"We will be alright, I'll be by your side. I won't let you down, but I've got to know, no matter how things go, that you will be around." -Lenka (Don't Let Me Fall)
"Neville, this is getting ridiculous," Ginny hissed.
The three of us were sitting in the library, at a table in one of the back corners. We were doing homework and planning what we were going to do next to annoy Snape and the Carrows.
"No, it's not," Neville argued. He didn't meet Ginny's eyes. Instead, he continued to flip through his book.
In the next three days, Neville had gotten three more scratches on his face and about two bad bruises. Ginny and I were still unharmed, but that was probably only because the two of us hadn't been instructed to torture any first years yet, and we had managed to keep our mouths shut in Muggle Studies, however much we disagreed with the lesson.
"What was this one from?" I asked gently, pointing to his cheek.
"I got it today," Neville said, still looking down, "in Muggle Studies."
"What did you say?" Ginny asked.
"I asked Alecto how much Muggle blood her and Amycus have got."
Ginny and I were silent. We both looked at each other at the same time and when we looked back at Neville, he was looking at us.
"What?" he asked.
"Neville, really, what's gotten into you?" Ginny looked surprised.
"Nothing," he said. "I thought we all agreed to do this together."
"We did, but I'm not sure I agreed to be used as a scratching post."
"Well, that's part of what reforming Dumbledore's Army means, Ginny," Neville said. "It's about doing something-,"
"I know what it's about." Ginny took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Neville. I'm just—I care about you and I hate seeing you come out of class bleeding every day."
"But that's why we're doing what we're doing, isn't it?" I asked. "It might take a while, but hopefully in the end we'll have put a stop to it."
"Exactly," Neville said. "Someone's got to stand up to the Carrows. Everyone else is too scared. Before, I would have been, too, but there's no time for that anymore. If no one else will do it, I—we—will. Right? I'm not doing this alone, am I?"
"Of course not," Ginny said. "We promised."
"You're never alone, Neville," I said, resting my hand on top of his.
"You two, don't leave just yet."
Ginny and I froze on our way out of Muggle Studies. As usual, there had been a mad dash for the door once class had ended, but apparently, Ginny and I hadn't gotten out fast enough.
"Yes?" Ginny asked and I could tell she was forcing herself to be polite.
"Follow me." Alecto had an unsettling smug look on her face that I didn't like one bit.
"How long is this going to take?" Ginny asked as we followed the teacher down the hallway. "We need to go to lunch."
Alecto didn't answer. Instead, she simply cackled and continued to lead us down the hallway. We eventually found ourselves in front of Snape's office. "He wants to see you," Alecto said. She looked happy, which wasn't a good sign.
"Why?" I asked curiously.
"You'll find out soon enough," Alecto cackled before turning and walking back the way we had come.
Ginny and I looked at each other. Finally, I reached out and pushed open the door. Snape was standing behind his desk. Standing in front of his desk, with their backs to us, were Neville, Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbott, Lavender Brown, the Patil twins, Seamus, Michael Corner, Zacharias Smith and Susan Bones. When I saw them, I knew what was going on right away. They were the only members of the DA left at Hogwarts. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Colin and Dennis Creevey were Muggle-borns and weren't allowed back at Hogwarts. Dean was also on the run. Everyone else had already graduated, but Snape had rounded up what members he could and was going to question us about the message on the wall upstairs.
"Ah, yes, come in and shut the door behind you," Snape said, looking at me and Ginny. Neville turned around and looked at us, smiling grimly. He knew what we were here for just as well as I did. Ginny had caught on, too. I could tell.
Ginny nudged the door closed with her foot and we stepped forward together. I stood beside Neville and took his hand.
"I'm sure at least one person in this group knows why I have called you all here today," Snape said. "Can anyone tell me why?"
Nobody said a word. I was sure everyone had seen the words Neville, Ginny and I had painted on the wall. It was likely they all knew who had done it as well, but yet, nobody was saying a word.
"Don't all talk at once," Snape said slowly, raising an eyebrow. He paced back in forth behind his desk, looking each one of us in the eye. "Three days ago, a message was found written on the wall of a seventh floor corridor."
"Not the Chamber of Secrets again," Zacharias said loudly with a snort. He clearly thought he was being funny, but nobody laughed. Ginny tensed up on my other side and I really thought she was going to punch Zacharias, but she kept still.
"No," Snape sneered. "This time it was a message about a certain group called Dumbledore's Army. The message was kind enough to let the entire school know that they are, what was it? Oh yes, still recruiting. I'd like to know who was behind this. Was it all of you? A small group? Or was someone working alone?"
The room stayed silent. I could tell Snape was getting angrier and angrier with each passing second. He came to a stop in front of Ginny, Neville and I. "Why do I have a suspicion that you three were behind this?"
"I don't know, but you can't prove it," Ginny said swiftly.
"No, perhaps not, but if I can't, then I'll just have to assign everyone a detention." I hated the smirk that played across his face. "And I'm sure you all remember what that means."
"It was me," Neville finally said. "Just me."
"Neville-," Ginny began."
"No, it was." He looked Professor Snape in the eye. We were still holding hands and I could feel his hand shaking slightly, but he didn't break eye contact.
"Very well," Snape said. "Everyone else may go. You," he looked at Neville, "will stay here so I can give you your detention details."
Neville nodded and finally looked away as everyone began shuffling out of the room. I glanced at Ginny and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
"Wait," I said, "I helped."
I felt Neville nudge me with his elbow, but I didn't look at him.
"So did I," Ginny added. "It was the three of us, just like you said." She moved closer to Neville and the three of us looked up at Snape, who was looking annoyingly happy.
"Well, then the three of you will be getting a detention. You will be serving it together in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom tomorrow night at seven. Is that clear?"
The three of us nodded before leaving the room as fast as we could.
"Why did you do that?" Neville hissed as we left the dungeons.
"Neville, we're in this together. We agreed to keep the D.A. going together and we're going to get in trouble together," Ginny said.
"That's right," I said. "We're not afraid to take the blame for what we did."
"Yeah, but they're going to torture us," Neville said. "You shouldn't be tortured."
"And you should?" I asked.
"We all promised," Ginny said. "We all said-." She stopped both talking and walking when we reached the entrance hall.
"What are you all doing here?" Neville asked. Everyone who had been inside Snape's office besides Zacharias Smith was now standing in the entrance hall, waiting for us.
"Does the offer still stand, even though you got caught?" Seamus asked.
"What offer?" Neville asked.
"Is Dumbledore's Army still recruiting?" Ernie Macmillan asked. "We want to join. Well, re-join."
"You didn't seem to want to last year," Ginny snapped.
"We didn't realize how serious it was," Hannah admitted. "Now, being back at school again…"
"Yeah, it's different, isn't it?" Ginny snapped again.
"Well, what do you two think?" Neville whispered to me and Ginny.
"I think this is wonderful. We should let them join. We're going to need all the help we can get and we did put the message on the wall. If we didn't mean it, then there would have been no point of putting it up."
"True," Neville said. "Ginny?"
"I don't know. They can't just come crawling back to us after they backed out on us last year."
"Yes, but they have. And like Luna said, we need the help. And if we didn't want people helping, then what was the point of the message?"
Ginny paused. "Oh, alright."
Neville turned back to the others. "Okay, you can help us. We're really going to need it."
"So, what do we do?" Michael Corner asked.
"We're not going to torture people who have earned detentions. Don't agree to it. You're going to get punished, but they don't want to spill a lot of magical blood, so they won't actually kill is. Alecto kind of implied that in Muggle Studies, anyway."
"So basically we're doing anything we can to set the Carrows and Snape off?" Seamus asked. "Everything they do, we do the opposite?"
"Exactly," Neville said. "We should probably do more graffiti and anything we can just to annoy the Carrows."
"I have plenty of products from Fred and George," Ginny said.
"How did you smuggle them in?" Ernie asked.
"Fred and George have charms on most of their products that disguise them as regular items when needed," Ginny shrugged. "It's how a lot of people smuggled them in last year, too."
"Oh," Ernie said.
"This isn't going to be easy," Neville said. "We're going to get punished and tortured, and if you want to join then you have to be prepared for that."
"We are," Lavender said as everyone nodded. "I think I can put up with a few scratches if it means fighting against those awful people."
"What a sacrifice," Ginny snorted.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're going to be getting more than scratches," Ginny said. "Look at Neville's face!"
"You know what I meant! I-,"
"Enough," Neville said. "So are you all in or what?"
"We're in," Seamus said at once. "All of us."
"Good," Neville said, nodding. "We'll communicate through the coins like we did for the D.A. meetings, so you should probably start keeping them on you."
Everyone nodded in agreement and the small crowd began to thin out, leaving Neville, Ginny and I standing where we were.
"Did that really just happen?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah," Neville said.
"It's good, right?" I asked.
"Of course," Ginny said, "but I can't believe that everyone wants to be a part of this again."
"It's because things are different now," Neville answered. "Like Hannah said, they didn't realize how serious it would be."
"Well, they're all idiots if they didn't think that it would be bad."
"Hey, they want to help and it's going to be like the D.A. all over again," Neville said.
"Just a lot worse," I said, "and more serious."
"Unfortunately, yes," Neville said. He brought a hand up to one of his bruises and flinched.
"Anyway, this at least proves what I was trying to say earlier," Ginny said. "We really are in this together, Neville. We're all going to rebel together and we're all going to get punished together. It'll be worth it. I think that's what Lavender was getting at."
"I hope it'll be worth it. I hope it pays off in the end."
"It will," I said, taking his hand.
"How do you know?" Neville asked quietly, his vulnerability and his fear showing through for the first time in a while.
"I don't, but sometimes hearing that things will be okay helps people to believe it. Doing what we're doing and standing up to people helps, too. It gives people hope and that's really what we need right now."
Neville nodded. "I noticed that when Harry used to stand up to Umbridge. It seemed, even if it was for a few seconds, that things would be okay again one day."
"Exactly," I answered, squeezing his hand. "Remember, Neville, think positive."
A/N: Thanks for reading and don't forget to review!