Sunday evening

Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom

Ginny and James's newfound truce was tested immediately. As they exited the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, they ran into a mob from all the houses, each one of them holding something for her to sign.

"Mrs. Potter, will you sign my Chocolate Frog card?"

"Mrs. Potter, my dad sent me his poster from when you were on the national team. Will you sign it for us?"

"James, ask your mum if she wants to come for a fly!"

"Yeah, ask her!"

James turned to her, stiff and angry again. "You want to know what the problem is? It's this!" He pointed to the group of pupils crowding around them. "You make everything worse, and it's always about you! Always." His voice cracked. "I don't want to be your son, and I don't want you for a mother!"

He turned and walked away, robes billowing, leaving Ginny standing alone in front of the now-silent pupils, who were tucking Chocolate Frog cards and posters and even copies of Quidditch Weekly out of sight.

"I—excuse me. Excuse me, sorry..." Ginny ducked her head and pushed her way through the group, holding her breath to stop the tears.

()()()()

James took the long way back to Gryffindor Tower, hoping to avoid any more star-struck classmates and taking every staircase two or three at a time with relish. He stuffed down the guilt and regret whenever his mother's shocked face floated to the front of his mind and dwelt on the sense of resentment and injustice that had filled him upon seeing the crowd of his mother's fans. Harry would find out about this; maybe not because Ginny would tell him, but just because he would know she was upset. James knew he would be sorry later, when his dad showed up or chewed him out via a bloody talking stag, but right now he didn't care.

Yes, you do. You wouldn't be angry if you didn't care.

He told his conscience to stuff it, reminded it everything was his mother's fault—

You should have had better aim. If you had hit Holly's book bag, none of this would have ever happened.

And finally broke into a run. He gasped the password to the Fat Lady, climbed through the portrait hole, and sat down beside Cameron, who was playing chess with Al.

"Where's Mum?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"She's been all over you since she got here. What did you do to get her to leave you alone?" Al advanced his bishop.

"I told her to bugger off."

Cameron gave him a sharp look, but Al scoffed.

"No, you didn't. You'd be choking on soap bubbles if you'd told Mum to bugger off."

"Shut it," James muttered.

"Oh, there's a scathing reply."

"I mean it, Al, just shut it!"

Al captured Cameron's rook. "Fine, fine. No need to be stroppy. You're as bad as Lily these days."

James kicked him. Al moved around the corner of the table without retaliating. "No way. I'm not doing anything to make her pissed at me." He studied the chessboard as Cameron debated his move, then looked back at James. "You really don't know where she went?"

James shrugged. "Maybe to see Longbottom or owl Dad. Listen, I'm going to—" Where? He wasn't allowed out of the bloody Tower. "I'm going to write an essay."

Life sucked, and it was all his mother's fault.

()()()()

Ginny flew down the marble staircase, tore across the Entrance Hall so rapidly she had no trouble pushing open the heavy front doors, and tripped her way down the stone stairs. She ran without thinking or destination, ran away from the crowd of admirers, away from James, away from his hateful words. She was dodging her way through Hagrid's pumpkin patch when she was lifted clean off her feet.

"An' where yeh goin' in such a hurry? Ginny?" Hagrid set her down carefully. "Wha's the matter?"

"It's nothing." She wiped her face with one sleeve and gave a hearty sniff.

"Don' look like nuthin'," Hagrid said, steering her towards his cabin. "Come in, come in, I'll make us a cuppa."

Knowing it was useless to argue, Ginny climbed the steps to Hagrid's back door and sat down at the table, her feet dangling as they always did in the huge chairs.

"I heard yeh were here abou' James," Hagrid said. "Bin hopin' yeh'd come ter see me."

"I will. I mean, I would have. But James is being—so—" She took a deep breath. "So horrid, I didn't want to inflict his behavior on anyone else."

Hagrid set a steaming mug in front of her. "He the one who upset yeh?"

She nodded, clutching the drink in both hands.

"Well, now, boys say loads o' stupid things. They don' mean nuthin' by it."

"He said—" Ginny blinked rapidly and took another deep breath, but the band around her chest wouldn't loosen. "He said he didn't want me for a mother."

"Tha's rubbish," Hagrid said, patting her on the back and nearly knocking her off her chair. "Lucky ter have a mother, he is, an' 'specially one like you."

She shook her head, her grip on the mug unwavering. "He said I was just making everything worse, and I reckon he's right."

"Codswallop," Hagrid said stoutly. "Aw, now, don' cry." He fished out a tablecloth-sized handkerchief and passed it to her. "The Ginny Potter I know wouldn' let a sixteen-year-old whelp get the better o' her."

"He's just so angry, and he won't talk to me. He did a little, just now, but then we ran into a bunch of kids asking for my autograph and..." Ginny felt the tears well up and wiped her eyes again.

"You wan' I should talk ter him?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't want him to feel like all the adults in his life are ganging up on him. He should have someone he can talk to."

Hagrid made a noise in his throat and got up to stoke the fire. "I'd give anythin' ter have a mum when I was growin' up. Special, mothers are."

Ginny felt her lip tremble and bit down on it.

"Yeh wan' to Floo-call Harry?"

She shook her head.

"He'd wan' to know yeh were cryin'."

She shook her head again.

"Well, drink your tea, and we'll go fer a walk, visit the unicorn herd. Nuthin' like a baby animal ter make it seem all's righ' with the world."

()()()()

Sunday evening

Gryffindor Common Room

James was ignoring her again, and quite frankly, Ginny was relieved. He was chatting and cutting up with the rest of the sixth-year boys, who were drawing a lot of sidelong glances from many of the nearby girls, including CeCe Longbottom, Holly Jordan, and two other girls who were in some of James's lessons but Ginny hadn't met yet. She leaned towards Sam, who sat next to her at the end of the table.

"Who are those two girls with Holly Jordan?"

He didn't even need to look up. "Millie Sewell and Caitlin Ashcroft. They were—" He broke off, looking guilty.

Ginny raised one eyebrow.

Sam shot a look at James, who was acting out a Quidditch maneuver for Cameron and Nate's entertainment. "The firework landed in Millie's cauldron. She and Caitlin were burned the worst."

Ginny looked at the girls more closely. Both had their hair down, Millie wore a turtleneck, and Caitlin's left eyebrow was a little shorter than her right, but they seemed all right. Ginny wondered if James had ever apologized. Setting that thought aside for a more private time, she glanced at the scroll of parchment in front of Sam. She had two sons, three nephews, and a niece scattered about the room, but Sam was the only person who seemed willing to talk to her.

"What are you working on?"

"Muggle Studies."

Ginny decided to take Neville's advice and raised her voice slightly. "During my sixth year, Muggle Studies was compulsory. Ne—Professor Longbottom used to call it Bigot Studies."

"Why was that?"

James and Cameron were pretending not to listen, but the activity at the other end of the table had quieted considerably.

"It was part of Voldemort's plan for Hogwarts." She saw a few children within earshot flinch at the name, but no one protested. "An attempt to indoctrinate us into believing that pure-bloods and half-bloods were better than Muggle-borns, but I knew better."

"How?" Evan said. Most of the nearby pupils were setting down quills and turning in their chairs to eavesdrop, including Al and Hugo.

"Because one of my best friends was Muggle-born, and she was the brightest witch Hogwarts had seen in decades."

"My mum," Hugo said.

"That's right." Ginny smiled.

"My dad said Muggle-borns weren't allowed at Hogwarts during the war," Nate said. "Something about having to register?"

"The Muggle-born Registration Commission," Ginny said. "Run by a hateful old bat who had been our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Delores Umbridge." Even now, the name tasted bad in her mouth. "She was the inspiration for Dumbledore's Army."

A murmur of interest passed through the group, and several pupils dragged their chairs closer. Apparently, word about the DA had spread since Neville's comment in Herbology.

"How's that, Mrs. Potter?" Frank Longbottom knew the answer to that question, but he knew everyone else wanted to know too.

"She wouldn't let us practice magic," Ginny said simply. "We sat and read the textbook every day. It was Harry, Ron, and Hermione's O.W.L. year, and they weren't going to get a chance to practice the spells until their practical exam."

Several of the older pupils, including Louis, gasped.

Ginny grinned. "That's what Hermione thought, so she came up with the idea of meeting on their own, in secret, to learn the spells."

"No, Harry Potter started the DA," Holly Jordan said. "My dad said so, and he was there."

"So was I," Ginny said, as un-snootily as possible. Lee would get a kick out of his daughter arguing with her. "Harry set the meetings and taught the lessons, but it was Hermione's idea. It took her weeks to convince him."

"Was he afraid to break the rules?" Millie asked.

"Of course not. Harry just didn't see himself as a leader then. It was the DA that taught him that, I think."

"What about Muggle Studies?" Sam said quietly.

"What about it?"

"You said Longbottom used to call them Bigot Studies. What did they teach you?"

Ginny snorted. "My sixth-year Muggle Studies lessons were an exercise in keeping your mouth shut. Rubbish about pure bloodlines and Muggles as animals. How torturing or killing them wasn't really a crime because they weren't even human. Our previous teacher had disappeared over the summer, and the new teacher tried to make it like she was just too stupid to show up for the start of a new school year. We found out later, during the Death Eater trials, that Professor Burbage was murdered by Voldemort himself."

"Because she taught Muggle Studies?"

"Because she taught that Muggles were people worthy of respect, and Muggle-born wizards were just as clever and capable as wizards with magical families."

"Who was your new teacher? Was she a pure-blood?"

"Yes. Her name was Alecto Carrow, and she was a Death Eater."

There were more than gasps this time as pupils cried out in shock and protest and some of the girls covered their mouths with their hands.

"There were three Death Eaters at Hogwarts that year: Alecto; her brother Amycus, who taught what became simply the Dark Arts; and Headmaster Severus Snape." Ginny smiled at Al. "Of course, we didn't know then that Snape was loyal to Dumbledore and Harry."

"What was it like?" Finally, James joined the conversation.

"Being taught by Death Eaters?"

He nodded.

Ginny took note of the younger pupils within earshot, including twelve-year-old Roxie. "We were punished harshly for simple things, like being late or running out of ink. Magic was used against us, and dark magic was no longer forbidden. We were missing Muggle-born friends and classmates with no idea where they were or if they were safe. No news was good news then; if Muggle-borns appeared in the news, they were either dead or sent to Azkaban."

"Why?" Roxie said. "What did they do?"

"That's the point, Roxie," Ginny said gently. "They didn't do anything. Voldemort made it a crime to be Muggle-born. He said—through the Minister of Magic, who was Imperiused—he said the Department of Mysteries had discovered that the only way to obtain magic was to be born with it, and if a witch or wizard could not provide evidence of another witch or wizard in their genealogy, then they were guilty of stealing magic."

"But that doesn't make sense," said one of Hugo's friends. "What about Squibs?"

"I told you it was rubbish," Ginny said.

"All right," Louis said. "That's curfew for all you fourth-years and below. Go on, now." Amid much groaning and complaining, he shepherded the younger pupils up the stairs to the dormitories. When the stairwell doors closed, he sat down and leaned forward. "Tell us about DADA."

Ginny shook her head. "Nice try, Louis, but I'm not going to have everyone's parents sending me Howlers. You will have to talk to your own parents."

"Come on, Mrs. Potter, can't you tell us something?" Evan said.

"Well, I do know it was McGonagall who captured the Carrows the night of the Final Battle," she said. "In Ravenclaw Tower. I wasn't there, but Harry and Luna—Luna Lovegood was a Ravenclaw in my year and another member of the DA—they said she strung them up and left them dangling in nets in mid-air. Cool as a cucumber about it too, like she was demonstrating Switching Spells for first-years."

"Was she your teacher?"

"I had her for Transfiguration all seven years. She taught all of my brothers and Harry and Hermione too. And Neville."

"What was she like?"

"She was the best," Ginny said affectionately. "Tough but fair, McGonagall was. Head of Gryffindor and a big Quidditch fan."

"No way!"

"You watch. I bet she hides it better now that she's Headmistress, but she roots for Gryffindor. She recommended Harry for the team and bought him his first broomstick." Ginny smiled at the incredulous faces surrounding her and turned to the Head Boy. "Don't you have a prefects' meeting to lead?"

Prefect meetings were, as Ginny had always suspected, dull and boring. Louis introduced her, announced the first Hogsmeade visit of the year and distributed flyers to be posted in the common rooms, and moved to the week's patrol schedule.

"James, any word on when you can resume your duties?"

He shook his head.

"Ask Longbottom next time you see him, okay? The Gryffindors covered for James last week. Can I get another house to volunteer this time?"

The silence stretched uncomfortably.

"All right then, sixth years, you're up."

Caitlin, the female Gryffindor sixth year prefect, frowned at James. He shrugged and mouthed "sorry." If the Gryffindors had taken James's rounds last week, this would be Caitlin's second week of extra duties, plus a night in the hospital wing.

Ginny thought he owed her rather more than an apology.

It took a few minutes to rework the schedule around the sixth years' other extracurricular activities. The Head Girl answered Rose's question about points infractions, and the meeting broke up as two Slytherins left for nightly rounds.

Ginny followed the remaining Gryffindors as the pupils from other houses split off in different directions. James's classmates from all the houses had made their displeasure with him known either by word or deed, and for the first time since she had received Neville's letter last Tuesday, Ginny felt a twinge of sympathy for her son. He trailed silently behind the chattering group, head down and hands in his pockets. Perhaps McGonagall's punishment was making an impact when nothing else had.