And yet another oneshot. Perhaps, if I keep writing these, my writer's block will magically disappear and I'll be able to update my other fic…
Hope
She entered the train. Alone. There were no brothers, no Harry, no Ron, no Hermione. She was dreading this year, no, it wasn't dread; it was something more like terror. She was terrified of what Hogwarts would be like this year; with Snape, with the Carrows, and without Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore.
She hurried down the train, looking neither left nor right, but keeping her eyes out for those two people; the only two whose faces could possibly make things even a little better, a little less terrifying, and a little less lonely.
She finally saw one of them, him. She was quite surprised by relief she felt upon the sight of his face.
"Neville," she breathed gratefully, the amount of relief in her voice seemed to startle him.
He smiled, looking quite pleased to see her. He leaned forward and scanned the area directly behind her with a wistful sort of hope.
"Not even Ron?" he asked
"Of course not. Do you honestly think he'd even consider coming back here when Harry and Hermione are out there doing god knows what with the Ministry after them?" she said with an amount of bitterness in her voice that seemed to surprise Neville.
Well, she was bitter. They always did this to her. Always. No matter how much they liked her, accepted her, loved her even, she was always on the sidelines. She was never privy to their plans, their suspicions, their battles. She would always be "Ron's little sister" to them. No matter how many battles they let her take part in, and no matter how close they were to her, she would always be the fourth wheel.
"No, I reckon not," said Neville quietly, choosing not to comment on her tone of voice.
She sat down across from him slightly awkwardly; neither of them quite knew what to say.
It came as a relief when the compartment door swung open and a familiar pair of radish earrings came dangling into sight.
"Oh good, you're here," she said happily, as if they their school hadn't been overrun by Death Eaters.
"Of course we are."
"So what are we doing this year?"
"What do you mean?" the other two asked.
"Well, Death Eaters will be teaching this year, and Professor Snape is in charge."
"What can we do? They'll kill, or torture us if we try to pull anything off on them," was the glum response.
Luna looked mildly disapproving.
"Harry would do something."
"Well, perhaps you haven't noticed, but Harry isn't here," snapped Ginny.
Luna didn't seem to be overly concerned by Ginny's hostility; she merely smiled and fished through her trunk for the latest edition of The Quibbler. Neville, who was deep in thought, didn't even seem to notice the exchange.
"Maybe Luna has a point," Neville mused, "if they were here they certainly wouldn't sit around on their backsides and do nothing."
"I'm not saying that we shouldn't to anything Neville, I'm just—oh I don't know what I mean," she said as she buried her head in her hands with an intense sort of frustration.
Luna said nothing, but merely put a comforting arm around Ginny and returned to her Quibbler.
Ginny shot her a grateful smile.
They sat in silence after that, each lost in their own thoughts. The idea of rebellion seemed like a good one to all of them, but it frightened them terribly at the same time. Two years ago they had rebelled, but that time it had been against Umbridge, and the Ministry. No one's life had been at stake, no one's family was at risk, and most importantly, the three of them had not been at the forefront.
If they did choose to rebel, and carry on whatever it was that Harry, and Ron, and Hermione had started, they would be going directly against Voldemort, and they would be the ones at the forefront.
The silence stretched on, as they own sat immersed in their own thoughts. After about an hour of this—by this time Ginny was dozing off on Luna's shoulder, Luna was buried in her copy of The Quibbler, and Neville was staring thoughtfully out of the window—the compartment door opened once more, and a loud, familiar voice greeted them, jolting them out of their respective reveries.
The three of them swiveled their heads around to the compartment door, and were surprised to see Michael Corner's face grinning out at them.
"Brilliant, you're here. We were hoping you would be."
" 'We?' "
Michael grinned again, but instead of answering he turned around and gestured to someone standing behind him.
Michael entered the compartment with none other than Hannah Abbott, Lavender Brown, Susan Bones, Terry Boot, Seamus Finnigan, Anthony Goldstein, Ernie Macmillan, Parvati Patil, and Padma Patil behind him. Once the lot of them had managed to cram themselves into the small compartment (Padma was practically in Anthony's lap, not that he minded), they all looked around rather sadly.
"So none of them came back, eh?" asked Anthony wistfully.
"Were you expecting them too?" Ginny replied with her eyebrows raised.
"Nah, I was just hoping."
"What are they doing?" asked Hannah, in a voice heavy with worry and concern.
Ginny gave a hollow laugh.
"Damned if I know. They never tell me anything. All I know is that it's exceedingly dangerous and I haven't seen them in over a month."
There was an awkward pause; none of them knew how to reply to that.
"So," said Lavender loudly, obviously hoping to bring an end to the awkward silence, "what are we going to do?"
"Yeah, we're not going to take all this lying down, are we?" asked Seamus.
Neville considered the lot of them.
"You want to take them on?"
"Of course I do, we all do," said Seamus, sounding shocked that Neville would have to ask.
"Why wouldn't we, Neville? We joined that DA to learn how to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It wasn't a game to us then, and it most certainly isn't now. You didn't think that we'd all just sit back, forget everything Harry taught us, and let them take over our school. Did you?" Susan exclaimed angrily.
"No, of course I didn't, I just—"
"—You just didn't think that any of us would be willing to stick our heads out now that it's serious," finished Parvati with a slight smile.
Neville, Ginny, and Luna all looked rather ashamed of themselves.
"Eh, we won't hold it against you," said Terry good-naturedly. "Going back to what Susan said, though; with Harry and them out there doing what is probably more than their share of the fighting in this war, don't you think we owe it to them to finish what they started?-They're not alone in this fight, and they shouldn't have to be."
Luna, Neville, and Ginny took in what Terry said for a moment, and then Ginny and Luna looked over at Neville, who seemed to have come to a decision. He bent over, opened his trunk, and grasped about for a moment. He finally emerged with something large and shiny in his fist. He held it up to all of them with a slight grin.
"Do you lot have your DA coins with you?"
"One step ahead of you, mate," said Seamus gleefully as they all extricated their coins from their pockets.
"Well then," said Ginny, obviously encouraged by this development "let's get started then."
There was a bit of a scuffle as everyone attempted to squeeze into a seat. Once they were all seated (Padma was now completely in Anthony's lap, whether or not it was intentional, none of them could tell), Ginny looked around at the compartment filled with the familiar, eager faces of her classmates; all of them ready and willing to continue what had begun two years ago.
She smiled to herself as Neville began to speak; perhaps there was some hope after all.