Whew, another long chapter! I wish I was artistic so I could design a copy of the unsatisfactory posters. Unfortunately, even my stick figures look like they've been drawn by a five year old, so guess I'm out of luck on that department.
So a few odds and ends. You'll notice that Cormac MacLaggen hasn't shown up since chapter 1. I was originally going to incorporate him into the story line as I think he'd be super fun character to write (he's so obnoxious, I love it!), but I forgot the fact that he's older than Harry and would have graduated. Whoops. I wrote him out of the first chapter so now it's just a random Gryffindor student. Also, I found a BIG HUGE MISTAKE in my story when perusing Deathly Hallows for more snippets of what happened at Hogwarts. When Harry, Hermione, and Ron are brought to Malfoy Manor, Narcissa mentions that her son is home for the Easter Holiday. I always had it in my head that Draco skipped out that last year, but the only reason Narcissa would say that he's home for holiday is if he were at school. Yikes, Draco's supposed to be at school. Don't worry, I think I've figured out a way to write him in with a legit reason why he hasn't shown up yet, but we're still several chapters away from that point. All you Draco lovers, rejoice! Draco will get his time in the spotlight.
Also random side note, how JK Rowling manages to develop so many characters without leaving any out is a mystery for me. It took me ten chapters just to get Hagrid in! As always, this is all her material except the story itself. I just do this for fun.
Finally, thanks to all who read and follow and favorite and comment. You guys are the best!
On Saturday Neville, Hannah, and Ernie found each other at lunch and meandered the corridors until the found a secluded classroom on the ground floor near the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room. The day was gray and a little gloomy, but Neville couldn't help but notice that the weather didn't seem to affect Hannah's happy mood. Ernie walked in the room first, and Neville held out a hand to let Hannah through and was rewarded with a smile.
"Ok, so what's actually going on? It doesn't really have anything to do with art, does it?" Ernie demanded while lowering down into a seat at the front of the classroom. Neville pulled a chair around so that they would be facing each other across the table and Hannah also grabbed a chair and placed it next to Neville, sitting close enough he could touch her with just a hint of movement on his part.
"Sort of. We're going to hang posters around the castle that will have pictures of the Carrows and Snape labeled as 'Unsatisfactory No. 1,2, and 3. They're going to be similar design to the Undesirable posters hanging up in Diagon Alley."
Ernie frowned. "And just how do you suppose we'll get these posters up without anyone noticing? I'm not quite to the point where I can do a Disillusionment Charm and I doubt my prefect status will get me out of this kind of trouble."
"We're going to charm the posters so that they react to sunlight. With the Activities' Fair coming up, posters will go up in the evenings, and so it's a perfect place to hide our charmed posters without bringing suspicion towards any one person hanging the posters." replied Neville.
Ernie looked thoughtful at this. Hannah looked at Neville and said, "How are we going to get all the different student groups together to use our posters, though? Won't they suspect something? And we don't want to get other people in trouble for us."
"We thought about that," said Neville. "If we can get enough posters to represent almost all of the groups, then Snape won't know who to target for punishment because it'll look like someone tricked every group rather than one group acting out on its own."
Hannah looked skeptical. "That still doesn't answer how we'll get everyone to use the special parchment and to make sure the prank doesn't get revealed at the same time."
"Luna's dad is helping us out with special copy parchment. I have master plans of each parchment. When each is placed on a pile of blank copy parchment, it will automatically absorb the information on the master copy. We'll just make sure those copies get handed out to the groups and then signed by whichever Carrow is in charge of approving posters." Neville was pretty confident in the plan he and Luna and Ginny had come up with.
Hannah, though, wasn't convinced. "How do we know the groups won't accidently put their posters out early? Or want to work on their design during the day, when the image is present?"
"Ginny solved that one," Neville admitted. "Luna found out that Alecto wants nothing to do with the project and has pointed out that she will only be willing to sign posters between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm next Wednesday, two days before the fair. There are several DA members involved in student groups, so they'll make sure their posters are covered. Since they are also connected with other student groups, they'll hand out a few extra sheets after dinner to those groups and pretend they were simply leftover parchment they didn't want to use but also didn't want to go to waste. I think we've got almost all of the 25 student groups covered with every single DA member talking to 3 different groups each."
Neville ducked under the table and grabbed his school bag and set it on the table, pulling out four pieces of parchment. Three were the blank master plans and the fourth was a clipping from the Daily Prophet, a copy of the undesirable posters with Harry's picture walking in and out of the frame looking slightly annoyed to be in the picture. He passed the clipping to Hannah so she could see.
"Ok, so we want the design to look similar to the clipping Hannah is holding. That part is easy," said Neville. "First what we need is to transfer a picture of each person to the parchment, then we can easily add any of the writing we want." Neville reached into his bag and pulled out three copies of the Daily Prophet from August. Ernie looked at them curiously, reaching for one as Hannah grabbed another. Staring up at each of them were the people in question with the headlines announcing their new roles at Hogwarts. Neville scowled at the picture of Alecto sneering up at him. With a quick severing charm, Hannah got each of the pictures out.
"Do you know what spell you want to use to get these on the parchment?" asked Ernie. Neville shook his head no. They hadn't learned anything in class about transferring an image from one medium to another.
"Well, I think it would be best to use an altered Geminio spell," he said casually, still eyeing his picture of Snape and moving it around the blank piece of parchment as though trying to find the perfect spot. "It will cause a copy of the picture to bleed through newspaper clipping and will make an exact copy on the parchment like we want it."
"Do you think you can do it?" replied Neville. Ernie shook his head as though hesitant to say yes.
"Maybe," he admitted. "I was in the newspaper club for a while and watched the editor do it quite a bit my third year. He always showed me the charm but never taught me how to do it myself. Is this the exact spot where we want to the picture to be?" Neville nodded his head and said yes. "Ok, then. Let me try a few things out."
Ernie pulled out his wand and began tapping the parchment while muttering under his breath. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he stood up as though this would help cast the spell, but to no avail. Every few minutes he would sit back down, then stand up, sometimes pacing but constantly tapping the parchment. He was completely lost in his own thoughts, and so Neville turned to talk to Hannah about the midst of the conversation he once again noticed sitting so close he could touch her with the slightest movement of his could catch a fragrance of what Neville thought was chamomile which he only recognized because it happened to be his grandmother's favorite herbal tea. The smell always reminded him of home.
She smiled at him and their eyes met while she continued talking about their latest Herbology assignment. It was like looking at her for the first time, even though he had already spent time with her throughout the last month. Her light brown hair had the undertone of gold and was pulled back yet again in braided pigtails. She laughed quickly and easily while making a joke, flashing a smile with straight white teeth. What Neville noticed the most, though, were her pale blue eyes, warm and friendly and soothing, much like her flowery scent. She was mesmerizing in a different sort of way, like the girl next door.
"I think I got it!" Ernie exclaimed excitedly, snapping Neville out of his thoughts about Hannah as his cheeks turned slightly pink. She had already gotten to her feet, eager to see Ernie's spellwork. He also turned to face the parchment. Ernie had taken the cut out and held it triumphantly in the air, proudly displaying an exact replica of the picture on the larger parchment.
"Excellent!" said Neville with enthusiasm. Ernie had already grabbed another picture and was lining it up in just the right spot when Neville pulled the first parchment with the picture of Snape towards him and Hannah. He shivered slightly at the sight of Snape's cold yet triumphant gaze in the picture taken from the Daily Prophet.
Hannah took out an elaborate quill that had an end more like paintbrush than the typical quill ("I like to dabble with painting," she said, slightly embarrassed as though not ready to admit that fact to anyone). Glancing to and from and original Undesirable poster, she first used pointed strokes without ink to decide exactly where and how to get the block letters just right on top. Neville stayed quiet, content to watch her work. By the time she had completed the top portion, Ernie had already moved onto the third parchment with Alecto Carrow's image. He glanced back and forth, wondering what he should do, when he noticed the description on Harry's poster:
"Contact the Ministry of Magic immediately if you have any information concerning his whereabouts. Failing to report will result in imprisonment."
What kind of message should they be putting on their posters? He glanced out the picture of Snape and couldn't help but wish they had a headmaster who actually looked the part. The greasy, lank black hair that hung around his face really didn't do much for him. Contact the ministry… Why not have the students contact Dumbledore's Army? Isn't now a good time to make younger students aware that they don't have to accept things as they are? He glanced at the signature at the bottom from the director of ministry police. Who should sign their poster? McGonagall? Neville shook his head, knowing it was a bad idea. The last thing he would want would be for her to get kicked out of the school.
"Neville," said Ernie, interrupting his thoughts, "I think we've got the top portion completed on all the posters. What should we do about the descriptions?"
Hannah already had a piece of parchment out, ready to take notes. They both looked at Neville expectantly.
"Well, I guess we should focus on one at a time, and Snape is number one, we can do him first."
They began bouncing ideas off about what made Snape unsatisfactory, from his greasy hair making him look like anything but a headmaster (Neville's idea), that he never really actually taught anything but just had them read from the book (Ernie's suggestion), to the fact that he is so mean he probably kicks puppies for fun (Hannah's suggestion which left Neville and Ernie laughing so hard it was several minutes before they started could focus back on the task at hand). After several writes and rewrites, they settled on the following:
"Contact Dumbledore's Army immediately if you have any information on how to get the grease out of Headmaster Snape's hair. Failure to report will result in streaks left all over the castle for Mr. Filch to clean."
They snickered as Hannah carefully printed the words onto the parchment. With each stroke the paper became more realistic and Neville knew it would catch everyone's attention. Ernie and Neville set out to design a DA logo while they debated on whose name should be the signature on the poster. With a sigh and without looking up from her work, Hannah finally interrupted and declared, "I'm pretty sure Albus Dumbledore should be the name on the paper. We are his army, after all."
With a few responses of "Brilliant!" and "Why didn't I think of that?", the two boys then discussed what his signature even looked like since neither of them had ever seen it. All of their school letters had been signed by Professor McGonagall who had been (and was the rightful) headmistress. Once again Hannah interrupted, but this time a little less confidently.
"I have a copy of his signature," she said quietly. "He sent me a letter last year after I went home. I brought it with me to school this year. I'll go and get it." She stood up, having completed the description of Snape, and walked out of the room before Ernie or Neville could stop her. The air hung thick with silence as neither of them had been alone with the other before.
"Ernie," said Neville, an idea coming to mind, "What kind of flowers does Hannah like?"
Ernie looked up from his doodle of a potential DA logo and gave him a curious look. "I guess I'm not really sure. She's gotten carnations and roses and such from…" he paused as though catching himself, "..from some guys over the years, but she never seem to react to them like any girl would." Ernie looked over Neville as though taking him in for the first time. "Why would you ask?" he said cautiously.
"Oh, I just thought that since she's done a lot for the DA this year I thought it would be nice to do something to thank her. I figured every girl likes flowers and since it's the one thing I actually know something about it could be ... nice." he finished somewhat lamely. "I've just never bought a girl anything like that, so I thought you'd have a sense on if she would like it or not."
"She does like plants," Ernie admitted begrudgingly, as though not wanting to admit the information to Neville. He was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed and eyes narrowed a bit.
"Who likes plants?" asked Hannah curiously, already back from the Hufflepuff common room. Both boys jumped a little and Neville stammered out Professor Sprout's name.
"Well of course she likes plants, she's the Herbology teacher," she replied as though that statement were obvious.
Wanting to change the subject, Neville asked, "How did you get back so quickly? You were barely gone ten minutes."
"Oh, our common room is just around the corner," she replied, to which Ernie blurted out, "Hannah! Don't tell him that, we're not supposed to give away the common room locations!" She rolled her eyes but smiled.
"It not like he can get in anyway," she responded. She handed Ernie the piece of parchment hesitantly. "Dumbledore's signature is at the bottom."
And so back to work they went, though they couldn't help but admire their work once the first poster was complete. In Neville's opinion they had done excellent work and knew that these posters would be hit. They began hashing out the descriptions for the Carrows, thoroughly enjoying verbally abusing the two siblings .
For Alecto, they decided on the following:
"Contact Dumbledore's Army immediately if you have any information about the whereabouts of her intelligence as it appears to be missing from her rich pureblood inheritance."
For Amycus, they went a different route.
"Contact Dumbledore's Army immediately if you find yourself wheezing like an old bagpipe. You could have Amycusitis and are in danger of becoming a full blown arse if not treated immediately."
By the time the descriptions were printed on and everything was completed it was late afternoon. Neville began gathering his things and the two others did the same. Finally he started rolling up the posters.
"Wait," said Hannah. "They still have the images on them."
"Yeah, they won't disappear until we cast the charm on them to make it appear in sunlight," Neville replied. "As long as I don't get caught with them on the walk back it'll be fine, though."
Hannah then stood right next to Neville and leaned forward over the posters, pulling out her wand. While she cast a spell over the papers, Neville caught a hint of chamomile and he smiled knowingly. He knew exactly what flowers to send to her.
"There," she said, "now if someone catches you it'll just look like spare parchment. All you have to do is a revealing spell and everything will come back good as new." Neville thanked her and they stood up together, beginning to discuss nifty charms they liked and had learned outside of class. Ernie got up and followed the two of them, unhappy with the latest turn of events.
Neville found himself once again sprawled out in the Gryffindor common room soaking up the warmth of the fire while reading a book on magical plants in the Amazon, a book Professor Sprout had loaned him. At the moment, though, he was merely enjoying the peace and quiet by the fire as most students were still lingering in the Great Hall for dinner. Ginny snuck up on him, her excitement contagious.
"Great, you're here, let's have a look at those posters!" She must have just walked in from Quidditch as she held her broom against her shoulder and Neville noted a group of tired students trailed behind her, each heading towards their dormitories. Neville smiled and pulled at the posters.
"Not bad, eh?" he said proudly, rolling out the first poster. Ginny gave him an annoyed look.
"There's nothing on it."
"Oh, right, Hannah put a charm on it to hide the contents when I brought it up," he said sheepishly. "I'm not sure what the countercharm is, though."
"Well, Hermione taught me one forever ago. Let's see if it works. Aparecium!" Sure enough, the ink began to slowly crawl around the parchment and final result of the posters came in full view. Ginny broke out into a wide grin.
"Brilliant," she muttered to herself, "Utterly brilliant. Oh are we going to get people's attention with this!" She turned on the spot and ran up to her dormitory before Neville could comment on the poster. He smiled to himself as he waited for Ginny to return, which took next to no time. In her hands were three separate piles of parchment, which she dropped onto the table closest to them. Without asking and extremely excited, she took the revealed poster and placed it on top of one of the piles.
The ink on the master sheet looked as though it were bleeding through to the other papers, and as Neville looked closer, it was almost like he could see all the way down to the last paper. With a tap of her wand, the stack went back to normal, and Ginny tore off the first sheet to see an exact copy underneath.
"Cool," said Neville. He grabbed another poster, imitated Ginny's spell, and placed it on the second pile while Ginny did it for the third.
"It's too bad Luna can't be here to see this part." said Neville.
"I know, but I think she's seen this process before. From what she's told me, her dad prefers to use an enchanted printing press, but when she had the chance to visit the Daily Prophet Headquarters years ago she saw this process. When she was a kid her dad would buy this parchment for her so she could make her own copies of the Quibbler without interfering with the actual copy ready for print."
Ginny set to work immediately on charming the posters to be revealed only in sunlight. She continued muttering to herself and Neville caught the occasional "where's Hermione when I need her…" comment. Neville was content to sit back and let her work his thoughts meandering this we and that. He couldn't help but let his mind drift towards the thought of giving Hannah flowers. The idea of approaching her with a bouquet in his hand, though, sounded incredibly terrifying, especially since other people would more than likely be around to witness it.
"Ginny," he said distractedly, "what's the best way to send someone something without gathering too much attention to yourself?"
Ginny replied offhandedly, "just send them an owl," and went back to focusing on her charm.
Neville smacked his forehead lightly. Of course that was the perfectly obvious answer. He could easily pick one of the barn owls the school lent out and attach a small bouquet of flowers to be sent. He could even write a little thank you note to go with it.
"There!" said Ginny triumphantly. "I think that's it." Neville glanced over and saw one of the stacks was blank.
"How do you know it worked?" he asked curiously.
"I guess we'll just have to wait until morning," she replied, looking out of the closest window and noting the stars just beginning to appear. She went to work on the other two, moving much faster now that she had worked out the details of the charm, and not a moment too soon as the dinner rush was starting to come back from the Great Hall. She scooped up the stacks of now blank paper in her arms and with a wink, went back up to her dormitory.
On Monday at Herbology Neville had hung back to talk to Professor Sprout about locating chamomile flowers since they weren't kept anywhere in the gardens. Professor Sprout gave him a curious smile and said she could have some sent in with her next order of dragon dung but that it wouldn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon. He thanked her profusely, excited with the idea of surprising Hannah and hoping she would appreciate the gesture.
Tuesday passed uneventfully, and Wednesday night was the day the posters would go up. Neville was nervous about the plan, especially since it depended on so many different people passing out posters without making it a big deal. As he sat down to dinner, he noticed a few blank parchments trade hands with several people, including a few Slytherins much to his pleasure. Rionach O'Neal, a Gryffindor seventh year and head of the Gobstones team, sat herself down next to Neville and she was joined with Fay Dunbar, another Gryffindor seventh year.
"Ok boss, mission accomplished," she said with a smile. He looked up from his plate of steak and potatoes and faced Rionach.
"What? Oh, right, good job on getting everything out. Do you think anyone suspects?"
"Naw, the other DA members were really smooth about passing out their extra copies. We even got some Slytherin folks to take extra parchment thanks to Luca in Ravenclaw. You'd think with as sly as he is he'd in Slytherin himself. Don't worry boss, we got it covered."
"Why do you keep calling me boss?" Neville replied, somewhat irritated.
"Everyone thinks you're in charge of this," responded Rionach. "And you do play the part so well."
"Look, you can tell everyone that Ginny, Luna and I act as a team and that we all have a stake in this. Got it?"
"Ok, boss," she said with a playful smirk and got back up, much to Fay's chagrin as she had just filled her plate. They both walked off to a separate part of the table to join Parvati and Lavender. Ginny came and took the now vacant seat.
"Well, here goes nothing," Ginny whispered nervously, starting to fill her plate with food. "I know the posters work, but are you sure we closed all the loopholes?"
"There's nothing that can tie those posters to any of us, and we know that the list of DA members was never revealed by that girl with pimples thanks to Hermione's hex. It'll be ok," he said, trying to reassure himself as well as Ginny.
Thursday morning Neville woke up with a start. As excited as he was to see the effect of their planning, he was slightly nervous about the outcome. Even as he assured Ginny last night that things would go smoothly, he was still concerned about the after effects. He knew Snape would take it out on the students, but he had no idea how. Staying in his dormitory, though, wouldn't answer any of those questions. He changed quickly into his school robes, giving himself a look over in the mirror, he felt good about his appearance. This morning held another reason to be nervous after all.
The flowers had come in just as Professor Sprout had said. He had borrowed a bit of yellow ribbon from Luna and had arranged the flowers in what he thought was a nice way. Now it was his job to sneak out the door without disturbing Seamus (it was highly unlikely he would wake up based on how loudly Seamus was snoring). Off he went to the Owlery in the quiet of the morning when he passed by one of cork boards containing all of the club recruitment posters. He couldn't help but smile when he noticed that almost every poster was in the unsatisfactory image and yet somehow Alecto Carrow's signature shone through. He had to give credit to Ginny, she knew her stuff. With a grin, he turned up to the stairs of the Owlery, bouquet in hand. At the top he had an unexpected guest join him.
"Hagrid!" Neville said surprised yet delighted. "What are you doing up here so early?"
"Might be asking the same of you," he said with a smile. "I was just checking on a few owls that needed some extra attention." Hagrid's eye caught the flowers in Neville's hand. "I take it you're sendin' a delivery this mornin'?"
Neville blushed slightly, "Yeah, it's just a thank you for a friend." Hagrid nodded while raising his eyebrows as though suggesting he knew that the recipient was more than a friend. Embarrassed, he quickly convinced an owl down and placed the bouquet in the owl's open beak and tied the note to his foot. Hagrid couldn't help but give him side glances with a knowing smile.
"I'm sure any of the girls in the school would be happy to receive 'em," he said encouragingly. Neville gave him a grateful smile and said his goodbyes, hurrying down the stairs. If he was this embarrassed with just Hagrid knowing what was going on, he couldn't imagine what he had felt if he had tried handing the flowers to Hannah directly.
He was debating on whether to go back to the common room or if he should head down for breakfast when he heard the pitter patter of pawprints followed by the wheezing of Filch.
"Caught in the act!" he exclaimed the ragged breaths. "You're the one who changed all of the posters!" Neville stood frozen to the spot, realizing he was standing right next to the posters.
"What?" Neville sputtered out. "Me? I was just in the owlery sending a letter!"
"Convenient time to send a letter when no one else was up. What would be so important that you would have to get up this early to send out a letter?" Filch said accusingly. Mrs. Norris kept wrapping herself around Filch in an almost distracting way.
Neville turned slightly red. No way he was going to admit to Filch he was sending flowers to a girl.
"What's all the commotion?" came Hagrid's voice from the foot of the Owlery staircase. Neville breathed a sigh of relief.
"Nothing that concerns you," sneered Filch, "I simply caught this student in the act of committing a crime."
"Since when is sendin' a letter a crime at Hogwarts?" replied Hagrid testily. "Snape got a new rule that the rest of us teachers don' know about?"
"He wasn't sending a letter, he was changing all the posters to look like this!" Filch yelled, pointing the poster next to Neville, which happened to be a picture of Snape.
"Don' know who done that, but I can tell yeh that Neville's been with me up in the Owlery. Go get yourself someone else to blame, Filch."
Filch puffed up like he was going to argue, but stood back slightly under Hagrid's rigid gaze. With a huff he turned and went back down the hallway, Mrs. Norris at his heels. When he was out of sight, Hagrid turned to read the poster, guffawing slightly.
"Don' want to know if you're involved with this," said Hagrid, "but it's mighty clever. Might want to borrow one of these for my hut." He smiled at Neville. "Best be off to breakfast where people can see you're not causin' trouble. Come on now," he said, steering Neville towards the Great Hall. Hagrid went up to the teacher's table and Neville to the far end with the rest of Gryffindors. Most of the morning traffic was steadily streaming in, and whispers about the posters were all the rage. Every person that passed by him was commenting on which was their favorite.
Neville sat himself next to Ginny in the middle of the table, who was quietly eating a bowl of oatmeal and trying to suppress a smirk. She didn't say anything, but she really didn't need to. It was almost like the entire prank was like sharing a private joke between the two of them. As Neville began filling his plate with sausages, the owls swooped in, ready to deliver the morning mail. He couldn't help but notice the school owl he had selected gracefully enter and head towards the end of the Hufflepuff table closest to the door, right in Neville's view. He saw the look of surprise on Hannah's face and Susan whispering excitedly next to her. She then shook her head and said something in return while opening Neville's letter. He couldn't help but notice how bright her smile was this morning. Hannah finished the card and looked up and down the table and upon finding Neville, her smile grew even larger. He blushed realizing he was caught watching her, but gave her a small wave, which she returned eagerly.
What Neville didn't notice during all of this (as his was understandably distracted) was that Alecto Carrow had burst through the doors and went straight to Snape at the head of the table, clearly livid about her morning discovery. They began discussing quickly, Snape continuously urging Alecto to keep her voice down even though she was ready to scream to the high heavens her hatred of the students of Hogwarts. It began to draw the attention of the students closest to them, several of which began to scoot as far away as they could in case Alecto's ire was redirected at them.
Snape eventually persuaded Alecto to sit in her seat next to him, and he stood up. The hall slowly quieted down as people began to realize that their headmaster was standing and waiting to address them.
"It appears that several of you have too much time on your hands," Snape began, voice icy with a lingering hint of bitterness. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and should the culprits involved in this fake organization be found," his eyes scanned the room, "you will be punished. Severely." Several of the younger students shuddered at this, but Neville couldn't help but notice several of the older students met his eyes in brazen defiance. "It also comes to my attention that a plan of this type could not have been accomplished by just a few students, given that every student group was affected by this immature display. Therefore, all groups will be punished equally. Groups of three or more will hereby be banned from meeting together." A nervous chatter rose among the students. "That means all Quidditch teams, student clubs, social gatherings, and even study groups will no longer be tolerated. You can thank Dumbledore's Army for the newest rule." He then turned on the spot and walked out of the Great Hall by the side door and Neville could almost see that cold anger coming from his demeanor. Once at the door Alecto burst out of her seat, clearly agitated by the fact that no physical punishment was being demanded of the students, and bulleted straight for the door, following Snape's trail. Once she left (Amycus being nowhere to be found), the Great Hall burst into noise, everyone wanting to discuss the newest rules. Even the teachers began talking amongst themselves and Neville noticed several of them chuckling amongst themselves.
Ginny breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That's all the punishment we get?" She said astounded.
"I guess so, though I wasn't sure what to expect." Neville replied.
"But that's almost tame compared to some punishments we've seen. Even Umbridge had more drastic changes than that when something of this magnitude happened," she said quietly. Neville just shrugged his shoulders in response and went back to his breakfast. He couldn't help but think it was a pretty good start to his morning, even if that meant planning the next DA prank (which was guaranteed to happen) would be exponentially more tricky.