The Carrows' Calling
Disclaimer: All J.K Rowling's... still broke.
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Chapter Two
How is this possible? Thought Ginny. How could she warn everyone? Then an idea struck her. She ran over her plan and she could see no flaw in it. She hurried back into the Great Hall to see it fulfilled. Once she entered, she felt a rush of cold air. Ginny shivered. She ran back over to her seat beside her friends and began her idea. Snape can't stop me now. She leaned over to talk to Neville.
"Neville," Ginny whispered, her hand blocking anyone else from hearing what she was saying.
"Yeah?" Neville replied in the same tone.
"It's almost curfew. Do you think you can pass that down the table? Ask people to let the younger students to go first," said Ginny in the same whisper as before. Neville just nodded, there was no expression on his face. It was blank, like Snape's. He turned and whispered the message to the next person, Parvati. She nodded and passed it on. Ginny hoped that they would understand. Ginny leaned back to the Ravenclaw table, but not too far so that it would look out of place, and told Luna that it was soon to curfew.
"Pass it down the table Luna. Have the younger students leave first." Luna simply nodded. She saw Luna pass the message on to Padma. Ginny asked Lavender, who was sitting across her, to pass the message on to the Hufflepuffs. Then, slowly, Ginny saw the plan unfold. First, the youngest students, first years, stood up and began to leave the Great Hall. The placement of the students were staggered, so it looked random. Then the second years, and so on. Soon, the last people in the hall were Ginny, Luna, Neville, Padma, Parvati, Seamus and Lavender. Ginny checked her watch. It was 7:29. The time then flickered to 7:30. Headmaster Snape stood up.
"It is curfew. Why aren't you in your common rooms?" No one spoke. Neville looked at his shoes.
"No answer? I guess that's detention for all of you. Detention even before classes start. So disappointing," said Snape with a sick sneer on his face. His eyes met with all of them. Ginny once again felt the gaze of eyes as a knife cutting into her; exposing all of her secrets.
"Wait!" called a voice. Heads turned.
"Severus, I never knew you cared for the students of Hogwarts." said Professor McGonagall. "That is, until you killed their headmaster."
"I never knew you were one for favourites, Minerva," Snape threw back an insult, mocking Professor McGonagall. Ginny saw that Professor McGonagall had flinched, but the expression on her face hadn't changed. Ginny saw pure determination in Professor McGonagall. Merlin's beard, she radiated determination.
"And I never knew you hated Gryffindors," said Professor McGonagall sarcastically.
"Enough! We're not here to argue," demanded Snape, his hands making a gesture that meant silence.
"I thought you enjoyed arguing with people before you killed them," stated Professor McGonagall, ignoring what the Headmaster had said. Snape stiffened at the statement. Ginny wondered why he cared that he killed Dumbledore; killers weren't supposed to feel guilty.
"They weren't all eating, you know. I knew this one wasn't," said Professor Carrow stepping forward and, pointing at Ginny. He smelt like rotten onions and old socks. Professor Carrow seemed to radiate an aura of hatred for everyone he ever met.
"She at least deserves detention. Probably wandered off somewhere and came back," suggested Professor Carrow.
"The only thing that deserves detention is you," snapped Professor McGonagall.
"That is final. Miss. Weasley will serve detention. The others, be thankful that's it's not you," said Snape. "Minerva, you will go back to your office and finish the work I gave you. Come speak with me after. , you will come with me for the times of your detention." Professor McGonagall stayed rooted on the spot. Snape didn't say anything, but glared at her.
Neville gave Ginny a look that said "tell me later." Reluctantly, Ginny followed Snape to the headmaster's office.
She heard Professor McGonagall say, "Now move along. Back to your common rooms." Ginny followed Snape up the twists and turns to Snape's office. Snape can act like this is his office, but it will forever be Dumbledore's. The bloody idiot has zero privileges to step his filthy body into the places where Dumbledore's legacy lives, including Hogwarts, thought Ginny angrily. Snape spoke the password, too quietly for it to be heard. He entered first and Ginny followed. He walked quickly to the desk; his robes flapping behind him, making him look more like a bat than ever. Snape sat down at the desk and mechanically folded his hands together in front of him. Something about him changed. It seemed that Snape was pained to assign detention to Ginny. The expression on his face showed pain for a moment, but he quickly wiped it away, like it was a spill on a clean surface. It was nothing, thought Ginny. He's assigned me detention plenty of times before, why is he hurt to do so now?
"Miss. Weasley. What were you doing when you left the Great Hall?" asked Snape. Ginny stuck to her story that she made up in her head when she made the plan.
"I went up to my common room and realized that I didn't know the password. I came back to the Great Hall to ask for it," said Ginny.
"Ah. Of course, but Professor McGonagall didn't tell you?"
"She didn't have the time to tell me," replied Ginny, twiddling her thumbs.
"Of course. I guess I'll have to tell Professor McGonagall that she will have to be more responsible and keep track of her tasks more," said Snape. That's what he's doing. He's going to threaten me with people I care about, Ginny thought. But that's not going to work. Not anymore.
"No, it's just that she probably told me in the prefect letter, but I simply didn't remember," said Ginny.
"Probably? So you're not sure that she told you or not?" questioned Snape.
"I'm sure she told me, but I forgot," replied Ginny, taking all of the blame. She didn't want Professor McGonagall to be hurt because of her. Snape raised an eyebrow to Ginny's response, but didn't say anything.
"Your detention will be this Wednesday, at 6:30 with Professor Carrow. Met him in the Darks Arts room." said Snape, turning the subject back to what it was supposed to be. Dark Arts? Isn't it supposed to be Defense Against the Dark Arts? Ginny wondered, but still nodded.
"You may leave now, and close the door behind you," Snape said, dismissing Ginny. Ginny turned her back on Snape, exited and slammed the door shut, channeling her anger. She ran all the way back to the Gryffindor common room; she didn't want to be caught, her anger pushing her along again. Ginny gave the password and entered the common room.
There was a warm gush of air, and at last, she felt at home. The common room was warm with chatter and the relief of not being caught for curfew. Neville, sitting in the closest armchair, jumped up when Ginny walked in.
"How did it go?" asked Neville.
"Fine. I have detention Wednesday, 6:30 with Professor Carrow in his room." replied Ginny. Lavender and Parvati came to join them.
"Are you ok, Ginny?" asked Lavender, a worried expression on her face.
"Yes. I'm fine. I think I'm going to go to bed early today though." replied Ginny. As she walked to the entrance to the dormitories, Ginny could feel the worried stares of her friends piercing into her. She didn't want their pity.
She ran up the steps two at a time and entered her dormitory. She had once shared the dormitory once with Katrina Sims and Brooke Vega, both muggle-borns, and Melinda Clark. Melinda was a half-blood, but her parents decided that she would stay home that year.
When Ginny walked into the dormitory, she felt a blast of cold air, it the room was unnaturally dark. She grabbed her wand and muttered the spell, "Incendio" at the fireplace. A fire started to blaze the wood, sending sparks everywhere and the room felt warmer by the second. Ginny began to unpack her things and place them around the room. There was a wizarding picture of her and Harry, laughing to the camera. Ginny felt a pang of worry hit her heart. Surely, Harry is still out there? Harry did break up with her, so he could keep her safe. But, Merlin, even before they started dating, she had loved him. Hermione had suggested her to date some different people, to take her mind off of Harry. To try something new. Be her heart had always came back to Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. That was all that occupied her mind.
Ginny had decided to not place the picture in her dormitory, in case Death Eaters ever came in. Or the dreaded Carrows. Or even worse, Snape. When the room finally felt somewhat like home, Ginny brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas. She tucked herself into bed and lowered the fire to a light glow. Once her head hit the pillow, Ginny fell into a restless slumber with the thoughts that tomorrow would be a very hard day.
Ginny woke up to the loud chatter of students talking. She burst out of bed and rushed down to the common room. Professor McGonagall was there, handing out timetables. Ginny wondered why she didn't give the timetables out during breakfast, like usual. Probably because Snape doesn't want the disturbance. Neville, Lavender, and Parvati had already arrived. Ginny looked around for other sixth year Gryffindors. Colin Creevey had stayed, but Ginny had no idea where the hell he went. As for the other Gryffindors, Edith Catacomb's parents had demanded her to stay home and Andrew Bridging had long left. It was only Colin and Ginny.
She went up to Professor McGonagall to get her timetable and immediately noticed that something was wrong. Professor McGonagall had bags under eyes and she looked hurt—really hurt. She seemed to have seen Ginny notice that something was wrong, and immediately wiped all emotion away, like Snape had the other day. Ginny's mind wandered back to the row that Snape and McGonagall had. No, surely they wouldn't have done that to her. Not even someone as evil as Snape would have done that. While Ginny took her timetable and asked,
"Are you alright Professor?" Ginny didn't think that Professor McGonagall had noticed her, until she replied.
"I'm fine. Here's your timetable, and you should be dressed by now. Breakfast's about to start," Professor McGonagall said, in her normal firm voice, very much unlike what she looked like.m Ginny nodded and proceeded back to her dormitory. She brushed her teeth quickly and changed into her school robes. She stared down at the Gryffindor symbol. Ginny sighed. Hogwarts was nothing like she had remembered. Nothing was the same, even the tiniest feeling of home didn't feel anything close to the real feeling. She needed to fix this. Hogwarts is my home. And Snape's not going to take that away from me.
Author's Note:
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