Author's Notes: This chapter was originally published on another site in 2008, but I never managed to get it up here. Oops. Enjoy, and I apologize for the delay!
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Chapter 3: The Return of Dumbledore's Army
"There has been a change in the rules," Snape's voice drawled, cutting through the normal buzz of early morning conversation during breakfast on Saturday. He made the statement without any sort of preamble, but it had the same effect as if he had called for complete silence. All talk ceased in the hall as the wary student body turned their attention to their new Headmaster.
It was the first time Snape had been seen since the start-of-term feast, and it didn't surprise Ginny one bit. He was too busy being Voldemort's right-hand man to run the school, she guessed. That responsibility he apparently left to the Carrows, as word of their Dark Arts classes quickly spread to the few students who hadn't taken them yet.
"I have spent the week with a Ministry consultant, Dolores Umbridge. Many of you are familiar with her. She has taken time from her extremely busy schedule, especially considering an unfortunate incident earlier in the week, to give me suggestions about certain rules to implement at Hogwarts. These will be carried out immediately." Snape produced a roll of parchment and proceeded to read off many of the Educational Decrees that Umbridge passed during Ginny's fourth year - with the exception of a High Inquisitor being named. Unfortunately, the decrees regarding no student organizations without Headmaster approval and of students not being allowed to congregate outside of their common room in groups more than three were among the first reinstated.
Many eyes turned to Ginny, who coolly buttered her toast while Snape droned on. She tossed a wink at Luna, then a subtle nod at Neville. As soon as breakfast was finished, she promptly got herself lost in the post-meal crush of students and snuck out to the Whomping Willow. She stilled the tree and slipped into the passage. She got about halfway when she skidded to a stop. A large, solid brick wall covered the entire chamber. Ginny frowned, backed up a few feet and cast a Reducto at it. It did nothing.
She crept back out of the passage and sighed. Fred and George had told Ginny about the Marauder's Map and even showed it to her before they gave it to Harry in December of her second year. She ached to have that map in her hands at this moment and silently cursed Harry for taking it with him. Now that he didn't need. He wasn't even in school this term! Ginny kicked a rock angrily, then glared at it fiercely. For the first time since Harry left, anger boiled inside of Ginny. It wasn't fair. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were far away from the school and they had left Ginny behind to deal with this incredible mess. The longer it took for them to find whatever it was they were looking for, the worse things got at Hogwarts.
She got to her feet and dusted off the back of her robes. She had a sudden urge to see Hagrid, to attempt to gnaw her way through a rock cake while he rambled on about magical creatures. It would come at a price. Hagrid had been thrilled when Harry and Ginny began dating and had the two come around to his place one afternoon so he could gush over how similar they were to James Potter and Lily Evans. It wound up being an overly sentimental visit with both Harry and Ginny comforting the half-Giant as he cried into an oversized handkerchief, lamenting about how Harry was no longer a little boy.
Ginny worried her lip, her heart aching. Maybe Hagrid wasn't such a good idea after all. She glanced over her shoulder, then pulled her DA coin out of her pocket. There were no Quidditch tryouts, and she heard a rumor that both the Gobstones and Wizard Chess clubs were forbidden to meet. She tapped her wand to the Galleon and charmed a time to meet in the Room of Requirement. 2 p.m. - during one of the most boring hours of a long Saturday with nothing to do.
She started for the castle, then froze when she noticed something flicker out of the corner of her eye. Her hand dropped to her wand and she carefully scanned the grounds. A few students gathered near the steps, but no one else was actually out taking a walk. Then she noticed it again, a quick flash of brilliant red. Moving with lightning-quick reflexes, Ginny yanked out her wand and shot a hex at the flash. She heard a thump and a scream of pain before great bat bogies started flapping around an invisible being.
Her heart leaped into her throat. She only knew of one person with any sort of invisibility cloak. "Harry!" Ginny cried, rushing to the figure.
"Not Harry! Ow! Ow! Geroff!" One of the twins' voices came from beneath the bat bogies. From a few feet away, Ginny heard a howl of laughter belonging to her other brother.
The anger that had been boiling inside her spewed out like a botched potion. With a snarl, Ginny shot a Bat-Bogey Hex at the second invisible figure, hitting her mark. "How could you?" she screamed at them while the invisible twins yelled and swatted at the bogeys. "How could you make me think that you were Harry? Have you no shame at all?"
"You're the one who thought we were Harry! We didn't say anything!" one of the twins yelled.
"For once!" the other cried.
Ginny snarled at them, but cancelled the hex all the same. A few moments later, both twins flickered into view. George lay at Ginny's feet while Fred flailed on the ground a few meters away. Ginny stared at them for a long moment, guilt swamping her. For once, they were right. Fred and George had been unusually sensitive to Ginny's feelings regarding Harry's departure, and it was her own imagination that caused her to think Harry had possibly come back.
"Well now," George wheezed. "We know what to tell Harrikins whenever we see him next."
"Stuff it," Ginny growled and pointed her wand at him.
"She's not glad to see us? I'm crushed, George."
"It doesn't look good at all. Sure Potter knows what he's getting himself into?"
Ginny narrowed her eyes at them. "What are you doing here?" she asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject. "How did you manage to sneak onto the grounds? And where are your Invisibility Cloaks?"
"Not wearing any." Fred got to his feet and made a great show of dusting off his clothes. "Oi, let's go into the tunnels."
"They're blocked," Ginny protested, but followed them to the Whomping Willow anyhow.
"Nah, just need to talk." Fred levitated a rock to the knot in the trunk and the three slipped inside.
When the passage sealed shut behind them, Fred dug into his pocket while George lit his wand. Fred produced a familiar-looking Galleon with an even more familiar-looking message. "Is this what I think it is, short one?" he asked, holding it in front of Ginny's nose.
"It's a Galleon, of which I have precious few." She tried to snatch it from him, but he dangled it out of the way. "You know what it is, Fred. Did you believe that I'd sit here for the next nine months darning socks and waiting for Harry to come home safe and sound?"
"No, but that's because the one time Mum tried teaching you how to knit, one of the needles wound up nearly castrating Ron," George replied.
Fred wiped away a mock tear. "It was a thing of beauty."
Ginny grinned. Every time Ron had been remotely close to her for the next week, his hands had instantly flown to the front of his pants, as if expecting her to suddenly produce a knitting needle and come after him. "Tit for tat, brothers dear," she replied saucily. "I'll let you know what's going on with the DA and you tell me how you managed to sneak onto the grounds without the Carrows catching a whiff of you."
George produced a small velvet sack from his back pocket and tossed it to Ginny. She worked open the ties and saw a small mound of a glittering white powder inside.
"Remember the Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder?" Fred asked, leaning against the wall.
She shot him a dirty look. "How can I possibly forget since that's how Draco Malfoy managed to sneak Death Eaters into the school last year, costing Professor Dumbledore his life?" The twins paled at that remark.
"It has its good uses too," George pointed out. "We started developing this around the same time, but it took a lot longer."
"Pretty much, it's the opposite of what we had to do to the darkness powder," Fred added.
"Very tricky indeed."
"Verity claims she was going to come in and find the shop blown to smithereens."
"Try some," George urged. "Sprinkle some on me."
Ginny took a pinch of the powder and sprinkled it over George's head. He instantly disappeared. She grinned. "Wicked," she said in awe.
"The only problem is that it doesn't last that long unless we apply it constantly. But, we wanted to test it in a controlled environment and see if it at least isn't detectable." Fred looked rather morose for a moment. "I suppose Harry took the Marauder's Map with him, didn't he?"
"Don't remind me. I was just lamenting that fact this morning."
Ginny spent about three hours with the twins, though it felt like only an hour had passed. She told them about what was happening in the school, and they let her know what was going on at home. The only reason she knew that so much time had gone by, was that her stomach decided that there was a definite lack of food and was determined to make itself heard by letting out a loud growl.
"Oi!" George leaned his good ear close to her stomach. "Is that the Hogwarts Express I hear in there?"
"Stuff it," Ginny muttered as she pushed her brother away. "I'm starving. You don't have any sandwiches on you, do you?"
"Nah. We probably should head back to Hogsmeade." Fred got to his feet and, in an exaggerated move, pulled Ginny to hers. He bowed low over her hand before letting it go. "It's been a pleasure to conspire with you, m'lady."
Ginny did a mock curtsy. "And with you as well," she said with a grin.
George opened the bag of invisibility powder and threw a pinch over Fred's head, then himself before depositing the rest of the bag into Ginny's hands. "Here you go! Courtesy of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!"
"Give 'em hell for us, Gin!" Fred's disembodied voice sounded.
Ginny opened the tunnel and watched as the depressions on the dirt moved away from the Whomping Willow and into the distance. She stared at the bag in her hands and quickly pocketed it. Ginny emerged from the tunnel and headed for the school, her spirits buoyed. If Fred and George followed through on their promise, and she had no doubt that they would, the combined Dumbledore's Army would be a force to be reckoned with. It wasn't just that. Having the twins around meant that she could maintain contact with the outside world a lot easier than waiting on filtered news from the Daily Prophet and the scant possibility that maybe one of the Golden Trio would attempt to slip her some sort of message.
Harry's face flashed in Ginny's mind, and she quickly shook her head to clear the image. I will not brood. I will not brood, she ordered herself as she approached the front doors. Her steps slowed when she recognized the students lounging in front of the entrance in school robes despite the weekend. Fantastic. Bloody fantastic, she thought as Pansy Parkinson and Draco Malfoy's lackeys, Crabbe and Goyle, suddenly turned their eye in her direction. Golden prefect badges, the only ones issued in the school, gleamed on their chests. Knowing it was too late to change course, Ginny squared her shoulders and prepared to take on the Slytherins.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for being out of uniform, Weasley," Pansy called out as Ginny ascended the front steps.
"Funny, last time I checked, uniforms weren't mandatory on the weekend, Parkinson," Ginny replied in a frosty voice. Her hand slipped to the waistband of her jeans, palming her wand.
"Another 20 points if you even think of drawing that wand on me, Weasley," Pansy added, laughter dancing in her eyes. "Or, are you a coward like your brother and won't even face what's coming to you?"
Temper, vicious and hot, suddenly raged through Ginny. Her grip on her wand tightened to the point that for a quick second, she thought the wood would break.
"You know, you could get a chance to earn some of those points back." Goyle swayed close to Ginny, until he was breathing all over her face. She was quite convinced that he had never learned the concept of utilizing a toothbrush, toothpaste, or a breath-freshening charm. "Go with me to Hogsmeade, and I'll give you 50 points. More if you…," his gaze skimmed down Ginny's body, lingering on her chest before sweeping back up, "…perform adequately."
After the incident in the Chamber of Secrets, Bill and Charlie had taken it upon themselves to teach Ginny how to make a proper fist, and where to hit a boy if she wanted to disable him. It was that training that propelled Ginny's right hand to suddenly clench into a fist, and plough it into Goyle's pudgy nose. The punch knocked him back a few feet and he howled, waving his wand sharply at her in retaliation. Ginny quickly dodged the stunner and slipped inside the school and past a group of giggling Slytherin girls who had been making their way to the front door. She heard Crabbe's laughter at Goyle's expense as the great doors swung shut.
Good mood having evaporated, Ginny decided it was time to find Neville and Luna. A hand slipped into her pocket and fingered the Galleon that she carried. She could try to summon them with the charm, but it wasn't that far to the Ravenclaw tower. Then there was the Room of Requirement. She could probably go there and summon Neville and Luna. Or, maybe she could check the library first. Deciding the latter course, Ginny headed for the stairs.
An odd feeling crawled up her spine as she started up the stairs and reached the landing between floors. I'm being followed. Ginny quickly picked up her pace and heard the distinctively creaking that meant one of the staircases was about to move. She quickly leaped onto it as the bottom step separated from the landing and nimbly ran up it. She glanced over her shoulder to see a furious Pansy glaring at her. She indulged in a childish moment and stuck her tongue out at the Slytherin before making her way up to the fourth floor.
She found Neville in the library, surrounded by a stack of books that could rival a Hermione reading spree. "What's all this?" she asked, tapping the top of one stack, then recognized the volume in his hands - one that she had seen Hermione read often. "Is that Hogwarts: A History?"
"Yeah." Neville flushed slightly and set the worn book down. "I have a theory about the Room of Requirement."
"Really?" Ginny slid into the seat opposite Neville's. She glanced around the unusually crowded library. The lack of extracurricular activities had prompted the bored student body to actually complete their homework on time. She pulled out her wand and quietly cast a Muffliato, prompting Neville to quirk his eyebrows at her. "Spell of Harry's," she explained. "I'll teach it during the DA meetings. It'll come quite in handy. What did you find?"
"Not much," Neville admitted. "I'm sure Hermione researched it, but she wasn't exactly forthcoming with the information that she found at the time."
"No, she wasn't," Ginny agreed. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had explained the very basics about how to get to the Room of Requirement for the DA members, but had given them specific phrases. Based off later conversations she had with Harry, Ginny quickly surmised that he didn't know much about the room itself beyond the ability to provide what he needed in his mind at the time. If Hermione had found out more, she didn't share it with him.
Neville summarized the basic information about the room, of which there was very little in the texts. What scant information there was stated that the room was little more than a myth created by the House Elves. "However," he said, "I've been thinking about what the room can and does provide for people and wonder how specific it can get."
"Well, whenever we needed training materials, the room provided it for us," Ginny said.
"The problem is, if someone knew the purpose the room was being used for at the time, they could quickly route out the DA," Neville continued. "Once word gets around that the DA is back in business, it won't take the Carrows long to storm us."
It was true, Ginny realized, and probably why Pansy had tried following her. She was a Slytherin, but she wasn't stupid. If she could trace Ginny up to the Room of Requirement, she could quickly put two and two together and figure out that the DA was reforming. If one of the Carrows came up to the room and walked in front of it wanting to join the DA, the room would let it in. It was how the Inquisitional Squad had discovered them during her fourth year.
"I've got a theory," Neville said and stood. He beckoned to the door. "Want to try it out?"
"Of course!" Ginny followed Neville from the library and immediately stopped when she spotted Pansy and several of her friends lingering near the stairwell that would eventually take them to the seventh floor - but thankfully no Crabbe and Goyle. She placed a finger on her lips and quickly pushed Neville through the nearest door - which happened to be the girls' loo.
"G… Ginny!" Neville squeaked, his face turning scarlet at the row of sinks and toilet stalls. "This is…"
"I know what it is. Don't get your boxers in a twist, we're only going to be in here a second." Ginny pulled out the bag of invisibility powder and quickly sprinkled some on Neville just as one of the toilets flushed. She whirled around, placing herself in front of the invisible Neville as Luna emerged from one of the stalls.
"Hello, Ginevra. Hello, Neville," Luna said casually as she crossed over to one of the sinks and washed her hands.
"I'm doomed!" Neville moaned. "I've been caught in the girls' loo! Just go ahead and sentence me to the Carrows now!"
"No, you're not, you're invisible!" Ginny hissed at him. She turned back to Luna. "How could you see him?"
"You missed his trainers," Luna said smoothly as she took a paper towel and wiped her hands. "He's worn the same pair of trainers for the past year. They're quite distinctive and covered in doxy droppings. It's hard to miss them."
Ginny glanced at the floor and saw Neville's worn trainers, which indeed had suspicious spots on them that could be attributed to doxy droppings. She quickly tossed a pinch of the powder at them. "We're going to the Room of Requirement," Ginny told Luna. "We want to try something. Could you provide a distraction while Neville and I slip up the stairs?"
Luna tilted her head and wound a strand of blonde hair around her index finger. "I suppose it wouldn't be of much trouble to provide one." Without asking whom she needed to distract, Luna made her way out of the loo.
"Mental, that one," Neville said rather fondly, and Ginny had to agree. She sprinkled invisibility powder over herself and led the way out of the girls' loo.
"I tell you, I don't know where you placed your lost Nargle," Pansy was yelling at Luna as they made their way down the hall.
"I quite know where the Nargles are," Luna replied in an unfazed voice. "One of them has crawled into your head and is currently nesting. The white flakes in your hair are simply Nargle droppings from where they have been excreted through your skull. I would love a sample to send back to Daddy."
"I do not have anything in my hair!" Pansy screeched.
"Actually," Millicent pointed out, "you do have a bad case of dandruff."
Pansy rounded on her friend. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I tried!"
"It's not dandruff," Luna told Millicent. "Simply the Nargles."
"There's no such thing as Nargles!" Pansy screamed.
Ginny bit her lip hard as she and Neville raced up the stairs. About five minutes later, they found themselves outside of the Room of Requirement, with the invisibility powder still working. Ginny could see the faint outline of Neville's hair starting to appear and knew they only had a couple more minutes before the powder wore off. "Go ahead, test your theory," she urged.
She heard the shuffling of Neville's trainers as he paced in front of the wall opposite the tapestry and moments later a door shimmered into view. It quickly opened and Ginny moved toward it. Just as she came within a foot of the door, it slammed shut and disappeared.
"What the…" Ginny slammed her hands on the wall and scowled. "Neville Longbottom, you let me in this instant!" She grumbled beneath her breath, knowing full well that he couldn't hear her. She quickly turned and rapidly paced three times in front of the wall. Allow me to join Neville Longbottom.
It didn't work.
She spent the next five minutes trying other variations, all failing spectacularly. Just when she was convinced that Neville had left her out to be nabbed by the Carrows, the door appeared and she quickly hurried inside.
"You prat!" Ginny yelled at Neville and produced her wand. The triumphant look on her friend's face turned to panic as she advanced on him. "Did you have to leave me out in the bloody corridor for five minutes? What if the Carrows had come along, or one of the Slytherins? Tell me why I shouldn't leave you with a ring of bat-bogeys feasting on your face for the next hour!"
Though Neville towered over her by a good seven inches, he shrank away as if he was no taller than a garden gnome. "Because it worked!" he said hurriedly. "My theory worked?"
"What's the theory?" Ginny pointed her wand at him.
"That I can exclude people from the room and no matter what they try, they can't come in!" Neville's words almost came out in one huge run-on sentence and he threw up his arms to ward off any hexes Ginny might happen to toss. He knew all too well the power that the youngest Weasley wielded.
Ginny lowered her wand, impressed. "Really? Wicked!"
Neville peeked through the gap between his arms, then cautiously relaxed. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I told the room to not allow Ginny Weasley no matter the circumstances. I was thinking back over our DA meetings and remembered Harry looking around for something during the first meeting. Then, all of a sudden, he had a whistle. I figured he thought about a whistle specifically and the room provided it."
"Which we all know." Ginny thought for a moment and a couple seconds later, two plush armchairs materialized in the room. She sank into one of them and Neville took the other.
"Well, I figured that if the room was that specific in creating objects in the room, then it could be that specific in keeping people out." Neville suddenly beamed. "I initially asked the room just to exclude you, to test the theory. Then I changed it. I asked the room to keep out any supporter of Vol… You-Know-Who and the Carrows. That way, the room's safe."
"Neville, you're brilliant!" Ginny sprang out of her chair and threw her arms around the seventh-year, who promptly went red. She whirled around and pointed her wand at the door as it suddenly opened, revealing Colin, Luna, Dennis, and the rest of the Gryffindor sixth- and seventh-years.
"Are we late?" Colin asked, glancing quickly at Ginny's pointed wand and Neville's red face. He shuffled from foot to foot. "Ah… Did we walk in on something?"
"No. And you're quite on time." Ginny beamed as the students filed in. Her hand slipped into her pocket and closed around the bag of invisibility powder. It was, she thought, the best day she'd had in a long while.
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When all was said and done, the newly reformed Dumbledore's Army had the entire Gryffindor house from fifth year and above, the exception being Dennis Creevey. A good bit of Ravenclaw had also shown up, as well as
Hufflepuff from what Ginny could tell. Even her ex-boyfriend, Michael Corner, was among the group that had answered the summons of the old Galleons. There were no Slytherins among the group, and that suited them all just fine.
"Will we need to sign another contract?" Padma Patil asked Ginny after she took a head count and wrote down names on a piece of parchment.
"I don't think so," Ginny replied. She wasn't sure if Hermione's old contract was still in effect or not, and there was no way to find out. She dearly hoped that there would be no reason to find out if it did or not. "We've worked the Room of Requirement to where neither the Slytherins nor the Carrows can come in."
"What about Umbridge?" Terry Boot asked from a corner where he was looking over at a fifth-year Ravenclaw's banged-up knee.
Ginny turned to him. "What about her?"
"Snape announced at lunch that Umbridge will be at the school next week, performing inspections and giving teachers instructions on how to improve their courses," Lavender spoke up from where she was flipping through a defence book that the room had provided. "She'll be here on Monday morning in time for breakfast."
"The Daily Prophet also had something about it." Padma rooted through the school bag that she carried and pulled out a battered copy of that morning's newspaper. She passed it to Ginny. "It's apparently her first duty back on the job after getting assaulted at the Ministry."
Ginny scanned the article, reading about how Dolores Umbridge lamented about the loss of a "precious family heirloom." Although she could not identify her attacker, she was quite positive that it was the work of the "notorious" Harry Potter.
For the first time in her life, Ginny found herself agreeing with Umbridge completely.
"Do you really think it was Harry?" Neville asked quietly as Ginny read the article aloud to the assembled group.
"I do," she replied, rolling up the paper and handing it back to Padma. "It looks like whatever he's doing, Harry's doing his part. Now, let's do ours. Let's see how we are with Disarming Charms! Neville, help Luna conjure up some Slytherin-type targets while Colin and I go over the basics with everyone else."
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On Monday morning, what remained of the student population of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry filed into the Great Hall wearing clean and pressed robes. Instead of sitting down to eat, they stood behind their seats and waited as the head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission strode into the hall alongside Headmaster Snape. Once she crossed the threshold, Umbridge's gaze bore down on the Creevey brothers, who stood side by side on Ginny's left.
"As you can see, Headmaster, apparently there are some students who have slipped through the cracks," she said in a frosty voice.
"The Creevey brothers have... documentation," Snape said in a cold voice as he peered down his hooked nose at Colin. "We are in the process of getting this documentation eradicated. We have reasons to doubt the validity of their so-called proof of having half-blood relatives."
Dennis gasped and Colin's hands clenched into fists. Ginny nearly reached out to grasp Colin's hand, but when Umbridge's focus switched to her, she wound up fisting her robes instead.
"You might find it interesting, Headmaster Snape, that we will be conducting an inspection of Arthur Weasley's home in the next few days," Umbridge stated, her eyes boring into Ginny's. "There are reports that their youngest son, Ron, has a nasty case of spattergroit, and it's prohibiting him from completing his seventh year at Hogwarts."
"That is what I've been told," Snape said stiffly.
Umbridge folded her hands in front of her and cast a sidelong glance at Snape. "We at the Ministry take reports such as this very seriously, Headmaster. I'm sure that Miss Weasley here is missing the companionship of her brother. Am I not right, Miss Weasley?"
Her heart pounding so loud that she was quite sure that it could be heard in Hogsmeade, Ginny met Umbridge's eyes. "Madam Umbridge, I dearly miss my brother, Ron. However, I would rather he be safe and happy than to put any of us at risk." Her voice was calm and controlled to the point that she was sure Fred and George would shed tears over her acting.
The best part of all was that Ginny had spoken the complete truth.
Umbridge didn't say a word and sharply turned away from her with Snape tossing a glare at her before following suit. As soon as their backs were turned, Ginny nodded to Luna over at the Ravenclaw table.
Moments later, fireworks suddenly exploded from their hiding place beneath the Slytherin table. The Slytherins jumped back, some falling over themselves as rockets and pinwheels shot out from beneath the tablecloth. Seconds later, the tablecloth itself shot into the air, spilling crockery, plates and utensils everywhere. The cloth flew up, attached itself to the wall. In red cursive writing the words "DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY - WE HAVE RETURNED" spelled itself out.
"What is the meaning of this?" Snape yelled as the Slytherins screamed their outrage and the other houses started to cheer. Ginny stole a glance at the Head Table. Professor Flitwick was dancing in his seat while a smile tugged at the corner of Professor McGonagall's mouth. Both Carrows were glaring at the sign and had got up to assist the Slytherins — Amycus calming the students down while Alecto tried her best to charm the cloth down from the wall. Ginny merely smiled. The Sticking Charm that Luna had cast would last a good 24 hours and then some.
Umbridge whirled around, wand out and pointed at Ginny. "You!" she roared. "You're the one behind this!"
"I beg your pardon!" Ginny had never seen Professor McGonagall move so fast as the professor hurried down from the Head Table and blocked Umbridge's view of her, pulling out her own wand and levering it at Umbridge. "You will not draw a wand on one of my students!"
"She is Harry Potter's girlfriend!" Umbridge yelled at her. "She is the one behind this uprising! Ginevra Weasley shall be taken into custody immediately for questioning on the whereabouts of Harry Potter!"
"Ginny Weasley has no more idea of where Harry Potter is than you or I do," McGonagall shot back. "I will not have you threatening a student under my care!"
"Dolores," Snape said calmly and Umbridge whirled to face him.
"If you're so sure that I'm behind this," Ginny shot out, turning the focus back to her, "why don't you check the school?" Her eyes glimmered with humour. "Prove to me that I reformed Dumbledore's Army."
"I believe I will!" Umbridge swept out of the hall, Snape at her heels.
McGonagall lowered her wand. "You better know what you're doing, Miss Weasley," she said after a moment.
I hope I know what I'm doing as well. Ginny stared across the room at the floating banner proclaiming the return of Dumbledore's Army. Because if our theories about the Room of Requirement don't hold up despite the test Neville did, then we're doomed before we even get started.
