Chapter Nine: The Beginning
The days until the first D.A. meeting were tense, to say the least. Neville met up with Michael Corner late Sunday night and they crept around the castle after dark, painting the words "Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting" on the walls and Snape looked so angry at breakfast that I momentarily worried his hair would actually catch fire. Whispers—quickly hushed whenever a teacher walked by—of the fabled intra-Hogwarts Dark Arts fighting group seemed to linger in every hallway. McGonagall returned a preliminary paper on the theory of Animagism with "Caution, Restraint, Tact" written and underlined across the top. Word of my new pet had somehow ("I'm going to murder Julia," Meg hissed) gotten out and everyone wanted to know what Harry Potter's ex-girlfriend was doing with Dumbledore's phoenix. I somehow wound up breaking up a fight between a bunch of First Year Slytherins—including the tiny blonde girl I recognized from the Sorting-that-wasn't—and the next day, rumors that I was a Slytherin sympathizer abounded.
None of this drama, however, managed to keep me from earning another detention with Carrow within the first five minutes of Tuesday's Dark Arts class.
"I'm sorry!" I shouted at Neville across the common room that night. "Crabbe had a Fifth Year Ravenclaw upside down by her ankle and kept banging her into things and Carrow was saying that the only was I could stop him was to Crucio him and he was standing very close to me and, you know...bang," I finished weakly, accenting the sound by imitating a small explosion with my hands.
"You're going to get yourself killed, damnit, Ginny," Neville yelled back. "You're the captain of the bloody Quidditch team, you should be setting a better example."
"You set a better example, you're a bloody prefect!" I shrieked. "I heard about you getting in a fistfight with Crabbe right outside Alecto's office."
"I didn't try to blow up a teacher!"
"I didn't try to either, it just—sort of—happened!"
We ended up nose to nose in front of the fireplace, staring each other down, breathing heavily, uncomfortably aware that half our House was staring at us as well. Neville looked around at all of them warily, then seized my wrist and dragged me up the boys' staircase.
"Neville, what are you-?"
"Be quiet," he hissed between gritted teeth. He towed me unceremoniously up several flights of stairs and into the Seventh Year boys' room, which looked like a slightly more masculine version of the room that Meg, Julia and I shared. Without the phoenix rookery, of course. I tried not to think about the three beds that were missing.
"Luke, could I have the room for a few minutes, please?" Neville asked. I started when Lucas responded "Yeah, sure," and walked past me (I hadn't even noticed that he was in the room), and tried not to read too much into the knowing look he gave as he passed. Neville carefully shut the door behind him and Muffliato-d the room. I took a deep breath, preparing to launch back into our previous argument, but Neville merely collapsed onto the bed I assumed was his in near exhaustion, arms over his head.
"What are we going to do, Ginny?" He asked through his elbows.
I crossed the room and sat next to him. "What do you mean?"
He pulled his arms from his face and folded them behind his head. "You know. All of this. Snape being Headmaster, the Carrows, You-Know-Who. Without Harry and Ron and Hermione, what are we going to do? How are we supposed to fight this?"
I sighed. "I dunno. I think we just have to keep trying. Little things. We're the Hogwarts Resistance."
He snorted a laugh. "We're kids. The D.A. is a dozen school kids who think they stand a chance against the most powerful collection of wizards in history."
"We're not attempting to single-handedly overthrow You-Know-Who's reign," I said. "I think we just...aim to make Snape's life a little more difficult. Let them know that not everyone in this school is okay with what's going on."
"We're making ourselves targets," he countered. "Us and our families. And most of the D.A. isn't even of age. Hell, you're not even of age."
"I don't think that can really matter anymore," I said quietly. "If someone's brave enough to stand up and fight, they're going to do it whether they're in a covert group of kids or not. It's just better to work as a team."
He heaved a giant sigh and sat up. "All right. My period of feeling hopeless is over. We should make a game plan. You know, figure out what we want to teach the D.A. for the next few weeks. Harry and Hermione were always a few steps ahead because, well, it was Harry and Hermione, but we might have to work a little harder."
I nodded, pulled my D.A. Galleon out of my pocket, and set to work sending a message.
"What're you doing?" Neville asked as he produced his old Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks.
"Asking Luna to meet us here for a bit," I explained. Neville wrinkled his forehead. "Don't look at me like that. She's a bit off, yes, but she's bloody brilliant and she thinks of things that the rest of us don't. We need her."
Neville shrugged and started flipping through a book. "All right. But if she asks me about the Wee Crithrops again, I'm out."
8 o'clock the next day could not come fast enough. Neville, Luna and I paced the hallway outside the Room of Requirement at 7:30 and spent the next half hour setting up for our meeting and getting reacquainted with the room—the practice area full of cushions, the sitting area with armchairs and snacks, the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor banners that hung overhead. We set Dennis Creevy on lookout duty around 7:50 and he ushered people in a few at a time to avoid suspicion.
I looked around the room just before the meeting actually started, mentally taking inventory. Me, Neville, Seamus, Lavender, Parvati, Colin, Dennis, and Meg represented Gryffindor; Michael, Terry, Padma, Anthony, and Luna for Ravenclaw; Susan, Hannah, Ernie, Justin, and Zacharias for Hufflepuff. Eighteen kids. Eighteen kids against an army of Death Eaters.
"Okay," Neville said suddenly, interrupting my depressing thoughts. The room fell quiet and fifteen pairs of eyes turned to focus on me, Neville, and Luna. "Okay. We all know I'm not Harry Potter. Ginny is not her brother. Luna's not Hermione. But we're going to fight anyway. I don't know how well this is going to work out. But we're going to fight anyway. We...Ginny?" He looked at me helplessly. I cleared my throat.
"What Neville's trying to say is that we're not sure how much we can actually teach you," I took over. "It's going to have to be more of a team effort. Anyone who learns any useful spell will be welcome to lead a lesson on it, and we'll keep working on the things that Ha—the things we learned last year. Luna's going to start teaching Healing spells, too."
"We also need to recruit new members," Neville chimed back in, looking more certain. "If you've got a friend in your House or in a class that you think is...sympathetic to our cause, this is how we think we should go about inducting new members: bring their name up at a meeting. The group gets the following week to watch that person, ask about them, etc. We talk about it and vote at the next meeting, only accepting unanimous decisions."
"This is our school," I concluded quietly. "We might just be kids and we might not have any idea what we're doing, but this is our school. And we're going to fight for it."
Neville and I looked at each other, then out at the group. No one said anything for a few beats, then Luna clapped her hands and barked, "Okay! Break up into pairs and start reviewing Stunning and Disarming spells! Go!"
Neville and I looked at each other again, startled, but the rest of the D.A. obeyed without question. Everyone was just settling into pairs and sparks beginning to fly when the door swung open suddenly and everyone in the room turned to face it, wands out. A terrified looking First Year wearing Slytherin colors stumbled through the entrance—the tiny blonde from Sorting, the one who'd been in a fight with the other Slytherin First Years a few days before. A Stunning spell whizzed by her head and exploded on the wall behind her and, from the looks of things, she very nearly wet herself.
"Hold!" I shouted, putting my hands up. "Who did that?"
"Sorry," Seamus mumbled. "Got excited."
I glared at him, only to notice Ernie stalking up toward the girl out of the corner of my eye.
"Talk," he demanded, holding his wand a centimeter from her forehead. "Quickly."
"Ernie!" I chastised, crossing the room in three steps and wrenching his wand away. "You're scaring her."
"Scaring her? She's a Slytherin!"
The girl looked at me with big, terrified, teary eyes and I looked over my shoulder to Neville. "Help?"
"Wands down, guys," Neville called. "Ginny'll talk to her and let us know what's going on."
As Neville marshaled the rest of the group—most of them protesting audibly—away to a different part of the room to keep practicing, I led the girl to the small sitting area the Room of Requirement had come up with today and settled into an armchair. She perched on the edge of a stool, shaking all over, looking nervously over her shoulder.
"I'm Ginny," I announced. She started, looked around wildly, then made eye contact with me.
"I-I-I—," she started, then stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again. "I know. After you stopped the fight on Monday I started asking who you were."
"And your name is...?" I prompted.
"Oh, right! I'm Bailey Norren. Slytherin," she added, plucking miserably at her tie. "My mum wanted to homeschool me, but instead, here I am."
"Okay, Bailey, what are you doing here? How did you find us?"
"Well, I saw the graffiti on the walls, all that stuff about Dumbledore's Army recruiting and stuff, so I asked around until I figured out what Dumbledore's Army was and what you guys did. I don't care if I'm only eleven, I know what's right and what's wrong and I know that what's happening here at Hogwarts isn't right. So I asked and asked and asked until someone told me that the DA practiced in the Room of Requirement." She said all of this very very quickly and without making eye contact, then gasped in a great deal of air and looked up at me nervously.
"Okay, Bailey," I said, running back through everything she'd said in my mind. "I have a few questions."
She looked terrified, but managed a shaky nod.
"First, that fight that I interrupted. What were you fighting about?"
Bailey picked up a pillow and started twisting its fringe. "We'd just come from Dark Arts, and Laird and Dames and June and them were saying that we should find a few Hufflepuffs to practice on, and I don't know, that just didn't seem…anyways, I said something and Laird said that maybe they'd practice on me instead and he grabbed my arm and I don't know, I just got so angry, and then there was this little explosion and then everyone was shouting and then you showed up…" She trailed off miserably. "I guess I was just mad because Laird and them can be right little pricks about things like Houses and Blood Status."
I grinned. "Same thing I would've done, Bailey, honest. I've got the same problem with having an unpredictable temper. Now, second question: who are you getting your information from? My name, what the DA is, where we practice—who knows about this?"
Bailey looked at her shoes and mumbled something into the pillow.
"What?"
She heaved a sigh. "The house elves. One of them, Dobby, noticed me wandering around during lunch instead of eating. I explained that I don't really get along with anyone in my house and don't like spending more time with them than I have to, so I grab food quickly and then walk around the halls. He said that it was silly for me to be by myself and showed me how to get into the kitchens, so I spend most of my meals there. The house elves know basically everything that happens in this school, and once they decided that I was an okay sort they started filling me in on some things. They do clean this room after you all use it, you know. All last year. And they make the food." She gestured to the stack of pastries and mug of hot tea that sat on a little table to my right, and a small light went on in my head. Of course the house elves made it. Obviously.
"Okay, Bailey," I said thoughtfully. "I'm going to go talk to the group for a few minutes, why don't you stay over here and have some tea?"
I walked back to where people were practicing and gathered them together, briefly explaining the situation.
"Hell no," Seamus said immediately. "She's a Slytherin. Can't be trusted." There were general murmurs of agreement throughout the group.
"The Sorting Hat didn't put her there," I protested. "And she hates everyone in her house. She knows about us because she hangs out with the house elves during meals so she doesn't have to sit with her house."
"She already knows about us anyway," Luna said dreamily. "What are we going to do, let her wander around the castle knowing who we are and when we meet and not let her join?"
"This is what Memory Charms are made for," Zacharias Smith grumbled.
Michael immediately buffeted him around the head. "She's a First Year, you prick. You don't perform a Memory Charm on a First Year."
"She's a Slytherin," Seamus said again.
"She didn't get a fair Sorting!" I repeated.
"So ask the Sorting Hat," Meg interrupted. The group fell silent and all eyes turned to her. She flushed and spoke quickly. "I mean, you have the Sorting Hat back in our room, Ginny, why not bring it here and see if it'll Sort her?"
All eyes turned to me. "You have the Sorting Hat?" Neville asked weakly.
"It's a long story," I said. "Yes, I have the Sorting Hat. But it's pretty set on not Sorting anyone again and besides, I don't think we should be basing membership solely on House affiliation. There's nothing inherently evil about Slytherin—no, no, be quiet and listen—there isn't. People don't get Sorted into Slytherin because they're You-Know-Who supporters and like to torture woodland creatures, they get Sorted into Slytherin because they're ambitious. A little ambition might not be a bad thing."
"You know," Susan Bones said slowly, "it might be pretty helpful to have someone in the Slytherin common room."
Seamus' eyes lit up. "She could sneak us in so we can swipe stuff!"
"Or she can just listen," Neville countered. "Who knows what she might overhear?"
No one else seemed to have anything to say. The thought of getting inside information on the Slytherins was too tempting.
"Okay, then," I said. "All those in favor of accepting Bailey Norren into the D.A.?"
Eighteen hands raised, and I turned to call Bailey over. She walked cautiously to my side, still fidgeting with her tie.
"Bailey," I said, "it's my pleasure to welcome you to Dumbledore's Army."
"Really?" she squealed, looking around the circle. "Really? Thank you, thank you!"
"Look!" Susan interrupted, pointing at the ceiling, where a banner had suddenly appeared and unfurled.. Next to the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff tapestries, the green and silver of Slytherin now hung proudly on the wall of the Room of Requirement. Bailey positively glowed.
"All right, everyone," Neville said over the murmur that was rising, "back to practicing. Colin, Dennis, want to show Bailey what we're up to?" The always excited and eager Creevy brothers sprang forward at once to start filling Bailey in. Neville looked at me sideways. "You have the Sorting Hat."
I waved my hand dismissively. "No big deal."
He rolled his eyes and went to correct someone's hand position.
"Ginny? What's wrong?"
An hour and a half later, after most everyone had cleared out of the room, Neville found me standing beneath the House banners, staring up at them.
"Oh, no, it's nothing. I just...I feel like this is somehow what Dumbledore would have wanted. All four Houses. Even if it's just one First Year."
Neville chuckled. "I bet she'll be dating Dennis Creevy by the end of the month. Did you see him running around trying to catch her each time she was Stunned?"
"I'm serious, Nev," I protested. "Remember what the Sorting Hat said this year, and even the last few years, about lines that divide us and that being what You-Know-Who's trying to do? I feel like this somehow makes us stronger. Like we're fighting him just by, you know, being united."
"The Sorting Hat that you have in your bedroom? Yes, I remember what it said. Don't get all existential and weepy on me now, Weasley, we've got a war to fight."
I shoved him playfully in the shoulder and he stumbled a few steps directly into Luna. They both fumbled a little and ended up basically hugging, which they released almost immediately after looking in each other's eyes for a split second longer than absolutely necessary. I smiled to myself and followed them out of the room.
[A/N] Two chapters in a day, just to prove my love. And severe boredom. Anyway, I'm really glad you guys liked the last chapter! Also, I'm looking for suggestions of what the Animagus form of each student in Ginny's Transfiguration class (Neville, Parvati, Ginny, Lucas, Julia, Edward, Colin, and Brighton) should be, so let me know if you've got any bright ideas :)
