The station was just as bad as the ministry if not worse. Children and families were being carted away by Death Eaters. I wanted to help them so badly, but I knew I couldn't. I saw that Sirius, who was standing over by Mrs Weasley, was having the same dilemma.
"It's awful isn't," I said, breaking his train of though. He nodded and then smiled at my slightly.
"How did it go?"
"What? Oh right, my test." I felt kind of stupid for forgetting, but in my defence, there was a lot going on. "I passed but barely. That wanted to fail me but then Scaboir, that snatcher, told them to pass me."
"I hate that guy," Sirius said thoughtfully. I nodded in agreement. "Why did he pass you?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea."
The whistle on the train blew, signalling for us all to get aboard. Sirius chucked my trunk on and then hugged me goodbye. Mrs Weasley then gave me a hug before setting me and Ginny on the train.
It was really weird that Harry, Ron and Hermione weren't there. The whole Kings Cross Experience seemed empty without them. It was also strange having only Mrs Weasley and Sirius wave us off. We normally had a large group of people who were laughing and joking. It had now been whittled down to two sombre faces. It felt more like a funeral of a much hated person than a train ride to school.
We waved until the train rounded the corner and we could not see them again.
"Shall we go find a seat?" Ginny asked. I nodded and sombrely followed behind her. My trunk was a lot heavier than usual so I shrunk it down until it fit into the palm of my hand.
Ginny mock glared. "That's it, show off that you can use magic."
"Don't worry you'll be Seventeen soon," I said insincerely. "In... Ten months." I laughed at her rotten face.
A little boy, Slytherin and in his second year, ran down the corridor and gave me a note. We glared at each other before he departed away to distribute more notes.
Alyssa Tonks. There is a Prefects meeting in carriage A at 11:10. It is compulsory that you attend.
I groaned. "I don't even want to be a prefect. Dumbledore should have just let me resign last year. Those morons would never even consider it. I'm doomed." I looked at my watch and saw it was almost ten past. "I have to go, save me a seat?"
Compartment A was packed. Usually, Prefect meetings were held in year groups, but it seemed that the idiots had decided to shove all 24 prefects, plus head boy and girl, into one compartment.
A man and a woman who I didn't know sat at the head of the compartment. They were really huge and ugly; they must have some troll blood in them.
"You're late," the woman scolded. I looked at my watch and saw it was 11:11.
"Well, I normally show up ten minutes late so technically, I'm nine minutes early." The Yellow and Reds in the carriage sniggered.
"Late and rude," the man said. "Listen up prefects; it looks like we have found a volunteer. If anyone miss behaves or back chats, you need to teach them a lesson." he pointed is wand at me. "Crucio."
I pretended to go a lot with it. I may need to pull out the haha, this doesn't hurt thing out of the bag at a more crucial moment. I flopped to the floor and cried out slightly. I didn't really scream enough, but the man seemed satisfied. They were the Carrows, come to think of it. And they hated muggle borns. I was going to have a lot of trouble keeping my mouth shut with them around.
"Now, as you can see," The Carrow woman continued. "There are a few of you missing." I looked around and saw that Colin was sadly one of them. "These people are lowly, scum. They should not be allowed to live and if any mudblood has entered the castle, than you should report to us immediately. Also, if any rumour of Harry Potter is spreading around than we should hear that too. Our Head Boy and Girl have control over the Inquisitorial Squad and the Squad have control over you. You do any request they make, this is all leading to a better and happier Hogwarts." I wasn't the only person in the room who scoffed.
So basically, we were going to be bossed around by a bunch of Slytherins? Yeah, I was really going to do that. Who are they kidding? I looked around the room and saw that Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were Heads. They seriously must have been high when planning all of this out. I wonder if they had been given some of Scaboirs weird cigarettes.
I also noticed that there was only me and one other Gryffindor in the room. Ron, Hermione and Colin were all gone. I don't know where the other fifth year Prefect was. The other Gryffindor was Romilda Vane. I really didn't like her, but as much as I didn't want to admit, we did have to stick together.
The Carrows went on to describe the brutal forms of punishment. I didn't want to listen, but it seemed I had no choice. I stared out of the window until they had finished being complete psychopaths.
I left with Romilda and once we were far enough away, we both started.
"They cannot be serious. Are we really supposed to use The Cruiciatus Curse on first years?" she asked angrily.
"Here's what I'm going to do," I whispered. "Tell them to get on the floor and scream while you half-heartedly say the spell. You have to mean it for it to work, you see. Whatever you do, don't refuse to do it. They'll only get someone else to do it who will actually hurt them."
She nodded and stared at my curiously. "You seemed to know a lot." I shrugged. "Is your mother really..."
"Yes," I said stiffly. "But I hate her. I don't even have anything to do with her. And if Anyone's says I'm a Death Eater I'll -"
"Oh no no," she cut in. "Everyone's really impressed at how you've cut away from your Death Eater roots. If it's possible, I think more people like you than before."
I smiled at Romilda. Sure, she was being a complete kiss ass, but I think my opinion on her may have changed. I said goodbye to her when we passed a compartment with Ginny, Neville, Luna, Seamus, Lavender and Pavarti in. It was very cramped, but there would be room for one more.
"Happy Birthday!" they chorused as I came in. I smiled down, feeling slightly embarrassed. I didn't really like my birthday anymore. Especially when I would spend it on a train with a bunch of Death Eaters, travelling to my painful slow death. Happy Birthday to me.
"Here, I've got you this," Luna said. She handed me a very strange tie-dye bag. It did hurt my eyes a little, but there was something quite stylish about it.
"Thanks Luna," I said hugging her tightly.
"And look, I have one too," she pointed to hers by her feet. This won't get confusing at all.
I received the usual haul; Sweets, chocolate, and a Witch Weekly subscription off Lavender and Pavarti. I never read the magazine, but the thought was there. And about Halfway through the journey Hedwig came soaring into our compartment.
"Oh my, is that Harry's owl?" Lavender asked, excitedly.
The Carrows suddenly appeared at the door. The man barged in and grabbed Hedwig tightly. Hedwig pecked angrily at his hand, but he only held on tighter.
"Stop, you're hurting her," I cried, trying to set her free. He untied the parcel from her leg and threw her down on the floor. He read the letter and then growled angrily. He threw it at me before departing with his sister.
I looked at the letter and laughed loudly.
Happy Birthday Ally. We've got your usual haul here. That's off George. The prevailed of pissing of the Death Eaters by using Hedwig is off me.
See you soon. Don't do anything we wouldn't do.
I showed everyone else the letter and I opened up the box. It was filled with Quills, ink bottles and books on Pure Bloods.
"What?" Seamus asked, looking through the box. "I don't get it."
"They've disguised the pranks because we're not allowed to bring them in. Quite ingenious actually," Ginny said.
"Except that they haven't told us the spell or words to unlock them," I complained.
"Don't you have an idea?" Neville asked.
"Yes, I have a thousand. I don't even know where to begin. Erm - Alyssa is a sexy bad ass." I tapped my wand against the side of the box. Nothing. "Pervading, pedantic." I thought i saw a piece of paper move, but it just turned out to be nothing.
I tried about thirty words in all. Some of them received some strange looks like 'Whore Tree' but nobody said anything.
"Let's just forget it now," Ginny said on the thirty fifth attempt. "We don't actually need them until we're up to real mischief."
"Mischief!" I exclaimed happily. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
The box flashed gold until the contents completely changed. The books became a portable swamp, fireworks and a new product called float-demort. There were about fifty skiving snackboxes, five pairs of extendable ears and a very questionable love potion. There were Room Reversers, Decoy Detonators, Silent Grenades, they had gone all out.
"This is amazing," Ginny grinned. "Look at this Stairs Ski Slope. I can't wait to try that out. Look, this one hasn't changed." She picked up a plain scrappy piece of parchment that was ripped and torn. I shrugged, but took it off her.
"How are we supposed to get all of this into the castle?" Neville asked.
"If I may. Mischief Managed." The gold light returned and the amazing pranks returned to their original state.
Fred and George had really outdone themselves. I couldn't wait to test them out.
:-:
"There shall be no speaking unless I address you. No humming or singing." She stared pointedly at me. "You do as you are told and there shall be no answering back. If you are late to lessons you shall receive a week's detention. If you are late twice you shall suffer the Cruiatus curse and if you are late three times you will spent a weekend in the Dungeon."
No one asked what the dungeon was. Professor Carrow had mentioned it at least five times in her annoying speech. It was beginning to sound a bit like Toy Story 3, you know when Buzz keeps saying about the box. But this was more boring and there was no Spanish mode or off button.
Oh what I would give to turn this annoying woman off. She had been droning on for thirty five minutes; and our lesson was only an hour long. She was just repeating what Snape had said at the feast yesterday. Well, I don't think you could call it a feast really. We had chicken soup with a bread roll. If you were a vegetarian, you starved.
"Do you agree Miss Tonks," Professor Carrow asked, breaking me from my daydream.
"Erm - Yeah sure," I said trying to sound like I had been listening. I wasn't very convincing. She glared at me before continuing.
"Right now, after those formalities it's time to do some work. Ok, what do we know about muggles?" no one raised their hand. "So you know nothing about muggles?" Again no one said anything. Of course we all knew, but we just didn't want to be put in 'the dungeon' for bad behaviour. Professor Carrow was beginning to get angry so I decided to be the student who gets the ball rolling. I raised my hand.
"Miss Tonks."
"They look a lot like us," I said. It was the most diplomatic answer I could think of and thankfully, she accepted it.
"What else?" she asked, before writing my answer on the board. A few people raised their hands. "Reed."
"They - Erm - are a lot of them," Oliver said thoughtfully. She wrote down over breeders on the board.
"Anymore, you, Lovegood is it?" I cringed in anticipation of Luna's answer.
"They build cars and planes," She said. I let out a sigh of relief. "Quite ingenious actually," she added. I smacked my head against my hands.
"Ingenious?" Professor Carrow asked sceptically. "Those scum are stupid, pathetic. They cannot do magic. They are idiots. Please repeat after me. Muggle scum are lowly, stupid and should be killed. Repeat." We all faced stonily at the front in silence.
"Class Repeat," Carrow said, angrily sending sparks out of her wand. We stayed in silence and did not say anything. She sighed loudly. "You poor students. You have been indoctrinated that Muggles are good. This will not do. I expect to see you all here tonight and tomorrow night so we can continue this lesson. I would also like a 12 inch essay on a muggle failure of your choice by tonight."
What? She angrily hushed us as we began to mutter. "Remember the rules, class is dismissed."
I picked up my things and raced out of the room. It was a complete battle to get out of the room but we managed it in the end. When we got to the common room, the few remaining seventh years were having a very heated discussion.
"Who are we going to report it to?" Neville shouted. "Snape? Unless you haven't noticed, this whole school is riddled with Death Eaters and those who aren't can't say anything."
"McGonagall will help us," Pavarti said.
"She can't," I said, rounding the corner. "If she helps she'll lose her job and there would be no one here to protect us."
Neville scoffed loudly. "There's no one protecting us any way."
I rolled my eyes. He was in one of those moods. Normally Neville was the sweetest person I knew, but occasionally he was mad. And when he lost it, he lost it.
"What happened?" Ginny asked Seamus.
"We had Defence Against the Dark Arts or Dark Arts," he sneered. "Carrow brought in a first year who had got lost and was late to lessons. He tried to get us to use to Cruciatus Curse on him."
I gasped in disgust. "You didn't, did you?"
"Well, we didn't," he said, motioning to the four remaining seventh years. "But we had the lesson with the Slytherins."
"Oh God," Ginny muttered, her face paling. "Is he ok?"
"Thankfully, he's just really shaken up. He's upstairs I think."
"He's a Gryffindor?" I asked. Seamus nodded. I made my way over to the stairs. "Ginny, tell them about our ordeal, I'm going to check on the kid."
I didn't actually have a clue who he was, but I felt really bad for him. It was his first day at school and he was subject to the Cruiciatus curse. Those Carrows really were animals.
I found the First Year Boys dormitory on the first landing and knocked.
"Come in," a small voice called.
On one of the beds a really small boy was sitting inside while his two friends sat next to him. He was crying his eyes out. He was so tiny; I could not believe the monsters had actually tortured him.
"Hi I'm Ally," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I'm a sixth year prefect. I heard what happened and I was wondering if you're ok, and if you needed anything."
The boy began to sob harder. "I - I want to go home. My h-head hurts and my ears won't stop bleeding."
I edged closer and saw that his ears were bleeding. Whoever had got him, they had gotten him good.
I emptied my pockets and pulled out a fever fudge and a nose bleed nougat. I ripped them in half and gave him the good ends.
"What's your name?" I asked, feeling stupid for not asking for it earlier.
"Kevin," he spluttered.
"I don't know if it will work but it worth a try. Eat these, no don't swallow them, just eat them like sweets. They might make you feel better."
Kevin ate them and also immediately his face brightened.
"My head stopped hurting and my ear," he put his hand up to it. "It isn't bleeding. Thanks so much."
I grinned at his cuteness. "It's ok. And if there's anything else, just ask me ok."
The three little boys nodded and went on to talk about what had happened. Now that he was better, I had a feeling that Kevin would become a sort of hero in the lower school.
I skipped down the stairs and found the argument had actually got a lot worse than better. Ginny, Neville, Lavender, Seamus, Pavarti and Oliver were all screaming loudly while the lower years looked on.
"Hey!" I called, stepping on to the table. Unsurprisingly, they ignored me. I tried to whistle, but nothing actually came out. I pulled out my wand.
"Calmilo."
They all relaxed slightly and turned toward me.
"Wow, Al what did you do?" Seamus asked, sounding slightly stoned.
"It's a calming charm," I said. "It only last a few seconds, but I'm willing to cast it again and again until you cooperate."
"Fine," Neville said, stonily. He flopped down on to the sofa and glared at the fire angrily. I guess it had worn off.
"Ok," I said. I jumped off the table and walked toward them, signalling for the other people in the common room to join us. "Kevin's fine, but he's in a state. We have to do our best not to let anything like that happen again."
"Yeah, but what can we do?" Neville asked.
"We can show them around so they know their way to lessons. Show them the short cuts," I said. I thought it was a pretty good idea myself. We did need to reintroduce Dumbledore's army, but that was for Neville to discover.
"We need to do something else though," I continued. "We need to show those Carrow's that we're not going to stand for their crap. But we need to do it subtly. And we need to get more people involved."
"Are you suggesting we bring back Dumbledore's Army?" Neville asked, excitedly.
"You said it, not me," I grinned.
The mood lifted slightly as everyone began to talk about the DA.
"We could play pranks on the Carrows," Romilda said.
"And we could learn Real Defence Against the Dark Arts."
"We could recruit everyone and then over run Snape."
"Wait a second," Neville cut in. "Harry isn't here, we don't have a leader."
"Then you be our leader," I said simply. Everyone cheered in agreement, though some seemed a little unsure.
"Me?" Neville asked sceptically. "What about you?"
"What about me. I could never do it, I'm too rash. I'd send you all out on a suicide mission. You'd all be dead with in the week," I said honestly.
"Ginny?" he said desperately.
"I'm most likely to be kidnapped and tortured for information," she answered. It was brutal, but it was true.
"Luna can do it," Neville said.
"She's most likely to send us all off task chasing nargels." my comment was met with a laughter of agreement. "No offense to Luna of course."
"None taken," her voice rang through the crowd. We all turned and stared at her questioningly. How did she get in here? I shrugged and turned back to Neville. It was Luna, and that was the only explanation needed.
"So what do you say captain?" Seamus asked Neville.
"I would but I can't do it alone. And you guys have to be sure. I was the worst one in Dumbledore's army," he said quietly.
Ginny scoffed. "You were one of the best Neville. You did fight the Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries and last summer."
"You did too," he muttered. Ugh, this would be hard work.
"Yeah, but you're the only one who really fought in both of them. Luna was knocked out in the Department and Ginny broke her ankle. Then last summer I was tortured. You're the only one with real experience. Plus, you're the other Harry. You know with the prophecy and all. Please Nev," I begged. The group around us began to plead too. Neville sighed in defeat.
"Fine, I'll do it. But you guys are helping me." He looked down in embarrassment as we all cheered.
"We need to sort out coins for those who weren't in the DA the last time," Neville said. "Ally can you -"
"Woah, no," I said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "My hands are tied. We..." I motioned to Ginny, Luna, Oliver. "Have an essay about muggles due in an hour."
They all groaned loudly. We sulked over to a table at the back of room and stared at the new DA wistfully.
"We need to get it done," Ginny said, breaking the depressed silence. "They'll kill us if we don't; and that's no exaggeration."
"Well, I went to the Library after class, and they have removed all muggle books. This is an impossible task," Oliver moaned.
I grinned at them devilishly. "It would be impossible if I was not here. Let's not forget, I was raised by muggles."
I thought back to my history class in my own world. Who could be our failures? There were the obvious ones. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini. But there were four of us. I suppose I could do Henry VIII and his quest for a son who died young.
I allocated them all a person and told them a few points. Some were made up, but was I really expected to remember everything. I hadn't written a lot, but it was more than most people had done.
When we arrived at the detention, Rachel and Elena were waiting outside panicking.
"I didn't know what to write," Rachel said. "And I was speaking to some Ravenclaws and even they said they had no idea."
Maybe I shouldn't have helped out. If I wasn't here, than everyone would get into an equal amount of trouble.
Professor Carrow was not impressed. She took in our work without a second word, but with everyone else, she was fuming. They were sent down to the Dungeon for the night.
I will always remember Rachel's cries the next morning. She could hardly breathe. Her and Elena both had deep gashes across their hands. As soon I was sure she was ok, I ran up to the boys dormitory.
"Neville!" I called. He and Seamus both shot up. "We need to plan a DA meeting. tonight."
I was quick for once! I've only half finished the next one, but hopefully it will be up by Sunday/Monday.
Thank you so much for the reviews: xXxFredWeasleyForeverxXx, Georgie Monsoon, fruityloop156, DragonWand, GingerBiscuit1, SpotsGalFrom1899, BlackHaru3, mimichiro, 2featherbraids and ChaygraceDaya.
Thank you so much for reading, let me know what you think : )