07. Organised Resistance
A loud chirping sound started behind her and whirled into something like a growl. Ginny spun around, shocked by how close it was.
Five or more stringy legs waved in the air around Luna. Neville groaned in fear, but just as quickly the legs ceased bobbing and retracted into the night with another, deeper noise.
Luna was left standing halfway into a big step backward, but seemingly calm. Neville pointed his wand from one tree to the next while Ginny whipped out hers. Hagrid guffawed. "Ah, good, the smell's strong enough!" He shook his head in relief. "Had me worried for a minute. Guess they're just curious about strangers."
"Luna's not a stranger here," Ginny blurted out. "What the hell?"
"She is ta these little guys. . .they don' come out this far. . ." Hagrid's face shifted through a few phases quickly, every twist framed by the flickering of his lantern. "Well, until this year," Hagrid said, and sort of grinned. It fell again as he said, "Well, I mean. . .I told you. It's the spiders."
"That was the size of a chair," said Neville.
"The giant spiders," Hagrid said. "Always been here. Or, long as you lot have been. And longer." He surveyed them, discontent with their alarm. "The smell's still stuck to ya, we'll be fine the rest ah the way."
"For how long?!" Ginny asked.
"Plenty long!" Hagrid retorted. "Well, then-maybe yeh should get to moving!"
The rest of the trip through the forest was silent. Their harried steps did all the talking. Neville, Luna and even Ginny were breathing fast by the time they said goodbye to Hagrid at the trees' edge and Ginny repeated that she would definitely come back, for sure. Soon. She yelled this to Hagrid and waved back to him. His big coat shook as he gave her a big wave himself.
Neville sighed, and took an eager breath now the air was alone between them and the castle. "So that's why Snape sent us out here. He was hoping we'd all get eaten."
"Well, it wasn't much of a plan, then," Ginny scoffed. "Hagrid knows how to handle everything the forest can throw at you."
"He likes to get out of his depth, though, doesn't he? Face up to things he hasn't learned much about yet-"
"We're fine, Neville."
"I'm sorry," Luna said plainly. "We wouldn't even be out here if not for me."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Ginny said.
"But I didn't even think the Sword was that important," Luna suddenly admitted. "I know you really wanted it, I hope we don't have to fight another basilisk, but I just thought it was all a bit silly. I just did it to make everyone happy." Ginny suddenly wondered if Luna thought SHE was the childish one. "And then we all got punished because of me."
"I attacked first," pointed out Neville.
"Guys, no, we got punished because I-" had a stupid idea. "I went against what the Order told me," Ginny said. "We should never have been in there. I'm sorry I dragged you into it."
United in sharing the blame, they gave up arguing. The artificial chill of the Dementors settled fully under their skin and they wandered closer to one another in the gloom. Bugs from the grass sang in noise like a circle, and it sounded roughly the same to Ginny as having her ears ring. Every so often the nearest volume would drop, a beetle scared away by their feet.
"I really could have killed him," Luna interrupted, devoid of embellishment. Just another Luna observation.
"You don't have to do anything like that again."
"If that's true, in these times. . .that I won't have to," Luna mused. "It will all go much better than anyone expected. Going to war."
"We can, I think, while we're at the school," Neville insisted. His determination turned to a frown. "I get punishing us, but, you don't think. . .the Carrows would. . .hurt younger kids?"
Ginny considered everything she knew about Amycus. "I think they'd go for anyone if they could find an excuse."
Neville went quiet and Ginny suddenly wanted to charge at the Carrows headlong. "We won't let that happen," she said, startling him. "We'll poison them if we have to, we'll think of something."
Luna concurred and Neville made a pained face, but nodded. They made it in the entrance hall and took most of the short walk to Ravenclaw tower together.
"Have a good morning, Luna!" Ginny called, waving her off with good effort at a smile. Luna smiled sweetly, Neville huffed and Ginny felt lighter.
They doubled back for the stairwell that led up to Gryffindor Tower. The second-floor entrance was most reliable, even if they had to go back down to reach it. The hallways were quiet but for the sound of the most stubborn grit scratching under their shoes. Even that quieted over the carpet in the final corridor. It reminded Ginny of being up for mornings in the House of Black; even the portraits went to sleep.
She watched the Hogwarts portraits as she went, old nobles leaning their heads on their puffed sleeves and unicorns curled up in woodland scenes. Their tarnished frames suited the brown walls inside of the castle. She turned left to look back at the ones on her other side when the air. . .changed. Or maybe it was just that a painted owl perked up to twist its head at the corridor stretching behind them.
Ginny put her hand on Neville's wrist. "We should get back to the tower, fast."
They sped up, Neville turning back and making a face at something that prompted him to book it. Neville went first into the main stairwell, Ginny turning long enough to throw an Impediment jinx behind her. A shadow of a robe vanished as it dodged behind a doorway.
She turned forward in time to see Neville reach the top stair. He yelped and slammed to the landing floor.
Trip jinx, she thought wildly. There were corridors to the left and another staircase positioned right of the stairs they were on and she saw an arm move behind an arch on the right. Ginny had no time to doubt or plan her first idea.
"BOMBARDA!"
The murmurs of victory and attempted spells were cut short by a threatening blast sound as old stones flew back through the arch. Ginny heard more than saw it, leaping the top steps to dive next to Neville and shield her head.
A glassy flicker covered them, throwing back the rubble-and someone who had stumbled nearer to them-into the walls of the stairwell. Neville's charm faded in a moment, as Ginny rolled downstairs to her feet and Stunned the nearest robe on the stairs. She stood upright and heard Neville yell Silencio! but had to leap down to the next stair over to close on someone ducking down. At least she had pants on.
Her shoes scuffed over the stone as she fought to secure her landing, rushing forward with shields up.
Whatever Crabbe (or Goyle?) cast first bounced back to his face when it met her Shield and he fell back against the stairs dodging it. He whipped a spell right back to her and Ginny slipped down a step dodging it. She ducked another cast as he tried to stand up.
She caught him in a Stun, finally. There was some other clattering noise as Crabbe abruptly fell back and passed out. She ran up and checked that he wasn't moving just as she heard a spell hit someone with a sick groan, and a thud.
Ginny flattened her back to the stairs next to Crabbe best she could. She peered between sections of the sturdy stair rail to just see one of the Carrows. The back of their head faced right at her. Amycus looked off to the left passage, where two sixth years inexplicably hung in the air from their ankles.
Her stairway slid into motion. The jerk before the stone achieved momentum could've given Ginny a heart attack, even under the ever shifting heights of the main stairwell.
Held aloft, she drifted inch by inch in the worst possible direction. If Amycus didn't know which stairway his cronies were using, the steps would swing into his sight soon. In possibly the greatest risk of her life, Ginny sat up against the rail and tried pointing a nonverbal body bind curse just over it.
It didn't take. Amycus went stiff but shrugged it off just as Ginny threw herself onto the rail and swung a Stun off instead.
The unsuccessful body bind staggered him just enough so that he didn't dodge in time. He fell backwards down the stairs in a series of crumpled noises that made Ginny's heart leap with glee.
She snuck around to the next floor up so she could reach where they'd started. Past the hanging students, Ginny found Neville's unconscious form and mumbled "Ennervate, ennervate." She only remembered to check down the stairs for more pursuers when Neville groggily winced up at her. Amycus laid diagonally down the stairs, rigid as the rails. He'd bounced off the railing and gone down feet first. Was he twitching?
"It's me, Neville, we're fine," Ginny breathed out in relief. No one but their failed opponents were in sight. "But I think we need to move."
Neville only groaned as he forced himself up, grabbing Ginny's arm for balance. She swung another Stun at Amycus for good measure and saw the suspended students behind him flail their empty hands and mouth silent yells. At least they had pants.
"Nice one," she offered. "What'd you use to get both of them so fast?"
"Shield Charm reflects. But half my spells hit wide anyway," he complained. In unison they slipped past the hovering Slytherins, smacking an errant arm. "I'll watch left, you watch right," Neville said.
"Right. Er, sure," Ginny corrected herself. She'd never been so grateful to know someone left handed. Neville must've had an advantage facing an ambush on his left.
They advanced the halls side by side. Ginny hit several walls waving her wand around. She was gaining sympathy for why Hermione had always complained about Stuns. Aiming them was fun in practice; it resembled the way you could throw a quaffle to add spin. Moving fights were a different story. The diagonal swing they required was awkward at best and, at worst, took up too much space. Swinging and hitting the guardrails, Ginny wasn't sure how strong her clumsy Stuns had been. She mentally noted that Silencing Charms were a straight jab. By the time they made it up the stairs to the Fat Lady's portrait, Ginny and Neville were acting paranoid enough to merit the double take she gave them. Inside, Ginny requested Luna's status over the galleons. Just in case.
Professor McGonagall stood in front of the hearth, awaiting them. "You are late."
The two of them started to explain in unison, but McGonagall held up her hand to quiet them. "Neville Longbottom, what was the password to Gryffindor tower in September of your fifth year?"
"Mimbulus mimbletonia," Neville replied automatically, affection for cacti evidently overtaking thought.
Ginny thought fast. "What year were my parents in when they got caught sneaking past the greenhouse at midnight?"
McGonagall smiled, mischief apparent even with worry lining deep through her skin. "Fifth, though I was more surprised it was the only time they were caught." She motioned to the couch and took an armchair. "Sit."
Safe in line with Ginny on the couch, Neville lost patience. "Professor, the Carrows attacked us on the way up."
McGonagall took in a tense breath. "You were safer in the forest than you are in the castle halls by night, now. Can I have your time for the full story?"
They recounted the setup and she only nodded. "As my schedule allows," she announced when they were finished, "I will be watching the wing outside the tower at times overly opportune. For the Carrows' interest. I do not condone any actions you take against them, so I suggest you invest in more discretion."
Ginny felt a rush of gratitude. McGonagall wouldn't get detention if she was proven to be sympathetic to student rebellion; she'd get replaced. McGonagall seemingly noticed this and disregarded Ginny's rising hopes. "Now, Miss Weasley. I realise you are avoiding me. I realise your mother's attempts to inform your decisions through me are undesired. I hope you realise that at any other time, you three would have been expelled and that I only wish that were the case now."
Her iron glare required every inch of technique for Ginny to disperse emotion away before it twitched in her skin. Neville cut in, "Professor, I told you, Ginny didn't want to hurt anyone, me and Luna deviated from her plan-"
"A plan of theft that recklessly endangered all of you by acting against the most dangerous people in our midst," McGonagall interrupted, "and for not showing up in my class this morning, Miss Weasley, I will expect to see you in detention tomorrow, or more accurately this afternoon."
Ginny really was working to remain stoic. She'd started putting off her homework later than ever because she was getting more important results. She worked on limits for Arithmancy until she'd fallen asleep by accident and dreamt she was painting giant red infinity signs that dripped across the walls.
They did escape to bed in time for some rest. Ginny sprung out of her dorm after exactly four hours of sleep to hit the common room and try to finish her Transfiguration homework. Breakfast hour began early, but she didn't dare leave the tower alone. When Neville came down he was flanked by Seamus. "Neville told me," he announced. "You got attacked by Slytherins?"
"By the Carrows," Ginny muttered at a more appropriate volume, packing up her notes on magically shaping feathers in a hurry. When she checked there wasn't anyone listening from any stairway. "Amycus was there."
Seamus couldn't believe this. "You couldn't beat a teacher, no way!"
Ginny dragged her pack over her shoulder. She could study over her food. "Pure luck," she shrugged, wondering how the teacher bit was his problem.
"Aggression, more like. Have to hit first with that lot," Neville said as they headed down. Ginny gave him a sceptical look he seemed too tired to respond to. That lot was probably Death Eaters, but supposedly McGonagall wanted him to back off.
Alecto stood ominously at the front of the first corridor they passed. Ginny stopped in her tracks. Neville stepped back onto Seamus' ankle. They both yelped in pain.
"Weasley," Alecto declared. "For damaging school property, you have detention with the groundskeeper. Monday night."
There was an awkward pause as the boys reorganised next to Ginny and Alecto glared their way. "I don't have detention?" Neville eventually burst out.
Alecto's unbridled hatred might have killed him on the spot if she was more accomplished in wandless magic. After thoroughly terrifying them, she stalked off.
Ginny gulped and tried to focus on reality's little gifts. "McGonagall won! I'm not even getting the curse," she grinned back to Seamus and Neville.
"I mean. . .we didn't even really assault anyone this time," Neville pointed out truthfully.
"This is weird," Seamus interrupted. "Snape never passed up a chance to get back at Harry. How's he suddenly cheered up about Neville?"
"Get back at Harry for what?" Ginny laughed. "He never had a reason to hate half the kids he hated. This is the first year we've done anything to him. Maybe we got less fun to target when we bit back." With a final show of a shrug, Ginny seized Neville's arm and dragged him away to breakfast to see if it could take their minds off the thoughts that crept up on her as well.
/
Ginny was still lined up outside the classroom for second period when reality caught up with her.
"Miss Weasley."
Ginny turned back to find Alecto hovering over her, two inches taller and causing everyone but Colin to shrink several steps back. Alecto cocked her head and her hair draped gently off the shoulder of her robes. "I noticed that I didn't receive your last Muggle Studies assignment."
Ginny rewound the past week in her head and genuinely couldn't tell if this was a lie. Didn't matter if it was."I have it up in my dorm now," Ginny said inventively. "I can bring it down at lunch, if you'd like to see-"
Alecto smirked knowingly. "Detention, Miss Weasley. Hand me your wand and come this way."
Colin made to follow, but Ginny said "tell McGonagall" between her teeth.
Again with the chains, but the curses weren't so bad this time. No matter how Amycus egged them on, no kid produced anything that caused her more than a random jolt. The sleep deprivation mixed with random shots of pain was worse for her mental defences than anything.
Ginny noticed Amycus watching her curiously after each period. She could've sworn she saw the handle of a wand slipping back into his pocket whenever she turned his way.
At the end of his last period for the day, Amycus smiled down at her. He did not release Ginny's chains. But he didn't have more than one class after lunch on Fridays, McGonagall said so-
"Why, hello there, Professor!"
Professor Flitwick appeared without warning, the door silently standing open behind him. "I had a few questions about the spells you're planning to cover with your new curriculum," he squeaked, the chains smoothly releasing Ginny as Amycus jumped around, "it's important to make sure we teach certain fundamentals before students encounter complex topics without separate classes overlapping material-"
Ginny made carefully to the side of the room before bolting out the door. The concern-crowd, at least down to her actual friends plus Parvati and Lavender, waited in the same place as before and set in on her immediately.
"Ginny, we heard. Drink this?" Neville offered with his brow set, shoving another draught from the hospital wing at her. Ginny ripped off the cap and chugged three gulps in two seconds.
"We'll need to plan in case she grabs people in the morning again," he said grimly. Luna wanted to know about Ginny's feelings and Parvati looked like she might cry. Ginny's family did enough of all that. She sped past and forced them to follow her back to the tower lest Alecto appear with more excuses for detention.
"First of all, relax. It was Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and underclassmen today. Not sure why they bothered, really." Ginny had an idea, but it was more of a personal problem.
"Opportunism," Neville suggested, trying to keep up. "I've cancelled the Saturday meeting for now, tension's up since last night."
"Yeah," Ginny glanced back to confirm and rushed to check around the next corner. No one.
Ginny pretty much jumped her way up the stairs, but if she got too far ahead the group would lose her and Ginny had to fully stop, bouncing on her feet, before she approached the tapestry-covered shortcut Dean had always used. She caught her breath and turned, but when she looked, Luna was by her side. They bolted ahead until they were through the portrait and Ginny fell back against the stairwell wall with a sigh. Luna was breathing loud and open-mouthed.
It occurred to her that Luna had no escort back to Ravenclaw tower. "Wanna come up to the dorm with me?" she asked. Luna nodded; they traversed the near-empty common room and the stairs up to her dorm.
At last, Ginny nosedived onto her pillows. Her thoughts went a mile a minute and screamed hurry, hurry, hurry, fix this.
Clear your mind. . .Clear your mind. . .
Her mind overflowed with the faces of first years, stuttering, and a second year turning to tears from their seat.
Ginny sat up and threw a pillow at the wall.
"Wrackspurt got you?" Luna said mildly. She had a copy of the Quibbler open at the end of Ginny's bed.
"Sorry I'm being a flake, but. . ." Ginny cursed. "I can't sleep yet?"
"What would make you sleep?"
"Hitting the Carrows."
Luna offered Ginny her magazine. "Is there anything you can hit with this? Magazines are flexible, it's very satisfying when I slap them down on a table. Like thwack!" She demonstrated over the bedcovers and Ginny thought, I love you.
"Luna, there you are."
Parvati appeared, leaning against the doorway with Lavender and Lavender's ponytail peering around her. They always made a picture together. Where Parvati was sleek and a bit of a paler brown, Lavender was set more thickly, curly-haired and cute. "We're meeting Padma in the library, if you wanted to head back up with her."
"Oh, thank you, but-" Luna glanced at Ginny.
Ginny huffed and sat up. "Anything interesting in the library?"
"Aren't you resting?" Lavender asked.
"I need to slow down first," Ginny admitted. It was embarrassing to hit a wall. Metaphorically hit a wall. "I can't sleep."
Lavender nodded sympathetically and Parvati closed the door behind them as they came in. "Well, Alecto's trying to clean up the library, right?" Lavender said, walking closer.
"Yeah, Neville said. We wanted the newspapers."
"We talked Madam Pince out of the newspaper archives from the First War ages ago. Once she came to check on them she agreed to let us take a bunch of other stuff she hid."
"Padma's getting even more?" Ginny asked.
"She's a little too happy about it," Parvati chimed in, giving Ginny a knowing look.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'll bet."
"And now Ravenclaw is losing its collective marbles," Lavender mused in glee.
"What do you mean?"
Lavender observed Ginny, who returned in kind. Ginny had the age old sense she was taking an exam. Then Lavender came over and sat down on Ginny's trunk with a pivot. She crossed one leg over the other, leaning in. "Okay," she said in a low tone and, with the barest raise of her brows, continued. "It's like this. Madam Pince told Neville about Alecto asking for the newspapers because he's one of the only people who comes in to read them-"
"Yes, I was with him," Luna added.
"Oh! Well. Anyway Neville told us because he wanted help talking to her and moving them, but he wanted the stuff to go in Ravenclaw tower, and the Ravenclaws have literally never spoken to him-"
"Seventh years," Parvati added, crashing to the bed on her knees as Lavender's story took off at full speed, "Neville wanted a seventh year."
"Yeah anyway, Madam Pince told Neville and he asked us to talk to Padma, and of course Padma-"
"Went ahead without talking to anyone," Parvati snickered quickly, "cause like, library, under her bed."
"The boys just found out when we saw them in the library yesterday and Michael went right back to the tower and started giving Padma a piece of his mind, said she should move everything important to the boys' dorm-"
"-'cause Ravenclaws have more boys in the DA-"
"-and Padma told him that she was already like, triple protecting 'the property of the Hogwarts library for everyone's sake.'" Lavender popped her consonants Prefect perfect, Parvati increasingly giggling. "And that if he wanted to make decisions for the DA so badly, maybe he should start talking to them himself."
Ginny whistled.
Lavender preened. "So now the Ravenclaws are, like, up in arms cause they're gonna have to go through her to get the precious books we're moving, and the guys are mad but they can't tell anyone and another girl just joined up."
"I think it's gonna come up at the next meeting," Parvati laughed from beside her.
"I think we should tell Neville now, though," Luna said plainly. "He'd want to know."
Parvati's face fell.
"Oh, just tell Neville there was some confusion about what he meant the best arrangements would be," Lavender said immediately.
"If you guys don't want to tell him I will in the morning. I know where Ron's dorm is," Ginny offered. Luna would want to say everything and that wasn't necessary, but if the next meeting was just going to be nerds yelling at each other Neville deserved some warning.
Lavender nodded approvingly. "I guess you should know, Nott asked me and Seamus if we'd work with the Carrows. They're doing some sort of castle watch."
Ginny frowned. "And they're asking people outside Slytherin?"
"Mostly prefects. Me and Seamus just walked away. It's only volunteer based."
"Yeah, it's not technically a club or organisation because the Carrows are 'setting up a structure for vigilant students to volunteer information,'" Ginny elaborated. Lavender raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't her business how Ginny knew.
Parvati added, "We heard some Ravenclaws who hang out with Blaise are going for it."
"And some fifth years Pansy asked," said Lavender. "Sisters or something. Then she asked Ernie and got herself into a debate in the middle of the hall."
Luna laughed sharply, leaning in.
"Even Padma," Parvati said happily, "told Nott, like, what are you doing with yourself, when he asked her."
"She doesn't like having Muggle Studies with them," said Luna. "She thinks even talking back to them is a waste of time."
"Sounds like Padma!"
Lavender pulled a little tube from her pocket, offering it between finger and thumb. "Chapstick?"
Ginny slouched miserably and grunted. "What's the point without Quidditch?"
"Alright," Lavender sighed, grabbing her things. "Time for your nap."
Ginny flopped over her bed, fully clothed and eyeliner on. The girls flocked out of the room, Lavender asking about a Hannah. Luna answered softly, her voice only loud enough for Ginny's mind to wade uncomprehending in the sound. Her bed was warm. Warmth could soak into your whole body and build. . .
Ginny's eyes slipped shut when she ran out of thoughts.
/
Ginny knew how to repay a friend when it counted. She brought Luna outside the Great Hall to the closed entrance just ten minutes shy of dinner. Filch would be watching the kitchens around now.
"C'mon, anything you want."
"We're not Disillusioned."
"So do it quick!" Ginny hissed. Soon they'd be done and off toward the uncrowded halls outside the Hufflepuff common room.
Luna drifted into her thoughts. She gripped her wand tighter, and only then raised it. "Flagrate," she chanted as many times as needed to finish her opening message.
MISSING YOU
HARRY
Ginny took a moment longer than planned. She wanted to stay and appreciate it, even if all that orange sounded a bit like an eulogy. But they were done and she led Luna away.
"I'm tired of people calling him everything but his name, that's all. It's faded by now, if someone didn't take it down like Neville said," Luna finally whispered to her in class the next day.
"Yeah. But people will always remember, right?"