"Hedwig!" George said, as the great white owl swooped down and dropped a letter on Hermione's lap. She pecked Hermione's hands several times and then flew upstairs with two more letters.
Hermione hurried to open it and read it quickly.
"It's from Harry. A dementor attacked him and he might be expelled," she said. Her face was blank and her tone expressionless, unbelieving.
"A dementor was out and about a Muggle town?" asked Fred.
"That means the ministry sent it. Or the dementors are no longer under their control," said Ginny.
"Shit," said Fred.
"There's no way the ministry is going to admit to either of those things," said Hermione. "Harry's in trouble."
"We're the masters of trouble! We'll get him out of it!" Fred and George said together, overly cheery.
Hermione gave them a withering look, "Don't be ridiculous. It's good they are bringing him here. Fred and George, go tell Ron to clear out the other side of his room and get it ready for Harry."
"You're not the boss of us!" George said, but the twins got up and headed up the stairs.
"Now what?" asked Ginny.
"Now we wait. There's nothing else we can do until he gets here, and then we'll have to explain everything." Hermione sighed and rested her forehead in the palm of her hand. "I wish I had access to a library here so I could research similar cases and see how they were handled in the past. Though I don't know if it will help."
"Why not?" asked Ginny.
"Everything I prepared for Buckbeak's trial should have got him off two years ago, but the ministry had already made up its mind and Lucius Malfoy was blackmailing or bribing the entire judicial panel. Our government is so corrupt, and it's only going to get worse the stronger He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gets and the more followers he has."
"Merlin," whispered Ginny. "I keep wanting to forget how bad this is. That we can just go back to school and the rest of the wixing world will sort itself out while we study and try to make things better at Hogwarts, but it's not like that at all."
Hermione sat in silence. She had nothing comforting to say to her friend. War was coming and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
"People are going to die."
Hermione nodded.
"People I love."
Hermione nodded again.
"And there isn't anything we can do to stop it, because if we don't fight, more people will die and people I love will die anyway. There is no choice other than to fight."
"We've always known that. Every since we started SPEW and started to work against some of the really horrible beliefs that so many people have. We have to fight no matter the consequences, because if we don't, everything will remain the same or get worse."
Ginny nodded and reached out to Hermione who held her friend in a tight embrace. "We can do this. We're the strongest wixes our age I know."