Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter... obviously
"Miss Weasley."
The voice slithered up her spine and coiled around her gut. Ginny froze, on the final step, her body tensed in preparation to flee down the hall.
"Don't even think about it, girlie," another voice sneered. "There's a teacher down every corridor."
Slowly, Ginny stepped from bronze to stone and faced her foe, expression set in defiant determination as she readjusted her grip on both her wand and the heavy object clutched in her other hand. Her eyes flicked to her right and, sure enough, their twin was advancing down the opposite.
"Good evening, Professors," the redhead said, attempting a winning smile, highly aware that it wouldn't have the intended effect. She addressed the taller one directly, "Headmaster? It's odd to see you so far from your offices at this late hour."
The corner of Snape's mouth rose slightly in a knowing smirk. "We both know why I'm here, Miss Weasley."
"Sorry, sir, I don't recall-."
"Shut it, you feral child!" screeched the woman on her right. Her voice was arguably more horrendous than the face it came out of. Full of malice and hatred and unadulterated rage: the tones of a self-assured madman. "Give us the object you stole from the headmaster's quarters."
"Yes, give it back and there won't be any punishment," added Amycus, "or at least, not to some of your little companions we found skulking around the seventh floor."
Alecto cackled with glee at her brother's apparent wit, "Oh what fun we'll have playing with them!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ginny waffled steadily, despite the violent tattoo of her heart in her ears. "Maybe you misplaced it? Have you checked under the bed?"
Before she could say another word, she was suddenly yanked backwards by her hair, stumbling towards the floor only to be painfully dangled until she scrambled to her feet. She heard the clatter of wood as her wand rolled away from her and felt another wand connect with her throat. The unknown man's vile breath caressed her neck and slithered into her nostrils, causing her to gag and struggle against his arms.
"Little girls need to be taught to keep their mouths shut," he hissed, causing goose bumps to ricochet down her arms. "We've caught at least six of the mongrels," he said to Snape. "Two of them just around the corner and the rest we think were guarding the other halls of the floor."
Ginny wrestled with her captor and got enough leeway to see Neville and Luna being dragged up behind them. It appeared they'd put up quite a fight from the blood leaking into Neville's eyes from a nasty cut and Luna's wincing as her captor grabbed what looked like a dislocated shoulder.
A hint of pride shot through her at the glimpse of her co-conspirators. Their faces reflecting the same tenacity and hatred and Ginny knew that they could face whatever Snape and his cronies could concoct.
After all, it wasn't the first time.
"Ok," Ginny said finally. "Take your fucking sword." And with these words she jumped, flinging her legs up so her body weight overwhelmed the death eater, who was thrown to the ground. She crawled behind him and grabbed her fallen wand and the weighty purple sack. Bursts of light near her indicated that her friends had recovered their wands and she rose and surveyed the scene, making sure to stun Rowle as he attempted to get up. Neville and Luna had been freed by two Ravenclaws who were duelling the twins whilst four Hufflepuffs distracted the rest.
One teacher was suspiciously absent. Ginny scanned the melee trying to find him and began to advance forward, preparing to throw her first curse when she was stopped by a cold voice behind her.
"The sword, Weasley."
A feeling of dread sank through her as she whirled around, wand coming up too late as she felt it yanked from her hand by an invisible force. The momentum carried her forward, right into the robes of her headmaster, the infamous murderer, the emotionless fiend. Snape grabbed her by the chin and forced her to meet his black eyes and she felt like a little girl again, trapped by Riddle's curse. Paralysed. The sack was gently removed from her rigid hand he appraised her harshly.
"And what…" he said, "were you planning to do with this?"
Ginny did not reply, biting her tongue so fiercely she felt blood drip down her throat. It was no use, his eyes felt like heat pushing against butter, her brain turning soft as she let him read everything.
"Ah, of course… to help dear Potter," he spat. "Well, I think this deserves another year of detention, don't you? And we may have to try some new techniques since the Unforgiveables seem to have little effect on your actions."
"Fuck you," she choked.
Snape smiled, and everything went black.
Hannah waited.
Listless.
Sunken.
Bored.
Impatient.
All the worst moods when one is trying to distract themselves descended upon Hannah like an unwelcome visit from Peeves. The common room was abandoned at this time of the night and she had taken great advantage, spread across a sofa with one leg draped over the back. In her thin nightgown, anyone coming down the stairs would have got quite the eyeful.
She didn't care.
It had been a long time since Hannah had shown any interest in herself or what people thought. It hardly seemed important now. Her once shiny blonde hair had grown long and matted, giving her the look of a heroin addict, the red-rimmed eyes supporting the comparison. The impeccable nails which had been the cause of much jealousy from other girls in previous years were chewed to the bone, leaving the tips of her fingers slightly red with dried blood. The robes, which had clung to her burgeoning hips and bosom, now hung lank and oversized and unwashed upon her daytime persona. On close inspection, the gold-rimmed spectacles dangling from her short fingers was the only part of her person that shined.
'A crushed daisy'
That's what he had called her.
With a small exhale Hannah stretched her arms over the armrest behind her head. This action caused a stale odour to waft across her face. She grimaced, he had probably been right. Thoughts of a shower crossed her mind and she definitely wanted to get up. But wanting and doing are two very different concepts.
Before Hannah could berate herself yet again, the wooden hole opposite the staircase burst open to reveal a small chain of slouched Hufflepuff's. The small girl jumped to her feet and ran across the room just in time for Ernie to hop through and close the barrelled entrance behind him.
"Where have you been!?" she scolded, taking in their tattered appearance. "You look a right mess."
"Don't start Hannah," sighed Zacharias, striding past her before falling heavily in a bulbous armchair by the fire. "We've had a bad enough night without your cluckiness."
Hannah ignored him and surveyed the damage. "Ernie that cut looks nasty, I think I should patch it up."
"I don't think that'll be necessary, thank you, Hannah," replied the plump boy, clutching his bleeding forearm. "Can't have a squabble without a bit of blood."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Ernie," snapped Susan, whose flushed skin had faded to expose her pale, dazed colouring. "Let her give you something and I'll take a look at it."
The boy opened his mouth to argue then promptly shut it, knowing not to argue with the other girl. Hannah pouted in sympathy and moved to the rickety shelves in the corner of their humble abode, where all sorts of beverages and food were kept for emergencies such as this one. She shifted through the bottles carrying all sorts, from a hearty Bailey's to a sluggish purple vapour, and listened to the faint murmur of her settling friends. A slight glimmer of contentment shone through the hazy depression; she had a purpose, she was needed, she was important. Susan could physically heal, but Hannah could handle a horrible night.
When she returned to the cluster of armchairs she placed the tray of steaming mugs upon a little table and handed one to the final member of the group.
"Wayne, what about you?" asked Hannah. "Any injuries? Or maybe you can let me know what I missed out on."
"Ah, yeah," said Wayne, his eyes flickering to the others who were too wrapped up in making Ernie sit still to give him any indicating gestures. "Well, basically, we got the sword for like two seconds before they caught us."
"And then?"
The square-face boy ran a hand over his weary features. "Er… we don't really know to be honest. We fought them for a bit but then we all blacked out and when we woke up they were all gone… as well as Ginny, Neville and Luna."
"Merlin," Hannah took a seat on the floor and handed out the rest of the drinks, eyes fixed upon the storyteller. "You reckon they'll be okay this time?"
"They're tough," Zacharias chimed in, leaning back into the gingerbread coloured pillows. "Admittedly annoying as fuck but what else can you say for a bunch of Gryffindors?"
"You can talk," muttered Wayne under his breath, and Hannah giggled.
Susan groaned as she finally moved away from her patient whose arm was swathed in bandages which smelt curiously floral. "They'll survive, but I'm not worried about them."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," she continued with a sigh, "that I don't think a few bouts of the Cruciatus curse or Umbridge's foul techniques will be good enough for them; at least not now that we've pulled this stunt. They know it's not effective anymore."
Ernie leant forward, wincing slightly as he placed some weight on his sore arm and softly asked, "And what on earth is worse than torture?"
A morbid silence fell on the tiny group as the realisation struck them all simultaneously. An idea too horrible to comprehend, yet it made perfect sense. Susan bit her lip and took a deep breath, holding her composure as she vaguely stroked Ernie's hand. Wayne buried his face in his large hands and continued the steady breathing. They were the sunflowers, the friendly faces, the light at the end of the tunnel, but some moments couldn't be mended with cheer.
"Tomorrow we keep an eye on everyone in Hufflepuff," said Zacharias suddenly, making them jump. "No exceptions. That's the best we can do."
Hannah looked at the floor and nodded, tears gripping her eyes.
If only their best was enough.
Twenty-four hours earlier
Padma's head connected with the cool wood, tuning out the incessant babbling of the people around her. It wasn't that she didn't care, but they had tweaked and finalised these plans a thousand times and she wasn't really integral to the discussion. Someone would tell her where to be and she'd follow, after all, it was a bit too late to make any dramatic changes.
"Well Ginny has taken her first victim," said a cheerful voice beside her. "Padma, seventeen, deceased."
Terry got a few snorts in reply and she slowly raised her head to find the majority of the group still debating and talking over each other, the volume rising in waves. The blame could be pinned on the Gryffindor's for the noise level, but the instigator had clearly been Zacharias Smith who was red-faced and staring defiantly at the imposing Ginny Weasley.
"How am I being unhelpful?" the pointy-faced boy exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his hands. "I was simply wondering why, out of all of Dumbledore's Army, you get to delegate our positions?"
"We've been over this, it's a democracy, you don't have to accept everything I tell you," Ginny replied, her clenched hands belying her steady tone.
"And do you really want to be the one to go into Snape's office?" added Neville, wearily, looking up from his discussion with Hannah Abbott.
Zacharias frowned and shook his head in silence, but this did little to decrease the noise since many conversations were still taking place: Anthony Goldstein and Wayne Hopkins were resolving any potential flaws in their supporting roles, Parvati and Seamus Finnigan had their heads together, comparing the available staff night patrol schedules to the hallways they had chosen, while Michael Corner on Padma's other side vaguely nodded along to Luna's theory on Alecto Carrow's apparent horde of flesh-eating pixies.
"Are we nearly done?" she muttered to Terry.
"Must be, it's almost curfew," he replied, giving her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.
Almost in reply Ginny cleared her throat and stepped into the middle of the room, "Thanks for your patience everyone, I'm gonna finalise everyone's roles and then we can all head to bed before any dickheads can dole out a detention."
Everyone fell silent and waited for their name to be read out. Five would guard the sixth floor, seven would be on the seventh, some were paired off and given an area of potential unexpected activity where they could use the coins to warn of incoming danger, and the rest were to stay in their common rooms for back-up and alibis. The sixth floor group briefly convened before the meeting broke-up for the night, Padma struggling to keep her eyes open.
It was primarily seventh and sixth years participating since they had later curfews and greater resilience to the cruel punishments the new staff had introduced. Padma looked at her arm, gently tracing the long white scar she had attained in her last detention. She knew she had experienced less punishment than most of her friends; Seamus' ear hadn't stopped bleeding for two weeks, Susan Bones' had ripped out a chunk of her hair whilst under the Cruciatus curse, and a huge bruise blossomed over Colin Creevey's cheek like spilt ink in the snow. The pain was nothing. The purpose was everything. But Padma feared that next time she heard her sister scream in horror, she might just give them the information to stop the feeling of her heart being yanked out of her throat.
"Padma?" said Terry. Her head whipped up to see everyone moving around her. "Come on, my melancholic daydreamer, it's nearly our time to go."
"Sorry, I was just…" She stopped, smiling at him, "Melancholic daydreamer?"
"Well, it's not inaccurate," he remarked smartly.
Padma stood, rolling her eyes. "I spend too much time with you, I think I need an upgrade."
"The only person better than me will be our son," he said as they made their way to the door.
"Our son!?" she exclaimed loudly, causing Parvati to make eye contact, chuckling.
"Well, naturally, I assumed that in ten years you'll start wanting to have a child, but you still won't have found a man quite good enough. So you will turn to me, the eligible bachelor and best friend to achieve your motherly dreams." They excited through the door which disappeared behind them, still talking.
Padma stopped walking, shaking her head in dismay. "I'm getting too old for this… and anyway," her thoughts strayed back to her previous premonitions, "who says the world will still be here?"
"Oh, aren't you a ray of sunshine," quipped Terry, but his grave expression matched hers.
She reached out a solemn hand and he grasped it, gently tugging her into an embrace. Padma hesitated, usually uncomfortable with the action, but recognised their mutual need for support and returned his firm hug. Her head rested on his shoulder and she bathed in the warm assurance of hearing someone else breathe for her, in knowing all her fears were shared.
"Ah geez, it's five to," Terry said suddenly, "we'd better get a jiggle on."
"I'm glad you're here," she replied, not really talking about his acute sense of time.
He gave a sad smile in return, "I'm glad you're here too."
Return to night of the raid
Pansy lounged upon an unused desk, delicately inspecting her fingernails in a practised air of disdain. Behind the thick bangs, her brain whirred at a high speed, processing the recent events in she had been witness to in Hogwarts castle.
A groan sounded below her eyeline and Pansy peered past her legs at the pale face of pudgy Longbottom, who had been thrown through the door a few hours ago and now lay in partial paralysis while the professors decided what to do with the perpetrators. His eyes connected to hers, syrupy brown to metallic black, defiance to disgust. She smirked at the glimmer of bravery all Gryffindor's possessed that never seemed to die, much to their demise.
"Don't worry, Longbottom," Pansy said sweetly, "I heard you got off easy compared to your friends."
She enjoyed the muffled respondent anger. A character growth of sorts had come upon her in the past year; retiring the well-worn physical insults and personal curses, Pansy had realised that every person in the castle, and every person in the world, had something they specifically fought for. That something was the perfect ammunition.
This realisation helped her ascend from hanging around her Slytherin counterparts, to getting a level of respect rivalled only by Malfoy when he had still been attending the school. But he was gone, and the school was hers.
The door opened, and Snape entered, his face unusually sunken. He approached the girl and she slid off the desk to address him.
"He hasn't said anything more, professor," said Pansy. "But if you let me use my own techniques I swear he would-."
The potions master cut her off with a raised hand. "That isn't necessary, Miss Parkinson, we have discussed this."
"But-."
"Enough," he snapped. "Go to back to your dormitory, I can handle Mister Longbottom from here."
Swallowing her retort, Pansy nodded and exited the room. Yes, she had enviable influence with Hogwarts, but Snape was just as hard to crack as he was her first year. Maybe more so. Despite being a Slytherin, she could never shake the feeling that the potions master disliked her. He constantly payed attention to Malfoy, fawning over him (or as close to fawning as Snape was able), he even assisted Crabbe and Goyle in their pursuits, giving them greater leeway than she was granted.
Breathing heavily, Pansy made her way through the seventh floor, enjoying the surreal image of her shadows creeping along beside her, skewed at different angles from the candle brackets lining the ancient walls. It gave one the odd appearance of having a billowing cloak or embodying a many-legged spider. It was because of this preoccupation that it took many seconds before Pansy acknowledged the voices she heard, faintly echoing through the castle.
The girl moved quietly to the top of the next staircase and, pressing her sternum against the banisters, cocked her head into the flickering space. The noise was louder here and just as she began to tip over the edge, she spotted the back of two uniforms at the far end of a hallway, right in her path. Her eyes lit up with possibility. If she caught someone up after hours, it gave her the perfect excuse to question Snape about the decided punishments.
Pansy pulled out her wand and flitted down the staircase, watching the figures emerge out of the half-light. They turned as she hit the last step and her adrenaline vanished as she recognised the two brutish faces of Crabbe and Goyle.
"Parkinson?" remarked a confused Goyle. "What are you doing here?"
"I think I should be asking you the same question," said Pansy, curtly. "The fight ended almost an hour ago and it's past 2 in the morning, you should be back in your dormitories."
Crabbe snarled and stepped forward, "You don't tell us what to do, princess. Malfoy may be gone, but you don't own us."
"Interesting…" she replied, drawing up to her full height to look down her nose at the boys who towered over her, "because I was just with Snape and we were discussing new disciplines for students breaking curfew."
"Don't be stupid," Goyle scoffed. "We know the teachers don't trust you with punishments."
Pansy concealed her surprise at their new-found astuteness. "And what makes you believe that bullshit?"
The brutish friends shared a joyful glance and she felt her demeanour shift slightly, the façade of nonchalance sinking into cold appraisal. They may have shared the same house for the past seven years, but that didn't mean Pansy liked them. She constantly told Malfoy he could have more intelligent and visionary friends, and she had partially succeeded when Crabbe and Goyle had retaliated.
"Because the twins brought us into one of their meetings with the headmaster," said Goyle. "And we know how they're going to stop Dumbledore's Army from thinking they run this school."
"Don't flatter yourself," said Pansy steadily, "we were all told, and as I've said, you should be in bed…" A brief thought occurred to her and she raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here anyway? This is the Ravenclaw wing."
Crabbe shrugged. "Just clearing up the mess they left behind."
These words motivated Pansy to look past them to the corridor, concealed by their hulking forms. Without hesitation she advanced forward and shouldered past them to reveal the 'mess' they had mentioned.
What first caught her eye was the light refracting off the mess of charcoal hair, spread across the ground in a dark halo. It framed the face of a girl who Pansy briefly thought was simply asleep, her eyes closed in peaceful detachment. The serenity of expression was tattered by the deep gash running from the jawline to the collarbone, the bright red blood highlighted by the tawny skin.
"What… in Merlin's name," Pansy breathed, voice shaking in attempt to keep quiet, "have you imbeciles done?"
"This is only what the blood traitors deserve," one of them snarled in reply. "We caught her running to help her little friends."
Pansy wasn't listening. Her robes pooled around her ankles as she moved towards the unconscious girl and knelt beside her head, noticing the cut had looked deeper from afar because of the vast amount of blood. She was still alive. Pansy stared down at the broken figure, the familiar feeling of supremacy creeping through her veins, causing her to reach out and part the bloody skin, watching the blood ooze out at a faster rate. The empowerment she felt, dominant over her enemy, descended from her head before exploding in her chest. Pansy snatched her stained fingers back, confusion ringing throughout her body.
She grabbed her robes and muttered a spell that caused ribbons of material to fall upon the floor. Pansy lay them out evenly before finally looking at the girl's face; it was familiar, but not greatly. She was the twin of the Gryffindor, the one who hung around the squealing girl. If she recalled properly Pansy remembered her sister being more opinionated and louder than her Ravenclaw counterpart. The Slytherin didn't even know her name. Yet here she was, slave to some unknown force propelling her to save one random Ravenclaw that was likely fighting on an opposing side of the war.
It was because the two idiots behind her hadn't obeyed protocol, she told herself, she was only doing it for the preservation of Slytherin house and the delicate control they had mustered over the school.
As she reached out to lift the girl's head from the ring of blood, Pansy was blasted backwards and slammed into the opposite wall. She looked up to see Crabbe's wand pointed at her while Goyle walked forward to stand over the Ravenclaw, menacing in his demeanour.
"You're fucking weak, Parkinson," growled her attacker. "Since when do you care about blood traitors? Or maybe you're just too emotional right now, showing your motherly side."
"Don't you dare touch me again," hissed Pansy, pushing herself back onto her feet, ignoring the dull ache of her bruised spine. Fire erupted in her chest, a rage unparalleled by anything she had felt in a long time. Pansy had missed this anger, this passion to harm, to teach someone not to mess with her.
"Oh yeah?" scoffed Goyle, ignoring the obvious signs of her internal fury. "You think we're afraid of a girl? A girl who's too weak to even hurt the firsties?"
Time paused for a second, the world seemingly taking a breath with her, giving her time to clear her head, time to turn her furious wrath into a calculated attack. In one movement she had pushed herself off the wall and swept her wand in a wide circle, screaming a curse that she couldn't recall afterwards, it had come from the impulse of adrenaline that had been building since she had seen the body and the fear that emerged at his last words. The two hulking figures, previously stoic in strength were flung backwards down the hall, hitting the stone with twin thuds that ensured they would not be interrupting her business anytime soon.
Without a second glance Pansy returned to the unconscious girl and gazed at her face, noting the long nose, thick eyelashes and full, pouty mouth. This girl who meant nothing to her suddenly had caused a rift with her companions and she still didn't know why.
The pureblood cupped the girl's face and lifted her heavy head, quickly sliding her tattered robes underneath, desperately recalling the charms lessons she hadn't listened to. Pansy pinched the two separate flaps of skin together, feeling the fluttering pulse beneath her fingertips, and whispered a gentle spell causing the blood to thicken and the healing process to accelerate.
She stared down the hallway as her work was completed, lips pursed in a hard line below the ends of her inky hair, ruffled from her impulsive actions.
No one could ever know.
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this introduction to my new story! It's certainly been a while since I've written fanfiction, so I would love feedback to help compound my writing skills. I kept the sections short and sweet just to introduce that characters and my portrayal of them, the next chapters will compound on this base through the events transpiring after the raid on Snape's office.