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You-Know-Who or the Chosen One?

Muggle-Born registration has taken effect cross-country. The Ministry has been infiltrated. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has seen the changes, all student aged witches and wizards mandatorily being sent; the first year in its one-thousand-year history. Many of us who are against the rise of this "Dark Lord."

That leaves many asking- where is The Chosen One? Our sources have been able to confirm that Harry Potter is currently seeking out ways to defeat You-Know-Who. To date, he has been spotted at the Ministry of Magic and, only rumored, to have been spotted in a woman's restroom on the south end of Ireland.

If you are lucky enough to spot the Chosen One, we implore you to not contact the Ministry of Magic, but to wish him well and allow him to continue his journey.

Lavender set down The Quibbler, her eyebrows raised high on her forehead as she passed the magazine to Parvati, who had been reading it over her shoulder.

"Isn't father brilliant?" Luna asked, beaming at the small group who had congregated at the Gryffindor table for breakfast. "He sent me an owl saying that he's the only editor to be writing negative things about the Ministry. So brave of him." She flounced away, leaving Lavender and Parvati to look at each other in disbelief.

"She doesn't realize how dangerous that is?" Parvati said, her eyes wide as she stared past Lavender toward the Head Table, where the Carrow siblings were busy stuffing oatmeal in their mouths, eyeing the students with indignation.

Lavender shrugged a shoulder, lowering her voice. "It is quite brave of him, though I wonder if stupid would be a better word to use."

The two went silent for a moment as Neville unloaded his shoulder bag onto the floor next to the table, where a second year Hufflepuff quickly tripped on it, sending her flying into a group of fifth year Slytherins. Lavender winced for her.

"I found some books that would be useful for you," Neville started, dragging his bag over to the bench, lifting three books out, and tossing them haphazardly onto the table. They were so heavy that Parvati's orange juice rippled in the goblet. "Charms for Beginners, Defense Against the Dark Arts: a Practical Approach, and Jinxes: How to Curse your Enemy."

Parvati picked up the first one, skimming through it with minor interest. "What are these all for? Surely, we all know how to do beginners charms…even you, Neville."

Neville went red at the ears before answering. "Lavender said she would assist in helping me develop a plan for the DA. You know, how Harry started with more beginner spells and moved up from there. Couldn't hurt to have a more practical approach to things."

Parvati turned to Lavender with her eyebrows furrowed. "I didn't know that you offered to help with the DA. It was under MY impression that-"

"I figured it wouldn't hurt," Lavender interjected as she grabbed the spell books and stuffed them unceremoniously into her own bag, "poor Neville seemed clueless at the first meeting, wasn't sure where to start off at."

It was true. Neville spent the first ten minutes stumbling over his own words before gaining the strength to at least quit stuttering, but he seemed to have no clue as to what he actually wanted to accomplish with Dumbledore's Army. He had the vision with no known path of how to get there. Lavender had insisted after the second meeting that he come up with a plan of defensive spells, which is how she had gotten roped into it in the first place.

The bell signaling the beginning of classes tolled and the remaining students in the Great Hall began to pack their things and head toward the exit. Lavender, Parvati, and Neville took their time finishing their drinks, as they all three noticed that Alecto Carrow was nowhere close to being done with the oatmeal in front of her.

Not wanting to suffer the wrath of the professor by being late, but also not wanting to suffer the social injustice of being forced to stand in the hallway with the seventh year Slytherins, the three slowly made their way out of the Great Hall, keeping a close eye on both Professor Carrow and Pansy Parkinson, who had created quite the connection in the past few weeks.

Seamus waved over Lavender with a giant grin on his face, saving her a seat near the back of the classroom. She scooted over to him, dropping her bag on the floor and sliding into the wooden chair. "I didn't see you at breakfast," she commented, not bothering to take out her parchment and quill. She hadn't taken notes all semester. "Everything okay?"

Seamus grinned again, gesturing toward his own shoulder bag, which was bursting to the seams with variously shaped objects. "Me order from Weasley Wizard Wheezes came in," he said quietly, a mischievous smirk that made Lavender's stomach flip grow on his lips, "couldn't risk the new Inquisitorial Squad confiscating the fireworks before they got into the castle, so I met the owl on the grounds near Hagrid's cabin."

Lavender didn't get the chance to respond, as Alecto Carrow burst over the threshold, snapping her wand at the door so it shut tightly behind her. Lavender always got a queasy feeling in her stomach whenever a class with a Carrow was on her schedule for the day. You never knew when a rogue Cruciatus curse or Stupefy spell would be whipped at you for nodding off or reading ahead in the book.

"Today's lesson we are continuing on with the witch trials," she said as she tapped the projector, gruesome photos of beheadings and burnings popping onto the screen at the front of the classroom, "where the muggles flushed out witches and wizards and killed them out of fear. It wasn't until 1947 that the Ministry of Magic-"

Lavender made an attempt to tune her out, not wanting to hear about how muggles were animals and how they should be treated like second class citizens compared to the magical community. She didn't want to hear about how You-Know-Who was preparing an overhaul of the Ministry, banning marriages between muggles and wizards or throwing young muggle-born children who exhibited magical qualities into prison for stealing their magic from squibs.

All she could think about was how her research with Ginny had taken a back seat to the DA in the last week or so, as Ginny had been recruited alongside Lavender to create a game plan for the members. Lavender was creating a curriculum and Ginny was attempting to recruit more students with Neville. So far, many of the younger students in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff had agreed, most of them too young to fully understand what was happening in the magical world to begin with.

These thoughts of Sirius Black and his fiancée, as well as their lack of progress in finding any semblance of an article that contained the name of their daughter, consumed Lavender was the duration of the class. Luckily, Professor Carrow was more pleased with Crabbe and Goyle actively participating in class than she was with the vast majority of the rest of the seventh years merely staring out of the window or doodling the Slytherins dying in various ways. Including bitten by a vampire, attacked by a werewolf, and being strapped to the back of a troll.

The bell tolled an hour later and Lavender rushed out of class with Seamus, Parvati, and Neville on her heels. The four chatted until they stopped in the hallway just outside of Defense Against the Dark Arts…double Carrow classes left Lavender in an incredibly bad mood by the time her first break rolled around.

Parvati reached into her bag and pulled out The Quibbler, sneaking it over to Seamus. "Did you see what Luna's father published?" She paused as Seamus flicked through the magazine, his own eyebrows shooting into his hairline as he read the title of the article. "She seems to think it's brave."

"I don't know about brave," he said slowly in his Irish brogue, "definitely suicidal. I'm not so sure about brave."

"What do you have their, Finnigan?" Draco asked, a sneer on his face as he passed the group of four as the classroom door opened. He snatched the magazine from Seamus's hands and, before Seamus had the chance to snatch it back, Draco had already read the first few lines of the article. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, Finnigan, for bringing illegal material into the school."

"It isn't even illegal, you dolt," Lavender snapped back, managing to steal the magazine back from the Malfoy boy, "it's just The Quibbler, no need to get your panties tied in a bunch."

Draco fumed as the students surrounding him chortled at the exchange, his cheeks turning a dull pink. He was still trying to work his way back into the circle of death eaters, one he hadn't managed to break into yet. It was well known that he and his family were on the outs with the Dark Lord, for whatever reason.

"It isn't illegal now," he snapped back, "but it will be once I inform the headmaster that pieces as such are being snuck into the castle. He won't put up with that nonsense."

Parvati smiled humorlessly as she grabbed onto Lavender's wrist, which was poised perfectly (wand in hand) to send a bat-bogey hex or a jelly-legs jinx flying over to Draco at a moment's notice. "No sense in getting a detention for something so trivial," Parvati said with a sigh, taking the magazine from Lavender and tucking it back into her book bag, "it's just Malfoy."

Lavender rolled her eyes, placing her wand strategically back into the pocket of her robes. "He's just so infuriating. I wish I could just-" She stopped talking to gesture violently in the air behind Malfoy's back. "You would think that someone who lost favor with You-Know-Who would just keep his head down and quit trying to attract attention to himself."

Seamus snorted. "And when is Malfoy of all people going to ever stop trying to attract attention to himself?" They made their way into the classroom, again taking seats as far back as they could. "That's his middle name."

…..

The rest of the day went off, surprisingly, without a hitch and Lavender found herself crammed in the corner of the common room, surrounded by Transfiguration books as she studied for an upcoming exam on the latest material. She tucked a blonde lock behind her ear, the rest of her hair resting in messy bun at the top of her head.

She sighed in frustration, peeling her eyes from the book in front of her as she watched the flames dancing along in the fireplace. Sirius Black and Haley Brams. The names continued to haunt her, nearly always being at the forefront of her thoughts.

"Whatcha doin?'"

She jumped in her seat, tearing her eyes away from the fireplace as she snapped her gaze toward Seamus, who was leaning against a chair, his arms crossed over his chest, and a smirk donning his face.

"Did I scare you?"

Lavender replied with an eye roll, stretching her arms above her head. "Not a scare, merely a surprise." She glanced over at the clock. "It's nearly ten in the evening, what are you still doing awake?"

Seamus answered by lifting his book bag into the air, his smirk growing. "Planning on planting these bad boys in the courtyard tonight. I overheard Amycus telling Alecto that they were on guard duty. I was going to save them, but how can I pass up the opportunity?" He paused, surveying his best friend. "Would you like to join me?"

Lavender looked down at the work in front of her. She had managed to write her name in the corner of the parchment roll and read half a page of material in the last hour of her claiming the table. "You know…I think I will come with you."

Seamus shot her a surprised grin. "Really? Lavender Rose Brown…sneaking out of the common room with lil ole me?"

"Not if you say it like that," she replied with a grin, slamming her book shut and pulling her shoes back onto her feet.

He held his hands up in surrender, still quite surprised as Lavender led him out of the common room. The Fat Lady, who must have noticed the changes going on in the castle, stayed mum on their exit, most likely not wanting to bring attention to her house members sneaking out. For this, Lavender was grateful.

"So where to?" Lavender whispered as she snaked her arm around Seamus's waist, sidling up to him as they waltzed down the hallway. Seamus grabbed her hand, spinning her around as if they were dancing the Tango. She giggled in response as he placed an arm over her shoulders, sneaking into a secret hallway behind a large tapestry.

"The courtyard," he said, his voice hushed in the scrunched hallway. "Planting them around the front door and some of the columns. I was assured by the Weasley twins themselves that they would fire for at least three days and would triple in size if anyone attempted to jinx them."

"Sounds like we need to shoot them off, then."

Seamus turned to grin at Lavender once again, not paying attention as he went to exit the second tapestry on the other end of the secret passageway. Lavender, who had heard the muffled voices on the other side, pulled Seamus back just as the Carrow siblings stomped past.

"What was that?" Amycus asked gruffly, looking to his sister as the tapestry fluttered back into place behind her.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Probably just the breeze. Come on, one more round and we're done for the night."

Behind the tapestry, Seamus was staring at Lavender with a grateful glint in his eyes. Despite the cover of darkness the hallway provided, they were able to see each other only by the sliver of moonlight that snuck between the cracks of the tapestry.

Seamus dropped the bag, the fireworks hitting the flagstone floor with a dull thud, as he pulled Lavender closer to him, his lips slamming down onto hers for the first time in seven years.