One Girl Revolution

By: thetreasure11

The Characters and locals are the sole property of J.K. Rowling and her publisher.

The idea is mine with a little help from Superchick and Saving Jane.

Changes

Hogwarts castle stood erect and waiting like an old friend when the students arrived. The fires were lit in their grates and the courtyard was completely repaired. Almost everything was as it had been before the war, almost. Parts of the castle walls were still severely damaged. The astronomy tower was nothing but a pile of stone rubble. Inside the castle many of the paintings and suits of armor that had adorned the hallways were missing or in some disrepair. It was with heavy hearts that the returning students took in these changes as they sat at their respective house tables.

The teacher's table at the front of the hall was filled with drawn, tired faces. Professor McGonagall sat in the headmistress's seat. To her right sat Professors Flitwick, Slughorn, Burbage and Hagrid. To her left sat Professors Sprout, Sinistra, Vector, and Babbling. Each had small amounts of dirt on their robes and at least one bit of hair or one piece of clothing a bit askew; a far cry from the immaculate appearance of previous years.

Hermione sat to the left of Harry at the Gryffindor table and Ginny sat to his right. Across the hall Hermione could see the back of Malfoy's head. It looked like he was sitting next to Zabini and talking to him quietly when the headmistress stood and the hall went from hushed voices to instant silence. "Greetings," Professor McGonagall said, "and Welcome back to Hogwarts. Our first year students will enter in a moment to be sorted into their houses. Please take it upon yourselves to greet them with enthusiasm and kindness. Many have heard stories about last year and are a bit frightened."

Hermione felt a stab of pity for the first years. She'd come to a place she knew to be safe and welcoming. These students were leaving their families to stay in a castle that had once been a battle ground. Hermione shivered as she remembered that battle. The cobblestones may have been cleaned of blood but her memory never would be. 'Oh God!' At the time it had all been one hellacious blur but now she could recall everything. The expressions on dead faces, the chill of a dead friend's hand, the smell of burning bodies. Hermione focused her eyes on the Gryffindor banner above her, trying to force the memories back. 'This isn't a good time.'

Then the double doors opened and Hermione was pulled back to the present by the first years being led in by Mr. Filch. Even the grubby caretaker looked worse for wear. His eyes looked sunken in and his lips had a strange paler. Behind him came the little herd of first years. There couldn't have been more than twenty of them! Hermione realized with a sense of loss that many of the children who would have been first years had probably died, and many more would have been sent to other schools by frightened parents. Hermione looked over the group and noticed how their new or hand me down robes and their sweet nervous and some down-right fearful faces contrasted with the teachers. Hermione smiled as a little boy made eye contact with her. He looked just like Neville had their first year.

The first year students stood in front of the sorting hat and the Great Hall waited for its usual song, but the hat didn't sing. It merely said "Unity and friendship should be prized for the strength they give." There were murmurings around the hall as students questioned the message. Professor McGonagall however seemed undisturbed by the hat's words and began the process of sorting.

When all the few first years had been sorted the headmistress raised her hand for silence. "I have an announcement to make before the feast begins so I will try to keep it brief. To start, you may have noticed that no one was sitting in the heads' compartment on the train today. That is because there will be no head boy and girl this year. The prefects will go directly to professor Vector for instructions. There will be more announcements after the feast but before we begin I would ask you all to observe a moment of silence in respect for the people who fought and died last year against Voldemort and his followers. Hermione bowed her head along with the rest of the students and remembered some of the people they had lost. Tonks, Professor Lupin, Professor Snape, nearly Harry. When she looked up the plates had been filled and the feast was slowly commencing.


The feast was over and Draco was watching the teacher's table intently. He had finished with his food ages ago and was waiting impatiently for McGonagall to make her announcements so he could unpack and go to bed. He'd befriended two Gryffindors and shaken hands with Potter. In his mind it had been a very long day. Blaise nudged him and he scowled at his best friend. "What?" "Granger and the Weaselette are looking at you." Blaise replied, apparently unperturbed by his friend's snappish manner. "Oh that," Draco turned to look back at them and gave a halfhearted wave. The girls waved back while Potter who was between the two of them glared at him. "That's because I made friends with them on the train."

Blaise whistled softly. "So that's where you were, making friends with the Golden boy and his sidekicks. You're really trying hard to turn over that new leaf aren't ya?" Draco rolled his eyes. "Well yeah! And they're not so bad. Potter's still and ass and his girlfriend can be unbelievably scary, but Granger's not so bad. A little boring, but not bad." Blaise smiled at him "And the fact that she cleaned up really well over the summer has nothing to do with it?" Draco snorted and punched him lightly in the ribs. "Didn't even notice."

McGonagall stood up and the boys dropped their conversation at once. She cleared her throat unnecessarily and began without preamble. "All of you know of and some of you even participated in the war that was fought at Hogwarts last year. The Daily Prophet and the Ministry of Magic has given most of the credit to Mr. Potter and rightly so, but he did not defeat Voldemort alone. All the students loyal to Hogwarts, be they in Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Sytherin or Gryffindor, fought together to prevent Voldemort from gaining control of this school. "

"It was through inter-house unity and cooperation that we triumphed and we would like to continue to encourage that. After tonight, the house tables will be removed." The students broke the silence with questions and Draco felt his jaw drop. Where would people sit? Would they go so far as to use assigned seating? House tables had been used since the school was formed. McGonagall waved her hand for silence. "The house tables will be replaced by round tables, each able to seat eight. No more than three people from the same house are to sit at one of these tables." A few students groaned and McGonagall gave them a quick glare.

"Next order of business, many of you have noticed that the castle has not been completely repaired. Please do not enter any rooms you do not need to, including unused classrooms. If a door is locked, leave it that way. There could be serious structural damage to what's on the other side. In order to make repairs faster seventh and eighth years will be broken into teams of five to work on reconstruction during your free period." Draco groaned inwardly, that's usually when he did his homework. McGonagall pulled a roll of parchment out of her robes and unrolled it.

"Each team will have a leader who will report to Mr. Filch for their weekly assignments. Team leaders are: Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Fay Dunbar, Curtis Evercreech, Justin Finch-Fletchly, Hermione Granger…" Draco had just about tuned her out when she'd mentioned Granger. He liked the girl well enough but he hoped he wasn't on her team. It'd kill him to take orders from her! "…Sue Li, Neville Longbottom, Ernie MacMillan, Draco Malfoy…" Relief, he'd be leading instead of following, something he was much better at. "…Harry Potter, Hortense Rowland, Omar Shaw, Alicia Spinnet, Dean Thomas, and Alexander William. The rest of you may be dismissed. Team leaders, please see me for your instructions and team lists."


Draco was sitting on an armchair in the Slytherin common room across from Blaise and Theo who were both watching him expectantly. "So? Theo asked, "Who's on your team?" Draco sighed "I got Weaslette, Pavati Patel, Boot, and some Hufflepuff girl, Alice Tolipan. Who'd you get?" Theo grinned at him. "I got a lot better than you mate. I'm leading Flora Carrow, Marietta Edgecombe, Malcolm Preece, and Nigel Wolpert." Blaise groaned. "That means I'm probably stuck with some Hufflepuff or Gryffindor for my team leader." Theo quirked an eyebrow at Blaise. "Why wouldn't you get a Ravenclaw?" "I'm not that lucky."

Draco pulled another piece of paper from his envelop. "This says we're supposed to contact our team mates tomorrow telling them who they're working with and what we're doing. Aw, great! My team got stuck cleaning one of the old potions class rooms." He slumped further down in his seat. Theo pulled out the second part of his letter as well. "My team is going to rebuild the Quitich field. How are we supposed to contact our team mates anyways? Just walk up to a person you've never been close to or even knew existed and say 'Oh hi. You and I are working together now.' That's going to be awkward." "Send them an owl. And it's not so bad for Draco. He's budding new friends with young Weasley." Draco shuddered at the thought. "I know how the Weasley temper is going to take me being her team leader. I'm sending owls."


Hermione was sitting in her usual armchair by the fire next to Ginny and Harry who were sitting together on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. "So who are your team mates Harry?" Hermione asked. Harry was looking at his list with a small smile. "Not too bad. I got Pamela Alton, Daphne Greengrass, Luna, and Michael Robinson." Ginny looked stunned. "And you're perfectly ok with having two Slytherins for team mates? Harry grinned at her and kissed her forehead. "You're not seeing the big picture Ginny. Neither of them have parents who were Death Eaters so I don't have to worry about them trying to curse me for sending their parents to Azkaban. Ginny snorted. "You didn't have to worry about that regardless. Malfoy doesn't like you at all but the look on his face at his father's trial; Harry he could have kissed you for putting his dad in Azkaban!"

It was Harry and Hermione's turn to be shocked. "You went to the trial!" They both asked in unison. Ginny shrugged. "I wanted to see it through. I even testified against a few of them." "I testified!" Harry protested but Ginny just shook her head at him. "You wrote your testimonies and sent them by owl. I went to make sure they got there and sort of stayed after that." Harry's lips twitched. "My girlfriend, always looking out for me and making sure I fulfill my duties to the magic world." Ginny smiled. "You bet your robes I do! So Hermione, who'd you get?" Hermione had yet to unfold her letter and was a little worried about what she would find.

Ginny snatched the letter out of Hermione's hands and began to read as Hermione tried to get it back. "Not too shabby Hermione. You got Luca Caruso, Michael Corner, Anthony Ricket, and oh! Sorry Hermione. You got stuck with Blaise Zabini." Hermione stopped reaching for her letter and moaned. "Not that bigoted, stuck up pure blood!" Ginny put a hand on her arm and Harry gave her a sympathetic look. "Well at least you're his team leader and not the other way around." Hermione groaned "If that arrogant son of a toadstool will listen to a thing I say." "Well, maybe he'll surprise you. He is one of Malfoy's friends. Maybe he'll try being nice to you."

Harry and Hermione froze in their seats and then laughed at the notion of Zabini being nice to a Muggle born. Even Ginny had to laugh at that a little. "Well," she said in an attempt to defend herself, "it didn't sound half so ridiculous in my head."


A/N Thank you thank you thank you for reading and reviewing! It means a lot to me. This chapter is a little bit longer as promised so hopefully you won't be too upset when I say I've got some bad news. I'm going back to school in the next couple of days so I will be unable to update as often. I'm going to aim for two chapters a week so wish me luck! Oh, and some good news. The reason this chapter took so long to get published was because I had an idea for another fanfiction. It's going to be a very long one shot and I will be posting it in February just in time for St. Valentine's Day! Hope you like and as always, read and review please!