Thanks to everyone who read, fav'd, alerted and most of all to Lunaterre224 and In5pirit for reviewing! I'm a day late with updating - I don't even have an excuse, I just forgot yesterday o.O But please do enjoy the new chapter anyway ;)

Turning Tables

Neville scratched the back of his neck and, purposely avoiding me with his eyes, looked over to Ginny. She sat in a fluffy red armchair, hunched over and rubbing her legs as she thought.
Blaise had sat down, too, on a green couch that had turned up in the room recently. I, meanwhile, could not sit. It was just so that I kept myself from pacing.

I was uncomfortable with this. I tried to tell myself it was because my plan would put these people in danger - but the truth was much more selfish. I hated being dependent on others and I hated having to trust them even with a tiny peck of my fate.
Blaise knew this and he had insisted despite it - another reason why I did not sit by his side just then. It did not help at all that he was probably right.

If you are wondering: yes, I had decided on doing just as you had. It was madness, all right, and I already dreaded the day that I would have to go through with it. Blaise had been correct in his assessment, though. If I, too, had a Horcrux, I could die in my body and return to the living still. I just hoped I would still have my nose when I came back.
Trouble was, I was not entirely sure how to do it and I could not very well ask you. Any reasonable parent would probably have discussed details with me before making me this - thing, but then no reasonable parent would have done this, period. You, for sure, would find it suspicious if I now started asking questions.

I was sure, however, that there were answers to be found in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. It was more a feeling than true knowledge, but I had said this with such conviction to Blaise that he was now convinced as well.

"I still don't see why you can't ask a teacher," Neville said. "As if they wouldn't give you anything you wanted."

"This is sensitive," I said. Of course, I had not told them what exactly it was about. "They'll report back to Snape and if this reaches the Dark Lord..."

"We'll all be dead, yes, we get it," Ginny said. "I just don't understand why you're so hell-bent on setting your old man off like that."

She made it sound so normal. Made it sound like this was just another teenager's dumb idea of running away or throwing a party while their folks were out. It could not have been further from normal.

"It's important," I said. "Not just for me, for everyone... your boyfriend would understand."

She paled at first and then turned immediately bright red. I took a quick step backwards in an attempt to calm her down. Everyone knew that Ginny was vicious when she was mad and she was too good a witch not to take her seriously.

"My point is," I said. "That this is important in the bigger picture. And if I get one up on my father in the progress, all the better."

Neville lay a hand on Ginny's shoulder, but his expression was not much friendlier than hers. "And you really can't tell us what this is about, exactly?"

I shook my head. "It's dangerous. The less you know the better."

Ginny huffed and exchanged a glance with Neville over her shoulder. "If I didn't know any better," she said. "I'd say she's about to betray us."

To be quite truthful, I was not very upset about this. I would have preferred if they had trusted me, but I could understand why they would not - and this entire thing seemed very fishy.
Blaise, clearly, did not feel the same. For a second, I did not quite realize what was happening, because it did not make a whole lot of sense - Blaise, who was always so reasonable about who we were and what our House stood for, what you stood for, suddenly stepped past me and was angrier than he should have been

In fact, by the time I realized what was going on, he was already waving his wand at the two Gryffindors. "Take it back!" he demanded from Ginny. "Take it back right now."

"Blaise," I said soothingly, but he shook his head.

"She's not about to betray you, you absolute pumpkin," Blaise said. "She's about to put herself in mortal peril so that you fucking win the war and you talk like she's a traitor."

Ginny's eyebrows had knotted together and Neville looked at me with sudden fascination.

"Blaise," I said again. "It's fine. I don't mind."

Our eyes met. "You're a good person," he said defiantly.

I laughed at that. Because, can you believe it? I was a person that had plotted Albus Dumbledore's death, I was person who had killed an innocent woman; I was a person who carried a part of the Dark Lord's soul and planned to create the darkest of magical objects anyone could think of.
"Don't tell anyone," I said.

If anything, this display seemed to have convinced Ginny and Neville. While I thought it incredibly ill advised to change one's opinion so easily, but I did not protest this time. I needed their support, after all, because if I wanted to break into the Restricted Section, I would need an excellent distraction.

"It's not going to be easy," Ginny admitted when we sat over th plans later. "Especially getting Madam Pince out, you know she guards her books like a dragon guards her eggs."

For the next week or so, this remained a matter of impossibility. Whatever we were to do, it would not be enough to coax Madam Pince out of hiding, so the only option was to somehow sneak past her. I wagered that I might be able to conceal myself for some time, but that would not prevent doors from opening and closing.
Besides, this was not something I was particularly apt at - and waiting until I had practiced it enough took too long for my taste.

Blaise suggested that he would occupy Madam Pince with some nonsensical conversation on book recommendations, but I doubted it would be enough to make her turn a blind eye on the Restricted Section.
I was almost ready to indeed obtain a permission from some teacher for another book and read the actual one right then and there, but considering the kind of topics the Restricted Section dealt with, Madam Pince would probably go and pick the book out herself and I would get no chance to get the one I wanted.

When I had almost given up hope to ever read the book I wanted - the book, no doubt, that you discovered when you were even younger than I was now and that had inspired you - Ginny came up with a solution.

"There," she said and placed a satchel in my hand before she sat down on her bed. We had asked the room for sleeping arrangements, since it had lately become difficult to get back to the common rooms at night. The prefects - even my Slytherins - had taken to turning a blind eye, but the Carrows seemed to have figured that out and now patrolled the corridors themselves, helped by Filch and a few loyal students, most prominently Vince and Greg.

I pulled on the strings to open the bag. It was filled entirely with what looked to be black sand. "Is that-?"

"Instant Darkness powder," Ginny said. "Fred and George made it. I had forgotten I even brought it, but I cleaned my trunk the other day and found it."

"Genius," I said.

"Here's what I propose," she said and her eyes held the same glee that her brothers had always before playing a prank. "You set it off in the library and we make some racket outside. She'll run to see the miscreant, and not notice someone's inside still. We just continue with the noise all over the school, no one will look at the library twice, and you message us with the coin when you're done."

Do you remember the coins? Even though the DA had not met at all last year, they had apparently kept Hermione's invention and just very recently, they had deemed fit to tell me that mine, too, was still connected and could be used for messaging purposes. I honestly should have known before.

"Just make sure you don't get caught," I said. "I don't know if I can pull any strings for you."

"We'll be all right," Ginny said fiercely. "We'll use it to make a bit of noise about the DA - perhaps a few more of those messages. Filch just scrubbed one off the steps to the second floor."

I was struck - for a short moment only and I would never admit that to anyone else - by the thought that Gryffindors were not so bad after all. Slytherins would have told me weeks ago to stuff it and that they would certainly not get themselves in trouble for a book. Those Gryffindors shrugged it off like it was something they did every day. Which perhaps they did.

I picked a time when only a few people were in the library, to prevent any die-hard Ravenclaws just waving the smoke away and going back to reading. One could never be sure, but even they tended to be in the Great Hall during midday.
Ginny, Neville and Blaise agreed, because they, too, considered this the best time for their pursuit: during lunchtime, it would take longer for the teachers to arrive at the source of the disturbance, since the corridors were packed with people going down to eat.

Madam Pince was seated behind her desk as usual, gazing with hawk-like stares around her small kingdom. I slipped inside when she had just turned her head in another direction and pressed myself against the back of a bookshelf.
My hand clutching the satchel with Instant Darkness powder was shaking. I did not worry for myself - though maybe I should have. Chances are, you would have gotten the truth out of me eventually if you just willed it - but I did worry for the DA. Almost everyone had agreed to the plan, excited to spread their message once more. What if they got caught this time?

I took a fist of the powder and before I could think about it once more, threw it in the air as high as I could.
The effect was mind-blowing. It was not just dark, not the darkness of night that could be broken with a candle or a Lumos charm. It was as if I had gone blind. There were no shades, no shapes, not even the tiniest peck of light to give me direction.
It was scary and it was genius. I would have to tell Fred and George.

Luckily, I knew the library well enough to get through by feeling my way from one desk to the next bookshelf and so forth. Madam Pince had started shrieking, perhaps trying to wield off any intruders, but by the time I had made it - I thought - halfway through, the noise had gone off outside.
Perhaps whatever it was had been part of Weasley's range of products; their fireworks had, after all, worked spectacularly against Umbridge two years ago.

Madam Pince was running. That at least, I could make out. I took it as a sign to move a little faster at last; I did not want to prolong the danger unnecessarily and I suspected I would have quite some trouble finding the book once I was in.

The gate to the Restricted Section was cold under my fingertips and it creaked terribly when I pushed it open.
The difference was immediate. The Restricted Section was not exactly lit; there was one small a candle at the far back that flickered meekly, but I knew at once that I had outstepped the powder. I could see again and I almost laughed with relief - I had barely noticed how uncomfortable the darkness was before I had escaped it.

"Lumos!" I whispered. My wand lit up and proved me with a good five feet of illuminated ground and shelves.

The back, something inside me called. You have to get further to the back. A small part of me protested harshly, but my feet had already decided on listening to this suggestion. Before I knew it, I was at half a run. Then, I had almost reached that one candle, the pull suddenly stopped.

Later, when I had time to think about it, I figured it was the part of you inside me that already knew were to look. I figured it should have also known that me finding this did not mean anything good for it, but perhaps it was plainly a better person than you were. Figuratively speaking.

My hand reached out and I plucked a heavy, dark black tome from the third shelf from the top. I could tell it had not been read in ages, for my fingers became dusty just from touching it. I knew that this was it, felt it in the depth of my heart.

"Show me," I demanded and the book fluttered open, speeding through the pages until it stilled. The page was also dusty and yellowish, suggesting an age that was also reflected in the curved writing. 'Horcruxes' was not spelled out until three pages later, but there was no doubt per the instructions.

I stuffed the book into a bag I had magically expanded and made my way back out. The Instant Darkness had subsided slightly, I could see the edges of the bookshelves and tables again - and I could also see that Madam Pince had not yet returned.

I strode out as quickly as I could, my fingers already searching for the coin in my pockets when I heard the shouting. My stomach plummetted, mostly because I could have picked out Blaise's angry voice anywhere.
Filch was the first one I spotted when I stumbled around the corner. He was leering at a group of students - Blaise right in front of them, a skinny Gryffindor kid already with a black eye, Ernie Macmillan with paint smudged all over his robes. On the other side of them, both with looks of obvious glee on their faces, stood the Carrows.

"Leave them alone," Blaise demanded.

"You were caught with them!" Filch sneered. "Mind you, I'll get to whip you for this-"

"Let him go!" The entire scene froze and the heads turned slowly towards me. "Step away, Mr Filch, and let him go."

Filch almost growled. He took a limping step towards me. "He is in league with these rascals," he said and pointed in wide, swiping manners at the rest of the group. "Dumbledore's Army!"

"He's a Slytherin, you nitwit," I shot back. "Do you honestly think he's a part of that group? 'sides, I fail to see what terrible thing happened here that warrants a whipping."

At this, the Carrows both started talking, each yelling accusations and I thought they might have temporarily forgotten that I was me and not you, because they seemed terribly eager to justify themselves.
My eyes met with Blaise's, then with Ginny over his shoulder. Would you know it - she smiled at me.

A black powder was thrown into the air and terrible darkness enveloped me again.

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