Hogwarts Rebellion

by sheffers

Ginny's war was very different to Harry's war but just as important. The rebellion by the students of Hogwarts put the members of Dumbledore's Army into daily dangerous situations with Death Eaters.

14. Hogwarts Hostility

14:Hogwarts Hostility

Disclaimer: 'Any people, objects, places and so on that you recognise belong to JK Rowling. I'm just having fun playing in her sandbox for a while.

The train journey was hell. The D.A took over three compartments and crammed them full of members. They were not taking any risks this time, they were not going to lose anyone else, but despite all the tension and the nervous reaching for their wands every time the compartment door opened, the train did not stop until they reached Hogsmeade Station. With the tension starting to ease, they went to dinner in peace and used the coins to call a meeting for that evening.

The meeting itself took forever to start, as holiday stories were discussed and hugs were shared. After what had happened at Christmas and the disappearance of more people, there was more than a little relief to see each other again. It was kind of strange how quickly, and how strong the friendships had grown and they were now more like a family than a group of friends and they were going to stick around for good. Ginny knew she was more than willing to turn to anyone in the D.A. and she could trust them with whatever she asked.

"Okay," Ginny said as she called the meeting to order, "I hope everyone had a good Christmas." She stopped, seeing Terry Boot's hand the air and smiled — trust the Ravenclaws to have questions. "Terry?"

"You've been reading the Prophet, right?" Ginny just nodded unwilling to pass comment on the Death Eater rag's current opinions. "Well," Terry continued, "they are reporting that Hermione Granger is currently with Harry Potter." Ginny nodded again, not trusting her voice, she had been more than a little worried when that article had come out. "Is Ron with them too?"

She looked at all the expectant faces knowing that while she may trust them she was not going to put them in danger. "Ron's ill."

"You can trust us, Ginny," Lavender Brown chimed in.

"And you can trust me when I say that all you need to know is that Ron is ill." Several of the D.A exchanged glances and whispers before Ginny moved on. "Anyway, I guess you all know that we've lost Luna." This time Anthony Goldstein's hand was in the air. She forced her smile to stay in place. Damn Ravenclaws and their questions. "Anthony?"

"Okay, well, Hermione obviously knows where Harry is, Luna has been taken so she must have some knowledge," he fixed his stare, "so do you, as his girlfriend, know where he is?"

Ginny froze for a instant at the words but her heart was pounding so hard it was almost like a rallying call to him to come and find her, to let her help and most importantly, to let him know that she had fallen in love with him. She shrugged it off; it did no good what-so-ever to let herself think like that.

"If I knew where he was, why would I put myself through this hell?" Ginny kept her voice calm but was struggling to do so, she was desperate to snap. It was almost killing her to hold back the emotion that was welling inside her; all the hurt and the worry, but it would do no good to give in to that. It wasn't going to help anyone, least of all her. "I would love to know where he is, even if that would put me in a worse position than I am now. I dream of it. Hell, it's all I can think of. It's pure torture."

She pushed her emotions back into her stomach but she could still feel them thick in her tone of voice. "As soon as I know, I'll let you guys know."

"And Luna was taken because of what her dad was printing in The Quibbler," Neville interrupted much to Ginny's relief, "not for what she knew. None of us know anything."

Ginny smiled at Neville as she finally got back on track. "I guess what we're saying is that recent events have really woke us up. We are in a war; we're not playing and they are going to hit us hard. Hell, they took Luna, they are going to come after us and I say let's hit them back, just as hard. We have to show them we aren't kids, that we're not just playing games and pulling pranks and that we aren't going to listen to their crap about being good pure-bloods. They've hit us where it hurts, let's hit back below their belts too."

"We are not saying put yourselves in danger," Neville continued, "but we are all refreshed from our break away and we reckon we can do more. Graffiti is one thing but there's so much more. Naturally we are going to unchain those in detentions and not hand in homework but we want another huge stunt that hurts them, one that gets notice outside of school, one that tells the whole of Britain that we are fighting."

"We were thinking something like the Quidditch match stunt but we need to plan this out, get it right." Ginny found herself rubbing her hand again. "There's no point in getting hurt for the sake of it. So as well as the smaller disturbances and spell practice in here, we are going to need your help in putting it together; they can't take us all down at once."

"In the meantime, if you can think of something that will disrupt all the lessons at school at once," Neville was grinning, "let us know."

They broke up and started their spell practice after a few quick fire questions, which thankfully were focused on D.A. issues and not what might or might not be happening with Harry. The spell practice was useful and they added a few new spells to general defensive ones that Neville had read up on over the holiday. They even debated practicing the Imperius Curse so that they would be better able to resist it when the Hogwarts Death Eaters tried it on them. Although this was quickly dismissed, there was a line and this would be crossing it. There was a difference between being forced to do the Unforgivables in lessons and willingly performing them on each other.

The practice went on well into the night, breaking curfew.

At around one o'clock in the morning, the meeting was finally called to a halt. After all, it was not worth being late to lessons this year and so despite the progress that was being made they really couldn't justify finishing any later. After more hugs and long goodbyes, it was nearly an hour later when Ginny made for the door with the Room of Requirement empty of all but her and Neville.

"Ginny," Neville caught her arm as she was gathering the cushions after practice, "Ron and Hermione are with Harry, aren't they?"

Ginny looked back at him, it may not be safe for him to know, but Neville had proved himself in so many ways and she couldn't bring herself to lie to him. And even if she could lie to him, she was not sure that she could hold all this in any longer. She already felt like she was going to explode."Yeah, I think so."

Neville looked directly at her and asked, "What do you mean?"

"I honestly don't know anymore. I think they're together, they left together, I hope they are still together, but it's been months, anything could have happened." Ginny wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself for support, "I really don't know anything, they didn't tell me anything, they just took off. They were trying to protect me, just like everyone else."

Ginny let Neville pull her into a hug and she softly let her head rest on his shoulder as she felt his warm arms wrap around her. They gave so much more support than just her own arms. It was almost as if that extra support would actually stop her from falling apart. Slowly when she felt like she had enough strength to go on, she pulled back away.

"And now you're trying to protect the rest of the D.A." Neville smiled softly at her. "You two are so well suited, got the same Gryffindor nobility, it's unbelievable, really."

Ginny shrugged. "It's just safer that way."

"I get that," Neville said as his smile grew, "but that makes it really hard on you, dealing with all this alone."

She forced herself to smile at him. "I'll deal, I always do."

"And I'm here, I always will be, in case you need a bit of help dealing." He paused before smiling back at her and this time his smile looked a lot less forced than her own. "You're like my best friend here in this chaos."

"I know that," she said as hugged him, "which is good since you have already declared yourself yet another of my brothers."

It was in the early hours of the next morning before Ginny went back up to her dorm room, not that that fact effected her sleep too much. Even if she hadn't been in the Room of Requirement, she doubted she would have got much more sleep. Her nightmares came back to her and she woke several more times gasping for air and trying to hold back the screams that would have woke the other Gryffindor sixth years. Although with the worried looks she got in the morning, she might not have been too successful at that.

She just couldn't get the sense of dread out of her mind that this was not going to work out and that Harry was going to get hurt. And if it was not Harry then it would be someone else she loved. Those thoughts made her shake more when she woke because she knew that her nightmare had such a good chance to become reality. She had so much invested in this war and things had never looked darker, there was no way that everything was going to work out.

Soon maybe it would not just be her nights that were filled with images of death.

Ginny forced down half a bacon sandwich in the Great Hall the following morning, even though she did not feel much like eating. She had promised herself that she was not going to be lectured about losing weight when she returned home at Easter for the holidays. At least that would give her mum one less thing to worry about especially since she was sure that her mum would hear her screams if her nightmares continued while she was at home. Besides if she was going to hit the Death Eaters hard, she was going to need all her energy, she couldn't afford to let herself get into the mess that she had been at the end of last term.

She had to keep some sense of normality in her life, if only to keep herself sane. She joined in with the jokes at the Gryffindor table even if she avoided the boy talk. She had to admit she was a little torn. It would be so much easier to be back in that world, where all she had to worry about was boy talk, Quidditch and her grades. Last year was just so much easier.

Finally when she could put off the reality of her life no longer, she got to her feet. She had to face it sooner than later. She joined the other sixth year girls as they made their way up to first floor Dark Arts classroom.

She joined the line and looked over to the Ravenclaws and it hit her for the first time — Luna wasn't there in the line. Instead there was just the rest of the Ravenclaws lined up as they should be with no Luna reading at the back. She wasn't there and she wasn't going to be in the lessons either. She could be God knows where but just not here, as her friend, her support, one of her few lifelines helping her to function.

Luna was really gone.

Luckily before she could wallow and lament the fact too much and as she headed to her back row of the Dark Arts classroom, Demelza left her normal seat next to Ritchie to join her behind the shield of books on the back row. Ritchie turned to smile at his girlfriend and then at Ginny before making his own barrier of books and turning to face the front. Ginny smiled back; they may not be Luna and possess her special qualities but she did have friends left that she could count on.

"You ready for this, Ginny?" Demelza whispered as she piled her own books on the table to help the defensive wall against the Death Eater.

Ginny glanced up at Carrow who was already acting like an overgrown schoolboy as he stared at his class and played with his wand. "As I'll ever be."

"I know I'm not Luna but l — we all — still have your back, even in class," Demelza shrugged, "you know if you need it."

Ginny turned back to face her friend and ignored the shiver that had just run down her spine. "It's going to be hard, eh?"

"We're still working on the Unforgivables, right?" She looked down at her book and murmured, "Imperius, I think."

Ginny shrugged. "Well I guess it's just about getting used it again and hiding everything happening here from the parental units, it'll only stress them out and my mum's already gone on that front."

Demelza looked directly at her and asked, "Did yours ask about what they were doing too? Mine were thinking about leaving the country so that we didn't have to come back."

"I think everyone's parents went down that route," Ginny said as she forced a smile, "but it's not going to change what's happening here, what we and they can do, so I guess it doesn't really change our situation here."

"Weasley," Carrow wheezed at her from the front of the class breaking their conversation.

"What?" she spat back, with as much venom dripping in her voice as she could conjure.

"Yes, Professor," he encouraged with a leer as he stared at her.

Ginny shrugged, trying to ignore the shiver that had returned to running up and down her spine. "If you say so."

Carrow grinned. "Detention, Miss Weasley, tomorrow night."

"What on earth for?" Ginny spat back without thinking even as Demelza hissed her name in a quiet plea.

"You're being very rude." His grin had grown. "Talking in class, answering back. Your behaviour is hardly representative of your blood status. You still have lessons to learn and we are more than happy to teach them."

"God, this is utter bollocks," she muttered in a carrying voice as she resisted the temptation to send the Death Eater a two fingered salute.

"Ginny," Demelza whispered in a desperate plea. "Don't."

She could feel her temper rising. She wanted to kick over her chair, pull out her wand and then after using a well aimed curse, or she would settle for a well placed kick in the groin before storming out of the room but as much satisfaction that that would bring, it wasn't worth it. If she was going to cause that much of a scene she needed more than a moment's pleasure in return for the pure blood lessons she would be taught in punishment. She took a series of long deep breaths and slowly started to bring her temper back into check.

"Let's make that two detentions." Carrow let out his pig-like squeal of laughter which some students echoed to deafening effect. "Now unless you want to make it three you will join your classmates in copying out chapter thirty-six on 'The Correct Use of the Imperius Curse within Society.'"

Before Ginny could even reply, she felt Demelza kick her leg. "Remember how you finished last term. Don't start this term off like you started last."

Ginny just pulled out quill and parchment and started to copy, not taking care to keep her writing readable. Dark Arts was followed by Muggle Studies and another detention when she was unable to stop herself from telling Alecto Carrow to shove her essay on 'Why Using the Process of Ethnic Cleansing Should Be Considered in Regards to Mudbloods' where the sun doesn't shine, to the loud groans of several of the Gryffindors.

If she was going to get detention anyway, as one Carrow sibling had shown her, she might as well deserve them.

And she was not the only one to earn detention. By the end of the first four periods, all the Gryffindor sixth years, even those who were not in the D.A., as well as several of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had been placed in detention at least once. There was no doubt about it, they were being targeted.

It was a relief when it finally got to lunch. At least that gave her time to breathe away from the Death Eaters but not just that; the pointless lessons that she had to endure were over. She was more than a little thankful for the break from the morning's childlike activities and dreaded the return to guerrilla warfare.

"Hey," Neville called as he made his way over to the Gryffindor table.

"Hey." She forced a smile as she slid down the table to make room for the seventh years that were now appearing from their respective lessons. "How's your morning been?"

"Fine but then I'm not in the Death Eater lessons on a Monday." Neville took the seat next to her and started piling both hers and his own plate with food. "How was your morning?"

Ginny shrugged. "Same old, scored detention just like everyone else."

Neville paused holding his fork in midair. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it was almost as if they had a hit list and had divided us up between them and were just hitting out. In fact, I'm positive they have a list. They really mean it this term, they want to take us down any way they can and things are going to get a lot worse if you ask me." She paused, glanced down at her food then took a deep breath before looking up. "I would say you guys need to be careful but if they've gone after the sixth years, they're going to go after the seventh years too. That's Harry's year, his friends."

Neville looked directly at her and his eyes met hers. "So how many detentions did you get?"

"One that I deserved, another I might have deserved," Ginny shrugged at her words trying to play down the importance of them, "and a third that there was no way I deserved."

"Ginny."

"Come on, Neville. Please don't 'Ginny' me." This time she met his eyes. "I got enough of that at home. I don't need it or the guilt here. I'm only doing what you would have done."

"You've got it, no more 'Ginnying'," Neville grinned. "Want to put up some more graffiti?"

She smiled back. "Always."

The rest of the lunchtime was spent scrawling graffiti on the walls, coming up with as many crude words as she could and using the full extent of her rather colourful vocabulary as she wrote about Snape and the Carrows as well as her support messages for Harry. She knew that it hadn't been even twenty-four hours since she'd dismissed this tactic as kid stuff and she still believed that. They needed real stuff to fight back with just as she had said last night but it still didn't hurt to mix in the other stuff especially when she was feeling hurt herself.

Potions was fine and so was the rest of the day if you didn't count being called down to her Head of House's office and Professor McGonagall's latest lecture about her conduct. The next day brought detentions as predicted to the Gryffindor seventh years as well as the rest of the member of the D.A. in either Dark Arts or Muggle Studies. At six o'clock she headed down to the Dark Arts classroom along with Ritchie, Seamus and Parvati, who had all been given detention that evening.

Ginny was more than a little suspicious when she saw a line of Slytherin sixth and seventh years waiting outside the classroom. Surely all those Slytherins had not earned detention too. As far as she knew Slytherin detentions were a very rare thing this year.

Both of the Carrow siblings came into the Dark Arts classroom. Amycus was literally bouncing on his feet as he walked, excitement getting the better of him, a fact that was making Ginny very uneasy. What Amycus Carrow got excited over was not the stuff that a sane person got excited over. Whatever he was getting excited over was something to be very worried about. Alecto Carrow looked up and down the line and her mouth twisted into a grin.

Something was going on with the pair of them.

"Enter the classroom," Amycus wheezed.

Alecto rubbed her hands together. "This should be good."

"Oh, let me have Weasley." Ginny looked up to see Amycus leering at her again. "Just let me play with her for a bit."

Ginny felt the familiar twist in her stomach that made her feel sick and her heartbeat went into overdrive. She had no doubt over his motives, she very much doubted that being young enough to be his daughter would make any difference either. Just as her heart felt like it was going to pound through her ribcage, she felt Parvati's hand on her shoulder and she managed to start to control her breath which started to ease her accelerated heart beat.

"We won't let him hurt you," the older girl breathed.

"You heard the Headmaster, the students need the practice, so they are ready for leaving school and joining the Dark Lord's service," Alecto snapped back promptly at her brother before turning her attention back to the line. "Enter the classroom before we have to use force."

They all made their way into the classroom just moments later. Following both Carrow siblings' instructions, the Slytherins lined up.

Ginny glanced around the classroom. All the desks had been pushed to the side just as they had been under Moody when they had practiced duelling here although she was sure that duelling practice would be very different from what it had been under a Death Eater in hiding as opposed to those who were out in the open. It was going to be more like the lessons when they were forced to use curses on each other but she doubted very much that they would be allowed to use their partners right now.

She looked up and down the line of Slytherins. With the exception of one they were all grinning and they looked just as excited as the Carrow siblings. Vincent Crabbe looked like he might actually break into a dance. Andrew Harper, however, had a look of purpose to him as if he was just doing what had to be done.

Things started to click together. Andrew Harper was not just another Slytherin, he had to be the sixth year that Fred had been referring to at Christmas. After all, how many Sara Harpers could there be in the wizarding world with younger brothers in the sixth year at Hogwarts? She really wanted to kick herself for not working things out sooner. Harper may be a pure-blood Slytherin but he had at least one family member who didn't fully agree.

No wonder he didn't look like the other Slytherins.

"Miss Weasley," Amycus Carrow purred as he stroked his wand, "at the personal request of the Headmaster, you will be paired with Mr Harper."

Ginny glanced at Harper and then back at the Death Eater. "Paired doing what?"

"Mr Harper will be practicing the Cruciatus curse on you, Miss Weasley." Amycus Carrow's voice was ringing with excitement. "Personal request of the Headmaster. It's time for Andrew to show where his family's loyalties lie."

"Yeah, Harper," one of the seventh year Slytherins chimed in, "are you a Death Eater or a blood-traitor like Weasley or your sister?"

"Shut it!" Harper raised his wand as he spoke.

"You know she got what she deserved, right man?" another called. "Blood-traitors are worth no more than Mudbloods or other scum."

Ginny watched as Harper's hand tightened on his wand and glared at the other Slytherins. He looked like he was barely controlling his temper as red sparks were shooting off the end of his wand and his face was red. She would not have been surprised to see him aiming his wand at the other Slytherins after that teasing. Playing on the nightmare of losing a sibling was well below the belt. Harper then spun back round with a look of disgust on his face.

"Crucio."

Caught off guard, Ginny dropped her wand as she felt the fire spark through every bone in her body. She was numb, unable to respond as she had the sensation of all her bones being alight but the pain was not unbearable. As far as she was still aware she was on her feet and her mind was still working, she still knew exactly what she was thinking. This was nothing like the Cruciatus curse that the Death Eaters had fired at her, almost as if it had not been sent with the same level of hatred.

She dropped to the floor as soon as the wand was lifted. However, it was only a matter of minutes before she was able to stand again and even with Harper firing the curse at her three more times during the detention she was still able to walk back up to Gryffindor Tower. She could even help Parvati, who had been paired with Gregory Goyle, into the common room when they reached it.

The rest of January continued in a similar fashion to the first few days. It soon became apparent that the whole month was going to be cold and hard. The detentions continued, with older students mainly in Slytherin issuing the Cruciatus Curse against those in detention. Ginny started to get used to being part of the lines to enter the Dark Arts classroom for curse practice in regular detentions. It seemed no matter what she did or how she behaved, she was going to get at least one of these detentions every week. The Death Eaters looked for any excuse no matter how feeble even extending to giving Neville detention for going over to the Hufflepuff table to have a quick conversation with Hannah Abbott one lunchtime.

The D.A.'s new mantra for the term quickly became, 'We might as well deserve them.'

Plans were upped for a major disturbance to the whole castle which would take place after the Hogsmeade Valentine's Day visit and Neville and Seamus could meet Fred and George. As well as putting the detailed plans which involved the whole of the D.A. into motion, there was still the graffiti, breaking others out of dungeon detentions and the new act of rebellion: the refusal to do homework. However the fact that buoyed Ginny the most was the fact that Carrows' actions weren't hurting the D.A., in fact they were making them stronger.

After just two weeks back at school, two of Ginny's fellow Gryffindor sixth years, Amy Palmer and Elizabeth Jones, asked about the D.A. and joined up. Soon Harry's original group had grown to at least twice the size with members from the fourth year upwards in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff making all acts of defiance easier with more members.

They now had enough members to create distractions.

The meetings and detentions continued into February and on Saturday 14th, Neville and Seamus collected some more spare bits of parchment from the Weasley twins while Ginny spent a lonely Saturday staring out onto the Hogwarts Lake. She spent most of the day retracing her steps of the previous spring by the lake in those happy times. She even let herself think about Harry for hours at a time instead of trying to dismiss her memories, knowing when she faced reality again it would hurt all the more that he was gone.

As she wrapped her arms around herself partly due to the cold but mainly due to the onset of loneliness, she let herself wallow in the memories. She remembered the feeling as Harry ran his hands up her back and into her hair, how when he kissed her, it literally took her breath away and swept her off her feet and the way that she couldn't help smiling every time she saw his face. She even let herself dream that she was going to get him back, that he would make it out the other side of this war.

Losing track of time, she made her way up to the castle late that evening and well after curfew. Luckily she made it safely up to the common room by using several of the back passages of Hogwarts. Just like the other members of the D.A. she had learnt the passages around the school so well and they had worked to avoid detention. They now knew the passages even better than Filch did and Ginny suspected that she had finally learnt more about the castle than Fred and George and she didn't have a map to help her either. It was amazing what you could learn when it became necessary.

The Gryffindor common room was celebrating when Ginny finally clambered through the portrait hole. It was a party worthy of any post match Quidditch victory even over the Slytherins. They had managed to get the stuff they needed from Hogsmeade and they now could carry out their plans. They had also managed to collect plenty of treats from Honeydukes and even some drinks from The Hog's Head to liven up the celebration. The party to celebrate this went well into Sunday morning and lifted Ginny out of her Valentine's gloom.

The rest of the weekend went well but Monday brought the current Hogwarts quickly back into focus as Ginny got detention for the tone of voice when she had said the word 'Professor' that she had used in her Dark Arts lesson.

That evening as Ginny joined the line for detention at the Dark Arts classroom door, she noticed this time that instead of a line of older Slytherin students as was usually the case, there was now a line of first year students none of them wearing Slytherin robes.

Surely, this could not be good news, especially if it was a familiar detention to what she had grown used to. This was not a normal, well as normal as they could be, detention by any means. Things were about to become so much worse, especially if they were still doing spell practice in detentions.