"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." -Herm Albright

"What if we don't go?" Neville asked me as we stood outside the door to the room our detention was being held in. "What if we skip it?"

"If we don't go then we might as well cut off our own heads because that's probably what the Carrows will do to us," Ginny answered, half joking. "We have to go."

"Let's get it over with," I said quietly, placing a hand on the doorknob and turning it.

"Ah, good, you're here," Amycus said, looking joyful. Alecto stood beside him, smiling wickedly.

I looked around the room and saw a bunch of first and second years standing by a wall. They were all shaking.

"I figured this detention can go one of two ways," Amycus said, walking around us and tapping his wand against his palm. "Your first option, since you didn't seem too fond of doing this earlier, is to practice the Cruciatus Curse on them." He pointed to the younger students by the wall. "Since you seemed so against the idea, it'll be a pretty good punishment, don't you agree?"

"No, not really," I said honestly.

"Don't use attitude with me!" Amycus brought his wand through the air and I felt the blood trickling down my cheek before I actually felt the pain. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from making any noise. Neville was the opposite, though, as I suspected he would be.

"Leave her alone! She wasn't showing attitude! She was giving you an honest answer!"

"Silence, unless you want another injury to add to your…fine collection." Amycus smirked. "As I was saying, your second option would be to have the Cruciatus Curse performed on yourselves."

"What about neither?" Ginny asked, glaring at him.

Amycus raised his wand again, but his sister stopped him, speaking for the first time. "Hold on. If they won't do it," she smirked, "why don't we bring them to the dungeons?"

"Ah, yes, I forgot we brought back the old punishment methods," Amycus said quietly. "It was a lot easier for us than it was for Delores, wasn't it?"

"Well that was because the Ministry hadn't fallen yet. She had to get permission." Alecto cackled. "But we don't need permission! We can do whatever we want and the Ministry's on our side!"

"What are you talking about?" Neville asked.

"The old punishments!" Alecto said, almost gleefully.

"You must have heard about them," Amycus sneered.

"Oh, yes, we've heard quite a bit," I answered.

"Mr. Filch raves about them," Alecto went on.

"Yeah, well that's not a good sign," Ginny muttered.

Quicker than a blink, Amycus moved his wand through the air and in the next second, Ginny was curled up in a ball, screaming.

"Stop it," I said, kneeling down beside Ginny.

"We'll go to the dungeons!" Neville said. "Just stop torturing her!"

"Ah, yes, this must be painful for you to watch," Amycus said to Neville, pretending to be sympathetic. He smirked. "Don't think I don't know who you are, Longbottom. I know just what happened to your parents."

I stood up and helped Ginny to her feet. We were both looking at Neville and almost holding our breath to see what would happen next.

"I don't want to see anybody else tortured like they were," Neville said, his voice low.

Amycus laughed. "Well, that's too bad, because that's what's happening now and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Oh yeah?" Neville asked. He was trying to sound tough, but I could hear his voice shaking.

"Yeah," Amycus said, sneering. "Crucio!"

It was the second time I had to watch Neville get tortured in two years and I couldn't stand it, so I did the first thing I could think of, even though I knew I would pay. "Levicorpus!"

Amycus was lifted off his feet and now dangling upside down in midair. The spell on Neville was lifted and he continued to lie on the ground, gasping for air.

"Luna!" Ginny said with a small laugh.

"You little brat!" Alecto cried. She slashed her wand through the air and this time I felt the pain on my arm. I could tell without looking that this cut was deeper and worse than the one on my cheek.

Even though I knew it was coming, it wasn't enough to prepare myself for the pain of the Cruciatus Curse. I dropped my wand and was hardly aware of Amycus falling to the ground. All I could see was blackness as I squeezed my eyes shut and all I could feel was the horrible sensation of the spell, which felt like I was on fire and having needles stuck into me at the same time.

Suddenly, it all stopped and at the same time I heard a crash. Opening my eyes a crack, I saw that Neville was no longer standing next to me. I opened my eyes all the way and looked around. Neville was on the other side of the room, lying against the wall.

"Is he okay?" I asked Ginny quietly. I wasn't sure if I had the strength to yell over to him just yet.

"He should be," Ginny answered, sounding slightly panic-stricken. "He's conscious at least. He was trying to stop them from hurting you."

"Just bring them to the dungeons, Amycus," Alecto said. "We'll leave them there overnight and get them in the morning."

"Overnight?" Ginny asked.

"Problem?" Alecto asked.

None of us answered. I was roughly dragged to my feet by Alecto, while Amycus grabbed Neville and Ginny. They dragged us down to one of the unused rooms in the dungeons, where they attached chains to our wrists and dangled us from the ceiling.

"This isn't right," Ginny said as the Carrows left, slamming the door behind them. She struggled against the chains, but it didn't do any good.

"We're hanging from the ceiling of the dungeons," Neville said, his tone flat. "It's ridiculous."

"What are we going to do next?" I asked.

"What?"

"For the D.A," I clarified. "We're not giving up, are we?"

"No, I just didn't expect to be talking about it now," Neville said.

"I think it's a pretty good time and place to be talking about it," I answered. "After all, like you said, we're hanging from the ceiling. We're going to be here for a while."

Ginny squinted up at the stone ceiling. "You know, I still feel as if Snape doesn't really seem right as headmaster."

"He doesn't," Neville agreed. "It was always Dumbledore who was headmaster for us. The chair at the staff table in the great hall, the office, it all really belongs to Dumbledore."

"The sword," Ginny said suddenly. "The sword of Gryffindor hanging in Dumbledore's office!"

"What about it?" I asked.

"I think that's one of the last things that should be owned by Snape, much less on display in his new office." She wrinkled her nose on the last three words.

"What are you saying, Ginny?" Neville asked.

"We should steal it," she suggested.

"Steal it?" Neville asked.

"Yeah, why not? Snape shouldn't have it," Ginny said.

"What would we do with it afterwards?" I asked.

Ginny thought. "We should try to get it to Harry. He's the one who pulled it out of the Sorting Hat. He should be the one to keep it now that Dumbledore's dead. Plus, I think I overheard him saying Dumbledore left it to him in his will."

"He did?" I asked. "How nice, but why would Dumbledore do that?"

"I guess he thought Harry should have it," Ginny answered. "And he should have it, really. So that's why I think we should steal it and get it to Harry."

"But how exactly would we do that?" Neville asked, scrunching his face up in thought. "I mean, Harry's on the run. We don't know where he is and even if we did, we can't just go hand him a sword stolen from the headmaster's office."

"There's always someone from the Order," Ginny said. "I'm sure we can get Tonks or Remus to help us."

"I suppose we could," Neville said.

"Why don't we start with actually stealing the sword first?" I suggested. "Then, we can figure out how to get it to Harry. That is, if we're actually going to do this."

"It's risky," Neville said, "but I think Ginny's right. Harry should have the sword, not Snape."

I nodded and swung my legs back and forth a little.

"This stinks," Ginny huffed in the silence.

I swung my legs a little harder so that eventually my whole body was swinging lightly. I smiled. "Or it can be fun."

Neville looked at the ceiling, but I could tell he was smiling. "Only you would do that, Luna."

"Imagine the look on the Carrows' faces if they came in here and we're actually enjoying ourselves?" Ginny laughed.

"They'd be furious," I said.

"They'd probably punish us more," Neville said.

"I thought you were prepared for that," Ginny pointed out.

"I am," Neville answered, a smirk spreading across his face. I saw him share a look with Ginny and then they were both swinging right along with me. I grinned. Who knew punishment could actually be fun?

A/N: Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave a review!