the name of his frog. Only those in the DA would know this."
"Fine, Trevor it is. Anyway, this Trevor has sent all DA members, former and current, a message through the DA coins a certain brilliant witch handed out to all the members back in '96. For safety reasons, we will not say the place and time of this meeting, but with the DA back, detention victims will be safer, that's for sure!"
"Yes, that's right-Romulus here, everybody. Apparently the Carrows are making students torture students in detention. It's their punishment."
"It's awful."
"You got that right, Royal. Our Trevor here, though, is a tough one. He's got multiple detentions and refused to torture other students, which resulted in more detentions."
"Merlin, that's amazing. Unfortunately, today's Potterwatch must end. Next password is Bones, in memory of the amazing witch who was recently murdered. Keep strong, everybody. Be strong like Trevor."
Hannah, along with other DA members had felt the coin heat up. It was a Thursday, roughly two weeks after she began carrying it around in her pocket with her. She didn't know why she carried it, the hopes of another DA meeting was next to nothing. Perhaps it was because it reminded her of good times, when she learned and laughed and conquered. Not Voldemort, but her own fears. She had felt strong, for once in her life.
It seemed like everyone else carried their coins with them, too, seeing as every member appeared, other than the ones who graduated. They met in the Room of Requirement, like before, on Friday night at eight.
Everyone was curious to know who sent the message-many thought that it was Hermione or Ron, or Harry himself. One or two thought it might be Fred and George. Everyone was surprised to see Neville stand in the front.
Neville cleared his throat and began to speak, much louder than expected. No, more confident.
"I know Harry's not here this year, but I thought that we should still keep having DA meetings."
The room fell silent, everyone waiting for him to speak again.
"I'm sure you all noticed the detentions the Carrow idiots are giving out." A few nervous laughs were heard, but other than that the room remained silent.
"We have to stop this. Harry wouldn't want us to just stand around and do nothing. Dumbledore wouldn't want us to watch from the sidelines!"
Muttered words and whispered conversations were immediately shared between members. "What are you guys talking about? Why are you whispering? What, is this what we all became? Scared, insecure witches and wizards who just watch and do nothing?" Neville roared.
Ginny and Luna joined Neville at the front. "If you guys don't want to do anything, if you'd rather just stand around as innocent students get tortured, go. Now. You're not fit to be a member," Ginny said heatedly. "Does anyone here want to leave? The door's right there."
No one took a step towards the door. No one said anything, except for Seamus.
"I agree. We've got to stop this. Harry would want us to."
"Yeah."
"I-I agree."
"Totally. This is wrong."
"We can't let the Carrows win!"
Hannah felt rather out of place. She never really participated-orally, that is. In class she took notes and such, but she would rarely raise her hand and say what she thought.
"Let's give them hell!" Someone shouted over everybody else.
"Yeah!"
"That's more like it," Luna observed. Neville and Ginny looked at each other and grinned.
"Who are we?" Neville shouted over the chants of "Give them hell! Give them hell!".
"Dumbledore's Army!" A few people shouted back. Hannah stayed silent, not because she didn't support the DA, but because she would feel embarrassed to be one of the few who shouted. Neville was right; she did become a scared, insecure witch.
"Sorry, what was that? Let's try that again. WHO ARE WE?"
"DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY!"
This time, everyone shouted. Including Hannah.
"What's wrong with you? Scream, already! Scream!" Alecto shrieked. "Crucio!"
Like all the times before, Neville, or Trevor, stayed silent, using all his strength and willpower not to utter a sound. He didn't want to give her satisfaction. Give him scars, give him pain, but he won't stop freeing the other detention victims. He won't stop giving cheeky answers, and he definitely won't start torturing other students just because they said so. He wanted to keep rebelling-the things he rebelled against were certainly small, but it kept him busy, and made him feel like he was doing something. Perhaps not defeating You Know Who, but somewhat along those lines.
"Another detention for you, Mister. Tuesday night. Seven o'clock. Don't be late, unless you want two more." Alecto grabbed Neville by the collar and threw him out the dungeon (now also known as the torture chamber). He slowly got to his feet and climbed the steps, on the way reminding himself to be late on Tuesday.
"So, what have we done so far this week? I was aware that we were suppose to, well, to quote Mr. Terry Boot-give them hell?"
Cheers from the members could've given several mandrakes a run for their money. When it died down, a Gryffindor shouted that he had freed three students from detention.
"Brilliant!" Neville exclaimed. "Who else?"
"I snuck food down to the people kept prisoner for more than two days. They were starving."
"That's very courageous of you," Luna said airily. "If you were caught, the Carrows would've tortured you for sure."
Hannah stared at the floor as everyone told his or her heroic deeds. She hadn't done anything, and nor did her friend Susan.
"We have to do something," Susan said, as if reading her mind. Hannah nodded in agreement, and the pair snuck out of the room to plan their first act of rebellion.
"So, what have we done this week?"
Another week has past since the last DA meeting-but it seemed like years. Everyone seemed more worn-out, weaker. The enthusiasm from last meeting didn't carry on to this week's.
Hannah and Susan were, surprisingly, the only cheerful ones. Neville could tell, since they had great big smiles on their faces. Usually Neville would have one plastered on his, too, but it seemed like he could only be tortured so many times.
"What did you do? Hannah? Susan?"
"Follow us."
The entire DA followed the pair of Hufflepuffs, and only stopped when they reached the torture chambers. Hannah then put an arm into her bag ('extension charm,' she said to any one who asked) and pulled out a vial of some kind of potion. "It took us a while, since I'm not exactly good at Potions, and we had to sneak into the Potion's classroom-but I tried it out myself and it works. It's an everlasting elixir, so it'll last forever and we don't have to keep making it."
"What is it?" Ginny asked. Luna answered for her.
"It's called the Invigoration Draught." Ginny turned to Hannah to make sure Luna was right, and that it wasn't one of those imaginary things she spoke of like nargles and crumpled horn snorkacks. "It gives the taker energy," Luna continued.
"That's…that's brilliant, Hannah! How come we never thought of that before?" Neville shook his head. "And it's everlasting, too-Merlin, I could never brew an Invigoration Draught, much less an everlasting one."
"Good job, Hannah!"
"Yeah! Excellent. Really excellent!"
Hannah blushed as her fellow members praised her. "Susan helped," she said, when she saw Susan's face of jealousy. Soon the praises were directed to her.
Hannah and Susan looked at each other. They were totally getting used to this rebellion thing.
"It's all thanks to you, really."
Hannah had stayed back for the first time, telling her friend to go on without her. She said she wanted to talk to Neville about the new assignment (Live life 'til you're dead)-but Susan could tell she was lying (It's pretty straightforward, Hannah. Just live life.) She rolled her eyes and left her, nevertheless.
Neville spun around. "What's all thanks to me?"
"Everything. I mean, I know that everyone's helping and what not, but you're the one who restarted DA. You're the one who stood up to the Carrows when everyone was just trying their best not to be in their way. You're the one who gave us the strength."
Hannah blushed when she finished, not believing that she had just said so much in one shot. She realized that she rarely talked for long these days (if she talked at all), which was strange because before she talked quite a lot.
Neville stared at the ground and replied humbly, "Ginny and Luna did a lot, too."
"Yeah. But you're the fighter." With that, Hannah pecked Neville on the cheek and ran out the door, on the way thinking that perhaps this life wasn't too different from before. Other than an evil wizard named Voldemort, of course (yes, Voldemort, a wise man once said that fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself), but hell, they had Harry Potter, the DA, and a fighter.
They were undefeatable.
