A/N 1: This chapter features one of my favourite scenes to imagine - canon or otherwise. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
A/N 2: Apologies to those who read this chapter right after it was posted. I accidentally put up an unedited version; this is the polished one.
Chapter 35
"I'm so glad we're doing this, 'Mione," Ginny gave Hermione a one-armed hug as she paused in her preparations. "And it's all down to you. This will be brilliant."
"And everyone will want to come – I just know it," Neville called to them from across Headquarters. "They'll be there or be… what's the Muggle expression? Oh right! They'll be there, or be a pear."
"Let's hope so," Hermione said, her stomach in knots despite all of their careful preparations. She looked over at Neville, who was gathering a stack of Fred and George's Headless Hats the Room had produced. "Are you sure you won't reconsider?" she called over to him.
"Not a chance," he answered, his determined voice filling the nearly empty room. "I'm here until the end, either way. Especially," he reached into his robes and drew out a slightly crumpled letter, which he brandished at Hermione and Ginny triumphantly, "now that I've got this."
Hermione beamed at him, and then laughed as Ginny let out a cackle.
"Your gran needs an Order of Merlin, First Class when this is all over, or I'm storming the Ministry myself," crowed the redhead. "Giving Bella-bitch Lestrange the slip and then sending you a vulture with the news…" She trailed off, shaking her head admiringly.
"I'm so happy she's all right," Hermione added fervently, glad that her suspicions regarding Neville's gran had been validated the night before when a speechless Neville had burst into her room to show her the missive.
"Same," chirped Neville, and he whistled as he carried on with his work at the other side of the Room.
"So," Hermione turned back to Ginny, "you're sure about the aerial boundaries?"
"As sure as we can be based on the ghosts' reports. They have a limitation – as you know – not being corporeal, but Nick got the Headless Hunt to test both magical and nonmagical objects along the boundaries." She snorted indelicately. "Peeves helped them with that, incidentally. He was the one who finally used a living object."
"Oh no…" Hermione said, picturing what the mischievous poltergeist might have done in the name of 'helping' the DA. "Don't tell me..."
"Yep!" Ginny's wicked grin reminded Hermione irresistibly of Fred and George. "Mrs. Norris didn't bounce off anything before they cleared the hundred foot mark from either the ground, the forest, or the walls of the castle. Throwing her bodily at the boundaries didn't get her through, but magical propulsion did. Broomsticks definitely aren't affected before that same hundred-foot mark, and it's just a light zap if we fly too high, though I'm sure it would get worse if we really pushed it."
"Wow," Hermione said, mulling this new information over. "Harry told me about the measures Dumbledore had in place last year and I know that no one could have ever gotten through."
"That was Dumbledore," Ginny pointed out. "Plus, if You-Know-Who wants a way in without having to go through Snape or the Carrows, he'd have to be able to fly, so it makes sense that someone on a broom won't get through, but someone propelling themselves with only magic will."
Hermione thought about the time Snape had come upon her in the grounds before Christmas the previous year. He'd clearly been flying as well.
"That's very good to know, Ginny – well done. It makes me especially glad that we can exit Hogwarts through the Hog's Head anytime we want."
"Uh huh, without this Room, there would be no leaving, unless we invented magical trebuchets."
Hermione laughed, but sobered quickly – there was a lot yet to discuss.
"And you're sure about where all of the DEs will be tonight?"
"As sure as we can be based on the portraits' reports."
"Right, and I'll be in close touch with Malfoy," Ginny interjected brief huff, which Hermione studiously ignored. "We'll communicate through the Galleon I gave him. He'll keep an eye on the Slytherin Common Room for us, and Peeves will be guarding Alecto's office while Nearly-Headless Nick will watch over Amycus. And here," she handed Ginny a sheet of parchment, "I've got the preliminary list of students who will be attending, and the details for the evacuation. It will be three teams, each with different directions so that if one is captured –"
"We are not planning to get captured, Hermione," Ginny said, mock-scolding. "This will all go off without a hitch."
Hermione smiled at her friend and nodded in agreement. Ginny was right; the entire purpose of this risky enterprise was to assert the DA's power, to raise morale, to warn the DEs, and to test out potential exit and fighting strategies should they need them later in the year. There was no sense in being so pessimistic.
"Quite right," she said, amending her tone to match Ginny's optimism. "SO, once we have a confirmed ETA on the Carrows, Seamus will be leading Team One right back up to the castle. You'll lead Team Two, who will be flying, which leaves Team Three with Neville to run into the forest. The Room will have entrances on each floor tonight, and I'll see Hagrid this afternoon to confirm everything and make sure he's prepared. I think it'll work."
"And how will you explain it to…?" Ginny trailed off, raising her eyebrows.
"I will tell Professor Snape absolutely nothing," Hermione answered firmly.
"You don't think you'll be punished for this?"
"Not by Professor Snape."
Ginny took a step closer, glancing across the Room to make sure that Neville was still occupied. He was clumsily stacking old, beaten up Cleansweeps and Comets.
"But have you told Snape what we're planning? You might want to if he's…" she trailed off in an undertone.
"Of course not. He'll want no part in this, believe me."
"Are you sure? 'Mione, I know that you and he –"
Hermione cut across Ginny with a question of her own.
"And are you sure that you'd rather do this than just wait for the train home for the holidays?"
"Of course," Ginny answered at once. "I'm not going to leave Hogwarts and the DA without making my mark. It's the Weasley way! And there's no way I'm going to be a pear."
The redhead's wicked grin was back, and Hermione laughed, remembering Fred and George flying away from Umbridge in a blaze of defiant glory.
Hermione walked briskly down the hall that Thursday evening, pointedly ignoring the figure following her through paintings.
"What exactly are you playing at here, Granger?"
Phineas Nigellus failed to sound snide, petulant, or even annoyed; he just sounded worried.
"If Professor Snape wants to know that, he can ask me himself during our meeting tomorrow night. It's as simple as that. Until then, he can just wait and see… along with everyone else."
"Everyone else," the painted man spluttered as he rushed to keep up with her, "everyone else, Granger? You do realise that the Carrows may now, as we speak, be putting together their own battalion to go down to the grounds to stop whatever preposterous business you're planning! They may well know what you're up to!"
"My people are watching the Carrows," Hermione answered without slowing her stride, "and when they do catch wind of this, they are more than welcome to take their part in the evening. We're fully prepared."
"That is IT!" Phineas shouted. It was the first time Hermione had ever heard him lose control, and she finally stopped walking to give him her full attention. He glared at her, his face white with fury. "You are driving together the opposing forces of this castle, Granger, and you have no idea what may come of it. And," he added with particular venom, "have you even considered how Severus Snape – the best person to ever cross the threshold into this school, and whom I know you hold in appropriately high regard – will be affected by whatever dangerous, ill-advised, stupid machinations you are putting in motion? And for what. Possible. Purpose?"
Hermione stepped up close to the painting so that she could look the portrait in the eye.
"For the purpose of going down with a fight," she said, emphasizing the final word before she turned on her heel and marched on, ignoring the twinge of guilt the portrait's questioning had aroused, quickening her pace so that she wouldn't be late.
Dark figures streaked across the huge lawn between the castle and Hagrid's hut – two at a time, sometimes four – they moved like shadows until they reached the safety of the bright interior. Hermione, standing by the concealed side door she and Snape had used at Christmas, sent the DA members out, checking their names off the list one and two at a time; she knew that Neville would be checking their names off when they crossed the threshold into the hut. He would give some of them brooms or Headless Hats, and others a bottle of butterbeer and a pat on the back.
It will all go well, Hermione told herself, her stomach turning over for what felt like the thousandth time as she sent Lavender Brown across the lawn accompanied by a pair of third year Ravenclaws. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. I just wish I'd talked to Harry about it… She checked off more names, checked the Map, and sent more children across no man's land. I bloody well should have talked to him about it… but he'd avoided her assiduously every time she'd checked in with him and Ron over the last week. And so she planned to keep this to herself until it was over and done, and to regale the boys of her triumph in the aftermath. I could even get Professor McGonagall to send word to Lee to say something on Potterwatch – a surprise might raise even Harry's spirits…
She looked down her list after sending Michael Corner out with the last of the Gryffindors.
That's everyone. No turning back now.
Hermione took a deep breath, double checked the Map, and moved forward into the shadows.
Hagrid's hut was overwarm and very loud. Most of the DA – except a few volunteers watching over the Room of Requirement – were either being issued instructions by Neville or milling about, gawking at the decorations Hagrid had strewn about the room, laughing, drinking butterbeer and generally having a good time. Despite having been magically enlarged by a pair of industrious Ravenclaws that afternoon in preparation, the hut was extremely crowded. Enormous, moving photos of Harry riding his Firebolt covered the walls; lightening-shaped, self-inflating balloons bounced around the floor; and, oddest of all, Christmas baubles plastered with Harry's face dangled from the ceiling. Hermione couldn't help but grin as the Support Harry Potter Party Hagrid had wanted to throw months before coalesced around her.
Hagrid himself was surrounded by a gaggle of third-years, regaling them of the time Harry had set a Hippogriff on Malfoy during his own third year.
"That's not quite how it happened, Hagrid," Hermione told the huge man, sidling up to him with a smile.
"Ah, maybe yer right, Hermione." Hagrid's beetle-black eyes shone, and he swung his tankard up high, sloshing them all with butterbeer. "It were TWO hippogriffs!"
Hermione couldn't help but join in the uproarious laughter that followed.
She circulated after that, making the rounds as the crowded hut rang out with merriment, laughter, and – most of all – stories about Harry. His name, his face, his supporters were all around her, and she felt the weight that had settled within her chest these last weeks lifting, leaving her lighter and happier than she'd felt in what seemed like an age. She watched the shining faces around her reflect a similar change.
This was the right thing to do, she thought to herself, still trying to push Phineas's dire warnings aside, sometimes we really do need to take risks in order to get anywhere…
The Support Harry Potter Party carried on, and Hermione took her part: she drank toast after toast to the Chosen One, to the Boy Who Lived; she told again and again the stories of the trap door, the basilisk, Buckbeak and Sirius, the Triwizard Tasks, the Ministry debacle; she even comforted those party-goers whose difficulties remained stamped on their faces – visibly and invisibly – and who so desperately needed this space of light and optimism and hope in order to remember why they all fought so hard.
The revelry had been going strong for a couple of hours when Neville moved into the centre of the crowd – he caught Hermione's eye and nodded before standing up on an oversized chair. She nodded back. The evening would end soon, but not before they all came together to drive it home.
"Oy!" Neville shouted, and order fell with surprising rapidity. Faces turned up to look at him, standing resplendent on the chair, draped in a Hogwarts banner someone had brought, his face a beacon of defiance and strength.
"You lot are the best sort of people," Neville announced, his voice ringing with authority, "you've known from the start that your mission is the hardest thing that's ever been asked of you. You've known from the start that our adversaries would just get stronger with every blow you could land. You've known from the start that this would be WAR. You've stood up under fire. You've stood up under tyranny. And you've fought BACK!" Applause and whoops broke out in the crowd, but the DA quickly hushed again when Neville held up his hands for quiet. "And, because you are the best sort of people, because your determination and brilliance and courage is STRONGER than the hatred and ignorance and cowardice of our adversaries," his voice thickened, giving weight to his words, which came out as strong as a southerly wind in summer, "YOU WILL KEEP ON FIGHTING BACK!"
There was no holding the crowd back this time. Students clapped their hands and stamped their feet. They hooted and shot sparks from their wands and made such a ruckus that Hermione was profoundly happy for the Silencing spells those same enterprising Ravenclaws had cast on the hut in their preparations. But she toasted Harry, and laughed and applauded and stomped right along with them. It was a manifestation of everything the DA couldn't be within Hogwarts castle, both expanded and contained within the safety of Hagrid's hut. Hermione tucked the entire evening into her heart, there to keep it in the coming weeks, and the darkness they would inevitably bring. She took her part in the incandescent joy of the evening, all while waiting for the Galleon in her pocket to burn with a message from Malfoy.
Hagrid's hut was still overwarm but now it was very quiet. Thanks to the message Malfoy had sent not ten minutes before, Hermione knew that they had only about seven minutes.
"It's time, you lot," Neville said in ringing tones to the room at large, atop the chair once more. They all knew the evening had taken its inevitable turn, but Hermione saw some of the DA members relax at the confidence in Neville's voice. "The first part of our evening is over, and now it's time to put our magic where our mouths are. It's time to remind the Carrows of who they're dealing with. Remember that there are decoy brooms all around the hut. Team One – " he focused his attention on the youngest students, who were all gathered around a grim-faced Seamus and clutching Headless Hats, "do not trip over the brooms when you go out. You leave in," he checked his watch, "exactly one minute. Stay in pairs. Get back to the Room, no matter what. That's your only mission.
"Team Two," Neville continued, turning to point at Ginny, who stood steadfastly at the head of a line of DA members holding brooms, "follow Ginny out – single file, two minutes. You know your subgroups. You know your flying parameters. Do not fly too high, and listen to your team leader." Hermione saw Neville catch Ginny's eye. "Your objective is once around the castle as a distraction, confirm the aerial boundaries, and then up to the Owlery. Headquarters can be accessed there."
He turned slightly glistening eyes to the other students, and gave them all a bracing, kindly, very Neville sort of smile.
"Tonight is the night, people," he said in his strong, ringing voice. "We have got this. Team Three, we will go into the forest – not too deep, mind – just enough to make it look like you're really trying to escape. Watch your backs, and reconvene at the Room of Requirement in twenty. Team One, go now! Team Three, with me!"
Seamus was already leading the youngest students out into the dark. Precisely one minute later, Ginny gave Neville and Hermione each a nod farewell, and then led her line of students into the cool March night. The remaining crowd hushed as they listened to Ginny's order to mount brooms in pairs, before the flock of students departed with a collective whoosh.
"ETA on the Carrows?" Neville asked Hermione, climbing down from the chair.
"About five minutes now. They've already detained Terry's decoy team inside, and they're closing in on Parvati. I think she managed to blow Alecto's office – I saw Peeves in the mix. Malfoy is on his way down to the Entrance Hall and Professor Snape…" Hermione scanned the Map carefully, "is on his way down from his office."
Neville turned back to the remaining students.
"Right, you lot. Remember what we're here to do. Make a good fight of it. We want them to chase us good and proper. We want to give the first, second, and third years time to get to the Room. We want to be the last ones on the ground so that Ginny's team can make a safe landing back at the castle. And we want the DEs to think they're rounding us up and preventing our escape as a group; we do not want to give them an excuse to dole out individual punishments. Strength in numbers. Yes?" They nodded. "Off we go, then," Neville said, gesturing to the door. He stepped close to Hermione as the dozen or so students filed past him. "And Hagrid?" he asked.
"In the forest beyond the pumpkin patch. Lead people toward the east gates. Hagrid will hold the forest from that side, and he'll hopefully neutralise both Carrows right away, leaving you and Team Three to deal with the junior DEs."
"Done deal," Neville answered solemnly. And then, totally unexpectedly, he grinned, transforming before her eyes into the young, round-faced, toad-clutching boy he'd once been. "Good hunting, Hermione."
She tried to smile back.
"Don't be a pear, Neville."
He laughed as he left the hut.
A/N 3: I know our favourite Slytherin hasn't been around lately... I'll remedy that very soon indeed.