Luna
We met in the Room of Requirement, all of us who used to be in Dumbledore's Army (plus a few who just joined) who hadn't already been expelled because of being Muggle-born and who weren't in detention that night, which brought down our numbers considerably. It was only Monday, but considering the new, extremely stringent rules Snape and the Carrows placed upon us, I was surprised not more were in detention. I was almost put in myself, for arguing with the Carrow who taught Defense Against the Dark Arts about whether or not there was such a thing as a Wrackspurt. He was under the impression that they didn't exist, but I told him that the buzzing you hear in your ears the minute everything goes completely quiet is a Wrackspurt. They make it very difficult to concentrate, but most of the time you don't even realize they're there because of all the extra noise around Carrow didn't seem too impressed, he shook his head and banged his fist menacingly on the table, but I didn't really expect him to believe me. He's too narrow minded to understand such matters.
Although there were a few people Neville and I had talked to on the train about this who had gotten cold feet and ended up not coming, the vast majority had shown up. It seemed to me there were twice as many people here for this meeting than had shown up for the DA meetings back when I was a fourth year. At least, I assumed so, because there were twice as many Wrackspurts as before.
"Luna. Over here!" Neville called. Everyone was getting together in a circle on those same cushions where we used to practice stunning. I remembered stunning Neville, but that was before his spells got loads better.
I sat down with them, next to Neville and Ginny who have been the only other ones these past years who have been decent to me. Although, things did get loads better after Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and I all fought together at the Ministry. People didn't steal my things after that, and even now, sitting with Ginny and Neville is almost exactly like being with friends.
Ginny stood up and waved her dark red hair away from her face, almost as if she was going to start a speech. She cleared her throat.
"You all know why you're here." she started, "You all know that Voldemort has taken over Hogwarts. By now many of you have probably already suffered at his followers hands. Snape, taking over Hogwarts, the Carrows imposing all the punishments. So now you're here to stop that. We're all here to stop that and make sure they all know that taking over our school is not going to be easy. We are going to fight the whole way. And if Voldemort and his cowardly supporters think they can just waltz in and take this school for themselves they've got another thing coming. They don't know our strength, but it's about time we tested it. I'm sure you all know the horrible things he's done to people, how he's taken over, killed, and tortured. Well we are NOT going to let him do that here. Let them just try to get us to cooperate. I'll just say, watch out, Voldemort, Dumbledore's Army is coming!"
There was a round of applause after that speech. I joined in as well, clapping my hands together as loud as they would. Good job, Ginny, I thought, that was truly excellent.
Suddenly, a voice rose up from the crowd. "They tied up my brother." the person yelled, "They tied him to the ceiling and then left him up there for three days without food or water. He was almost dead when he came down, and they only did it 'cause he answered a question on the Cruciatus Curse wrong. He's only eleven." A murmur of disgust went through the crowd.
"That's just sick." I heard someone say, "I'm glad I answered all my questions right."
"They used the Cruciatus curse on my little sister." someone else said, "And I had to watch. She didn't do anything wrong, it was me they were trying to punish. I screamed when a girl in my glass was slapped for answering a question wrong and they decided to hurt me more by doing it to my sister." the girl began sobbing, "Oh, god, when they finally got done with her she was white and shaking. And one of her ribs was broken so that when she walked she cried out in pain. It was all my fault." The girl began to cry harder. As a few people clustered around her to try to make her feel better someone in the back piped up.
"I was whipped!" a small, high voice said. It sounded, although I couldn't be sure, like Colin Creevey, the small kid who used to follow Harry around and ask for his autograph. He had gotten lot bigger now. "Fifty times on my back," he said, "ten times on my face. They were going on and on about how Harry was a liar and a trouble maker who was mentally insane and should be locked away in Azkaban so I stood up and said, 'No, Harry's not insane and not a liar either. He's better than you and you'll never be as good as him.' Well then, that ugly Carrow, the girl, gets up and tells me to repeat it. After I do, she brings me to the front of the room and gives me those lashes. Hurt like hell when she did it, and it still hurts now, even though I've tried to cure it with essence of murtlap."
There was a stunned silence. "Oh, god," somebody breathed, but other than that the room was still. Nobody else seemed to have anything to say.
Neville suddenly spoke. "Colin," he said, "What…what should we do?"
"Oh, I'm alright now," Colin said, "I've wrapped it in a towel soaked with essence of murtlap and it's doing alright. As long as I don't move I'm fine. But I'm still game for something else to do. Those Death Eaters need to see what we really are. I was thinking of setting off a stink bomb in Muggle Studies class- give that old hag a taste of what she really smells like."
A few people began laughing, and instantly the spell cast by Colin's story was broken. Suddenly people everywhere were spurting out their own ideas of what we should do to annoy and anger the Death Eaters. I considered using Nargles. We drop them from a higher staircase as the Carrows or Snape walked by. Even better, we could put them on their seats. I touched those spines once and they really stung.
"Quiet, quiet!" Ginny yelled, banging her fist on the table in front of her. Everyone stopped chattering and looked up to her. "Alright, so you've all got some excellent ideas about what we can do to make those slimy gits realize what it's really like at Hogwarts, but we can't do them all right now. We've got to have a plan, everyone, or those idiots will start picking us off one by one. Now I think we should focus on maybe two stunts right now, set days and so on, and then when we meet again next week we can decide what else to do. Now, who's got an idea?"
Several people started yelling out at once.
"Set fire to that Carrow girl's hair."
"Set off flaming rockets like the Weasley's did!"
"Flood the great hall!"
"Write stuff on the walls, maybe 'Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting' or something like that."
"Switch around all the names of Snape's potion bottles."
"Make a whole bunch of little biting fleas that'll attack the Carrows!"
"All right, alright, alright!" Ginny said, "Okay, so it seems like most of you've got plenty of ideas, and we've got enough to work with right now. Are there any more reasonable suggestions, and no, Seamus, we aren't going to make an army of attacking fleas. It's too easy to let it get out of hand."
Dean and Seamus burst out laughing.
"Well, we could always use nargles." I said. Ginny stared at me.
"How's that?" she asked, looking somewhat confused.
"Well, nargles have got nasty little spines, you see." I said, "We could put them on their chairs so that when they sit down the nargles will poke them quite hard. And the spines are ridiculously hard to get out. I had one stuck in my finger once and it wouldn't come out for three months. I had to pull it out with my teeth."
Ginny seemed a little unsure. "Do you have any with you?" she asked hesitantly.
"Oh, I always keep one in my bag." I said, pulling it out and placing it on the table. It was a small, round, brown thing, not much larger than a small pebble, but with a huge, foot long spine poking out of it. The good thing was the spine was mostly invisible and the pod so small that it would be easily unnoticeable. Ginny gingerly picked it up and turned it around in her hand.
"This seems like it'll work." she said to me, "Excellent idea." I smiled a little and put the nargle back in my bag.
"Okay," Ginny said, "We've got one thing that'll work, Luna's nargle idea. Also, I like the idea of painting on the walls, what were the words you said we should use?"
"Dumbledore's Army, still recruiting." Dean piped up, "Or something like that."
"That sounds fine to me." Ginny said, picking up a quill and writing the words down on a scrap of parchment. She continued, "I don't think we should do any more stunts this week. Those two seem good enough for now, because we don't want the Carrows to crack down too hard in the first week. Give people enough time to settle down and then we should really start. Now, I've just got a few more things to say and then everyone can go off. First, we've got to make teams for who is going to do which thing. Neville, you're in charge of the writing on the walls thing. Luna, you can do nargles. I guess I'll just split you down the middle for teams. Everyone on the right side, go to Neville. The left side to Luna."
There was some shuffling while everyone rearranged themselves and then Ginny said, "Okay, the team leaders can decide when they want to do their stunt. For our next meeting, though, I'll pass out these." she held up one of Hermione's fake galleons, "Those of you in Dumbledore's Army should remember them, but I made some more for the new members and for the people who lost theirs. Oh, and when you come up to take your galleons, sign this parchment. It's got the same spell Hermione put on our other DA list, so unless you want to be really spotty for the rest of your life you'll keep your mouth shut. Got that?" Most people nodded, and then a few brave people stood up to sign their names and take their galleons. After the first few had gone up people became braver and within a few short minutes everyone had signed. Ginny, after signing her name onto the parchment picked it up, folded it and stuffed it into a corner of the room where it was hidden from view.
"I'm not taking any chances this time." she said, and everyone else nodded. Slowly, a few people began to filter out and within a few minutes the whole room was empty except for Ginny, Neville and I.
"That went well." I said, going up to Ginny. She nodded.
"Yeah, and I'm really glad we're finally getting to do something against the Death Eaters. For a while there during the summer I thought I was just going to have to sit quietly at school while everyone else was off doing the exciting things."
I put my hand on her arm, "I agree. Daddy told me not to do anything rebellious this year, that he had got it all handled with his articles in the Quibbler. But anyone who thinks I'm going to just sit here while Voldemort is taking over is insane."
"I know." Ginny said, "Everyone underestimates us. They think we can't make a difference."
"Course we can!" Neville said, "We might be young, but we know just as much about fighting him as the rest of them do. And my Gran's hardly one of the protective sort. She was telling me how I should get out there and fight, live up to my parent's name and all that."
"You're already doing that." I said, "You've been in Dumbledore's Army since it begun, and it was your idea to get it started again. Oh, by the way, when were you going to go paint on the walls?"
"Thanks." Neville said, grinning sheepishly, "And I was thinking Wednesday for the walls stunt. Right in the middle of the week so that as many people will see it as possible. Maximum impact, you know."
"Alright. I'll see if the nargles are ready by then. They can be quite temperamental, you know."
