This is set in seventh year, whilst the Golden Trio are away chasing Horcruxes. It follows the students left in Hogwarts, including Ginny and Neville etc.

There is an OC (because not having Harry, Hermione or Ron there wasn't enough of a risk to my taste), but please don't worry.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter etc, and the OC is made up but her last name, Kettleburn, is not, it is from the universe of Harry Potter and I am picturing her as related to Silvanus Kettleburn, who used to be professor of Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts (he is a real charafter). She herself is not in Harry Potter originally.

Please let me know if you enjoy the story, and if you don't, then don't say anything (my poor heart would not take it!) and I'll know ;)

Chapter 1

"Well," says Amycus Carrow, leering at them from over his greenish, sweaty, wobbly cheeks. "Enough Fiendfyre for today."

The class cringes. There are fifteen minutes yet left to the lesson, which can only mean one thing.

"I've brought you a little treat. You're going to practise the Cruciatus Curse... On little Denny here."

A tiny second year student is beckoned over to the front of the seventh year classroom, where he stands shaking like a lead and looking like he's about to burst into tears.

Emma Kettleburn and the rest of her Hufflepuff table look down at their parchments, pretending to be scribbling a last few notes on Fiendfyre, praying not to get picked.

On a Friday, Dark Arts succeed to Muggle Studies, and that is just about what they can endure before collapsing into the weekend. One Carrow sibling is bad enough, but one after the other? You need a good two days of hiding in your common room to recover.

Emma does not want to get picked. She's already had to endure Alecto Carrow, the professor of Muggle Studies, talking about the sexual bestiality of Muggle men and singling her out as a half blood witch, trying to get her to give anecdotes of times when she'd witnessed Muggle men being pigs. Not getting anywhere with her interrogation, the toad like Death Eater had forcefully extracted a memory from Emma's summer, when some idiots had whistled at her and her sisters on the street and they'd flipped them the fingers in return. It was a one time, isolated incident, but it'd clearly been enough to prove professor Carrow's point. To top it up nicely, Emma now has a raging headache from the forceful extraction.

Emma's father is a Squib, and her mother a muggle. She is the second of four sisters, and the only magical one. Her father, despite his having no magical talent himself, comes from an eminent wizarding family. Emma assumes this is why she has been allowed to return to Hogwarts - she must somehow fall under "half blood" rather than "muggle born" on the Ministry's charts... That or old Bathsheba Kettleburn pulled some strings. Apparently, Emma's paternal grandmother is kind of a big deal amongst pure blood families... And there'd been a Hogwarts professor, at some point. If only poor Justin had been so lucky.

Emma's eyes wander over to where their friend Justin Finch-Fletchley would be sitting, had he not had the misfortune of being muggle born and therefore forbidden from attending his final year. Is he on the run? Is he alive? Is he being his hilarious, posh self somewhere abroad? Oh, she can just picture him-

"Someone from the HuffyPuffy table, Miss Kettleburn, maybe?"

Emma freezes, as dread creeps up her spine. Amycus Carrow is right there in front of her. She can almost hear the dried up foam of spit quivering at the corners of his mouth with each breath he draws.

"Er..."

"Can I have a go, professor? " Someone from the Slytherin table pipes up. She's pretty sure it's Nott.

"That's good effort, Theodore, but you had a go last week, and none of this lot have tried yet. Four weeks into their seventh year, and I'm not sensing a great deal of enthusiasm from the badgers. "

Emma winces. Oh please, if the Slytherin weirdos wants to do it, let them...

"At least they're taking notes," says someone in a strong, confident voice. "I've not even bothered with that."

Emma holds back a chuckle at Neville Longbottom 's obvious provocation. Susan Bones snorts.

"Longbottom," seethes professor Carrow. " You-"

"I mean, I did write the date, then for lesson title I put 'same as last week', then I think I've been trying to draw something... " Neville pretends to flick through his pieces of parchment. "What do you think, Parvati, is that supposed to be like a toad, or a ... ?"

All eyes turn to the Gryffindor table, amused by Neville's antics. The Carrow siblings are so dense they still haven't figured out that Neville always picks up arguments with them when they practise the Unforgivables, to waste lesson time. It works.

Emma, Susan and Ernie are in awe of the Gryffindor. He's so, so brave. Their friend Hannah Abbott, currently retaking her sixth year, will be delighted to hear about this.

Professor Carrow stomps his way over to the Gryffindor table and takes a look at Neville's parchment.

"Incendio!"

The parchment goes up in flames, and Carrow returns to the front of the class, flustered.

"I'll do it myself," he barks, after taking a look at the clock. "Watch." Seven minutes to go.

Carrow raises his wand, and the whole class holds their breath as little Denny begins crying. The Death Eater is about to cast his spell when, just to his left, a piece of parchment lifts off his desk and begins a shaky, awkward journey towards the Gryffindor table, rubbing on the professor's face on the way.

"Oops, sorry, professor," says Neville , wand drawn, tongue out and one eye shut in mock concentration. The class chuckles nervously.

"Longbottom! What are you -!?"

"You burned my parchment, professor. I'm just getting a new one..."

Carrow shoots a ball of Fiendfyre at the parchment, and Neville laments, loud enough for all to hear: "oh, now I've got to start again..."

Another piece of parchment flies off the desk and this time reaches Neville at record speed.

"Got it!"

" Shut up! "

"Sorry, professor. Continue."

"Damn Longbottom... Where were we..."

" Damn Longbottom... " whispers Neville, far too audibly, as his quill noisily scratches across his fresh piece of parchment. "Where were we..."

The class laughs.

"Denny, out!" Shouts professor Carrow. "And YOU, Longbottom!"

" Gotta go! "

Neville bolts out the door as the clock strikes three, signalling the end of the lesson and the start of the weekend.

All students, even the Slytherins, gather their things and leave the room as fast as they can. Rough and rougher duo Grabbe and Goyle join in, lured away from the sweet prospect of torturing a child by the even sweeter prospect of patrolling corridors over the weekend. All the arseholes have been made prefects, this year.

"Ladies," says Ernie in his usual, slightly pompous manner, as he catches up to Emma and Hannah, who has emerged from a Transfiguration classroom. Susan is chatting happily with Parvati Patil, just ahead of them. "Looking forward to the game tomorrow,are we not? Slytherin versus Gryffindor... Should be a great game. Heard Ginny Weasley is going to play seeker, now Potter's away. "

"Cool!" Hannah's eyes are full of stars. "She's so cool..."

"I'm probably going to give it a miss," says Emma, quietly, because Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini from Slytherin are walking rather close to them. "It'll probably be rigged, so Slytherin wins..."

"You're not that into Quidditch anyway, though, are you, Emma?" Asks Hannah .

"I am! Well... I mean, I always go when Hufflepuff are playing..."

"I just go and support whoever is not Slytherin," says Susan from above her own shoulder.

"I just feel like hiding in the common room after this week..."

" Yeah, she always picks on you, doesn't she, the she-Carrow."

"They're just vile."

" Who? " asks Zacharias Smith, appearing from a side corridor.

"The Carrows," replies Emma in as low a voice as possible, because they've all reached the Hall now and Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students have left for their towers, leaving Slytherin and Hufflepuff to make their way towards kitchens and dungeons, respectively. Nott and Zabini are still a bit too close for comfort.

"Oh yeah," agrees Zacharias, "They're the stuff of nightmares. Do you know what, I reckon they're like...together."

"Ew!" Squeals Hannah .

"Thanks for the image, old boy," says Ernie.

"I reckon they might find each other's repulsiveness attractive."

"His spit foam..." Lists Emma . " Her sweat moustache... "

Someone snorts from behind them, and the Hufflepuffs turn to see Nott looking away, and Zabini glaring at them. Without a word, the Slytherins storm past them and down the steps to their dungeons.

"These two are the worst," says Ernie. "Though Grabbe and Goyle are pretty awful. "

"He volunteered," shivers Emma, watching the space where the tall, sharp figure of Theodore Nott stood just moments before. "He always volunteers to torture the kids."

This, however, reminds Emma to tell Hannah of what Neville Longbottom did during the class, and no other topic gets discussed until well after dinner.

"He is so brave," Hannah repeats for the umpteenth time, later that evening as the three girls are sitting on their beds in their dormitory. There used to be a fourth girl, Jane Jones, but she is a muggle born, and she hasn't returned after the summer holidays. "He just stands up to them, just like that!" Hannah is fiddling with a gold coin. " I wonder when there will be another DA meeting... "

"Missing him already?" teases Emma.

"There's not going to be any meetings, surely," says Susan. "Not with everything that's happening. Harry's not there, neither are Ron and Hermione, and I mean with all the Death Eaters and the Slytherins and Snape...it'd be suicide, don't you think? "

Emma agrees with Susan, even though she's got to admit that she, too, misses Dumbledore's Army.

"Neville might pick it up?" She suggests, not wanting to crush Hannah's good mood.

"He might," Susan buts in, "but he's no Harry Potter. "

"Still, it's inspiring, don't you think? I wish I were that brave." Hannah looks up at the ceiling, voicing her thoughts aloud . "I wish there was some way to get back at them, somehow. Like, something that would piss them off, benefit us... Something that would make us feel like we're winning, for once. "

"I'd love to get my magazines back," says Susan . "You know, the ones that Pansy Parkinson confiscated on the train?"

"That's it!" shrieks Hannah, her blond hair flying as she whips her head round to face Susan. "We could get our stuff back! Steal it back from them!"

"We can't just walk into the Slytherin dungeons and just casually get my magazines back...anyway, Pansy would know straight away that it was me. "

"We could get everyone's stuff back! Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor...All the stuff confiscated by Slytherin! They wouldn't know who to accuse! That would help the DA-"

" Alright, well, that still doesn't change the fact that we can't just walk in -"

" Slytherin are playing tomorrow, though, their common room will be empty -"

"We don't know that, and getting caught trying to figure out the stupid password-"

Emma watches her two friends bicker, amused. Hannah is tall and blond, with a long face, and Susan is short, red headed and round faced. One is talkative and easily excited, the other is stern and sensible.

"We'd need luck," says Emma , thinking of her own muggle pens, taken away from her on day 2. She hates quills. "Have we still got that empty bottle of Felix Felicis Jane picked up last year?"

They find the bottle in Jane's otherwise deserted bedside table. It is the bottle Harry Potter won the year before, and it's been finished then discarded by members of the DA at the end of the summer term. Jane found it on the floor. The girls reckon you can still get a good drop out of it. Not enough for three, but maybe for one, for a short amount of time...40 minutes, perhaps...

In an uncharacteristic bout of bravery, Emma volunteers.

The next day, Susan and Hannah join the rest of Hogwarts as they head for the Quidditch pitch, leaving Emma behind.

The young witch gets about two drops out of the empty bottle, sticking her little finger inside to collect every little bit of liquid gold. Nothing seems to happen at first, and she's about to call it a day when her mind and heart fill with a sense of calm, content, and confidence, and the world seems bright and endless. Getting inside the Slytherin dungeons and retrieving all the DA's confiscated items? Easy peasy. Probably didn't even need luck potion for that. In fact, she's just going to head down there right now. She'll just knock on the door, that seems like the right thing to do.

Emma picks up her bag and makes her way to the entrance of the Slytherin common room, encountering nobody at all. Pleased with herself, and with the world in general, she confidently knocks on the wall where she knows the door is concealed. When nothing happens, Emma assumes that no one is in, and she tries the door knob that kindly appears for her. The door materialises from the stone then opens, from the inside, and Theodore Nott stands in front of her, peering down down at her with a surprised look on his face.

Emma calmly details his appearance. He's tall, with high and sharp cheekbones and a pointy chin. He's got dark brown eyes and hair, sleeked back on his head. He's got thin lips, and she's never really seen him smile.

"Hi," she greets him, like it's completely normal for her to be there.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm Emma."

"I know, what are you doing here?"

"I was..." She looks around, searching for an excuse, but the luck potion tells her to just be honest with the pure blooded Slytherin. "To be honest, I was trying to get in, because I wanted to get my pen back."

" What?" he blinks.

"My pen. My fountain pen, it's kind of like a quill but way more practical. Vincent Grabbe confiscated it from me, and I'm pretty sure it's in here."

He blinks again, his eyes sweeping over her face, probably trying to work out whether she is pulling his leg or just plain crazy.

"So you just...came here."

" Yep. "

"You knocked on the door, and tried to open it."

" I did, yes. "

"You need a password to enter," he informs her, with something of a smile now forming at the corner of his lips.

" Ah...so...what's the password, then? " Felix Felicis makes Emma give Theodore Nott a wide, dazzling smile, and wriggle her eyebrows at him. "Is it... 'please' ?"

Now smiling openly, Nott rubs his face with a long, pale hand and leans over to check that there's no one around. Having confirmed the absence of witnesses, he seems to falter, weighing his options. Eventually, he steps back, opening the door a little wider and gesturing for her to come in.

Emma smiles even brighter, entering this serpent's lair with no fear at all. The room is dark, decorated with stone and wood carvings, lit by green lanterns, and its tall windows give onto what appears to be the bottom of the Lake.

"There's no one here," says Nott. "They're all at the game."

"Is that a mermaid?"

Emma excitedly rushes to try and catch another glimpse of the magical creature which just swam past the windows.

"Yes. We see the Giant Squid, sometimes."

"Really? That's so cool. We just see the odd rabbit... My friend Hannah once said a unicorn came close to the windows."

Nott walks towards a great wardrobe, opening it to reveal shelves covered with a wide variety of objects, all confiscated by Slytherin prefects since the beginning of the year.

Standing beside him, Emma recognises her pen, still there. She picks it up, checking it over.

"So that's your...pen?"

"It is. My mum got it for me for my seventeenth birthday."

"You know you're not allowed this in school, don't you?"

"It's a fountain pen," she explains, and his brows furrow in confusion. "It writes like a quill, the teachers can't tell the difference."

After a quick internal debate, Felix Felicis wins and Emma decides to push her luck. She puts a hand on the wardrobe doors just as Nott is about to shut them, and peers inside with feigned curiosity.

"Wow, there's a lot of stuff in there isn't there... That's my friend Susan's magazines, can I take those too? For her? Oh and here's Parvati Patil's sneakcoscope... And Ginny Weasley's Pygmy Puff, now, that's a living creature, you can't just leave it in a cupboard to die..." She's stuffing her bag as she speaks.

"Pansy's been feeding it...what are you doing?"

Shouldering her bag, now full of all the objects and treasures that were previously in the wardrobe, Emma looks back at him with wide eyes.

"Just... Taking the lot?" She begins scurrying away.

"Taking- wait, no, they'll notice- wait!"

He catches up to her as she's about to reach the door to the common room.

"You can't just take everything."

And then Felix makes Emma do something completely insane, completely unnatural, completely out of character, and yet devastatingly effective... She stands on her tiptoes and places one hand on his hollow cheek as well as a five second long kiss just at the corner of his mouth. As she falls back on her heels, Emma sees that Nott is completely stunned, staring at her with a somewhat fearful and awed expression.

"Tell them you were at the library," she suggests. "We can say we were there together?"

"They won't- they-"

"I owe you. You can trust me, I'm a Hufflepuff. I'm loyal. Thank you, Theo."

And with that, Emma leaves the Slytherin common room. She feels like she's winning.

It is said that when Felix Felicis wears off, you have to go through a significant amount of bad luck as the universe balances the odds again. Emma is about to find this out the hard way.