Ginny went into Defense Against the Dark Arts, swallowing hard. She did not know what awaited her in this class, but she did know that Amycus Carrow was a Death Eater. She sat down in her seat and looked at the front of the classroom. He stood there, in all his sick, sneering glory. "Hello, class."

She already wanted to use her Bat-Bogey Hex on him.

"Welcome to Dark Arts class."

Oh god, he had changed the name. It was actually going to be a class on the dark arts. That was disgusting.

"Now. Your education in this matter has been terrible, and inefficient, and I am going to teach you all the proper ways to defend yourselves."

Ginny was so sure.

"First of all, who knows of the previously called 'Unforgivable Curses'?"

Previously called? They weren't unforgivable anymore? Ginny felt actually ill.

A girl in her year raised a shaky hand. Amycus barked an indistinguishable word at her.

"They were called that because they resulted in a sentence in Azkaban," she said, her voice small.

"Right," said Amycus. "Now, Azkaban is reserved for those Mudblood traitors."

Ginny actually threw up in her mouth a little bit. Dad had told them near the end of the summer about rumors of Muggleborns being thrown in Azkaban, but she hadn't wanted to believe it. And here it was, admitted by a teacher.

"Now, who can name the Unforgivable Curses?"

Ginny could name them all, of course, had had the Killing Curse thrown at her repeatedly last year. But she said nothing. Nobody said anything.

Amycus snorted. "They really haven't taught you anything, have they? Well, alright. There's the Imperius Curse, a very important one; with it, you can control your enemies, make them do your bidding. Who wants me to demonstrate?

No! No! He couldn't be serious. He wanted to demonstrate an Unforgivable Curse on a student? What was next, was he going to kill one?

"What, no volunteers? Well, alright. We'll wait and see who acts up."

Ginny felt another pang of sickness. Was he implying that they were going to use unforgivable curses as punishment?

For the rest of the class, he lectured them about the various ways of harming one's enemy. When she was finally free, Ginny ran to the nearest bathroom and threw up in the toilet. How? How was this allowed? How could this be happening to Hogwarts?

When she got to lunch, she felt a little bit less ill, and sat with Neville, Seamus, Lavender, and Parvati again. "Had Defense Against the Dark Arts yet?" she asked.

"No," said Seamus. "How bad is it?"

She shook her head. "He calls it Dark Arts."

"You're kidding," said Parvati.

"Nope. Not kidding. And it gets worse. He wanted to demonstrate the Unforgivable Curses. On students."

They all put down their utensils, and Neville turned slightly paler. "Really?" he asked.

"Yep. He asked for a volunteer to go under the Imperius Curse. Nobody volunteered, so he said he would wait until somebody misbehaved. I think they're planning to use them as punishment."

"Dumbledore would never have let this happen," said Lavender.

"Yeah, well, he's dead," said Seamus.

"Thank you, Seamus, I know that," said Lavender.

"So, how did the recruitment go?" Ginny asked, picking at her food.

"I saw Hannah during my free period and got her on board," said Neville. "She said she would talk to Ernie and Susan. And she'll mention it to Zacharias Smith"

"I talked to Padma," said Parvati. "She said she would talk to Anthony, Terry, and Michael."

"Great," said Ginny. "I can talk to Luna during Charms today. Have we agreed on a meeting time?"

"We told them all Thursday night at 6:00."

"Sounds good to me," said Ginny. "But if we're going to fight this evil regime, I think we're going to need some more members."

Neville nodded. "We should get out a message somehow."

"We don't want to make ourselves too obvious, though," said Lavender. "We could get in trouble."

"If we get in trouble, then we get in trouble," Ginny said.

"Well, we don't want to get kicked out," said Parvati.

"Attendance is compulsory," Ginny said. "I don't think anybody's going to get kicked out."

"Still, we should be careful," said Lavender.

"Maybe we should leave people notes," said Seamus.

"Hmm," said Ginny. "Maybe. Or we could just leave giant messages throughout the school that say Dumbledore's Army: Still Recruiting. Anonymous, but very present."

"As leader, I think we should use Ginny's idea," Neville said.

"Sounds good," Seamus said.

"Fine," said Lavender.

Walking into Charms, Ginny immediately sat beside Luna. "Hey."

Luna smiled. "Hi. How's your day going?"

"Not great," she said. "I had Dark Arts class today."

Luna frowned. "You mean Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

"Not anymore."

"You're kidding," she said, her eyes widening. "Are there Wrackspurts in your brain?"

"No, Luna, I'm serious. They call it Dark Arts class now. And they implied that they're going to be using Unforgivable Curses as punishment."

Whatever was left of Luna's smile faded. "Really?"

"Yep."

Professor Flitwick stepped in front of the class on his stack of books. "Greetings, class. Congratulations all of you on your O.W.L. scores that allowed you to continue in this subject. Today we will be reviewing some of the previous years' charms, to get you back into the swing of things after a whole summer. Next class we will begin the more advanced work."

"So," Ginny muttered to Luna as she tried to turn her eyebrows yellow, "Dumbledore's army is meeting Thursday at 6."

Luna nodded. "I'll be there."

"We're also planning to put out a recruitment ad."

"Sounds like a good idea."

"Your eyebrows are yellow."

"Are they? Congratulations, Ginny."

After class, as they walked out of the room, Luna said, "You know, I know we don't need Harry and the others to fight. But I do wish they were here."

Ginny sighed. "Tell me about it."