According to Anthony, Michael had been safely transported to the Room of Requirement, and left in the care of the D.A. members that were there. Over the next couple of days, more and more of them found their way into the Room - Kevin and Su headed out after an incident in Muggle Studies, and soon after, Lavender and Parvati went, causing Padma to follow in order to be with her sister.

Morag didn't leave quite yet. It was tempting to, sure, but something made her stay out with Mandy, Terry, and Anthony. She was so close to finishing the year; it was the end of April, after all, and if she could only hang on for a little while longer, she would be able to officially leave Hogwarts, finishing her education. After all, if anything did happen, and the Death Eaters no longer reigned, she would be able to get a respectable job, since she had finished Hogwarts.

The others seemed to have the same idea. Anthony, especially, wanted to finish; St. Mungo's, after all, would need Healers even if the Death Eaters were still in charge. Terry was staying partially because Anthony was, it seemed, and Mandy had never gotten in enough trouble to actually need to hide out.

One Muggle Studies class near the end of April started off normally. Alecto Carrow was not particularly original in her classes; every single one had the sentence 'Muggles are filthy animals' somewhere in it, often more than once. Michael, Morag, Kevin, and Su had sometimes bet with each other how many times Carrow would use that sentence, occasionally trying to come up with the wildest number imaginable. Now, Morag was the only one left out of that foursome, and it still seemed odd to her to be sitting in that class without exchanging glances with her friends.

This particular class, Carrow had gotten hold of some Muggle device. Morag hated to think exactly where she had gotten it, although she knew the answer - some Death Eater raid, most likely. Carrow was talking about how idiotic it was, and how it would not work in Hogwarts because 'filthy Muggle things don't work in such a fine magical place'. She surveyed the classroom, and then said, "What about one of you coming up here and cursing this thing? Could give it back to some Muggles." She laughed, a cruel, hard sound that made Morag shiver. "I know a few lovely curses that I could teach you all."

"I'll do it!" Goyle sounded positively excited at the prospect, and Morag glared at his back as he made his way to the front. It was highly tempting to curse him; he was large enough to block Carrow's view of her, and it was likely that she would get away with it. Hell, even if she didn't, as long as the hex was minor enough, she'd probably only get a day or two's detention.

She was just about to do it, too. Her hand was in her pocket, drawing her wand out as slowly and quietly as she could manage, when she saw Mandy. The other girl was holding her wand under her desk, pointed at Goyle, and as Morag watched, Mandy jabbed her wand in Goyle's direction, doing a nonverbal spell that Morag didn't instantly recognize.

For a second, Morag worried it hadn't worked; the effects didn't appear instantaneously, and she held her breath, looking over at Mandy. The other girl seemed perfectly calm, though, and Morag turned her attention back to Goyle, who was now furiously scratching a place that should not have been furiously scratched in the middle of a classroom.

She couldn't help the snort that burst out of her, but it was disguised by the laughter of the other students. Even the Slytherins were amused, and some of the other students - Terry and Anthony, namely - were full-on cracking up, loud belly laughs escaping from their mouths. Goyle ran out of class, awkwardly trying to run and itch his crotch at the same time, which was not an easy task, for sure.

"Who did that?" Carrow demanded, and everyone fell silent. "Someone cursed him, I know it." Her beady eyes swept the classroom, as if she would discover a culprit, but nobody had their wands out - both Morag and Mandy had put theirs away in the commotion. "I'll give the whole lot o' you detention," she threatened, and Morag quickly glanced over at the Slytherins. If one of them had seen, surely they would say it now to save their own skins.

"You can't do that!" Pansy Parkinson looked livid. "It was one of them, I know it!" She waved her hand in the general direction of the non-Slytherins. "You know me, Professor, and you know all of us. A Slytherin would never do that to one of our own."

"You just find it hilarious that someone else did," Morag pointed out, causing Pansy to glare at her.

"I bet it was you, MacDougal!"

"You want to bet? Sure, I'll take you up on that - you'd lose, after all."

"You're going to lose at life," Pansy snapped.

"You're going to lose the dog show - there are pugs better-looking than you, after all." Morag couldn't resist the jibe, and it was appreciated by the other members of the class, who once again laughed. Even Daphne Greengrass chuckled, although she stopped when Pansy gave her a look.

"MacDougal!" barked Carrow. "You're disrupting my class with your silly argument!"

Morag had several retorts to that, the first one being 'Your silly class is disrupting my argument', but she decided against saying that. She shrugged. "Sorry, then. But I didn't start it."

"But I didn't start it, Professor," Carrow reminded her. Morag also had several comments to that, one of which would have been taking a page out of Harry Potter's book. There was a strong possibility she would have said something, if it hadn't been for Carrow then speaking. "Anyway, MacDougal, detention for two days. My class is more important than your silly fight with Parkinson."

"Shouldn't she get detention too?"

"Don't make it three days."

"Professor," Pansy whined, "do those two days include whatever punishment she'd get for hexing Greg?" She looked over at Morag, an evil smile on her face. "See, Millicent just told me that she saw MacDougal pull out her wand and hex him. And whose word are you going to believe - mine and Millicent's, or hers?"

"Bulstrode can't even see me!" Morag protested. It was true, to an extent; Millicent Bulstrode was sitting in the first row, Morag the back one. The Slytherin girl would have had to completely twist around to look at Morag, and it was highly doubtful that she had been paying attention to a Ravenclaw sitting in the back row.

"I can see you," Millicent said, twisting around to look at Morag.

"Well, that settles it, then," Carrow said. "MacDougal, four days' detention - two for disrupting my class, two for hexing Goyle."

Pansy leaned back in her chair, looking satisfied. Mandy looked terrified, but started to rise up off her seat. "Sit down," Morag whispered, quietly enough so that the people in the front wouldn't hear it. She didn't want to send Mandy to detention any more than she wanted it for herself; it felt wrong, somehow, to imagine letting the other girl stand up and take the fall for it. Sure, Mandy had been the one to actually hex him, but still; letting her confess to it would feel almost like actually pointing a finger at her and saying "She did it."

Mandy sat down, raising her eyebrows at Morag, who shrugged. Mandy was off the Carrows' radar, for the most part; she never spoke up in class or did anything bad, where Morag had already gotten herself in trouble more than once. What would be four more detentions? It wasn't as though they would do anything that she hadn't already encountered. Detentions sucked, yeah, but Morag knew that at the end, at least, she'd be fine.

After Muggle Studies, Morag stopped in the hallway outside of the classroom. "Stupid bag ripped," she said to the other three Ravenclaws. "Go on ahead." She held her wand to the rip, mending it, mentally cursing whoever had thought it would be a good idea to make students carry twenty-pound bags. As she was just about to continue to her next class, someone shoved into her from behind. She dropped the bag and whirled around, yanking her wand out and pointing it at the smirking face of Pansy Parkinson.

"Go ahead," Pansy said, pulling out her own wand. "You and me, right here. No one's around."

Morag felt a surge of fury. She had never hated Pansy as much as she did in this moment. "You got me detention," she snapped. "You handed me over to be tortured for four days in a row."

Pansy shrugged. "You insulted me. Don't mess with a Slytherin." She twirled her wand between her fingers.

"You're a foul bitch, Parkinson." Morag trembled slightly, still holding her wand pointed right in the middle of Pansy's face.

"Nice to know." The Slytherin girl didn't even seem extremely bothered by the name-calling, although her grip on her wand tightened noticeably.

It was at that point that the door to the classroom opened, and Alecto Carrow came out, staring at the two girls. "That's it," she snapped. "MacDougal, eight days detention." Morag grabbed her bag, her blood boiling, and started to walk out of the corridor. She would be late for her next class anyway. "Don't walk away when I'm talking!" Carrow yelled. "Ten days!"

Morag hefted her bag further up on her shoulder and started dashing through the halls, dodging around a pair of fifth years who were apparently also late, her footsteps pounding on the floor. Her breath was loud in her ears, and she couldn't tell if anybody was following her, but it didn't matter. In the course of this one class, everything had changed. She was not going to put up with Parkinson anymore; she was not going to have the Cruciatus Curse done on her for ten days in a row. This was the last straw.

She reached the seventh floor, and looking around to make sure nobody had followed her, she stepped up to a blank stretch of wall. She paced back in front of it, her thoughts repeating one sentence over and over.

I need the place where the D.A. is staying.