Disclaimer: Any familiar characters, settings or situations belong to J.K. Rowling
At exactly one o'clock in the morning the first Sunday back at Hogwarts, after prefects had finished their patrols and were certainly safely tucked up in bed, Neville, backpack slung over his shoulder, and Ginny, broomstick in hand, left Gryffindor tower and headed down towards the Entrance Hall where they were due to meet Luna. The short trip down to the Entrance Hall was complication free, though Neville and Ginny kept their wands at the ready just in case any trouble seemed to find them. Surely being out of bed so late past curfew would be grounds for a week's worth of formidable detentions with the Carrows, but if they managed to pull this off, the detentions would definitely be worth the risk.
Finding Luna, they set off into the Great Hall where Neville placed a backpack on the ground and retrieved a black can of enchanted spray paint, bought just for this occasion from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, and handed it to Ginny, who, undoubtedly being the best flyer of the three, was already mounting her broomstick. She took the spray can from Neville and looked from him to Luna, anticipation and excitement masking what little nerves she had.
"What should it say?" she asked, resting her light brown eyes on Luna.
"Dumbledore's Army, still recruiting," Luna responded in that serene voice of hers.
Ginny looked to Neville, who nodded his approval, and set off to cover the humongous right side of the Great Hall in big, black lettering. Twenty minutes or so later, Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting emblazoned the whole wall, and after placing a few extra irreversible charms to strengthen that of the ones already placed on the spray cans bought from Ginny's twin brothers, they set off to cover the walls of the many corridors that had the most traffic on a typical school day.
At about five in the morning, the last wall on the seventh floor was finished, and Luna and Neville were just placing the last irreversible charms on the last art piece as Mrs Norris came round the corner, stopped and meowed lowly, staring at the three out of bed students as if they were mice she was about to pounce on.
Neville swore. "Filch'll be here in a minute," he whispered hurriedly before looking at Luna. "Run!" Luna set off down a moving staircase and Neville and Ginny ran in the opposite direction to Mrs Norris, heading for Gryffindor Tower.
"Students out of bed, this late," the Fat Lady tutted as they came to a halt outside the portrait hole.
"Blood-traitors," Neville told the Fat Lady, but she continued on as if she hadn't heard them.
"I suppose you're back from whatever stunt you left four hours ago to pull. You should know better–"
"Blood-trait–"
"–this castle isn't safe anymore; danger sleeps within these very walls–"
"Blood-traitors!" Ginny shrieked at the Fat Lady, desperately hoping that Filch wasn't hot on their tail.
"Oh alright, no need to scream at me," the Fat Lady huffed, opening up for Neville and Ginny to scramble inside, all the while muttering about how ungrateful and stupidly death-defying Gryffindors could be at times like these.
Neville and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief as they collapsed onto the couch by the fire, exhausted. A few quiet minutes passed before Ginny finally looked at Neville, who looked up at her upon feeling her stare. They shared a look and, seeming to realise at the same moment that they had so narrowly escaped Filch, burst into a fit of laughter that ceased instantly at the sound of the portrait hole opening and somebody stepping inside the Gryffindor common room.
Ginny and Neville both bounced up onto their feet, both hoping to Merlin that it wasn't Filch coming to interrogate them – Neville still held the backpack full of empty spray cans and Ginny's broom lay only feet away on the ground near the couch. But no, it wasn't Filch. It was Professor McGonagall.
"Mr Filch has woken me up with stories of my students out of bed and vandalising the school," she spoke to thin air as she surveyed the Gryffindor common room, her eyes passed over Neville and Ginny but continued to glance about, as if not really seeing them at all. "Alas, it seems nobody is out of bed in Gryffindor Tower and therefore punishment cannot be handed out to any of the students I am responsible for." And with that she turned on her heel and exited the common room, leaving Neville and Ginny to breathe one more sigh of relief before retiring to their warm beds.
A few hours later, Ginny and Neville woke with the rest of Gryffindor Tower and traipsed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Seamus Finnigan joined them on the walk down and invited Ginny and Neville down to the Quidditch pitch after lunch for a friendly Gryffindor on Gryffindor game. He reasoned that proper Quidditch matches between houses had been banned, but Snape hadn't said anything about a non-competitive game between friends. Ginny promised she'd be there and Neville agreed to come and watch, since his flying skills were horrid, as they entered the Great Hall, which was abuzz with excited conversation.
Ginny and Neville glanced at the right wall of the Great Hall, pasted vaguely surprised looks on their faces and took their seats at Gryffindor table with Seamus, all under the scrutinising eyes of Alecto and Amycus Carrow. After ten minutes or so, still feeling the burning sensation of being watched, Ginny dared to look up at the high table. Snape seemed to think staring daggers at students was below him, but the two Death Eaters either side of him seemed to think otherwise. Ginny focused a steady look at Alecto Carrow, whose bottom lip was curling down in great hatred. Ginny couldn't help it; she gave the Muggle Studies professor a sweet smile and returned to her breakfast.
After breakfast, Neville returned to the common room to finish his Charms essay and Ginny headed for the library where she had agreed to meet Luna. She hadn't dared look over at the Ravenclaw table in search of Luna during breakfast, not with Alecto Carrow watching her like a hawk. But when Ginny arrived in the library and made her way to the table she had specified to Luna, she found the girl sitting there, gazing up at Ginny happily.
"We did it," she said, triumph in her voice.
Ginny let out another sigh of relief. "Yeah, we did it," she said, smiling happily for the first time since returning to Hogwarts.
Settling down across from Luna at the table, Ginny pulled out her Transfiguration homework and together, they began to make some headway with the stack of essays and questionnaires they had been given over the first week back at Hogwarts.
The weeks following the vandalism of the castle and the subsequent incapability to remove the graffiti saw an improvement on the morale of most of the student body.
In one Potions lesson, Zacharias Smith went out of his way to be partnered with Ginny so that he could hint to her that he was ready and waiting for his coin to burn his pocket.
Terry Boot marched right up to Gryffindor table in the middle of dinner one night to tell Ginny and Neville, who were sitting side by side, in a none too quiet voice, that he too was ready and waiting for them to set a day and time.
Towards the end of the third week back at Hogwarts, Hannah Abbott caught up with Neville after Herbology and told him in plain terms that if whoever graffitied the school was serious about the D.A., she'd be at the next meeting for sure.
So on the third Saturday back at Hogwarts, Neville cracked the counter-spell on his coin and changed it so that whatever day and time he chose on his coin would be imitated on everybody else's coins. He set the date for tomorrow just after breakfast, and pretty soon every previous member of the D.A.'s pockets were burning.
"So, we're all here, I guess," Neville nervously addressed the group of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students. "Right, so. Well, I guess the whole point of us meeting back up now is the Carrows, and the war, and Snape sitting in Dumbledore's seat and working in Dumbledore's office and the bleeding Dark Arts and Muggle Studies classes," his voice slowly grew more steady, more confident, more sure of what he was saying. Ginny and Luna sat amongst the others, watching with a sense of pride as Neville addressed their friends and their classmates, all of whom were willing to fight. "We're here because of Harry. Because Harry started this so that we'd having a fighting chance to show up people like Umbridge and the Carrows. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do what's right, regardless of the consequences, and we're gonna recruit more people, build up our ranks, and we're gonna make Harry proud, show him that he's got people that still believe in him and are waiting for him to finish whatever he's doing so that we can fight with him."
By now, the students were nodding with him, inspiration and defiance burning in their eyes, and when he finished his speech, the room erupted into cheers and excited conversation. Ginny got up and hugged Neville, for once feeling jubilant as she pulled back and looked around at the D.A. members she had learnt with two years ago in this very same room.
The meeting let out not too long after and the next day, war against the Carrows began.
"You there, tell me what the Killing Curse is," Amycus Carrow bellowed at a fifth year, Nigel Wolport.
"A curse that makes the victim giggle uncontrollably," Nigel responded.
"Detention!"
"...Muggle-borns are just as bad, stealing our magic –" Alecto Carrow carried on.
"They're born with it, you toerag," Padma Patil spat.
"Detention!"
"Longbottom, would you be so kind as to do the honour of casting the first Cruciatus Curse," Amycus crooned sweetly, pointing his wand at a small group of first year students who had supposedly landed themselves in detention.
"Only if it's on you," Neville responded.
"Detention!"
"...They're stupid, ignorant, thieving –"
"Hermione Granger was top of her year and so was Harry Potter's mother, and they were both Muggle-borns," Ginny interrupted.
"Detention!"
A/N: So last chapter got sixty hits, but only four reviews. It makes me happy to know that even though you're not reviewing, you're still reading, though I really would enjoy receiving reviews from you guys. I like to know what I've done right, or what I've done wrong, or what you liked or what you didn't like. So please, review and let me know and I'll update as soon as I can. Until then, though, sink your teeth into this:
The charm Hermione had placed on the list of members didn't prevent those who knew about the D.A. from telling anybody about it; it just made sure that those who told would be identifiable... What if Leanne wasn't the only person Ginny should be worried about? Anybody in the D.A. could tell. And in times like these, every person was just as likely as the next to betray Dumbledore's Army. After all, fear could make even the most loyal of people turn traitor.