Chapter Eleven: Professors Carrow and Carrow

"First period Defense Against the Dark Arts!? That's some luck…" I said to Ginny as we sat on the edges of our beds, looking over the schedules handed to us by Professor McGonagall when we entered the common room. Rain lashed at the windows relentlessly, falling in torrential waves so noisily that we had to raise our voices over the roar. We didn't have to worry about disturbing any dorm mates with our chatter, however, as the other beds in our dorm remained trunk-less and unoccupied. Not a single one of our roommates had returned for the term. "And Muggle Studies right after lunch." I was dreading Alecto's class most of all; I didn't know how I would manage to sit in the same room as the person who murdered my mother without instigating a fight.

"Mine's not much better," she said with a sigh, scrutinizing the paper before folding it and stuffing it into her bedside table. "So, when are you going to tell me where you really ran off to this summer?"

I did a bit of a double take, completely caught off guard. "What… what are you talking about?"

Ginny's face wilted, looking betrayed. "Come on, Rowan. Honestly, I'm not that thick. Or maybe you're just not that great of a liar. And unless your mother's old Muggle friend doesn't believe in three meals a day, there's no reason why you should have lost about half of your body weight in two months. Even Luna noticed, and… well, she doesn't notice much."

Pangs of guilt spread through my chest like lead. Ginny cared about me. She had genuinely worried about me for weeks on end. Though I couldn't possibly tell her everything, I at least owed her something.

I sighed, resolved as I dropped my eyes to her black shoes and divulged as much about my summer vacation as I could, leaving out the bits about being captured by my uncle and rescued by Snape. "I'm sorry I lied to you, Ginny. I didn't want you to worry… or to insist that I stay with you because it would have put you in even more danger - "

"You know that wouldn't have mattered!" she cut me off, crossing her arms, and I suddenly got the feeling of a child being scolded by a parent. "I'd rather that than have you living in a forest, scrounging for food all summer long!"

"Exactly. That's the point. You are the kind of person who would take that risk, and I couldn't let you put me before yourself or your family," I said. "And anyway, I survived, right? It all worked out fine."

Ginny's lowered lip puckered. "You have an interesting take on the meaning of 'fine.' Are you sure there's nothing else that you're leaving out?"

I avoided her eyes unintentionally, then reached for my bag in a blundered effort to cover up my evasiveness. "No, there's nothing else," I said, digging around for some pajamas.

"Why do I not believe you?" She sighed, exasperated, but I knew that she would forgive me for lying. "Well, whatever it is Rowan, I suppose I'll just have to trust that you have a good reason for not telling me… But I hope you know that you can trust me."

"I do!" I said quickly, abruptly looking straight into her bright brown eyes. "Of course I trust you. Believe me, it's not a matter of trust."

She considered me for a moment, then said, "Okay. Good. So, what are you going to do now? I know you. You aren't the type to stay quiet as you sit in the same room as your mum's murderer every day."

I shrugged. "It seems I've got no choice for now, do I… but I've got a feeling that my time will come. Actually, I'm quite sure of it."

The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom had changed little since Snape occupied it last year. The windows remained covered by heavy drapes that blocked out the sunlight, and the spaces between the panes were decorated with the same morbid portraits as always, though they were now joined by four skull and serpent banners, identical in every way to the ones that had been hanging in the Great Hall. The biggest alternation, however, was that the several long tables that had once filled the room were replaced by individual student desks instead. I chose one near the edge of the room, and not long after, Ernie dropped into the vacant seat beside me with a swift smile.

"Hey," I whispered as low as possible. "How have you been?"

Ernie ignored me, keeping his attention directed straight ahead as more desks around the room filled in with my classmates.

"I tried to catch up with you on the train, but they wouldn't let me look for you," I went on quietly, but he merely glanced at me from the corner of his eye and swallowed so hard that his throat pulsed with the effort. "What's your deal? You okay?"

Ernie's chin jerked forward a smidge, just as a crackling sound drew my attention to a shadowed corner at the front of the room. Eclipsed by the darkness was Amycus Carrow, twisting his neck from side to side, causing the bones to pop and snap unnaturally. Had he been there this entire time?

Once it was apparent that the last of the students had arrived, Carrow stepped forward into dim candlelight that illuminated a gray-ness to the man that I hadn't noticed before. His skin was stony and smudged with sooty blotches, his hair and irises merely a darker shade… even the parts of his eyes that should have been white were the color of smoke; he would have looked right at home in a Daily Prophet photograph.

Without preamble, he spoke in a wheezy voice. "Take out your schedules."

Everyone stared back at him, blinking confusedly. After a moment's pause, a few students began to shuffle though their bags. "Schedules! Timetables! You all have them, don't you!?" The sudden boom of Carrow's voice jerked the rest of us into action while he once again cracked his neck, craning it from side to side. I pulled the folded parchment from my robe pocket and flattened it onto the desk in front of me. With a sideways slice of his wand through the air, a black line appeared to strike out the words "Defense Against" next to my 8:00 AM timeslot so that the course now simply read "The Dark Arts."

"For six years your education in the field of the Dark Arts has been wasted, for you cannot expect to truly understand the complex nature of the Dark Arts by studying defensive magic alone." Carrow strode along the front of the room in an annoyingly buoyant fashion, fixing his deep-set eyes on us one by one as he spoke. "You are welcome to go ahead and thank me now, because luckily for all of you, that ends today.

"The capabilities of dark magic go well beyond the so-called 'unforgivable' curses about which you have been taught. Since the dawn of time, the essence of magic has been that which provides control. Fiendfyre. Torture. Pain. Necromancy. Control of one's environment... control of one's foes… control of life… even control of death. To deny that which is at the core of magic – at the core of us all – is a sacrilege. It is a disgrace to Wizardkind that serves only to hinder that which makes us superior. You there - " a smile played around his thin, sardine-colored lips as he indicated a lumpy finger towards Parvati Patil, "come. Come." The Gryffindor girl, who had been in many of my classes last year, currently had the misfortune of being seated up in the front row.

Parvati's long black braid swung across her back as she looked from her left to her right, silently questioning whether the command was directed towards her.

"Yes, yes. You there. Don't be shy," he said, his tone delicate in an odd way that didn't match its wheeziness.

Parvati slid out of her desk hesitantly and moved to the front of the room. Carrow indicated for her to spin and face the audience of students, and I was sure that my furrow of confusion was mirrored on the faces around me. "What is magic, if not power? What are wizards, if not gods among men?" said Carrow, sliding his tongue over his lips as he spoke. Then, without warning, he turned his wand on Parvati and hissed "Nulla Respiratio."

Three wispy, mint green tendrils flowed from the tip of Carrow's wand and toward Parvati. She took a step back, eyes large and terrified, but the tendrils quickly found her. One slithered its way into her mouth… the other two into each side of her nose, prodding and snaking until each orifice was corked. Parvati's hands shot to her horrified face and she now seemed to be gasping for air, making strangled hiccupping sounds as her cheeks and lips faded to a bluish hue.

A wave of outrage crashed through the room as a number of students charged up. Her sister, Padma, bolted from her desk, sending her chair toppling to the side as she ran screaming to her sister. I, meanwhile, went stiff, fear bubbling in my stomach like acid. I knew this curse well - I recognized the cool smoky spirals… could practically feel them sliding into my throat, wrapping around my lungs… taking up the space where air belonged. It was one of the many curses my uncle had used to hurt me, and the feeling was still fresh and vivid in my mind. Poor Parvati…

Amycus Carrow's jowls wobbled with a wheezy giggle at the reaction he had elicited. "Do you see? Power. Control. Superiority. This is the true nature of the Dark Arts. The true nature of magic." He then pulled his wand back, the tendrils evaporating into dust. Parvati sucked in air suddenly and dropped to her knees, her braid falling over her shoulder to graze the stone floor. Her twin patted her back while she coughed; the flush returned slowly to her face.

"Very good, child, excellent demonstration. Now… everyone, calm, calm," said Carrow, waving dismissively at the angry mod of students and cracking the bones in his neck for a third time. "Your friend is perfectly fine. No need to fuss, you are all in good hands. It's very simple, you see. Do as I say and you have nothing to fear in this classroom. Disobey and… well," he bared his teeth, "your classmates need practice dummies, now don't they?"

"Something fascinating in your soup today, Neville?" I was saying to Neville later that afternoon as I loaded some turkey slices onto my plate, though I couldn't really blame him for being lost in thought. After the certain amount of disruption Amycus Carrow's Dark Arts display had caused, the remainder of the morning's courses had proceeded in a surprisingly uneventful manner. So uneventful, in fact, that it was almost unsettling. The teachers had been oddly formal as they reviewed lesson plans for the upcoming year. I'd been anticipating whispers of rebellion… murmurs of dissent… but instead, they were more stern than ever, giving me the distinct impression that they were almost… scared. Of course, it didn't help that Death Eaters were on constant patrol around the classrooms, but I would not have considered any of my professors to be cowards, however, leading me to believe that Voldemort's assertion was correct - the professors wouldn't rebel if it meant putting the safety of the students at risk.

"Huh? Oh. No, sorry… I was just thinking about…" Neville leaned in closer to me and Ginny, lowering his voice, "…about what we started to discuss. Ya know… on the train. How to go about it, 'n all."

Right. They wanted to steal the sword of Gryffindor from Snape's office. The insane idea had already completely slipped my mind.

Ginny eyes darted around shiftily. Although there were no Death Eaters in our immediate vicinity, I couldn't help but recognize that to any onlookers, we would definitely appear to be up to something. "Me too, and I think I've come up with a plan." Ginny smirked and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small gold coin. "Still have yours?" she asked, looking at Neville meaningfully.

To me, the shiny token seemed nothing special. It was just a standard Galleon. But to Neville, the little coin clearly held a deeper meaning, because the expression on his face transformed from brief confusion to pure satisfaction. "Yes!" he said.

"And you remember the incantation?"

"Of course! Ginny, you… you're brilliant!"

She shushed him, laughing. My face must have betrayed my bewilderment, because Ginny slid the coin back out of sight and said "don't worry, Rowan. I have an extra for you in our room, I can teach you how to use it," then pulled a square of paper from a different pocket. "It's not safe to talk here. Neville, read this later when you know you're alone. Rowan and I should be safe in our dorm."

Ginny grabbed a bowl of potatoes from the middle of the table and passed it to Neville, slyly slipping the paper into his hand along with the bowl. He slid the note into his sleeve, scooped some potatoes onto his plate, then dropped the bowl back onto the table. Badly suppressed glee colored his expression; I, on the other hand, couldn't escape the nagging feeling that I was going to have the rather unpleasant task of talking them out of whatever this "plan" was. If Snape had the sword of Gryffindor and thought that Harry would need it to defeat Voldemort, I had no doubt he would find a way to get it to Harry. A bunch of kids stealing it (or more likely, attempting to steal it) would do more harm than good.

The sound of the bell signaling the end of lunch set my nerves on edge, knowing what was coming next.

"All right, Rowan? You've got Muggle Studies now, don't you?" Ginny asked in a concerned voice as I gathered up my books and clutched them over my chest.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Or, I will be fine, anyway – don't look like that, I really will… anyway, I don't have time to talk about this now. I, er… gotta stop at the bathroom before class."

Ginny's lips twisted. She looked as though she wanted to press the matter, but I spun away and marched out of the hall before she managed to assemble a counterargument.

Normally, the lengthy corridors and ever-changing staircases that made navigating the castle a long, tedious process was a source of inconvenience. But now, I found myself wishing that the walk from the Great Hall to the Muggle Studies classroom was a longer one. I would have preferred to procrastinate the inevitable, but instead I was the first to arrive, several minutes early.

The first floor classroom was one I had never visited before, though I'd heard Hermione mention the various Muggle artifacts and artwork that once adorned the room. Artifacts and artwork that had apparently (although unsurprisingly) offended the school's newest administration, considering all signs of Muggle culture had been eradicated entirely. In fact, the classroom was void of any decoration at all apart from a single black stone statue at the front of the room.

Not much taller than me, the sculpture was of two regal-looking, robed wizards looking out with rather intimidating faces. It wasn't until I moved deeper into the room to get a better look at the carving that my sense of dread truly flared. My mind worked frantically, trying to comprehend the scene. The two wizards were actually sitting atop a mosh of hundreds of naked bodies, squashed and pressed together in a grotesque tangle of limbs. Their monstrous faces were pained and distorted, and there was no discrimination in the macabre – Muggle men, women… even children… all plastered together to support the wizards. And, most haunting of all was the engraving at the base of the atrocity, which read "MAGIC IS MIGHT" in bold, capital letters.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said a cold voice from behind me, jolting me from my horror. I jerked around, startled, to find myself not three steps away from the portly form of Alecto Carrow. "Of course, it's just a replica. The real one is much bigger."

I blinked, incredulous. "B… beautiful?" My brain seemed to be jamming. I could think of nothing to say, not the least bit because my mother's murderer was standing alone in a room with me. Unsuspecting. At arm's length.

Despite that her pulled-back hair was already lifting her eyebrows to an unnatural place on her forehead, she managed to raise a blonde brow even higher, and I saw her gaze meet the Gryffindor crest on my robes. "You disagree?" she questioned, moving towards me. I backed away, bumping into a desk as she passed by and reached a hand out to caress the statue.

"It's… it's… disgusting." I filled the word with as much vemon as I could muster.

She smirked, narrowing her beady eyes. "I see. And what's your name, child? I want to be sure to make note of who the problem students are going to be."

I hesitated. Once she knew my name, she would surely connect me to my mother. To my uncle. But there would be no avoiding it. I was listed on the class roster... I was going to be turning in assignments… I could only hope that she was aware of Voldemort's directive to let me live.

I straightened my back, bringing myself to full height, and swallowed. "Rowan Pierce," I said boldly.

Before she could respond, the chatter of students began to grow as my classmates moved into the room in a small herd. Alecto Carrow gave me a dark grin. "Go on and find a seat, Rowan Pierce."

I spent the entire rest of the day in a state of heightened emotion. The Muggle Studies class was no more or less ghastly than I'd anticipated. But still, the idea of spending two hours each and every day with the Professors Carrow and Carrow was nauseating, and I knew that the coming days would not likely go as uneventfully as the first one. So, by the time I settled into my bed, I was utterly exhausted. And more than anything, I desperately, achingly wanted to see Snape. I already missed him, but I'd promised to be careful and keep my distance, so I only dared give him a few passing glances at dinner.

"Okay, we have a lot to discuss," Ginny said hurriedly as she flung herself through the door and dropped her schoolbag on her bed mere moments after I slipped under my blankets.

"What? Now?" I groaned, sitting up in bed.

Ginny was now shuffling through her trunk, sending once neatly-folded shirts into a heap on the floor. "Of course, now! When else!?"

"I don't know… on the weekend, maybe? At the end of a day when I don't feel like I've run an emotional marathon?" It wasn't like me to complain, but I knew what she wanted to discuss, and my initial counterplan was to simply put it off for as long as possible.

"We really don't have that kind of time, Rowan. We are going to steal the sword tomorrow night during dinner. Ah ha! Here," she held up a golden Galleon identical to the one she'd had at lunch, then pressed it into my hand. "It's a fake coin, enchanted with the Protean Charm. Hermione created them a couple years ago for Dumbledore's Army, so that we could secretly communicate dates and times of meetings. The coins are linked. See there – " she traced her finger along a series of numbers edging the Galleon, " – when one coin is changed, all of the coins that are linked to it also change to match. We should be able to use them for short communication beyond just dates and times. I'm putting together a list of codes we can use to send messages that only we will understand."

"Wait, hold on… you're planning to break into Snape's office tomorrow?"

Her expression fell. "The sooner, the better, don't you think? Why wait? Harry is out there trying to find ways to defeat You-Know-Who, and we need to help him."

"Okay, sure… but these things take time. Careful planning… lots and lots of consideration for everything that could possibly go wrong…" My argument was weak at best. I didn't even sound like myself. Normally I would be eager to join in fighting back.

Ginny backed away from me and dropped onto the edge of her bed. She looked suddenly defensive. "Look… if you don't want to help us, you don't have to. I just thought you were one of us now. Dumbledore's Army. Ready to help Harry and fight back against them. But if you're not then… go on and just tell me."

"I am! I am one of you. I do want to help. Really, I do. It's just dangerous and I don't want anyone to get caught… that's all. But if you have a plan, and you believe it will work, then… let's do it…"

She couldn't suppress a smile of excitement as she launched into the plan without the need for another word from me. I tried to appear as though I was engrossed in her prattle, but really I was thinking hard, scrolling through all the ways I could possibly stop her plan from succeeding. Almost every option I could conceptualize ended with Ginny and Neville facing the Carrows for breaking school rules… and I didn't want to imagine what that might look like.

The only way to keep my friends safe and stop them at the same time would be to warn Snape directly. And the only way to do that would be to get referred to the headmaster… by getting myself in trouble instead.

Massive trouble.