Chapter Twenty Five

Ginny was halfway along the twisting route that lead to the Defence classroom when she remembered something that made her anger, temporarily masked, flare up once more. Snape could not, legally, expel her from Hogwarts. The law requiring attendance had annoyed her when it was first passed; what infuriated her now was that she had forgotten it. Had she remembered the odd safety it conferred, she would never have behaved so meekly once cornered. Her pure-blood status, as with Neville and Luna, could not be doubted.

Well, she would just have to make her displeasure known that night. Snape had let the three students go just before the end of their lunch break, giving them no more detail than that their punishment would be an official detention and that they should meet him in the Entrance Hall at midnight. None of the teenagers had responded to this, or to any of Snape's irritating comments; the only move they had made was to leave the Headmaster's office when told to do so.

Ginny walked with Luna, as both were very close to being late for the same lesson. Professor Carrow would be all too pleased to give both girls another detention, or to punish them immediately, if they happened to turn up to his class after he had begun teaching. Not that anything the sixth years had yet studied under him could be classed as learning, Ginny thought as the pair turned a corner and reached a staircase.

Today's lesson, Ginny found, was no different in that respect. Maybe taking notes from his sister, Professor Carrow spent the entire lesson lecturing on methods of identifying and neutralising half-bloods. These were, he insisted, weak to the point of almost being powerless, but dangerous because of their numbers.

Had Ginny not know better, she might have assumed from the information given over the course of the lesson that a half-blood was a kind of magical creature, something non-human, certainly non-intelligent, with limited abilities. The session was similar, in fact, to one he had delivered a few weeks earlier regarding goblins.

Already angry by the time she arrived to the lesson, Ginny barely restrained her temper. She moved a short way down the hall afterwards with the rest of her class to attend their following Muggle Studies lesson; a knot of Slytherins talked animatedly, but the students from the other three houses made almost no noise as they waited for the female Carrow to admit them. Ginny stood alone, facing partway towards the wall so that she could turn away if anyone dared to look in her direction, and thought about Neville.

Ginny was aware that Neville was in Gryffindor tower; he had stated his intention of returning there when they had separated earlier. He was possibly with Seamus Finnegan, possibly alone, but certainly nervous about whatever Snape had in store for them that evening. Ginny herself wasn't worried, if anything she was looking forward to the opportunity to give Snape a piece of her mind, but the idea of Neville sitting alone and worried would not leave her mind.

Ginny would have liked to skip the Muggle Studies class, but she did not feel it would be wise to do so almost immediately after being given a detention. The lure of the Skiving Snackboxes was strong, but she had other ideas. As she took her seat, this time on the end of the second row, she pulled a small packet out of her schoolbag along with her quill and books. Fred and George might be highly irritating, she thought, but at times her twin brothers were exactly what she needed.

Under normal circumstances the person wishing to use the daydream charm would point their wand tip towards themselves and say an incantation. Ginny's brothers, though, had her let her in on a few secrets. Point the wand at somebody else, and the charm still worked. Say the incantation backwards, and the result was a vivid nightmare. The two tweaks, Fred had assured her, would still work in combination.

Ginny dipped the tip of her wand into the thin layer of powder at the bottom of the box, shook the excess off, and aimed it at her teacher. She spoke quietly, keeping her voice low so as not to be heard over the loud chatter of the Slytherins in front of her. She wouldn't have minded giving them nightmares, but her target was Professor Carrow.

The teacher froze in place, eyes wide, then made a sudden grab for the wand she had just laid down on her desk. Her breathing fast and shallow, she snatched it up and began waving it wildly around as if unsure how to confront whatever she believed was happening to her. The students ducked behind their desks as she began firing spells at random; two of the Slytherins in the front row were not quick enough to get out of her way. The first sprouted tentacles from both ears, the second, a boy, grabbed at his crotch at ran from the room.

Professor Carrow clutched her wand to her chest and crouched behind her desk, presumably taking shelter from something that she thought was hunting for her. Most of the students found the situation amusing, some laughing loudly and some attempting to hold in the mirth. Ginny herself was not having so much fun; although she was pleased with the chaos, she was also still trying to repress the anger and disappointment of their failed expedition into Snape's office.

Ginny finally smiled when the rest of the class began to bring their giggling back under control. Singly, in pairs and small groups they left the room, aware that their teacher would not soon be in any fit state to either deliver the lesson or to punish them for not staying in their seats. Ginny saw Luna leave with the other Ravenclaw girls, and decided that this was actually quite a good idea. The earlier the two, and Neville if he was willing, began discussing how to disrupt Snape's planned evening activities, the more successful the disruptions were likely to be.