Chapter 7

"OK, if we're going to do this, we'll do it properly. If we're going to get Crucioed into next year, we might as well make it worth our while. Luna, how many Quibblers do you think you can sneak into the castle without raising too many questions?"

"About one hundred. Daddy can disguise a pile as a book, and I did ask him to send me that volume about Teboes. I'm still trying to make myself an invisibility cloak."

Ginny made a note to look up what Teboes were – not all creatures that Luna talked about were imaginary – and moved on.

"Once we have the copies, we need to make sure as many students as possible read them. Hogwarts currently has about 500 students, so each copy will need to be read several times. We can assume that the Carrows and Snape will try to destroy any copies they find, so we have to get creative."

"We could try to link a duplication charm to a vanishing charm," suggested Michael Corner. "So they try 'Evanesco' and bam! Two Quibblers!"

"Yeah, but that will take ages," replied Anthony Goldstein. "That's a really complicated bit of spell work there, and not many of us can do it. And those of us who can are already busy with the Protean Charm."

"Shh!" whispered Terry Boot, two tables away. Everyone suddenly turned back to the books they had spread on the table they had claimed in the library. As Head Boy, Terry was probably the best look-out they could find. Ginny wished he was sitting at the table with them – Michael and Anthony were smart, for sure, but Terry Boot's brains were second only to Hermione's. But when she'd invited him at the table, he'd mumbled something about having a lot on his plate already, and had offered to keep an eye out for them.

As Snape walked behind them without sparing them a glance, Ginny was suddenly glad for Terry's idea. The greasy-haired murderer had barely taken any notice of his students so far this year, and Ginny wasn't interested in being the one to break their streak.

She scribbled a note to Luna.

Let me know when you have them. We'll find a way to spread them around.

She then discreetly nodded to everyone – meeting dismissed. They'd look incredibly suspicious if they all left at the same time, so instead they trickled out of the library one by one, until Ginny and Neville were the only ones left at the table. They gathered their things and were making their way out when Ginny realised she'd forgotten her quill.

Returning to the table, she saw Snape looking under it. She hid between two shelves to try and see what he was doing. He reached in the garbage can next to the table where they'd all been sitting, and looked through the papers. Eyes wide, Ginny turned around, abandoning her quill. She grabbed Neville's elbow as dragged him out.

"Snape is watching us too. We need to be even more careful."

The pile of Quibblers had arrived.

Neville had asked her five time already today what the plan was to make everyone in the castle read the paper (there was no plan).

She'd felt Snape's eyes following her around at breakfast.

The young Ravenclaw boy was crying in a sort of despair that made her heart break – all he'd said to Carrow was that he didn't want to use Dark Magic.

They were out of Patented Daydream Charms.

She had a growing pile of homework to do, including a Dark Arts essay ("Name and explain five ways Dark Magic can be used to determine blood ancestry") that she really didn't want to write.

Demelza was on her case about Quidditch try-outs.

Heather was getting stranger and stranger.

Something was bound to give – and that something was Ginny. She slid down the wall of the bathroom that she'd just locked, and let the tears fall. All she wanted was for Harry to be sitting next to her, hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be fine, because he was in charge again. Then he'd kiss her in the way that only he managed to do – the way that made her warm from the inside. He'd give her that adorable lopsided smile that made her melt, and everything would be fine again.

She snorted through her tears. More realistically, if Harry ever found her crying like this, he'd mumble something awkwardly, pat her on the head, and run off to find Hermione and ask her to fix everything. Harry could deal with a lot of things, but he just couldn't deal with a girl crying. Luckily for the both of them, Ginny usually wasn't the crying type.

"Ginny?"

Lavender Brown was somewhere at the bottom of the list of people she wanted to see right now. It could be worse – she could be dealing with Romilda Vane – but her brother's crazy ex-girlfriend wasn't going to make things any better any time soon.

"Ginny, open up, we just want to help." Parvati Patil was one step up from Lavender Brown, though Ginny knew from Hermione that the two girls kept no secrets from each other. They were also, unfortunately, very persistent. Ginny could spot a losing battle when she was faced with one. She pulled out her wand and unlocked the door. Immediately, the two seventh year came in and sat on either side of her. They were quiet for a while, before Parvati spoke again.

"Listen, Ginny, we know you'd probably rather have Hermione or Ron or Harry here with you now – to be honest, I don't think I ever appreciated the three of them enough until they were gone. You talk with them more openly than you talk with anyone else, even Luna or Neville, anyone can see that."

"And we all know you miss them more than anyone else in the school," Lavender continued. "And they're probably the only ones who can see beyond the Wonderwoman outlook you give yourself."

"Wonderwoman?" Ginny asked, a bit confused.

"Let's just say Hermione has some strange Muggle role-models," Lavender said dismissively. "The fact is, if they were here, one of them would have staged an intervention earlier than we did. Because they'd have noticed earlier than us that you are under too much pressure. We're sorry it took us so long to realise you had so much to deal with."

Lavender smiled at her kindly – kindly. What was up with that girl? She'd tolerated Ginny most of the time since coming back to Hogwarts because they were on the same side of the war, but she'd never actually been kind. As far as Ginny knew, she was still one of those hated people who was found guilty for the Ron-Lavender break-up – right up there with Harry, though probably not quite as high as Hermione. Lavender noticed her astonishment.

"Listen, Ginny. I'm not on your side in this war just because we're both in Gryffindor. My brother has a Muggle-born fiancée, and the last we heard from her, before she had to run off in hiding, was at the beginning of August. She's pregnant, Ginny. She's all alone out there, Merlin knows in how much danger, and she's pregnant with my first niece or nephew, and I'm scared, because I never thought I could care for another human being the way I found myself caring for that unborn child – and it's not even mine! So I'm going to do anything, absolutely anything I can to make sure she can come home before she has that baby, and she can marry my brother soon. And I know for a fact that to do all that, I need to give you all the help I can, because you seem to be the only person around here who has her shit together. And if Harry decides to ask for help, you're probably going to be one of the first persons he talks to, so I want your life to be as easy as possible. So I'm growing up, believe it or not. And I'm leaving last year's Lavender in the past, because honestly, that Lavender was a whiny bitch and she isn't going to be much use against Death Eaters."

Ginny sat, stunned and speechless, tears completely forgotten. That had to be the most mature and eloquent thing she'd ever heard Lavender Brown say.

"In short, what Lavender is saying is: we want to help," Parvati summed up. "You're taking on too much. No one can deal with so much pressure. So, let's see how you can delegate."

Ginny spent the next fifteen minutes opening up to the two girls. By the time they'd finished discussing her problems, it had been decided that Neville would take over operation Quibbler (it turned out the reason he kept bugging her about it was because he had several ideas of his own that he'd shared with Lavender). Demelza would be asked to help organise the Quidditch try-outs. They'd find help in the rest of the D.A. to make new Daydream Charms – getting better from Cruciatus Curses thrown at them still was the first priority of the clandestine group. Finally, neither Lavender nor Parvati would let her leave the bathroom without a solemn promise that the next time she felt like she took on too much, she'd come to them for help.

If the Carrows were infuriated when they started to find students reading the Quibbler, it was nothing next to their anger when they tried to Vanish one, only to find it double in front of their eyes. Neville could barely suppress a smile, and Ginny worried for a moment he'd be found out as the brains of the operation too quickly. However, when the Carrows passed in the ranks trying to find a culprit, Neville had plastered on a face of perfect innocence.

By the time they managed to confiscate all the issues of the Quibbler, almost everyone in the castle had read it. Ginny felt the atmosphere of rebellion simmer – she could almost taste the sweet pleasure of everyone smirking in the Carrows' back. Some students even found the unofficial leaders of the D.A. and made their interest in joining known. It was all wink-wink, nudge-nudge, of course, but their numbers were growing.

No one was more ecstatic about the whole thing than Neville. After Ginny handed over the reins of operation Quibbler to him, he'd run almost everything on his own – getting some help from Michael on the duplication Charms and asking just a couple students to help spread the copies around. There was suddenly a different aura coming from him. Simply put, he was oozing confidence, and if Ginny wasn't already smitten with Harry, she'd probably be taking a whole new look at Mr. Longbottom.

There were a lot of girls who took a second look at him, too. Ginny almost snorted her pumpkin juice through her nose when she saw Lavender ogling him over breakfast with the same look she'd given Ron after his Quidditch victory the previous year. Neville, bless him, was completely oblivious to his new-found magnetism.

He found Ginny in the common room just a few days after the last few Quibblers were burned in the Carrow's fireplace.

"Ginny, I have an idea!"

She set down her quill, glad to be distracted from another horrid Muggle Studies essay.

"Do tell."

"Have you noticed how everyone is changing in the school? How more and more people are joining the resistance? We're starting to win!"

Ginny bit her tongue. While they'd been getting more support lately, it wasn't anything to justify Neville's sudden enthusiasm. On the other hand, it was just so nice to see Neville excited about anything that toning him down would probably feel like kicking a puppy.

"Yeah, I've noticed," she answered dryly.

"We need to keep it up! Let them know that we're fighting. It's like you said, if they know they're not alone, they won't get depressed, and they'll keep on hoping, and we'll win, or something."

Or something, Ginny thought – she couldn't recall when exactly she'd made the speech Neville was referring to, but she wanted to go back in time and slap herself. Her friend looked like someone who had just had a terrible, terrible idea, but was absolutely convinced it was the best thing since pumpkin juice.

"What do you mean exactly?"

Neville brightened. Oh dear, she thought. This is going to be bad.

"I thought was could write on the walls, and scribble on desks and everything, things like 'Support Harry Potter!' or 'Muggle-borns are the best!' Things like that, just to annoy thee Carrows. That'd drive them mad, and everyone would see it."

Ginny felt a headache growing. There were about a million things wrong with that idea, but Neville had that look on his face that meant he was going to do it no matter what.

"Nev, that's a huge risk for not so much gain. I mean, if you get caught, it could get really, really ugly for you! And you know Snape could easily trace these things back to you, if he tried."

Neville kept a smile on his face.

"I've thought about that. Michael said he knows how to cover our tracks – some spell he found while researching for operation Quibbler. And I thought I could get Ernie to help avoid getting caught – for some reason, Mrs Norris likes him, and she lets him know when someone is coming. All I need help with is to make better slogans. You think you could help with that?"

Ginny sighed. He'd actually thought this through. He looked so sure of himself, so unlike the Neville he'd shown the world for years, and so much more like the Neville she knew he could be. She recalled Lavender's loving gaze at him that morning. Oh well, if he was going to go down, she could at least be a good friend and ensure he got snogged properly beforehand.

"You know what, Neville? I'm really too busy to help you with this, Quidditch try-outs are coming up, and the Daydream Charms are taking a lot of my time. But Lavender is really, really good with words. Get her on your team, and spend some time with her finding some slogans. And don't get caught."

"Lavender is good with words? Really?" Neville sounded dubious.

"Believe me – give her a chance, and she'll surprise you."

AN: I'm really sorry about the delay in updating – I have been insanely busy at work. It looks like my workload is going to lessen now, so unless my boss comes up with another giant project for me to work on, I'll be able to update more often in the future.

Many thanks for all the reviews and the story alerts and the story favourites!