A/N I'd like to thank the wonderful LorelaiSquared for her encouragement and brilliant advice. Squid, you are totally the best!
If you have seen my profile recently, you'll know that I've signed up for an author auction at . This is the first time I've ever signed up to do something someone else requests, so if you want to be the first to own a story I'll write just for you head on over to majik' and begin bidding between April 3rd and 6th. I'm looking forward to seeing some friendly faces there!
Chapter 51: Back to School
I had thankfully managed to avoid Mum getting so freaked out that she refused to allow me to go back to school. That meant that all too soon Neville and I made the long journey back to Hogwarts without Luna. Her absence made it all so much worse than it had seemed while I was at home, happy and cosy with my family. To make matters worse, Neville had a steely look in his eye that I usually associated with Harry when he was on one of his 'saving people' crusades. While I was pleased Neville was so committed to the fight, it worried me that my once-gentle friend was becoming so hardened. Seeing him like that saddened me.
When we got back to Hogwarts, it was clear that things had deteriorated even more since before the Christmas break. The Death Eaters all looked smug and self-satisfied, and Luna wasn't the only person missing from the already-depleted tables in the Great Hall. The only really good thing about being back, was the mutinous muttering we could see among all the students.
Throughout the next few days I could hear whispers about the DA passing through the school. The messages we had written in the last two terms of school had all finally been cleaned off, but new ones appeared daily. The new messages were getting bolder and more political as people began to realise that students were being taken to ensure their parents' good behaviour. I was fairly sure some of them were coming from outside of the DA itself, which made me happy. It seemed we were making a difference for these students. That idea made it all worth while.
Despite all the grief that the Carrows had introduced into the school, one of the worst things about that time wasn't the insufferable way they looked at us all or the missing students, it was the incessant letters I kept getting from my mother. I know that sounds incredibly shallow. The world was going to hell and I was annoyed because my mother was writing to me. Ungrateful child, right? But it wasn't like that. Let me explain.
Mum was unable to stop herself from lecturing me about keeping myself out of trouble and was forever telling me not to take part in the DA. I felt unsafe receiving those letters. If they had been intercepted, she risked spilling a lot of things that we would really like to keep undercover, not least of which was that she thought I was a major player in the DA. Of course the Carrows had long suspected I was one of the big three but they had never been able to prove it. Mum came very close to actually coming out with it, and every time an owl arrived for me at breakfast a shiver of fear shot through me. I always worried about what might be inside the letter it was carrying and what the teachers might do to me if they had read it.
I managed to carry on with the DA, however. I sent strident letters back to Mum, assuring her that I wasn't involved, had no idea what she was talking about, and just wanted to live a quiet life at school. But they didn't convince Mum and her letters kept arriving in droves. I hoped, however, that they might convince the Carrows, since they weren't the brightest bunnies in the field. I was never actively sought out by them for more or worse punishment, or closer spying sessions than usual, so I think I managed it OK. Those on whom they had more 'proof' were having a harder time than those of us they just suspected; although no-one lasted long without gathering a new collection of cuts and bruises.
I would often see Snape looking at me thoughtfully, and when he would catch my eye he would sneer carefully, and the glint in his eye would become malevolent. He was still making snide remarks about Ron, Hermione, and especially Harry every time he saw me but now instead of boiling up and talking back to him, I had learned to just sneer back and walk away.
I could not figure him out. On the one hand, he was the man who had killed Dumbledore in cold blood. Harry had seen him do it, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. But on the other hand, Snape had not yet been as evil as the Carrows. Oh, he dealt out punishments of course, and he had even subjected some people to the cruciatus curse, but his punishments were far more sporadic and often less brutal than you would expect for the 'crime' in question. Unlike the Carrows, he didn't seem to seek out minor misdemeanors to punish with cruciatus sessions. But … he was a murderer, and Harry hated him; he must be evil, right? Right?
It was at times like those that I missed Luna the most. She may have appeared flighty and out of it, but her mind was really keen and she had a way of seeing straight to the heart of a problem or mystery. The others I discussed it with, Neville, Ernie, Susan and Parvati in particular, were very insightful, but none of them had that spark that Luna did. It began to hit me more and more clearly just how much each one of us added to the whole group. Taking away even one part of it made a huge hole.
Interestingly enough, one of my best allies in that time was my ex-boyfriend, Michael Corner. Even though we had parted on such bad terms, I was still very fond of him. He may have been a bit of an idiot over me playing quidditch, but now that we weren't supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend anymore we actually got on pretty well again. His sense of humour was still biting, and he kept me in stitches, which was one thing I needed now that Luna wasn't there. I love Neville dearly, but he is a much more serious person than I am and he was so determined in those days that he wasn't much into cracking jokes anyway.
I remember one day with Michael when we met in the corridors. I was fuming about yet another example of the Carrows' new, even stricter, regime.
"Hi Michael," I said without preamble; I was that angry. "Did you hear the latest new rule?"
"The one where we're not allowed in the corridors for more than five minutes between classes? The one that ignores the fact that it takes longer than that to move between some rooms? The one that shows just how stupid these Death Eaters really are?"
Immediately mellowed out by his tone, I laughed and said, "Yeah, that one. I'm tempted to sit here for more than five minutes, just to see what they do to me."
"I'll keep you company," he said, sliding down to sit on the floor and patting the spot next to him invitingly. I weighed it up; I'd spoken on impulse, but now he said it I really did want to see what they would do. I sat down next to him, crossing my legs in front of me, and took on an attitude of defiant waiting. I was really curious to see how they managed to find out how long someone had been in a corridor, and it wasn't long before we were discovered.
"Weasley and Corner. You have been in this corridor longer than permitted. Explain yourselves or take your punishment."
Michael looked up at Amycus Carrow so very slowly, and said pleasantly, "It's not between classes, and since we're from different houses we have nowhere else to meet." The look in his eyes was arrogant, even condescending. Then he looked back to me and carried on our conversation as if no interruption had occurred.
I really wished I could pull off that look, and the nonchalance that came with it, but in every pensieve scene I've seen from this time, I have just looked sullen, though I guess sullen serves a similar purpose in this case. Anyway, Amycus drew himself up to his full, though rather insignificant, height and ordered Michael and I to move to our common rooms or face severe punishment. I sighed and started to climb to my feet. Michael did too, as if he was moving of his own free will and not because he had been told to. He kept his back to Amycus and kept up his conversation with me.
"I guess we'd better be heading back to our rooms, Ginny. It's getting late and we should really do some study for our classes."
"Yeah, you're right, as always."
"Always, huh? That's not what you used to say when we were together."
Still bantering together, we moved off casually. It wasn't worth totally pissing off the Carrows, just to make our point. The look on Amycus's face as we left was enough to show me that he got the message: we weren't afraid of him. With all the fear running through the school because of the abductions of Luna and the others, we had lost that sense of 'what can they really do to us?' I mean, yeah, they were abducting students; they were still punishing us; they had instituted stupid new rules, but that one big thing was still true: they weren't allowed to kill, or seriously harm, us and we'd lost sight of that.
As soon as we were three corridors away from Amycus, and out of possible eavesdropping range, I dissolved in giggles that I'd been keeping in.
"Oh, Michael, that was amazing! I need to learn that look you gave him, it was perfect."
He bowed and said, "I try to please the ladies."
I laughed, and said, "You better not let Cho hear you say that sort of thing to an ex; I hear she gets quite possessive of her men."
"Nah, she's not like that at all. And anyway, she trusts me."
I bristled a little at the implication that Harry hadn't been trustworthy, and Michael noticed. "Look, I don't want to fight, Ginny, not after we've been having such a good time today. But Cho was in a bad place when she was with Harry, and just because you're still hung up on him doesn't mean he was an angel, you know. She told me what happened between them, and it sounds like it was just an all-around bad deal."
I sighed. I knew I was often an idiot and badly overreacted to negative things about Harry, but until Michael had spoken, I had always considered the breakdown of that relationship to be all Cho's fault. I mean, I knew Harry had faults, and I knew he was clueless about girls, but somehow I had always assumed Cho was the one to blame for that debacle. I'd seen how Harry reacted to their split and he'd seemed so heartbroken that I'd held it against Cho for a long time. But now a jolt shot through me as I remembered that Harry's moroseness during that time had been about more than Cho. I slapped my head forcefully, staring up at Michael in horror. "You're right. I've been holding an unconscious grudge for so long, and for no reason. I'm an idiot! Why do you even talk to me when I'm so mean about your girlfriend? Seriously."
He laughed and said, 'You're a fun idiot and at least you admit to your mistakes – once you notice them."
I smiled, then sighed again. "Michael, I think I need to actually go do some of that homework we told Amycurse we were doing. I'm falling behind and I don't want to give them any more excuses to punish me."
We went our separate ways, me with my mind churning over these new thoughts about Harry. I realised I had taken to idealising him this year; in the past he had been my sweet and noble but clueless, and often quite stupid boyfriend, but this year he had become my idealised hero again. I cringed. It was time to knock that one on the head right now. It was one thing to yearn to see him again, to fear for what he was going through; it was quite another to set him up as that cardboard hero-type again. There was no way in hell I wanted him to come back to a recreation of that twelve year old fawning fangirl.
When I got back to my dormitory, I pulled out the photo I had so carefully packed to bring back to school with me. Looking at that picture, I was able to remember all the ways in which Harry was a real person and not just a symbol of hope for both me and the wizarding world. The reason I had taken to romanticising him again lately was probably because I didn't have these tangible things to remind me of the real Harry, I just had memories and stories. Potterwatch tended to glamorise the fight he was in to make its listeners feel connected, warm and happy about the situation, and that was really my only source of information on him, scanty though it always was. I decided, in the end, to spend more time every day looking at that picture and remembering what he was really like. I still couldn't bring myself to write a diary, but I tried to keep a better hold on the reality of what we were fighting for, and not the glamorised dream.
The time apart spread out before me and the knowledge that there was still no end in sight, no date on which I could count on seeing all my friends together and happy again, was oppressive. But, I reminded myself, Easter was coming soon and with it the start of spring. It wouldn't be long before I could go back to the fuss and love my mother always heaped on me and, as annoying as it could get, I found I was looking forward to being back in a place where I knew everyone loved me. Also, both Easter and spring both represented new life and new hope; maybe things would get better after that.
